The only issue I have with Bestiary 2 (and all other PF rulebooks, such as APG, GMG etc) is the recycling of artwork from Adventure Paths that have been published under 3.5. Now every player who has skimmed through those books has probably seen the artwork from every AP. This is annoying for me, because I'm DMing Legacy of Fire and there it is, as a default picture of Denizen of Leng, an NPC that's supposed to be mysterious and totally unknown to players, Captain of the Sunset Ship. But not anymore... The same thing is some 'action' scenes from the APs, now you can hardly surprise players with a cool picture, when they probably saw it already...
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FACT: A piece of art costs as much as writing up five pages of monsters. Art is the killer whale in the RPG book production process, and if your standard is set to "very high" ... you face tough decisions.
Still, several monsters got new art in B2, for example Seugathi, Vemerak and two of the Proteans (luckily Keketar still has that mothertrucking kickass artwork from The Great Beyond).
My issue with B2, is that there are no Dire Weasels. Hehehe
Anyhow. Players aren't supposed to be looking through this manual anyway, so recycled artwork isn't so bad.
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Anyhow. Players aren't supposed to be looking through this manual anyway, so recycled artwork isn't so bad.
This.
I have no problem with them recycling art. I would rather have one good piece of art used twice than two mediocre pieces of art used individually.
Besides as skull said the bestiary is to be used by GM's not players. I only allow my players to look at creatures that they can summon, everything else is off limits.
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This is the 3.X era my friend. There is no player/GM divide, anybody and everybody can be a GM if they decide they wish to do so, and anybody can buy the book whether they decide to GM or not. (Besides, I'd definitely want a copy if I were planning to play a Planar Binder.)
Or they could buy the adventure path and read it through. Or they could go on these messageboards and read the GM questions on the relevant board.
There's a lot a player can do but what you can do and what you should do are two seperate things.
One of my players played a summoner recently and bought a bestiary and a bunch of minis to represent what he could summon. Now he could look through the book and memorise dragons, giants, fae and all the other kinds of things that he can't summon but he didn't.
On the other hand last week one of my players worked out that a picture in the APG represents the big bad of the AP that they are playing. Disaster? Well no not really. All they really know is that the big bad is a guy and he looks like the picture. Who he is, what his plan is and what he can do are still a mystery. Frankly the method employed by the player to work it out was very clever and as such I was quite pleased to have a player who was paying attention.
The bottom line is do you trust your players? If not then maybe you need a chat with them before your next session...
My issue with B2, is that there are no Dire Weasels. Hehehe
Anyhow. Players aren't supposed to be looking through this manual anyway, so recycled artwork isn't so bad.
The problem is that two of my players are also DMs for some other campaigns, so of course they'll be looking at it.
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There's nothing you can do about that.
Even if they used art from the AP's in the Bestiary it doesn't give the players the context that the art is presented under. Also it would be pretty lame for a player to say "it's a Denizen of Leng it does x, y and z."
Trust your players. DMing does take some of the mystery out of the game but hell I've been doing this for years and I'm still surprised by monsters I never use.
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But the basic monsters? That seems like basic game knowledge to me.
Not to me it doesn't. Basic knowledge of monsters is covered by IC knowledge skills. Even if you know information about monster x out of game unless you make that knowledge roll your character doesn't know jack about the properties of a certain monster.
Even if they used art from the AP's in the Bestiary it doesn't give the players the context that the art is presented under. Also it would be pretty lame for a player to say "it's a Denizen of Leng it does x, y and z."
Of course they won't say that. But they'll perhaps know. And instead of thinking 'wow this is a weird creature, who knows what can it do', they'll think 'ah, it's a Denizen of Leng, it has a dex draining bite'.
And because I showed them the picture of Captain of the Sunset Ship, there's no mystery on what he is and who he is anymore.
I'm just saying, they should have at least used the picture of a default Denizen, from Rise of the Runelords, if nothing else, because it's an older AP.
I have no problem with them recycling art. I would rather have one good piece of art used twice than two mediocre pieces of art used individually.
+1
This is why I like Manshoon, he is so right + he is a great villain! :)
Actually, in the group I play in we have various games running at a time. I am the only member not to take up the GM chair, I am simply not interested. I have looked through the Bestiary a few times, but mostly to admire the artwork :)
Ill miss those little guys who latch onto adventurers and drain there Con scores...
also... some things are just so fricken common knowledge it would seem cruel and weird to me to make PC's have to roll to know it. Like werewolves and Silver
I disagree on this point, especially with lower level parties. You need to make a knowledge roll to even know what a werewolf is. The players aren't playing in a modern age full of movies and nationwide book printings. Information not available locally is just not available without study and/or travel.
Characters getting bit by a werewolf better hope one of the party members was a bookworm (or ranger/druid). Otherwise, what's the point?
FACT: A piece of art costs as much as writing up five pages of monsters. Art is the killer whale in the RPG book production process, and if your standard is set to "very high" ... you face tough decisions.
Still, several monsters got new art in B2, for example Seugathi, Vemerak and two of the Proteans (luckily Keketar still has that mothertrucking kickass artwork from The Great Beyond).
Gorbacz is right. The Book of Beasts was far and away the most expensive book I've produced to date and for the foreseeable future. And its all due to the artwork. Recycling artwork is an easy way to get the best bang for the buck a publisher can do.
I had a problem with WotC reusing art from 3.0 PHB in the 3.5 PHB simply because ... they were WotC. Any other publisher (or any other WotC book for that matter) I don't have that problem.
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Players aren't supposed to be looking through this manual anyway, so recycled artwork isn't so bad.
Lame excuse. Sure, new players will have problems keeping their OOC and IC knowledge separate, but if you have a seasoned player who routinely abuses OOC knowledge about monsters in fights, you as a GM are responsible for either A) smacking the player upside his head or B) laughing at them when nobody attempted a knowledge check on a monster their PCs in this campaign haven't seen yet, and you throw out a 60' cone breath weapon on them. It is NOT the players' responsibility to NOT read material that may, in the future, inspire them to GM. It is the GM's responsibility to properly balance their game and keep meta-gaming in check.
I plan on getting the book and I don't dm yet I want to make a dhampire so should I just hope that someone takes pity on me and gives me all the info for it since apparently the book is for dm's only and players not allowed?
Or they could buy the adventure path and read it through. Or they could go on these messageboards and read the GM questions on the relevant board.There's a lot a player can do but what you can do and what you should do are two seperate things.
One of my players played a summoner recently and bought a bestiary and a bunch of minis to represent what he could summon. Now he could look through the book and memorise dragons, giants, fae and all the other kinds of things that he can't summon but he didn't.
On the other hand last week one of my players worked out that a picture in the APG represents the big bad of the AP that they are playing. Disaster? Well no not really. All they really know is that the big bad is a guy and he looks like the picture. Who he is, what his plan is and what he can do are still a mystery. Frankly the method employed by the player to work it out was very clever and as such I was quite pleased to have a player who was paying attention.
The bottom line is do you trust your players? If not then maybe you need a chat with them before your next session...
Well first of all there is a slight problem with your logic. It assumes players and DM's are constant. In my group we have several people who dm regularly. I am currently running a homebrew game and my friend is running kingmaker(slightly modified). Another two friends are planning their next campaigns for a couple months from now. A fifth is thinking of running a 1shot high level game some time in the near future. All of us are going through the bestiaries and other monster sources looking for things that fit our game's plot and setting, and would be interesting to use and to interact with.
The player/dm divide is gone not because of a 'need' to know or common knowledge (though that comes into play) it's because in terms of people there isn't a player/dm divide in many groups. Where as I wouldn't touch kingmaker even though I own it because my friend is running it (I will after he is done with the campaign though, because there seems to be lots of ideas in there I plan to use in the future). But the Rulebooks like the bestiaries are more or less common ground that everyone is going to look in eventually in my group.
Or they could buy the adventure path and read it through. Or they could go on these messageboards and read the GM questions on the relevant board.There's a lot a player can do but what you can do and what you should do are two seperate things.
One of my players played a summoner recently and bought a bestiary and a bunch of minis to represent what he could summon. Now he could look through the book and memorise dragons, giants, fae and all the other kinds of things that he can't summon but he didn't.
On the other hand last week one of my players worked out that a picture in the APG represents the big bad of the AP that they are playing. Disaster? Well no not really. All they really know is that the big bad is a guy and he looks like the picture. Who he is, what his plan is and what he can do are still a mystery. Frankly the method employed by the player to work it out was very clever and as such I was quite pleased to have a player who was paying attention.
The bottom line is do you trust your players? If not then maybe you need a chat with them before your next session...
Well first of all there is a slight problem with your logic. It assumes players and DM's are constant. In my group we have several people who dm regularly. I am currently running a homebrew game and my friend is running kingmaker(slightly modified). Another two friends are planning their next campaigns for a couple months from now. A fifth is thinking of running a 1shot high level game some time in the near future. All of us are going through the bestiaries and other monster sources looking for things that fit our game's plot and setting, and would be interesting to use and to interact with.
The player/dm divide is gone not because of a 'need' to know or common knowledge (though that comes into play) it's because in terms of people there isn't a player/dm divide in many groups. Where as I wouldn't touch kingmaker even though I own it because my friend is running it (I will after he is done with the campaign though, because there seems to be lots of ideas in there I plan to use in the future). But the Rulebooks like the bestiaries are more or less common ground that everyone is going to look in eventually in my group.
I actually like one thing one of the people I currently play with suggested. That is let a new player sit down with the bestiary and flip through it, and point out the more common monsters for him; than come game time whatever he remembers, correctly or not, is what he can base his actions on. Knowledge rolls can confirm correct memory or correct bad memory, but even without knowledge rolls he still has some kind of absorbed lore to work with, which may or may not be 100% accurate. This seems like a good way to simulate what the characters would be likely to know, as it provides a good background, but still relies on memory as far as details are concerned.
If I may give my own perspective, I'm grateful for the recycled art. By doing so, Paizo is keeping costs down, and giving us awesome stuff without forcing significantly higher prices.
Then again, I may not be the best person to be commenting here, because I've never once actually used pictures, instead using descriptions to bring my npc's and creatures to life.
I don't mind recycled art so much. But most of my players haven't seen any Adventure Paths.
But, kyrt-ryder, I used to be like you. But then I realized why as a GM am I hogging all this great art. Might as well show it off to players. I've got a sheet of paper with a diamond-shaped cutout in the center to show players art. They seem to enjoy it.
I actually like one thing one of the people I currently play with suggested. That is let a new player sit down with the bestiary and flip through it, and point out the more common monsters for him; than come game time whatever he remembers, correctly or not, is what he can base his actions on. Knowledge rolls can confirm correct memory or correct bad memory, but even without knowledge rolls he still has some kind of absorbed lore to work with, which may or may not be 100% accurate. This seems like a good way to simulate what the characters would be likely to know, as it provides a good background, but still relies on memory as far as details are concerned.
Personally, I think that's a great idea, my only problem with it is that you'll be getting players with backstories that involve learning alot about the tarrasque and then getting players that say they should be allowed to see the full tarrasque entry.
You could always show them the denizen picture from #6 instead of the one from #21, then they will not be able to recognize it.
I betcha you could find somebody on DeviantArt or someplace similar who'd do you a nicely rendered piece for only $60+... ;)
-The Gneech
I betcha you could find somebody on DeviantArt or someplace similar who'd do you a nicely rendered piece for only $60+... ;)
-The Gneech
Do you know how many books you have to sell to pay off that single $60 piece of art. There's a reason why $4 stock art is as popular among publishers as it is.
My issue is that I don't own it yet :P
+1. Dec 29th is taking too long to get here.
Anyhow. Players aren't supposed to be looking through this manual anyway, so recycled artwork isn't so bad.
Well, maybe not, but don't you show them the pictures to let them see what will eat them?
I'm just saying, they should have at least used the picture of a default Denizen, from Rise of the Runelords, if nothing else, because it's an older AP.
I believe that one issue with doing that was image from Rise of the Runelords was done in a very different style compared to the other monster illustrations in Bestiary 2. I believe that one of their goals in choosing art for the Bestiaries is to keep the style consistent throughout the book.
Personally, I think that's a great idea, my only problem with it is that you'll be getting players with backstories that involve learning alot about the tarrasque and then getting players that say they should be allowed to see the full tarrasque entry.
Except that the whole point is that they don't get to see the actual entry during the actual game unless they make the required skill checks. Having a backstory should make the check easier, but unless you have the required knowledge, its still just stuff you've heard growing up but didn't focus on, so your memory will not be perfect on the details. A backstory would be enough to be able to say that is a tarrasque, but not enough to remember how to stop it.
You could always show them the denizen picture from #6 instead of the one from #21, then they will not be able to recognize it.
There's two issues with that. First, I already showed them the pic. Second, the one from RotR looks quite monstrous and doesn't conceal its nature, whereas the one in Bestiary 2 is masked and doesn't reveal the monster, merely suggests that it isn't human/elf/etc.
Creative Director
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I'm a huge fan of Kev's art, and I'm stoked we got to use him in Lords of Chaos...
...but his art style just doesn't match the standard style we use for our rulebooks. It sticks out. There's more to art directing a book than just ordering illustrations and putting them in the text—the styles need to look similar so that they all fit together. We do the same thing with text, when we have a book written by multiple authors—we do a development pass to make the book feel like it's actually got only one voice, rather than one voice per author. It's part of the presentation of the overall product.
We can't do that kind of change to art, so we have to order the art to all fit the same style from the start. And that means that sometimes, more experimental art styles like you sometimes see in Pathfinder Adventure Path don't make the hardcover transition.
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Creative Director
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And as for recycling art at all...
It's a necessary evil. At least, it was when we built the Bestiary 2. Turns out, art is VERY VERY VERY expensive, and if we hadn't recycled art (or, more to the point, if we hand't ordered art for Pathfinder thinking forward that we could then recycle that art in a Bestiary) we would not have been able to afford a hardcover like the Bestiary 2. It would have simply been too expensive.
And as for recycling art at all...
It's a necessary evil. At least, it was when we built the Bestiary 2. Turns out, art is VERY VERY VERY expensive, and if we hadn't recycled art (or, more to the point, if we hand't ordered art for Pathfinder thinking forward that we could then recycle that art in a Bestiary) we would not have been able to afford a hardcover like the Bestiary 2. It would have simply been too expensive.
And this also assumes that all your customers buy every AP.
That's fast becoming a VERY bad assumption. I've moved 3 states over, and everyone I know has the PF core books in the new area.
None of them use the APs, pretty much the same as St. Louis.
So, to all us, the art is brand new, and looks perfect. Paizo can't cater just to the AP people anymore, they have to think of everyone now. If it's do one book a year with new art to keep a small set of customers happy, or reuse art that a good half have never seen and do 3 books, they have to do the latter option. It would be business suicide not to.
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And as for recycling art at all...
It's a necessary evil. At least, it was when we built the Bestiary 2. Turns out, art is VERY VERY VERY expensive, and if we hadn't recycled art (or, more to the point, if we hand't ordered art for Pathfinder thinking forward that we could then recycle that art in a Bestiary) we would not have been able to afford a hardcover like the Bestiary 2. It would have simply been too expensive.
Which is why, while I understand the OP's point of view. I don't have a issue with it, for the reason James says. The art is what first attracted me to Pathfinder, the writing is what hooked me.
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I don't have any hard numbers to back this up, but I'd imagine that a large number of people playing Pathfinder are NOT playing Golarion. One of the benefits of the backwards compatibility is that you can use Pathfinder to play any of the d20 era campaign settings (or, as always, your own homebrew campaign).
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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The simple fact of the matter is that the hardcover rulebooks (and hardcover books in general) sell at least an order of magnitude more copies than the softcover Adventure Path volumes, modules, and sourcebooks. As a result, any pieces of art carried over to a hardcover are seen by several thousand more people than saw it the first time.
If a particular image does a great job of capturing an idea (like, say, a monster or an iconic scene from a country or something), it makes a lot of sense to retain the image for the larger audience and not a lot of sense to ask someone else to re-create the same image (at the same cost) and add in the risk that the second piece might not do as good a job as the first at conveying what we are trying to convey.
It is a bit of a bummer that this means some of our most loyal and dedicated customers are sometimes subjected to a reused piece of art, but we hope they appreciate the ancillary benefits like our ability to offer our products at a price they can afford. Additionally, we try not to repeat any art once it has appeared in a hardcover.
As for the reader who started this thread, I can definitely see how the inclusion of the Denizen of Leng picture in Bestiary 2 might have ruined a surprise in the Adventure Path, and I agree that sort of sucks.
Sorry!
My issue with B2, is that there are no Dire Weasels. Hehehe
The Keep on the Borderlands?
As for the reader who started this thread, I can definitely see how the inclusion of the Denizen of Leng picture in Bestiary 2 might have ruined a surprise in the Adventure Path, and I agree that sort of sucks.
Sorry!
Honestly speaking, I am halfway playing Rise of the Runelords and I hope my players don't see the rune giants as well before they meet them in adventure.
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The only issue I have with Bestiary 2 (and all other PF rulebooks, such as APG, GMG etc) is the recycling of artwork from Adventure Paths that have been published under 3.5. Now every player who has skimmed through those books has probably seen the artwork from every AP. This is annoying for me, because I'm DMing Legacy of Fire and there it is, as a default picture of Denizen of Leng, an NPC that's supposed to be mysterious and totally unknown to players, Captain of the Sunset Ship. But not anymore... The same thing is some 'action' scenes from the APs, now you can hardly surprise players with a cool picture, when they probably saw it already...
It's pretty rich for someone to complain about spoilers in the Bestiary 2 and, in doing so, create a spoiler for LoF!
It's one of the APs I have not read and am hoping to play soon. The forums have spoiler tags for a reason!
I don't have any hard numbers to back this up, but I'd imagine that a large number of people playing Pathfinder are NOT playing Golarion. One of the benefits of the backwards compatibility is that you can use Pathfinder to play any of the d20 era campaign settings (or, as always, your own homebrew campaign).
Pathfinder in Greyhawk here! Using Red Hand of Doom no less. (Check it out, if we assume "Flinty Hills" = "Thornwaste" then Elsir Vale fits nicely in this little spot wedged between the Pale, Nyrond, and Bone March.)
-The Gneech
It's pretty rich for someone to complain about spoilers in the Bestiary 2 and, in doing so, create a spoiler for LoF!It's one of the APs I have not read and am hoping to play soon. The forums have spoiler tags for a reason!
** spoiler omitted **
+1.