Bestiary 4e

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Langy

Subterranean may also work, but it'd almost certainly utilize too many 'fantastic' creatures.

There's plenty of real subterranean creatures. Although the rest of it would seem to likely be covered in Underground Adventures.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There's plenty of real subterranean creatures. Although the rest of it would seem to likely be covered in Underground Adventures.

Really? There are enough subterranean creatures to fill an entire book? Like what? There are moles, mole rats, and a bunch of insects. Is that enough for people to purchase a book for?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Faolyn

Refplace, do you really need four pages for creating animals?

Otherwise, it looks pretty good, although I'd combine biomes as Crakkerjakk says, although I'd still include, at least, fantastic beasts, just to avoid having too many books.

There is a lot of material that could be useful for someone making reasonable or useful animals in those 4 pages and I think at least some of that should remain.
As for fantastic beasts and such, if there is room sure but priority needs to go to real world types as that is what we can use to benchmark the rest.
Second priority to real world legends and then fictional or made up creatures.
And I definitely think there is room for some creature books that are just out there.
My worry on this? Is that it wont actually happen or that if it does so many people have created animal sites online that not enough will buy the books.
The longer we do not have them the more people who just make up their own and put it out there to share.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Langy

Really? There are enough subterranean creatures to fill an entire book? Like what? There are moles, mole rats, and a bunch of insects. Is that enough for people to purchase a book for?

Well bats, all kinds of fish, other arthropods besides insects... Besides you were the one suggesting that you could fill a book with Rodents alone. There's hundreds of different bats almost all of which live in caves.

But really I think that's true of all these biomes. I don't think you need more that 3-4 examples of each Animal Order or Super Order (and in some cases I think you could get by with only a few Orders per Class).

Are there enough say Grasslands critters that you could fill a book? Sure there's dozens of species of medium sized ground squirrel, but there are all the same basically.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Langy

I like this basic list (and the combination-of-biomes idea), but I'd also include Domestic as a separate 'biome' book, as well as a Prehistoric one for dinosaurs and the like. Subterranean may also work, but it'd almost certainly utilize too many 'fantastic' creatures.

I'd also have the primary Bestiary book with the basic templates and other rules, as mentioned up-thread.

Yeah, I think a main book with base templates followed by mini-PDFs for lenses by biome would be the best way to do it, but if that main book is an impossibility then splitting them up like the above lets you run most geographically limited campaigns with one or two PDFs. Deserts and islands gets you most arabian nights style games, woodlands and plains gets you most fantasy europe games, jungles and swamplands lets you do most "find the lost temple in the jungle" style stuff, arctic and mountains lets you do most "northern barbarian" stuff, etc.

Domestic (and rules for training animals) and Prehistoric would be good categories too.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Are there enough say Grasslands critters that you could fill a book? Sure there's dozens of species of medium sized ground squirrel, but there are all the same basically.

From a quick google search only in north america: wild horses, wild donkeys, bison, elk, moose, deer, coyotes, wolves, foxes, cougars, bobcats, eagles, hawks, falcons, kestrels, beavers, raccoons, Opossums, skunks, rabbits, mice, and lots of insects.

Some of those are lenses of templates as opposed to full templates, but add in mongolian steppes and such and yeah, I think you can totally get to 30 templates plus 3 or more lenses for each template.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Well bats, all kinds of fish, other arthropods besides insects... Besides you were the one suggesting that you could fill a book with Rodents alone. There's hundreds of different bats almost all of which live in caves.

I see no reason at all to include hundreds of types of bats, and all fish should be included in the 'Aquatic' biome. The suggestion that there could be a book all about rodents was facetious; I was saying that a book just about rodents would be a dumb idea.

But really I think that's true of all these biomes. I don't think you need more that 3-4 examples of each Animal Order or Super Order (and in some cases I think you could get by with only a few Orders per Class).

Are there enough say Grasslands critters that you could fill a book? Sure there's dozens of species of medium sized ground squirrel, but there are all the same basically.

And there's no need to detail any more than one of them. You don't need to go into that kind of ridiculous detail you seem to be thinking about; I'm much more interested in the '3-4 examples of each Animal Order' idea. Maybe a bit more than that, but not too much (having several different types of canines, for example, could be very useful).

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

From a quick google search only in north america: wild horses, wild donkeys, bison, elk, moose, deer, coyotes, wolves, foxes, cougars, bobcats, eagles, hawks, falcons, kestrels, beavers, raccoons, Opossums, skunks, rabbits, mice, and lots of insects.

Some of those are lenses of templates as opposed to full templates, but add in mongolian steppes and such and yeah, I think you can totally get to 30 templates plus 3 or more lenses for each template.

And that before you even start in on the African savanna or the South American pampas.

[Faolyn]

Originally Posted by Refplace

There is a lot of material that could be useful for someone making reasonable or useful animals in those 4 pages and I think at least some of that should remain.

My main concern is that those four pages would have to be repeated in each book (one reason why I still think it should be a single volume--or perhaps there should be a "prequel" book of some sort that contains that and the other non-animal info (like GMing/playing animals, the hunting and trapping info, and so on).

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Faolyn

My main concern is that those four pages would have to be repeated in each book (one reason why I still think it should be a single volume--or perhaps there should be a "prequel" book of some sort that contains that and the other non-animal info (like GMing/playing animals, the hunting and trapping info, and so on).

The 'prequel' book has already been mentioned; Refplace was specifically going with the assumption that there would be a 'prequel' Bestiary (he called it the 'basic' Bestiary book). He even specifically mentioned putting that other info you mention in that book, rather than in the Biome books.