CHANGES to monsters in the Remastered MONSTER CORE for Pathfinder 2e! (Rules Lawyer)

ADDITIONS/ERRATA: -The old Bestiary on Elite + Weak adjustment said to treat them differently at low levels in the section's introductory text, but not in the rule itself. Now it's in the rule. -As someone commented, removing the word "golem" might be similar to Paizo's choice to remove the word "phylactery": respect to culture. Golem is "an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore." My complaint is more about the lack of any grouping of these creatures though! EDIT: No one is harmed by being mindful of different cultures. Some overreacting is going on. We are made better learning more than we knew before. -14:05 Holy and unholy apparently are not stand-alone damage types, but are traits to other damage types. (It's been a while since I did my video on that, but sounds right!) -Apparently the freaky-deaky looking archons are based on the TOP tier of Biblical angels. There are less strange-looking ones in the Bible! -The 1st archon is the new "Horned Archon," not "Hound Archon." The Horned Archon is an archer with a stag head, but a SINGLE stag head! -I got the ghoul curse wrong. It operates a bit differently, and is verry interesting. Stages 2 and 3 debuff you until consume raw meat. Stage 4 has the same effect, except when you HAVE eaten raw meat in the last 24 hours the effect is worse UNTIL you eat raw meat. Stage 5: if you HAVE eaten raw meat in the last 24 hours, you die and rise as a ghoul. So it tempts you to eat raw meat, but at Stage 3 you don't want to give in to the cravings or else you might die! -Undead apparently indicate in their statblocks that they're immune to bleed damage: this is true for all the undead EXCEPT the vampire. However, this contradicts the Player Core which says that bleed damage "has no effect on nonliving creatures." I'm inclined to go with what Monster Core statblocks say, however, since it's more recent and a better way to handle this anyway. -Archives of Nethys apparently said it would be 4-6 weeks after their recent Remaster (so mid or late April?) before we see Monster Core added to AoN. LINKS: Paizo blog post of Monster Core design goals: paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sihj There are 2 posts on the PF2E subreddit with useful list monsters and changes in this book: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1bidogt/wha… www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1brhwn3/all…

The last stage of the ghoul's curse actually kills you if you have eaten raw meat in the last 24 hours, so you have to resist the temptation to eat raw meat to avoid the risk of dying and becoming a ghoul. Also, Paizo did include a renamed intellect devourer, though it's hard to find if you don't know it's there. It's Xoarian, in the Dominion of the Black section.

It would be fun if they replaced the owlbear with a birdbear that can have birds from different species of bird A hummingbugbear would be terrific

I 100% prefer the scary cute leshies over these really cute ones. If people like the new ones more power to them, but it's really not for me.

You are so adorable Ronald. You are the only one I know who says "quick overview" for a 25 minute video, but it's still true. 🙂This was great, thank you for sharing the details and your thoughts.

so they made the pathfinder ghouls resemble the starfinder ghouls, weird change, i enjoyed the sadistic intelligent undead cannibal. we already have vampires for the posh undead archetype.

The ghoul is really stepping on the toes of vampires. I do like the idea of intelligent ghouls but I've always thought of them more as scavengers. Ghouls as ambush predators, tricksters, sort of sewer-dwelling opportunists makes the most sense to me.

The hound archon did not appear in Monster Core. That was the Horned Archon on the right, which appeared as a deer-man before.

Pathfinder 2e Service Pack 1 the new homunculus looks like it was made by an 8-year old out of clay, and I say that as a compliment! it fits the vibe!

Ghouls being less savage/ravenous makes sense for the setting. It's already established that multiple high-ranking officials in Geb are ghouls and ghasts; there's also the citi-state of Nemret Noktoria in the Darklands, a city filled with thousands of ghouls.

The new dragons look sick. While its unfortunate that the remaster was motivated in part by uncertainties around the OGL, it seems like they're doing cool stuff with that inertia. The original barghest is one of my favorite monsters of all time, so this change is a bummer but its not like its lost to history. Glass half full its like I've got 2 barghests now lol

Golems were probably renamed because they are holy protector spirits in Jewish mythology. Generally, if you're fighting a golem, you're probably doing something bad. I do think they should have kept a common name between them though. Effigy would have worked.

Around 14:05 holy and unholy are not damage types. They never stand alone. They are traits added to other damage types

Speaking of kobolds having a trap but no crafting ability, Apparently there's issue's with monsters who have grab based attacks byt don't actually have any Athletic score to back it up

It is unlikely that AoN will have the stats on/near release date as they mentioned in their Feb 25 notes that "We're estimating 4-6 weeks after the Remaster launches before we'll have Monster Core." Launch was the 13th, meaning 2-4 weeks after street date.

Maybe the reason why they changed the name of golems is the same reason they got rid of the term "phylactery"? Golems are from Jewish mythology/folklore, so they probably wanted to distance themselves from that.

A change I'm excited about, from being closer to the lore, is banshees being fey. Knowing that it litterally translates to "fairy woman" didn't make sense for them to being undead. However, what I liked about the bronze dragon was them being semi-aquatic. It doesn't seem that there are semi-aquatic true dragons.(and that I thought many years ago that kobolds morph to the dragon they serve, it would have been interesting bronze kobolds near the edge of water)

I was fine with the fungus leshy being the single terrifying kind of Leshy, given that fungi aren't really plants. I don't want them to BE any meaner than your average leshy, just enjoyed that they looked a lot more sinister. (New version is fine though, of course.)

Leshies, Mephits and Homunculus became cuter. The Barghest moved to Baskerville. Purple worm got mirrored and a palette swap. Sea Hag is a famine version of Ursula now. Ghouls are vampires now. Golems turned into "creatures formerly known as Golems". 8:55 That was already the cases, it was just made clear and moved to the adjustment itself: "applying elite adjustments to a level –1 creature gives you one closer to 1st level, and applying weak adjustments to a 1st-level creature gives you one whose level is closer to –1"

I love the design change for scamps and homunculi. Previously there was a lot of stuff that just looked like (DnD) goblins in different colours, now they have much more of their own aesthetic.