This is the most well-organized and beautifully illustrated "monster manual" I've ever bought. Everything about the book is amazing. The notes at the end for tips creating ones only monsters is also very useful to GMs wanting to create challenging, but fair monsters. The only complaint I have is that it stuck a bit too close to the 3.5 Monster Manual, so if you have that or like using the SRD, it may be considered a waste of money. Although the new stat blocks are a lot more useful than the poorly-organized 3.5 Monster Manual, so if that is worth $40 to you, go for it. I can't wait to see what Paizo has in store for the Bestiary 2.. maybe we'll see some original monsters in there (and some of the few Paizo left out).

Overall, well recommended for GMs!

I've seen a lot of bestiaries and such over the years. Except for the 1st edition Monster Manual this is easily my favorite one.

The level of detail is obvious, and the artwork is top notch as always. Many entries have that vintage reborn Pathfinder touch.

For any RPG setting based on the conflict of archetypes it is necessary to have a wide assortment antagonists to challenge the party. In that respect Paizo has delivered a quality product.

I do not begrudge the choice to leave some monsters out, or under-defined in the first book. After all, there is a lot of material to cover if we are talking about presenting all monsters from the various OGL pantheons. However, the organization of the book does sometimes make it difficult to locate things, and I find myself having to make frequent use of the table of contents rather than being able to simply intuitively find the creatures in the book. For that reason, I cannot give the book a 5 star rating.

I have both the PDF and the print versions, and find the the production values of both are quite consistently high. I have nothing but good things to say in that regard.

I received this book with my regular subscription, but hadn't realized that I forgot to review it earlier than now. First off, in response to the review that this is not a revolutionary book, it was not meant to be. This simply updating monsters to the new PFRPG. For that, it is an excellent resource.

My only complaint is that the dragons were a little skimped on, here that is. They received their own book which I have not purchased yet. I know that is an OGL product, but I imagine they got more info in that manual. Basically, thought, there could have been more crunch on dragons in this book. I have to wonder if the original progression charts in the SRD still apply.

The PFRPG Bestiary is a useful, well-organized and attractively illustrated book. I have no regrets about purchasing it, and would recommend it to anyone trying to make up their minds as to whether or not they should buy it. Having said that, there are some areas where it disappoints, and I do hope that the Paizo staff keeps them in mind for future releases.

As other reviewers have mentioned, several of the iconic D&D monsters did not make the transition into the Bestiary. This isn't particularly distressing to me, but I do wish that there were some Pathfinder-specific monsters to fill in the gaps. When one mentions the mind flayer or the beholder, any canny roleplayer will know that the subject is D&D. Given the creativity of the Paizo staff and the worthiness of the Pathfinder setting, I would have expected the Bestiary to contain a number of monsters capable of calling Pathfinder immediately to the minds of gamers.

Unfortunately, the Bestiary seems short on creatures designed to "brand" for Pathfinder.
My only other disappointment was the lack of any information regarding the role that each monster plays on Golarion. The Pathfinder setting is wonderful, but the Campaign Guide was focused mostly on the ways in which the PC races have influenced the world; I had hoped that the Bestiary would have shown some of the ways in which Golarion was influenced by the presence of the monsters contained within.

In summary, the Bestiary is a "workhorse" of a book. Definitely useful and certainly well-constructed and beautiful, but it doesn't exactly bring anything especially new to the table.

On the good side: one monster-per-page (or two), well-organized stat blocks and descriptions, the ability to advance critters easily and effectively, the background story on the beasties (more fluff is better!), the overall layout of the book and its sturdiness

On the bad side: missing some of our favorites (But that must be a licensing issue, right? How can I live without Beholders?? LOL ), and the manga-ish-ness of some of the artwork is a bit distracting to a certain level of realism enjoyed in the game, though overall the artwork is good

Overall, a good purchase. I do not regret dropping the cash. :)

The Bestiary is amazing. I love the format! I was discouraged early on in the book by one piece of art but quickly recovered. The Dire Bear looks like a surprised grizzly with rocks on its back. That being said, the remainder of the art is exceptional.

In my experience, I have found D&D OGL Bestiaries fairly well done. This book continues that tradition and then builds on it. It takes the basic stat blocks and then give a million and one options to customise/develop monsters.

The layout is perfect. Front the monsters with templates followed by monster creation/advancement and then useful, summative and well organised appendices... ones that I know I can be used.

This book is not targetted at beginning GMs who use stats to rush monsters at players for hack and slash. This book is written by experts for expert DMs or to develop GMs to run monsters in creative and challenging ways. A must for the PFRPG GM.

I just downloaded the Pathfinder Bestiary and I am just awestruck at the great job Paizo has done. Everything in the book is so well organized and interlinked so there is no problems whatsoever finding things. I have been playing/DMing D&D for 30+ years and though still a huge fan of D&D I am ready to make a complete switch to Pathfinder. Wizards should have consulted with Paizo instead of slinging together their current miasma of 4th edition. This is how D&D should be!

The Bestiary is a very attractive looking monster book, filled with lots of great art and interesting fluff, and some fun new monsters. However, as far as the monster stats go, there are very few changes to the actual monsters themselves. They are essentially just reprints of the monsters from the 3.5 MM. The 3.5 monster manual has been around for a long time now, and there has been plenty of time to figure out which monsters work well and which one's need some changes/improvements, so am I not noticing many? As a quick example- the pit fiend, while it does have neat new power called devil shaping (which is useless during combat as it takes 1 minute to use), still doesn't have enough hp to keep it standing for more than a couple of rounds against the average 20th level party, and it's regeneration is only 5. If you are going to create a new game, why not change a few things to make it better than its predecessor?