Creative Director
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The paralisis bit for ghouls comes from D&D, and that's the main reason we had to abandon that trope for them in the remastered rules—we wanted to avoid the D&D elements while leaning into the role that ghouls have always had in Pathfinder—a creepier, more sinister-society occult nature that leans more into their roles as manipulators and/or "high society" flesh eaters.
Especially since the mindless brain-eating zombie role is already covered by zombies.
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Because of the elven immunity to dnd ghoul's paralysis, I always thought it was a nod to LotR where even the dwarf Gimli has terror paralysing him from entering the subterranean way guarded by undead, whereas the elf Legolas feels no such fright.
Maybe post-hoc, but originally that trait appeared in Chainmail, D&D's fantasy-war simulation predecessor. Elves were expensive, but were just as susceptible to ghoul paralysis which proved too big an Achilles heel for game balance so they made elves immune to ghoul paralysis. Since proto-D&D used Chainmail creatures on a smaller scale (I believe in a sewer even), the abilities carried over as part of the lore. (No citation available, but I believe it was from a printed interview.)
I freely mix and match legacy and remaster monsters. The only thing I really worry about is premaster monsters with Grab or Improved Grab - the remaster change that made these abilities depend on Athletics rolls has wildly altered their power. Some premaster monsters have attacks with (Improved) Grab but no Athletics modifier, meaning that they will essentially never succeed their checks to grapple a PC. This was fine premaster, when Grab succeeded automatically - it just meant that the PC was debuffed a bit but was guaranteed to Escape successfully on their turn. However, with the remaster change it makes the ability non-functional. Conversely, some premaster monsters have Grab and a very high Athletics modifier, which can massively increase their threat level because there's a very high chance that they will Restrain multiple PCs, who will then need to roll extremely high to Escape. To avoid these issues I usually run premaster monsters with Grab under the premaster rules.
Whatever works for your table, but I personally think the better solution is to use the remaster rules for grab, but give the monsters a high athletics value for their level.
My observation is that premaster grab was too good. That auto grab on hit was something that was simply too powerful.
Remastered creatures in theory have been tuned to deal with the fact that their Extreme (what the table calls it, but you could call it very high) athletics score means higher chances of grabbing and keeping PCs grabbed. Don't forget that while the grab action itself doesn't increase MAP, the strike that would allow for the grab attempt would, meaning the NPC has a lesser chance of striking a 2nd PC in a turn, and therefore lesser chance to grab them. And grab also costs an action. Meaning that normally a creature wouldn't be able to strike, grab, and strike and grab again (that's 4 actions). With improved grab, it does turn the grab into a free action which means they could maybe grab 3 PCs, but they'd also have to land 3 strikes which is unlikely. Even landing the 2nd strike with MAP isn't a given.
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How do you all merge different versions of monsters in Legacy and Remaster? Or do you just stick with one or the other?Absolutely. I don't care about some being 'old' (unless mechanics is broken now or I don't like it). I will use both kinds of ghouls in the next game in one encounter for example. Because I like all: paralysis, disease and the new curse.
It's a pity they can't turn off their stench. Not very stealthy. Well, they would have to deal with it.
Stinking environments FTW.
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As far as I'm concerned all the pre-remaster dragons are still fair game, both for GMs and player options. (Except in some very particular cases where it is apparent that they didn't want PCs getting physical damage resistance from certain dragons anymore.)
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Isn't it only ghasts who are distractingly stinky?
It used to be! However the distinction between ghasts and ghouls doesnt exist in the remaster. The former ghast position is now occupied by the ghoul soldier.
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The only legacy creatures that I can think of off-hand that I don't like and would prefer only the Remaster versions of is Golems.
Golem Antimagic was both hard to adjudicate and was brutal to spellcasters.
In a fight with a Golem, it is easily possible for a spellcaster to be completely unable to contribute any damage or debuffs to the battle. Buff and support casters were still viable, but that is all unless you are really lucky (or metagaming) on your spell traits and damage types.
And depending on how the GM rules on various wordings, the game play could be completely different. On one hand, the players could cheese throwing bottles of mundane water at a golem to trigger Golem Antimagic damage. On the other hand, the party could have the martial's weapons also get their fundamental rune damage negated.
The Bastions that replace Golems are a lot easier to understand and play with.
So yeah, civilized ghouls (which IMO was an oxymoron) can't function with such a stench. Their cities must smell wretched, but funnily enough that also means any visitors should have the one-minute immunity to stench auras ongoing at the beginning of most combats (assuming they're strong enough to easily make the save DC of the mundane ghouls). Hmm, this consistent need to save vs. stench would make infiltration difficult too, as natural 1s would reveal most people who'd need to resort to infiltration, assuming being Sickened enough to be Slowed stood out.
Hmm, some older material had ghoul troops working alongside or for snobbish types that I doubt would accept such odors in their presence. Not that they'd have smelled fine before, but we're talking now about smells that impair people.
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Creative Director
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All of this talk about stinky ghouls, and no talk about how "fancy" those humans smell in their cloying, perfumed cities above! To a ghoul, the scent of decaying meat is a delight, and if that makes it uncomfortable for living visitors to endure, that's fine. If the ghouls have their way, those living intruders into their glorious chambers below will be adding to the heady aroma of the underworld soon enough, after all.
Hmm, has anybody sniffed Mr. Jacobs recently?
Maybe someone outside of Paizo. :-P
Well, yeah, "nobody's forced" is the solution and truth (and PFS GMs running older material need to be aware of this when a scenario lists "generic" ghoul, the situation might warrant using the legacy version like if a harpy's effects need to be sound based for the listed tactics.) But what I find interesting is how the zeitgeist will shift over the decades. Not that PF necessarily dominates that, but "stinky ghouls" and "windy harpies" will become the norm for newer PF players who'll become the grognards of 2050...in whatever awesome, tech-based way that becomes.
I also think PCs would notice a difference between stinky area and Stench itself. One might need to toss in some red herrings re: Stench. Hopefully alchemy to turn off Stench would be cheap since it's not giving a power, it's removing one, and so low-level ghouls (et al) could reasonably access it.
That is for y'all who see hunger-driven ghouls as being able to act civil around fresh food. Their images were primarily feral and they used to be Chaotic Evil. So even though ghoul cities date back to Gygax, the concept eludes me, comparable to a cannibalistic post-apocalyptic raider outpost except somehow able to transcend into even larger scope...with municipal services? Oh well, nobody's forced to play with such cities either.
I don't think it's really that much of a stretch of the imagination; the point of remaster ghouls from what I've seen is that they're a perversion of the living: they savor rotten meat like we would our own fine dining, they enjoy putrid aromas as we would perfume, and the depraved conventions of their society are a dark reflection of societal mores you'd find in living cities. Just as undeath is a horrible inversion of life, so are ghoul societies a warped mirror of living societies, and they would probably find many of our own tastes and quirks equally repulsive. It's also not like there aren't parallels among the living either: raw meat is in fact a delicacy when prepared a certain way, we often do ferment meat and other food items as a means of consuming them (and the results can be quite pungent!), certain living ancestries like kholos have no cultural taboo against cannibalism, and there are plenty of living individuals whose hygiene and proclivities do verge on the ghoulish side, so there's opportunities here and there to fit in.
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Creative Director
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Ghoul cities date back decades before Gygax. Lovecraft had them in his stories, as did Clark Ashton Smith. Those elements are more where I drew initial ghoul inspiration from in the early days when I was working on Rise of the Runelords and Into the Darklands in my attempt to move away a bit from the D&D tropes (like what we were also doing with goblins and ogres and giants and so on).
Modern inspirations include stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan, but also Hannibal Lecter, particularly from the TV series where he's an evil but talented cook.