Another excellent product. While mainly being geared towards cavaliers, druids, rangers, and wizards/sorcerers, this book also provides plenty of great options for players playing other classes such as the Mad Dog Barbarian and the Carnivalist Rouge. Not to mention great ideas and references for DMs who wish to add animal elements into the world, including prices for rare or uncommon animals (even Dinosaurs!), new familiars (Including Dinosaurs), and more(Dinosaurs)! Definitely a worthy buy for any Pathfinder player.

I was really looking forward to the release of this book, and I was NOT disappointed! There is a lot of quality content in this book, including magic item slot options for all your pets, a few interesting archetypes for classes that normally don't get animal companions to pick them up, several useful magic items, new companion and familiar options, and new feats and archetypes for the creatures themselves.

I would like to point out that there are a few little mistakes in here, specifically when it comes to the animal archetypes. A cavalier's animal companion can't technically take the Charger archetype, even though it was obviously written for just that type of companion, because it replaces share spells, which cavalier companions don't get. There's a similar issue with the familiar archetypes and many Improved familiars. However, the writers are already working on an errata for these small issues, and they really don't detract from the overall quality of the work.

This book includes some of the best writing I've seen come out of Paizo in months, and I HIGHLY recommend picking it up!

I am very positively surprised how good and useful this book is. It is certainly not what I was expecting – I think I assumed this book would consist of mostly flavor and not a lot of useful game mechanics. I wasn't really looking forward to this, but the actual book has convinced me otherwise. Well done! This is the best Player Companion in a long time, and certainly the best in the new format. Highly recommended.

Now, I finally know how expensive a tyrannosaur is, should I ever want to buy one! :)

I've always kind of liked the Beast-Bonded Witch archetype for it's ability to give your familiar feats instead of taking one yourself, and while there are a lot of cool feats to give familiars same as players, this book introduces new familiar ONLY feats that can really flesh out a beast-bonded witch's familar!

As to the rest of the book, don't expect a Bestiary of Animal Companions and Familiars... that's not what this is. If you expect, that you will be disappointed.

No, this is a small little book to help you make more fun familiars and animal companions. With the new familar/animal only feats, new archetypes for animal loving characters (rather cool is the "Carnivalist" rogue who is like a carnival animal trainer who is able to train his animals to be rogues along side him somewhat (they can pick locks or steal for you, or even sneak attack!)) but also adds new tricks for all trainers. Plus... ANIMAL ARCHETYPES! Now not every cat famiiar is the same, your cat can specialize as an "Infiltrator" and gain things like Uncanny Dodge instead of speak with it's kind. Your faithful hound can be a valet which allows him to use prestidigitation, aid you, and even gains all teamwork feats you have.

I must say, as a player of arcane casters (and even my sorcerers I find a way to get a familiar be it bloodline, archetype, or feat) this overall is very much a must have book for me!

Read my full review on my blog.

One of the best things about this book is that it moves away from the tried and true. New feats, new archetypes, new spells—these are things that have been done to death for the character classes. However, while the game has had tons of cool stuff for your druid or wizard or ranger, your animal companion or familiar has often been neglected. There are very few feats or spells in the game that are for animals (either to use themselves or be used on). There aren’t even very many magic items designed for animals, and it’s often unclear how well items designed for humanoids work with animals. As such, Animal Archive fills a need. It uses the kinds of things we’ve seen before, but uses them in an area that very rarely sees use.