Let's Sperg Let's read- Pathfinder Bestiary 6

[Vitriol]

I might move this to art & literature but given it is a tool for a game I'm posting here initially.

So the Bestiary 6 was released today and I thought it would be interesting to go through it a monster per day- I figure we have enough RPG fans on the forum for some interest. I saw this done with the 4e MM back in 2007 and it seemed like a reasonable thread idea.

Onto monster 1- the Alp

Spoiler

I like fey, especially weird del toro esque stuff and this cr 10 medium beastie definately fits that bill. They would make interesting courtiers for a Fiendish Erlking unseelie BBEG in the mid game or possibly a unique hazard for a party crossing the plane of dreams. Nightmare and their crushing leap also make for an excellent assassin should the party offend the wrong fey noble, with the effects of nightmare being a really good way of keeping a key spellcaster from recovering spells and forcing an encounter where the party will have to protect a suddenly vulnerable spellcaster.

It would be a really good way of putting a party that is being carried by a fullcaster on the back foot and would bond the party together, however as ever one would have to be sure not to keep the caster weak for more than a session- no one wants to spend a whole mission as a caster with no spells when at level7-13.

at cr 10 they sit between night and dreamthief hags the other two major fey esque dream themed monsters- as such they would make either interesting opponents for a hag benefactor or allies for the PCs against a hag antagonist. If your BBEG is a night or dreamthief hag with class levels to CR20+ i think these would make excellent minions for the transition between the mid campaign to the final showdown. they would also make for an interesting patron of a ship of Denizen's of the nightmare realm of Leng.

they would also make fantastic primary antagonists for a low level campaign- deep slumber, Change shape, greater invisibility, +24 stealth and their habit of drinking blood of their victims as detailed in their descriptions makes for a hell of a red herring. Certainly before level 7 ish NPCs and PCs are highly unlikely to catch it and the PC's quest to stop the attacks will naturally have them searching for a vampire! A false trail that should lead them through a plethora of adventures before they are powerful enogh to successfully confront the beast. As it is described as capricious and of CN alignment, if the party does isolate it too early, it doesn't need to kill or wipe them.


All in all a really strong start to the book.

 

[Vitriol]

Day 2-

before we go on we should talk a bit about how Paizo publishes its monsters. Each month pathfinder publishes an adventure path- an episode of a campaign released over 6 months. Each path contains 3-4 levels of missions, a chapter on lore, a section of a short story and 4-5 monsters. Quarterly 'companion' and 'campaign setting' books dive into lore on already released monsters often providing more of a type or variants with class level. Beastiaries, released annually contain a combination of monsters released in APs, companions and campaign setting books with new monsters. I have no problem with this and indeed wish paizo would include every monster in its APs in it's bestiaries.

Beastiary 6 is unusual as it contains monsters drawn not only from the usual sources but also from two other bestiaries- the inner sea bestiary and the occult bestiary. I really dislike this. Collating from dozens of smaller books is fine and makes sense, collating from two other collections feels lazy and cheap. The pages feel wasted, esp when they haven't even included all the critters from the APs. We are still in the ludicrous situation where the footsoldiers of the Daemon horseman of war, the grunts of NE outsider armies, are only found in an obscure russia themed AP.

Entry 2 is one of these monsters taken from the occult bestiary. While I like it on its own merits, I am disappointed to see it here.

Anyway, monster 2- the Alter Ego

Spoiler

The alter ego is a template and a really cool one. They are caused by psychic trauma and create a full strength replica of whoever they are based on- complete with gear. naturally they typically hate their primogenitor.

I have found that they make for really excellent twists when a party has unexpectedly crushed a powerful boss far faster than I expected them too. The party may have prepared carefully to ambush and shut down the dark wizard, but when the party casters are out of magic, the combat pc's low on life and his cursed ring splits an Alter Ego from the parties fighter/barbarian one often get's a tense and unexpected fight which distracts the players from the underwhelming boss that preceded it!

it also leads to great RP opportunities as a PC has to deal with facing and losing a darker or repressed side of their psyche.

Of course if the party chooses to flee, the evil twin will get up to all sorts of shenanigans- they get a bonus to disguise check to be their primogenitor.

A great template, easy to apply and with potential to cause a lot of confusion, shame it isn't new.

 

[Vitriol]

Same complaint today as yesterday- a re used template from an earlier bestiary.

monster 3- the Animus Shade

Spoiler

the animus shade is meant to be a kind of remnant ghost, -created when a creature is so destroyed by psychic power only its animating force remains. They are essentially a variant ghost and I am disappointed they take up two full pages.

Ghosts are cool, but already covered this niche- there is one in paizo's first AP Rise of the Runelords that fulfills the same ecological niche in the undead ecology.

Not a bad concept but highly situational and not that interesting imo. certainly no more so than the standard ghost template.

 

[Vitriol]

weeel i fell behind.

monster 4 is odd, one of the things B6 includes is lots of high level end campaign villains, while it is good to see Paizo trying to break the vicious cycle of end game neglect, i am not convinced they have used the space well- where high level dnd/pf falls down is not in the BBEG but in high level minions. 4e actually handled this very well and paizo seams looking at how it has statted its outsiders to have understood that CR15-17 is a really important niche I would have rather, if they were going to focus on the endgame, seen more at that end of the spectrum than a dozen >cr25 beasties. It is important that a high level party meets groups of enemies that can provide a challenge - just as a group of pcs >of lvl 15 can take almost anything so too can large groups of intelligent >cr15 npcs like cornugons or mariliths. With that in mind I think introducing the horses of the four horsemen to go with the four archdaemons later in the book was a very good idea, however i think they are waaaayyy over statted. A horseman on a horse is two CR >25 creatures. It makes them much harder to use unless you have a abaddon focused campaign.

If these were say CR15 they would be much more useful imo- they could serve as mounts for the chosen mortal heralds of the apocalypse- a level 20 magus with such a steed and the herald of the apocalypse template from the advanced bestiary. This would be a really good miniboss to end the players campaign on the material plane before they take the fight to Abaddon, where they will face purrodaemons and obiscodaemons and possibly even a horsemen or the Oinodaemon itself.

lets have a look anyway- monster 4- the apocalypse horse:

Spoiler

All that said I really like these abilities I'd probably halve the hps and give them to heralds as described above though.

From CR 25 to 3 the next two monsters are on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum!

monster: 5&6 the giant belostomatid and hellgrammite

Spoiler

not much to say here- two nicely themed large insects that would make really unexpected or thematic low level monsters.

I particularly like the idea of a mid level boss setting one on the party before making his escape as the climatic ending to act 1- let the party make enemies with an extremely powerful (by comparison) lvl 8-10 npc who should absolutely dominate the other npcs in a low level environment. Allow the party to find whatever reason to come after this crime boss/ evil wizard/ devil worshipper/ black baron/ and see to it that by the time they confront him in his sanctum they are level 3 ish. the Boss should escape easily leaving them his pet hellgrammite to deal with- the p[=layers will have a memorable fight to cap the dungeon and a desire for revenge after being lured into a trap. levels 3-6 can be spent as they complete whatever quests needed to track down the boss again and by the time they reach his real sanctum they should be of a level where they can take him down (7-9).

They will feel a sense of accomplishment at ridding the world of what at level 1-2 will have felt like a majorly powerful villain.

The next update will take a while as next are the 8 archdevils of hell (yes really).

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

This thread will be giving me ideas. I like that.