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Since you re-designed (revamp) the core classes and made them stronger, you said that since Bestiary is out we should raise by one the CR of the monsters from 3.5e MM. So that means that the monsters from the Bestiary will be abit stronger than before (in 3.5e).
But you also said that the reason you buffed the core classes was the fact that after the first 3.5e releases there were new classes (and races) stronger than the core classes (and races).So, why the monsters from Bestiary should be stronger than before (something that you said)? I mean what is the logic to make the core classes/races stronger (something that you said they needed) if you also make stronger the monsters?
The only answer i can give is that insteed of reprinting and make less stronger the classes/races other than the core, you chose to make stronger the core ones and all the monsters.
But since you evolute and continue the 3.5e (succesfully till now) it will be hard for all of as who want to use the rest of the 3.5e books (various monster manuals) to continue using them because most of the monsters will be less effective than before.You are gonna reprint old classes and pr.classes other than the core ones too. Right? Will those classes be stronger than their 3.5e version? I hope not but correct me if i am wrong i bet they will. And again, whats the point? If you plan for example to buff old classes (psionics for example) then the reason should be that you also plan to make the monsters better and vica versa. So what do you suggest to do right now in my party with the characters that use classes other than the core?
Actually, they can't reprint any of the other classes as apart from the SRD ,nothing WotC did was open content. As such, Paizo can't use them. So they had to build things up to the later classes rather than change them down. Additionally, adding is easier than taking away.
Creative Director
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The advice to "add 1 to the CR of monsters from the 3.5 MM" isn't very accurate, and if indeed we DID say that, it was I hope a long time ago when we weren't quite sure of what we were doing or something.
For the Bestiary, we tried very hard to keep every monster's CR the same as they were in the 3.5 MM. But the truth of the matter is that a lot of the monsters in the MM are inappropriately CR'd; the designers were still learning the system when they wrote that book, after all, and they made a lot of mistakes. When the 3.5 edition of the Monster Manual came out, they were able to look back at the last 5 years of growing more accustomed to the rules and made a LOT of revisions; this is why, for example, you'll see that the demons and devils all got more powerful in the 3.5 MM.
With the Pathfinder Bestiary, we have close to TEN years of familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of the CR system. We actually did a lot of work looking at what a monster of any particular CR from 1 to 20 should be, compared to the actual abilities of a PC from levels 1 to 20. A 10th level fighter, for example, should be able to take a certain amount of hits from a CR 10 monster, and should be able to hit with a certain reliability. We were able to thus build a huge set of charts that delineated averages for hp, AC, attack rolls, average damage, Ability DCs, and saving throws for all monsters based by CR, and in so doing we were able to match monsters more accurately than ever before to their various CR scores. (And all of these charts and advice are IN the Bestiary, so anyone can go about creating new monsters for Pathfinder using the same assumptions and tools we had in creating the book.)
As a result, all of the monsters in the PRPG Bestiary are different. Some in minor ways, some in major ways. Their more accurately representing their CR scores, I hope, and in some cases (like the ogre mage or the rakshasa) this means they got quite a bit more powerful than their 3.5 version. In others, like the dire ape, they got weaker.
NOTE! This doesn't mean that the 3.5 MM or ANY 3.5 monster book is INCOMPATIBLE. Not at all. The WAY the rules work are compatible, so you can still use the 3.5 version of the roper, say, in a PRPG game without translating things. It might end up being too tough or not tough enough for a group of PRPG characters, though, which is the whole reason we did the Bestiary in the first place; to recalibrate monsters for the new game.
As for reprinting anything beyond the 3.5 core rules... as the previous poster noted, we can't. The majority of those books, including ALL of the splat books like Complete Warrior, are closed content; we can't touch them. The ONLY books we can officially adapt to the PRPG are:
Player's Handbook
Dungeon Master's Guide
Monster Manual
Unearthed Arcana
Deities and Demigods
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Epic Level Handobok
And two monsters (scorpion folk and razor bore) from Monster Manual 2
EVERYTHING else is off limits... and in many cases, even some of the content of the books listed above (like mind flayers) are off limits.
We were able to thus build a huge set of charts that delineated averages for hp, AC, attack rolls, average damage, Ability DCs, and saving throws for all monsters based by CR, and in so doing we were able to match monsters more accurately than ever before to their various CR scores. (And all of these charts and advice are IN the Bestiary, so anyone can go about creating new monsters for Pathfinder using the same assumptions and tools we had in creating the book.)
Ooh, I can't wait to see these. I love not just knowing how things work, but WHY. Thanks very much in advance. :D
That's one of the big points: The changes in power level aren't universal. They didn't just turn it up to eleven.
They just re-aligned everything. Some classes were too weak, so they were boosted. Some classes were too strong, so they were weakened. Well, actually, it's a lot about certain parts of the classes, not the class as a whole. In some cases, some aspects of a class were weakened, while other aspects were made more powerful. Add in the addition of more choices to further customise the characters, better allowing you to use the rules to properly portray a great range of character concepts.
And as with the classes, the monsters were streamlined more than anything else. Shoot some troubles, clean up some cluttered attics.
For example, undead now get bonus HP based on charisma. That means that now you don't need to increase an undead's HD to make it last longer. Which is good because skyrocketing HD have nasty side effects, like providing their special abilities with nasty DCs.
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Also remember that since Paizo is unable to touch the classes in the splat books their only recourse was to modify the core classes.
There was a NEARLY universal opinion that the power level of the classes in the splat books increased. This often meant that the standard core classes were suboptimal choices for many games. The only way to deal with these higher power level classes was to modify the core classes to this new increased power level.
So, the increased core class power level is a result of poorly designed splat and 3rd party classes.
I am really hoping that the CRs finally do present real challenges to players. Honestly using the CRs in 3.5 was as useful as using a Magic 8 Ball to determine random events in the game...
We were able to thus build a huge set of charts that delineated averages for hp, AC, attack rolls, average damage, Ability DCs, and saving throws for all monsters based by CR, and in so doing we were able to match monsters more accurately than ever before to their various CR scores. (And all of these charts and advice are IN the Bestiary, so anyone can go about creating new monsters for Pathfinder using the same assumptions and tools we had in creating the book.)Ooh, I can't wait to see these. I love not just knowing how things work, but WHY. Thanks very much in advance. :D
Yes... I expect I will be snuggling my copy of the Bestiary all the way home from my FLGS. I love tools, and I love it even more when the developers open up their tools to the user base so we can both appreciate the dedication and work the same rules assumptions. It is one thing that has frustrate (like playing mine sweeper blind-folded) me time and again in 'other' RPGs, when the monsters and challenges were left as incomprehensible black-boxes.
I will also likewise be aggressively snuggling the GameMastery Guide come February-ish-there-about.
*Is off to go snuggle his copy of the 2e "The Complete Book of Villains" .*
*edit*
They are like cat nip in plushy form... if I were a cat... and if the books were stuffed with fluff.
I didn't even notice that mind flayers were off-limits. I guess the Darklands book not mentioning them at all should have clued me in.
Hmm. Not a good thing.
(And all of these charts and advice are IN the Bestiary, so anyone can go about creating new monsters for Pathfinder using the same assumptions and tools we had in creating the book.)
James I could kiss you for this! But I won't, my wife wouldn't understand...
I didn't even notice that mind flayers were off-limits. I guess the Darklands book not mentioning them at all should have clued me in.
Hmm. Not a good thing.
Beholders and Gith[yanki/zerai] are also off limits. I *think* that's pretty much it from the 3.5 MM
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Creative Director
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I didn't even notice that mind flayers were off-limits. I guess the Darklands book not mentioning them at all should have clued me in.
Hmm. Not a good thing.
Actually... it's not a bad thing, I think. And the fact that not mentioning mind flayers are off limits tells me that you didn't really miss them anyway... ;-)
The off limits monsters are:
beholder (and all beholder kin)
carrion crawler
displacer beast
githyanki
githzerai
mind flayer
all slaadi
kuo-toa
all yuan-ti
umber hulk
And every time I list these guys I feel like I"m forgetting one...
But honestly, the game works fine without these classic monsters, and I honestly do not begrudge WotC for wanting to hold back these monsters for their own intellectual property... in fact, I'm often a bit shocked that these dozen or so monsters are the ONLY ones they held back! I mean, they didn't claim things like the otyugh, the roper, the aboleth, the bulette, or the rust monster, after all!
And for most of these off-limits monsters, we have pretty close approximations of creatures in the SRD or that we've created as things that can fill in for their role, so it's not a huge deal for Paizo at least. Some of those approximations:
Carrion Crawler: use giant rot grub from Pathfinder #25
Displacer Beast: use kamadan from Tome of Horrors
Githyanki: use denizen of Leng from Pathfinder #6
Mind Flayer: use intellect devourer from SRD/Bestiary/Into the Darklands
Slaadi: use proteans from Pathfinder #22/The Great Beyond
Kuo-Toa: use skum
Yuan-ti: use serpent folk from Into the Darklands
The beholder, githzerai, and umber hulk are the only ones we haven't really bothered to replace thematically yet, but I'm not really sure we need to. Beholders for one are SO iconic and SO D&D that I don't really WANT to try to ape them; they're probably the most closely D&D monster out there since they have so little association with anything outside of D&D and are so notorious and popular in the game. And the seugathi from Into the Darklands can probably stand in for either the mind flayer or the umber hulk, come to think of it.
And the displacer beast is its own weird case, since the monster is based on science fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt's couerl from stories he wrote back in the '50s. We got permission from his estate to stat up the courel in Pathfinder #16; we can't reprint it (or use it in other adventures) and left it as closed content, but you can certainly use it in your home game to replace displacer beasts with ease.
In any event, while I was disappointed at these dozen or so monsters being closed content at first as well... I think that Pathfinder/Golarion has actually prospered without them and that their absence has helped make the setting more of its own; we've had to either focus away from these classic monster roles or "promoted" new monsters to fill those roles, and the result is actually somewhat refreshing. Especially since SO MUCH has already been done with the IP monsters listed above.
The time was right for other monsters to take the spotlight.
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Creative Director
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Displacer Beasts and Grell also.Beholders and Gith[yanki/zerai] are also off limits. I *think* that's pretty much it from the 3.5 MMI didn't even notice that mind flayers were off-limits. I guess the Darklands book not mentioning them at all should have clued me in.
Hmm. Not a good thing.
Grell were never open to begin with, of course; they didn't get updated to 3rd edition until Monster Manual 2, which was never open in the first place, so they're not something that WotC took back at all. They never gave them out to begin with. Hook horrors are in the same boat (I mention them because they're often confused in the same way as grell).
The off limits monsters are:
beholder (and all beholder kin)
carrion crawler
displacer beast
githyanki
githzerai
mind flayer
all slaadi
kuo-toa
all yuan-ti
umber hulk
The only ones that I do miss are the slaadi and yuan-ti really. And maybe the Umber Hulk. Maybe.
The only ones that I do miss are the slaadi and yuan-ti really. And maybe the Umber Hulk. Maybe.The off limits monsters are:
beholder (and all beholder kin)
carrion crawler
displacer beast
githyanki
githzerai
mind flayer
all slaadi
kuo-toa
all yuan-ti
umber hulk
I can't believe I forgot about my favorite frog-people and snake-people. :) Ah well. Yeah, I'm not missing any of them a whole lot. What we've got is pretty sweet.
Drat. I really loved(/hated) DMing(/fighting) umber hulks and slaadi.
(And all of these charts and advice are IN the Bestiary, so anyone can go about creating new monsters for Pathfinder using the same assumptions and tools we had in creating the book.)James I could kiss you for this! But I won't, my wife wouldn't understand...
Mine would demand to watch, which is almost as bad.
...but yeah, this probably excites me more than anything else about the Bestiary! :D
Well it would make the blog
Drat. I really loved(/hated) DMing(/fighting) umber hulks and slaadi.
yeah. slaadi were kinda cool
Personnally I will not hesitate to still use these monsters in my home campaings. I've grown with them, and I simply cannot leave them.
honestly, in all my time playing D&D, I don't think I ever encountered any of the IP monsters in a game. Sure, I read about them and heard about them from the grognards who came before me, but I don't miss them because they have never been part of my game experience.
Really? Ever since taking my first glimpse at a picture of a beholder, I can't help but use one at any opportunity. I seldom get a campaign that high in level, but once I do, it's inevitable.
Anyhoo, I can't help but wonder, upon reading this thread, if I dare hope for more accurate CRs. In a certain other thread, not long ago, I complained about certain monsters (notably Medium-size and Large dragons, and any Large or larger monster with Improved Grab) being far more deadly than their CRs implied. Will this improve, at least somewhat?
Because, while I'm not planning to switch to Pathfinder RPG anytime REALLY soon, the idea of doing so a couple of months down the road is not out of the question. And more accurate CRs could go a long way in convincing me...
Personnally I will not hesitate to still use these monsters in my home campaings. I've grown with them, and I simply cannot leave them.
Well, sure, but I would have loved to have see the Pathfinderized version of an Umber Hulk myself
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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And the displacer beast is its own weird case, since the monster is based on science fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt's couerl from stories he wrote back in the '50s. We got permission from his estate to stat up the courel in Pathfinder #16; we can't reprint it (or use it in other adventures) and left it as closed content, but you can certainly use it in your home game to replace displacer beasts with ease.
So, of course I immediately ran off to look in my copy of Pathfinder 16, but I'm not seeing a couerl. Are you referring to a different issue, or is one of those monsters actually a couerl under a different name? None of them seem particularly Displacer Beast-y.
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honestly, in all my time playing D&D, I don't think I ever encountered any of the IP monsters in a game. Sure, I read about them and heard about them from the grognards who came before me, but I don't miss them because they have never been part of my game experience.Really? Ever since taking my first glimpse at a picture of a beholder, I can't help but use one at any opportunity. I seldom get a campaign that high in level, but once I do, it's inevitable.
Anyhoo, I can't help but wonder, upon reading this thread, if I dare hope for more accurate CRs. In a certain other thread, not long ago, I complained about certain monsters (notably Medium-size and Large dragons, and any Large or larger monster with Improved Grab) being far more deadly than their CRs implied. Will this improve, at least somewhat?
Because, while I'm not planning to switch to Pathfinder RPG anytime REALLY soon, the idea of doing so a couple of months down the road is not out of the question. And more accurate CRs could go a long way in convincing me...
Well In the case of certain creatures like Dragons I remember a designer saying somewhere that they set there Cr's slightly lower since it was assumed that a party would know of it and therefore be prebuffed.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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And the displacer beast is its own weird case, since the monster is based on science fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt's couerl from stories he wrote back in the '50s. We got permission from his estate to stat up the courel in Pathfinder #16; we can't reprint it (or use it in other adventures) and left it as closed content, but you can certainly use it in your home game to replace displacer beasts with ease.So, of course I immediately ran off to look in my copy of Pathfinder 16, but I'm not seeing a couerl. Are you referring to a different issue, or is one of those monsters actually a couerl under a different name? None of them seem particularly Displacer Beast-y.
Pathfinder #22 is the correct issue. 3 cheers for Adobe's searching.
Well In the case of certain creatures like Dragons I remember a designer saying somewhere that they set there Cr's slightly lower since it was assumed that a party would know of it and therefore be prebuffed.
I read this somewhere recently: that dragons are the only monsters whose CR assumes that the party is going in fully prepped for what they're going to face. The concept being, I suppose, that a party that just rounds a corner and comes face-to-face with a dragon is toast, no matter what level they are.
Sadly, I can't remember where I read it....
The more I think about it, the more I'm sure I read this on these boards. It was in connection with a complaint about undead CRs being too high when you had a cleric in the party, and one of the designers said undead CRs were set assuming there was no party cleric because not all parties have one. In connection with this, they talked about the dragon's unique CR status.
honestly, in all my time playing D&D, I don't think I ever encountered any of the IP monsters in a game. Sure, I read about them and heard about them from the grognards who came before me, but I don't miss them because they have never been part of my game experience.
I once used Beholders and Illithid as warring alien races in a D20 Future campaign, with the Illithid being the "good guys" (neither were PC races). I think they work very well as science-fiction style creatures. Will definitely pull them from the Monster Manual as necessary for my home games.
We were able to thus build a huge set of charts that delineated averages for hp, AC, attack rolls, average damage, Ability DCs, and saving throws for all monsters based by CR, and in so doing we were able to match monsters more accurately than ever before to their various CR scores. (And all of these charts and advice are IN the Bestiary, so anyone can go about creating new monsters for Pathfinder using the same assumptions and tools we had in creating the book.)...
Very impressive. I have to admit that I had suspected you guys wouldn't be that consistent and organized. Bonus points for including the charts in the Bestiary. :)
Are fans allowed to do conversions and post them anywhere???
The off limits monsters are:beholder (and all beholder kin)
carrion crawler
displacer beast
githyanki
githzerai
mind flayer
all slaadi
kuo-toa
all yuan-ti
umber hulk
That isn't Paizo's call, but I believe the answer is no. It seems commercial gain is much less of a factor in IP concerns these days...
Are fans allowed to do conversions and post them anywhere???
The off limits monsters are:beholder (and all beholder kin)
carrion crawler
displacer beast
githyanki
githzerai
mind flayer
all slaadi
kuo-toa
all yuan-ti
umber hulk
They'll hunt you down and torture you to death.
They'll hunt you down and torture you to death.
Yep. You'll be forced to playtest 4th Edition expansions.
They'll hunt you down and torture you to death.Are fans allowed to do conversions and post them anywhere???
The off limits monsters are:beholder (and all beholder kin)
carrion crawler
displacer beast
githyanki
githzerai
mind flayer
all slaadi
kuo-toa
all yuan-ti
umber hulk
I thought they did that only to those people who don't like the name "oracle"
I thought they did that only to those people who don't like the name "oracle"
No, for that they punish the rest of us. :'(
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Creative Director
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Anyhoo, I can't help but wonder, upon reading this thread, if I dare hope for more accurate CRs. In a certain other thread, not long ago, I complained about certain monsters (notably Medium-size and Large dragons, and any Large or larger monster with Improved Grab) being far more deadly than their CRs implied. Will this improve, at least somewhat?
Because, while I'm not planning to switch to Pathfinder RPG anytime REALLY soon, the idea of doing so a couple of months down the road is not out of the question. And more accurate CRs could go a long way in convincing me...
The goal is, yes, to have more accurate CR scores. Which in some cases has monsters changing relatively drastically. Especially monsters that have rend.
But by rebuilding every monster using a centralized assumption of what hit points, damage, AC, save DCs, and saving throws a monster of any given CR should have, the monsters themselves should end up being pretty equally balanced. And including those rules as a part of the book itself so other folk can build monsters the same way should only keep that going.
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Creative Director
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Pathfinder #22 is the correct issue. 3 cheers for Adobe's searching.And the displacer beast is its own weird case, since the monster is based on science fiction writer A. E. Van Vogt's couerl from stories he wrote back in the '50s. We got permission from his estate to stat up the courel in Pathfinder #16; we can't reprint it (or use it in other adventures) and left it as closed content, but you can certainly use it in your home game to replace displacer beasts with ease.So, of course I immediately ran off to look in my copy of Pathfinder 16, but I'm not seeing a couerl. Are you referring to a different issue, or is one of those monsters actually a couerl under a different name? None of them seem particularly Displacer Beast-y.
Yeah. The couerl was originally supposed to be in Pathfinder #14, actually, but when we had trouble securing the rights it got bumped to #16. We STILL had trouble, so it went on the shelf for several months, finally showing for real in #22. So it's sometimes tough for me to remember when it DID actually show up.
Pathfinder #16, actually, had the only other non-open monster we've done: the deep crow. That might also have been helping to confuse me.
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Creative Director
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Girallons, Dire Wolves, Dragons... hopefully the Bestiary will mend those problems (or at least provide cautionary note for GMs to be wary of special aspects of the monsters).
Those are three places that there was a fair amount of adjustment. Rakshasas and ogre mages in the other direction.
But yeah; the assumption that "dragons are tougher than their CR but we won't tell anyone" was kind of annoying.
We DID take a stance that many monsters should excell at something, so often a monster will have a slightly higher AC or hp or better powers than its CR might dictate, but not THAT much better. Dragons, for example, do pretty well in the damage dealing category.
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Creative Director
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The more I think about it, the more I'm sure I read this on these boards. It was in connection with a complaint about undead CRs being too high when you had a cleric in the party, and one of the designers said undead CRs were set assuming there was no party cleric because not all parties have one. In connection with this, they talked about the dragon's unique CR status.
And this is why we both changed the rules for clerics vs. undead to channeling energy, and then gave undead bonuses on their hp and Fort saves based on their Charisma scores. Makes fights with undead less swingy and lets us design undead foes that are more closely accurate for their CR scores.
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Creative Director
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What fans do with monsters for their home games, including updating illithids and beholders to work for Pathifnder, is their business.
But once you post conversions like this in a public place, such as online in messageboards, you open yourself up to legal action from WotC since you're encroaching on their IP. Same thing would happen if you drew a Mickey Mouse comic strip and put it online... Disney would come by your place and ask you to stop.
As a result, we certainly don't want or need Pathfinderized beholders or mind flayers showing up on these boards.
I thought they did that only to those people who don't like the name "oracle"No, for that they punish the rest of us. :'(
oh. sorry about that
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Grell were never open to begin with, of course; they didn't get updated to 3rd edition until Monster Manual 2, which was never open in the first place, so they're not something that WotC took back at all. They never gave them out to begin with. Hook horrors are in the same boat (I mention them because they're often confused in the same way as grell).
Alas for Hook Horrors... my favorite monster.