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I'm assuming they're going to still give us the traditional outsider families we've always had (devil, agathion, protean etc), instead of actually starting from scratch. But, can we at least rework them to be more distinctive? Can we have devils that feel totally different from demons in both mechanics and flavor?
Since they seemingly have to be alignment based, at least lean into that. Let's say:
- Lawful outsiders like Angels, Inevitables and Devils have hard coded abilities. Being paragons of Law enforces conformity. These are the most "traditional" of the outsider monsters. Every tome archon is the same as every other tome archon.
- Chaotic outsiders like Azatas, Proteans and Demons are wildly different. These have a base "chassis" that is then customized with different mutagenic / ability "slots" to represent how as paragons of Chaos, every example of a given "species" is different from every other. Some demons of the same family will spit fire but others will spit ice and others shoot webs. Each lillend azata can be reasonably expected to play differently from each other lillend azata.
- Neutral outsiders like Agathions, Daemons and... Aeons? Never felt interesting enough to use the neutral ones so I barely know them. ANYWAY. These are somewhere in between the above two. They have a strong core like the Lawful outsiders, but then they bolt class features onto this. You can reasonably expect two different Neutrals of the same type to have a core set of the same racial abilities, but they will have different class abilities. So one Vulpinal Agathion may have a number of levels of Bard abilities, while his friend has the same number of levels of Sorcerer abilities.
It may be possible to continue this distinction by giving siimilar design objectives to unify Good vs Neutral vs Evil, but the Law-Chaos axis feels easier to design around.
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That sounds cool until someone summons a lillend azata and the GM needs to stop and customize it, or (possibly even worse) have the player do so. Let alone if they summon 1d3 of them.
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Just as a note : Angels are not Lawful, they are Neutral-Good.
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Just as a note : Angels are not Lawful, they are Neutral-Good.
They're all over the law-chaos axis, actually. Most are NG, but a few aren't. Only Agathions are all Neutral Good.
Archons are the LG one. Angels are any good but I think are listed as NG by default.
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That sounds cool until someone summons a lillend azata and the GM needs to stop and customize it, or (possibly even worse) have the player do so. Let alone if they summon 1d3 of them.
Summoning is already a gamestopper unless the GM enforces that characters with summoning spells have their stuff looked up ahead of time, instead of poring over the options in the monster manual. So if you want to summon chaotic outsiders, you have your little stat block already written out in your notes or you don't get to.
The GM would already have this worked out ahead of the adventure and presumably could just toss d100 a couple times to build it instantly if forced to improvise.
That sounds cool until someone summons a lillend azata and the GM needs to stop and customize it, or (possibly even worse) have the player do so. Let alone if they summon 1d3 of them.Summoning is already a gamestopper unless the GM enforces that characters with summoning spells have their stuff looked up ahead of time, instead of poring over the options in the monster manual. So if you want to summon chaotic outsiders, you have your little stat block already written out in your notes or you don't get to.
The GM would already have this worked out ahead of the adventure and presumably could just toss d100 a couple times to build it instantly if forced to improvise.
If they are really random, then the player has no right optimizing their summon! Roll on a huge table, the way Gygax intended! Then you keep that one forever until it dies.
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That sounds cool until someone summons a lillend azata and the GM needs to stop and customize it, or (possibly even worse) have the player do so. Let alone if they summon 1d3 of them.Summoning is already a gamestopper unless the GM enforces that characters with summoning spells have their stuff looked up ahead of time, instead of poring over the options in the monster manual. So if you want to summon chaotic outsiders, you have your little stat block already written out in your notes or you don't get to.
The GM would already have this worked out ahead of the adventure and presumably could just toss d100 a couple times to build it instantly if forced to improvise.
I agree here. If a player summons something, it's his or her job to have the stats ready
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I don't really agree with the reasoning of "it's already complicated enough that we may as well make it more complicated".
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That sounds cool until someone summons a lillend azata and the GM needs to stop and customize it, or (possibly even worse) have the player do so. Let alone if they summon 1d3 of them.Summoning is already a gamestopper unless the GM enforces that characters with summoning spells have their stuff looked up ahead of time, instead of poring over the options in the monster manual. So if you want to summon chaotic outsiders, you have your little stat block already written out in your notes or you don't get to.
The GM would already have this worked out ahead of the adventure and presumably could just toss d100 a couple times to build it instantly if forced to improvise.
If the player has to pre-prepare the stat block, it becomes just another vector for min/maxing rather than any kind of flavorful chaotic randomness.
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If the player has to pre-prepare the stat block, it becomes just another vector for min/maxing rather than any kind of flavorful chaotic randomness.
Option: summoning spells are not random. Every spell is bound to specific planar being and summon only astral projection of this one being, not a whatever. Ergo wizard can have 5 summon II prepared each with different being.
And you need to get info to make spell for specific being.
So once you have this summon lillend bard 2 spell, you need to craft another one to summon her cousin bloodrager 3
Actually would be cool to have sets of flash cards with the summonable monster stat blocks printed on them. I could have sworn to having seen a product page for something like that recently, but can't remember what it's called.
While we're at it, I'd like to see Daemons get a name that is less confusingly close to Demons, to let them come more into their own. How about Yuggothanes?
While we're at it, I'd like to see Daemons get a name that is less confusingly close to Demons, to let them come more into their own. How about Yuggothanes?
The word Yugoloth is WotC IP and not part of the OGL. Paizo won't do anything that uses or is too similar to any part of that word. That's also why the Arcanaloth and Ultroloth never appeared in PF1.
Yuggothane (note 2 'g's) looks/sounds more Lovecraftian (WotC doesn't own that). Remember Yuggoth?
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But why would we want NE soul trading fiends with a philosophy based around the 4 horses of apocalypsis sound like chaotic Lovecraftian alien creatures?
^Why not? Right now, they sound like chaotic fiends based upon sin.
I would strongly prefer that the different roles for different groups of outsiders be defined more at flavour level and less mechanistically than this; I see no reason for a set of Lawful outsiders not to have members adapted and organised for any of these mechanical functions.I would suggest alignment/role Sudoku:
Devils are tricky, so make the default role for devils be experts/skilled (I forget the specific name)
Daemons don't care if they live or die, just so long as they take someone with them--sounds like brute as the default role.
Demons want to corrupt things and want to be around to see it, so give them the soldier role.It is important for Inevitables to survive so they can tell anyone watching that justice was served (instead of a random monster attack just occured), so soldiers for them.
That would leave archons with brutes, which makes sense in a lawful stupid kind of way.
Psychocomps don't need to fight anyone, just get the souls where they need to go, so make them skilled/expert.
That leaves Agathions as soldiers, and since they used to be Guardinals back in 3x, that is a good fit.
Generally brutes are things that hit hard, but what if they just did something to you when they hit you? Under that scenario, proteans would make interesting brutes.
That leaves Azatas with the skilled/expert thing, which seems like a good fit for them.
Yeah, I think they should be made different via flavor and description, not necessarily mechanically.
Seems highly relevant to the thread to note Paizo stated they intend to reduce the tendency of broad "types" to come with fixed ability list. That is more to do with universal "Devil, Angel, etc" abilities and less variation within each given "race" but seems worth mentioning.
I don't really feel the alignment:modular racial ability thing as strongly as OP expresses it, but I do like idea Outsiders differentiated by class-aligned role, with respective members having abilities keyed to that class (generally 'counting as that class' allowing for optimal stacking with real class level etc). Whether or not fully explored in P2E B1, keeping that in mind seems like good idea to facilitate it's expression later.
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Because we already have actual Lovecraftian alien creatures in the game, and both qlippoth and the Dominion of the Black are in design spaces fairly close to that, so it's no less crowded a space than more traditional fiends. (Though I think daemons' being based on manners of dying, as it were, is quite sufficiently distinct from demons based on specific sins, and devils divided more or less on functional grounds.)^Why not?
Yes, but the name being just 1 letter and a slight difference in pronunciation off from Demons tends to obscure their distinctions. Like Evil versions of the 10 Zathras brothers . . . .
Because we already have actual Lovecraftian alien creatures in the game, and both qlippoth and the Dominion of the Black are in design spaces fairly close to that, so it's no less crowded a space than more traditional fiends. (Though I think daemons' being based on manners of dying, as it were, is quite sufficiently distinct from demons based on specific sins, and devils divided more or less on functional grounds.)^Why not?
Yes, but the name being just 1 letter and a slight difference in pronunciation off from Demons tends to obscure their distinctions. Like Evil versions of the 10 Zathras brothers . . . .
I wouldn't mind them having a name change. It's just not going to be anything that looks even remotely like Yugoloth.
Since they ARE based on forms of death, calling them Shinigami and giving them a more Eastern flavor might potentially be an option to help distinguish them from their LE and CE brethren?
Their NG furry counterparts could potentially also pick up some Eastern flair in this event, to make them more memorable.
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^Judging from the brief Wikipedia article on Shinigami, that certainly sounds reasonable for the Eastern name for them.
Note that for me, "Yugoloth" doesn't make me think of Outsiders so much as a cheap car made in Eastern Europe and marketed in the US from 1985 - 1992 . . . although come to think of it, this model was reportedly a deathtrap, so . . . hmmmmmm . . . .
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DEE-mons vs DYE-moh-nays is clear enough for me.
Yes, but the name being just 1 letter and a slight difference in pronunciation off from Demons tends to obscure their distinctions.
Really? I've always said DAY-mons.
Plus, Daemons are a greek supernatural being distinct from demons, so there is precedence to that.
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They are almost certainly not going to be substantially changing the flavor of the major outsider groups. Books like Book of the Damned and the upcoming planes book are being pitched as being flavor heavy and thus useful for PF2E. If they start changing the lore heavily, that goes away.
Also calling them Shinigami (from Japanese folklore), and making them followers of the Four Horsement (Judeo-Christian), would be super weird.
And get rid of Bestiary 3's actual Shinigami? I'd prefer not to, myself.
Since they ARE based on forms of death, calling them Shinigami and giving them a more Eastern flavor might potentially be an option to help distinguish them from their LE and CE brethren?
Huh -- I missed that the Bestiaries have Shinigami in them already. So much for that idea . . . I guess one could more clearly distinguish Daemons from Demons as Thanatodaemons and Amartiodaemons, respectively . . . .
Daemons are uninteresting? How? They're terrifying! Soul devouring architects of extinction and armageddon on a multiversal scale should be more than enough to set the imagination going in numerous directions. They are some of the nastiest things my group has ever had to fight.
They're terrifying, but they don't seem to get much attention (at least in APs -- not sure about Modules or PFS Scenarios, although the one's I've read the advertisement blurbs for never seem to mention Daemons).
TBH in my opinion while ideas beyond various groups are cool, the bestiaries themselves seems oft to be bit redundant. And even while trying to make NE main fiends more interesting PAIZO incorporate them less than more classic D&D devils and demons (and I also think that their own CG azatas get less love than estabilished in old lore angels and archons)
Also TBH it seems that within AP's so far, the daemons didn't get much love so far. Counting with Dungeon PAIZO gave us:
3 (4 counting SD) strongly demon infulenced stories
and
4 strongly devil tied stories
while basically... no much for daemons.
Hopefully someone at Paizo will notice this disparity and finally give us some daemon love~
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TBH in my opinion while ideas beyond various groups are cool, the bestiaries themselves seems oft to be bit redundant. And even while trying to make NE main fiends more interesting PAIZO incorporate them less than more classic D&D devils and demons (and I also think that their own CG azatas get less love than estabilished in old lore angels and archons)
Also TBH it seems that within AP's so far, the daemons didn't get much love so far. Counting with Dungeon PAIZO gave us:
3 (4 counting SD) strongly demon infulenced stories
and
4 strongly devil tied storieswhile basically... no much for daemons.
The main problem with Pathfinder's summoning lists is that they never changed. When you get a new bestiary, some monsters also have a little block in their page saying "if you want to have this animal as a mount/animal companion, here are their stats". Summoning spells, on the other hand, never get new summons when a new bestiary is out, thus locking them with 1st bestiary's monsters (which explains why you can't summon daemons).
I think we should have the same thing with summoning than with animal companions. Instead of a static summoning list, add a little "you can summon this" block to expend the list. For exemple, you could add this for common outsiders and magical beasts for Summon Monster, and for feys and giants for Summon Nature's Ally, while adding it for animals for both spells. This would make the summoning lists as dynamic as the animal companions' one.
I would have house ruled that if I could, but the current summoning lists are a mess. I can't see a pattern for how they chose which creature goes to which level. You have huge CR disparities in the same level, and some lower-level creatures have a bigger CR than higher-level ones.
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TBH in my opinion while ideas beyond various groups are cool, the bestiaries themselves seems oft to be bit redundant. And even while trying to make NE main fiends more interesting PAIZO incorporate them less than more classic D&D devils and demons (and I also think that their own CG azatas get less love than estabilished in old lore angels and archons)
Also TBH it seems that within AP's so far, the daemons didn't get much love so far. Counting with Dungeon PAIZO gave us:
3 (4 counting SD) strongly demon infulenced stories
and
4 strongly devil tied storieswhile basically... no much for daemons.
The main problem with Pathfinder's summoning lists is that they never changed. When you get a new bestiary, some monsters also have a little block in their page saying "if you want to have this animal as a mount/animal companion, here are their stats". Summoning spells, on the other hand, never get new summons when a new bestiary is out, thus locking them with 1st bestiary's monsters (which explains why you can't summon daemons).
I think we should have the same thing with summoning than with animal companions. Instead of a static summoning list, add a little "you can summon this" block to expend the list. For exemple, you could add this for common outsiders and magical beasts for Summon Monster, and for feys and giants for Summon Nature's Ally, while adding it for animals for both spells. This would make the summoning lists as dynamic as the animal companions' one.
I would have house ruled that if I could, but the current summoning lists are a mess. I can't see a pattern for how they chose which creature goes to which level. You have huge CR disparities in the same level, and some lower-level creatures have a bigger CR than higher-level ones.
I think the reason they don't do that is to avoid making the summon spells too powerful. If you can summon any one monster from a list of 100, the spell quickly becomes insanely adaptable. It's already one of the strongest spells in the game, and adding more options to it just means that it will overpower all of the other spell options.
It would be cool to add some in-game mechanic to diversify your personal list, but that would probably be too complicated and take to much space.
I would have house ruled that if I could, but the current summoning lists are a mess. I can't see a pattern for how they chose which creature goes to which level. You have huge CR disparities in the same level, and some lower-level creatures have a bigger CR than higher-level ones.
Could you give an example of this? I one time wanted to see what it would be like to create a "summon dragon" set of spells, and used summon monster as a chassis. I looked at the CR of each option. I might be remembering wrong, but I don't think I ran across this. The higher spell levels had a range of CRs, but, if I'm remembering right, if a range on one level was 8-9, none of the other spells included CR 8 or CR 9 monsters.
I think the reason they don't do that is to avoid making the summon spells too powerful. If you can summon any one monster from a list of 100, the spell quickly becomes insanely...TBH in my opinion while ideas beyond various groups are cool, the bestiaries themselves seems oft to be bit redundant. And even while trying to make NE main fiends more interesting PAIZO incorporate them less than more classic D&D devils and demons (and I also think that their own CG azatas get less love than estabilished in old lore angels and archons)
Also TBH it seems that within AP's so far, the daemons didn't get much love so far. Counting with Dungeon PAIZO gave us:
3 (4 counting SD) strongly demon infulenced stories
and
4 strongly devil tied storieswhile basically... no much for daemons.
The main problem with Pathfinder's summoning lists is that they never changed. When you get a new bestiary, some monsters also have a little block in their page saying "if you want to have this animal as a mount/animal companion, here are their stats". Summoning spells, on the other hand, never get new summons when a new bestiary is out, thus locking them with 1st bestiary's monsters (which explains why you can't summon daemons).
I think we should have the same thing with summoning than with animal companions. Instead of a static summoning list, add a little "you can summon this" block to expend the list. For exemple, you could add this for common outsiders and magical beasts for Summon Monster, and for feys and giants for Summon Nature's Ally, while adding it for animals for both spells. This would make the summoning lists as dynamic as the animal companions' one.
I would have house ruled that if I could, but the current summoning lists are a mess. I can't see a pattern for how they chose which creature goes to which level. You have huge CR disparities in the same level, and some lower-level creatures have a bigger CR than higher-level ones.
Indeed, I always thought it was more a balance issue than anything. I mean it's not like you can summon every monster from Bestiary 1, even with all IX levels of Summon Monster.
Though a "You can summon this instead of X when casting Summon Monster [Insert Number]" may be a good compromise. But it'd need to be some kind of choice when you learn the spell, otherwise you're just adding things.
Indeed, I always thought it was more a balance issue than anything. I mean it's not like you can summon every monster from Bestiary 1, even with all IX levels of Summon Monster.
Though a "You can summon this instead of X when casting Summon Monster [Insert Number]" may be a good compromise. But it'd need to be some kind of choice when you learn the spell, otherwise you're just adding things.
I think the reason they don't do that is to avoid making the summon spells too powerful. If you can summon any one monster from a list of 100, the spell quickly becomes insanely...
Ya, that could be really fun. I would probably limit their options for the list to 3-5. That way it's a personal list, but they can't make a list of 12 from hundreds of options, because that's still to adaptable for its level I think.
It will probably be like Starfinder, where you do in fact choose 4 monsters for your personal list at a given spell level of summoning. And yeah, that would work really well with new monsters in later sources having a short line of which summon spells they apply to. :)
I would have house ruled that if I could, but the current summoning lists are a mess. I can't see a pattern for how they chose which creature goes to which level. You have huge CR disparities in the same level, and some lower-level creatures have a bigger CR than higher-level ones.Could you give an example of this? I one time wanted to see what it would be like to create a "summon dragon" set of spells, and used summon monster as a chassis. I looked at the CR of each option. I might be remembering wrong, but I don't think I ran across this. The higher spell levels had a range of CRs, but, if I'm remembering right, if a range on one level was 8-9, none of the other spells included CR 8 or CR 9 monsters.
I had to recheck my summoning list, and you're right, my bad. For Summon Monster, there's only the Giant Centipede that should have been downgraded (CR 1/2 instead of 1). I forgot to take into account that animals get CR +1 thanks to the celestial/infernal archetype x) I haven't checked Summon Nature's Ally though.
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Hopefully someone at Paizo will notice this disparity and finally give us some daemon love~
I'm betting that the final 1st Edition AP might have some daemon love, it just feels appropriate for daemons to feature in the end of an era.
^That could be a real heartbreaker, though.
Summoning spells, on the other hand, never get new summons when a new bestiary is out, thus locking them with 1st bestiary's monsters (which explains why you can't summon daemons).
TBH that's like easiest thing to tweak? You just add every outsider with proper HD and CR where other outsiders of this level dwell.
In my games nevertheless any summon spell is like... bound to some specific being, so you do not have summon monster I, but summon anarchic dire rat... and you need different ones for different kinds of beings, which also allow to add any new beings.
I'm betting that the final 1st Edition AP might have some daemon love, it just feels appropriate for daemons to feature in the end of an era.
I had two visions of Daemonic heavy AP - one sort of WotC in Galt, where you play future Napoleon Bonaparte... wait better where you play Molthune agents send by general lords to take control over Galt in first proper LN versus CN, anti-chaos campaign.
Molthune after reaching uneasy trust with Nirmanthas, and not wanting to risk Lastwall reactions, decided to estabilish empire around southern side of Lake for which they have to take Druma, and also Isger. For this they want they agents to take power in Galt, and attack merchant princedom from both sides.
But behind constant revolutionary spasms of Galt, there are darker powers creeping, wishing to make CN country, a NE gate to Abaddon.
Variant second:
Arcadian adventure.
You need to unite forces of various native nations and avistani colonizers to fight threat of powerful Empire based on Aztecs, who are lead by fiend-worshipping god-king (in secret exiled strix occultist) who estabilished panteon of dead Azlanti gods serving as a foci for several powerful fiendish lords.
Most prominent of course is chief deity Acavna (maybe bit mispelled to point language distinctions - I hate how Abadar and Desna does not have different names for Tian people (and various Avistani people really).
So you need to negotiate with local agents of Aspis Consortium, Pathfinder Society, with Chelish governor, with native-hating old Linnorm King, with matrons of Iroquoi like civilisation, emperor of Inca like southern empire, and powerful CE (but in specific way) war-shaman of praire tribes - to create army ready to take daemonic hosts of Owlman.
Because Owlman - saw all realities, and he want to end them.