As the first "Revisited" book, Classic Monsters established the formula that has been used ever since. This book covers all the classic fantasy monsters that have been standard for rope-playing games for decades. We see them in new lights as not just the " villains" and "monsters" of our games (as the villain rarely sees themselves as such), but a fully alive sentient beings. They have loves, desires, wants and fears. They just don't sit in a dungeon room waiting for you to show up, they have their own lives going on independent pf the players. The cultures of each are amazing, and made me interested in monsters like the lizard folk or minotaurs that I never cared for. It made me have nightmares of Bugbears outside my window and even sometime sympathize with what are arguable right bastards. Probably my single favorite part of the book is that Ogre mothers talk of the Trolls who come down the mountain to kidnap little Ogre children and eat them. The books shows that even the monsters that we fear have those they fear as well. This bit of humanity in these so called "monsters" adds even more depth to the deepest RPG in the industry today.

Devido ao pouco conteúdo de regras (até porque ele é do período de indecisão se a Paizo aderiria a quarta edição ou não) esse livro só é recomendado a quem não quer utilizar os humanóides clássicos do dungeons and dragons como meras buchas de canhão. Algumas das novas características e personalidades das criaturas podem render ótimas histórias ou pelo menos adicionar profundidade a raças que nunca tiveram nenhuma (mesmo os artigos mais rasos dão muitos detalhes sobre a sociedade e cultura desses povos que hoje em dia não são encontrados em muitos lugares). Para aqueles que se interessam em tratar os humanóides como culturas antagonistas, o livro e excelente e mesmo não fugindo do maniqueísmo clássico do D&D, pelo menos ele torna esses monstros e monstros verdadeiros que merecem serem mortos ao atacado (e não apenas porquê tem um circulo vermelho embaixo do pé deles).

I just got this book today, and, though it only contains 10 of the most basic and generic monsters found in any Fantasy RPG, it has leaped to an undisputed position at the top of my list of favorite monster books - nothing else comes close.

This should be required reading for writers of RPG monster book "fluff"! It seems that RPG writers have been pretty lazy about these sorts of monsters, giving a token nod to the likes of Goblins and Orcs as "oh, there's also some generic Tolkien-inspired cannon fodder... now, let's move on to some interesting stuff!" But in this book, the writers give these monsters the attention they deserve.

My favorite entries are for Goblins, Bugbears, and Ogres, which seem particularly alive and vivid as images from effective and memorable horror films, so that these monsters become unforgettable and vividly nightmarish.

This book, light on stats, would be right at home on the shelves of DMs running anything from Pathfinder or D&D (3rd and 4th), to Call of Cthulhu, and a number of these monsters can even be adapted to stories for RPGs based on Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, X-Files, and Supernatural.

This book should have been produced a long time ago, and should have been built into D&D by now :)

Plenty of information to make a whole adventure or campaign arc revolving around any one of the monster types included. This gives each of the generic monsters its own flavor and motivations, and the whole thing was just a fun read. Make more of these for other monsters!

...because it contains so much useful flavor. I can't think of any other book, beyond the CS or the Gaz, that would be more helpful to a GM in making Golarion come to life. (*****)