OK - I'm glancing through my hot-off-the-intarwebs subscriber PDF for a few minutes before I turn in for the night. A few notes before I turn into a pumpkin (and apologies if any of this is old news):
- Aasimar gain +2 CHA, +2 WIS. No ability penalty.
- "Eladrin" are no more; they are called "Azata." Makes sense, since 4E has co-opted the old name.
- Love the art in general, but I really like the centaur, cyclops, balor (scary!), succubus (scary-rawr), dryad (heloo, nurse!), giant eagle (with elven rider!), froghemoth, all the genies... probably no sense continuing to list, but there's a lot of great art in here.
- Demon lords are listed, but not statted up. Same for noted devils.
- Seperate stat blocks for young, adult, and ancient dragons of each color.
- Half-dragons gain +8 STR, +6 CON, +2 INT, +2 CHA and wings, but (as expected) don't have an entry for "half-dragons as characters."
- Linnorms!
- Phoenix! One of my favorites that kind of got overlooked in 3E; now in glorious color.
- The tarrasque nets you 1,638,400 XP. Wow.
- The final 40 pages of appendicies deal with monster creation, monster advancement, a glossary, monsters as PCs (only a column's worth), monster feats (page and a half), monsters by type, CR, and terrain, encounter tables, and monsters by role (interesting addition).
330 pages of good stuff, pretty much one critter per page in full color. Can't wait to see the printed book in a week or less.
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Paizo.com is down (at least for me). Got the email saying I could download my subscriber copy though. I assume that the servers are all either busy with people downloading that massive tome, or they blew up from the overload.
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Got our shipping confirmation last night and managed to get the pdf downloaded before the site went down (which is back up now btw). Still going through it. I note that Kytons are no longer devils; in general, a lot of the terms for certain creatures seem to have rolled back to 1e.
I can't complain.
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- "Eladrin" are no more; they are called "Azata." Makes sense, since 4E has co-opted the old name.
Thanks for the details! Just a note: Paizo couldn't use eladrin, since WotC never opened it up (there are no "eladrin" in the SRD for ex, just ghaeles and bralanis). Did Paizo make lillends azata, also? I seem to remember that from the listing in the Bonus Bestiary cover.
If you can kill him by yourself, then you deserve it! But split among a party of, say, level 20's? sounds about right.
__________________ "Conversely, I'm amazed at the number of people queueing up to tell people that don't like 4e that they are wrong. Why can't people just agree to disagree, and get on with actually playing the game?" --Delericho
If there's one dragon, it's a solo monster.
If there's five dragons, they're standard monsters.
If there's a dozen dragons, either most of them are minions or your DM is tired of the campaign.
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The only thing I am upset about with the bestiary is the lack of 2 creatures, Illithids and Genasi. I know they probably can't use Genasi but a form of elemental planetouched would've been fantastic. Overall, fantastic artwork and a billion times more useful than the 3E MM. Thanks a bunch Paizo
Any stat or ability changes for the humanoid races? I'm curious about orcs and kobolds in particular.
Kobolds get -4 STR, +2 DEX, -2 CON, and a +1 natural armor bonus, amoungst other things.
Orcs get +4 STR, -2 INT, -2 WIS, -2 CHA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freyar
Thanks for the details! Just a note: Paizo couldn't use eladrin, since WotC never opened it up (there are no "eladrin" in the SRD for ex, just ghaeles and bralanis). Did Paizo make lillends azata, also? I seem to remember that from the listing in the Bonus Bestiary cover.
Good catch on the SRD issue. Yes, the lillend is an azata.
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How does it handle LA/ECL say if you want to play an ogre or something that won't squish into normal 0 LA 1 ECL?
LA/ECL is not a part of the Bestiary; this isn't a book of alternate player races. It's a monster book. That said, there is the aforementioned half-page or so of advice in the appendix where we talk a little bit about what to watch out for if you let a player play an ogre or minotaur or something like that. It's certainly possible... but it's not what the game was designed to support. Some day we might do a "Savage Species" style book that looks into the "play monsters as PCs" stuff... but that book isn't this Bestiary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Voadam
How about gnolls, if you play one do you still have racial HD?
Yes, you would. Unless the GM houserules their racial HD away.
Thanks for the details! Just a note: Paizo couldn't use eladrin, since WotC never opened it up (there are no "eladrin" in the SRD for ex, just ghaeles and bralanis).
As a note, there are "eladrin" in the SRD (along with "guardinal") - both terms were accidentally left in some of the summon monster lists.
That said, I understand why Paizo left those alone anyway; WotC's intent was clearly to leave those terms closed, and respecting that was the noble thing to do.
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LA/ECL is not a part of the Bestiary; this isn't a book of alternate player races. It's a monster book. That said, there is the aforementioned half-page or so of advice in the appendix where we talk a little bit about what to watch out for if you let a player play an ogre or minotaur or something like that. It's certainly possible... but it's not what the game was designed to support. Some day we might do a "Savage Species" style book that looks into the "play monsters as PCs" stuff... but that book isn't this Bestiary.
I got mixed emotions on this. On the one hand, I HATE PCs shopping through the monster manual like its a PC book. OTOH, I wouldn't mind balanced PC-worthy stats for things orcs, goblins, minotaurs, or lizardmen.
As a note, there are "eladrin" in the SRD (along with "guardinal") - both terms were accidentally left in some of the summon monster lists.
That said, I understand why Paizo left those alone anyway; WotC's intent was clearly to leave those terms closed, and respecting that was the noble thing to do.
I saw that... I wonder if it would be enough of an opening to use either name in a OGL product?
As a note, there are "eladrin" in the SRD (along with "guardinal") - both terms were accidentally left in some of the summon monster lists.
That said, I understand why Paizo left those alone anyway; WotC's intent was clearly to leave those terms closed, and respecting that was the noble thing to do.
That's very interesting. I haven't gone through the summon lists that carefully to notice it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xendria
The only thing I am upset about with the bestiary is the lack of 2 creatures, Illithids and Genasi. I know they probably can't use Genasi but a form of elemental planetouched would've been fantastic. Overall, fantastic artwork and a billion times more useful than the 3E MM. Thanks a bunch Paizo
Definitely couldn't use illithids either, as WotC kept those along with a few other "iconic" D&D monsters out of the SRD and any other OGC.
Good catch on the SRD issue. Yes, the lillend is an azata.
Just as a note to head off any confusion, the Bestiary does use some outsider names that come from Golarion, the 3.x eladrin are now azata and guardinals are agathions. However, much of the Golarion specific details of those same outsiders aren't included. For instance, Golarion's angels and agathions are both exclusively NG, two sides of the same coin really, representing specific aspects of their alignment/plane, while 3.x angels and Bestiary angels are deific servitors of any good alignment.
Additionally, unless any specific unique celestials or fiends appear in mythology, they don't appear in the Bestiary, so for instance there's a different list of empyreal lords in the Bestiary versus those that exist for Golarion.
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But split among a party of, say, level 20's? sounds about right.
That makes a lot of sense.
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