To start with, a bit of an explanation; I'm working on a campaign setting that prominently features Monsters with humanoid shapes and features. The setting is intended to place less emphasis on combat and more on resolving problems through roleplay and skill use. This is not to say that combat is nonexistent. If it was, I'd not be bothering with Pathfinder in the first place, despite its large selection of Creatures. Anyway, I'm looking for a quick template that can convert most creatures to Large-or-smaller size and can cope with adjusting or altering their capabilities to fit a humanoid body shape without changing their Types. Particularly without a significant change to CR. I still want them to have their defining capabilities and characteristics, even if they've been tweaked mechanically to be used in a different way.
I'm aware that there are Anthropomorphic Animal templates out there already, both in holdovers from 3e and in 3rd Party and homebrew. Unfortunately, the ones I'm familiar with are both fairly messy and really geared for use on Animals and not other Creature types. I had considered using a Template from Masque of the Red Death called Masque of the Form that allows for Monsters to assume a human form, which is nice. It even allows for a method of applying their Special Abilities, Qualities, etc... It's a pretty good fit that I don't mind resorting to if I have to, or tweaking a bit. However, I was hoping that someone on here has something that's a better fit or advice on modifying that Masque of the Form template.
Anybody got any ideas, suggestions, or brews that might be better than what I've got already?
From Paizo themselves:
Catfolks
Rougarous
Tengus
Kitsunes
Gripplis
Nagajis
Orang-Pendaks
Ratfolk
Skinwalkers
Strix
Syrinx
Vanara
From 3rd-party... I can suggest you Alluria Publishing, they have been making races and the Anumus (or Animi) for both terrestrial and aquatic variations can be used for anthropomorphic animals.
Noted. I'm really looking more for something that can be applied to existing Creatures rather than races specifically designed to resemble animals. The setting that served as the primary inspiration for this mess used humanized Monsters rather than "beastfolk" races, retaining the capabilities of the base Creature while bringing them down to something closer to human size and shape.
Imagine, for a somewhat buzarre example, a Tarrasque-person, except Large-sized. Or an irritable Owlbear-person. Or a Linnorm-person.
So you want to awaken and anthropomorphize existing monsters?
Persons have a soul, not a spirit, so they choose their alignment, and class.
Do you want them to walk upright? That would change their speed to that of humanoids of the same size.
Claws or hooves changing to hands allow tool and weapon use, but weaponless damage is reduced to the next smaller damage dice(minimum 1 point)
In order to speak common they lose bite attacks. Over in defects there is beast scarred face which basically gives the minuses to spell casting and communication of having a muzzle.
Those are some interesting options. The last one is most surprising. Seems I need to look at Defects for possible race-modification options, since that's one I haven't heard of before.
Actually no. I'm looking more at anime, manga, and videogame sources such as Okayado's Daily Life with Monster Girls and 12Beast (no, my name isn't a reference), Kenkou Cross's Monstergirl Encyclopedia, the long-running fanfiction Aonymoosesaga, and to an extent Toby Fox's Undertale. Among other things.
I feel like there's not going to be a quick-anything for turning any and every monster into a humanoid version of itself. Dragons, gelatinous cubes, otyughs and the ghosts of awakened half-fiend dire sharks all have vastly different abilities and (I would imagine) will respond in weird ways to being shoe-horned into a catch-all template.
I'd probably start with a list of generic abilities like claws, tail, wings, breath weapon, frightful presence, stench, etc that scales with CR.
Then I'd make a Small, Medium and Large shell or chasis the aforementioned abilities can be added onto until it resembles the creature in question. Probably need different arrays for fast/tough combat-types (wyvern), special ability-users/spellcasters (medusa) and so on.
It would be a pretty ambitious project, but I can't really see an easier way of doing it beyond a ton of hand-waiving.
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. At that point, it's less using the existing stat blocs and more redesigning every Monster from the ground-up... which undermines one of the main draws of using Pathfinder 1e for the project in the first place.
Realistically, this would probably yield the best result. However, unless I wind up publishing the finished project (it's only meant for my online play groups, currently), there's not a lot of incentive to stick with a bookkeeping-heavy system like 3x. If I go this route in the end, I'll probably drop the system entirely and use Mutants and Masterminds instead. There's already existing HP variants for it, so I'd just need to develop an MP cost system for Spellcasting to get that good "Fantasy RPG" feel going. I've already got a Monster Manual of sorts for it to help serve as a model.
However, I'd prefer not having to rely too heavily on my own largely-untested brewery.
It's certainly possible. But that brings us back to the Masque of Form template; it's a +1/2 CR template that essentially gives the Base Creature a Kitsune's shapeshifting (single, unique Medium humanoid form) while still allowing them to spontaneously manifest additional anatomy to use their attacks, Abilities, Qualities, etc... I'd basically just be treating the form as still monstrous and dumping the Disguise bonus, as well as removing the Shapechanger retype. It's, again, the quickest fix. I don't mind falling back on it. I was just hoping someone had come up with a better one during the course of their own works.
Not to mention getting feedback on the idea and how others would approach the challenge.
10: Beast-scarred Face
Source Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of Angels
Adapted for defects, to apply to mutants or NPCs affected by magical fallout.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/oracle-curses#TOC-Wolfs carred-Face
Your face is deformed, as though you were born with a wolf's (or other animal’s) muzzle instead of an ordinary nose and jaw. Many mistake you for a werewolf (or other monster), and in areas plagued by lycanthropes, you must take pains to hide your face.
Effect
You have a severe speech impediment, and any spells you cast with a verbal component have a 20% chance of failing, wasting your action but not expending the spell. If you come from a civilization where everyone has this, (such as Equestria) spellcasting was developed differently, and there is instead a -5 to Spellcraft to identify the spell being cast. You gain a natural bite attack if you are some kind of fighter, that deals 1d4 points of damage if you are a Medium creature or 1d3 points of damage if you are Small.
Cross posted. Note the attribution.
Hmmm. Guess I'll take a look. Full-on furries are relatively rare in the sources. Kemonomimi is more the order of the day. But there's definitely some at work there.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/bipedal-creatu re-cr-special/
It's 3rd party and I've never bothered reading it, but it might be what you're looking for.
Interesting~
Let's see what's in this thing.
Edit: Alright, having looked at the template... it's promising. There's no listed CR adjustment that I can find on it, but it's a Green Ronin product. I may actually have the book, and can probably root around online for an answer if not. This may be a good option to add to my list. Thank you~
Ah, yeah. D20 Modern. D20 Future also has Mutations.
My outdoor dungeon has a stone circle that evolves creatures at dawn, and devolves creatures at sunset. Definitely apply those 2 spells.
The GM can rule that the creature can rebuild as a character class, or start out as one if transformed while young.
Hmmmm. Transformed animals are relatively rare in my setting, but they're the ones most likely to use those spells to get there due to their capabilities in lore. Though there's also the old 3.0 Savage Species Anthropomorphic Creature for that.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/bipedal-creatu re-cr-special/
It's 3rd party and I've never bothered reading it, but it might be what you're looking for.
It's from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary, which also has a Manimal template (specifically for making anthropomorphic animals).
The Bipedal Creature template doesn't have a CR entry, which (per p. 6 in the Introduction) means that the CR does not change. Manimal has a +1 CR increase (it's effectively a variant on awaken, so gives a stat boost that bipedal doesn't).
Neither template changes size, so you'll still need to tinker with that if you want to cap things at Large.
Yeah. That's doable, just a bit more work XD
If you want to cap it at large for game balance, Just limit PCs to young bipedal monsters, like a young, blue, dragon. Maybe Tarrasque age just like dragons. Maybe a mad alchemist cloned a Tarrasque scale with a fingernail clipping, and kept it as a pet when it turned out to be tiny at first.
Ah, that's not the problem, per se. At least for now anyway. In the long-term, I intend to make Monsters playable, but currently I'm focusing on how to stat NPCs. Players are restricted to the Core Races, currently, though there are methods In-Character that can result in something like Polymorph effects, Paths of Corruption, or Mutations that can eventually change a character's Race.
A human sized Tarrasque Would not have immunities but rather +2 on saves versus those things. Otherwise he or she would seem like a snapping turtle person. More con. and less dex.
Maybe. It depends on how overpowering I want the creature to be. Though in this case I was just using it as an example, there are a number of high-level Monsters that are still expected to be around the same CR despite the change in form and size. There's a number of traits this would end up impacting (like space/reach and carrying capacity), sure, but their Special Qualities and defenses outside of HP and AC probably aren't going to be affected much.
Some Monsters within the inspiring setting were able to revert to their original state temporarily, as well, but not all could, which is another factor in me looking at different conversion methods; not all Monsterfolk have the same traits, so all suggestions are welcomed. The Tarrasque specifically would probably be a Masque of Form'd creature.
Those sample bipedal Nightmares ain't no joke. Picture 3 of them dropping inside the walls of a fort and going to work!
Dare I say it's nightmare fuel?