Pathfinder 1E Consolidating the number of types

[VelvetViolet]

One of the things I feel that Pathfinder didn't address very well was the types. Many of them are, IMO, redundant or ill-defined and would work better as subtypes. Most of them even share basic features like HD and BAB.

Aberration and monstrous humanoid are particularly big offenders, since its not really clear what the difference between them and humanoids or magical beasts are. Many humanoid races possess "monstrous or animalistic features" and many magical beasts possess "bizarre anatomy," so the qualifiers are essentially moot.

I know what you're thinking. This would make polymorph spells more powerful because now characters could get the powers of consolidated types. You would also be incorrect. The polymorph spells specifically state that they only grant the character certain abilities possessed by the form they assume. So if you use alter self to assume the form of, say, a Kasatha (Paizo OGC), you would not get the second pair of arms that Kasatha have because alter self only allows you to gain the form's cosmetic appearance and basic senses.

For example, planetouched are native outsiders. This means that they function the exact same as normal humanoid races, except they aren't affected by spells that target humanoids (beneficial or detrimental) but they are affected by spells that target outsiders, meaning they are legal targets for planar binding. Etc.

What constitutes an outsider, for example? Quite often I see outsiders that would be more appropriate as extraplanar magical beasts, monstrous humanoids, etc. For example, the Neraphim (WotC IP) are considered native outsiders (despite being native to Limbo) when they should really be extraplanar humanoids.


So what I propose would be to consolidate the monster types to avoid this kind of confusion. (credits to Keith Davies for the concepts, and to the 4th edition monster manual for the idea of the immortal subtype)

There would be five types, which determine basic anatomy. Beast (nonhumanoid, nonamorphous), Construct (animated nonliving material), Humanoid (recognizably humanoid, but may have extra heads, limbs, torsos, etc), Ooze (amorphous), and Plant (animated vegetation, also includes fungi that aren't amorphous).

Aberration becomes the aberrant subtype, usually applied to beasts and humanoids.

Animal, Dragon and Vermin become subtypes of an all-purpose Beast type. Magical Beast is merged into the Beast type, possibly as a subtype.

Fey becomes a subtype usually applied to beasts and humanoids.

Monstrous humanoid is merged into humanoid, possibly as a subtype.

Outsider becomes the Immortal subtype, usually applied to beasts and humanoids. Not all extraplanar creatures have this subtype, but all the major planar races such as angels, demons, axiomites, and proteans do.

Undead becomes a subtype, usually applied to beasts and humanoids. Almost all undead were originally living creatures, and they retain their original type.


Thoughts?

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

IMO, 4E got this right. Maybe take a look at that.

 

[Yora]

I used to use Pathfinder but switched to Castles & Crusades, which also uses the basic creature types of D&D 3rd Edition.

The first thing I scrapped where Fey. Fey are simply outsiders, either (native) or with a (spirit) subtype if the setting has a distinct spiritworld plane. Fey works for dryads and pixies, but otherwise it's a really bad type. It's just very weak and doesn't work for more trollish types of spirit. And in fact, rakshasa have always been outsiders, and in PF oni and kami are as well. And what's a fey anyway? Either a monstrous humanoid native to the material plane, or identical to outsiders but native not the the outer or inner planes, but to the material plane or spiritworld.

Monstrous Humanoid is treated by me as "humanoid, but with magical powers". If it has spell-like abilities, it's not humanoid. The original distinction of "bestial features" just doesn't work in practice. Is a humanoid rat humanoid or monstrous humanoid? What about a humanoid frog? Since in a fantasy world "normal for humanoids" is not defined, the distinction is meaningless. Any why would a spell work on a giant and a gnoll, but not on a minotaur or a centaur? And why is centaur monstrous but merfolk are not? With a lamia or a skum it makes more sense, because those are not natural creatures.

Same thing with magical beasts and animals. Originally there was also the beast type, which was pretty much "identical to animal, but fictional". Which wasn't really helpful and got scrapped, but instead of putting all the monsters into "animal" where they belong, they went into "magical beast". But more recently, we got all kinds of fictional animals that are still animal type.
So my definition of magical beast is "supenatural abilities of Intelligence of 3 or higher". There's a bit difficulty to draw the line between magical beast and monstrous humanoids, as for examples six-limbed centaurs and gargoyles are monstrous humanoid, but mostly it works just fine.

I approve of giant being a subtype of humanoid, since the only difference is size. And the only effect of not being humanoid is being immune to certain spells, which just shouldn't be the case if the only difference is size.

Aberrations are also a bit troublesome. Originally they were meant to be "mortal" like magical beasts, but with much weirder anatomy than those. But over time, aberrations got more and more extraplanar fluff, which again would simply make them outsiders. I am probably going to split them up into outsider or magical beast.
Oh, and dragons of course. They work as a subtype of magical beast just fine.

So the types that really seem sensible to me are animal, magical beast, humanoid, monstroud humanoid, outsider, undead, ooze, plant, construct.

 

[delericho]

Thoughts?

In theory, it's probably a good idea. In practice, it sounds like an awful lot of work for not much gain. So, is it really worth it?

 

[Tovec]

To OP:

You have almost exactly re-created what I have done for my system (still in beta testing). The changes between what you ended up with and mine are mostly cosmetic as it would come to similar conclusions. For alternate thoughts, try doing a search as there was a conversation about this a few months ago - with KM presenting some good ideas IIRC - when WotC was talking about the similar topic.

For my system, I created the following types; beast, mortal, spirit, fey, animal, construct.

Beast is more or less what you had EXCEPT animals and vermin. But definitely all magical beasts. I decided the dividing line was intention and intelligence. I decided on this split since combining animals (and vermin) into beasts had just too many beasts - I actually went through the PF Bestiary and sorted the types into my new system to see.
A subtype of magical beast, which can be applied a little more widely for other types, was dragon which I found a silly alternate type. But this also allows me to have the primal dragons and planar dragons, just with a subtype but built with different rules - spirit-bane for the win!

Animals were their own type, and as already said had to do with intelligence and in many cases lack of malevolence (animals are all N). I did this because it made more sense for things like druids and rangers who use animal companions and wildshape. It also allows for me to make very strong creatures (like dinosaurs) that aren't affected by things like beast-slaying or dragon-slaying weapons.
Definitely rolled vermin in with animals, so long as they are the unintelligent kind. But mean ones, the tricksters who can think and plan beyond a simple animal/instinct level are usually beasts.

Mortals are everything you just said. They are the normal creatures, and I actually have intelligent undead rolled into this too - so vampires and liches and what not are also mortals, just ones who are immortal undeads. Which creates the undead subtype, but sharing between here and constructs. The change of humanoids to mortals was one spawned from a friend of mine who (I think rightly so) though humanoid to be racist and unnecessarily human-centric. (I am playing around with calling them "people" instead, but I haven't made that change yet.)

Spirits are the catch all for the outsider type. But basically anything that doesn't fit into the other categories (and is intelligent) goes here. After much effort trying to get them to fit, I ended up putting most incorporeal undead under spirits too - because that is how people will interact with them. When you meet a ghost they are former mortals trapped between the mortal world and the afterlife, and are incorporeal (resubtyped as spectral) spirits.

Fey are a big thing in my setting for my system. And while they are partially related to spirits I found they had many traits that were different enough to warrant their own type. However, I also realized that as they were originally written fey didn't have many creatures to fit under a 'type' which originally bothered me. But as I started expanding my fey realm I realized that I could roll other types into fey and have the explanation work well. Specifically I realized that with my current paradigm that oozes and plants didn't make sense as non-fey. They retain their subtype but are rolled into fey. The thought about this is that non-fey oozes and trees don't usually eat people and move around naturally. Heck, dryads are fey already but treants weren't? That seemed odd to me.

Constructs are another very important type. Before the major example of constructs were golems and that was about it. I've added in undead, specifically the unthinking ones, like skeletons and zombies and anything that moves around without its own will - this also adds in some "elementals" like wood, ice, and anything a crafter was able to mold and give the semblance of life. Seems to work well enough, and my players are starting to understand that not all undead are the same, and how to treat the superior construct type differently than before.

But all in all, each type in my system has many examples that fit under it, many subtypes (for bane weapons especially - before only outsiders and humanoids had that) - and are wide varying enough (IMHO) to warrant a type as opposed to subtype. Most types cut remain as subtypes, but I tried to go in with the feeling that subtypes are not limited exclusively to type. So, an elf while alive is typed 'Mortal (elf)' if it becomes a vampire it is then 'Mortal (elf, undead)' and if it is slain and becomes a ghost it is then 'Spirit (elf, spectral)'. Ghosts (in my system) aren't actually undead, they are just projections of people from the afterlife, but if that wasn't the case the elf would then become 'Spirit (elf, spectral, undead)'.

Fey are a big thing in the setting for my system, and so the

 

[VelvetViolet]

Nice ideas. I decided to organize the types based on their basic anatomy, with everything that deviates from that made into a subtype. I'm trying to make the process of conversion as painless as possible, since that's where most of the problems lie, since Pathfinder gave all the types new properties compared to 3.5. Magical beasts and monstrous humanoids, for example, will need to have their HD increased by one-fourth to one-third to compensate for their loss of hit points and BAB, while fey will need to have their HD decreased by one-fourth to one-third. Furthermore, humanoids of large-size or greater will automatically have the giant subtype.

I also had ideas for two subtypes based on new types originally introduced in Relics & Rituals Excalibur: the manifestation and spirit subtypes.

Manifestations and spirits are similar to ghosts for the closest analogy, but they are not undead. Manifestations are created by a powerful outpouring of emotion that gains a life of its own. Spirits are the incorporeal animistic spirits of nature such as rocks, rivers, animals and trees.

Additionally, I'm trying to write OGC versions of the deathless and living construct types to represent positive energy undead and partly-alive constructs to cater to people who want to play good necromancers or constructs without the problem of evil or the overpowering immunities, respectively.

 

[VelvetViolet]

In theory, it's probably a good idea. In practice, it sounds like an awful lot of work for not much gain. So, is it really worth it?

Yes. Laziness is no excuse. Furthermore, I'm making mindless into its own subtype just like incorporeal for easy reference.