Include and update all monsters from the APs, Modules, and other products (yes, even the Golarian-specific ones).
Also, more good outsiders and other summon fodder.
We'll have a LOT of this stuff in the Gamemastery Guide and in the NPC guide.NPC guide?
Well my list stays the same for III as it is for II. Particularly giants and fey, which I see a great lack of.
And, well, Dragons of course. Arcane Dragons, or the proposed "Chaos" dragons that were to be based on rock types that BOZ mentioned a long time back when they made the Ferrous Dragons.
We'll have a LOT of this stuff in the Gamemastery Guide and in the NPC guide.NPC guide?
I love the idea behind that book.
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Im certainly looking forward to whatever you have in mind, but I would love to see more azati and other celestials (angels and archons). More fey would be nice (I love my copy of Castle Falkenstein's The Memoires of Oberon of Faerie as a resource).
I personally would love to see some Demon Lords and Arch Devils. I know you are planning to put these in the fiend books based on the Hells and Abyss, but perhaps some "minor" lords and dukes could find their way into the bestiary.
Otherwise, I'm sure you are planning more mythological creatures from various worldly sources: Persia, Asia, Africa, etc...
Creative Director
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We're actually not sure what we're gonna do with the demon lords and their ilk. Frankly, I'd like to set them up as the end bosses and monsters you'd fight when you get to 30th level (so they'll be like CR 28–CR 32 or thereabouts). Not really all that useful to stat them up yet until we get around to doing an epic level book.
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As for various flavors of elementals... we'll probably do a few more, but I don't really want to waste TOO much space on differently-flavored elementals because flavor-wise they're kind of boring. Needless to say the concepts start to creep into non-open content here and there (such as with the xeg-ya and xag-yi).
Understandable. :-)
Either way I am looking forward to Bestiary II!
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Not really all that useful to stat them up yet until we get around to doing an epic level book.
I've never really been a big fan of giving gods, higher demons/devils and the like stats. It's my opinion that those types entities should always be beyond the ability of the characters to deal with on a personal basis. If a 60th level fighter starts exchanging blows with Thor, he shouldn't really fare any better than a 1st level fighter would. An extremely powerful archmage who weaves his epic spells to entrap Asmodeous should have them ripped through as if they were nothing but mere cantrips.
Of course, I'm also a big Lovecraft / Mythos / Call of Cthulhu fan, so that might be coloring my views on just how much above the players power level dieties should be.
The true dieties, like Lamashtu and Asmodeus will never have stats, they are unkillable by any simple adventurer means, you can't just bring a true major god to zero hp.
The true dieties, like Lamashtu and Asmodeus will never have stats, they are unkillable by any simple adventurer means, you can't just bring a true major god to zero hp.
That being said (and I don't disagree with it), Epic Play could be a very valid play style... that is reflected in popular reading.
The only issue is doing it well.
Me want entry for Paizo Attack Goblins!
We're actually not sure what we're gonna do with the demon lords and their ilk. Frankly, I'd like to set them up as the end bosses and monsters you'd fight when you get to 30th level (so they'll be like CR 28–CR 32 or thereabouts). Not really all that useful to stat them up yet until we get around to doing an epic level book.
Yes!
So I guess thoughts are turning to Epic now, I can't wait to defeat Pazuzu at the end of Return of the Runelords!
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Creative Director
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We're actually not sure what we're gonna do with the demon lords and their ilk. Frankly, I'd like to set them up as the end bosses and monsters you'd fight when you get to 30th level (so they'll be like CR 28–CR 32 or thereabouts). Not really all that useful to stat them up yet until we get around to doing an epic level book.Yes!
So I guess thoughts are turning to Epic now, I can't wait to defeat Pazuzu at the end of Return of the Runelords!
Not that our thoughts are turning to epic now (as opposed to a year ago or a year from now)... just that demon lords and their pals make for great end-bosses to an epic level campaign, is all. And as such, their stats won't be in the bestiary, and we'll be unlikely to tackle them UNTIL we know what we're doing with epic play.
I really wanted to say something witty here that would make one of the Paizo crew reading it go A-HA! But...as far as I can tell you guys are already working on doing exactly what I want.
So...um...yay! Good work and thanks.
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First off, well done on the Bestiary. I could write 3 pages on its highlights.
However, a friend of mine asked me about the Beholder and the Illithid (Mind Flayer) as he noted an early episode of Order of the Stick had a running gag that those couldn't be mentioned due to not being in the SRD (and then came the lawyers lol).
Is there any truth to this? Are these two iconics protected by copyright and/or trademark?
It would be really nice to add an official BeholderTM monster in the game.
First off, well done on the Bestiary. I could write 3 pages on its highlights.
However, a friend of mine asked me about the Beholder and the Illithid (Mind Flayer) as he noted an early episode of Order of the Stick had a running gag that those couldn't be mentioned due to not being in the SRD (and then came the lawyers lol).
Is there any truth to this? Are these two iconics protected by copyright and/or trademark?
It would be really nice to add an official BeholderTM monster in the game.
They are, nobody can use them, and Paizo don't want to rip them off when they can make up something new, or use something else to fill that niche in the game, brain controlling monsters from the deep? Go with the intellect devourer, a far subtler, less purple aberration in my opinion.
I've never really been a big fan of giving gods, higher demons/devils and the like stats. It's my opinion that those types entities should always be beyond the ability of the characters to deal with on a personal basis. If a 60th level fighter starts exchanging blows with Thor, he shouldn't really fare any better than a 1st level fighter would. An extremely powerful archmage who weaves his epic spells to entrap Asmodeous should have them ripped through as if they were nothing but mere cantrips.
Yep. That's my mantra too, and I *do* run that kind of game, though none of the characters has been ballsy enough to actually go after any of the deities. To do so would be to choose ... poorly :)
Of course, I'm also a big Lovecraft / Mythos / Call of Cthulhu fan, so that might be coloring my views on just how much above the players power level dieties should be.
That's what aspects are for :)
"Holy crap .. if an aspect of Cthulhu nearly kicked our butts in one round, we better never run into the real thing." Of course, the version in CoC d20 *did* have some abilities that were really really nasty to straight D&D characters, even if the CR was way too low.
Proteans!
I'm fairly sure their going to be in it, but I love proteans, I'm sure many agree.
However, while the keketar on and in The Great Beyond is gorgeous, the art for the imentesh and Naunet in End of Eternity is frankly not up to par, especially the Naunet.
If it is at all possible, get the fantastic Andrew Hou to draw the other two for their Bestiary II incarnation!
Please!
<-----These guys. Unless they are not open content, in which case will make me sad. :(
<-----These guys. Unless they are not open content, in which case will make me sad. :(
Slaad, pretty much, are not open content.
Not really all that useful to stat them up yet until we get around to doing an epic level book.I've never really been a big fan of giving gods, higher demons/devils and the like stats. It's my opinion that those types entities should always be beyond the ability of the characters to deal with on a personal basis. If a 60th level fighter starts exchanging blows with Thor, he shouldn't really fare any better than a 1st level fighter would. An extremely powerful archmage who weaves his epic spells to entrap Asmodeous should have them ripped through as if they were nothing but mere cantrips.
Of course, I'm also a big Lovecraft / Mythos / Call of Cthulhu fan, so that might be coloring my views on just how much above the players power level dieties should be.
Yeah, but see, that's entirely not fair to the rather significant portion of D&D players that DO run those types of games or campaigns. What if I want my games like that but I need solid, hardcore deity/demigod/quasi-god info? Deities&Demigods have been scorned by some, by I enjoyed it. It really helped. And it's OPEN CONTENT, so I hope Paizo takes advantage one day. In fact, I believe the second adventure path for Dungeon Magazine involved taking on a demigod at the end. A Dungeon Adventure made for 30th-level characters, again, had a cool demigod enemy at the end. And no one had a problem.
There comes a point where, yes, my players would like to brag they took on a god. It's fun. It's a wild story. It's climactic. And as long as it's not commonplace (unless that is the kind of game you want), there should be rules mechanics to back you up. Not everyone these days plays a classic enter the dungeon, kick down the door, and pimp slap the beholder a few times. It's commonly about fighting in mid-air, explosions, super-power DBZ magic flying and shearing the skies, mountains toppling, a horde of titans rushing you, and Matrix-style battles. Heck, most people I know start their games above 10th-level or even right at 21st. Not many want to always trudge from 1 through 10 or through 20.
Just thought I'd point that out and help be the voice, here, for those types of gamers. They're not a vocal bunch and they're not a messageboard prowler, either unfortunately.
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Please do not create Bestiary entries that are just existing monsters with class levels, like a lot of MM IV and V were...
+1,000,000
Monsters with class levels is something more like what you would expect as a PDF only book, but a paper book.
Deities&Demigods have been scorned by some, by I enjoyed it. It really helped. And it's OPEN CONTENT
I loved Deities & Demigods also, but it is absolutely not Open. It contained no open content at all.
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I'd like to see more things that exist. I didn't enjoy looking at WotC MM books and saying "gee, where did that come from?" or "man I'd never use that, no one would know what it is."
The divine ranks and powers that are in Deities & Demigods are all in the SRD.
Monsters of CR 1-15, focusing on earth/sea/sky/cavern threats.
One thing that I would like to see are elemental princes (like from the AD&D fiend folio).
More giants are also a good idea.
Also, more types of dragons
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A few original monsters derived from the new Pathfinder rules flavor.
For instance, a twisted gibbering acid-belching rubber-limbed aberrant of vaguely humanoid form, that has a few Sorcerer levels, and represents what happens when an Aberrant Bloodline Sorcerer goes off the rails and slides into both psychological and physical degeneracy, his humanity sloughed off like an outgrown skin.
Other examples;
Angels, Archons, Azata, Demons, Devils, etc. that make use of the new Domain options as inspiration for abilities (a fire archon that uses the Fire Bolt power from the Fire Domain, or a whimsical Azata that uses the Copycat ability from the Trickery Domain).
Outsiders who make completely unfair use of the Paladin's new Smite power in combat, only, some of them are evil, and Smite the dickens out of good characters...
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Owner - D20 Hobbies
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The divine ranks and powers that are in Deities & Demigods are all in the SRD.
It doesn't change the fact that the copyright page in Deities and Demigods says "this book contains no open content."
Whether or not they choose to republish that material in another book (essentially the SRD) is irrelevant.
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Creative Director
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The divine ranks and powers that are in Deities & Demigods are all in the SRD.It doesn't change the fact that the copyright page in Deities and Demigods says "this book contains no open content."
Whether or not they choose to republish that material in another book (essentially the SRD) is irrelevant.
Actually, a lot of the Deities & Demigods stuff IS in the SRD. They opened up the content some time after the book was published.
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people who are perfectly adapted to living in a world where your fire house is in the middle of your fire lawn where you are having a fire picnic and eating fire chicken.
Fire chicken! Bwauk, bwauk, fwoosh! They're self-cooking!
And, best of all, being 1/2 HD Int 2 magically-impotent and laughable-looking idiot Jeb cousins to the majestic Phoenix, you throw out the bones when you're done and 24 hours later they come back to life!
On a more serious note, it might be neat to have elemental humanoids who are immune to fire *in the plane of fire,* but adapt themselves when they come to the material plane, and end up with a palty fire resist 5 or so, allowing them to have low LA equivalent PC utility, but still being able to live in the elemental planes without suffering an immediate and horrible demise.
In the plane of air, the 'air folk' can drift on the currents of elemental air. Crossing over to Golarion makes them creatures of earthly clay, as well as elemental air, and they end up with a bonus to jump checks and nigh-immunity to falling damage, but unable to fly like birds.
That way they can be sensibly adapted to their elemental plane, but not overpowered for inclusion in a party of standard races, as they had to adapt to this plane, and leave behind some of their elemental nature in their native plane.
From the top of my head I would love to see:
the daemon-group
the div-group
the goblin snake
the gremlin-group
the hippogriff
the lamyros-group
the protean-group
the titan
Oh, and more lycanthropes!
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Everyone gets to fly on the elemental plane of air because down is vague and gravity is localized at best.
I don't have the planes book yet, so I had no idea that this was the case in the Golarion setting's version of the elemental planes.
I guess it makes sense, 'though, for the plane of air, if not necessarily the others.
Blink dogs anyone? They're in the 3.5SRD. Any reason they weren't included in the bestiary? Other then that anything vaguely steampunk would do things to me that normally only large amounts of heroine or very cute girls can do. Steampunk; swoon...
I'm not talking robots, but clockwork golems. Every campaign I've ever runs has at least one gnomish tinker as an npc. The last campaign has Smithin and Wesson. Two tinkerers who were raising a daughter as hetrolife-mates.
I even have a good clockwork template if anyone's interested.
After that, lets see, anything that is planescape like. Really off the wall creatures from the outerplanes. I don't know how much is copyrighted, I'm guessing as much as WOTC wants. But what's wrong with blatant rip offs?
<-----These guys. Unless they are not open content, in which case will make me sad. :(Slaad, pretty much, are not open content.
That makes me a sad panda. :*(
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Creative Director
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Blink dogs anyone? They're in the 3.5SRD. Any reason they weren't included in the bestiary?
For the blink dog, it came down to, basically, us having to chose between blink dogs, black puddings, and boars. We had to put in boars because they're a load-bearing monster (they show up as animal companions and on summon nature's ally spells and as wildshape options). We wanted to put black puddings in because there's really not a lot of oozes in the book.
Which left blink dogs on the cutting room floor. They'll be in Bestairy 2, though. I think.
Blink dogs anyone? They're in the 3.5SRD. Any reason they weren't included in the bestiary?For the blink dog, it came down to, basically, us having to chose between blink dogs, black puddings, and boars. We had to put in boars because they're a load-bearing monster (they show up as animal companions and on summon nature's ally spells and as wildshape options). We wanted to put black puddings in because there's really not a lot of oozes in the book.
Which left blink dogs on the cutting room floor. They'll be in Bestairy 2, though. I think.
YES! I count this as a personal victory. I know it's not but self deception can go a long way to boost one's self esteem. Thanks for watching the boards. I feel like you really care about the community, not just the money.
I'd like to see the rest of the monsters that got left out. Gricks for instance. I think anything that was in the Core monster book for 3.5 should have priority over "newbies."
Example: the rest of the sphinxes.
+1
I was worried about the new classic monsters and whether they would make it. When I fist found the Beastiary in my LGS the first thing I did after admiring the art was flip to G and see if Gricks and Grey Renders were there.
One more suggestion- something new.
The greatest evil/alien race, the Illithid are not open game content. "Boo!" I know.
I'd like to seem something that could replace them. My idea; a parasitic aberrant that enters the brain somehow and slowly eats away the host's brain while it hard wires it's own mind into the poor sod who was unlucky enough to get captured by them. Over the course of a week to a month, the host body starts to change; it's skin begins to gray, all hair falls off, sexual organs shrivel and waste away, and all body fat drips off like the person has a vile plague. During this time the host is usually imprisoned by these horrible creatures. However, sometimes they manage to escape, though unless they can find a high level cleric, they are still doomed to the slow take over.
What the end product looks like really depends on how close something can look like to a mindflayer with out breaking copyright. If you could even get away with using the work mindflayer that'd be cool. These creatures could easily replace the illithid as a great evil race in a campaign.
I would go about making them as a template. Being that any creature could serve as a host, from dog to dragon, you could have a large variation possible. However, most would use humanoids as hosts since they have large intelligent minds and are easy prey in large numbers.
I have designed these creatures for my world and the PCs seem to think of them as good villains.
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One more suggestion- something new.
The greatest evil/alien race, the Illithid are not open game content. "Boo!" I know.
I'd like to seem something that could replace them.
Only if they are lower CR, there is a place for alien beings who invade humanoid hosts definitely... but illithids are far from easy-to-use when it comes to designing interesting encounters at higher or lower level. Any kind of alien-invasion creature must be able to have some ability for expansion, and class levels are still the easiest way IMO.
Only if they are lower CR, there is a place for alien beings who invade humanoid hosts definitely... but illithids are far from easy-to-use when it comes to designing interesting encounters at higher or lower level. Any kind of alien-invasion creature must be able to have some ability for expansion, and class levels are still the easiest way IMO.One more suggestion- something new.
The greatest evil/alien race, the Illithid are not open game content. "Boo!" I know.
I'd like to seem something that could replace them.
As a template, you could make them as weak-sauce as you want, just apply to something without racial hit die. This it becomes a 1hd aberrant with probably a 2-4 CR increase do to the special abilities the template would give you.
Or counter wise, if you wanted them to keep the host's memory and skills, you could let them keep 'em, just change the personality and alignment. In any case, the option for a low level version is there as low level humanoids are easier to capture then high level ones.