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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Consolidating the number of types
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<blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 6259559" data-attributes="member: 6670763"><p>I used to use Pathfinder but switched to Castles & Crusades, which also uses the basic creature types of D&D 3rd Edition.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p>Oh, and dragons of course. They work as a subtype of magical beast just fine.</p><p></p><p>So the types that really seem sensible to me are animal, magical beast, humanoid, monstroud humanoid, outsider, undead, ooze, plant, construct.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Yora, post: 6259559, member: 6670763"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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