#BATTLEZOO

[smiteworks]

New Release BATTLEZOO ANCESTRIES: CLASSIC CREATURES Skyscraper Studios, Inc.

Never before have players been able to play such legendary monsters in their Pathfinder 2e games, such as mimics, slimes, and intelligent weapons… until now! With Roll for Combat's Battlezoo Ancestries: Classic Creatures, you can create one of 12 legendary monsters as a PCs or for GMs to insert into their Pathfinder 2e games, with a huge variety of options and unique new abilities.

[simianchaos]

This is fantastic

Character sheet commission for @obscurelyscandinavian of their ADORABLE mimic girl, Q!

Honestly when they first approached me with this design, I was already excited. But I got more and more into it the more I worked on her. T^T I love her so so much!

[starberries-art]

His name is Shōbu, formerly Hanashōbu, he is a dragon magus.

My intent when making a character for Season of Ghosts was "I want to play a disgraced knight character and also I've been watching Frieren and really like it."

And somehow instead I ended up making a pretty dragon man who no less than three people in our group agree is giving "Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho"

And like, I agree, and I'm not complaining.

[jykinturah-art]

Trilli Kerkar is my Tengu Draconic Sorcerer currently suffering through Abomination Vaults. She looks like that cause she has some extra dragony blood, the Draconic Scion versatile heritage from Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons!

[appendingfic]

My Wife: *sees me reading the Kingmaker 2e rulebooks, Treasure Vault, and Battlezoo* My Wife: ...what are you doing? Me: ...NOT designing a Dungeon Meshi adventure?

[dreamofknightmares]

Last minute addition! No-Va, a xotlxotl!

Made art of some characters for a PF2E game I'm running tomorrow. Midilyen and Khoran are ifrit fetchling NPCs, but the other 4 are PCs. Mrelnu (Mel) is a grippli, Rhadum is an intelligent weapon projecting a human wielder, and Atradeus and Alxion are twin half-elves. After the first session, there will be an 11-year timeskip where they will be brought back together as adults, having gained classes and experiences the others might not know about.

[hobgoblinart]

Consider: Chimera Falin uses the new Mixed Heritage rules to combine Centaur from Howl of the Wild with the Battlezoo Dragon ancestry.

The idea is good, but I think it's overcomplicating the problem. I think chimera Falin works better as a monster, since she is... Well, a monster.

But normal Falin is something that I intend to build later and it will be quite challenging.

[cyberkevvideo]

5e Monster to PC Race Conversion - Dryad

EDIT: Added a feat, which was also supposed to be part of the competition.

Last month, I did a post about how there was an experimental challenge where people took monsters from 5e and converted them to be a race/species for players. To compensate for the lack of its overall power compared to their monsters versions, you were to make feats to add in some of the missing powers (spellcasting "levels" didn't count and had to be taken with actual class levels). The timing of people doing it more now than when it first started a few years ago, appeared to be because of Roll for Combat's BattleZoo Ancestries: Titans Kickstarter that has about a day left at the time of me writing this.

At the time, I was going to share what I already had done, but doing the research, and looking into what people actually wanted to see converted, both on BZA: Titans and WotC officially releasing a book on playable monsters for players, I was both surprised and not surprised at what people wanted to see. Gnolls were easily the highest on the list, but mostly people just want to see a playable dog (my favourite argument was we have two playable cat races and three bird-like races, but no dogs). The lupin was a playable hound race back in AD&D and 3rd, but we've never seen it adapted beyond that. And in AD&D, you even had "subraces" that were different dog breeds. Gnolls I'm not surprised by at all, but Kobold Press has that handled quite readily, as does Keith Baker with his own Eberron books found on DM's Guild.

Other monsters to playable races that I saw were mindflayers/illithids (not surprising given how popular Baldur's Gate III is), dryads (that surprised me, but I had also forgotten that their distance limitation to their tree had been removed), beholders, treants or any other kind of plant creature like a myconid, undead (ghost was at the top of the list), kua-toa, ratfolk, ogres and half-ogres, gargoyle, succubus/incubus/cambion, bullywug, rakshasa, trolls, hags (beyond the hexblood, and have the different hags be different subraces), medusa (Purple Duck Games has PF1e version of that and a half-medusa that maybe I'll convert some day), oni, ettins, aboleths (which, wouldn't really work considering they need water for their abilities to be effective), and dinosaurs (which the saurial would cover if they were converted over).

There were others, but people quite quickly pointed out that if you reflavoured what we already had, you could easily say you were X when you were actually playing Y. The aarakocra being reflavoured into a harpy would be really easy. Just change the appearance description and say you're using claws instead of talons. After that, if you could get the DM's permission, create a homebrew feat for the Luring Song.

There were even a few suggestions that, while it likely wouldn't work for a playable race, a few could work pretty well with the new lineage system from Van Richten's, and the one the majority of people agreed on was mindflayer/illithid. Have it be an incomplete ceremorphosis, and leave it at that. One person took that and homebrewed the Failing, with different subraces like elf, while others said to use the 3.5 flayerspawn psychic prestige class, and take inspiration from that.

Today, however, I'm going to go with the dryad, which was incredibly high up on the list.

As always, if you like what I do, whether it’s monster conversions, adventure path add-ons, or race builds, I have a Ko-Fi page (linked) for those who would like to support me monetarily. There is no pressure or obligation to do so. A like and/or a share would also be appreciated just as much. It lets people know I exist out there.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.

Now, let’s talk stats.

As before with my entries, there’s no real “official” way to judge how powerful a creature is. There are definitely a lot of 3PP supplements and homebrew out there, which I tend to have to use as a guide. For this, I used the updated Detect Balance Plus, which did both 5e and 5.24 breakdowns on the same spreadsheet. This worked out to be around 38-39 points, which is around where the aasimar, eladrin, gem dragonborn, reborn lineage, autognome, thri-kreen, and revised yuan-ti sit. I'll preface that it seems powerful, but it's a matter of what you get out of the deal. The dryad's spells aren't going to break the game in any way, and are strictly utility.

Dryad Species/Race 5e As a dryad, you gain the following traits. Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1. Age. Dryads reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, and reach adulthood around the age of 35. They can often live to be 750 years old. Alignment. Typically good aligned, but like most fey, dryads enjoy the chaotic side of things. Creature Type. You are a Fey. Size. Your size is Medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray. Magic Resistance. You have advantage on saving throws against spells. Woodland Blessing. You know the druidcraft cantrip. Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the speak with animals spell with this trait. Starting at 5th level, you can also cast the speak with plants spell with it. Once you cast either of these spells with this trait, you can't cast that spell with it again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these using spell slots you have of the appropriate level. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells when you cast them with this trait (choose when you select this race). Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common, Elven, and Sylvan.

Dryad Racial Feat

Charms of the Dryad Prerequisite: Dryad Your innate charms flourish. You gain the following benefits:

Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 1, to a maximum of 20.

You learn the animal friendship spell and charm person spell. You can cast each of these spells without requiring a material component, and without expending a spell slot. Once you cast either of these spells in this way, you can't cast that spell in this way again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast these spells using spell slots you have of the appropriate level. The spells' spellcasting ability is the ability increased by this feat.

When you cast the charm person spell, you can choose to extend the spell's duration to 2 hours. You can use this feature three times, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

[because-im-freaking-greed]

Base it on the Dungeons and Dragons edition that best fits, and then either write the edition it's actually for very small

Writing fantasy and speculative fiction is actual Hell because achieving verisimilitude demands that you, the author, have a clear idea of how the speculative or fantastical elements of your setting work, but the story will almost always be improved by not explaining it to the reader.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Quick review: Battlezoo Bestiary 1&2

I have a deep and abiding love for monsterbooks, and nothing makes my day like getting to page through one and add fun new critters to my expanding menagerie of threats. While there are a ton of factors that go into making what I consider a "good" monster book the two most important IMO are the originality of the ideas and how well they translate into engaging storyhooks. A monster needs to not only stand out from all the THOUSANDS I've seen in some way, but also needs to have enough deapth that I could run it in multiple encounters or plotlines and come away with something different. Not every monster in every book passes both these tests, but they tip the scales significantly.

The Battlezoo series takes a REALLY interesting turn on this by effectively doing american idol, but for monsters, having peolple across the internet enter concepts and then holding a vote to see who makes a cut ( which is the same process behind the robot and monster design in pacfic rim so you KNOW its a winning stratagy).

My verdict? The first battlezoo gets the full dailyadventureprompts recommendation as I was FLOORED by the creativity on display. Monsters at all CRs that knocked it out of the park with interesting hooks, concepts, looks, and mechanics.

The sequel, strange and unusual falls just a biiiit short. Don't get me wrong, Its still a stellar monsterbook but its entries lack the exact spark the original had, which frequently had me thinking "this is the best monsterbook I've read in a while". Just a few too many monsters lacked clear motivations that would bring them into conflict with a party outside of a random encounter, or echoed concepts I'd seen in other books before, or even from previous in the same book ( multiple instances of killer coinswarms, swarms of disembodied bodyparts, or psionic oozes). Consider this book a double thumbs up but not as enthusiasticly as its first.

[midiquartz]

Question!! Outside of Marimo, I'm confused a little by the races present in Feyfinder. I presume they're at least all somewhat homebrewed, and I wanted to ask how precisely that was handled?

Oh well, feyfinder is actually our only actually run campaign... we have tried to come up with vague guidelines for which animals would fall under which canonically races if theyre a mortal character like equines/deer are elves or something buuut its not really an issue for us, we would probably just chose whatever race fit an animal the best and then reflavor it.

For example phii's phoenix ancestry is based off of a hafling ifrit, but then I just ended up swapping out a bunch of attributes and feats for homebrew.

As for Cel, I just used Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons and tweaked it for it fitting a injured dragon stuck in mortal form rather than a weakened dragon.

Most of my homebrew is just ripping stuff out and putting other stuff in from vanilla and then reflavoring it ahaha....

[ritunn]

Pathfinder's Forgotten Gods: Walks With Golden Stars, the Starlit Wanderer

Well with that mouthful of a name out of the way, this week we're covering the draconal empyreal lord, Walks With Golden Stars! Compared to Lady Taramyth and Uskyeria, Walks was an interesting case. We know one thing about them: they're a draconal. That's it. However, we did have a name and sometimes that's all you need. So, why don't we go over what I did to make Walks a full fledged empyreal lord?

Draconal from Pathfinder 2e by Paizo

Looking at the name, the first thing that came to mind is space travel, starlight, astronauts... Starfinder? Yes, Starfinder. Starfinder already has its own deity of space travel in the form of Weydan and Pathfinder has uh... the Black Butterfly? Brigh and Cassandalee? Not exactly their thing, but Golarion is just a generic fantasy setting without funny things like sci-fi... is what I would say if Numeria, the Saoc Brethren, and so much more didn't exist. Spaceships exist in Pathfinder. Space travel exists in Pathfinder. Is it easy? No. So, that means it's the perfect place for a deity to show up to help inspire the few folks interested in it.

Walks With Golden Stars thus took inspiration from outer dragons, solar dragons specifically and became the empyreal lord of space travel and starlight. On sunlit wings, they travel the stars, observing the beauty of space with their own eyes, while reminding others of it with the light of stars faint and far away. There's a tragic bent to this however, Walks is lonely. One legend said they used to be joined by a solar dragon, but when they discovered the origin of the Starstone meteorite in the vast darkness within the Dark Tapestry, that their essences fused together to make a new being. So, now they wait and silently beckon others to join them, hoping one day they'll have a companion once again.

If you happen to meet Walks With Golden Stars, you may see them as a draconal with fiery wings of sunlight wearing a tapestry of stars, scales golden like their namesake. A being as beautiful as the stars they wander and as ephemeral as them too.

Walks With Golden Stars makes a great deity choice for Inventors, Starlit Span Magi, Cosmos Oracles, Dragon Barbarians, Sorcerers, and Summoners with a connection to outer dragons, and anyone interested in crafting starships. Their Clerics and Champions are often astronomers or engineers, focused on crafting vehicles that can reach the stars themselves. Said followers often adorn themselves with golden threaded cloaks or purple vestments with gold specks placed around the clothes in the form of constellations in honor of Walks With Golden Stars. Worshipers typically pick archetypes that better facilitate a connection to the stars or help them to build and manage marvelous vehicles to ascend past the firmament such as the Inventor multiclass, Oatia Skysage, or Vehicle Mechanic. Though some Dragon Disciples seek to become outer dragons so they can travel the stars, this proves difficult however with the extreme rarity of such bloodlines. But, it may be more common when they actually get added to Pathfinder 2e beyond the Battlezoo Bestiary Dragon Ancestry.

Next week, come join me as I cover Sixlife, the Violet Fury. A silvanshee empyreal lord! This cat is going to have some bite however.

[jessebizarreart]

Big ol Dragon

I was doing some conversion of characters from DnD to Pathfinder 2e for fun to see what would happen... I saw that they didn't have Dragonborn, but RollForCombat had Battlezoo content for Dragons and I couldn't resist~ 👀

[thegaminggang]

Battlezoo Ancestries: Classic Creatures for 5E Reviewed - https://thegaminggang.com/our_reviews/battlezoo-ancestries-classic-creatures-for-5e-reviewed/...

[dixy]

does anyone happen to have battlezoo ancestries year of legends for pf2e & is willing to share the sphinx pdf. i literally only want that one

[jeffs-gamebox]

Please Assist With the Public Voting for RPG Superstar.

More Indie TTRPG Month content to come. Til then, please go to RPGSuperstar.com and look over all the amazing monsters that could find their way into the next Battlezoo Bestiary. Thanks!

Your help would be greatly appreciated. It’s pretty simple, and only takes a couple of minutes.Step 1: Go to RPGSuperstar.comStep 2: Create a free account if you don’t already have one. (It’s easy.)Step 3: Then, please login and go to Public Voting.Step 4: Please vote for my little friends:Ice Asp.Oilemental.POOF.Even winning Copper would really help me out a ton right now. Plus writing credits…