Forum: Public Forum

on Fri 24 of Sep., 2010 13:05 BST, by Laurent posts: 1029 United Kingdom

I have been asked the following question by Alfie:

Do you think the new bestiary (just to clarify, I mean the first Pathfinder bestiary) is worth £20 even when I’ve still got the one from D&D 3rd ed? What my question really equates to is this, have they really spiced things up or does it owe its existence purely to placing the new rules into the old monsters? I’d be happy if it’s as radical as the core rulebook.
I ask because I’m considering buying it on Saturday.

Then I thought that it could go on the forum as a thread.
If you play or run a Pathfinder RPG game, you are welcome to add your comments in reply.

Alfie

Bestiary or reuse of 3.5 Monster Manuals?

Good question, no easy answer.

First, the Paizo themed official answer.

Official in the sense that this is the answer according to the logic of PRPG's existence: PRPG was designed to be compatible with 3.5, so the Bestiary is not needed.
While it would be near impossible to have a group of five people (one GM, four players) having one player equipped with a PH 3.5 and the others running their PC from PRPG; having the GM running everything from the MM, or collection of MMs plus "Tome of Horrors" and other D20 products is perfectly doable. In fact I do exactly that when running old 3.5 adventures (in my "Rise of the Runelords" campaign for instance) in PRPG and the monster was not open content or had not been included in the bestiary, or its CR and built has changed (Boa Constrictor used to be CR5 and is now CR2 in the Bestiary).
Monsters tend to exist only for a few rounds, so even a bad D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder RPG translation of an ability, or a statistic block error, should not hurt your game too much.
PCs are around all the time, their PC sheets cannot just be compatible, they must be following the game mechanics.

The only things to change are:

calculating the CMD and CMB on the fly.
substituting old skills for new ones.
the odd monster special ability that would use outdated/changed mechanics (turn undead etc)
ignoring slight discrepancies in HP total.

All these are easy things to handle. Paizo changed the HD of some monsters hence the HP difference but, it is true: PRPG is fully compatible.

Bestiary contents.

The Bestiary does not include all the SRD monsters from the Monster Manual, but it includes PRPG updated monsters from third party books: Necromancer Games' "Tome of Horror" (ToH), ToH2, ToH3 for instance, "Advanced Bestiary" from Green Ronin, etc. Also it includes monsters from Paizo adventures (either updated from their obsolete 3.5 range or reprints from their PRPG adventure range).

Are things "spiced up"?

Yes, in the sense of:

One page per monster, or type of monster, with art. Some pretty good art too.
Additional monsters from Paizo and third party companies (sadly some SRD losses and obviously WotC only monsters are not present: "That thing with eyes", "Creepy crawly with an octopus head", etc)
As stated above, some monsters' HD type and HD total have been changed.
CR shifts for monsters every now and then.
The "quick" templates for monster upgrade or downgrade. Nice touch, but with one drawback: In the old MM we had tables of monsters per sizes and in the Bestiary only the standard monster with a tiny little table for CR per HD is given (examples: Spiders, Monstrous Centipedes, etc).

Buying it or not?

If you have the money to spare I would encourage you to do so, especially if it is at "Vague Connections".
However, if you have to choose between selling yourself to become an indentured servant, forcing the wife or girlfriend to sell family heirlooms, or selling illegal Tragic the Garnering cards to unsuspecting teenagers just to fuel the acquisition of the "Pathfinder Bestiary", I would advise you to re-use your old 3.5 collection of Monster Manuals.

Hope that helps.

Laurent,

on Tue 07 of Dec., 2010 15:56 GMT, by Alfie posts: 12 United Kingdom

Thanks for the detailed response, I think it was useful. It intrigued me enough to buy it (from Spirit Games) at least.

I must say, I’m rather disappointed with the lack of progress since 3rd. That’s right, I was using 3.0 before I bought this, that should emphasis how impressed it makes me.

The art work does add some value to it, so much as it’s useful to get a second perspective of what a given creature might look like. (Plus it’s much easier to take an entry seriously when it’s not drawn by Wayne "Bigfoot".)

The main advantage I see in it is that none of my players have seen the inside of the book, thus ensuring that they won’t ever again be able tell me what abilities my beasts do and don’t have. This is for the most part psychological as the majority of the entries don’t differ much from how they used to be.

My analogy
Don’t rush out to buy it just to bring your game up-to-date (unless money means nothing to you), but if you’re looking for your first bestiary I’d have to say this one’s the best anyone has to offer.

on Tue 07 of Dec., 2010 16:34 GMT, by Laurent posts: 1029 United Kingdom

Alfie,

Glad to be of help.

If your mind was still on 3.0 you will need to check specifically:

Grapple/Grab/Constrict/Swallow whole.
Shapechange and all various shape-shifting rules.

These saw some serious changes between 3.0 and 3.5 and have now seen even more.

The former have been redone with the advent of the CMB/CMD system. The old grapple check values are usually the same and at worse in the same ballpark.
The latter is a serious change. Gone are all the odd rules and exceptions for changing a monster's (or PC's) shape. The concept of change as in now using a spell mechanic from the transmutation school.

The fact that you feel nothing has changed shall be filed under the "damn if they do, damn if they don't". On the one hand your reaction is positive as it proves the system to be compatible, on the other it could be seen as negative as in... well nothing is really new.

Originally Pathfinder RPG was released because Paizo knew that the amount of PH 3.5 was slowly dwindling and they needed a system to support their product line. Now, I am a bit annoyed myself at all the system books being produced that of course contribute to changing the system. So, yes, if you plan on using the system only for its basis, i.e. the "core" component that keeps D&D 3.5 alive, the Bestiary is not needed, and as I pointed out in the previous post, if you are in need of a Shambling mound, you will need your old MM (3.0 or 3.5) because it is not in the Bestiary! If it works fine to pick up the odd missing monster, I see no reason why it would not work with all of them.

Be sure to download the errata for the first printing of the book. Technically your copy should be the second printing, but you should check.

Laurent,