
Sean K Reynolds Designer, RPG Superstar Judge |
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Hello!
1) Chris Lambertz says she should be posting the R2 rules before this weekend. That'll include the specifications for CR and so on.
2) Adam "master of the Adventure Path monsters" Daigle is going to post some monster-design advice once the R2 rules are ready. Similar to my "auto-reject" rules for wondrous items, the intent of his advice posts are to help you design better monsters and avoid pitfalls that might make your R2 submission fare poorly with the judges and voters.
{the more you know...}

Jacob Trier RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8 |

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Cthulhudrew Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 |

Oh, cool. I've already got my monster concept and basics roughed out in my head, and was going to try and start statting it up this weekend, so this will be great to see!
(Planning on working on my round 3 idea as well. Maybe even plot out my round 4 entry some more than it is in my head.
That's right! I'm planning on going the distance!!!)

Curaigh Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 |

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Georgios Avate Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 aka Gio |

I just finished my first "in-case" monster draft, now I wonder if the round's twist will have any effects on it!
Revealing the twist this early will dramatically reduce the amount of different monsters I'll prepare this time around, I appreciate that!
Advice on monster creation?!, really?!, That is going to be so awesome and helpful!!

Jacob W. Michaels RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor |

Kiel Howell RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka theheadkase |

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Oh, cool. I've already got my monster concept and basics roughed out in my head, and was going to try and start statting it up this weekend, so this will be great to see!
(Planning on working on my round 3 idea as well. Maybe even plot out my round 4 entry some more than it is in my head.
That's right! I'm planning on going the distance!!!)
I'm doing the same. Are there any general templates out there for the later rounds, maybe from earlier years? I've some rough ideas sketched out, but I don't have a clear idea of the word count for a pitch.

Kalervo Oikarinen RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8 |

Jacob W. Michaels RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor |

Nazard Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 |

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Oh dear, I'm going to have to totally retool my beastie or start from scratch.
Yeah, totally from scratch for me. So much for the alpine wilderness creature I was writing up.
Thanks for giving us enough time to retool.

Jacob W. Michaels RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka motteditor |

R D Ramsey Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Clouds Without Water |

Nickolas Floyd RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Phloid |

I can't say I'm excited about the low CR of this year's monster round. I thought last year's entries were a little mundane and it had one greater CR limit. Everyone better bring their best ideas to the table for this one. Low level monsters are not easy. Good luck top 32.
At least this year there is no creature type restrictions. I hope that wasn't an oversight that they will spring on us as the deadline gets closer.

Eric Morton RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Epic Meepo |

PathlessBeth Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 |
Entry must be a new Golarion monster (not world-neutral or set in a world other than Golarion).
That's somewhat disappointing.
Oh well, I guess that won't change how I determine what to vote for (I ask the question "if I bought this in a product, would I feel it was money well spent?"), although it does somewhat lower my expectations for quality useability. *EDIT:
*for like, a few minutes before I look at past years entries and look at the requirements again, and decide that I can probably adapt any good entry to what the heck:D

Jeff Lee |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Quote:Entry must be a new Golarion monster (not world-neutral or set in a world other than Golarion).That's somewhat disappointing.
Oh well, I guess that won't change how I determine what to vote for, although it does somewhat lower my expectations for quality useability.
I don't see why it would lower their useability any. It's easy enough to change "City of X on Golarion" to "City of Y anywhere else but Golarion." I've yoinked monsters from all sorts of world-specific books for my own campaigns.

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PathlessBeth Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Dedicated Voter Season 9 |
137ben wrote:I don't see why it would lower their useability any. It's easy enough to change "City of X on Golarion" to "City of Y anywhere else but Golarion." I've yoinked monsters from all sorts of world-specific books for my own campaigns.Quote:Entry must be a new Golarion monster (not world-neutral or set in a world other than Golarion).That's somewhat disappointing.
Oh well, I guess that won't change how I determine what to vote for, although it does somewhat lower my expectations for quality useability.
If that is the only thing I need to change, then you are correct, it certainly wouldn't lower useability:)
It only becomes an issue when a large portion of the monster entry is tied to a setting in some way. Usually, this only happens for monsters with loooong fluffy descriptions. If I need to discard or rewrite a substantial amount of description, then the part of the cost that goes towards that description is a waste for me.As far as mechanics go, good monster stats almost never depend on campaign-specific things, so I would agree with you, at least partially.
Really, I just get somewhat annoyed with overly-long descriptions that drive up the word-count (and hence cost) that are hard to adapt to my game.
But come to think of it, I actually don't think it will be a huge issue in this year's RPG superstar, because the 600 word limit prevents a lot of the adaption issues I most frequently see in monsters.
So, yes, I changed my mind: I am now as excited for the monster round as I was before reading the rules/requirements:)

Curaigh Star Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 |

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Erick Wilson Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 |

CR 4 cap kills off the idea I had been playing on using...
Oh well the fun is in the creating side anyways!
When I first read the CR limit, I thought the same thing. I was really down about it. My monster was supposed to be CR 10! And then I suddenly realized it actually works even better this way...

Cthulhudrew Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 |

Matt Banach RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 aka Ezekiel Shanoax, the Stormchild |

"Entry cannot be or use a monster template (fiendish, lich, and so on)"
There are a lot of templates out there, many of them mimicking the features of a creature that could be designed without explicit use of a template but which would nevertheless end up looking very much like a creature with that template applied.
There is the official PRD list of simple templates here, but is there anywhere else we can check to make sure that we're not accidentally applying a template?
I apologize if this seems obtuse, but there are certain types of Bestiary entries that involve a certain type of monster which shares other characteristics with monsters of that type, which could be described as a template, and I wouldn't want to "accidentally" write up a monster of which it could be said "oh, that's just a Blahblahderbeast with the zombie template", for a not-actually-doing-that example.

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Me, I love low CR monsters. Those are the ones that are easiest to get to mob up, add a few templates to, really go to town if you need a bigger bad. Plus, maybe one of these bad boys will be that next great 1st level story...
This. Aside from "adventuring races" that take class levels, low CR monsters are some of my favorites, as they can be scaled up to match appropriately to parties as they level. While it's nice to keep introducing new and interesting monsters, it can also be nice to have a set of default monsters for any given adventure.
That said, I do think they are a bit harder to make memorable, as their powers need to be toned down. I think it's a nice challenge for the top 32 to come up with a way to make more mundane CR monsters interesting.

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There is the official PRD list of simple templates here, but is there anywhere else we can check to make sure that we're not accidentally applying a template?
The d20 PFSRD has a pretty massive storage base, and includes some of the more obscure templates. Alchemically Invisible, for example, was from the Rival Guide, and as such isn't listed on the official PRD.

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Kalervo Oikarinen RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8 |

Mark Griffin RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8 , Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka Mark D Griffin |

My practice monster was CR 5, any Urban. I thought choosing urban as the environment would help me stand out, because it's been uncommon in previous years. Looks like that is no longer true. Now I have to look real hard at my monster and make sure he'd stand out from a whole slew of urban monsters. Assuming the improbable happens, and I advance.

Matt Banach RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 aka Ezekiel Shanoax, the Stormchild |

The Notes for the Competitors say: "When you are finished, your stat block shouldn't have any "blank" entries like "DR —.""
That makes sense with respect to stuff like DR, which many creatures don't have...
But: Does this also apply to essential statistics, such as Int, Con, CMB, and CMD?
For instance, undead creatures don't have a Constitution score, their stat block typically includes the usual array of base stats, with "Con —" serving as a placeholder to remind us that the undead doesn't have a Con score... and because a stat array without a Con spot would just look weird, and seem like a typo as opposed to a purposeful omission.
I figure that in the end, substance and reasonable adherence to the prompt will win out over the technicalities, but it'd be nice to have a clarification to make sure that the judges aren't expecting something format-wise that is purposefully divergent from the way we usually see things in the Bestiary.