REALLY cool stuff in here!
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This is freaking awesome, the monsters were IMPROVED from the playtest! Plus we got templates and guidelines for customizing. You're the man, tqomins!! Thanks for all your effort <3.
Though these are probably some of the more complicated monsters in the entire bestiary, I like how the outsiders have a large variety of spells and abilities (But not overwhelming) which makes them more than just one-trick ponies, specially since these creatures might be summoned with planar binding or be recurring NPCs.
Even the simple basic monsters like the zombies have some unique tricks up their sleeves, no monster is just a meat-bag; there's always some cool gimmick! They even kept their resistances and such. This bestiary looking to be far superior to 5E's.
You guys loved these elements of the monsters in the playtest. It was stark and very readily apparent that we were on the right track based on how approving you were of a long list of changes we asked about to individual monsters in the survey. That didn't mean we weren't going to work to make them even cooler, though! You guys were super important here. Not only did we take what you liked the most and enhance that part, but more importantly, we needed the fact that you guys liked some of these so much to get internal buy-off to finalize some of these changes (for example, whereas I was hoping most gamers were like me and were annoyed when trying to use elemental damage that many creatures have vast swathes of energy resistances back from a chart in 1e D&D trying to balance evocation spells, some on the staff, including me, were worried you guys might be really attached to them).
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TREERAZER'S CULTISTS
Edicts corrupt plant life with evil or fungal influence, slay elves, feast on rotten flesh or fungus
Anathema grant mercy to elves, plant trees, encourage natural plant growth
Follower Alignments NE, CEDEVOTEE BENEFITS
Divine Font harm or heal
Divine Skill Nature
Favored Weapon battleaxe
Domains destruction, nature, nightmare, tyranny
Cleric Spells 1st: grim tendrils; 3rd: wall of thorns; 6th: tangling creepers
Wait wait wait, are these rules to roll up a cleric of Treerazer?
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So that longbow is wrong, it should say volley 30 feet (as the erinyes in my Unreality Incursion game can tell you, or the FIGHTERS from FIGHTER SQUAD! who also had longbows). I can attest that 30 foot volley worked really well, way better than the clunky 50 foot volley.I can see how 30 feet are much more manageable than 50. Still not a fan of volley. It's the only negative weapon trait (in the playtest at least).
Looking for a nice weapon to use, finding the Longbow and then realizing it's the only weapon that has a build-in penalty feels really really bad.
I much prefered the solution of getting rid of volley and giving the shortbow agile instead, which was brought up during the playtest.
There's some others like reload. Functionally, in PF1 if something got right in your face, you typically had to move or step away (without feats to help you out) to avoid AoOs. Now that's something that most foes don't have, but a shorter volley that mostly just requires a single move away when an enemy advances is putting longbows in the same place they were before where you back away when they close up to you, with shortbows getting the advantage of being a little less damaging but able to stay right in people's faces if you want. The problem with powering up both bows even more is that the ranged weapons as a whole were already in parity with each other with maybe bows slightly at the top of the pack or maybe even, according to our notes as well as what you guys said (the only main responses not claiming that would typically pit a simple weapon against a martial weapon and say the simple weapon was weaker, which is working as intended), so it could make bows the "one true option" for ranged characters instead of giving more chances for all the ranged weapons to shine.
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TREERAZER'S CULTISTS
Edicts corrupt plant life with evil or fungal influence, slay elves, feast on rotten flesh or fungus
Anathema grant mercy to elves, plant trees, encourage natural plant growth
Follower Alignments NE, CEDEVOTEE BENEFITS
Divine Font harm or heal
Divine Skill Nature
Favored Weapon battleaxe
Domains destruction, nature, nightmare, tyranny
Cleric Spells 1st: grim tendrils; 3rd: wall of thorns; 6th: tangling creepersWait wait wait, are these rules to roll up a cleric of Treerazer?
Yep!
Yep!TREERAZER'S CULTISTS
Edicts corrupt plant life with evil or fungal influence, slay elves, feast on rotten flesh or fungus
Anathema grant mercy to elves, plant trees, encourage natural plant growth
Follower Alignments NE, CEDEVOTEE BENEFITS
Divine Font harm or heal
Divine Skill Nature
Favored Weapon battleaxe
Domains destruction, nature, nightmare, tyranny
Cleric Spells 1st: grim tendrils; 3rd: wall of thorns; 6th: tangling creepersWait wait wait, are these rules to roll up a cleric of Treerazer?
And he has the Healing channel? I figured this was a lord of corruption and destruction of nature! He has the nature domain somehow... Is this because blighted forests are still nature?
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And he has the Healing channel? I figured this was a lord of corruption and destruction of nature! He has the nature domain somehow... Is this because blighted forests are still nature?Yep!TREERAZER'S CULTISTS
Edicts corrupt plant life with evil or fungal influence, slay elves, feast on rotten flesh or fungus
Anathema grant mercy to elves, plant trees, encourage natural plant growth
Follower Alignments NE, CEDEVOTEE BENEFITS
Divine Font harm or heal
Divine Skill Nature
Favored Weapon battleaxe
Domains destruction, nature, nightmare, tyranny
Cleric Spells 1st: grim tendrils; 3rd: wall of thorns; 6th: tangling creepersWait wait wait, are these rules to roll up a cleric of Treerazer?
Knowing how things works usually help a lot in knowing how to destroy them. If you know which fungus is particularly deadly to oaks...
Still seems like these level -1 creatures are more capable in melee than non-fighters at level 1... again.
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Still seems like these level -1 creatures are more capable in melee than non-fighters at level 1... again.
Eh, I doubt that zombie could win a melee fight against even a level 1 wizard with a dagger using no magic and simply attacking with the dagger unless the zombie got lucky. It is not even close to as capable in a fight as any level 1 martial character. The plague zombie at level 1 is a little better off and can usually beat the no-magic melee wizard, but it's a level 1 foe.
Still seems like these level -1 creatures are more capable in melee than non-fighters at level 1... again.Eh, I doubt that zombie could win a melee fight against even a level 1 wizard with a dagger using no magic and simply attacking with the dagger unless the zombie got lucky. It is not even close to as capable in a fight as any level 1 martial character. The plague zombie at level 1 is a little better off and can usually beat the no-magic melee wizard, but it's a level 1 foe.
Is that so? I'm just going off that +7 to hit and 20HP. Both should be higher than most level 1 wizards. Damage is probably comparable and the grab ability seems pretty decent.
If anything they're closer to like STR focused clerics or a Rogue, assuming I understand the lv1 mechanics.
If anything, I figure level -1 is peasant tier, or there an even lower level than this?
EDIT: I remembered the SLOW penalty thing. I suppose that could make up for this zombie being tougher than other level -1s numbers-wise.
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Although a wizard who for some reason wasn't smart enough to use a slashing weapon might have a harder time of it.
But I think that's a feature, not a bug. :)
@ChibiNyan Don't forget that if the wizard is using one action to move, the zombie is only getting one attack per turn against the wizard's likely two. Even if the wizard is Str 10, he's hitting on a 9 with his first attack and a 14 with his second, which is decent, and thank to the vulnerability he's doing 1d4+5 damage per hit even with no Strength bonus. That's at worst even odds, and that's assuming a really dumb wizard (since a smart wizard would just use a cantrip and then double-move, preventing the zombie from ever attacking).
Of course, the zombie is a lot more dangerous in tight corridors, but... again, feature, not bug, imo.
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Although a wizard who for some reason wasn't smart enough to use a slashing weapon might have a harder time of it.
But I think that's a feature, not a bug. :)
@ChibiNyan Don't forget that if the wizard is using one action to move, the zombie is only getting one attack per turn against the wizard's likely two. Even if the wizard is Str 10, he's hitting on a 9 with his first attack and a 14 with his second, which is decent, and thank to the vulnerability he's doing 1d4+5 damage per hit even with no Strength bonus. That's at worst even odds, and that's assuming a really dumb wizard (since a smart wizard would just use a cantrip and then double-move, preventing the zombie from ever attacking).
Of course, the zombie is a lot more dangerous in tight corridors, but... again, feature, not bug, imo.
I was assuming using dagger's finesse trait to use Dex to hit with 14 or 16 Dex, wizard hits on a 6 or 7 for 1d4+5, 11 or 12 for second attack (16 or 17 for the last if choosing not to back away), zombie hits on a 8 or 9 on first attack for similar damage and has a little more HP, and of course it's slow. The wizard is very much favored to win in melee, and as you said can auto win by kiting if necessary. And this is for a no-spell melee wizard holding a dagger. Anybody else can go to town.
But yeah, zombie shambler has way more HP and does way more damage than the typical -1. It's a special monster with other weaknesses that overall play incredibly well for a -1 monster. It's so much fun to mow them down with big damage numbers!
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The monsters look so fun D: - The multiple templates for enemies are a genius idea, fighting against the cold Lich or the negative energy one, or a horde of invulnerable zombies that only die on crits. You can do a pretty badass board game with this mechanics
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The monsters look so fun D: - The multiple templates for enemies are a genius idea, fighting against the cold Lich or the negative energy one, or a horde of invulnerable zombies that only die on crits. You can do a pretty badass board game with this mechanics
Which is good, because at the end of the day Pathfinder is basically a badass board game with roleplaying stapled on top. :P
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Thank you! This has got me interested after all - they look better than in the Playtest!
By the way, I think the Vrock DCs should be 23 like in the playtest - which would easily look like 28. Maybe not - anyone got an actual Bestiary? It's just 28 seems high for that level.
