Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Bestiary - Discussion

[James Jacobs]

Been browsing the PRD on the web at work. The advancement section is really quite nice!

Did note a few problems, though: a few tables in the advancement rules seem to be partially missing, and I don't see darkvision in the universal monster rules.

Which tables are those? If you mean that the tables don't go beyond 20th level... that was partially a necessary evil to fit everything in the book. It's possible to extend those tables beyond CR 20 with the application of logic and a bit of work, and some day we'll publish an extended table, I'm sure...

And yeah, darkvision did get accidently left out of the universal monster rules. Fortunately, it's described pretty well in the core rules, so although it's legitimate errata that we'll have to address eventually, it's not like rules for darkvision are entirely missing from the game. The section on page 562 of the Core Rulebook should work fine.

 

[frankthedm]

Looks like a lot of monsters get variants mentioned, but don’t actually get stated up. Yes, it saves space, but it does feel like a “Some assembly required” sort of deal.

Cutting oneself out after swallow whole sounds kinda easy on some monsters.

Speaking of easy, maybe it is my imagination, but a few animal companion style critters seem to have gotten a power down. Someone probably noted this already.

Hydra no longer gets to take a full attack after moving now have Pounce. No Multiple AoO’s either Combat reflexes only gives the hydra the standard benefit. Extra heads are “Some assembly required”. Pyro / cryo variants are just a matter of breath weapon, and subtype.

Skum are now cemented in the role of lovecraftian Deep Ones. Though their pathfinder version was made as an all male race so they also take on the “Fishmen want our women” B-movie aspect. And that raised the question, who are the lazy bums that make up the (+ 50% noncombatants) in a skum cabal.

 

[Erik Mona]

Fat layabouts, mostly.

 

[BryonD]

Yes, it saves space, but it does feel like a “Some assembly required” sort of deal.

Yeah. It Rocks.

In particular I was pleased when I saw the open-ended approach to hydras. (seriously, I already planned to comment on how much I liked the approach)

 

[pawsplay]

Which tables are those? If you mean that the tables don't go beyond 20th level... that was partially a necessary evil to fit everything in the book. It's possible to extend those tables beyond CR 20 with the application of logic and a bit of work, and some day we'll publish an extended table, I'm sure...

Key classes are listed but there's no body to the table.

 

[Kralin Thornberry]

I'm not sure I like a "basic" werewolf being a CR 2, a "basic" ochre jelly being a cR 5, and a "basic" vampire being a CR 9.

And why does they hybrid form of a werewolf NOT have a claw attack?

 

[James Jacobs]

I'm not sure I like a "basic" werewolf being a CR 2, a "basic" ochre jelly being a cR 5, and a "basic" vampire being a CR 9.

And why does they hybrid form of a werewolf NOT have a claw attack?

Because wolves don't have claw attacks.

 

[James Jacobs]

Looks like a lot of monsters get variants mentioned, but don’t actually get stated up. Yes, it saves space, but it does feel like a “Some assembly required” sort of deal.

We might be statting up some of those variants in another bestariy some day if folks are interested in it; we'll certainly be statting them up in adventures now and then. That said... isn't part of the fun about being the GM the "some assembly required" part of the game? It is for me, at least. That's the big reason we put the super-detailed "Here's how we did it" Appendix 1 in the book so GMs can build monsters using the same tools we had.

Hydra no longer gets to take a full attack after moving. No Multiple AoO’s either. Extra heads are “Some assembly required”. Pyro / cryo variants are just a matter of breath weapon, and subtype.

The way hydras worked in 3.5 was... unfortunate. They used a bunch of different rules and that was fun on one level, but it also meant that unless you used hydras all the time, they tended to bring games to a crawl not only because their rules worked so different and thus the GM had to spend time figuring them out, but also because the methods of fighting them were so weird that it felt, well... just "off." The Pathfinder version of the hydra is, hopefully, easier to run and use. And they do have pounce and Combat Reflexes, so they can still do things like move and make full attacks or have multiple attacks of opportunity (although they'll need a higher dex if they want to do a LOT of them)... they just follow established rules for doing so now.

 

[freyar]

Which tables are those? If you mean that the tables don't go beyond 20th level... that was partially a necessary evil to fit everything in the book. It's possible to extend those tables beyond CR 20 with the application of logic and a bit of work, and some day we'll publish an extended table, I'm sure...

<snip>

Key classes are listed but there's no body to the table.

pawsplay got one of them. Also, under Monster Creation,
Table: Creature Statistics by Type and
Table: Monster Statistics by CR
both have header lines but no table body.

 

[freyar]

We might be statting up some of those variants in another bestariy some day if folks are interested in it; we'll certainly be statting them up in adventures now and then. That said... isn't part of the fun about being the GM the "some assembly required" part of the game? It is for me, at least. That's the big reason we put the super-detailed "Here's how we did it" Appendix 1 in the book so GMs can build monsters using the same tools we had.

This is such a nice attitude!

The way hydras worked in 3.5 was... unfortunate. They used a bunch of different rules and that was fun on one level, but it also meant that unless you used hydras all the time, they tended to bring games to a crawl not only because their rules worked so different and thus the GM had to spend time figuring them out, but also because the methods of fighting them were so weird that it felt, well... just "off." The Pathfinder version of the hydra is, hopefully, easier to run and use. And they do have pounce and Combat Reflexes, so they can still do things like move and make full attacks or have multiple attacks of opportunity (although they'll need a higher dex if they want to do a LOT of them)... they just follow established rules for doing so now.

Aren't unified mechanics nice?

I have to say that I really like the philosophy implied by this post.