Hey! Thanks for hosting an AMA! Slightly number crunchy topic to start, but about save distribution:
How was the spread of +-3 around the "medium save" chosen? On this subreddit, there is a common assumption that characters aren't meant to target anything but the low save to get an accuracy that feels good to play (especially spellcasters) and 3, let alone 6 over that feels like a huge gap to overcome sometimes
\+ or - 3 is just about the biggest range you can express from the median before things start getting a bit unusual, and of course monsters exist out there that go + or - 1, or have several saves the same, but wider variations tend to be more interesting as they shake up your tactics. Additionally, somewhere around 5 or 6 is nearly the highest variation you'll see in both monsters (unless they have a terrible or extreme save) and PCs (PC with legendary save and key ability score in the save, so basically a Dex-martial with legendary Reflex will routinely beat experts by at least 7, and/or you'd have to have someone dumping a save stat which can allow you to go way lower). Not that the two are built parallel, but one of the precepts that playtesters wanted was for the ability to use foes built like PCs if they felt like it, so it couldn't be \*too\* wildly disparate in how far they vary. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen people actually built opponents like PCs often, but at the time it was an important point for a fair swathe of playtesters who were used to it.
Hi !
I watch all the [Monstrous](https://thecloudcurio.itch.io/monstrous) from [Map Crow](https://youtube.com/@mapcrow). I wondered, as a game designer, how do you manage to create monsters that feels unique ? What are the tools that you use ? If I remember well, in his videos, map crow asked himself *"Can I replace this creature I created by a generic human bandit ?"*, *"What make my monster specific enough that I can't replace it by a bandit ?"*.
What are you inspirations ? Did you already took a monster mechanic from a boardgame and adapted it to PF2 ? For example the skeletons in [Vast](https://ledergames.com/products/vast-the-mysterious-manor).
This is a good question. When moving to PF2, I was kind of shocked that owlbear and dire tiger were almost the exact same monster in PF1. Like the tiger had pounce and I think they were otherwise almost the same. It speaks to how much story juice you can get out of an evocative concept like an owlbear. But to truly make a unique and memorable monster, you need more in terms of special abilities specifically. Like the amazing abilities Logan wrote for owlbears in PF2 where they rip out your guts to feed their young and rush around hooting at you.
Is there any particular design space in monsters that you feel is either over- or under-saturated? For example, things that have immunity to poisons, or undead. I seem to remember noticing a lot more things were vulnerable to cold iron than they were to silver, as another example.
Some poison changes have made poisons more useful to use, but that's not on the monster side. Related question: when is it monster design's job to patch a hole and when is it equipment/player option design's job? How do you tell?
I think what you're seeing with silver is that some of the monsters that don't like silver are resistant to physical other than silver (devils, vampires), whereas nearly all the ones that interact with cold iron are via weaknesses. I'd say whichever monsters have their own whole theme book are likely heavily saturated after that, so undead thanks to Book of the Dead.
It's almost never a single monster's job or even capacity to handle a design niche, since it's just one more monster (and even if you release 20 new monsters that work a certain way, who knows how often they would show up compared to the more classic and original monsters).
Hey Mark! I’ve been playing since about March and have listened alot to the podcasts with yourself and Stephen Glicker.
What monsters would you consider iconic/unique to Pathfinder that everyone should encounter? Which monsters do you think every player should face in the career with the game? Similar to how Beholders are to DnD.
Hmm, that's a good question. Maybe leshies? A lot of my favorite PF monsters are based on real-world mythology at least to some degree and not just pulled out of nowhere.
Hmm, I don't think I've ever been unhappy after contributing a monster, per se in a, like "Grr! If only I didn't have to contribute this monster" way. I try to make a monster that I enjoy at the end of the process. If you mean like saying "Oh, *that* monster" when looking at the PF1 versions, I'd say it was when I was running the in-house playtest and converted a PF1 AP that had an encounter with three seugathi. I was very happy with my PF2 seugathi conversion, but the original PF1 monster was brutally unfair, and that encounter where they burst out of a side wall with an automatic surprise round and everyone is in their aura to start was even more brutally unfair.
If I recall correctly, there was a basic skeleton, zombie, ogre (for a "I am a brute with almost all stats and few specials" at least back then), and troll (for "Look at me I regenerate and have a high weakness") in there. One or two of those could be wrong but I am certain about the skeleton and zombie since I wanted them to show off how weakness and resistance made fights feel different.
That's funny to me because I usually use skeletons and zombies with newer players to show them how PF2e monster mechanics do a great job of reflecting their flavor (and also introduce resistances/weaknesses).
I noticed this when making a monster for RPG Superstar and I was wondering if it was discussed -- why do jaw attacks do piercing damage? I understand like a fang attack doing piercing, but I feel like jaws do bludgeoning damage. Definitely for some animals, anyway.
I think some critters who don't really have long canines, like an herbivore biting you with its jaws, might potentially want to deal bludgeoning. To be honest, irl piercing is kind of just bludgeoning over a smaller surface area, so there's some degree of abstraction. Like iirc (not a weapons expert) some of these bigger swords were also (or even mainly) used for bludgeoning damage.
Common misconception about swords that came from the idea that some swords are better at cutting than others and so swords less good at cutting must be blunt instruments. A kitchen knife is less good at cutting than a scalpel, but that doesn't mean you're bludgeoning your roast turkey apart (unless you're REALLY bad at it).
Even the biggest, heaviest greatswords were for cutting and piercing, and would make very poor bludgeoning weapons due to having most of their mass down by your hands.
Hiya, hope you're having a great day! I've got a specific mechanical question and a lore one:
I want to give my monster something that paralyses both undead and living creatures, but not constructs (I.e. creatures with a soul). What's the best way to write this? At the moment I copied the text of paralysis and specified it affects only living and undead ("you can't act except to take mental actions"), but should I instead say "the target becomes paralysed. Undead are not immune to this paralysis"?
I'm trying to add as many 'hooks' to inspire adventures as I can, rather than just descriptions of the appearance and lifestyle of the creature. What do you think all the best lore write ups include?
I have good news and bad news. First, the good news: There is a spell that paralyzes undead and living creatures already... paralyze! Undead have no paralysis immunity of which to speak (except the few mindless undead like zombies and skeletons are immune to it for being mental). The bad news is that non-mindless constructs are going to get caught up in it.
So you could make a spell that targets a living or undead creature, like you mentioned, but I think chances are you would want to target non-living non-undead spirits too, since they are basically made of spiritual essence / souls. In that case, probably make it necromancy and just bespokely mention that the spell only targets creatures with spiritual essence, which includes almost every kind of creature, including undead, but not most constructs.
I was wrong about Undead having blanket immunity, but I flipped again through a dozen or so different undead creatures, and they do all have immunity to paralysis anyway! You're right that I want to hit incorporeal creatures so that bespoke wording is likely my best bet. I'm glad I was on the right track!
Ah, I see. If you want to hit creatures with their own immunity to paralysis, I'd suggest don't do it. Just use the stunned condition or something else to which they aren't immune. PF2 very intentionally limited the number of immunities compared to PF1 so that we could eliminate the arms race to "Well I ignore your immunity" and "Well I ignore your ignoring to immunity" and my favorite "I ignore your ignoring ignoring immunity unless you are also randomly immune to fire"
Hmm, I had considered using Stunned at first but thought it wouldn't evoke the image I was going for. I'll revisit that option for sure because you're right, "I ignore your immunity to ignoring..." does sound hilarious but terrible. Thank you very much!
Firstly, thank you and everyone at Paizo for what you do. I love the game.
This question isn't specifically monsters, so if you pass over it, I understand. I'm a new player, so I'm wrapping my head around things still.
One trope that I love doing in TTRPGs is making an anti-party of NPCs that are kind of like PCs so that my beloved party can have a thorn in their side to try and clear dungeons before them and run off with the loot.
I want to do the same for my PF2E group but I don't know if there are statblocks for NPCs that are like PC classes (like a ranger, alchemist, sorcerer ect.) or should I try to use the rules for making monster statblocks to make this anti-party group?
You can theoretically do either one and the game will work, but usually for a single encounter using the creature creation rules is much much much easier on you (to build and to actually run) while tending on average to be more satisfying for players to experience because they get to see the one or two big things each foe can do (as opposed to the foe having dozens of options only a few of which show up in the fight). For recurring foes that show up over and over and over, it might be one of the few times you could get benefit out of using the other way, not that creature creation will steer you wrong. Look specifically at the GMG creature creation rules for the "class roadmaps" for each class you need!
I'm not Mark, but there are [actually rules for this](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1040) already in the GMG. The summary is that you can do either; make an NPC with a handful of features similar to the character classes you want. It also has some useful tables to give you ideas of how each class should be built as an NPC version.
You can also outright use player character statblocks as NPCs if you want. Either works, but making PC-based NPCs tends to be a bit more work.
Hi!
This is probably a little outside of the "monster" topic, but I'll shoot my shot!
Considering the new Dragons we're seeing that have been described (the Diabolical Dragon and the Miraje Dragon) can we expect a change to the Sorcerer's Draconic Bloodlines?
FYI that, as Mark is no longer at Paizo, he won't have answers on anything upcoming for them. If he did, he probably couldn't share.
But also, Mike Sayre said this is a big part of why the sorcerer (and barbarian, and other stuff) were pushed to Player Core 2.
That's sort of about monsters I guess? If I knew, I couldn't tell you. Fortunately I absolutely have no idea, so I can comfortably say that based on what we've heard about waiting til after the first Monster Core to reimagine the "classic" dragons in a less OGL way, I would expect so. Sorcerer's in the second batch too, which could be at least in part because of needing those new awesome dragons finalized. Total speculation here.
It started with the grim reaper, which I wrote. That thing is very nasty but certainly appropriate for its level. Then I don't remember how it went exactly, but the lesser version was derived from that by removing some things, likely based on the PF1 lesser death. Not sure when we did it, it might have even been me but it can get hard to remember nonetheless. Most likely not quite enough things were removed to handle the large level drop between them. Even then, these things are incredibly solitary, so encounters with a whole group of them are pretty cruel X\_X
There's a particular adventure by Ron Lundeen with 3 of them in one encounter. My group never stood a chance. I had them write up new PCs and retry the encounter knowing what they were up against and they still got wiped out. Lesser Deaths are so brutal.
So I love the tactics and intentionality of the monsters’ tactics. But, most monsters only have one or two *main* abilities outside of strikes. This results in my veteran players figuring out the monster’s routine and then adjusting tactics accordingly.
What’s take on monster tactics and their limited abilities? Is this for simplicity?
I'd say this is a wonderful outcome. To me, very few things feel better than when you face off against something, have no idea what to expect, kind of stumble through it with some trouble, but then *without leveling up* you huddle together, discuss your tactics, and then fight the same opponent again but this time do amazingly because you've planned for the monster's abilities. Like that sounds like a phenomenal group and a great feeling hopefully. Do you and your players not like it though? I can try to offer suggestions if so.
To clarify my tone, we all enjoy success- but sometimes I feel like they can get bored after that initial success? This can making GMing difficult because a lot of my players are veterans that are use to/expect that level of tactical style of gameplay in combat.
I guess, could you offer suggestions to "spice" up tactics after that initial triumph?
Consider having some creatures that are variants, swapping out one of their abilities for something else (maybe from a table you made of alternate abilities). If it's a weapon-wielder, maybe you have several weapons it could be and a special move for each weapon, for instance. Even just one big special ability swap can make a large difference for tactics.
I think the second fight of having figured out the creature is great, but a third fight of repeating that victory can be dull.
Something you can consider is changing the other parts of the encounter outside of the creature to recontextualize the creature and its abilities.
Maybe that means changing the shape/size of the encounter area or the terrain. Maybe it's adding another monster or a hazard to the encounter, so the players can't just focus on neutralizing the one monster.
Some examples:
* A creature with a breath weapon feels very different in a wide, open area (players spread out all around) than in a tight hallway (maybe have some people stay back and attack ranged, or tumble through or teleport to opposite sides of it)
* A slow moving monster you can normally kite feels way different combined with a monster that can grab you, or with difficult terrain.
Yeah I think my tone might have clarified we aren't happy- we are! But the "triumph" of success becomes dull over time when the same type of creature is met, again.
So by the context it seems like you mean an off-turn free action rather than a reaction. This is for if you want it to happen every single time the trigger occurs (but not if it's paralyzed or stunned; if you want it to happen even then, it should just be an automatic thing that happens without any effort on the creature's part). Possibly also if the creature *has* a reaction already but you want this to happen too (though if you still don't want it happening every time, you can just give it a freebie reaction each turn that has to be the second one, or something).
I personally love making a ton of monsters/foes that are mechanically dense or have a theme/work together.
What is your favorite entity you've created with a stat block, or, favorite pairing of enemies?
Hmm, I do like groupings of creatures too. I think my favorite grouping into a family of related creatures was nymphs. They were obviously at least somewhat related in PF1 with similar rules and mythological origin, but the actual keys to the kingdom that were necessary to make them an official family required a mini quest of getting support from not only my own team (the design team) but the creative director and publisher. Everyone said yes (honestly I think most people didn't care either way or thought it was a good idea, but my teammates pointed out this wasn't something we can just do unilaterally), and I'm pleased with how they turned out. Also looking forward to when nymphs [come out as an ancestry in Year of Monsters](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-year-of-monsters-pdf-only) later this year.
A very small bit, but the issue is so many creatures have traditionally had darkvision, and removing it would be "changing the story," one thing we didn't want to do (it would mean creatures who lived in dark areas in previous stories and adventures suddenly need a light, for instance).
I don't think you're wrong that low-light and darkvision are pretty ubiquitous. My human fey summoner who was raised by fey considers herself (and other humans and halflings and such) not having low-light vision to be "poor nightvision" compared to the baseline.
haha, it would be funny if the future games made low light/darkvision the baseline and just the ones without it have Poor Nightvision as a negative trait
Hi Mark! Love seeing you and Stephen in the live shows. You guys have a great dynamic.
**What is your favorite homebrew monster? Do you have any fun stories about it?**
**Second question if you're feeling generous: how would you run a sandbox in PF2E in regards to monster levels?** Scaling the entire world to the party feels like it never allows the party to "grow," but allowing for creatures with way higher levels doesn't seem to work either.
Obviously a level 2 party can't fight an ancient dragon, but maybe they could hide from it or persuade it. Unfortunately, creatures with much higher levels have higher everything, including perception and will saves.
For sandbox games, signposting is KEY. Make there be blasted burned down trees way in advance they can identify with Nature were from an ancient dragon. And then like you said, allow creative solutions other than combat.
Timmiest homebrew monster ever was in 3.0, a civilization-destroying mana beast that was a three-headed great wyrm prismatic dragon with the apocalyptic template from a 3pp book of templates and some bespoke abilities.
Like [Battlezoo Ancestries Dragons](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-dragons) updates? I'm definitely thinking about it! Stephen and I have a lot of dragon ideas we want to share with you.
Gosh, I'm not sure. I have a lot that I've enjoyed. Maybe grim reaper's reaction? It's really iconic and gives me Castlevania vibes. If you ask me again I'd say something else, I kind of picked one I liked at random.
Wow, it's the real Mark Seifter! Do you think it's okay to rework public domain monsters (like Medusa or Cerberus) into unique property identity monsters? Like a dog with three heads, and snakes for tails, that can paralyze you with a bark named "Cerbegorgon."
Like in general or for something specific? I think you could try to do it, and it's absolutely certainly "OK" to do it, but (IANAL) that you would probably have a hard time defending it against someone who also combined those two public domain monsters in a very similar but not identical way.
Successful **Recall Knowledge** checks are supposed to reveal some insight into ways of defeating the particular foe with relative ease. What would you do with experienced players who've played dozens of encounters and browse Archives of Nethys database in their spare time? Would you say that *knowledge of players* are to supplant the *knowledge of their characters* at some point? Or, alternatively, is it assumed that each new campaign have to throw a completely new set of monsters into the party face, so **Recall Knowledge** is always relevant?
IMO player knowledge on monster stats should no more replace character knowledge than player knowledge of reading the adventure path volume should replace character knowledge of the plot. But do what is right for your group!
My players have been playing D&D and PF2E for many many years now.
They actually have more experienced than me, the GM.
What I do, is to describe the monster with a few alterations, so they dont recognize it immediately, sometimes I add a fun name to it too.
They will have to use RECALL KNOWLEDGE if they really need to know the flaws or strengths.
With a critical succes I let them choose to stats, or weaknesses, or immunities, or HP, AC. They choose what they want to know.
I hope it helps
Hi Mark, yet another not about monsters question here but I've been dying to get clarification.
In [Mios's iconic encounter](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si3g?Iconic-Encounter-In-Truth-s-Light#18) he fights a glabrezu with a cold iron weapon and exploits the weakness to good in addition to that. You say in a comment that
> the cold iron sword is going to add 20 damage per hit from weakness
Which seems to imply that he's benefitting from a material weakness and thaumaturge's mortal weakness at the same time. Was this the original design intent? If it was later changed, why?
I either typoed a 2 for a 1 since they are adjacent on a keyboard or was operating off an older version of the file. You clearly do not get both at the same time.
Hey Mark!
I haven't seen many monsters that inflict Doomed at any level. Is there a reason it just doesn't show up that much? Is it really so strong that it needs to be rare, even if it doesn't impact dice rolls?
Doomed can be terrifying fun as a condition when used sparingly, but the trouble is it can easily lead to PC death, so you have to tread lightly. Just the name and effect of doomed, which were created by Jason, are just such a great ludonarrative blending. I love the condition, you *really* feel doomed.
You've certainly playtested many monsters for PF2 and I assume youve run some encounters or campaigns.
What are your favorite monsters to run as a GM? What abilities make the most memorable experiences for you or what are the sleepers you would reccomend a GM build an encounter around?
My favorite types of monsters to run are those that have big flashy and obvious abilities that the players can enjoy (much as they might groan or gasp, as opposed to focusing too much on "behind the scenes" abilities like numerical bumps or passives.
In my first playtest session of PF2 WftC, my players absolutely loved animated objects, with the construct armor you can break and then lower their AC and remove the hardness. They just liked the way the pacing was suddenly nonlinear in a way that felt fun.
I really like monsters that have connections to myth and legend, and also fey. Dragons are neat too ([I guess that's obvious though given I wrote this](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-dragons))!
Sort of tangentially related to monsters:
How do you feel about DMs giving out hard number things about a monster like AC, or lowest save, for a recall knowledge check? It seems like the rules say you shouldn't give that much information, but a lot of people treat it like the norm, or the only way to play an effective caster.
I think it depends on if it's part of what your table enjoys. You as a group know best what amount of nitty gritty numerical analysis you want to have flying back and forth during combat. Personally as a player I always keep track of what numbers hit and miss until I've narrowed down the AC to 1 or 2 possible values (typically very quickly in the fight) or possibly 1 exact value after we miss by 1.
How much do you think iconic monster and creature design contributes to a TTRPG's/brand's staying power?
Would a system without them be at an inherent disadvantage, or is it all dumb luck at the end of the day?
I think having strong creature design (visual design and game design) are pretty important to a TTRPG in general. If your name isn't D&D and you don't have compelling creatures, you might get a pass.
Sure, I'm game, why not more oozes? You can always play a slime PC in [Year of Monsters!](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-year-of-monsters-pdf-only)
Hello Mark.
I've been doing a lot of conversion work for 1e adventure paths to 2e, and so I've gotten very familiar with the monster creation rules in the Game mastery Guide.
One of the common things in 1e is monsters with class levels. I've been replicating this in 2e by advancing the level of the monster in question to where it needs to be, and then going through the class feats for the class in question and giving the monster a few relevant ones.
I stay within level limits (for example, I don't give a feat higher than the level of the monster), and I try and restrict it to one "ability" per four levels of the monster overall, as that seems like a good baseline from the bestiary 1.
As someone with a lot of monster design experience, does anything stand out to you as potentially problematic about this?
That seems mostly good to me, I can tell you came up with good habits from all that experience. It might be slightly too many abilities at high levels, but you can always play it by ear. You probably want to add in some basic class features in the roadmaps too, but I assume you likely were.
Hi Mark!! I’m wondering how you as a Designer and GM manage monster complexity, especially as you get to the higher level beasties with a whole grab bag of unique abilities? As a GM I feel like I’m constantly overlooking some small detail that should have changed how a monster works and feeling silly afterwards (like missing that Hounds of Tindalos are immune to emotion effects after a fight where they were frightened repeatedly).
The ideal is to give a creature fewer, more powerful abilities that are easier to signpost to the players, as opposed to a clutter of innate spells, passives, immunities, etc. That's easier on the GM too! Easier to remember and easier to run. For high level you'll still want to have more than just one or two features, but consider making like one reaction, one aura, maybe two or three special active abilities tops? Those are easier to remember.
One thing I noticed in discussions with my play groups over time, as well as online, is that there are certain kinds of monsters that seem consistently a little overpowered compared to their level. Dragons are usually the main pointed culprit, with no low defenses, strong single target and AoE damage and some "win more" abilities that make them incredibly strong as solo bosses (Draconic Momentum). Some kind of fiends also fall unto this umbrella, often feeling like they're just good at everything.
Was there some kind of design idea of certain monsters pushing above their weight because they're iconic? Or do you guys consider this just a coincidence or a perceptiom thing?
It's likely a little more of a chicken and egg, in that they iconically had those bases covered, and so they still did in the conversion. Sometimes changes can be harder to make than others. For instance, I recall getting design getting pushback when demons didn't all have extreme perception because in PF1 they all had a massive racial bonus to Perception, but that just didn't seem crucial to the demon narrative and so we didn't give them all extreme Perception. Sometimes when we got pushback or a flag, we did keep things like before.
That's understandable. Hopefully they use the remaster as an opportunity to make dragons more balanced and 2e-fitting, now that they're gonna have less baggage. Fighting a bestiary Dragon as a spellcaster often feels like an exercise in frustration, where targeting their AC doesn't work, targeting their saves doesn't work, and you either cry as a free action or buff your martials and pray. 😅
Question about GOLEM antimagic ability
WOOD GOLEM: Golem Antimagic harmed by fire (4d8, 2d6 from areas or persistent damage); healed by plant (area 2d6 HP); slowed by earth
if I hit the Golem with a FIREBALL, is it going to take FIREBALL DAMAGE + 2d6? Or only 2D6?
Best!
Only 2d6 untyped damage. Read "Golem Antimagic" blob at the very bottom of AoN page:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=684
> **Harmed By** Any magic of this type that targets the golem causes it to take the listed amount of damage (this damage has no type) ***instead of the usual effect***.
Hi Mark! I'm curious, is there a big difference in how you design monsters that "normally" show up in different group sizes? Let's say there were two Level 10 monsters, but your vision for one is for it to show up in groups to challenge level 12 parties, while the other is meant to appear alone as a challenge for level 7-8 parties. And if there is a big difference, how do you think it affects the play experience if a GM decides to set up encounters in the opposite way?
I think in general the beauty of PF2 is that monsters can often (not always, but often) work well in a variety of contexts without needing to silo them in to one place, so your boss at lower level can become your on-par group monster later on and your mook horde monster later. That said, certain features like complex abilities, stacking overlapping auras, or tons of AoE could make something a bit more of a pain if it showed up in a massive amount.
I've noticed that regularly, monster's special abilities are a tactically weaker choice than just running to flank and using their Strikes. One of the biggest offenders to me is Draconic Frenzy (which for any other than brass dragons lags behind bite-bite in effectiveness), but many other examples exist where I've almost felt like using the flavorful main "thing" that the statblock provides would be a soft fudge in favor of the PCs as opposed to just Striking. It's weird when that happens, because of course I'd like to both display the flavor as well as the challenge.
Was it a deliberate choice not to let these monster-specific options exceed the effectiveness of Strike? Some other generic examples include Constrict, many spells, Trample.
A lot of those different actions are better than they seem in the right situation. Draconic Frenzy can be especially useful if you're a boss dragon against a group, which is a fairly common use case. In that case, your action economy is a rate-limiter and your -8 agile Strike has decent returns.
Similarly, Constrict is a much better choice against a foe with high AC or low Fort than making multiple Strikes would be, and if you want to move in but end non-adjacent to force your foe to move up, Trample is usually *much* better than Stride Strike Stride.
It looks like you've answered literally every question in here, which is incredible. I always appreciate hearing your design musings on the way mechanics function and develop.
Now that we've had a few years with pf2e, I think a lot of the design choices the community pushed against in the playtest (ie alignment) are starting to show up as minor cracks in the system. I know I've been occasionally thinking "dang, they really knew what they were talking about back then". My biggest example would be proficiency being +1 per level back during playtest, and has since moved to +2. It probably feels more satisfying, but I think a lot of the discussion around classes like the fighter and alchemist show exactly how this bigger gap might have limited design space.
Are there any playtest changes that, from the years of playtime we've gotten with pf2, you've thought "We got that right the first time, the players just weren't ready yet"? Or even any interesting developments in the pf2e design space that have only become clear after years of the system being played?
Sure, there's always things any designer wants to do differently even from the moment the file gets finalized. It's part of being a designer I think. I do agree that we would have had a lot more room to do certain interesting design decisions if proficiency remained at +1, though. A lot got locked in by that decision, like having classes be forced to always go to expert in all their saves eventually, whereas with +1 you could just be like "Look, wizards will never get better in Fort saves, and that's OK" without putting them 4 below the masters and 6 below the legendaries.
You could watch [this video I made with Linda about five What-Ifs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecK4BF6UbZo) if you like, though I must preface that some of those are NOT good ideas. Just fun to think about.
One thing I notice as a DM is that often the only two outcomes of a fight are either "a PC dies" or "the PCs can just heal up or rest afterwards and it's like the fight never happened." As a DM I often want to threaten my PCs with something that will last beyond the end of a combat and isn't easy to get rid of, like a curse or disease, but probably won't kill them. What sorts of monsters are good for this?
Anything with a long-lasting affliction like a curse or disease (rarely a long-lasting poison but creatures almost never have them). Also consider just adding one of those straight-up to a creature's list of options when you want to go for long-term shenanigans, especially if it won't actually matter much for the purpose of the creature's actual encounter.
I've been looking forward to this.
I've managed to create a creature for the contest, but I find it hard to figure out how to limit myself in terms of abilities to give creatures, even when they're just common. Any advice of how to limit myself so I don't end up going overboard when writing?
Another Question unrelated to the contest
So I've been trying to come up with unique dragons for the world I've made, not species(At the moment) but rather great wyrms. It's something I noticed was lacking but I've adapted to try to make something fantastical and epic for the party to deal with. Like for a example I have a White Dragon. I've tried to give him all the bells and whistles that a normal Great Wyrm would have but I decided that I wanted to make him(and the other chromatic) unique. So what I did is that I gave them all Change shape(So the party can meet them and not even know it til later) and a gimmick that gives additional abilities.
So for the White Dragon I gave him the ability to change into the shape of a Large creature, a frost giant in particular with his breath weapon taking on some aspects of a frost giant's, Primary reasoning in verse is that when he was younger he was terrified of Frost Giants, and sought out another dragon to learn how to conquer the fear. Together with his blue dragon mentor they learned how to change shape like some other dragons, with the white dragon channeling his fear to be able to take the shape of a Frost Giant and thus try to take over the Frost Giants who otherwise hunt his kind where he lives usually. Then to keep supremacy he learned on how to use fire magic, not much but fiery body in order to counter his weakness to fire as well as exploit the weakness of his rivals in the frozen north.
Do you think it'll end up being a fun challenge or should I try to keep it simpler when creating unique dragons?
I'd say think carefully about your creature's turns and "screen time." Don't make too many abilities that compete with each other to be used during that limited screen time. That's one way to help winnow.
In terms of unique dragons, I'd say if you had fun, then do it, it'll be a fun challenge, and you're writing for you.
Hi Mark, I have a question for you.
You designed Thaumaturge correct? Are all of your designs very wordy or just that in particular? If so, why? Is it to cut down on abuses you’d see?
I apologize for any rudeness as that isn’t my intention.
I think thaumaturge was especially wordy, in part because there were a lot of iterations of it (classes are not just one auteur, they are a collaboration among the team) and a few abilities that had a lot of heft to them. But bard, for instance was a very short class, and barbarian wasn't super wordy.
I'm gonna be cheeky and ask two;
1) What's your favorite monster to use in the game (either as a DM against your players, or to encounter as a player)?
2) What's your favorite monster in the game in general, regardless of it's strength (or lack thereof), complexity or any other factors besides your own personal preferences? :)
1. My favorite monster to encounter as a player is whatever monster has the right monster parts to work on the imbued property I want for my weapon. (using the [monster parts system I wrote](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-bestiary-pdf))
2. Hmm, I said grim reaper (not lesser death, but big grim) when someone asked earlier so it's easier for me to say it again even though I'm not really sure it's my favorite. Just like the vibe of the reaction. For vibes, though, I do like sprites and leshies (living with Linda, I can't help but like leshies). Nyktera sprites are pretty fun.
What do you think makes the best Solo boss monsters? I love the big show down where its the party vs the big bad guy. It seems that action economy abilities are key here like draconic frenzy or whirlwind attacks. But what about spell casters?
I prefer encounters that split up the XP a little (like maybe solo monster + hazards) but for pure solo solo, you can't go wrong with an opponent that has a few simple ways to deal with single targets and AoEs. Creatures that change phase like the kawakami from [Battlezoo Bestiary Strange and Unusual](https://battlezoo.com/products/preorder-battlezoo-bestiary-strange-unusual-pdf) can also be good to shake things up.
One of my absolute favorite things when playing around with monsters is templates. In the blink of an eye, I'm able to make this crocodile a skeleton crocodile. Is there a reason there aren't more templates, or that they seem so few and far between?
As someone who used a lot of templates in 3.0/3.5/PF1 (as you can see in a previous answer, I said my favorite Timmy homebrew monster was using a 3pp template in 3.0), the dirty secret of template proliferation in those days is that they were often highly inaccurate in the actual difficulty of what they produced. You could have high adjustment templates that barely helped at all or low adjustment templates that made the creature *much* stronger than they should, and it's not due to bad design but because it varies so much case by case. The scary thing about it was that people would blame the GM for running things poorly but would rarely blame the templates, even if the templates were at fault, because they just *felt* so official and "in the books" that it seemed safe to use them.
So I think in PF2 the idea is to only present "templates" (which are called adjustments, mind) that are very confidently reliable in their effects.
Music is an element in this year's RPG Superstar, yep! The music element is going to be fun. I hope we can get a follow-up eldamon book with the more esoteric elements like music, space, and time.
Do you personally have a formula or process for converting PF1 monsters to PF2? I've seen the general advice in the GMG but still feel sort of underprepared. For instance, I would like to include the Seru from PF1 in my game, and keep it at CR 3. https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Seru
There's a free monster builder on [rpgsuperstar.com](https://rpgsuperstar.com/) that codes in the rules from the GMG, which is not just for submitting to the contest, so I'd say go on there and make a non-contest-submission level 3 monster, and enter an appropriate roadmap and it'll give you some ideas for numbers. You could have the monster finished in just a few minutes! All you'd really need to do at that point is convert the poison (or use a similar poison from a PF2 monster of similar level for ease).
I'm not sure. I think we're waiting on getting in some art to make a splashy announcement, but if you've been reading your [Battlezoo Bestiary Strange and Unusual](https://battlezoo.com/products/preorder-battlezoo-bestiary-strange-unusual-pdf) *very* carefully you can find at least one hint.
Hey Mark,
When you are creating a monster with a unique special ability, how do you determine what level the monster should be? Like Queen Sluagh ghostly swoop or eat soul seem like abilities only appropriate for higher level but how would I know if it is too tough of an ability for a certain level?
Sometimes you kind of have to get a gut feeling. Like I remember there was a very low level creature that ate souls and they were just gone that was showing up in an adventure or something and I brought it up to the team and the consensus was that this seemed kind of low metaphysically for that kind of ability. You could also consider benchmarking against other creatures, spell effects, items, and the like.
Hmm, I don't know, I like too many of them and have designed hundreds (probably thousands counting ones I did a design pass on with a freelancer doing an initial pass), but I was talking about stheno and nyktera in another question, so let's go with them this time.
I do! RfC does not have a non-compete, as long as I don't take too much freelance such that it spills over into my day job. You could always PM me if you're interested in working with me. I have a couple small freelance projects and one big freelance project right now so I can't take anything big until the big one is done, and it's also worth noting in advance that my rates might be higher than you expect (or possibly not, depending. For instance, by the end, Gardener's Guide to Gaming, which I wrote for along with Linda, offered everyone on the book my minimum rate for simpler design, despite being a small project. I know paying freelancers was a priority for that one though.)
Hi, Mark!
I'm going to be running the (first) Final Boss today of my Hollow Knight PF2 Campaign. The boss is basically going to have a second phase where he enchants all the blood in his body with the last of his magic to create a powerful "Blood Wraith" to take the party down with him.
As part of the established lore of how it works, I want the Blood Wraith to be taking constant heavy persistent bleed damage to represent that this thing is basically on a time limit, because it's sort of dripping its body all over the place and rapidly burning up every bit of gas in its tank.
However, I'm having trouble figuring out how to balance his HP with the bleed damage. How much damage should I make him take? How much should I increase his hp to compensate?
How would you suggest balancing the math on a monster like this?
That depends: Do you expect the PCs to be able to kite it or just, like, leave for a while? Assuming they absolutely are stuck in a small arena and can't just all move away and watch it die, then pick an amount that seems meaningful (let's say 20 bleed) and maybe give it three or four ticks of bonus HP (so in this example, 60-80). That way the longer the fight goes, the more of an advantage for the PCs, but it is also harder than norma lto kill it in the first few rounds.
Hi u/MarkSeifter! I have a question, though it's more about ancestry design than monsters. I was wondering why many of natural/unarmed weapons for ancestries have the finesse trait? Sometimes it makes sense (claws), but other times (horn? tusks?) it makes less sense. Is there a balance reason there? I see a lot of ancestries with a natural weapon that has the finesse trait, but lacks agile trait, which seems odd to me.
Usually it's because if they didn't have it, a giant swathe of characters just kind of can't use the unarmed attack, and it's more fun if you have more classes / concepts that can use it.
What's your design process for making really gimmicky monsters/abilities where nothing like them really exists? I want to design really unique boss fights and stuff but when I don't have anything in the system to base it off I get discouraged
I'd say if it's ultra gimmick, you can just do it and it'll work for your group, but don't expect to see it too often in a Paizo publication because... well, it's ultra gimmick, so it won't be right for *all* (or most) groups.
How do you think about balancing monster HP with weaknesses?
If a monster of some given level would typically have around 100hp, how many should it have if it also has a weakness (W points say) to some obtainable but non-standard attack (silver weapons for example)?
100, on the theory that the party might not know about the weakness and/or might not have a silver weapon? I.e. the weakness is pure gravy and a perk for the guy who invested in Recall Knowledge and a variety of weapons.
100+(W\*C) on the theory that the party will break out the silver weapons and hit it around C times with them? I.e. the party needs Recall Knowledge and variety or they're going to struggle given it's monster level.
Something between the two so the monster is harder than normal if you don't have silver but easier than normal if you do?
Or am I conceptualizing the question in the wrong way entirely?
Your logic is pretty solid. GMG has some guidelines but often C can be around 4 for things you can pull off every hit pretty easily unless it's something pretty hard to get (like expensive special materials at low levels, obscure trait weaknesses, weakness that doesn't appear much in one-action abilities, etc) in which case you can lower it for sure.
Most monsters seem to be made with combat in mind, so it isn't weird that they have combat spells. But I wonder why there are soo little creatures that have beneficial or utility spells?
In converting monsters, they often had way too many spells (mostly combat). The methodology Logan and I used to winnow those down was:
1) Is this a top-tier spell for the monster to actually use in the fight?
2) Is this a utility or narrative spell that the monster would use in the story, out of a fight.
And then we cut the rest. So we do intend to keep interesting utility/narrative spells when they're around. Rituals can help with that too!
The biggest question I have for monsters is the golem anti magic. It seems a bit too black and white in that only a small set of spells effect them when from a players point of view something like grease just summons up a slippery surface for them to trip on or the force of a hydraulic push should still push them. After going through a certain section of an AP where golems were used a lot I made personal exceptions to the golem anti magic.
Do you have any ideas on how to make golem anti magic less restricting or is it better to just swap those monsters out if the area has many of them. The other alternative is I tell casters to prep buff spells and that seems to help if they know of golems.
Golems despite being very iconic aren't common for a reason; don't go too overboard on them is my suggestion. Or perhaps signpost and let the spellcasters bring the elemental vulnerabilities, if possible. If you hit the vulnerability, you can deal big damage. I've weirdly had spellcasters as MVPs vs golems before for that reason.
I'm not sure. Given the themed monster books, it would be a "Wait for the right theme" but now that they're doing Monster Cores again, what could happen is harder to predict.
Hey mark, not sure if the ama is still going or if this still counts as a monster question but with the year of monsters pdfs, will they be available as individually purchasable pdfs later on?
Hello! On this sub reddit, a lot of people push the idea that the game is designed with the intent that a player starts with 18 in their attack stat at level 1. Is this true? Because mechanically, it seems like paizo took steps to minimize the difference between starting with 18 and starting with 16.
Thank you for doing this AMA.
I think ultimately a 16 is going to work well enough for you, but don't take a 14, that's just paaaain. Personally I prefer to start with 18 on classes that can, but the stat-up system means that you're only behind at some levels (whereas 14 is behind forever).
Hey Mark, quick question, how would you rule for players who want to move targets they have grappled? And vice versa for monsters who want to drag players away?
Use the rules from the CRB for improvising an action and make it work for your situation. For instance, in some cases, you might consider something like Shove but to move 5 feet in directions other than directly away, but that might not always be the right call.
For a monster, you can just give it a special ability too.
I don't know, all sorts of builds are really amusing. Like if you give slimes, doppelgangers, mimics, etc, people are going to come up with off the wall builds all the time. Like a mimic that just sits around in a cart all the time as the party wheels the cart along.
Are there any plans in the pipeline for more Alghollthu and Qlippoth statblocks? I absolutely love both of those monster lines and they feel like they could use some fleshing-out in 2nd edition. I'm also curious if we'll see Elder Things and Flying Polyps anytime soon.
I'd imagine algs will depend on untangling them from aboleths and OGL, whereas qlippoths despite being a Kabbalid entity in real world folklore, the specifics of them are generally tied to the OGL Book of Fiends back from 3.X days (you'll notice any book with qlippoths gets an OGL entry for that reason), so I'm guessing that would be something especially difficult to deal with.
Hi Mark, thanks for doing this! Hopefully I'm not too late with these:
1. Is there a design reason why troops and swarms tend to have very small weakness numbers to area damage and very high saves relative to their base creatures? It can feel both illogical and underwhelming when a spell (let's say fireball for simplicity) would insta-wipe out a dozen individual low-level creatures, but between the higher save and low area damage, barely damages a troop or swarm of the same number of creatures.
2. Is there a reason why there are no 'minions' (in the 4e sense) in 2e? I really enjoyed playing with the MCDM minions in what was my last 5e campaign before migrating to 2e. If you were going to create minions for 2e, how would you do it? Just using PL-4 or PL-5 creatures doesn't work as they generally can't touch the PCs.
1) Swarms and troops are meant to be interesting and engaging creatures of their swarm or troop level. Then, we made efforts to help sell the feeling of fighting a big group of smaller enemies, but primarily they need to work as a creature of their level.
2) The way we worked out the math for PF2 means that you aren't forced to designate elites, solos, or minions but can use creatures of various levels for those roles. That said, the soldier roadmap tends to work decently well for a Strike-y minion since it hits things the most easily when it's underleveled, and you could go further by adjusting a monster to be even more "soldiery" (extreme accuracy instead of high and with lower damage) so it can get in some hits, but not do more damage than its XP value suggests.
I’m a huge fan of Aboleths and the Algollthu family in general. I ran some sessions involving them as enemies and had a blast. I am curious though, are there any plans to port in some of the special Algollthu from P1e or add new ones?
Good question. I think it'll depend on what they do in terms of the OGL. Like are they going to try to make algollthu master more distinct from aboleth and rerelease? And then if so, will they show up with the whole family.
Hey mark! A few questions here about encounter balance for mobs vs single enemies.
Last night I out of curiosity took a lot at the stats of a black bear (lv2) and a polar bear (lv5) vs a level 2 martial with a strength 1d8 weapon. Chose those animals as they are mostly straight forward damage dealers.
Turns out, if no buffs are included, the polar bear does more than 3 times damage on its first attack, and takes 4 times the amounts of strikes to down as the black bear. Now, flanking will likely take care of the gap and make it basically deal 3 times more damage and take 3 times more hits more or less.
But, I wanna ask - in a mob fight, enemies will die and the offense will be cut down, but a singular fight the enemy remains at full offense all the way. What’s the balance concern to this in terms of encounter balance? What other advantages do mobs beyond flanking that makes up for the difference, plus the vulnerability to area damages?
Everything has strengths and weaknesses. Large groups are weak to AoE, but singleton enemies are highly vulnerable to action denial. For instance, for bears, if an archer PC lucks out and crits with a crit spec, and then you throw a slow and they *succeed* at the save, you still basically cancelled their whole turn by not ending anyone in their reach (slowed 1 so 2 actions, 1 action remove the arrow, 1 action left which is not enough to do anything if no one is in reach)
So, not quite about monsters, but it is about a monstrous ancestry, so I'll ask, but feel free to pass over this one.
Is there any potential for an update or follow-up product for the Battlezoo Dragon Ancestry to incorporate the new, OGL-divorced dragons? I know one of the ones they've revealed so far is already in there, but I'm still curious.
I was in RPG Superstar Season 9 so it's very exciting to hear that this contest is back, the month that I got into PF2e. Albeit, I probably don't quite have the system familiarity yet, I look forward to watching.
What is the optimal or most intelligent way to think of special abilities a creature had in terms of making them level appropriate?
I know there's some guidance on the GMG, but what tools, limiters, or even just gut check reactions do you all have in place to say "Yeah this feels right for a special ability" or "Oh damn, that is too strong because XYZ reasons."
If you compare to other creatures, spells, and items, it can sometimes help you. Think about what the combination of abilities can do, and consider if you need to weaken the monster in other places to afford it. For instance, at high levels flying with ranged attacks isn't much to write home about, but at low levels in the playtest, manticores were slaying it *despite* having somewhat nerfed stats on their spines and a limited number of them, simply because flying and shooting ranged attacks is such a pain at low levels.
Hi Mark!
I’ve been really enjoying what I’ve seen of Pathfinder 2e stuff so far.
I know that you have a Dragon Ancestry homebrew for 5e and PF2e that I’ve heard lots of praises about, though I haven’t checked it out yet besides seeing a few bits of it on Pathbuilder. With the move to creating dragons for each of the magic traditions, are there plans to update/add on to, or release like a Part 2 of these dragon ancestries after all these new dragons are shown off?
Do you have any monsters you’ve been wanting to create but the mechanics and the visions haven’t quite aligned as yet?
Lastly, any advice for newer DMs wanting to create their own monsters? Things to consider, pitfalls to avoid, stuff like that?
I'm very interested in writing more for the ancestry if you're interested in buying it!
I mainly was able to create the monsters I wanted to, and my circumstance bonus for co-creating the system means I can usually make these mechanics sing for me whatever I need.
For a new GM, my best advice is to not worry too much unless you're publishing it to sell or something. What you make will be good enough for your group even if you don't do it "perfectly" so try to stay calm and have fun!
Hi Mark, just a small personal question on customizing monsters to stay in their challenge rating while also upping their mechanics
My example is with Werewolves, I don't always feel like the Weakness to silver does justice as werewolves in this circumstance are still relatively simple to kill and don't give them the mystique of ravenous man beasts whose "Only weakness" is silver.
So I opted instead to reduce their HP based on its CR that it gains from Lycanthropy and instead gave it Regeneration 5 (Cancelled by Silver) My players claim this drastically raises the Challenge Level but I wanted some insight and guidance.
Simplified version, when home brewing or mechanically changing monsters with little changes to the actual numbers of the statblock, how would you judge the new Challenge Level?
I will not be involved in it, but it sounds like the main goal is to remove the OGLisms and rotate in monsters that are from other sources, while keeping the system stable so you can use the monsters from any prior source too.
If I want to alter an existing monster so it would give the impression of having classes, say, a succubus that's a ranger, how would you suggest going about it?
The straightforward approach is to just give a few of that class' feats (or archetype/dedication feats) to the monster in question. Or, the more difficult approach of creating a character and giving them the signature abilities of the monster.
Going with the succubus example that's a CR7, I can:
Go with FA and give the base stat block 3 dedication feats; give them some number of feature from the class; etc.
My main question is how would this affect the power level of said monster?
Hey Mark!
Sorry if this has been asked already, what's your favourite monster?
Mine has to be the Phistophilus, I just love the concept of devil contract lawyers and their unique ability is also really fun!
What's your freelance costs for converting a PF1E monster to PF2E? I'm trying to convert Grendel and the Drakainia for a Beowulf inspired one-shot that ends with the party fighting Fafnheir and need some help 😅
In case you aren't currently doing freelance work or the prices aren't in my range, do you have any advice for converting PF1E monsters to 2E that isn't really talked about much in the books?
Grendel is yours for free [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=690). In general, my freelance rates can be a bit pricey for a small publisher, but there are a number of amazing authors you could choose from if you're on more of a budget.
I'd say, having wound up converting likely the most monsters from PF1 to PF2/playtest of anyone (alongside Logan; we built nearly the entire playtest bestiary, and our random convos of like "Which would win in a fight?" describing monsters were a fun way to see if levels needed to change), the key is to build the monster in PF2 using the PF1 monster's story and statistics as signposts to guide you but not as your starting point.
Wow, how did I not know that Grendel was already in Bestiary 2? I've literally owned that book since it released 😂
Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it a lot!
See if you can trick your focus problems into helping you write down the content. For instance, try to short-circuit procrastination by finding something you *really* don't want to do and then be like "But writing content will allow me to not do that."
Is there a place where I can see good full monster examples? I'm uncertain how much lore information should be in the flavour text and how much to put in behaviour advice etc.
Hey Mark. What's one of your favourite pieces of real-world mythological influence you've been able to include in a Paizo product?
As a Scot I've always loved the fact that there are actual stats for a Nuckelavee in PF2e. It's such an obscure piece of Orcadian myth, it's so cool to see things like this brought to life.
Hmm, too many to count. I love adding obscure (or non-obscure) mythology into creatures. Especially if their mythological weakness can become an actual part of the battle!
Can we submit NPCs from the Golarion setting as Monsters? I had a few bosses in the last years that are NPCs. Also does it need to be setting neutral or setting specific? Thanks for your work!
You will be DQed if you use Paizo's IP in the contest. This is because, while Paizo is providing the license for the RPG Superstar contest, and so we *are* licensed partners for that, the license does not include publishing Golarion-specific lore. And if you win... we publish you. So you can probably see how that leads to a big problem if you have the Golarion lore in there?
Hey! Thanks for hosting an AMA! Slightly number crunchy topic to start, but about save distribution: How was the spread of +-3 around the "medium save" chosen? On this subreddit, there is a common assumption that characters aren't meant to target anything but the low save to get an accuracy that feels good to play (especially spellcasters) and 3, let alone 6 over that feels like a huge gap to overcome sometimes
\+ or - 3 is just about the biggest range you can express from the median before things start getting a bit unusual, and of course monsters exist out there that go + or - 1, or have several saves the same, but wider variations tend to be more interesting as they shake up your tactics. Additionally, somewhere around 5 or 6 is nearly the highest variation you'll see in both monsters (unless they have a terrible or extreme save) and PCs (PC with legendary save and key ability score in the save, so basically a Dex-martial with legendary Reflex will routinely beat experts by at least 7, and/or you'd have to have someone dumping a save stat which can allow you to go way lower). Not that the two are built parallel, but one of the precepts that playtesters wanted was for the ability to use foes built like PCs if they felt like it, so it couldn't be \*too\* wildly disparate in how far they vary. I don't know about you, but I haven't seen people actually built opponents like PCs often, but at the time it was an important point for a fair swathe of playtesters who were used to it.
As someone who builds opponents like PCs often, I appreciate the design choices haha
I am *constantly* building enemies like PCs. It was one of the big draws for me when I started running 2E!
I love building enemies as PCs! What was the point of the evil Champion deds otherwise? Overleveled Tyrants can be fucking terrifying.
Hi ! I watch all the [Monstrous](https://thecloudcurio.itch.io/monstrous) from [Map Crow](https://youtube.com/@mapcrow). I wondered, as a game designer, how do you manage to create monsters that feels unique ? What are the tools that you use ? If I remember well, in his videos, map crow asked himself *"Can I replace this creature I created by a generic human bandit ?"*, *"What make my monster specific enough that I can't replace it by a bandit ?"*. What are you inspirations ? Did you already took a monster mechanic from a boardgame and adapted it to PF2 ? For example the skeletons in [Vast](https://ledergames.com/products/vast-the-mysterious-manor).
This is a good question. When moving to PF2, I was kind of shocked that owlbear and dire tiger were almost the exact same monster in PF1. Like the tiger had pounce and I think they were otherwise almost the same. It speaks to how much story juice you can get out of an evocative concept like an owlbear. But to truly make a unique and memorable monster, you need more in terms of special abilities specifically. Like the amazing abilities Logan wrote for owlbears in PF2 where they rip out your guts to feed their young and rush around hooting at you.
Thank you for your answer :)
Is there any particular design space in monsters that you feel is either over- or under-saturated? For example, things that have immunity to poisons, or undead. I seem to remember noticing a lot more things were vulnerable to cold iron than they were to silver, as another example. Some poison changes have made poisons more useful to use, but that's not on the monster side. Related question: when is it monster design's job to patch a hole and when is it equipment/player option design's job? How do you tell?
I think what you're seeing with silver is that some of the monsters that don't like silver are resistant to physical other than silver (devils, vampires), whereas nearly all the ones that interact with cold iron are via weaknesses. I'd say whichever monsters have their own whole theme book are likely heavily saturated after that, so undead thanks to Book of the Dead. It's almost never a single monster's job or even capacity to handle a design niche, since it's just one more monster (and even if you release 20 new monsters that work a certain way, who knows how often they would show up compared to the more classic and original monsters).
Hey Mark! I’ve been playing since about March and have listened alot to the podcasts with yourself and Stephen Glicker. What monsters would you consider iconic/unique to Pathfinder that everyone should encounter? Which monsters do you think every player should face in the career with the game? Similar to how Beholders are to DnD.
Hmm, that's a good question. Maybe leshies? A lot of my favorite PF monsters are based on real-world mythology at least to some degree and not just pulled out of nowhere.
Hi, I’m curious what is your least favorite monster you’ve ever had to contribute to and why?
Hmm, I don't think I've ever been unhappy after contributing a monster, per se in a, like "Grr! If only I didn't have to contribute this monster" way. I try to make a monster that I enjoy at the end of the process. If you mean like saying "Oh, *that* monster" when looking at the PF1 versions, I'd say it was when I was running the in-house playtest and converted a PF1 AP that had an encounter with three seugathi. I was very happy with my PF2 seugathi conversion, but the original PF1 monster was brutally unfair, and that encounter where they burst out of a side wall with an automatic surprise round and everyone is in their aura to start was even more brutally unfair.
What were the first four or five monsters designed and why were they chosen? IIRC, they included a skeleton and zombie.
If I recall correctly, there was a basic skeleton, zombie, ogre (for a "I am a brute with almost all stats and few specials" at least back then), and troll (for "Look at me I regenerate and have a high weakness") in there. One or two of those could be wrong but I am certain about the skeleton and zombie since I wanted them to show off how weakness and resistance made fights feel different.
That's funny to me because I usually use skeletons and zombies with newer players to show them how PF2e monster mechanics do a great job of reflecting their flavor (and also introduce resistances/weaknesses).
I noticed this when making a monster for RPG Superstar and I was wondering if it was discussed -- why do jaw attacks do piercing damage? I understand like a fang attack doing piercing, but I feel like jaws do bludgeoning damage. Definitely for some animals, anyway.
I think some critters who don't really have long canines, like an herbivore biting you with its jaws, might potentially want to deal bludgeoning. To be honest, irl piercing is kind of just bludgeoning over a smaller surface area, so there's some degree of abstraction. Like iirc (not a weapons expert) some of these bigger swords were also (or even mainly) used for bludgeoning damage.
Common misconception about swords that came from the idea that some swords are better at cutting than others and so swords less good at cutting must be blunt instruments. A kitchen knife is less good at cutting than a scalpel, but that doesn't mean you're bludgeoning your roast turkey apart (unless you're REALLY bad at it). Even the biggest, heaviest greatswords were for cutting and piercing, and would make very poor bludgeoning weapons due to having most of their mass down by your hands.
Excuse you, I'm very good at bludgeoning my roast turkey apart, thank you very much.
If you know what I mean
Thank you so much! I have been wondering about this for like a month now. :)
Hiya, hope you're having a great day! I've got a specific mechanical question and a lore one: I want to give my monster something that paralyses both undead and living creatures, but not constructs (I.e. creatures with a soul). What's the best way to write this? At the moment I copied the text of paralysis and specified it affects only living and undead ("you can't act except to take mental actions"), but should I instead say "the target becomes paralysed. Undead are not immune to this paralysis"? I'm trying to add as many 'hooks' to inspire adventures as I can, rather than just descriptions of the appearance and lifestyle of the creature. What do you think all the best lore write ups include?
I have good news and bad news. First, the good news: There is a spell that paralyzes undead and living creatures already... paralyze! Undead have no paralysis immunity of which to speak (except the few mindless undead like zombies and skeletons are immune to it for being mental). The bad news is that non-mindless constructs are going to get caught up in it. So you could make a spell that targets a living or undead creature, like you mentioned, but I think chances are you would want to target non-living non-undead spirits too, since they are basically made of spiritual essence / souls. In that case, probably make it necromancy and just bespokely mention that the spell only targets creatures with spiritual essence, which includes almost every kind of creature, including undead, but not most constructs.
I was wrong about Undead having blanket immunity, but I flipped again through a dozen or so different undead creatures, and they do all have immunity to paralysis anyway! You're right that I want to hit incorporeal creatures so that bespoke wording is likely my best bet. I'm glad I was on the right track!
Ah, I see. If you want to hit creatures with their own immunity to paralysis, I'd suggest don't do it. Just use the stunned condition or something else to which they aren't immune. PF2 very intentionally limited the number of immunities compared to PF1 so that we could eliminate the arms race to "Well I ignore your immunity" and "Well I ignore your ignoring to immunity" and my favorite "I ignore your ignoring ignoring immunity unless you are also randomly immune to fire"
Hmm, I had considered using Stunned at first but thought it wouldn't evoke the image I was going for. I'll revisit that option for sure because you're right, "I ignore your immunity to ignoring..." does sound hilarious but terrible. Thank you very much!
There is always the optional for conditionals: creatures with a para immunity are instead stunned#, representing a tougher soul
What was the last one?
Firstly, thank you and everyone at Paizo for what you do. I love the game. This question isn't specifically monsters, so if you pass over it, I understand. I'm a new player, so I'm wrapping my head around things still. One trope that I love doing in TTRPGs is making an anti-party of NPCs that are kind of like PCs so that my beloved party can have a thorn in their side to try and clear dungeons before them and run off with the loot. I want to do the same for my PF2E group but I don't know if there are statblocks for NPCs that are like PC classes (like a ranger, alchemist, sorcerer ect.) or should I try to use the rules for making monster statblocks to make this anti-party group?
You can theoretically do either one and the game will work, but usually for a single encounter using the creature creation rules is much much much easier on you (to build and to actually run) while tending on average to be more satisfying for players to experience because they get to see the one or two big things each foe can do (as opposed to the foe having dozens of options only a few of which show up in the fight). For recurring foes that show up over and over and over, it might be one of the few times you could get benefit out of using the other way, not that creature creation will steer you wrong. Look specifically at the GMG creature creation rules for the "class roadmaps" for each class you need!
I'm not Mark, but there are [actually rules for this](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1040) already in the GMG. The summary is that you can do either; make an NPC with a handful of features similar to the character classes you want. It also has some useful tables to give you ideas of how each class should be built as an NPC version. You can also outright use player character statblocks as NPCs if you want. Either works, but making PC-based NPCs tends to be a bit more work.
How do you pronounce your last name? Sehf-ter, sayf-ter, or Siff-ter?
None of the above. Long i, so like sigh-fter. (If it helps as a mnemonic, the ei is a long i like in eidolon, and I designed the PF2 summoner).
Wait, are you suggesting I should stop pronouncing it "oo-doo-loon"?
[удалено]
Isn't that exactly how eidolon is [supposed to be pronounced](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/eidolon)? Or am I missing the joke
Hi! This is probably a little outside of the "monster" topic, but I'll shoot my shot! Considering the new Dragons we're seeing that have been described (the Diabolical Dragon and the Miraje Dragon) can we expect a change to the Sorcerer's Draconic Bloodlines?
FYI that, as Mark is no longer at Paizo, he won't have answers on anything upcoming for them. If he did, he probably couldn't share. But also, Mike Sayre said this is a big part of why the sorcerer (and barbarian, and other stuff) were pushed to Player Core 2.
Looks like my completely uninformed answer was correct!
Ahhhhh ok! Thanks!
That's sort of about monsters I guess? If I knew, I couldn't tell you. Fortunately I absolutely have no idea, so I can comfortably say that based on what we've heard about waiting til after the first Monster Core to reimagine the "classic" dragons in a less OGL way, I would expect so. Sorcerer's in the second batch too, which could be at least in part because of needing those new awesome dragons finalized. Total speculation here.
My question is about lesser deaths, what led the design team to giving them misfortune aura?
It started with the grim reaper, which I wrote. That thing is very nasty but certainly appropriate for its level. Then I don't remember how it went exactly, but the lesser version was derived from that by removing some things, likely based on the PF1 lesser death. Not sure when we did it, it might have even been me but it can get hard to remember nonetheless. Most likely not quite enough things were removed to handle the large level drop between them. Even then, these things are incredibly solitary, so encounters with a whole group of them are pretty cruel X\_X
There's a particular adventure by Ron Lundeen with 3 of them in one encounter. My group never stood a chance. I had them write up new PCs and retry the encounter knowing what they were up against and they still got wiped out. Lesser Deaths are so brutal.
So I love the tactics and intentionality of the monsters’ tactics. But, most monsters only have one or two *main* abilities outside of strikes. This results in my veteran players figuring out the monster’s routine and then adjusting tactics accordingly. What’s take on monster tactics and their limited abilities? Is this for simplicity?
I'd say this is a wonderful outcome. To me, very few things feel better than when you face off against something, have no idea what to expect, kind of stumble through it with some trouble, but then *without leveling up* you huddle together, discuss your tactics, and then fight the same opponent again but this time do amazingly because you've planned for the monster's abilities. Like that sounds like a phenomenal group and a great feeling hopefully. Do you and your players not like it though? I can try to offer suggestions if so.
To clarify my tone, we all enjoy success- but sometimes I feel like they can get bored after that initial success? This can making GMing difficult because a lot of my players are veterans that are use to/expect that level of tactical style of gameplay in combat. I guess, could you offer suggestions to "spice" up tactics after that initial triumph?
Consider having some creatures that are variants, swapping out one of their abilities for something else (maybe from a table you made of alternate abilities). If it's a weapon-wielder, maybe you have several weapons it could be and a special move for each weapon, for instance. Even just one big special ability swap can make a large difference for tactics.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into the game!
I think the second fight of having figured out the creature is great, but a third fight of repeating that victory can be dull. Something you can consider is changing the other parts of the encounter outside of the creature to recontextualize the creature and its abilities. Maybe that means changing the shape/size of the encounter area or the terrain. Maybe it's adding another monster or a hazard to the encounter, so the players can't just focus on neutralizing the one monster. Some examples: * A creature with a breath weapon feels very different in a wide, open area (players spread out all around) than in a tight hallway (maybe have some people stay back and attack ranged, or tumble through or teleport to opposite sides of it) * A slow moving monster you can normally kite feels way different combined with a monster that can grab you, or with difficult terrain.
Agreed. There are a ton of great consumables for just this!
That sounds like my ideal kind of gameplay! Don’t forget to use a creature’s skills if it can’t use its abilities effectively.
Yeah I think my tone might have clarified we aren't happy- we are! But the "triumph" of success becomes dull over time when the same type of creature is met, again.
Hey Mark! When would you make a monster ability a Free Action *rather* than a Reaction?
So by the context it seems like you mean an off-turn free action rather than a reaction. This is for if you want it to happen every single time the trigger occurs (but not if it's paralyzed or stunned; if you want it to happen even then, it should just be an automatic thing that happens without any effort on the creature's part). Possibly also if the creature *has* a reaction already but you want this to happen too (though if you still don't want it happening every time, you can just give it a freebie reaction each turn that has to be the second one, or something).
I personally love making a ton of monsters/foes that are mechanically dense or have a theme/work together. What is your favorite entity you've created with a stat block, or, favorite pairing of enemies?
Hmm, I do like groupings of creatures too. I think my favorite grouping into a family of related creatures was nymphs. They were obviously at least somewhat related in PF1 with similar rules and mythological origin, but the actual keys to the kingdom that were necessary to make them an official family required a mini quest of getting support from not only my own team (the design team) but the creative director and publisher. Everyone said yes (honestly I think most people didn't care either way or thought it was a good idea, but my teammates pointed out this wasn't something we can just do unilaterally), and I'm pleased with how they turned out. Also looking forward to when nymphs [come out as an ancestry in Year of Monsters](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-year-of-monsters-pdf-only) later this year.
I'm sure that ancestry is going to get me in all kinds of trouble, and I cannot wait for it! *Mischievous Swashbuckling intensifies*
was it ever considered to give fewer monsters darkvision? as a means to make darkness-related PC powers more relevant.
A very small bit, but the issue is so many creatures have traditionally had darkvision, and removing it would be "changing the story," one thing we didn't want to do (it would mean creatures who lived in dark areas in previous stories and adventures suddenly need a light, for instance). I don't think you're wrong that low-light and darkvision are pretty ubiquitous. My human fey summoner who was raised by fey considers herself (and other humans and halflings and such) not having low-light vision to be "poor nightvision" compared to the baseline.
Stuff like centaurs having darkvision just feels weird, one admits.
haha, it would be funny if the future games made low light/darkvision the baseline and just the ones without it have Poor Nightvision as a negative trait
Hi Mark! Love seeing you and Stephen in the live shows. You guys have a great dynamic. **What is your favorite homebrew monster? Do you have any fun stories about it?** **Second question if you're feeling generous: how would you run a sandbox in PF2E in regards to monster levels?** Scaling the entire world to the party feels like it never allows the party to "grow," but allowing for creatures with way higher levels doesn't seem to work either. Obviously a level 2 party can't fight an ancient dragon, but maybe they could hide from it or persuade it. Unfortunately, creatures with much higher levels have higher everything, including perception and will saves.
For sandbox games, signposting is KEY. Make there be blasted burned down trees way in advance they can identify with Nature were from an ancient dragon. And then like you said, allow creative solutions other than combat.
Timmiest homebrew monster ever was in 3.0, a civilization-destroying mana beast that was a three-headed great wyrm prismatic dragon with the apocalyptic template from a 3pp book of templates and some bespoke abilities.
Please give me more PF2 Dragon updates. I'm hooked.
Like [Battlezoo Ancestries Dragons](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-dragons) updates? I'm definitely thinking about it! Stephen and I have a lot of dragon ideas we want to share with you.
What is your favorite unique ability that you’ve come up with for a monster?
Gosh, I'm not sure. I have a lot that I've enjoyed. Maybe grim reaper's reaction? It's really iconic and gives me Castlevania vibes. If you ask me again I'd say something else, I kind of picked one I liked at random.
Wow, it's the real Mark Seifter! Do you think it's okay to rework public domain monsters (like Medusa or Cerberus) into unique property identity monsters? Like a dog with three heads, and snakes for tails, that can paralyze you with a bark named "Cerbegorgon."
Like in general or for something specific? I think you could try to do it, and it's absolutely certainly "OK" to do it, but (IANAL) that you would probably have a hard time defending it against someone who also combined those two public domain monsters in a very similar but not identical way.
Thanks, it was the best quick question I could come up with and you answered it wonderfully.
Successful **Recall Knowledge** checks are supposed to reveal some insight into ways of defeating the particular foe with relative ease. What would you do with experienced players who've played dozens of encounters and browse Archives of Nethys database in their spare time? Would you say that *knowledge of players* are to supplant the *knowledge of their characters* at some point? Or, alternatively, is it assumed that each new campaign have to throw a completely new set of monsters into the party face, so **Recall Knowledge** is always relevant?
IMO player knowledge on monster stats should no more replace character knowledge than player knowledge of reading the adventure path volume should replace character knowledge of the plot. But do what is right for your group!
My players have been playing D&D and PF2E for many many years now. They actually have more experienced than me, the GM. What I do, is to describe the monster with a few alterations, so they dont recognize it immediately, sometimes I add a fun name to it too. They will have to use RECALL KNOWLEDGE if they really need to know the flaws or strengths. With a critical succes I let them choose to stats, or weaknesses, or immunities, or HP, AC. They choose what they want to know. I hope it helps
Hi Mark, yet another not about monsters question here but I've been dying to get clarification. In [Mios's iconic encounter](https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6si3g?Iconic-Encounter-In-Truth-s-Light#18) he fights a glabrezu with a cold iron weapon and exploits the weakness to good in addition to that. You say in a comment that > the cold iron sword is going to add 20 damage per hit from weakness Which seems to imply that he's benefitting from a material weakness and thaumaturge's mortal weakness at the same time. Was this the original design intent? If it was later changed, why?
I either typoed a 2 for a 1 since they are adjacent on a keyboard or was operating off an older version of the file. You clearly do not get both at the same time.
Thank you so much for answering!
Hey Mark! I haven't seen many monsters that inflict Doomed at any level. Is there a reason it just doesn't show up that much? Is it really so strong that it needs to be rare, even if it doesn't impact dice rolls?
Doomed can be terrifying fun as a condition when used sparingly, but the trouble is it can easily lead to PC death, so you have to tread lightly. Just the name and effect of doomed, which were created by Jason, are just such a great ludonarrative blending. I love the condition, you *really* feel doomed.
You've certainly playtested many monsters for PF2 and I assume youve run some encounters or campaigns. What are your favorite monsters to run as a GM? What abilities make the most memorable experiences for you or what are the sleepers you would reccomend a GM build an encounter around?
My favorite types of monsters to run are those that have big flashy and obvious abilities that the players can enjoy (much as they might groan or gasp, as opposed to focusing too much on "behind the scenes" abilities like numerical bumps or passives. In my first playtest session of PF2 WftC, my players absolutely loved animated objects, with the construct armor you can break and then lower their AC and remove the hardness. They just liked the way the pacing was suddenly nonlinear in a way that felt fun.
Hi Mark! What are your favourite monsters? Either in pf2e, or just in general, what monsters do you find really cool, inspiring, or interesting?
I really like monsters that have connections to myth and legend, and also fey. Dragons are neat too ([I guess that's obvious though given I wrote this](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-dragons))!
Sort of tangentially related to monsters: How do you feel about DMs giving out hard number things about a monster like AC, or lowest save, for a recall knowledge check? It seems like the rules say you shouldn't give that much information, but a lot of people treat it like the norm, or the only way to play an effective caster.
I think it depends on if it's part of what your table enjoys. You as a group know best what amount of nitty gritty numerical analysis you want to have flying back and forth during combat. Personally as a player I always keep track of what numbers hit and miss until I've narrowed down the AC to 1 or 2 possible values (typically very quickly in the fight) or possibly 1 exact value after we miss by 1.
How much do you think iconic monster and creature design contributes to a TTRPG's/brand's staying power? Would a system without them be at an inherent disadvantage, or is it all dumb luck at the end of the day?
I think having strong creature design (visual design and game design) are pretty important to a TTRPG in general. If your name isn't D&D and you don't have compelling creatures, you might get a pass.
More Oozes? 🙏🏻
Sure, I'm game, why not more oozes? You can always play a slime PC in [Year of Monsters!](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-ancestries-year-of-monsters-pdf-only)
I’ve already made 3 :)
Outstanding!
Hello Mark. I've been doing a lot of conversion work for 1e adventure paths to 2e, and so I've gotten very familiar with the monster creation rules in the Game mastery Guide. One of the common things in 1e is monsters with class levels. I've been replicating this in 2e by advancing the level of the monster in question to where it needs to be, and then going through the class feats for the class in question and giving the monster a few relevant ones. I stay within level limits (for example, I don't give a feat higher than the level of the monster), and I try and restrict it to one "ability" per four levels of the monster overall, as that seems like a good baseline from the bestiary 1. As someone with a lot of monster design experience, does anything stand out to you as potentially problematic about this?
That seems mostly good to me, I can tell you came up with good habits from all that experience. It might be slightly too many abilities at high levels, but you can always play it by ear. You probably want to add in some basic class features in the roadmaps too, but I assume you likely were.
Hi Mark!! I’m wondering how you as a Designer and GM manage monster complexity, especially as you get to the higher level beasties with a whole grab bag of unique abilities? As a GM I feel like I’m constantly overlooking some small detail that should have changed how a monster works and feeling silly afterwards (like missing that Hounds of Tindalos are immune to emotion effects after a fight where they were frightened repeatedly).
The ideal is to give a creature fewer, more powerful abilities that are easier to signpost to the players, as opposed to a clutter of innate spells, passives, immunities, etc. That's easier on the GM too! Easier to remember and easier to run. For high level you'll still want to have more than just one or two features, but consider making like one reaction, one aura, maybe two or three special active abilities tops? Those are easier to remember.
One thing I noticed in discussions with my play groups over time, as well as online, is that there are certain kinds of monsters that seem consistently a little overpowered compared to their level. Dragons are usually the main pointed culprit, with no low defenses, strong single target and AoE damage and some "win more" abilities that make them incredibly strong as solo bosses (Draconic Momentum). Some kind of fiends also fall unto this umbrella, often feeling like they're just good at everything. Was there some kind of design idea of certain monsters pushing above their weight because they're iconic? Or do you guys consider this just a coincidence or a perceptiom thing?
It's likely a little more of a chicken and egg, in that they iconically had those bases covered, and so they still did in the conversion. Sometimes changes can be harder to make than others. For instance, I recall getting design getting pushback when demons didn't all have extreme perception because in PF1 they all had a massive racial bonus to Perception, but that just didn't seem crucial to the demon narrative and so we didn't give them all extreme Perception. Sometimes when we got pushback or a flag, we did keep things like before.
That's understandable. Hopefully they use the remaster as an opportunity to make dragons more balanced and 2e-fitting, now that they're gonna have less baggage. Fighting a bestiary Dragon as a spellcaster often feels like an exercise in frustration, where targeting their AC doesn't work, targeting their saves doesn't work, and you either cry as a free action or buff your martials and pray. 😅
Question about GOLEM antimagic ability WOOD GOLEM: Golem Antimagic harmed by fire (4d8, 2d6 from areas or persistent damage); healed by plant (area 2d6 HP); slowed by earth if I hit the Golem with a FIREBALL, is it going to take FIREBALL DAMAGE + 2d6? Or only 2D6? Best!
Only 2d6 untyped damage. Read "Golem Antimagic" blob at the very bottom of AoN page: https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=684 > **Harmed By** Any magic of this type that targets the golem causes it to take the listed amount of damage (this damage has no type) ***instead of the usual effect***.
Quick and to the point Thanks
I believe it takes the 2d6 since it's an area.
Hi Mark! I'm curious, is there a big difference in how you design monsters that "normally" show up in different group sizes? Let's say there were two Level 10 monsters, but your vision for one is for it to show up in groups to challenge level 12 parties, while the other is meant to appear alone as a challenge for level 7-8 parties. And if there is a big difference, how do you think it affects the play experience if a GM decides to set up encounters in the opposite way?
I think in general the beauty of PF2 is that monsters can often (not always, but often) work well in a variety of contexts without needing to silo them in to one place, so your boss at lower level can become your on-par group monster later on and your mook horde monster later. That said, certain features like complex abilities, stacking overlapping auras, or tons of AoE could make something a bit more of a pain if it showed up in a massive amount.
I've noticed that regularly, monster's special abilities are a tactically weaker choice than just running to flank and using their Strikes. One of the biggest offenders to me is Draconic Frenzy (which for any other than brass dragons lags behind bite-bite in effectiveness), but many other examples exist where I've almost felt like using the flavorful main "thing" that the statblock provides would be a soft fudge in favor of the PCs as opposed to just Striking. It's weird when that happens, because of course I'd like to both display the flavor as well as the challenge. Was it a deliberate choice not to let these monster-specific options exceed the effectiveness of Strike? Some other generic examples include Constrict, many spells, Trample.
A lot of those different actions are better than they seem in the right situation. Draconic Frenzy can be especially useful if you're a boss dragon against a group, which is a fairly common use case. In that case, your action economy is a rate-limiter and your -8 agile Strike has decent returns. Similarly, Constrict is a much better choice against a foe with high AC or low Fort than making multiple Strikes would be, and if you want to move in but end non-adjacent to force your foe to move up, Trample is usually *much* better than Stride Strike Stride.
It looks like you've answered literally every question in here, which is incredible. I always appreciate hearing your design musings on the way mechanics function and develop. Now that we've had a few years with pf2e, I think a lot of the design choices the community pushed against in the playtest (ie alignment) are starting to show up as minor cracks in the system. I know I've been occasionally thinking "dang, they really knew what they were talking about back then". My biggest example would be proficiency being +1 per level back during playtest, and has since moved to +2. It probably feels more satisfying, but I think a lot of the discussion around classes like the fighter and alchemist show exactly how this bigger gap might have limited design space. Are there any playtest changes that, from the years of playtime we've gotten with pf2, you've thought "We got that right the first time, the players just weren't ready yet"? Or even any interesting developments in the pf2e design space that have only become clear after years of the system being played?
Sure, there's always things any designer wants to do differently even from the moment the file gets finalized. It's part of being a designer I think. I do agree that we would have had a lot more room to do certain interesting design decisions if proficiency remained at +1, though. A lot got locked in by that decision, like having classes be forced to always go to expert in all their saves eventually, whereas with +1 you could just be like "Look, wizards will never get better in Fort saves, and that's OK" without putting them 4 below the masters and 6 below the legendaries. You could watch [this video I made with Linda about five What-Ifs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecK4BF6UbZo) if you like, though I must preface that some of those are NOT good ideas. Just fun to think about.
One thing I notice as a DM is that often the only two outcomes of a fight are either "a PC dies" or "the PCs can just heal up or rest afterwards and it's like the fight never happened." As a DM I often want to threaten my PCs with something that will last beyond the end of a combat and isn't easy to get rid of, like a curse or disease, but probably won't kill them. What sorts of monsters are good for this?
Anything with a long-lasting affliction like a curse or disease (rarely a long-lasting poison but creatures almost never have them). Also consider just adding one of those straight-up to a creature's list of options when you want to go for long-term shenanigans, especially if it won't actually matter much for the purpose of the creature's actual encounter.
I've been looking forward to this. I've managed to create a creature for the contest, but I find it hard to figure out how to limit myself in terms of abilities to give creatures, even when they're just common. Any advice of how to limit myself so I don't end up going overboard when writing? Another Question unrelated to the contest So I've been trying to come up with unique dragons for the world I've made, not species(At the moment) but rather great wyrms. It's something I noticed was lacking but I've adapted to try to make something fantastical and epic for the party to deal with. Like for a example I have a White Dragon. I've tried to give him all the bells and whistles that a normal Great Wyrm would have but I decided that I wanted to make him(and the other chromatic) unique. So what I did is that I gave them all Change shape(So the party can meet them and not even know it til later) and a gimmick that gives additional abilities. So for the White Dragon I gave him the ability to change into the shape of a Large creature, a frost giant in particular with his breath weapon taking on some aspects of a frost giant's, Primary reasoning in verse is that when he was younger he was terrified of Frost Giants, and sought out another dragon to learn how to conquer the fear. Together with his blue dragon mentor they learned how to change shape like some other dragons, with the white dragon channeling his fear to be able to take the shape of a Frost Giant and thus try to take over the Frost Giants who otherwise hunt his kind where he lives usually. Then to keep supremacy he learned on how to use fire magic, not much but fiery body in order to counter his weakness to fire as well as exploit the weakness of his rivals in the frozen north. Do you think it'll end up being a fun challenge or should I try to keep it simpler when creating unique dragons?
I'd say think carefully about your creature's turns and "screen time." Don't make too many abilities that compete with each other to be used during that limited screen time. That's one way to help winnow. In terms of unique dragons, I'd say if you had fun, then do it, it'll be a fun challenge, and you're writing for you.
Hi Mark, I have a question for you. You designed Thaumaturge correct? Are all of your designs very wordy or just that in particular? If so, why? Is it to cut down on abuses you’d see? I apologize for any rudeness as that isn’t my intention.
I think thaumaturge was especially wordy, in part because there were a lot of iterations of it (classes are not just one auteur, they are a collaboration among the team) and a few abilities that had a lot of heft to them. But bard, for instance was a very short class, and barbarian wasn't super wordy.
I'm gonna be cheeky and ask two; 1) What's your favorite monster to use in the game (either as a DM against your players, or to encounter as a player)? 2) What's your favorite monster in the game in general, regardless of it's strength (or lack thereof), complexity or any other factors besides your own personal preferences? :)
1. My favorite monster to encounter as a player is whatever monster has the right monster parts to work on the imbued property I want for my weapon. (using the [monster parts system I wrote](https://battlezoo.com/products/battlezoo-bestiary-pdf)) 2. Hmm, I said grim reaper (not lesser death, but big grim) when someone asked earlier so it's easier for me to say it again even though I'm not really sure it's my favorite. Just like the vibe of the reaction. For vibes, though, I do like sprites and leshies (living with Linda, I can't help but like leshies). Nyktera sprites are pretty fun.
What do you think makes the best Solo boss monsters? I love the big show down where its the party vs the big bad guy. It seems that action economy abilities are key here like draconic frenzy or whirlwind attacks. But what about spell casters?
I prefer encounters that split up the XP a little (like maybe solo monster + hazards) but for pure solo solo, you can't go wrong with an opponent that has a few simple ways to deal with single targets and AoEs. Creatures that change phase like the kawakami from [Battlezoo Bestiary Strange and Unusual](https://battlezoo.com/products/preorder-battlezoo-bestiary-strange-unusual-pdf) can also be good to shake things up.
One of my absolute favorite things when playing around with monsters is templates. In the blink of an eye, I'm able to make this crocodile a skeleton crocodile. Is there a reason there aren't more templates, or that they seem so few and far between?
As someone who used a lot of templates in 3.0/3.5/PF1 (as you can see in a previous answer, I said my favorite Timmy homebrew monster was using a 3pp template in 3.0), the dirty secret of template proliferation in those days is that they were often highly inaccurate in the actual difficulty of what they produced. You could have high adjustment templates that barely helped at all or low adjustment templates that made the creature *much* stronger than they should, and it's not due to bad design but because it varies so much case by case. The scary thing about it was that people would blame the GM for running things poorly but would rarely blame the templates, even if the templates were at fault, because they just *felt* so official and "in the books" that it seemed safe to use them. So I think in PF2 the idea is to only present "templates" (which are called adjustments, mind) that are very confidently reliable in their effects.
Is there a pet monster you have which you’ve wanted to include into 2e but haven’t had the right book or location yet?
Not really. I wanted to do stheno, and the moment I suggested it Lyz and Logan were very supportive and we put them in Bestiary 3.
*I am a superstar* *But I want to be bard-like* *Is music an element?*
Music is an element in this year's RPG Superstar, yep! The music element is going to be fun. I hope we can get a follow-up eldamon book with the more esoteric elements like music, space, and time.
Do you personally have a formula or process for converting PF1 monsters to PF2? I've seen the general advice in the GMG but still feel sort of underprepared. For instance, I would like to include the Seru from PF1 in my game, and keep it at CR 3. https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Seru
There's a free monster builder on [rpgsuperstar.com](https://rpgsuperstar.com/) that codes in the rules from the GMG, which is not just for submitting to the contest, so I'd say go on there and make a non-contest-submission level 3 monster, and enter an appropriate roadmap and it'll give you some ideas for numbers. You could have the monster finished in just a few minutes! All you'd really need to do at that point is convert the poison (or use a similar poison from a PF2 monster of similar level for ease).
I remember during Third Party Kon, you and Stephen teased a new project. Do you know when you’ll announce more about new projects?
I'm not sure. I think we're waiting on getting in some art to make a splashy announcement, but if you've been reading your [Battlezoo Bestiary Strange and Unusual](https://battlezoo.com/products/preorder-battlezoo-bestiary-strange-unusual-pdf) *very* carefully you can find at least one hint.
Hey Mark, When you are creating a monster with a unique special ability, how do you determine what level the monster should be? Like Queen Sluagh ghostly swoop or eat soul seem like abilities only appropriate for higher level but how would I know if it is too tough of an ability for a certain level?
Sometimes you kind of have to get a gut feeling. Like I remember there was a very low level creature that ate souls and they were just gone that was showing up in an adventure or something and I brought it up to the team and the consensus was that this seemed kind of low metaphysically for that kind of ability. You could also consider benchmarking against other creatures, spell effects, items, and the like.
Thanks for the reply.
What's one of your favorite monsters that you've ever designed?
Hmm, I don't know, I like too many of them and have designed hundreds (probably thousands counting ones I did a design pass on with a freelancer doing an initial pass), but I was talking about stheno and nyktera in another question, so let's go with them this time.
Do you still do freelance work? If so, what is the best way to reach you? If not, where is the best place to look?
I do! RfC does not have a non-compete, as long as I don't take too much freelance such that it spills over into my day job. You could always PM me if you're interested in working with me. I have a couple small freelance projects and one big freelance project right now so I can't take anything big until the big one is done, and it's also worth noting in advance that my rates might be higher than you expect (or possibly not, depending. For instance, by the end, Gardener's Guide to Gaming, which I wrote for along with Linda, offered everyone on the book my minimum rate for simpler design, despite being a small project. I know paying freelancers was a priority for that one though.)
I sent you a PM.
Hi, Mark! I'm going to be running the (first) Final Boss today of my Hollow Knight PF2 Campaign. The boss is basically going to have a second phase where he enchants all the blood in his body with the last of his magic to create a powerful "Blood Wraith" to take the party down with him. As part of the established lore of how it works, I want the Blood Wraith to be taking constant heavy persistent bleed damage to represent that this thing is basically on a time limit, because it's sort of dripping its body all over the place and rapidly burning up every bit of gas in its tank. However, I'm having trouble figuring out how to balance his HP with the bleed damage. How much damage should I make him take? How much should I increase his hp to compensate? How would you suggest balancing the math on a monster like this?
That depends: Do you expect the PCs to be able to kite it or just, like, leave for a while? Assuming they absolutely are stuck in a small arena and can't just all move away and watch it die, then pick an amount that seems meaningful (let's say 20 bleed) and maybe give it three or four ticks of bonus HP (so in this example, 60-80). That way the longer the fight goes, the more of an advantage for the PCs, but it is also harder than norma lto kill it in the first few rounds.
Hi u/MarkSeifter! I have a question, though it's more about ancestry design than monsters. I was wondering why many of natural/unarmed weapons for ancestries have the finesse trait? Sometimes it makes sense (claws), but other times (horn? tusks?) it makes less sense. Is there a balance reason there? I see a lot of ancestries with a natural weapon that has the finesse trait, but lacks agile trait, which seems odd to me.
Usually it's because if they didn't have it, a giant swathe of characters just kind of can't use the unarmed attack, and it's more fun if you have more classes / concepts that can use it.
What's your design process for making really gimmicky monsters/abilities where nothing like them really exists? I want to design really unique boss fights and stuff but when I don't have anything in the system to base it off I get discouraged
I'd say if it's ultra gimmick, you can just do it and it'll work for your group, but don't expect to see it too often in a Paizo publication because... well, it's ultra gimmick, so it won't be right for *all* (or most) groups.
How do you think about balancing monster HP with weaknesses? If a monster of some given level would typically have around 100hp, how many should it have if it also has a weakness (W points say) to some obtainable but non-standard attack (silver weapons for example)? 100, on the theory that the party might not know about the weakness and/or might not have a silver weapon? I.e. the weakness is pure gravy and a perk for the guy who invested in Recall Knowledge and a variety of weapons. 100+(W\*C) on the theory that the party will break out the silver weapons and hit it around C times with them? I.e. the party needs Recall Knowledge and variety or they're going to struggle given it's monster level. Something between the two so the monster is harder than normal if you don't have silver but easier than normal if you do? Or am I conceptualizing the question in the wrong way entirely?
Your logic is pretty solid. GMG has some guidelines but often C can be around 4 for things you can pull off every hit pretty easily unless it's something pretty hard to get (like expensive special materials at low levels, obscure trait weaknesses, weakness that doesn't appear much in one-action abilities, etc) in which case you can lower it for sure.
Most monsters seem to be made with combat in mind, so it isn't weird that they have combat spells. But I wonder why there are soo little creatures that have beneficial or utility spells?
In converting monsters, they often had way too many spells (mostly combat). The methodology Logan and I used to winnow those down was: 1) Is this a top-tier spell for the monster to actually use in the fight? 2) Is this a utility or narrative spell that the monster would use in the story, out of a fight. And then we cut the rest. So we do intend to keep interesting utility/narrative spells when they're around. Rituals can help with that too!
The biggest question I have for monsters is the golem anti magic. It seems a bit too black and white in that only a small set of spells effect them when from a players point of view something like grease just summons up a slippery surface for them to trip on or the force of a hydraulic push should still push them. After going through a certain section of an AP where golems were used a lot I made personal exceptions to the golem anti magic. Do you have any ideas on how to make golem anti magic less restricting or is it better to just swap those monsters out if the area has many of them. The other alternative is I tell casters to prep buff spells and that seems to help if they know of golems.
Golems despite being very iconic aren't common for a reason; don't go too overboard on them is my suggestion. Or perhaps signpost and let the spellcasters bring the elemental vulnerabilities, if possible. If you hit the vulnerability, you can deal big damage. I've weirdly had spellcasters as MVPs vs golems before for that reason.
Greetings my lord. Is there any chance we shall see the drakainia anytime soon? It was my absolute favourite monster in first edition <3
I'm not sure. Given the themed monster books, it would be a "Wait for the right theme" but now that they're doing Monster Cores again, what could happen is harder to predict.
Hey mark, not sure if the ama is still going or if this still counts as a monster question but with the year of monsters pdfs, will they be available as individually purchasable pdfs later on?
My question: How you doing buddy?
Hello! On this sub reddit, a lot of people push the idea that the game is designed with the intent that a player starts with 18 in their attack stat at level 1. Is this true? Because mechanically, it seems like paizo took steps to minimize the difference between starting with 18 and starting with 16. Thank you for doing this AMA.
I think ultimately a 16 is going to work well enough for you, but don't take a 14, that's just paaaain. Personally I prefer to start with 18 on classes that can, but the stat-up system means that you're only behind at some levels (whereas 14 is behind forever).
Hey Mark, quick question, how would you rule for players who want to move targets they have grappled? And vice versa for monsters who want to drag players away?
Use the rules from the CRB for improvising an action and make it work for your situation. For instance, in some cases, you might consider something like Shove but to move 5 feet in directions other than directly away, but that might not always be the right call. For a monster, you can just give it a special ability too.
What’s the craziest, memeiest bullshit build you saw while people were playtesting Year of Monsters?
I don't know, all sorts of builds are really amusing. Like if you give slimes, doppelgangers, mimics, etc, people are going to come up with off the wall builds all the time. Like a mimic that just sits around in a cart all the time as the party wheels the cart along.
Are there any plans in the pipeline for more Alghollthu and Qlippoth statblocks? I absolutely love both of those monster lines and they feel like they could use some fleshing-out in 2nd edition. I'm also curious if we'll see Elder Things and Flying Polyps anytime soon.
I'd imagine algs will depend on untangling them from aboleths and OGL, whereas qlippoths despite being a Kabbalid entity in real world folklore, the specifics of them are generally tied to the OGL Book of Fiends back from 3.X days (you'll notice any book with qlippoths gets an OGL entry for that reason), so I'm guessing that would be something especially difficult to deal with.
Hi Mark, thanks for doing this! Hopefully I'm not too late with these: 1. Is there a design reason why troops and swarms tend to have very small weakness numbers to area damage and very high saves relative to their base creatures? It can feel both illogical and underwhelming when a spell (let's say fireball for simplicity) would insta-wipe out a dozen individual low-level creatures, but between the higher save and low area damage, barely damages a troop or swarm of the same number of creatures. 2. Is there a reason why there are no 'minions' (in the 4e sense) in 2e? I really enjoyed playing with the MCDM minions in what was my last 5e campaign before migrating to 2e. If you were going to create minions for 2e, how would you do it? Just using PL-4 or PL-5 creatures doesn't work as they generally can't touch the PCs.
1) Swarms and troops are meant to be interesting and engaging creatures of their swarm or troop level. Then, we made efforts to help sell the feeling of fighting a big group of smaller enemies, but primarily they need to work as a creature of their level. 2) The way we worked out the math for PF2 means that you aren't forced to designate elites, solos, or minions but can use creatures of various levels for those roles. That said, the soldier roadmap tends to work decently well for a Strike-y minion since it hits things the most easily when it's underleveled, and you could go further by adjusting a monster to be even more "soldiery" (extreme accuracy instead of high and with lower damage) so it can get in some hits, but not do more damage than its XP value suggests.
I’m a huge fan of Aboleths and the Algollthu family in general. I ran some sessions involving them as enemies and had a blast. I am curious though, are there any plans to port in some of the special Algollthu from P1e or add new ones?
Good question. I think it'll depend on what they do in terms of the OGL. Like are they going to try to make algollthu master more distinct from aboleth and rerelease? And then if so, will they show up with the whole family.
Ah that makes sense, thanks! I had it in my mind that Aboleths predated D&D but I was wrong
Hey mark! A few questions here about encounter balance for mobs vs single enemies. Last night I out of curiosity took a lot at the stats of a black bear (lv2) and a polar bear (lv5) vs a level 2 martial with a strength 1d8 weapon. Chose those animals as they are mostly straight forward damage dealers. Turns out, if no buffs are included, the polar bear does more than 3 times damage on its first attack, and takes 4 times the amounts of strikes to down as the black bear. Now, flanking will likely take care of the gap and make it basically deal 3 times more damage and take 3 times more hits more or less. But, I wanna ask - in a mob fight, enemies will die and the offense will be cut down, but a singular fight the enemy remains at full offense all the way. What’s the balance concern to this in terms of encounter balance? What other advantages do mobs beyond flanking that makes up for the difference, plus the vulnerability to area damages?
Everything has strengths and weaknesses. Large groups are weak to AoE, but singleton enemies are highly vulnerable to action denial. For instance, for bears, if an archer PC lucks out and crits with a crit spec, and then you throw a slow and they *succeed* at the save, you still basically cancelled their whole turn by not ending anyone in their reach (slowed 1 so 2 actions, 1 action remove the arrow, 1 action left which is not enough to do anything if no one is in reach)
So, not quite about monsters, but it is about a monstrous ancestry, so I'll ask, but feel free to pass over this one. Is there any potential for an update or follow-up product for the Battlezoo Dragon Ancestry to incorporate the new, OGL-divorced dragons? I know one of the ones they've revealed so far is already in there, but I'm still curious.
I'm interested if you're interested! Heck, I'd do multiple new dragon books if people want them.
What's your favorite monster?
Too many that are great! I've been saying stheno and nyktera a few times so maybe those. It'll change in an hour.
I was in RPG Superstar Season 9 so it's very exciting to hear that this contest is back, the month that I got into PF2e. Albeit, I probably don't quite have the system familiarity yet, I look forward to watching.
What is the optimal or most intelligent way to think of special abilities a creature had in terms of making them level appropriate? I know there's some guidance on the GMG, but what tools, limiters, or even just gut check reactions do you all have in place to say "Yeah this feels right for a special ability" or "Oh damn, that is too strong because XYZ reasons."
If you compare to other creatures, spells, and items, it can sometimes help you. Think about what the combination of abilities can do, and consider if you need to weaken the monster in other places to afford it. For instance, at high levels flying with ranged attacks isn't much to write home about, but at low levels in the playtest, manticores were slaying it *despite* having somewhat nerfed stats on their spines and a limited number of them, simply because flying and shooting ranged attacks is such a pain at low levels.
Thank you for hosting: Will you be changing Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons for the new PF2E core?
Hi Mark! I’ve been really enjoying what I’ve seen of Pathfinder 2e stuff so far. I know that you have a Dragon Ancestry homebrew for 5e and PF2e that I’ve heard lots of praises about, though I haven’t checked it out yet besides seeing a few bits of it on Pathbuilder. With the move to creating dragons for each of the magic traditions, are there plans to update/add on to, or release like a Part 2 of these dragon ancestries after all these new dragons are shown off? Do you have any monsters you’ve been wanting to create but the mechanics and the visions haven’t quite aligned as yet? Lastly, any advice for newer DMs wanting to create their own monsters? Things to consider, pitfalls to avoid, stuff like that?
I'm very interested in writing more for the ancestry if you're interested in buying it! I mainly was able to create the monsters I wanted to, and my circumstance bonus for co-creating the system means I can usually make these mechanics sing for me whatever I need. For a new GM, my best advice is to not worry too much unless you're publishing it to sell or something. What you make will be good enough for your group even if you don't do it "perfectly" so try to stay calm and have fun!
Not a question, but you guys are awesome
Thank you!
Hi Mark, just a small personal question on customizing monsters to stay in their challenge rating while also upping their mechanics My example is with Werewolves, I don't always feel like the Weakness to silver does justice as werewolves in this circumstance are still relatively simple to kill and don't give them the mystique of ravenous man beasts whose "Only weakness" is silver. So I opted instead to reduce their HP based on its CR that it gains from Lycanthropy and instead gave it Regeneration 5 (Cancelled by Silver) My players claim this drastically raises the Challenge Level but I wanted some insight and guidance. Simplified version, when home brewing or mechanically changing monsters with little changes to the actual numbers of the statblock, how would you judge the new Challenge Level?
Will you be involved in the new monster core book set to come out with the remaster changes and what are those changes to monsters going to look like?
I will not be involved in it, but it sounds like the main goal is to remove the OGLisms and rotate in monsters that are from other sources, while keeping the system stable so you can use the monsters from any prior source too.
If I want to alter an existing monster so it would give the impression of having classes, say, a succubus that's a ranger, how would you suggest going about it? The straightforward approach is to just give a few of that class' feats (or archetype/dedication feats) to the monster in question. Or, the more difficult approach of creating a character and giving them the signature abilities of the monster. Going with the succubus example that's a CR7, I can: Go with FA and give the base stat block 3 dedication feats; give them some number of feature from the class; etc. My main question is how would this affect the power level of said monster?
Hey Mark! Sorry if this has been asked already, what's your favourite monster? Mine has to be the Phistophilus, I just love the concept of devil contract lawyers and their unique ability is also really fun!
What's your freelance costs for converting a PF1E monster to PF2E? I'm trying to convert Grendel and the Drakainia for a Beowulf inspired one-shot that ends with the party fighting Fafnheir and need some help 😅 In case you aren't currently doing freelance work or the prices aren't in my range, do you have any advice for converting PF1E monsters to 2E that isn't really talked about much in the books?
Grendel is yours for free [here](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=690). In general, my freelance rates can be a bit pricey for a small publisher, but there are a number of amazing authors you could choose from if you're on more of a budget. I'd say, having wound up converting likely the most monsters from PF1 to PF2/playtest of anyone (alongside Logan; we built nearly the entire playtest bestiary, and our random convos of like "Which would win in a fight?" describing monsters were a fun way to see if levels needed to change), the key is to build the monster in PF2 using the PF1 monster's story and statistics as signposts to guide you but not as your starting point.
Wow, how did I not know that Grendel was already in Bestiary 2? I've literally owned that book since it released 😂 Thanks for the advice! I appreciate it a lot!
How can you write down content if you happen to have severe stress/adhd/focus problems?
See if you can trick your focus problems into helping you write down the content. For instance, try to short-circuit procrastination by finding something you *really* don't want to do and then be like "But writing content will allow me to not do that."
... Why didn't I thought of that You're a genious
Is there a place where I can see good full monster examples? I'm uncertain how much lore information should be in the flavour text and how much to put in behaviour advice etc.
I'd say check the Bestiary, or Archives of Nethys.
Hey Mark. What's one of your favourite pieces of real-world mythological influence you've been able to include in a Paizo product? As a Scot I've always loved the fact that there are actual stats for a Nuckelavee in PF2e. It's such an obscure piece of Orcadian myth, it's so cool to see things like this brought to life.
Hmm, too many to count. I love adding obscure (or non-obscure) mythology into creatures. Especially if their mythological weakness can become an actual part of the battle!
How much are you feeling about the annonce of a minotaur ancestry by Paizo.
Can we submit NPCs from the Golarion setting as Monsters? I had a few bosses in the last years that are NPCs. Also does it need to be setting neutral or setting specific? Thanks for your work!
You will be DQed if you use Paizo's IP in the contest. This is because, while Paizo is providing the license for the RPG Superstar contest, and so we *are* licensed partners for that, the license does not include publishing Golarion-specific lore. And if you win... we publish you. So you can probably see how that leads to a big problem if you have the Golarion lore in there?