Alien Archive 4 Wishlist

[thecursor]

New year, new book, new thread.

We can has Platyparians?

[Elegos]

I wish that AA4 takes a year off and the slot is used for something else.

[Tymin]

Robots, robots, robots and even more robots. Big ones, small ones, shoulder guns, laser eyes, nuclear chests and skullguns. And a race builder so I can just do all the work myself and make my own galaxy's worth of robots. I'd totally make the ultimate soldier and engineer race just for fun. Who knowns, maybe if I make enough OP races, I can run an entire campaign based on them. That could be fun. But yes, a builder is imperative for Starfinder. With an entire universe, I have to populate it. I will always champion for more robots in sci-fi! Not androids or those sillylooking toys in Pactworlds, nonono, we're talking terminators, retrobots, marvins, spidertanks, swarmbots and more.

[Berggen]

Really need some gnolls and centaurs, because who doesn't want to see a centaur trying to deal with technology...

[CorvusMask]

General AA thread for the whole future :p Also that psychopomp for android someone asked if they would do in future in gencon panels

[Tyrnis]

If they don't come out before then: playable undead. Skeletons and ghouls as race options at the minimum.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Space kobolds! The only species capable of winning a fight solely through determination, their own sense of self-importance, and adorable pluck.

You CAN'T tell me there wasn't a mass-migration of kobolds to Triaxus following the Gap!

[DJEternalDarkness]

I do have to agree we need Kobolds! ALL sorts of Space Kobolds!

[thecursor]

Ahem, I pitched this already to Owen KC Stephens and now the rest of you should hear it:

Uplifted Owl Bears.

[Metaphysician]

Tyrnis wrote:

If they don't come out before then: playable undead. Skeletons and ghouls as race options at the minimum.

Until someone actually comes up with a solution to the "No CON score" problem, this is probably just not going to happen. Maybe if they eventually introduce advanced race rules that allow for picking species that are worth 1+ CR in their own right.

[Perpdepog]

Both the no Con score and the slew of immunities that you get for being undead. Until they figure it out, if they try, I'm happy with our not-quite-dead-but-undead races we have.

I'd like to see more uplifted animals, or rules for making some of your own, or, and I don't know where this would fit into Alien Archive, a way to illustrate planar scions and similar coming from different species. Celestial space slug-people FTW!

[Ellias Aubec]

An incorporeal race, maybe like a playable living hologram would be neat.

[CorvusMask]

Tyrnis wrote:

If they don't come out before then: playable undead. Skeletons and ghouls as race options at the minimum.

If you want race without con score and immunity to mind affecting effects, probably won't ever happen since checking the construct based races.

But otherwise, there was another undead race in AA 3 Varculak who can be both small and medium and can survive in vacuum among other things

[Ascalaphus]

I would prefer more GM-facing content. And if you absolutely must add more playable races, do so only if you're going to give them real background and support, not just a 2 page fire and forget bit.

I get it, cantina feel. But we have about 50 playable races now. There's enough races for the cantina feel.

[JiCi]

How about more companion options, like having some of the new aliens being available as companions?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Something more generally I'd like to see going forward when new playable species are introduced: NAMING CONVENTIONS!

Seriously, out of the approximately 50 species you can play as now, we only have example names for, like a tenth of them maybe.

We have the ones in the Corebooks, obviously, and we can kinda cheat on the Legacy species as well as other Pathfinder imports by just assuming their naming conventions survived the Gap, and then for species like ikeshti, contemplatives, skittermanders or nuar, you can extrapolate from the names of the NPCs of those species in various adventure paths.

But how do I figure out what to name a bantrid PC? Or a brenneri, or a vlaka, or a dirindi, or an ilthisarian, or a khizar? If the species' only appearance has been in an AA or in the backmatter of an AP book, there aren't any real examples of what typical names from their culture would be. It just feels like a glaring oversight.

[Perpdepog]

Ellias Aubec wrote:

An incorporeal race, maybe like a playable living hologram would be neat.

Or maybe a race who are sapient gas clouds or swirls of energy. I was trying to make one for a while based around the notion that you took damage while being out of your armor because of depressurization, and then I dun lost the notes.

[Hmm]

Ascalaphus wrote:

I would prefer more GM-facing content. And if you absolutely must add more playable races, do so only if you're going to give them real background and support, not just a 2 page fire and forget bit.

I get it, cantina feel. But we have about 50 playable races now. There's enough races for the cantina feel.

Fifty? The number is 100 as of August 2019.

But yes, I also want more lore and setting for these races!

Hmm

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Hmm wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

I would prefer more GM-facing content. And if you absolutely must add more playable races, do so only if you're going to give them real background and support, not just a 2 page fire and forget bit.

I get it, cantina feel. But we have about 50 playable races now. There's enough races for the cantina feel.

Fifty? The number is 100 as of August 2019.

But yes, I also want more lore and setting for these races!

Hmm

Me three!

[Metaphysician]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Something more generally I'd like to see going forward when new playable species are introduced: NAMING CONVENTIONS!

Seriously, out of the approximately 50 species you can play as now, we only have example names for, like a tenth of them maybe.

We have the ones in the Corebooks, obviously, and we can kinda cheat on the Legacy species as well as other Pathfinder imports by just assuming their naming conventions survived the Gap, and then for species like ikeshti, contemplatives, skittermanders or nuar, you can extrapolate from the names of the NPCs of those species in various adventure paths.

But how do I figure out what to name a bantrid PC? Or a brenneri, or a vlaka, or a dirindi, or an ilthisarian, or a khizar? If the species' only appearance has been in an AA or in the backmatter of an AP book, there aren't any real examples of what typical names from their culture would be. It just feels like a glaring oversight.

This, absolutely. And even some of the major species don't really have enough material to do more than the vaguest guess at names.

I eventually settled on using Indic names of various kinds for Verthani ( because of their ancient caste based society ), and Slavic names for Ryphorians ( because I decided to portray Triaxus as Planet Russia ). But this is largely because I don't have guidelines otherwise.

[Xenobiologist]

I know everyone wants official Paizo versions of these, and many of you probably already know about third party options. But for anyone willing and able to use 3pp races while you wait, there are space kobolds and several animal-folk options - including gnolls and platypi (although they aren't alien platypus warriors).

(I don't know whether anyone wants urls.)

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Does NOT help folks playing SFS, though.

Wishes:

Tengu (or their descendants) who have reclaimed the skies.

Spehs Kobolds!

Variant transhuman races who've adapted/evolved to life in various environments!

[EltonJ]

Tyrnis wrote:

If they don't come out before then: playable undead. Skeletons and ghouls as race options at the minimum.

No thank you. I don't want to play a skeleton in space.

[EltonJ]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Spehs Kobolds!

Kobolds inhabiting the asteroid belt would be way awesome.

[Wei Ji the Learner]

EltonJ wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Spehs Kobolds!

Kobolds inhabiting the asteroid belt would be way awesome.

What would be even better is an entire world of kobolds in Near Space that have built an impressive civilization of their own since they can pull together.

Even better than that would be some reason to be 'better' than 'scaly ysoki'.

EDIT: Unless, of course, the Vesk ARE Kobolds that 'improved' themselves. There could be hidden holdouts that didn't want to become belligerent warmongers...

[Xenobiologist]

And 'improved' includes 'tripled in size'?

Maybe they did that (somehow) to avoid being eaten by Snakefolk murderhobos who kept invading their underground towns...

[FormerFiend]

Hmm wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

I would prefer more GM-facing content. And if you absolutely must add more playable races, do so only if you're going to give them real background and support, not just a 2 page fire and forget bit.

I get it, cantina feel. But we have about 50 playable races now. There's enough races for the cantina feel.

Fifty? The number is 100 as of August 2019.

But yes, I also want more lore and setting for these races!

Hmm

Not to be pedantic but by my count there are 101.

But I absolutely agree with the concept that we need more lore for these races; a couple books along the lines of Advanced Race Guide & Inner Sea Races are things I think should be high priority from Paizo going forward.

Having said that, I've got chronic alt-itis so I'm all about there being more & more races added onto the pile for options. At a cursory glance I'm counting at least 36 races from PF that haven't been pulled over yet - granted a few of those may reasonably be stated to be redundant. For instance, do we need catfolk when we have Pathra and could Paizo convincingly play off the two races basically being the same thing just slightly diverged like they did with ysoki & Golarion ratfolk?

And others - say kuru, for instance - I'm more than willing to write off as "too niche and confined to Golarion to warrant having a place in a Golarion-less SF". But then, I also thought the same about ghorans and we got those.

But there are a lot of them I do want and even more not-technically playable race monsters from PF that I want to see as playable races in SF. Cyclopses & serpentfolk at the top of that list.

And that isn't touching on racial variants/subraces like the different flavor of tieflings & aasimars that I wanna see. The solar variant of Ifrits fits a lot better in the SF setting than they did in the golarion setting, and I think fit better in SF than the baseline ifrits that we do have. Do need to find a better way of converting PF's +2/+2, no negatives races than just giving them one fixed +2 if we wanna get the other aasimars & also shabti in, though(and I do).

And on top of that I wanna see more original races that play off of traditional sci-fi tropes. AA3 came up with some great wacky ideas I wouldn't have been able to conceive of so I want to see more of that, but I also want to see some more, I guess, boring races like the old star treck/star wars/marvel tact of "basically a human visually but with green/blue/purple skin and maybe weird ears or antenae" of which, yeah we've got the Lashunta & the Damai & arguably the triaxians, but that's about it and I am very much not counting the traditional fantasy races like half-orc or the plane touched as counting here

And I think this next part is very, very not likely to happen, but I want as close to a gith and a mindflayer and a goliath as playable races as Paizo can give me without violating copyright law. I want as close to a draenei & a warcraft style troll as they can give me.

[thecursor]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Variant transhuman races who've adapted/evolved to life in various environments!

I deeply bums me out that the Hykli never got any racial variance.

[Damanta]

FormerFiend wrote:

Not to be pedantic but by my count there are 101.

Wait really?

Crap my spreadsheet is missing one then :(
I'm at 100 unique races, with 112 total entries.
That's gonna be annoying to figure out which one I need to add.

[pithica42]

That's my count, too. (100/112)

Things I want in AA4.

PC Stuff...
Grippli (unless they're going to be in the Near Space book)
Tengu
Kobolds
Bugbears
Platyparians
Playable Bone Troopers/Corpsefolk (All this talk of the 'no Con' and/or Immunities 'problem' ignores the fact that PC races do NOT have the same stats/abilities/et al as NPC races. This can be worked out. It isn't even that hard.)
Copaxi
The intelligent fungii from Primoria in DS5 (same planet as Scyphozoans).
Something actually weird (I'm not saying you haven't already done that, but we need at least 2 or three really weird things every book).

Monsters...
More Kaiju.
More 'generic' stat blocks (I could handle 1 or two of these in every book).
More non-combat Robots (and if you want to make them domestic droids, have at it)
More Outsiders (Angels and Demons, and Devils, oh my)

[thecursor]

Alright, my wishlist:

PC Races:

Platyparians
Grippli
Kobolds (there's a whole planet of dragons out there, I mean...c'mon.)
Merfolk
Gill Men
Androffan Humans
Hykli
Planar Scion: Duskwalker
Planar Scion: Aphorite ("Highly Illogical, Captain.")
Planar Scion: Ganzi
More races aligned with the Shadari Confederacy
More "Major Galactic Powers" (Right now we only have four and I'd like some more potential villains and allies in the Vast)

Monsters:

Scarier alien foes
More mounts
More companions
More Kaiju
The Tarrasque IN SPACE!
We can haz Rust Monster companions?
Feather Stalkers
Gugs
Shoggoths
More Fey
More Dragons
More Demons
More Devils (In fact bring back the classic devils and demons)
More Cosmically powerful allies and enemies
More Ship sized enemies

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I feel like a Rust Monster companion would be a pretty serious hazard on anything but a Xenowarden ship...they ARE cute, though...I wonder if they kept that bit of lore from the old 3.5 Pathfinder days where the dwarven word for them originated as a cuss-word!

[thecursor]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

I feel like a Rust Monster companion would be a pretty serious hazard on anything but a Xenowarden ship...they ARE cute, though...I wonder if they kept that bit of lore from the old 3.5 Pathfinder days where the dwarven word for them originated as a cuss-word!

I know that it could be cheesey but I've wanted a pet rusty ever since I played an "Monster Welfare" druid.

[thecursor]

FormerFiend wrote:

And I think this next part is very, very not likely to happen, but I want as close to a gith and a mindflayer and a goliath as playable races as Paizo can give me without violating copyright law. I want as close to a draenei & a warcraft style troll as they can give me.

A SFS Draenei or Mindflayer would be awesome. I'm picturing our faux Mindflayers ruling over a dark empire dedicated entirely to the worship of Nidal or Zon-Kuthon and the fake-Draenei running around trying to stop them.

[pithica42]

Oh, I forgot. I'd also really like the 'carnivorous butterflies' from Primoria.

[Dire Mosasaur]

I'm still hoping for psychopomps!

[FormerFiend]

Damanta wrote:

FormerFiend wrote:

Not to be pedantic but by my count there are 101.

Wait really?

Crap my spreadsheet is missing one then :(
I'm at 100 unique races, with 112 total entries.
That's gonna be annoying to figure out which one I need to add.

Here's what I got;

1. Aasimar*
2. Anassanoi
3. Androids *
4. Astrazoans
5. Bantrids
6. Barathu +
7. Bear, Uplifted
8. Bolida
9. Borai
10. Brakims
11. Brenneri
12. Cephalume
13. Contemplative +
14. Copaxi
15. Damai
16. Dessamar
17. Dirindi
18. Draelik
19. Dragonkin +
20. Dromada
21. Drow *
22. Dwarves *
23. Elebrian +
24. Elves *
25. Embri
26. Endiffian
27. Espraksa
28. Ferran
29. Formian +
30. Ghibrani
31. Ghoran *
32. Gnomes *
33. Goblin, Space **
34. Gosclaws
35. Gray +
36. Haan
37. Half-Elves *
38. Half-Orcs *
39. Halflings *
40. Hanakan
41. Hobgoblin *
42. Hortus
43. Humans *
44. Ifrit *
45. Ikeshti
46. Ijtikri
47. Ilthisarian
48. Izalguun
49. Kalo
50. Kasatha *
51. Kayal *
52. Khizar
53. Kish
54. Lashunta *
55. Maraquoi +
56. Morlamaw
57. Neskintis
58. Nuar
59. Oni, Kanabo +
60. Oread *
61. Orc *
62. Osharu
63. Pathra
64. Phentomite
65. Quorlu
66. Raxilite
67. Reptoid *
68. Ryphorian *
69. Sarcesian +
70. Sazaron
71. Screedreeps
72. Scyphozoan
73. Selamid
74. Seprevoi
75. Shakalta
76. Shatori
77. Shimreen
78. Shirrens
79. Shobhad +
80. Skittermander
81. Spathinae
82. SROs
83. Stelliferas
84. Strix *
85. Suli *
86. Svartalfar +
87. Sylph *
88. Telia
89. Tiefling *
90. Trox *
91. Undine *
92. Urog
93. Varculak
94. Verthani +
95. Vesk
96. Vilderaros
97. Vlaka
98. Witchwyrd +
99. Woioko
100. Wrikreechee
101. Ysoki *

* Playable in PF 1e
+ Not playable but statted out or otherwise mentioned in PF 1e

If I've messed up somewhere and put a not actually playable creature down, lemme know.

[FormerFiend]

thecursor wrote:

FormerFiend wrote:

And I think this next part is very, very not likely to happen, but I want as close to a gith and a mindflayer and a goliath as playable races as Paizo can give me without violating copyright law. I want as close to a draenei & a warcraft style troll as they can give me.

A SFS Draenei or Mindflayer would be awesome. I'm picturing our faux Mindflayers ruling over a dark empire dedicated entirely to the worship of Nidal or Zon-Kuthon and the fake-Draenei running around trying to stop them.

That could be a good hook. My thought was just, they'd be from a planet that got Worldwound'd and that didn't get fixed since we've established that planar invasion & conquest of whole worlds is a thing that can and does happen in the setting.

[Damanta]

FormerFiend wrote:

Here's what I got;

<snip>

If I've messed up somewhere and put a not actually playable creature down, lemme know.

I somehow managed to fail to enter the Dromada in my spreadsheet.

Thanks for the list!
I'm now also at 101 unique races, and have 113 total options.

Edit: and to stay in theme with the thread:
Playerrace option
- Uplifted Badgers / Badgerfolk
- Horta (or something similar)
- Spacenagas

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Don't the ilthisarians kinda count as "spacenagas?"

[Metaphysician]

thecursor wrote:

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

I feel like a Rust Monster companion would be a pretty serious hazard on anything but a Xenowarden ship...they ARE cute, though...I wonder if they kept that bit of lore from the old 3.5 Pathfinder days where the dwarven word for them originated as a cuss-word!

I know that it could be cheesey but I've wanted a pet rusty ever since I played an "Monster Welfare" druid.

One problem with space rust monsters? Its the sci-fi future, and its *much* less clear whether any given piece of equipment is made of metal of any kind, let alone iron. It would be incredibly cumbersome and arbitrary to go back and designate each piece of gear as "metal" or "not metal", especially given that its pretty explicit that equipment does not need to be manufactured the same way. It would be equally cumbersome and arbitrary for the GM to make judgement calls on which gear needs to make saves vs not, on the fly.

If you did want to introduce rust monsters to space, I lean towards reworking them into a broader form of "matter eater". Make their consumptive touch able to work on any non-living matter ( thus only rendering rare and fairly obvious gear immune ), but also make it weaker and less save or suck. Perhaps it "merely" does a decent chunk of damage that bypasses hardness, with a saving throw for half damage; magical gear instead takes half or none.

[Grave Knight]

Wait, are there really no Kobold stats? Don't they specifically mention Kobolds in Pact Worlds under Triaxus?

[thecursor]

Metaphysician wrote:

thecursor wrote:

If you did want to introduce rust monsters to space, I lean towards reworking them into a broader form of "matter eater". Make their consumptive touch able to work on any non-living matter ( thus only rendering rare and fairly obvious gear immune ), but also make it weaker and less save or suck. Perhaps it "merely" does a decent chunk of damage that bypasses hardness, with a saving throw for half damage; magical gear instead takes half or none.

Hmm...I think that could work. Imagine the fluff:

"Sometime after the end of the Gap, a group of well meaning scientists attempted to manage the population of rust monsters that had infested Vercite's waste disposal centers. By using a genetically engineered virus, this group attempted to alter the appetites of these voracious bugs. The procedure worked too well and now these "matter eaters" don't just consume metal, they can degrade and consume almost any non-biological material. While not necessarily evil or vindictive, a Matter Eater will attack anything that disrupts their meal."

[pithica42]

Grave Knight wrote:

Wait, are there really no Kobold stats? Don't they specifically mention Kobolds in Pact Worlds under Triaxus?

Nope. Unfortunately, Captain Obvious was sick the day they discussed that planet at the Paizo offices.

There is a 3pp book (or maybe 2, now) that has them. But I'd prefer they be like Dragoncorp™ office managers and HR reps on Triaxus, officially.

[Maxilla Dragonspite]

"Kobold Workers Interstellar Unite!"

[thecursor]

Maxilla Dragonspite wrote:

"Kobold Workers Interstellar Unite!"

Their demands are as follows:

Death to all the dwarves
Death to all the elves
You can hang them humans too
Death to anyone who isn't a kobold generally
The Paizo developers must finally recognize them as the draconic subtype (it's just so obvious!)
A flamethrower, just one. To be shared.
Fried goblin. Not for eating, they just like it when goblins get fried.
Oh, and dental insurance.

[Maxilla Dragonspite]

thecursor wrote:

Maxilla Dragonspite wrote:

"Kobold Workers Interstellar Unite!"

Their demands are as follows:

Death to all the dwarves
Death to all the elves
You can hang them humans too
Death to anyone who isn't a kobold generally
The Paizo developers must finally recognize them as the draconic subtype (it's just so obvious!)
A flamethrower, just one. To be shared.
Fried goblin. Not for eating, they just like it when goblins get fried.
Oh, and dental insurance.

That was the initial draft, in part due to Droskar-worshipping scabs and mistreatment by elves who were a bit too into the Savored Sting.

Second draft adjusted that to 'never hire dwarves or elves'. In addition, Humans being hung in space is just silly, so that just got cut.

Other races will be tolerated as long as Kobold Workers Interstellar are employed in good Faith.

[Metaphysician]

Maxilla Dragonspite wrote:

thecursor wrote:

Maxilla Dragonspite wrote:

"Kobold Workers Interstellar Unite!"

Their demands are as follows:

Death to all the dwarves
Death to all the elves
You can hang them humans too
Death to anyone who isn't a kobold generally
The Paizo developers must finally recognize them as the draconic subtype (it's just so obvious!)
A flamethrower, just one. To be shared.
Fried goblin. Not for eating, they just like it when goblins get fried.
Oh, and dental insurance.

That was the initial draft, in part due to Droskar-worshipping scabs and mistreatment by elves who were a bit too into the Savored Sting.

Second draft adjusted that to 'never hire dwarves or elves'. In addition, Humans being hung in space is just silly, so that just got cut.

Other races will be tolerated as long as Kobold Workers Interstellar are employed in good Faith.

Honestly, I've heard of worse union negotiations. ;)

[EltonJ]

Kobolds, please. And have their ships be built into giant asteroids.

[Devastation Bob]

I'm sure i'm not the first to bring up lycanthropes, but in a setting where they could actually land on a moon....