That is a lot of work. There is a reddit out there where they're converting bestiary one and last I checked a couple weeks ago they're only about 20-30% done (if that) with it and that's with several people working on it.
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And to be clear I'm not asking for full conversions of the pathfinder bestiaries. There are a lot of monsters I would like to see converted, but I don't necessarily want them to dominate the Alien Archives over new creatures.
I'm just countering the notion that Alien Archives need to be smaller than PF's Bestiaries to maintain a yearly release schedule on the basis that they've demonstrated that they can give a yearly release of Bestiary or Bestiary-equivalent books.
That being said, there could well be other factors making the smaller size more viable, which is fine.
And to be clear I'm not asking for full conversions of the pathfinder bestiaries. There are a lot of monsters I would like to see converted, but I don't necessarily want them to dominate the Alien Archives over new creatures.
I'm just countering the notion that Alien Archives need to be smaller than PF's Bestiaries to maintain a yearly release schedule on the basis that they've demonstrated that they can give a yearly release of Bestiary or Bestiary-equivalent books.
That being said, there could well be other factors making the smaller size more viable, which is fine.
I think one of those factors is creativity. Pathfinder uses a lot of creatures from both D&D (at least what the OGL allows) and actual mythologies. Let's face it: it's easier to create a monster based on legends or stories.
Starfinder... kinda has no such guideline, because an alien can be anything imaginable. Sure, sci-fi fiction can be an inspiration, but then they have to deal with copyrights.
I feel like there is 10 times more work to be done to come out with a decent SF alien than a PF monster.
I don't know. I'd like to think that not only are they generally creative enough to be able to look at various sci-fi properties & come up with "like this but different enough to protect us from copyright laws" variations from it, I'd be willing to bet that if you were to give five different contributes the assignment of "come up with a monster that's like this thing but won't get us sued", not only would they all be capable of it, but you'd get five aliens that are significantly different enough from each other to warrant publishing most if not all of them.
I may be overly optimistic on that, though.
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Well, there is a creature in the Bestiaries whose description starts out with "Come from distant stars to protect unprepared worlds from cosmic horrors..." Starfinder cannot possibly be complete without the Flumph.
Well, there is a creature in the Bestiaries whose description starts out with "Come from distant stars to protect unprepared worlds from cosmic horrors..." Starfinder cannot possibly be complete without the Flumph.
I do recall a bunch of space-themed creatures in Bestiaries, like the Pard, Oma and the Color from Space :P
I don't know. I'd like to think that not only are they generally creative enough to be able to look at various sci-fi properties & come up with "like this but different enough to protect us from copyright laws" variations from it, I'd be willing to bet that if you were to give five different contributes the assignment of "come up with a monster that's like this thing but won't get us sued", not only would they all be capable of it, but you'd get five aliens that are significantly different enough from each other to warrant publishing most if not all of them.
I may be overly optimistic on that, though.
What I mean is that sci-fi works of fiction tend to have clearer depictions of whatever creatures they wish to represent when compared to fantasy fiction. Also, many fantasy monsters have been established in popular cultures to the point that "copying them" is trivial. For instance, a dragon or a goblin can be used in any game without a problem, because they were reused ad nosium.
Like I stated, Paizo can create any kind of alien, but they just need more time to think about them, because they might have little to no guideline; they need to start from the ground up, and they have barely any research material to use.
As for inspirations, as much as I'd like to see Metroids, Lombaxes, Locusts and Reapers, I doubt that they can easily convert them to Starfiner without altering them to the point of barely resembling the source materials.
I could be wrong though.
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The copyright terms are too long for businesses. 90 years? Really? I'd like to see Metroids too, but Nintendo has Metroid locked under copyright for 90+ years.
And thanks to the Mouse, they may extend copyright to 100 years. IF they already haven't done so. But then this is Alien Archive 3 wishlist, so you can wish for any alien and alien monster, just know you might get something else.
Yeah but it's not terribly difficult to get around copyright laws with a few changes. Speaking of the Mouse, for years & over multiple platforms, Disney's been ripping off the film version of the Wicked Witch of the West(which is not public domain, unlike the book version) by making slight alterations to her dress and the specific shade of green her skin is.
So I don't think they'd need to drastically alter them to come up with something lawyer friendly. But at the same time they could take that same basic starting concept and use it as inspiration to come up with a few drastically different ideas to help pad out the archives.
It's also important to remember Starfinder is science *fantasy* so that side of the equation shouldn't be written out. Even discounting direct conversions from Pathfinder to Starfinder, there's plenty of mythological creatures & cryptids that Paizo didn't get around to statting in the bestiaries, and there are plenty of creature types/subtypes from Pathfinder that could have interesting IN SPACE! variants.
There's also the question about how we feel about monsters that were statted in Pathfinder but never made it into the main Bestiaries. Because you could fill half an alien archive or more just from the bestiaries of Iron Gods, Strange Aeons, & Ruins of Azlant.
Well, there is a creature in the Bestiaries whose description starts out with "Come from distant stars to protect unprepared worlds from cosmic horrors..." Starfinder cannot possibly be complete without the Flumph.
Last night as I was picking a friend up from the airport, I had the sudden realization that Starfinder may well be my first and only opportunity to play a Flumph. I'm thinking:
Flumph
+2 Dex, +2 Wis
2 HP
Small aberration with the "Flumph" subtype
Move 10' land, 25' fly
Natural Weapons - 1d3 acid & piercing + x1.5 level specialization at 3rd level
Darkvision 60'
Stench Spray- cause Sickened for 1d4 rounds, DC 10+primary ability+half level, usable once per 10 minute rest.
Well, there is a creature in the Bestiaries whose description starts out with "Come from distant stars to protect unprepared worlds from cosmic horrors..." Starfinder cannot possibly be complete without the Flumph.Last night as I was picking a friend up from the airport, I had the sudden realization that Starfinder may well be my first and only opportunity to play a Flumph. I'm thinking:
Flumph
+2 Dex, +2 Wis
2 HP
Small aberration with the "Flumph" subtype
Move 10' land, 25' fly
Natural Weapons - 1d3 acid & piercing + x1.5 level specialization at 3rd level
Darkvision 60'
Stench Spray- cause Sickened for 1d4 rounds, DC 10+primary ability+half level, usable once per 10 minute rest.
I thought about a flumph character too,while writing the post. Just need a good substitute for hands.
Well, there is a creature in the Bestiaries whose description starts out with "Come from distant stars to protect unprepared worlds from cosmic horrors..." Starfinder cannot possibly be complete without the Flumph.Last night as I was picking a friend up from the airport, I had the sudden realization that Starfinder may well be my first and only opportunity to play a Flumph. I'm thinking:
Flumph
+2 Dex, +2 Wis
2 HP
Small aberration with the "Flumph" subtype
Move 10' land, 25' fly
Natural Weapons - 1d3 acid & piercing + x1.5 level specialization at 3rd level
Darkvision 60'
Stench Spray- cause Sickened for 1d4 rounds, DC 10+primary ability+half level, usable once per 10 minute rest.
I'd say they need a -2. Either to con or str would be my instinct but it's been a long time since I looked up flumph stats. Still, thus far Starfinder hasn't done +2/+2 races; they've even added -2's to races that didn't have them in PF(kasatha) to maintain that.
I'd say they need a -2. Either to con or str would be my instinct but it's been a long time since I looked up flumph stats. Still, thus far Starfinder hasn't done +2/+2 races; they've even added -2's to races that didn't have them in PF(kasatha) to maintain that.Well, there is a creature in the Bestiaries whose description starts out with "Come from distant stars to protect unprepared worlds from cosmic horrors..." Starfinder cannot possibly be complete without the Flumph.Last night as I was picking a friend up from the airport, I had the sudden realization that Starfinder may well be my first and only opportunity to play a Flumph. I'm thinking:
Flumph
+2 Dex, +2 Wis
2 HP
Small aberration with the "Flumph" subtype
Move 10' land, 25' fly
Natural Weapons - 1d3 acid & piercing + x1.5 level specialization at 3rd level
Darkvision 60'
Stench Spray- cause Sickened for 1d4 rounds, DC 10+primary ability+half level, usable once per 10 minute rest.
Yeah, you're right, that was an oversight. I'd say -2 Strength to balance the +2 Dex. My sense of humor thinks that they should get -2 Cha because everyone hates them, though.
RE: Hands - Flumph have lots of small tentacles, if I remember, so they would be able to shoot a gun if they wanted.
"Adherents of the Repeated Meme" (though not with that name, which implies organization -- and does anyone get the reference?), which are alien beings composed entirely of thought. They wear shells to look like physical entities, but in reality they have no real physical existence. They also have no physical needs, and some people find them (and their very existence) inexplicable.
Sounds like an aberration to me, Amaltopek. I'm sure beings composed entirely of thought would get into an Alien Archive.
A playable octopus race, please.
I would like more demons and new outsiders to really give flavor to the new pantheon, also more udead that you can play as
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Playable Corpsefolk, Bone Troopers, and Ghouls.
Here's one more hoping for outsiders. I would love to see demons and devils with laser guns. Like another poster, I, too, would love to see more creatures that are also starships. The game could use more colossal sized aliens, as well. And orcs. I hope to see orcs soon.
Is there Alien Archive 2?
It's coming out in October and it's either already sent to the printer or well past the point of offering suggestions for.
Aliens mixed with artillery vehicles...
C'mon, who doesn't want a dragon fused with a tank or a spaceship :D ?
Aliens mixed with artillery vehicles...
C'mon, who doesn't want a dragon fused with a tank or a spaceship :D ?
A vehicle or starship in the form of a dragon/monster sounds cool, but one fused with a vehicle? Sounds kinda yikes, lol.
Would be cool if we could have more familiar type creatures. Magic space cats, magic-cancelling furry iguana things, and Cortana style AIs. Actually, I really like the idea of an AI familiar.
A player character race living hologram, like Joi from Blade Runner 2049.
An AI that uses a hologram? Is the hologram hard light or soft light?
A vehicle or starship in the form of a dragon/monster sounds cool, but one fused with a vehicle? Sounds kinda yikes, lol.Aliens mixed with artillery vehicles...
C'mon, who doesn't want a dragon fused with a tank or a spaceship :D ?
Just see it as a monster with cybernetics... that just happens to be wheels, treads, rotors, jetpacks and such :P
Some exciting stuff there; whole new sept of dragons based off starmetals - which I'm guessing is the Starfinder name for skymetals but I'm not sure if that's been officially stated anywhere, would still make sense. Interesting to note that there are seven sky/star metals so I'm wondering if the whole, Planar Dragon thing has gotten Paizo to change their minds about the strict, five dragon to a type limit they were adamantly stuck to for so long.
Playable swarm-type race is very exciting. Also some strong hints that dirindi & sazarons are finally getting statted up, which, yes please.
Aside from what's hinted at in the blurb, with the news that the next AP is going to be Swarm focused & that AA3 is going to be coming out right when/before it launches, I'd imagine we're going to see a fair number of new Swarm forms to factor into that; I'm curious as to whether or not the swarm-tped player race is going to be related.
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Alright, put down your wishes for the Alien Archive 3. Perhaps Paizo would listen and put your wishes into the 3rd Alien Archive. For me:
Uplifted dolphins. yeah, if that's going to be a thing.
Genetic mutations gone wrong.
Junior.
I GM starfinder for our rotating GM weekly group, and I have only limited time to create adventures, what with the rest of my life interfering with the important stuff. I have noticed that having monsters to copy and paste into an adventure (as I have had with Pathfinder/DnD) really saves a lot of time. Giving people the means to construct monsters from templates/grafts/etc. is not cutting it for me. I want stuff I can just add to my stories without a lot of computation.
So, I have been wanting for more pre-made swam aliens, pirates, thugs, demons, undead, classic monsters in space, pre-made drow/orcs/goblins/dwarves/etc., and the like. The grafts/templates are not too useful.
More uplifted species would be cool. Air breathing uplifted octopi, racoons, and diminutive uplifted cockroaches with cybernetically augmented brains are all cool with me.
A whole adventure path dealing with the dominion of the black would be awesome. In leiu of that, some more dominion in black monsters would be cool.
Also more sorts of robots!!! Iron paths at the moment has better robots than starfinder. We need starfinder annihilators!
Izalgunn & Jinsul from the society modules in playable form are two of the ones I want most after dirindi & sazarons.
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I'm annoyed that we still don't have playable undead other than the half-measure borais. It is hard to make Eox an equal Pact World signatory and continue to exclude the vast majority of its inhabitants from playable character races.
What is the hold-up, I wonder? Healing? We have spells that heal undead now, and they can already affect PCs that have necrografts. With Stamina, we don't even need actual healing most of the time, anyway. Morality? Starfinder undead are not explicitly evil (apparently this is different than Pathfinder). Plot? I would be extremely displeased if Eox was outed as officially backing the Corpse Fleet and declare war on the Pact, but even then individual undead could denounce such a move and side with the Pact Worlds.
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I'm annoyed that we still don't have playable undead other than the half-measure borais. It is hard to make Eox an equal Pact World signatory and continue to exclude the vast majority of its inhabitants from playable character races.
What is the hold-up, I wonder? Healing? We have spells that heal undead now, and they can already affect PCs that have necrografts. With Stamina, we don't even need actual healing most of the time, anyway. Morality? Starfinder undead are not explicitly evil (apparently this is different than Pathfinder). Plot? I would be extremely displeased if Eox was outed as officially backing the Corpse Fleet and declare war on the Pact, but even then individual undead could denounce such a move and side with the Pact Worlds.
Immunities.
I'm annoyed that we still don't have playable undead other than the half-measure borais. It is hard to make Eox an equal Pact World signatory and continue to exclude the vast majority of its inhabitants from playable character races.
What is the hold-up, I wonder? Healing? We have spells that heal undead now, and they can already affect PCs that have necrografts. With Stamina, we don't even need actual healing most of the time, anyway. Morality? Starfinder undead are not explicitly evil (apparently this is different than Pathfinder). Plot? I would be extremely displeased if Eox was outed as officially backing the Corpse Fleet and declare war on the Pact, but even then individual undead could denounce such a move and side with the Pact Worlds.
I can convert the Forsaken from World of Warcraft in order to get your Eox socks off. It's not hard.
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You don't need to give a PC version of an undead all (or even any) of the immunities associated with the type for monsters. They divorced the NPC/PC creature rules already. They've also given us examples of playable undead, constructs, oozes, magical beasts, and others that don't have everything their monster entry has.
You don't need to give a PC version of an undead all (or even any) of the immunities associated with the type for monsters. They divorced the NPC/PC creature rules already. They've also given us examples of playable undead, constructs, oozes, magical beasts, and others that don't have everything their monster entry has.
"Half measure Borais" are what people complain about. They want immunities. They won't get them. If they don't get them, they aren't really playing the subtype they want, you might as well just roleplay a goth/emo human who acts like he's already dead and has the Eoxian theme.
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I can't speak for everyone that complains about Borais, but I know my complaints have nothing to do with their immunities (or lack their of) but are entirely about how they don't behave in any way like undead. They heal normally, they eat, breathe, drink, defecate, sleep, age, and die like normal members of their species. Even the in canon flavor text has other undead acting like they aren't 'real' undead. Other than their resistance to death effects and the flavor text of going through a botched resurrection, they basically are 'emo' humans.
I think you can do a playable undead that feels like an undead character without giving them everything in that massive list of immunities. They'd probably be better off having some of them (with trade-offs). You just can't make all the flavor and rules text contrary to the motif. I even did one myself.
I can't speak for everyone that complains about Borais, but I know my complaints have nothing to do with their immunities (or lack their of) but are entirely about how they don't behave in any way like undead. They heal normally, they eat, breathe, drink, defecate, sleep, age, and die like normal members of their species.
You're upset they're not immune to normal healing, don't have immunity to the need to breath or eat, immunity to sleep, immunity to age, etc?
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Immunities.I'm annoyed that we still don't have playable undead other than the half-measure borais. It is hard to make Eox an equal Pact World signatory and continue to exclude the vast majority of its inhabitants from playable character races.
What is the hold-up, I wonder? Healing? We have spells that heal undead now, and they can already affect PCs that have necrografts. With Stamina, we don't even need actual healing most of the time, anyway. Morality? Starfinder undead are not explicitly evil (apparently this is different than Pathfinder). Plot? I would be extremely displeased if Eox was outed as officially backing the Corpse Fleet and declare war on the Pact, but even then individual undead could denounce such a move and side with the Pact Worlds.
SROs have almost the same list of immunities, and they are a PC race.
And yeah, I don't really care about the immunities; Borais are simply not very convincingly undead... they possessed their own bodies? I'm skeptical; in my neck of the woods we call that "being awake."
Also they weren't well thought out. Android Borais suddenly need to breathe and Ysoki Borais suddenly become Medium-sized creatures. It is silly.
Let me play a corpsefolk. The lowest rung of Eoxian society, undead with no special powers. PCs already don't go by the same rules as creatures (the Alien Archive is rife with PCs races significantly weaker than their monster counterparts).
I dunno, just for fun. Probably not balanced:
PC Corpsefolk
+2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Cha
Racial HP: 4
Traits:
Size and Type: Corpsefolk are Small or Medium undead with the corpsefolk subtype, though unlike other undead, they have Constitution scores. In addition, a player race from the CRB is chosen at character creation, and the character gains the Size and subtypes associated with that race (but no other abilities).
Darkvision: PC Corpsefolk have Darkvision to 60'.
Flatline: PC Corpsefolk do not breathe and do not suffer the negative effects of the vacuum or cold environments. They are not detectable by starship scans as living crew.
Undead Vigor: PC Corpsefolk are immune to bleed, disease, death effects, negative levels, poison, nonlethal damage, and sleep effects. They may spend 2 RP to change a failure on a Fortitude check to a success after hearing the results of the failure, unless the effect can harm non-living creatures or objects, in which case the results cannot be changed.
Faded Memory of Grace: PC Corpsefolk only receive half the normal healing from magical sources unless the effect in question specifically heals undead (such as Necromantic Revitalization).
Detached: PC Corpsefolk gain +1 to saves vs. mind-affecting effects, paralysis, and stunning, but are susceptible to effects that affect both living humanoids and undead creatures.
Bureaucratic Nightmare: Corpsefolk know from long years on a waiting list how to work byzantine societal constructs, and gain a +2 racial bonus to Culture checks.
Necromorphic: A corpsefolk has an additional augmentation slot specifically for a necrograft, with an item level no greater than half the corpsefolk’s character level (minimum item level 1). Each time the corpsefolk gains a level, they can swap out this necrograft at no additional cost to represent their evolution as an undead creature. These necrografts don’t count against the systems in which a corpsefolk can install other augmentations.
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You're upset they're not immune to normal healing, don't have immunity to the need to breath or eat, immunity to sleep, immunity to age, etc?
For them to feel like undead, they don't have to be immune to magical healing, they just have to not heal using normal biological processes. They don't have to be immune to breath attacks, they just have to have something about breathing or not breathing that makes it clear they aren't alive. They don't need immunity to sleep, but if they sleep they need something that makes it clear that it's not natural sleep (like Vampires). They don't need to have immunity to the need to eat but if they eat, there should be something that makes it clear their eating is unnatural (like Vampires or Ghouls). They could still age, but if they age it should be something like they're rotting away, not aging in the normal biological way.
There's all sorts of ways they could have handled it that would have made it feel like they were actually undead. While, again, I can't speak for anyone else, I would have been happy with that.
So, again, they don't need all or even necessarily many of the undead types immunities to 'feel' like 'real' undead. Giving them some of them, in the same way that SRO's have some of the immunities of the construct type, makes it easier to provide a distinction between them and normal humanoids. What you can't do is give them none of them and also not provide anything to make them feel like it's okay flavor wise and then even say in canon that noone thinks they're undead and tell us to suck it up and accept that they're undead because the type says they are.
Honestly I would have been perfectly fine with the borais if they had been called corpsefolk, and their background fluff matched corpsefolk's.
Maybe I'd have grumbled a bit about living shell, but I'd have gotten over it.
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Speaking of corrupted creatures, may I be the first to recommend the Malachrom? From Iron Gods adventure path? They are Lashunta that have been corrupted by a strand of lycanthropy native to Castrovel that turns people into weredinosaurs!
Also, the Analyst and Security AIs from Technology Guide. Artificial Intelligence was an entire creature type in Pathfinder. I totally forgot about that!
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Immunity to poison and disease (which SROs get..) is really quite a big deal in Starfinder, considering how debilitating those afflictions are and how hard they are to cure.
I like Dracomicron's corpsefolk, but I feel like they're getting too nice a deal out of it because of those immunities. And yeah, I realize SROs get them too; I think SROs are very powerful because of it too.
The big ones for undead are more the immunity to mind affecting and effects requiring a fortitude save.
Bleed, death efects, disease, mind-afecting efects,
paralysis, poison, sleep, and stunning.
Ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, exhaustion,
fatigue, negative levels, and nonlethal damage.
Any efect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the efect
works on objects or is harmless).
Format: Immunities undead immunities
I get why they went borais instead of straight a PC with undead immunities, which is why I only really object to the name 'borais' and their flavor/fluff.
Trying to balance that list? You're looking at no racial ability bonus, a racial penalty, no racial con score, no other racial abilities, no racial hit points, die at 0 hit points and can't be raised. At the least.
Personally I'd take away immunity to death effects, mind affecting effects, paralysis, sleep(while leaving a note that they don't need to sleep naturally, they just aren't immune to magical sleep), stunning, ability damage/drain, energy drain, and negative levels, and the Fort Save thing.
That still leaves immunity to bleed, disease, poison, exhaustion, fatigue, and nonlethal damage, which in my experience are pretty fringe elements of the game that don't come up a lot, of course one's mileage is going to vary on that, but still go a ways towards making them feel like undead.
Not needing to eat or drink I don't think is that big of a deal. I've never played with a group that's particularly pedantic about rationing supplies like that but maybe other people with other experiences have. I don't know how common aging effects are in Starfinder to make that matter but you could simply say they don't age without having it make them immune to aging effects, just reflavored as rot & decay. Not breathing is probably a bigger deal in Starfinder given that's a hazard everyone is one hull breach away from but I wouldn't call it a game breaker.
That's just where I'd draw the line, personally. But I tend to agree that borai were far too conservative in trying to give an undead player race without actually making them undead.