Advanced Bestiary vs Beast Builder

[jgbrowning]

Hey Joe, since you are in the thread, why not post your own thoughts?

I acknowledge that your viewpoint is somewhat skewed.

Though I can also see where you, as the publisher, wouldn't want to even try to get into comparisons. I respect that. But what about your target audience? Where were you aiming with the book?

My view is a bit skewed. I think Advanced Bestiary is a very good product, but I also think Beast Builder is excellent as well. I do think they serve different purposes.

Advanced Bestiary is a book of templates designed to overlay existing creatures, turning them into "new" creatures. In otherwords, what templates are suposed to do. It does this job, IMO, very well. Beast Builder is a "start from scratch" monster design handbook. It's guidelines, information, and ideas to help a GM build completely new monsters. It's aimed at the homebrew GM who both creates/borrows from monster sources, but also spends a lot of time customizing his campaign. It also has two very useful sections that help codifiy monster thought— something which I dont think has been done before—: monster concepts and monster functions. The monster concept is "what's the IDEA behind the monster" and the function is "what's the monsters adversarial ROLE" in the game mechanics. A concept would be "A constrictor snake like creature that breaths fire" and a function would be "grappler, energy attacker." I tried to create a conceptual framework into which all monsters could fit in order to improve the creation of monsters from the get go.

There's lots of other stuff in A Magical Society: Beast Builder, but there are a few reviews up now that go over them in more detail than probably appropriate to one post.

joe b.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Why in print? Increasingly more of my gaming references are digital. Especially for resources that are predominantly geared toward the GM, I see no special reason to buy a print product.

I got BB in PDF. I wish I had gotten it in print. EXP makes very dense books. You do a lot of flipping around. It's easier for me to do that in print.

 

[DMH]

I agree with everyone else- they are apples and oranges. I was rereading BB, in the organism section today and the listing for virus inspired a new form of slime- living soil. It affects animals (in other words, no plants or constructs) in the same way as green slime, but doesn't move.

Oh, and Joe- does the alignment change from eating hill giant jerky last as long as the ability changes or is it permanent? That section is also very cool.

 

[jgbrowning]

Oh, and Joe- does the alignment change from eating hill giant jerky last as long as the ability changes or is it permanent? That section is also very cool.

When writing it I intended it to be a temporary effect, but rereading, you're correct in that I didn't explicitly state such. So I'd think it should be temporary, but RAW would be permanent.

joe b.