Congratulations to the Top 16, Round 3 Speculation (Unofficial)

[Lucus Palosaari]

Congratulations Top 16, commiserations to the rest. Well done all around. I doubt I could have entered a solid enough map to have advanced.

Now while the Top 16 can't talk about Round 3 -- we can!

I totally didn't know anything about the location, Nar-Voth, but thank you people behind Pathfinder Wiki because you're awesome.

[Isaac Volynskiy]

Sounds like the land of Badgermoles. Or at least some type of terror-mole.

[Curaigh]

Well done Top 16! Well done!

[Crystal Malarsky]

Congrats to the Top 16! Regardless of if you advanced or not, all 32 + alternates did a fantastic job. You guys should be really proud of yourselves.

[Scott Fernandez]

Congratulations to all the Top 32, well done. This was perhaps your first taste of freelancing and a sample of what the pressure can be like to crank out work on a deadline.

Top 16 get ready this next step is a BIG one! I can't wait to see what beasties you populate Golarion's uppermost region of the Darklands.

--Monster Stat Vrock

[Jeff Lee]

Congratulations, Top 16!

The uppermost levels of the Darklands. A fine place to brew monsters. I speculate that we'll see a mix of aberrations, oozes, and monstrous humanoids, with a handful of other types in the mix. Perhaps someone will try their hand at a new gremlin.

[Jacob W. Michaels]

I was thinking a Darklands fey could be very cool.

I'm really excited for the monster round.

[BiggusGeekus]

Jeff Lee wrote:

Congratulations, Top 16!

The uppermost levels of the Darklands. A fine place to brew monsters. I speculate that we'll see a mix of aberrations, oozes, and monstrous humanoids, with a handful of other types in the mix. Perhaps someone will try their hand at a new gremlin.

Ppppfffft!

Dire Naked Mole Rat ftw

[Jeff Heikkinen]

It's pretty flexible. It does rule out some concepts, but it leaves enough open that I imagine we'll see a pretty wide variety.

I haven't started writing mine in earnest yet (I do have a pretty good idea what I'm going to do), but I suspect the word count rule will be the tough one.

[Jeff Lee]

Word count shouldn't be too much of a problem, so long as you cut any spare language. I checked the entry I wrote when I was an alternate, and it comes in at 598 words, with 174 for the descriptive text and the rest being the stat block, and that's with three special abilities.

[Jaragil]

Jeff Lee wrote:

The uppermost levels of the Darklands. A fine place to brew monsters. I speculate that we'll see a mix of aberrations, oozes, and monstrous humanoids, with a handful of other types in the mix. Perhaps someone will try their hand at a new gremlin.

Don't know about oozes. Hard to be truly creative with those. Then again, this is Superstar, so if you can pull off an ooze that feels fresh, you have certainly proven your worth. At least in my books.

I think that undead might turn out to be rather popular. Though personally I too am hoping for some dark fey.

And of course, congratulations to the Top 16!

[Master Pugwampi]

Jeff Lee wrote:

... Perhaps someone will try their hand at a new gremlin.

Yes, please! We have been shockingly underrepresented in past monster rounds!

...oh, yeah...congratulations...Top 16...yadda yadda yadda...

[CripDyke]

Of course I've already congratulated the top 32+4, but I will say again, that I'm glad for all of you. Each and every one of you taught me something.

As for the top 16, well, the maps are potentially interesting, but not what I've been waiting for. My plots don't always permit the adoption of others' sites. And while others' monsters are likewise unlikely to become a **feature** in my game, they can (and I'm sure will) make appearances - especially in the CR 4-7 sweet spot, which, given the contest rules, all the new monsters must fit within. Bwahahahahaha. (A bit sad to see the CR4 neglect, b/c they really make the perfect capstone BBEoLs for the level 1-2 characters and thus tend to define "terror" for the bulk of common folk, but really, I'll live).

So rock on, congratulations, let's see something spectacular that I can use in my games!

[Lucus Palosaari]

So, especially with the Occult Adventures playtest having happened (and thus us getting a "taste" of Paizo's psychic magic, anyone think someone will go for a psionic creature of some sort (likely aberrant, though derro have some potential and I wouldn't be completely surprised if there were a psi-brain-ooze)...?

That said, I don't actually personally like psionics much, though it is one way to make aberrants aberrant <I have always loved the illithid, and it's one of the few WotC-IP races I miss>.

In one sense too, that may be too obvious. It's just that the Nar-Voth is one of like three or four places that psioncis is mentioned as existing on Golarion and, as I said, the Occult Adventures stuff might have keyed people up <though I think those actual rules are 100% not safe to copy/paste, right?>

[Lady Firedove]

Congrats, Top 16!
I think each one of you made a creative, beautiful map that could inspire many fun adventures.
Great job! :)

As for round 3, I am also curious what people will come up with to populate the upper tunnels of the darklands. I wouldn't be surprised if Paizo uses some (or even all) of the monster submissions in an upcoming collection or Nar-Voth supplement. As some others have mentioned, I, too, would enjoy seeing some kind of dark fey creature!

[Jacob W. Michaels]

Lucus Palosaari wrote:

So, especially with the Occult Adventures playtest having happened (and thus us getting a "taste" of Paizo's psychic magic, anyone think someone will go for a psionic creature of some sort (likely aberrant, though derro have some potential and I wouldn't be completely surprised if there were a psi-brain-ooze)...?

I think they generally steer folks away from using products that haven't been officially released yet.

That said, I'm curious if someone will go for mythic rules again...

[Adam Daigle]

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

Lucus Palosaari wrote:

So, especially with the Occult Adventures playtest having happened (and thus us getting a "taste" of Paizo's psychic magic, anyone think someone will go for a psionic creature of some sort (likely aberrant, though derro have some potential and I wouldn't be completely surprised if there were a psi-brain-ooze)...?

I think they generally steer folks away from using products that haven't been officially released yet.

That said, I'm curious if someone will go for mythic rules again...

You're totally right. Since we don't have final rules for psychic magic yet, it would be irresponsible for someone to use material from the Occult Adventures playtest. (Though I totally understand the urge to use the shiny new toys.)

However, it would give me a chance to ding people for using the term psionic instead of psychic. It's a new pet peeve of mine. :D

[Lucus Palosaari]

Adam Daigle wrote:

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

Lucus Palosaari wrote:

So, especially with the Occult Adventures...

I think they generally steer folks away...

You're totally right. Since we don't have final rules for psychic magic yet, it would be irresponsible for someone to use material from the Occult Adventures playtest. (Though I totally understand the urge to use the shiny new toys.)

However, it would give me a chance to ding people for using the term psionic instead of psychic. It's a new pet peeve of mine. :D

A Question about if the term PSIONIC is anywhere else besides the Campaign Guide, spoilered to not distract from mainpoint of thread, to congratulate Top 16 and speculate on Round 3:

You know Adam, I hadn't realized till right now that Paizo had been able to never use "psionic" in any of their "psychic" monsters and psychic objects/classes/etc., like the neothelid, psychonaut, and the psychic imprinter. My own use of both psionic and psychic (I was trying to go back and forth) was because of the Pathfinder Wiki articles' use, which I assumed meant Pathfinder included its use in passing at least for these kinds of things, but actually it doesn't (Search of PRD returned zero results).

It looks like, from that Wiki's citations, it's used a little, like on Pg. 13 of the Campaign Setting book, talking about half-elves discovering psicrystals: "It was while researching this strange resonance that a pair of psionically endowed half-elves, Samelu Sonshima of Vudra and Alysande Morinel of Taldor, awakened the first psicrystals." and then it gets a whole two page spread in the same book on pages 234 and 235.

Are there no other references in other Golarion-specific books using "psionic"?

[Lucus Palosaari]

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

That said, I'm curious if someone will go for mythic rules again...

I am hoping, out 16 people, one would try. But I'm guessing they wouldn't dare, as Mythic is a contentious thing, and few people "really" like it (from what I've seen on the forums, I think it's neat and appreciate the whole addition of Mythic).

Also the CR is kind of low I'd guess, at best you'd get one mythic tier?

[Jarrett Sigler]

Just want to say congradulations to the Top 16 competitors.

Best of luck to you in the next round.

Those of you who didn't make top 16, know that your maps were well done! You are awesome. Good job.

[Adam Daigle]

Lucus Palosaari wrote:

...

Spoiler:

It's not that we can't use the word psionics, it's just that Occult Adventures is focusing on psychic magic. I know it's semantics at this point, but we're really going for a different vibe than psi-crystals and all that. I just did a search of our whole PDF catalog and the word "psionics" hasn't shown up since 2009 (and even then it was only in a handful of sources), and all were from books written for 3.5. When we released the Inner Sea World Guide to replace the aging Campaign Setting book, we did some clean up of some of the ideas presented in early material and got the setting a bit more on track with where we wanted it. That's why you haven't seen psi-crystals or psionics in anything recent (or even since Pathfinder was released).

[Grumpus]

Master Pugwampi wrote:

Jeff Lee wrote:

... Perhaps someone will try their hand at a new gremlin.

Yes, please! We have been shockingly underrepresented in past monster rounds!

...oh, yeah...congratulations...Top 16...yadda yadda yadda...

My Mugrog gremlin from last year got 2 of 3 judges approval , but voters didnt like it, so be careful. Also gremlins usually don't go much higher than CR2.

[Master Pugwampi]

Grumpus wrote:

Master Pugwampi wrote:

Jeff Lee wrote:

... Perhaps someone will try their hand at a new gremlin.

Yes, please! We have been shockingly underrepresented in past monster rounds!

...oh, yeah...congratulations...Top 16...yadda yadda yadda...

My Mugrog gremlin from last year got 2 of 3 judges approval , but voters didnt like it, so be careful. Also gremlins usually don't go much higher than CR2.

HA! But that wasn't a feral primitive super pugwampi!

Anyway, I'm sure the monsters that can be produced by these designers will rock everybody's socks off. They'll be so good that when gremlins cause large numbers of them to stampede great amounts of hilarity will ensue! >:)

[Krazee12]

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

I was thinking a Darklands fey could be very cool.

One of the monster templates is debased (or dark) fey, as is fey. Since using a monster template is against the rules, I don't think a dark fey is allowed.

Also most of the undead are templates as well so wouldn't be allowed.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

To be clear, while psionics, as a word, appeared in 3.5 Golarion material, as Adam mentioned it's not aqn idea the Pathfinder RPG has picked up. It is not part of the Pathfinder RPG rules. Don't use it.
No official psychic rules have been released yet for Pathfinder. Don't use playtest rules.

[Jeff Lee]

Krazee12 wrote:

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

I was thinking a Darklands fey could be very cool.

One of the monster templates is debased (or dark) fey, as is fey. Since using a monster template is against the rules, I don't think a dark fey is allowed.

Also most of the undead are templates as well so wouldn't be allowed.

One can make a fey designed to live in the Darklands without using the dark fey template, just as one can create new undead creatures without slapping a template on something else. I don't see what the problem is here.

[Krazee12]

Jeff Lee wrote:

One can make a fey designed to live in the Darklands without using the dark fey template, just as one can create new undead creatures without slapping a template on something else. I don't see what the problem is here.

So if you call something dark fey and use just 1 aspect of the template, is that using the template? What about using everything in the template except for 1 aspect is that using the template? Where is the cut-off point?

If you call something dark fey and do not use anything from the template then why are you calling it dark fey?

Dark fey are a slightly complicated case because it is the dark fey template on top of the fey template.

I would think that a monster that does not use anything from the dark fey or fey template would be difficult to be considered a dark fey.
And something that used some aspects of the template may be against the rules.

[Jeff Lee]

I think you're taking Jacob and Jaragil's use of the words "dark fey" too literally. I believe they mean they want to see some sinister, evil, underground-dwelling fey. It's certainly possible to make evil fey without using the debased fey template (and using that template would be a double no-no, since it's not only a template, but not Paizo material.) Also, "dark" isn't an alternate name for it. It's simply "debased fey."

Twigjacks, ankou, tooth faeries, and gremlins are just a few of the examples of "dark" fey already in existence. In this case a contestant would want to develop a new type of fey that fits well in the Nar-Voth environment. It wouldn't necessarily even have to be evil, but you would want something that fits with the flavor of lightless, underground environments.

[Eric Hindley]

I think a competitor could make a psychic or Psionic "compatible" monster without a single mention of either rule set. Whether that's a good choice would certainly depend on the execution, but a mind-controlling creature could easily be seen as having Psionic roots without using a single rule from Ultimate Psionics. By the same token, mystic telekinesis is not limited to Occult Adventures, and shouldn't be seen as such.

All just in my experience, of course.

[Jacob W. Michaels]

I said Darklands fey, not dark fey. Jeff Lee's right about my meaning, at least.

And fey isn't a template, it's a creature type.

[Krazee12]

Jacob W. Michaels wrote:

And fey isn't a template, it's a creature type.

Actually it is both, fey is a creature type and a template.

And there are 4 fey templates:

Fey Animal (CR +1)
Fey Creature (CR +1 or +2)
Fey Touched (CR +1)
Debased (or Dark) Fey (CR +1)

[Lady Firedove]

I did say "some kind of a dark fey creature," but I meant some sinister new variant of the creature type. I was not suggesting a template be used.

[Lady Firedove]

Also, slightly off topic, but since I'm not supposed to post in the Guildhall thread, I'll say it here:
I love how both Scott's and Chris's avatars look like they're doing Zumba. :)

(That counts as congratulating them... Right?)

[Adam Daigle]

Eric Hindley wrote:

I think a competitor could make a psychic or Psionic "compatible" monster without a single mention of either rule set. Whether that's a good choice would certainly depend on the execution, but a mind-controlling creature could easily be seen as having Psionic roots without using a single rule from Ultimate Psionics. By the same token, mystic telekinesis is not limited to Occult Adventures, and shouldn't be seen as such.

All just in my experience, of course.

I totally agree, Eric.

[Adam Daigle]

Regarding "dark" fey: I think the lampad is a good example of what folks were talking about. (Underground fey creature. Not to mention, one that totally fits within the Round's rules... except that whole "new" thing.)

[Eric Hindley]

Adam Daigle wrote:

Eric Hindley wrote:

I think a competitor could make a psychic or Psionic "compatible" monster without a single mention of either rule set. Whether that's a good choice would certainly depend on the execution, but a mind-controlling creature could easily be seen as having Psionic roots without using a single rule from Ultimate Psionics. By the same token, mystic telekinesis is not limited to Occult Adventures, and shouldn't be seen as such.

All just in my experience, of course.

I totally agree, Eric.

Ha! Vindication! I'm going to quote this forever ;)

Though seriously, it really can be done...

[Lucus Palosaari]

Adam Daigle wrote:

Lucus Palosaari wrote:

...

I just did a search of our whole PDF catalog and the word "psionics" hasn't shown up since 2009 (and even then it was only in a handful of sources), and all were from books written for 3.5.

Thank you for doing that search! The fact that you were able to and did is very awesome.

Also, considering your comments to the matter, I've always felt Paizo has a really solid grasp on the vision they want to bring to fruition and has done an incredible job charting that course (mixing metaphors, oops). This just confirms it. Thank you

[Lucus Palosaari]

Eric Hindley wrote:

Adam Daigle wrote:

Eric Hindley wrote:

I think a competitor could make a psychic or Psionic "compatible" monster without a single mention of either rule set. Whether that's a good choice would certainly depend on the execution, but a mind-controlling creature could easily be seen as having Psionic roots without using a single rule from Ultimate Psionics. By the same token, mystic telekinesis is not limited to Occult Adventures, and shouldn't be seen as such.

All just in my experience, of course.

I totally agree, Eric.

Ha! Vindication! I'm going to quote this forever ;)

Though seriously, it really can be done...

Hard-Mode?

[R D Ramsey]

I've got my favorites for the Top 4, based on the first two rounds. Conveniently there are 4 contestants I feel have been very strong in each round.

Can't wait to see if they make it!