| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
More giants. I kind of feel like giants are all done. We have a giant for every major biome. Now we're starting to make giants for specific professions. I don't particularly need to see Flood Plain Giant, Temperate Grassland Giant, Suburban Strip Mall Giant, and Laundromat Giant in the next Bestiary.
More gremlins. We have nearly a dozen varieties of gremlins now. We're all good on gremlins.
I'm kind of on the fence about drakes. I don't need any more drakes, but I could probably handle, like, a couple more. Just take it easy with the drakes, is what I'm saying. Proceed cautiously.
Same with oozes, I think.
On the other hand, golems are still great. By all means, bring on more golems.
| 15 people marked this as a favorite. |
In my next campaign, there will be a giant washing clothes near a town.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oddly enough I like the gremlins and giants in Bestiary 4. And Immortal Ichor is not only awesome but a great reference to Prince of Darkness.
I am kind of tired of Drakes, but maybe if we get them tied into the Outer Dragons they will be cooler or more novel
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
Demons. To me, they are about as overdone as dragons and drow were with WotC. It feels like they are everywhere. Hell, they are even on the freaking moon! I get it, demons are super cool and awesome and totally capable of being Chaotic Evil without being stupid. Can we please stop shoving them into the spotlight and give other fiends a shot?
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Now, this might sound like blasphemy, but I don't think we need to see any more of those expansive True Dragon entries. So far, we have Bad Dragons, Good Dragons, Asian Dragons, Elemental Dragons, and Space dragons. I think we're set on Dragons.
Well, maybe there is room for outer plane dragons. MAYBE.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Demons, devils, dragons, undead, animal people, magical dogs, cats, and horses
monsters with bad art
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I would agree with the sentiment about Demons...I really am more excited about things like Kytons, Qlippoth, etc personally.
Honestly that is about it for what I am sick of. Pathfinder so far has done a pretty good job on creating novel creatures that are not simply environmental variants, etc. But I would love for a Bestiary that didn't have any of the big three Evil outsiders but instead gave us more neutral, good, and lesser known evil outsiders.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Actually I would like to see a different kind of giant that's not linked to terrain. Specifically I want to see the Fomorians and Firbolg.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Quantum pugwampis.
Actually I would like to see a different kind of giant that's not linked to terrain. Specifically I want to see the Fomorians and Firbolg.
Formorians are in Bestiary 4, but are a type of Titan rather than giants. No firbolgs so far that I'm aware of.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Speaking of other giants, we also need to see the Gigas(es?) in a bestiary. They are essentially planar giants, from my understanding.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Demons, Devils, and Daemons, there are plenty of these guys now.
Also things like demon lords, empyreal lords, etc. should get there own book and not waste space in a hardcover bestiary. Though I liked the Kaiju and Old Ones, so I don't mind them beside there isn't nearly as many different ones of these guys.
at this point I am glad we are getting things like demon lords, etc. Which is again just more evidence that we all have different tastes
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm pretty tired of Daemons, Devils, and Demons, personally. I'm all in for Camp Mikaze's Peaceful Protest for Angels, Agathions, Azata, and Archons. I want to see the good guys, and thanks to Bestiary 4 there are more than enough templates that people can take those Good outsiders and transform them into Nightmare creatures, Mummified creatures, and even Broken Souls. That said, I was happy to see new kytons in Bestiary 4 and wouldn't mind new Divs.
I'm basically done with giants as well. I thought the Cliff giant was neat, but since Giants are basically nothing but stereotypes of real-world cultures, I don't find them interesting.
I'm a little on the fence with psychopomps. I don't think they're as interesting as everyone else, apparently. I get that the developers weren't crazy about the Aeons because they made Players feel like the bad guys, but Psychopomps come across as Neutral Angels of another name. They're STILL things that I'm not likely to throw at my players to fight unless they're evil. Since Aeons are proactive in trying to seek out and destroy threats to the multiverse, at least they had a perfectly good reason for fighting my PCs.
That's about it, really. Those are the only creatures that I've seen printed in every Bestiaty (including Bestiary 4) and I'm ready to give a quiet vacation to.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Also things like demon lords, empyreal lords, etc. should get there own book and not waste space in a hardcover bestiary. Though I liked the Kaiju and Old Ones, so I don't mind them beside there isn't nearly as many different ones of these guys.
While awesome, the Demigods confuse me. Why are they in a Core Rulebook line product? Are they considered Open Source now, or are they closed because they are highly interwoven into Golarion Lore (at least two of the Empyreal Lords are specifically the properties of the Paizo as they appeared in Chronicles of the Righteous.) If anything, the Demigods feel like something that should be campaign specific and not printed in a Bestiary, so I agree with that one.
If they were going to stat up Thor or Odin or Zeus as Empyreal Lords or whatever, I wouldn't be complaining. But Paizo property? Feels wield.
(Yes. I'm aware that Dagon and Pazuzu are open sourced. No it doesn't affect my point in the slightest.)
Well...Cernunnos and all three Demon Lords are from mythology. I admit to be confused about Korada and Vilneis (sp?), although I think the latter was a last minute replacement due to stat problems.
Similarly, the Slag giants really feel like campaign specific, as do the Kaiju. They even hint around but never name where those guys are found.
I mean I question why we got Scarab Swarm in the Inner Sea Bestiary, as well as a few other creatures in that book. So I think what is campaign specific and what isn't is pretty fluid in Pathfinder books. See Rune Giants in Bestiary 2 as well.
We didn't get a scarab swarm in the Innersea Bestiary we got a giant scarab.
I do not look at Kaiju as campaign specific but I do look at the demon lords, empyreal lords, devil princes, etc. as campaign specific and if they can be in a hardcover book then most of the creatures from the Innersea Bestiary could be.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Monster Manuals 4 and 5 kind of formating... God was that horrible...
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
No more wiggy names. I want to be able to pronounce the name of the monsters I am throwing at my players. Call it what it is. If it is a rockman then call it a rockman, not a phaloogago.
No more wiggy names. I want to be able to pronounce the name of the monsters I am throwing at my players. Call it what it is. If it is a rockman then call it a rockman, not a phaloogago.
Huh... any example?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
No more wiggy names. I want to be able to pronounce the name of the monsters I am throwing at my players. Call it what it is. If it is a rockman then call it a rockman, not a phaloogago.Huh... any example?
How about the "manananggal"? It's like "banana"--I never know when to stop with the "an-an-an" bit.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I'm more interested in templates, and perhaps "advanced" versions of other monsters. I'd love to see some sort of variant list of ghouls, for example, that take into account what sort of creature they were before they became undead--sort of like was done with the half-demons presented in Demons Revisited. That kinda stuff.
How about the "manananggal"? It's like "banana"--I never know when to stop with the "an-an-an" bit.No more wiggy names. I want to be able to pronounce the name of the monsters I am throwing at my players. Call it what it is. If it is a rockman then call it a rockman, not a phaloogago.Huh... any example?
Blame Filipino (for that particular monstrosity). Most of those weirdly named creatures (all which I can recall in fact) are creatures from real world's myths. Creatures invented for the purpose of the bestiaries can be usually recognized by simpler names in plain English.
Another is the "penanggalen".
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am fine with keeping complicated names for real life monsters. I tend to think it's a bit of a disservice when you simplify things to much. And if a name is too simple, like "rockman" I tend to get a cheesy vibe from it, which doesn't make me want to use it.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Agreed, but sometimes I wish they'd include the pronunciation in a creature's description. Would especially help with languages that are much different than English (like Filipino, for example).
| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hmmm... how about that they add an alternate name for some of the names with complex names? For instance, using B4:
"Gashadokuro", also known as "famine skeletons"...
"Julunggali", also known as the "ophidian avatar"...
"Rokurokubi", also known as "snake hags"...
"Ypotryll", also known as "bull boars"...
This reminds a bit on Eberron, where the dinosaurs' names were literally changed from their scientific names to ones used by the locals. A T-Rex was renamed "Swordtooth Titan".
Maybe Paizo could play with this and come up with common names for monsters with complex names, y'know, to reflect how the locals might know of this specific creature.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am fine with the names but what would be nice would be in the creatures description/ecology information they would but the proper pronunciation in ().
I hated those names for dinosaurs for Eberron, it wouldn't be that hard for you as a DM or playing a character to name things as wished though.
I am not tired of giants and there is plenty in myth that can still be used. I also fine with terrain/element named giants as well. I would like to see races of giants resemble other humanoid races like catfolk, lashunta, goblin, lizardfolk, etc.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Less undead, more fey and devils!
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not finding any of these hard to pronounce. "Wiggy names" feels like a backhanded slap to "forrin kultcha".
While perhaps not kee-rect, here's how I say these:
Penangalen - "penan-gallen"
Manananggal - "manna-nan-gle" or (more likely) "mananan-gle"
Rokurokubi - "roh-koo-rokoo-bee"
Ypotryll - "ee-potrill"
Julungalli - "joolun-gah-lee"
Gashadokuro - "gash-ah-doh-koo-roh"
Our game is predicated on archaic and esoteric terminology and has taught generations of us to expand our minds and knowledge horizons. Far be it from me to appear to defend complex nomenclature for complexity's sake, but reducing everything to common names would make for a drab world. Still, there's no reason villagers seeing a vextrikaloxtagore for the first time (or hundredth) would "know" that was it's name and might call it the "accursed three horned maw-fiend" - unless in their language that is vextrikaloxtagore.
|
Agree about the giants. Then again I think Paizo is running into the same problem with the Bestiary like Wotc did with their monster Manual. too many monster that are imo similar. As well as much as I like more monsters it maybe time to reduce the amount of Bestiary they publish. With four of them as well as 3PP support they maybe running out of ideas.
I'm not finding any of these hard to pronounce. "Wiggy names" feels like a backhanded slap to "forrin kultcha".
Not at all. It's just a case that I prefer names to be more suitable for inclusion in a generic fantasy setting. The beastiaries are meant to be books of monsters for Pathfinder, not a guide to monsters from around the world. Hence my comment that a rockman should be a rockman, for example.
I get turned away from using many of the beasties in books 3 & 4 because a lof of them are nigh unpronounceable.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If they eliminate all the monsters people "dislike" or think there are enough of they just might decide they have enough bestiaries :) Then everyone could be happy... or would that be unhappy? I never expect to use everything in a bestiary. Does anybody? I pick and choose. I've been doing it since the original Bestiary. Bestiary 4 is no different. There are some good ones I'll use, some few that make me roll my eyes, some that, cool or not, have no place in my game and a lot of others that are meh and will be used or not depending on the needs of my game. Overall the good outweighs the bad and even the "meh" are pretty well done. As for the art... why would anyone let that decide on whether or not to use a monster? *sigh*
With the Otyugh I see it more as a the sound people made when they seen it and it eventually stuck as the name.
On the Devil/Demon names: A lot actually do come from mythology.
What I do is simply what many suggest. I change the name to what the locals use.
Heck, the last game I ran had Draugr but they were called The Frostborn. Then they encountered the Eaglekin(Strix). Heck, They even encountered a small group of Raptors called Ripper Lizards. I did re-skin them as sightly different strains but they were the same stats. Similar to how a Ulfen & Taldan are Humans but slightly different do to their environment.
Honestly I could do without everything but more Bestial Races that use Class Levels for Advancement. Things akin to the Beastmen of Final Fantasy XI & XIV.
Better a bestiary with some monsters I don't like than no bestiary at all.
Exactly.
yeah pretty much.
I would rather have a handful of monsters taking up space that I might not like, than to not have that space at all.
At any rate, I suspect Bestiaries will probably no longer be an annual thing, which should help ease any sense of repetitiveness/unoriginality in monsters.
I can see us getting one every other year or so...
Personally I could see us getting a series of books akin to the Inner Sea Bestiary and such with maybe a bit more detail...
Hmmm... Maybe a Series like what I mentioned in the Blood of the Moon Thread would be a good way to augment it?
That is a Camp Annals type Series that covers specific types and subtypes of monsters.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can see us getting a bestiary every year. Well at least until we get 5-7 Bestiaries. I wouldn't mind a bestiary that is nothing but reprints so we could get caught up on the APs and other products.
The only books like the Innersea Bestiary I would be interested in would be the Distant Worlds Bestiary, the Arcadia Bestiary, the Tian Xia Bestiary, the Garund bestiary, The Azlant Bestiary, the Saurusan Bestiary, or the Casmaron Bestiary. I wouldn't have interest in a Innersea Bestiary 2 or a Mythic Bestiary. Though more then any of these I would love to see a Distant Worlds Bestiary.
The longer I have to wait between Bestiaries the more critical and picky I get.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Distant World Bestiary... Yup-yup! Hopefully hardcover and very-very thick.
One thing I don't want to see in bestiaries are already existing monsters with levels and tactics added like it was done in D&D Monster Manuals 4 and 5 (IIRC) - I want new monsters (or at least monsters from AP bestiary entries reprinted for use by those who do not follow APs).
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can see us getting a bestiary every year. Well at least until we get 5-7 Bestiaries. I wouldn't mind a bestiary that is nothing but reprints so we could get caught up on the APs and other products.
Last time I asked for that, I got smacked down big time, like "NO, WE DON'T WANT AP MONSTERS IN BESTIARIES! GET OUT OF HERE!"
Give me a separate book called "Adventure Path Bestiary" with 300 monsters from the APs. Look, the APs have a lot of unique monsters that could be used anywhere else. However, not everyone is willing to buy each and every AP booklet to get the monsters.
Yes, some monsters have been reprinted in Bestiaries, but only a fraction.
As I think back about it, I don't really want B5 to have loads of AP monsters as well, BUT I'd like to get a separate spin-off-like book that regroups ALL the monsters from APs.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I can see us getting a bestiary every year. Well at least until we get 5-7 Bestiaries. I wouldn't mind a bestiary that is nothing but reprints so we could get caught up on the APs and other products.
The only books like the Innersea Bestiary I would be interested in would be the Distant Worlds Bestiary, the Arcadia Bestiary, the Tian Xia Bestiary, the Garund bestiary, The Azlant Bestiary, the Saurusan Bestiary, or the Casmaron Bestiary. I wouldn't have interest in a Innersea Bestiary 2 or a Mythic Bestiary. Though more then any of these I would love to see a Distant Worlds Bestiary.
The longer I have to wait between Bestiaries the more critical and picky I get.
Well, I feel if getting a bestiary every year was a surefire thing now, The developers wouldn't be so cautious on the matter, and wouldn't say things like "There might not be a bestiary 5.
At this stage in the game, Hardcover bestiaries are sharing space with NPC Codexes. That series has yet to cover a non-core class or race. So I really do think we are either going to get a NPC codex 2 or a Monster codex next fall. There is also the possibility of a template book (James Jacob would like to do one) or Ultimate Monster type book showing up in this slot.
I can see us getting a bestiary every year. Well at least until we get 5-7 Bestiaries. I wouldn't mind a bestiary that is nothing but reprints so we could get caught up on the APs and other products.Last time I asked for that, I got smacked down big time, like "NO, WE DON'T WANT AP MONSTERS IN BESTIARIES! GET OUT OF HERE!"
Give me a separate book called "Adventure Path Bestiary" with 300 monsters from the APs. Look, the APs have a lot of unique monsters that could be used anywhere else. However, not everyone is willing to buy each and every AP booklet to get the monsters.
Yes, some monsters have been reprinted in Bestiaries, but only a fraction.
As I think back about it, I don't really want B5 to have loads of AP monsters as well, BUT I'd like to get a separate spin-off-like book that regroups ALL the monsters from APs.
I don't recall people shouting you down for putting AP monsters in Bestiaries. I think people were shouting you down for the idea of a Reprint only Bestiary. Which to be honest would I think sell less, since there are consumers who would not buy a compendium if it didn't promise at least some new monsters.
There is another thing to consider too. A big motivation I suspect for reprinting monsters is to save space/time/art budget on monsters. I don't remember how many AP/CS monsters are in the current bestiary, but let's say at least 25% (might be more?). That means that a fourth of the book doesn't need a design pass or solicitation of stats and (in most cases) art. That's got to be a huge save on time.
Now...if they did a reprint volume, taking in account that many monsters have probably already been reprinted, and that some like heralds are too campaign specific to be in a hardcover book, One hardcover volume would probably cover pretty much all the remaining monsters (if it was released next year). That means that if they were to do Bestiary 5, things would be all the more difficult for them, as it would require way more work than previous bestiaries. That means it's likely either we would have a smaller book, or you would start running into the problems WOTC had, where less than inspiring/interesting monsters and such were included within to fill space. So at some level Bestiary 5 would probably be an inferior book than prior bestiaries under that model.
Thank you for making this topic! Now I can unleash my negative feelings into the world without making a crime! THank you! I didn't had the balls to create such a topic!
I agree about the Landscape Giants, Landscape/Elemental drakes!
I also hope there won't be new Rakshasa, Inevitables and Aeons in it.
Also: Normal Animal-planet animals, dire versions of animals (I do like the megafauna tho) and gothic art in the bestiary is pretty outmatched by the other artwork.
Templates are fine and all but I rather see them in their own tome or book.
Lords and that stuff are better off in their own tome/book for me personally, but that isn't going to happen anyway so...
Most importantly im tired of humanoid undead... I want more non-humanoid undead.
I don't recall people shouting you down for putting AP monsters in Bestiaries. I think people were shouting you down for the idea of a Reprint only Bestiary. Which to be honest would I think sell less, since there are consumers who would not buy a compendium if it didn't promise at least some new monsters.
Well, "shouting me down"... not THAT hard, but a lot of people complained about that and that they wanted more of new monsters than reprints.
There is another thing to consider too. A big motivation I suspect for reprinting monsters is to save space/time/art budget on monsters. I don't remember how many AP/CS monsters are in the current bestiary, but let's say at least 25% (might be more?). That means that a fourth of the book doesn't need a design pass or solicitation of stats and (in most cases) art. That's got to be a huge save on time.
Is Paizo pressured by someone else to release books on a steady schedule? yes, people wanted a 4th Bestiary, but I don't think that they rushed it out of the window. Pretty sure, they said: "Hey, they would like a 4th Bestiary. Let's start working on that until we have 300." I don't think that they need to hurry up with big books. Paizo already have a steady Stream of materials with the Adventure Paths in term of revenues and their Paizo store surely helps them a bit as well.
They can take 8 months to write a Bestiary, and no one will care about the time it takes because we're not that obsessive about it.
Now...if they did a reprint volume, taking in account that many monsters have probably already been reprinted, and that some like heralds are too campaign specific to be in a hardcover book, One hardcover volume would probably cover pretty much all the remaining monsters (if it was released next year). That means that if they were to do Bestiary 5, things would be all the more difficult for them, as it would require way more work than previous bestiaries. That means it's likely either we would have a smaller book, or you would start running into the problems WOTC had, where less than inspiring/interesting monsters and such were included within to fill space. So at some level Bestiary 5 would probably be an inferior book than prior bestiaries under that model.
Ok, I'll give it to you that it can be hard to come up with imaginative monsters for bestiaries. However, I once asked James Jacobs about the creative process for bestiaries and he told me that they voluntarily "plant seeds" in books so they can come back to them when it comes to make new monsters. Y'know those little text boxes they write sometimes? They use them once in a while.
Level of quality? Hmmm... I don't know. There is a lot of other folkloric creatures that can be converted, a lot of animals and insects are waiting to be converted and of course, any remaining species of a major creature group. For instance, we have yet to see the other 11 Kaijus. So in terms of content, they have plenty of that remaining ^_^
Well the thing is the Paizo crew is not very large, and even when they focus there efforts at the upcoming releases they still pretty continually have to delay products. See all the references to the Gencon crunch. They literally can not spend any time working on a project that isn't X months out. I don't think they have the luxury of slowly building new monsters for the bestiary, not with three other rulebooks a year plus AP's, modules, campaign setting books, player companions, etc. They pretty much have no time to focus on anything that doesn't have an immediate deadline.
Of course, I am sure there are some extra monsters lying around, either critters cut for bad art/space reasons from existing products, or homebrewed monsters for games with Paizo DM's. But I doubt there are significant numbers of those monsters to really make much of a difference.
I think the people at Paizo know what there doing and make there plans way in advance with most, if not all there products. While Bestiaries take a lot of work they are not as hard as making new classes, rules, spells, etc. things that can have a lot more impact on the game then something you will fight for a couple of rounds or at least die trying;)