Beast Breakdown, updated

Paizo's Adam Daigle mentioned that each year he judges the monsters contestants submit, he makes a spreadsheet to track things like CR, alignment, size, and type (and any subtypes). With that inspiration, I thought it was worth updating my own previous chart with the monsters created in the 2015 Season.

Alignments

The following alignments have been represented in Superstar monsters (the number in parentheses is how many were added in 2015):

CG: 2

NG: 1

LN: 2

CN: 12

N: 34 (10)

CE: 24 (2)

NE: 21 (4)

There have been no lawful good or lawful evil monsters, Until 2014, all the monsters had been neutral, chaotic neutral, neutral evil or chaotic evil.

Sizes

Monsters haven't quite come in all sizes and shapes, with none being Gargantuan or Colossal. That's likely a factor of the CR, which since 2010 have never been allowed to be more than CR 7 (and other than in 2012, were always lower than that).

Huge: 3

Large: 25 (5)

Medium: 37 (7)

Small: 20 (2)

Tiny: 7 (1)

Diminutive: 2 (1)

Fine: 2

Types

Aberrations have been the most common monster type, followed by magical beast. As with sizes, though, these numbers have likely been influenced a bit by restrictions: In 2012, monsters couldn't be a construct, dragon, ooze, or outsider.

Aberration: 19 (4)

Magical beast: 17 (3)

Fey: 15 (3)

Outsider: 9 (1)

Plant: 9 (3)

Undead: 7 (1)

Construct: 6 (0)

Dragon: 6 (1)

Ooze: 4 (0)

Monstrous humanoid: 3 (0)

Humanoid: 1 (0)

Subtypes

Aquatic: 5

Earth:4 (3)

Swarm: 4 (1)

Incorporeal: 4

Native: 4

Extraplanar: 3 (1)

Cold: 3

Chaotic: 2

Evil: 2

Water: 2

Elemental: 1 (1) 

Shapechanger: 1 (1)

Air: 1

Demon: 1

Giant: 1

Kami: 1

Mythic: 1

Superstar effort

Back in January, I wrote about my concerns about falling participation in Paizo's RPG Superstar contest, noting how comments had dropped by about 40 percent from previous years. I urged everyone to stay involved, even if they didn't make the Top 32, and make sure to give the competitors the feedback they want and need to improve.

Now, with the contest is in its final week for the year, seems like a good time to look back and see how we did, and I'm happy to say that participation (at least based on comments) is back on an upswing.

Bursting onto the Scene

RPG Superstar finalists Brian J. Fruzen, Monica Marlowe,  Kalervo Oikarinen, and Christopher Wasko have already demonstrated superior creativity and RPG design skills, and I believe they all have it in them to produce professional-quality designs and products. In some sense, they have already arrived as notable talents in RPG design. But, there has to be a winner, and given the prominence of Paizo and RPG Superstar in the industry, the winner most certainly will be bursting onto the scene:

The Superstar Adventures

I was chatting with one of the Final Four the other week and it was pointed out to me that I have a horrible track record picking winners when it comes to the Superstar module. Curious, I decided to take a look back through the years to see what I had voted for and how widely my opinion diverged from everyone else's.

It ended up being fascinating. And, since we're in the fallow period of Superstar as we wait for the module pitches to be revealed in one week, I thought it might be fun to take a look at all those previous pitches.

Keep in mind, I only have so much space, so I'm really going to try to narrow these down to the core of the pitch (whenever I can, I'm letting the author do the talking by taking the summary line from the pitch). You're going to have to take a closer look to get all the nuance (as well as some great advice from judges that I think would help any would-be designer when it comes to adventures). The winning module is in capitals.

Superstar 2015: What's Come Before

With voting set to begin in a few hours in the penultimate round of Superstar 2015, I planned to evaluate the proverbial horse race and decide who I thought were the favorites to move on to the Final Four. The truth, though, the favorites coming into the round don't really matter. For voters' purposes, it often doesn't matter what someone's done in the earlier rounds, just what he or she does in the current one. The annals of Superstar are littered with contestants who seem like powerhouses in the first round or two only to stumble before the end and be unforgivingly cut from the contest.

There simply aren't enough votes, so if one of your favorites makes an error or even simply doesn't have the best entry for whatever reason, you're often facing a tough choice. Do you vote for him or her regardless or go with what you think is a better entry? Truthfully, all eight of these finalists could probably put together a good module (as could some of the other Top 32 who didn't make it this far, I'd guess), but at the same time this is a contest and they're being asked to put forward their very best work time after time.

Still, Steven Helt, one of the Round 4 judges, advised us to not "forget to congratulate our contestants and study their previous entries. For some voters, this round may come down to equally cool submissions, weighted by the body of work of previous rounds."

So let's take a look back at those previous rounds. Obviously, all of them had popular items, since we determined the rankings that resulted in them being picked for the Top 32, but that feels like forever ago. We'll go in reverse alphabetical order so poor Christopher Wasko doesn't have to be last all the time.

A dangerous encounter

For eight of the contestants, their Superstar experience is over in a few hours. For the rest, it continues for the last time. By making the Top 8, they've made themselves ineligible for future years, meaning it's now or never for them. (In terms of Superstar, that is; in terms of game design, they've got a great launching pad that they can use to start a career.)

But they still have a lot of work ahead of them. Superstar's encounter round is, in my opinion, the single hardest round of the competition.

First of all, there's that last bit of pressure. If they advance in this round, no matter what, they'll get a contract to write something with Paizo. Do that well, and they've got a good chance to become a Paizo freelancer. If they don't advance this round, though, nothing's guaranteed for them. Sure, they can still climb that mountain, but they have to do it the same way as everyone else.

I think the biggest challenge, though, is there are so many aspects to this round. Unlike previous rounds where they had to create a single item, map, or monster, now designers have to put all those skills together, creating a memorable location, a powerful map (though I wonder what effect this year's map round will have on that part of the challenge), and an interesting encounter that's mechanically sound. Lately there's been another twist as well, as designers have had to add a trap or hazard to the situation. It's a lot of balls to juggle and it takes real skill to get them all in the air in just a few short days (this was the round I was most tempted to use a sick day for in 2014, so I could have that extra eight hours to design).

Looking through previous years, a few of the encounters have really stood out:

Although a lot of the first year's competition feels like almost a different contest than the more modern Superstar, 2009 was a banner year for encounters, with two of my all-time favorites, Christine Schneider's Chase on Charred Ground and Rob McCreary's Monkey GoblinsAttack!

Schneider's starts with a great map and basically gives us a mini game, creating a set of vehicle rules when none were available. The entire encounter has a ton of action — sledding down the exploding mountain in mid-combat — that would likely leave players talking about it for ... well, ever.

Monkey Goblins Attack! starts wonderfully with an evocative name — even the exclamation point works. McCreary created a variant monster (one that is now part of official canon in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Bestiary) and again gives us a dynamic encounter that involves a lot of motion. The map and location aren't perhaps quite as strong, but this is another one where players won't soon forget their trek through the jungle.

2011's BrokenCrucible Foundry by Cody Coffelt was another favorite, as Coffelt incorporates the chase rules, having PCs race toward his location in pursuit of his villain (chosen from a previous round). While the map is not the competition's most exciting, it's solid and Coffelt made sure it was stocked with interesting features, particularly the forge bucket and molten metal hazards. I think players would be intrigued to discover this location as they hunted for the villainous Tarvin Haddon.

2012 was one of the best years for this round, and I've already called out many of my favorites here in earlier blog entries.

Russell Vaneekhoven's Hungry Mountain Dragon didn't advance, in part because voters didn't think his Golarion lore worked and some other technical problems, but I still think the core encounter — the fight on the crumbling air ship — was an awesome one (one of the big criticisms was that it might never actually get to that point depending on what the PCs did). I remember to this day the time years ago when my half-elf fighter leaped from one sky carriage to another in Eberron and I think people who played this would continue to remember it. I play-tested it with several people from Paizo's forums, and we had enough fun that we continue to play together three years later.

I've previously called out Tom Phillips' Eightfingers Tomb as arguably the best location in any year of Superstar. I downloaded his Pathfinder Society scenario, Hall of the Flesh Eaters, in part just to see more of the Gloomspires.

Steve Miller's Brike Isle, like some of the other best encounters, adds a time element to the proceedings that ramps up the pressure for the PCs. It also in some ways minimized the combat aspect, which is a risky choice but one that paid off here. Encounters shouldn't always be about having to defeat monsters and this kept that in mind. Combined with the gorgeous map, it's always stuck in my mind.

Last year had twice as many encounters as normal and, because only four advanced, featured some very strong ones that didn't advance.

Perhaps my favorite was Andrew Marlowe's Pentraeth House. I thought Andrew (whose wife, Monica, is in the current competition) drew a great map and I thought his use of the previous round's monster (full disclosure: it was my guttersnipe) was excellent. I always like when monsters can be NPCs and I thought he created two of them with unique personalities that suited the original monster write-up while putting them in a slightly different situation than expected. I thought his encounter had some exciting action and loved the social aspect of it. Honestly, we exchanged encounters before they were revealed to the public, and I remember thinking the encounter aspect of his was stronger than my own submission.I remain surprised to this day that it didn't get more support, though going from 16 to 4 made that a tough round for a lot of competitors (myself included).

A Monster's Essence

As I review the many excellent monsters submitted by this year's hopefuls in the RPG Superstar 2015 contest, I am reminded of just how much there is to consider when appraising and judging a Pathfinder monster. Much more than there is for items and maps, I would argue. Creativity and imagination play a huge role, and then there's style, accuracy and clarity of writing to consider, along with factors such as balance and mechanics. It is a given that some of these aspects can be judged objectively, while others can only be appraised subjectively.

In recent and not-so-recent posts here on A Sword for Hire, Mikko and Jacob have both done an excellent job discussing and addressing the many aspects of a great Pathfinder monster. I can't add anything to their expertise in that area, other than to describe my approach.

Dissecting monsters

Superstar 2015 reaches its half-way point today, as the Top 16's monsters are revealed, typically one of the best moments in each year's contest. Monsters are a staple of the role-playing game industry, which is why despite having hundreds and hundreds of them already published in Bestiaries and Adventure Paths and elsewhere, more are created probably every day.

I have to admit, I didn't used to be the biggest fan of this round. I tend to prefer NPCs in my game design, so I preferred when the create-an-antagonist Round 3 challenge was to design a villain. But I've grown to appreciate the monsters more as I followed the contest, and really came to enjoy looking at them as I reviewed the 40 Here Be Monsters entries.

I wrote a bit about how I review monsters for Here Be Monster in September and I'll largely follow that methodology here:

I want an exciting first line to draw me into the monster and let me really visualize it. It shouldn't assume action on the part of monster or PC, though some minimal movement (rising up, or nostrils flaring) is in my opinion OK. This should be, at heart, something I can read when the PCs first encounter the creature so they know what it looks like.

After that, I turn to the write-up. There, I'm looking for whether I'd know how to run the creature if I were to use it as a GM. What exactly that involves may depend largely on the monster and its role. If it's a mindless ooze, I probably need to know more about how it came to exist, what it does in combat, etc. etc. If it's an intelligent creature, I need to know what it wants as much as how it behaves. Does it have a society? While there's certainly a place for monsters that you encounter and immediately enter combat, I like monsters that can also have individual personalities and let you play with shades of gray in your adventures: Do you team up with the evil dragon knowing that its reason for wanting the invading army stopped is much different than yours?

For this challenge, the write-up will also need to connect the monster to Nar-Voth, the top area of Golarion's Darklands. In my experience, many of the Superstar monsters don't truly hit home as Golarion creatures
— my guttersnipe from 2014, for example, referenced the Inner Sea, but truly could have been found in any setting. The designers who really make their creature intrinsically part of the setting earn a lot of bonus points from me (I wrote last week about a few who I thought did that really well).

After reading the write-up, I finally turn to the stat block. I'm less interested in the specifics of the numbers than if they feel they're generally in the right location. If a CR 5 creature has an AC that's much higher or lower than 18, I'm going to be looking to see why and if that's compensated for elsewhere.

The special abilities are always the most exciting part of a new monster for me, so it's hard sometimes to save them for last, though I do try. This is where a designer shows off his or her chops, hopefully giving me some new exciting mechanic that plays with the rules in the same way the Round 1 magic items do. If you can manage to do that, chances are you'll have a monster I want to vote for.

Best of the beasts

With their Round 2 work done 10 days ago, the Superstar competitors have been focused on monsters for a while now. Even if they don't know the exact rules, they should have been practicing, and coming up with ideas for Round 3.

For the rest of us, though, now that voting on the maps is over and the Top 16 to be revealed shortly, it's time to turn out attention that way ourselves.

Monsters have long been a staple of Superstar, having apparently permanently supplanted villains in 2012 (which makes sense; while villains are also a staple of gaming, constructing an NPC with class levels isn't quite as challenging as making a monster from scratch). That means there are a lot of monsters to look back at.

Map keys

One of the interesting things whenever RPG Superstar introduces a new round (which has happened a lot for Round 2, with the challenge including archetypes, organizations and now maps) is the sense of the unknown.

For the challengers, while they've certainly seen maps from encounter rounds and published works, there's no sense of scope of what the maps will look like. Garrett Guillotte wrote a great blog post about the type of maps we can expect, but no one knows for sure. I think a contestant would be taking a huge risk by mapping out Arcadia, for example, but it could pay off. Still, I'm expecting largely location/encounter maps, at a scale where combat can occur.

Even for the voters, there's a sense of unknown in terms of what we're looking for. After years of designing magic items, for example, voters have internalized some of the past critiques: Joke items aren't going to do well, keep history out of your magic items, etc. etc. Here, I honestly don't know exactly what maps are going to earn my votes.

I do know it won't be based on artistic talent. I've posted my concern that that's what people will base their decisions on (in part because I know I have no artistic talent, but I've never had complaints about my own map turnovers). Maps have to be a lot of things, but it's the cartographer's job to make them look like they do in the final products; it's the freelancer's job to make something the cartographer can make into a piece of art.

Consider this post that former Superstar host Sean K. Reynolds made back in 2010, to show contestants what he expected for the maps. Look at his A- map. Are you back? Consider, that's an A- map. Now, SKR notes it wasn't A- for content, which is of course what we should be largely judging on, but I want to keep in mind that this is RPG Superstar, not Cartography Superstar. Just because someone makes a map that looks as good as Pedro Coelho's doesn't mean they're guaranteed my vote.

So what will I be looking for when the maps are revealed?

Missed Shot

Now that the top 32 have been revealed in RPG Superstar, I know I missed my shot. Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I upset? No. Why?

Congratulations, Superstar

After weeks of writing, voting and finally waiting, the Top 32 will be revealed today. For those of you who don't make it, please remember to stay involved in the contest. For those of you who do, here's some of my best advice:

If you can't be a Superstar, be a Superstar Supporter

Superstar voting ends today. In one week, the Top 32 will be announced, leaving hundreds of hopefuls disappointed.

That's the nature of the beast, but in the last couple years, we've been seeing a lot of those people taking their ball and going home (or, rather, going to the annual critique thread to get feedback on their item and then going home), at least based on comments on competitors' entries.

Last year, the Top 32 averaged 29 comments each*. The number of comments ranged from 10 to 42, meaning the item with the fewest comments had just five people talk about it other than the author and three judges.

That 29-comment average is a 40 percent drop from the previous year, when items averaged 46.8 comments. It would be easy to dismiss that as a one-time aberration — 2013's Round 1 comments were actually right between the number in 2011 (47.6) and 2012 (45.9) — but digging deeper into the numbers, we can see that's not really the case. 

Crunching the numbers on the monster rounds shows the number of comments dropped by a similar 40 percent from 2012 (43.5) to 2013 (25.4) and then dropped even more in 2014 (22.5).  

Moving on to Round 4, in 2010, the encounter round threads averaged 63 responses (ranging from a low of 52 to a high of 84); In 2011, they averaged 54 responses (ranging from 31-76); in 2012, they averaged 45 responses (31-62); and then plummeted the last two years, when they averaged 22 (ranging from 15-29) and 22.25 (10-39) responses. That last number means only SIX people beyond the judges commented on one of the entries.

Now, I think there are various reasons those numbers have dropped, but at the moment they're  not important. What is important is that we offer Superstar support, and here's why.

Champion Voter?

I've been casting a lot of votes in the RPG Superstar contest, and reached Marathon Voter status (1000 votes) early in the voting. I haven't kept track of my total, however, so I have no idea how close I am to reaching Champion Voter (5000). Last year, I was certain I wouldn't, and didn't. This year, I'm not so sure. The extended voting period may have put it within reach.

As we approach the end of voting for round 1, let me say thank you to all of the entrants who took the time and effort design an item. I have enjoyed every minute of voting and looking at all of your creative entries.

Superstar surprise: Staves

I'm pleased to see that almost all of my favorite items have survived the dreaded Cull — when Paizo winnows out some of the least supported items from the first weeks of voting — though disappointed that one favorite hasn't yet appeared on the community-compiledlist of entries. I can't say I'm totally surprised as it uses some more niche rules, but I'm hoping it just hasn't put in an appearance yet.

What surprises me most though is that staves are the No. 3 most popular entry. It's no surprise that weapons are No. 1 — Almost everyone in Pathfinder carries a weapon; even a primary spellcaster often has one as a backup, just in case of emergency (at least mine do) — or even that armor is No. 2, but I hadn't expected staves to be the third most popular category. (They were fourth pre-cull, but a lot of rings didn't make the cut.)

Part of my surprise is that staves were dubbed "hard mode" early on. Because they are by definition spells in a can, staff designers were going to have to make sure whatever other abilities their item had really knocked the voters' (and judges') socks off. I think people took that as a challenge, and many of them met that challenge.

The other part, though, is that to my recollection I've never had a single character, dating back some 30 years of gaming, actually use a staff. 

Superstar resolutions

As we sit here on New Year's Eve, lots of people are probably thinking about their resolutions for the coming year. For a number of people hoping to compete in Superstar, those resolutions likely include becoming a professional game designer (which includes freelancing, as far as I'm concerned).

Superstar is, on one hand, one of the best ways to do that. If you manage to be in the less than 5 percent of contestants who get into the Top 32, you're going to have Paizo and plenty of Third Party Publishers aware of your name and a ready forum to show them your work. If you make the Top 4, you have a guaranteed contract with the biggest name in the business.

That said, it's also one of the worst ways to do that.

The Best of Superstar

With five days since voting opened, Paizo's RPG Superstar contest is in full swing. The messageboards are humming — more than 2,500 votes in this year's "ramble" thread alone —as voters sort the hundreds (at least) of items into rankings for the judges. Among them are 32 that will earn their creators entry into the contest, and others that won't survive the annual cull of the lowest-ranked choices.

If you want to be a designer — and I assume you do if you're participating in the contest and reading this blog — I highly recommend voting: There are plenty of lessons to be learned about good game design. That said, it can also be a frustrating process too, as you wade through some items that aren't ready for prime time, some of which keep coming up again and again.

As a little refresher, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of the other finalists. Here are a handful that have stuck in my memory over the years, the first ones I think of when I think of the contest:

Detect Mojo mini-contest begins!

To keep voters entertained and make voting more interesting, I'm announcing a mini-contest: Detect Mojo! The point of the contest is to encourage fans of RPG Superstar to vote tirelessly but also to vote responsibly instead of just clicking away without thinking.

When you're voting, whenever you see an item you think is going to make the Top 32, add it on your list. It's good to remember that sometimes "what I like" and "what I think will advance" are not the same thing. Try to guess what other voters are likely to vote for, and what the judges are likely to choose.

To make the task a little less arduous and because it's quite impossible to see every single item in the voting, you don't have to pick 32 items—only 20. That way it's also easier to calculate your mojo percentage.

How to play Detect Mojo

All you need to do is make a list of up to 20 magic item names you have seen in the voting. Once the Top 32 is revealed, you can calculate your score (see below) and post your score along with your list of items on the Paizo boards. I'll make a thread for the contest sooner or later.

Note: Do not post your list anywhere publicly before the reveal!

Deadline: No deadline as such, but voting ends at 2 PM Pacific time on 13 January 2015.

Eligibility: Basically anyone (except RPGSS judges) can join in on the fun.

Contest prizes: I don't have any fancy prizes this time, but the winner earns the title "Master of Mojo". There are no official referees to check your list before the reveal. I originally planned something like that but decided to go with a more unofficial and relaxed contest. So, the honor system is used.
 
Scoring

Each item on your list that makes the Top 32 or comes close nets you a number of points as detailed below.

• Top 32: +5%
• Alternate: +4%
• Top 100: +2%

In other words, the maximum score is 100% (20 × 5%).

• Note: If an alternate later joins the top 32, your score won't be updated - only the initial ranking matters. 
• Note: The top 100 category may be something else this year. It's really up to the round 1 judges if they want to reveal which entries almost made it.

Example

Last year there was no Detect Mojo contest, but I did compile a list of 21 items which I'll use as an example. Since the list should have no more than 20 items on it, I'll leave out the last one.

• Abiding Light
• Boots, Tower
• Boulder Thrower's Kit (Top 100)
• Crown of Webs (Top 100)
• Ever Beating Heart
• Fetish of the Frog Queen (Top 32)
• Gauntlet of Earth Shattering and Elevating (Top 100)
• Gloves of the Aura Thief
• Goblet of Liquified Cognition (Top 32)
• Groundbreaker Cloak (Top 32)
• Harbinger's Knock (Top 100)
• Linebreaker's Sabatons (Top 100)
• Planar Rift Spike (Top 100)
• Poltergeist Knot (Top 32)
• Scatterstone (Top 100)
• Slaying Shroud (Top 100)
• Specter Net (Top 100)
• Spellmason's Mallet (Top 100)
• Star Cinder (Top 32)
• Tactician's Go-Ke

That's five Top 32 entries (+25%), no alternates, and ten Top 100 entries (+20%) for a total of 45%.

RPG Superstar: Mapping the Way to Victory

By now, you've submitted your item if you're participating in RPG Superstar, which means it's time to start thinking about the next challenge.

Unfortunately, the map round is ironically a little bit of unknown territory. Previous Superstar rounds have certainly involved making maps, but they've always been part of a larger challenge, the penultimate round that also typically required designers to create a location and an encounter. My guess is this round will end up requiring a map and Golarion location, since the latter will also allow contestants to show off their knowledge of the setting as well as creativity and writing ability, but I'm going for focus for the moment on just the map part.

Mikko plans to give some general map-making advice soon (and I recommend looking back at his post about his Round 4 entry in 2014), but there are lessons to be learned too from previous years. Just as you don't want to repeat a magic item in Round 1, it's important to know what past contestants have mapped out so you don't do repeat them.

Here are a half-dozen of my favorite maps from over the years of the contest. I'm trying to focus very specifically on the map itself, so my choices don't necessarily include other aspects of that round's submissions (otherwise Tim Phillips' Eightfinger's Tomb would certainly be included here). I'll go back and look at other aspects of the encounter rounds as we get closer to this year's Round 4.

Magic Item Advice 3/3: aurora's edge?

In the first two parts of this series, I created a very basic magic weapon and then turned it into something with a tighter theme and more creative mechanics. In the last part, I intend to tie the weapon into Golarion lore, to make the theme even tighter.

The changes between versions 1 and 2 were quite substantial, but how many changes did I make after that? Let's have a look at the third version, and I'll describe my thought processes and decisions.