I have to agree with you here. They are small, redundant, and make the monster entries look very busy/cluttered. Now I have to flip back to a table at the beginning to understand what the symbol means. To me that's bad user interface design and quite possibly done just to emulate Wizards use of symbols in everything in 4E. I don't care for them and would not be disappointed in the least if they did not make it into the final Bestiary. They remind me of Mana symbols in M:tG, and the last thing I want to think of when playing an RPG is a CCG. Maybe its just me though.
Pathfinder 1E [Pathfinder]Bestiary Preview
I have to agree with you here. They are small, redundant, and make the monster entries look very busy/cluttered. Now I have to flip back to a table at the beginning to understand what the symbol means. To me that's bad user interface design and quite possibly done just to emulate Wizards use of symbols in everything in 4E. I don't care for them and would not be disappointed in the least if they did not make it into the final Bestiary. They remind me of Mana symbols in M:tG, and the last thing I want to think of when playing an RPG is a CCG. Maybe its just me though.
James Jacobs
Adventurer
Thanks for all the kind words and feedback, everyone! The final book is really cool; I think it turned out even better than the RPG and can't wait to see it on shelves.
As for the monster icons... we put those in there as much as to differentiate the look of our monster stat blocks from 3.5 as we did in an attempt to make a quick way to note a monster's type, terrain, and climate. You'll absolutely want to look at the stats themselves for more detailed versions of these three categories. Folks seem to be getting used to the icons here in-house and among some of our playtesters, so it's just a small bit of a learning curve to learn the icons. But again, if you don't like them they're easily ignored. As for those who feel the icons are useless... fair enough, but at least their inclusion doesn't use up any extra space on the page, yeah?
And as for spells and summarized damage and saves... we'll be including the save DCs, but not much else. The struggle between super-detailed stat blocks and leaving room for flavor and descriptive text was one we fought long and hard, and in the end, reprinting so much info about spells was something that, for spellcasting monsters like solars and nagas and rakshasas and the like, would have resulted in not enough space for flavor. Won't be to everyone's taste, but it's the same way we handled the info over the last several years in our 3.5 products with little complaint. Hopefully it won't be a deal-breaker for many.
As for the monster icons... we put those in there as much as to differentiate the look of our monster stat blocks from 3.5 as we did in an attempt to make a quick way to note a monster's type, terrain, and climate. You'll absolutely want to look at the stats themselves for more detailed versions of these three categories. Folks seem to be getting used to the icons here in-house and among some of our playtesters, so it's just a small bit of a learning curve to learn the icons. But again, if you don't like them they're easily ignored. As for those who feel the icons are useless... fair enough, but at least their inclusion doesn't use up any extra space on the page, yeah?
And as for spells and summarized damage and saves... we'll be including the save DCs, but not much else. The struggle between super-detailed stat blocks and leaving room for flavor and descriptive text was one we fought long and hard, and in the end, reprinting so much info about spells was something that, for spellcasting monsters like solars and nagas and rakshasas and the like, would have resulted in not enough space for flavor. Won't be to everyone's taste, but it's the same way we handled the info over the last several years in our 3.5 products with little complaint. Hopefully it won't be a deal-breaker for many.
Hey James - Thanks for responding. While the icons don't bother me, I'm in the camp of seeing them as unnecessary. I do feel they are too small to make out what the little images are supposed to be without stopping and really looking at them for a moment though.
I posted a question on the Paizo boards asking if the icons were open content or not. I know the obvious answer would be no, because they are art, but I was thinking these might fall into a slightly different category since they are a graphic representation of a rule or mechanic. Since the icons communicate mechanical information about the creature I wasn't sure if they might be open or not.
I'm going with "not open" until I hear otherwise though.
Edit: Oh yeah, the reason I was asking is because I was considering adding them into the Bestiary section on d20pfsrd.com, but I wanted to make sure it was legit first.
I posted a question on the Paizo boards asking if the icons were open content or not. I know the obvious answer would be no, because they are art, but I was thinking these might fall into a slightly different category since they are a graphic representation of a rule or mechanic. Since the icons communicate mechanical information about the creature I wasn't sure if they might be open or not.
I'm going with "not open" until I hear otherwise though.
Edit: Oh yeah, the reason I was asking is because I was considering adding them into the Bestiary section on d20pfsrd.com, but I wanted to make sure it was legit first.
James Jacobs
Adventurer
The icons aren't open content. They're part of Paizo's layout design and trade dress and all that. We might add the icons to the fan resource kit some day, but they're supposed to sort of help make a Paizo new monster look identifiably like a Paizo new monster, I guess.
I get that, and it also adds something to the actual book that is not in open sites that some might find more appealing/an attraction to the book. No faults there! Thanks for clearing it up.
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