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To me? The fact that we focus on flavor first and build rules to support the flavor, rather than focus on rules first and then build flavor to support the rules. And the fact that we embrace the history of the game and actively work to incorporate real-world myth and legend into the game rather than focus on building brand new content that would be easier for us to claim as intellectual property.That, and the fact that I like almost everything in Pathfinder better than 3.5 D&D.
Cool. I am definitely in agreement with all that and am glad that is the direction you guys are going (as I have been since I first jumped on board way back when)
I don't understand why everyone is getting so up in arms over this. For Mauril's game, what does it matter if D&D or even real-world tradition has an elaborate backstory for rakshasa? I doubt that his friends care how closely he adheres to official Pathfinder fluff, much less real-world Japanese or Indian mythology, as long as they have a fun game. Personally, I agree that their superficial statistical similarities (spellcasting shapechanging outsiders) make them mesh pretty well with each other. Heck, he could even reskin a doppleganger with the oni template if he wanted a minor shapeshifting infiltrator. And alignment doesn't matter a whit to their statistics--maybe in his game all the oni ARE LE, and there's nothing saying he can't have NE or CE rakshasa--I'm pretty sure Eberron did that, actually. That's the awesome thing about your personal games. Hell, I've memorized the (3.5) MM but in my game, I'm never sure what we're facing because the DM tweaks all the creatures to fit the flavor he likes and needs for his story.
As for regeneration, I just think you need to keep the spellcasting ability in mind, but it shouldn't be a problem. Not every rakshasa has to have Resist Energy as a spell known (although that would be a smart choice...) and the players can always cast Dispel Magic.
...Having said all that, as a mythology buff I really do appreciate Paizo's greater adherence to real-world sources of inspiration :)
The amount of traffic that this thread has generated amazes me a little. While I have all of you here, does anyone want to help me out with the homebrew? I'm needing a reptilian, golbinoid and tengu oni (one of each listed in the oni section of the ogre mage entry). I had planned to base the reptilian off of the serpentfolk from the Into the Darklands module. I had planned to base the goblinoid one on actual goblins and the tengu on, well, the tengu. I'm wanting small, medium and large versions of oni (hence the choices I've made) but am having trouble determining how that effects the CR. I'm wanting them all to be around CR 8. Anyone want to give me a hand?
Theoretical threadjack
HoMMV?
Heroes of Might and Magic V, a turn-based strategy game with roleplaying elements.
The Inferno faction (all about demons) has Devils as their most powerful creature. You get them mainly by building a Temple of the Fallen in your town. And if you upgrade it to the Temple of the Forsaken, you can upgrade your Devils to Archdevils (or Archdemons, if you have the Tribes of the East) expansion.
It just fit. They also have succubi, hell hounds (who turn into cerberi), horned devil (a lot different, and a lot weaker, than Pathfinder's), Imps, Hell Horses (I think they're actually called Nightmares, I'm not sure right now) and Pit Fiends.
The whole game is full of stuff you can find in Pathfinder, like Treants or Black Dragons.
Great game, and it should cost like 10 bucks.
(Who knew a person whose name sounds like "chaos" could agree with me?!
It's to lure you into a false sense of security, before turning your home into a part of the Cerulean Void. }>
I don't understand why everyone is getting so up in arms over this. For Mauril's game, what does it matter if D&D or even real-world tradition has an elaborate backstory for rakshasa?
He asked for an opinion, he got it.
Then others insisted that the creatures were really the same in the game (when in fact, they're very different), and I can't falsehoods like that stand.
What if they're just kind of lounging?
The amount of traffic that this thread has generated amazes me a little. While I have all of you here, does anyone want to help me out with the homebrew? I'm needing a reptilian, golbinoid and tengu oni (one of each listed in the oni section of the ogre mage entry). I had planned to base the reptilian off of the serpentfolk from the Into the Darklands module. I had planned to base the goblinoid one on actual goblins and the tengu on, well, the tengu. I'm wanting small, medium and large versions of oni (hence the choices I've made) but am having trouble determining how that effects the CR. I'm wanting them all to be around CR 8. Anyone want to give me a hand?
Definitely go with trolls! They're basically oni according to Japanese legend, anyway.
I'd also have a wide range of CR, because the base critters are different, and because having a group of critters with a wide range of challenge ratings makes them a lot more useful.
Get runegiant oni as the leaders!
What if they're just kind of lounging?
That's a grey area.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Anyone want to give me a hand?
Well the Bestiary has a young template that lowers the CR (and the size) by 1, and the Giant Template adds +1 to size and CR.
Tengu Oni... Hmm, Shapechange into a Raven form, blindness as a touch attack (plucking out the eyes) Maybe some monk abilities? Or Shadow Dancer?
Goblin Oni, use the Bugbear as a base. If you have Classic Creatures Revisited they might give you some additional boosts with ideas.
Serpent Oni, I'd take the Lillend stats as a base. Remove flight add DR 10/slashing, give them resistances to most everything but sonic. To take the snakes vs weasles meme from the Basilisk/Cockatrice entries, allow a wizard with a weasel familair to treat his spells as one level higher for spell resistance, or just allow it to bypass entirely. (slashing/sonic vulnerability to reflect a rooster's raking talons/crows)
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Theoretical threadjack
Re Death of the Author:
A morally bankrupt piece of literary theory, that.
Spoilering threadjack
And yet, when you're writing something for public consumption, it's a decent guideline to assume that you *aren't* going to be there to hold the reader's hand and explain your intent to them after the fact (despite the fact that the internet actually allows the author to do that very thing, which, IMO, only encourages sloppy writing). Your writing *should* adequately convey what you want conveyed, and not require you to hold a press conference afterwards and explain that you meant something very different from what seems to be the popular (mis)understanding of your work.
(See, Whedon, Joss, of whom fans *still* bicker, a decade later, that he changed his mind after the fact and didn't actually mean what he claimed to have 'always meant' in various interviews in this or that 'misunderstood' scene.)
While the 'Death of the Author' trope wasn't around then (nor the internet, for that matter), I consider one of the most important lesson I learned in college writing courses to sit quietly after reading a poem / short story / whatever to the class and listen to classmates discuss it, unable to 'correct' them when they get it horribly, terribly, head-bangingly wrong. It isn't their fault for getting it wrong. It's my fault, as the writer, for not explaining myself well enough.
Most of the time anyway. Some people, you just throw your hands up and console yourself that you did all that was humanly possible. :)
And, from another point of view, there are times when someone reads something I've written and gets something out of it that is so far from where I was going that I stop and think, 'Hey, that's actually pretty cool. I kinda wish I could take credit for that, but you brought that in with you.'
And, in other news, if the Oni and the Rakshasa are statistically very similar, then that's a bit of a disservice to both of them, and they should probably be toyed with until they are less similar. The Rakshasa should be a shapeshifting illusionist with animalistic features, while the Oni should share limited shapeshifting, but very little else in common, being a magical giant with more demonic traits and abilities related to cursing (making an Oni a Witch, or at least able to use some Witch Hexes, might be a cool idea...).
Oni seem, on some levels, to be more like male versions of Annis Hags, with the spellcasting abilities of Green Hags, and a dash of the fiendish template.
Anyone want to give me a hand?Well the Bestiary has a young template that lowers the CR (and the size) by 1, and the Giant Template adds +1 to size and CR.
Tengu Oni... Hmm, Shapechange into a Raven form, blindness as a touch attack (plucking out the eyes) Maybe some monk abilities? Or Shadow Dancer?
Goblin Oni, use the Bugbear as a base. If you have Classic Creatures Revisited they might give you some additional boosts with ideas.
Serpent Oni, I'd take the Lillend stats as a base. Remove flight add DR 10/slashing, give them resistances to most everything but sonic. To take the snakes vs weasles meme from the Basilisk/Cockatrice entries, allow a wizard with a weasel familair to treat his spells as one level higher for spell resistance, or just allow it to bypass entirely. (slashing/sonic vulnerability to reflect a rooster's raking talons/crows)
I like this. I'm going to spend this afternoon to knock those out. I think I want to keep constant flight and at-will invisibility as de facto oni traits. Other than that, expect to see a thread in the homebrew arena today.
Though I'm ofttimes more of a snob than I ought be, (ask me how I feel about 3.5, PF, and 4th ed's dragon-kobolds, and I'll tell you, my quote will come out sounding something like "Gllarrgh!") I think "Do your thing, and as long as your players like it, it's good." is a sound policy. I mean, if TSR, WotC, or Paizo are allowed to take their liberties, why not you?
That said, I can understand wanting to base your game in the fundiments of the lore. And that said, I've been feeling conflicted over d20 Rakshasa over the years. On one level, I love their juxuposition of manipulators and ghoulish cannibal fiends with an eerily intelligent nature. Further, that they cast spells as sorcerers renders them more easily customizable and versatile than a lot of the fiends who have set spell-like abilities.
On the other hand, I think early edition D&D more or less invented the 'They all have tiger heads' aspect, (at least, I can't find any pre-D&D reference that says Rakshasa are all tiger head guys.) The differently animal headed rakshasa movement of late 3.5 and of Pathfinder was a much needed reference to Rakshasa oft described as being infinitely varied and shape-shifting demons that look like all kinds of weird stuff without trying to oppose the D20 creation.
Honestly, what traditional images I've seen of rakshasa (including the cover image of them in Wikepedia) strongly resembles traditional images of oni. Encyclopedia Britannica says this "The canons of sculpture instruct the artist to carve them with a terrifying appearance, complete with fearful side tusks, ugly eyes, curling awkward brows, and carrying a variety of horrible weapons." Sounds very similar to Oni to me.
As for the oni, one could easily and honestly say that the tusks, horns, fangs, claws, and general brutish looks are bestial features. Beyond that, I've read of bull-headed oni (Ushi-oni) and horse-headed oni (mezu-oni.) Versions of them were even in the non-Shadowlands entry for oni in Oriental Adventures, and I think they were in the older edition OA book too. And they often can shape shift in the stories.
I think you could make a case for playing with the idea that the shape-shifting cannibal demons/ogres found in one part of the world are related to the similar ones in a not-too-far-away part of the world, and you have all the mythic material you need to play with the idea. It may enhance the feeling of an interconnected world. Heck, humans from (Fantasy) Europe, (Fantasy) India, and (Fantasy) Japan are all fundimentally the same species. Is it all that strange to think their ogres/demons might at least be kin too?
To play devil's advocate to my own devil's advocate though, Pathfinder and its forebears all, by necessity, thrive and even rely on a thematic separation. Kobolds are different from goblins, which are different from orcs, which are different from hobgoblins because PCs need foes at different levels of power and tactics. Even fantasy fans might look at d20 fans for saying succubi are demons but not devils, or that demon, devil, and daemon are not synomymous, but breaking them up provides a variety of fiendish Team Evils with different approaches and flavours that keep things interesting and provides inter-alignment conflict and intrigue. On a basic level, the more fundimentally different monsters there are to play with, the more different monsters there are to play with. Beyond that, it allows you to really customise your D20 world and how much you want it to be a goulash (Indian manticore fighting classical knights, hobgoblin raiders attacking the Great Wall of Tien,) or very myth-region specific (no Rakshasa in Britain-analogue, for example.)
... okay, I'ma gonna stop here, as I feel like I sound more pretentious the more I talk.
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Well, you gotta admit, the illustration of the Rakshasa in the old MM was awesome -- one of the best in the book.
And back then we couldn't just wikipedia a Rakshasa to find out what it is in Eastern folklore.
So we can't feel too bad about viewing them as "tiger-headed" fiends. When I learned that they were actually "various animal-headed" fiends (15 years into D&D) I thought, That sucks; they're still just gonna be "tiger-headed" in my world!
Well, you gotta admit, the illustration of the Rakshasa in the old MM was awesome -- one of the best in the book.
And back then we couldn't just wikipedia a Rakshasa to find out what it is in Eastern folklore.
So we can't feel too bad about viewing them as "tiger-headed" fiends. When I learned that they were actually "various animal-headed" fiends (15 years into D&D) I thought, That sucks; they're still just gonna be "tiger-headed" in my world!
Fair enough, but there's honestly still a side of me that's kind of annoyed that D&D casts such a big shadow over fantasy that people look to its interpretation rather than trying to find out what things were like in the lore. How many trolls in fantasy regenerate because D&D decided to nick from Mr. Anderson way back when?
Personally, I think Rakshasa are more interesting with many different kinds of looks, but that's just me.
Maybe I really like variety.
Maybe it's because I tend to prefer being folklorically consanant (with creative liberties, mind you.)
Maybe tigers just don't do it for me, so to speak. :)
My tengu oni is posted here. I should have the reptilian and goblinoid forms later.
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Drakli, yeah, I certainly understand and agree. But I'm not sure that I'd call it D&D casting a big shadow. Like I mentioned earlier regarding the Rakshasa as Oni, I've (we've) got lots of memories, right or wrong, about Rakshasa a certain way. It just feels awkward changing it.
I'm pretty comfortable with my other post describing how the more history we have with a certain monster (or other "sacred cow") the harder it is for us to accept its change. Even if the change is to make it more accurate to folklore or whatever.
Theoretical threadjack
Re Death of the Author:
A morally bankrupt piece of literary theory, that.Spoilering threadjack
** spoiler omitted **
Drakli, yeah, I certainly understand and agree. But I'm not sure that I'd call it D&D casting a big shadow. Like I mentioned earlier regarding the Rakshasa as Oni, I've (we've) got lots of memories, right or wrong, about Rakshasa a certain way. It just feels awkward changing it.
I'm pretty comfortable with my other post describing how the more history we have with a certain monster (or other "sacred cow") the harder it is for us to accept its change. Even if the change is to make it more accurate to folklore or whatever.
Fair enough. I can understand the idea of personal history with a monster/concept/etc.
I think, for me, taking cues from or paying service to mythology, legend, and folklore makes fantasy elements feel more real-ish to me. Closer to the source material, closer to the shape of it when people believed in what we write fantasy stories about, if you'll pardon my sentimentality.
That's why it bothers me when fantasy seems to look to D&D for the shape of it and doesn't seem to care about the old stories. That's why I like Paizo, and their fondness for pulling inspiration from the mythic source materials.
That's why it bothers me when fantasy seems to look to D&D for the shape of it and doesn't seem to care about the old stories. That's why I like Paizo, and their fondness for pulling inspiration from the mythic source materials.
... or current ones! Yetis aren't that old, Shoggoths were invented less than a century ago, and we also have the Mothman, Chupacabra, an homage to the Jersey Devil, and the Deep Crow!
I've posted all three oni that I created (which doesn't include a reworked Rakshasa) in this thread. I'd really love it if I could get some other eyes on them. I am a little hesitant to use them this weekend with my group without some vetting.