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Since they said that instead of using a formula to stat out monsters like they did in 2e they'll give it the stats they think it needs I was thinking what monsters are you hoping will be improved in the new edition.
personally I am looking forward to they fey getting reworked since there were many that conceptually aren't tricksters like the Nuckelavee who all had pretty terrible BAB despite the fact that they're fighters. Also I hope that they put in the weird fey protections that exist in the myths.
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I really like swarms, but damn if they aint deadly for low levels.
Speaking of deadly at low levels, I think degrees of success will be hella helpful against ghouls para attacks.
Rust monsters equipment attacks. I dont necessarily have a problem in PF1, but id love to see something more interactive in PF2.
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Speaking of deadly at low levels...
Shadows. But from the playtest podcast, it appears that they haven't changed much. Incorporeal creatures are all sort of just a pain in the ass.
I hope they make creatures with spell resistance more interesting. I was delighted by 5e's flail snail reflecting spells instead of having them fizzle into nothing.
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I really like swarms, but damn if they aint deadly for low levels.
I second swarms.
For some odd reason, most of their touch ACs are really high which leads to the hard to believe explanation to new players on how they managed to miss a 10' square of spiders with their thrown alchemist fire (but you did do 1 point of splash dmg though!).
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"come on, you only need 9 pounds of napalm to disperse the spiders! It's only 2 players worth of starting gold. Its an average level 1 encounter"
EDIT:The best part of them potentially changing how swarms work is that I'll no longer hear bogus excuses of how easy it is to deal with swarms with no magic (the worst of which being "you can scoop up the entire swarm in 1 turn with a net and then set it on fire, dealing 1d6 fire to each insect")
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Troops should not do swarm damage, because while a swarm can crawl under your armor, those twenty guys still need to hit you. I'd just have them make a few attack rolls, and have the damage and attack bonus be balanced for their CR. Maybe 4 attacks normally, but only 2 attacks if they're at half HP or below.
The flavor would be that 4 guys are attacking, and everyone else is 'aiding.'
Hydras should start with, like, 10 hp per head. Whenever they go under a threshold, they lose a head. Then at the end of their next turn they grow two heads and gain 20 hp unless you've stopped their regeneration.
Dilemmas are an idea I want to see more of. Rather than attacks just doing something now, it's more exciting to set up a threat, and then give PCs a round to respond before something terrible happens.
Examples:
A troll hits with two attacks (requiring two of its three actions). It's now got you grabbed. On its next turn it can spend three actions to Rend, which deals a ton of damage and tears one of your limbs off if you fail a save (so you have a reason to use that lovely regenerate spell from the last blog). This gives the party a chance to intervene.
A dragon can spend one action to recharge its breath weapon, but using the breath weapon requires three actions, and if it doesn't use the attack within 3 rounds, it has to recharge again. So it inhales and its mouth crackles with fire, then maneuvers into position; but the PCs have a round to scamper out of the way.
You'd need to make sure the math of attack bonus and damage was properly balanced so the monster remained threatening, but I think it's more fun if these sorts of attacks are something you can mitigate if you're clever. Right now, you kinda just have to hope the monster rolls low, or you roll high. My suggestion would give the players more decisions.
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dilemmas/combo moves sound like a good idea to make creatures more active I also like your Hydra idea since it removes the clumsy sunder based rule that creates more problems than it solves("so can I sever limbs of other creatures with sunder?")
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It'd be nice if all the elementals were improved and given more flavorful abilities.
For example: the fire elemental. When it has fuel to burn, it should become more powerful, essentially getting a free self buff that doesn't take an action. It should also be able to control fire around itself and raise the local temperature. Stronger ones should have at-will ranged fire blasts.
The air elemental should be able to suck the air out of your lungs, should get stronger when the winds are up, and should automatically increase local wind speed by one step. Still air becomes a breeze, a gale becomes a hurricane. It should also count as an incorporeal creature for most purposes other than walking through walls, but be the most frail elemental. (Fire could be like this too.) Stronger ones should have at-will gust-of-wind or lightning blasts.
Earth elementals should get materially stronger in contact with earth or stone. They should be able to make the entire area difficult terrain for everyone but its allies. It should be able to collapse and reform elsewhere when on an earthen or stone surface (a trait the water elemental should also have on water or snow). Stronger ones should be able to heave chunks out of the ground to create a pit then throw those chunks like a giant.
Water elementals should have ooze defenses. They should get materially stronger in the rain or in contact with a body of water, and maybe should be able to constantly put water into the environment around them like a Decanter of Endless Water based on their tier. They should be able to envelop enemies and stronger ones should be able to shoot geysers at range.
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"come on, you only need 9 pounds of napalm to disperse the spiders! It's only 2 players worth of starting gold. Its an average level 1 encounter"
EDIT:The best part of them potentially changing how swarms work is that I'll no longer hear bogus excuses of how easy it is to deal with swarms with no magic (the worst of which being "you can scoop up the entire swarm in 1 turn with a net and then set it on fire, dealing 1d6 fire to each insect")
My favorite was always just rolling around on the ground to squish the bugs. I'm a 235lb Half-Orc encased in 50lbs of metal, pretty sure I win the wrestling contest with roaches.
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I want there to be a clear distinction between humanoids and monstrous humanoids. In 1E it seems pretty arbitrary, as there are plenty of humanoids with "monstrous" (read: animal or creature-like) traits, while there are monstrous humanoids that look nearly like humans. Given the pretty small differences between the two creature types anyways, they could use a reorganization and better distinguishing the two groups.
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Is it too much to ask to get sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads!
Wouldn't that be more of a Starfinder thing?
It'd be nice if all the elementals were improved and given more flavorful abilities.
For example: the fire elemental. When it has fuel to burn, it should become more powerful, essentially getting a free self buff that doesn't take an action. It should also be able to control fire around itself and raise the local temperature. Stronger ones should have at-will ranged fire blasts.
The air elemental should be able to suck the air out of your lungs, should get stronger when the winds are up, and should automatically increase local wind speed by one step. Still air becomes a breeze, a gale becomes a hurricane. It should also count as an incorporeal creature for most purposes other than walking through walls, but be the most frail elemental. (Fire could be like this too.) Stronger ones should have at-will gust-of-wind or lightning blasts.
Earth elementals should get materially stronger in contact with earth or stone. They should be able to make the entire area difficult terrain for everyone but its allies. It should be able to collapse and reform elsewhere when on an earthen or stone surface (a trait the water elemental should also have on water or snow). Stronger ones should be able to heave chunks out of the ground to create a pit then throw those chunks like a giant.
Water elementals should have ooze defenses. They should get materially stronger in the rain or in contact with a body of water, and maybe should be able to constantly put water into the environment around them like a Decanter of Endless Water based on their tier. They should be able to envelop enemies and stronger ones should be able to shoot geysers at range.
Basically all of this though we have already have gotten the tidbit where earth elementals crumble on a crit as a reaction, so that's something.
I want fewer outsiders and dragons that are brutes and capable fighters when they're supposed to more passive, trickster or caster creatures. It's okay for the beefy red dragon (and most dragons) and pit lord to have brute strength. The imperial dragons and contract devils probably shouldn't have the same brute strength scaled to their CR, and should have a stronger focus on magical powers or nasty tricks.
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I want fewer outsiders and dragons that are brutes and capable fighters when they're supposed to more passive, trickster or caster creatures. It's okay for the beefy red dragon (and most dragons) and pit lord to have brute strength. The imperial dragons and contract devils probably shouldn't have the same brute strength scaled to their CR, and should have a stronger focus on magical powers or nasty tricks.
What about just getting rid of symmetric outsiders/dragons? I know, it's been in D&D since the very beginning. Quasits and Imps, Balors and Pit Fiends, Red Dragons and Gold Dragons. But it has to go.
It's just that there are way too many similarities between the legions of hell and the hordes of the abyss to not break verisimilitude. And the same goes for chromatic and metallic dragons. And elementals.
It gets worse, by making outsiders similar to each other (Compare an imp with a quasit.) You're basically just reprinting monsters while you could give demons and devils a unique feel.
So that's what I want, asymmetrical demons, devils, dragons and elementals.
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Ugh the tick swarm could devour towns.I generally inwardly groan when I encounter a swarm in PF1e. Most characters have few options to fight them.
Shouldn't all the larger animals on Golarion been have devoured by insects by now? :)
the worst is the leech swarm, they usually take less damage from fire because they're most likely in water and they can eat through a wooden boat if the GM is evil enough. Also looking at it to write this post, they have dex DRAIN poison, deal 1d3 str and con damage and +24 to stealth checks in their natural habitat. Its CR4 somehow.
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From a gameplay perspective, HUGE bonuses become a problem when they bifurcate the party into those who are able to interact and those who aren't.
At first level, an attack bonus of +0 and one of +5 can both have a chance to hit an orc with AC 13.
If when you reach 20th level the cleric's attack bonus is +25 and the fighter's bonus is +43, if there's a monster with AC 44 (like a CR 20 red dragon that cast mage armor), one PC shouldn't even bother to attack, and the other never misses.
Moreover, the math disparity causes certain actions and tactics to become useless. "He's hard to hit. Let's flank him." "Nah, don't bother. I'm already hitting him easily, and the flank still won't make it worth your while to attack." To which the dragon responds, "Hey, the cleric's AC is only 30, right? Okay, I'll just power attack because the penalty is no drawback."
You want the game to be balanced in a way that gameplay decisions are important, not just character build decisions.
Efforts to fix this can go two ways. You can take the 4e D&D approach, where everyone gets a flat bonus as they level, even if there's no narrative reason why. 'Enforced progression.' So if you fight a 20th level goblin, his AC is high not because he's wearing the pelt of a demigod of wargs, but just because.
Or you can go the 5e way, which intentionally keeps the numbers smaller. 'Bounded accuracy.' The designers figure out from the get go how big a span they're willing to accept, and simply don't design options that would go beyond that. Decide that if AC 10 is the minimum, AC 30 is the maximum. Then figure out how you can reach that maximum - maybe +15 from armor, +5 from deflection; or +9 from lighter armor, +6 from Dex, and +5 from deflection.
Then if you allow anything to go outside that bound, limit how long it lasts to only a round or two. Like, you can spend an action to raise your shield and get higher AC. And if you balance the numbers the right way, spending an action to get +2 AC should remain about as useful at 20th level as it was at 1st level: making you 10% less likely to get hit.
Gandalf swung at a couple foes in his time.
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Swarms. They should be easy to hit, low AC, but they have high AC and a high reflex save (which also makes them take less damage from bombs). It’s backwards, they should be easy to hit, take reduced damage from weapons (25%), and have lots of HP.
Lycanthropes. Personally, I think baseline werewolves should be terrifying, but using the rules a level 1 villager turned into a werewolf is kind of a joke. Maybe they need a werewolf spawn similar to vampire spawn (CR 4) if the transformed individual is too weak.
Skeletons being more durable. Skeletons should almost be unbeatable using arrows and guns, but the current DR is more of a speed bump.
Animals being slightly tougher.
High level creatures being tougher, but perhaps scaling damage output would help a lot. 400 hp creatures don’t last long when everyone is putting out 100+ DPS.
Having the majority of creatures ranked the correct CR.
Having the Knowledge skill rules streamlined so that we know what we can tell the players instead of there being wild table variation. Just give the creation a Knowledge DC (that varies depending XYZ).
On the top of my head? Troops
- Small, Medium or Large variants of swarms
- Ideal of armies and squadrons
- A LOT less die rolling :P
Frankly though, I just wish that every single Bestiary gets converted. I'm sorry, but I'm expecting only 15% of new monsters to be added in P2E, with the rest being converted... unless that they release your typical Bestiary 1 and have a complete convertion guide for every single monster from all 6 books, so they can start fresh.
- A LOT less die rolling :PI believe they will be cutting back on monster attacks, no more full attacks consisting of 6+ separate attack rolls.
That might be true, but I was referring to having 10 times less dice to roll if your 10-goblin squad is actually a troop :P
That might be true, but I was referring to having 10 times less dice to roll if your 10-goblin squad is actually a troop :P- A LOT less die rolling :PI believe they will be cutting back on monster attacks, no more full attacks consisting of 6+ separate attack rolls.Ah, yes, a grouping/swarm type deal?
What is the venery for goblins?
Goblin troops are presented in B6 ;)
How appropriate we're talking about demigods, because they're what I'd like to restat.
I've talked at length about empyreal lords, who don't need a nerf bat to the brain in order to be "asymmetrical," but I've found a lot of the others need at least just a bit of reworking to be just right. In addition to having awe-inspiring attributes, because they're demigods, they should all have miracle as an at-will spell-like ability.
No, seriously.
This makes sense lore-wise since otherwise how else would they be able to grant miracles to their worshipers. It wouldn't even muck up CR since that's supposed to be based on pure combat stats, a more versatile toolkit (strangely) not factoring into it.
Any other suggestions?
The problem here isn't the bonus - the problem here is providing stat blocks for gods...
We have these since forever, and many people need them for their big ultra cosmic ultimate battles.
No one is forced to use them :)
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how else would they be able to grant miracles to their worshipers.
How? Well, that's easy, plane shift and then teleport to some "gods hang around at taverns" planar metropolis, buy a scroll of miracle, teleport back to the worshipper, charge him or her 10% extra over the usual fee and the cost of powdered diamond, done.
If the metropolis doesn't have the scroll, teleport until you find one, charge the worshipper extra for the hassle. Those entitled mortals ...
Seriously, that's how a level 17 Cleric does it, you don't need to be a demigod for that.