Monday, November 02, 2009

Five for fighting

Several iconic monsters from D&D 3.5 have undergone significant revisions in the Pathfinder Bestiary. Here are the top five:

5. Outsiders - There have been lots of changes to the various classifications of outsiders, although the capabilities of most of them seem relatively unchanged. The terms baatezu and tanar'ri have been abandoned, thus removing the last vestiges of the demon/devil controversy. Kytons (chain devils), which weren't true devils anyway, have now been removed from the ranks of devilry completely and given their own entry. The celestials have also undergone a reorganization. The eladrins have been renamed as azata and lillends have been added to that group, along with the ghaeles and the bralanis, while guardinals seem to have disappeared completely. Perhaps the latter will reappear in later books (assuming anybody cares).

4. Drow - There are now two flavours of Drow, the garden-variety dark elves and the new and improved Drow Nobles. The latter possess all the abilities of standard drow, but enjoy higher spell resistance and greater attribute bonuses. They also have more spell-like abilities.

3. Zombies - Are you bored with plain old zombies? Now there are fast zombies and plague zombies to raise the tension level.

2. Dragons - The most iconic of all D&D monsters have been pumped up with a bunch of new abilities. For example, ancient blue dragons can use their breath weapon to create lightning storms, while old black dragons develop an acidic bite.

1. Tarrasque - From its very earliest AD&D days, the tarrasque has been the ultimate monster, nearly impossible to kill. Well now, that line from nearly impossible to just plain impossible has been crossed. There is no known way to kill a tarrasque.

-Rognar-

6 comments:

Aaron E. Steele said...

Re: zombies. You know, it is tough with today's gamers to make Zombies, ghouls and the like really scary. Anything to amp up the fear-factor is welcome.

Re: tarrasque. It should be the campaign-ending monstrosity it was built to be. Glad to hear they made it such.

Rognar said...

Yeah, I like what they did with the tarrasque. It's not really a monster anymore, it's more like a force of nature. You might be able to divert it or contain it, but you can't ever destroy it.

Obiri said...

I like most of the changes. The way the outsiders are arranged makes a bit more sense. I can't say I understand the reasoning behind the Khyton change but whatever.

The two zombie templates are familiar - I think they were first seen in WotC supplement but that doesn't make sense so maybe it was another Paizo book.

I know a good way to kill the Terrasque but that SR would be damn hard to beat.

You'd have to get really close, and then cast plane shift on him. Positive Energy Plane = kaboom!

Rognar said...

I thought plane shift could only be used on willing targets I should look that up). You could try gate, but you need some way to push it through. Other than that, you could use temporal stasis, it won't kill it, but it will lock it away, hopefully forever.

Obiri said...

Touch and a will save!

If they are willing you can bring along their buddies if you all hold hands and sing Kuumbaya (sp?)

Rognar said...

Ah yes, right you are. Still, it says nothing can truly kill a tarrasque. It would presumably explode, then reform 3 rounds later. Of course, it would then promptly explode again and repeat the process indefinitely, so it's as good as dead, unless some powerful wizard decides to rescue the beast.