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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary (OGL)
Paizo Publishing, LLC
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Hardcover:
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$39.99
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PDF:
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$9.99
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Here there be monsters!
What is a hero without monsters to vanquish? This book presents hundreds of different
creatures for use in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Within this tome you’ll find
fire-breathing dragons and blood-drinking vampires, vile demons and shapechanging
werewolves, sadistic goblins and lumbering giants, and so much
more! Yet not all the creatures in this book are enemies, for some
can serve lucky heroes as allies or advisors, be they summoned
angels or capricious nymphs. And it doesn’t stop there—with
full rules for advancing monsters, adapting monsters to different
roles, and designing your own unique creations, you’ll never be
without a band of hideous minions again!
The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary is the must-have companion volume
to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop
game builds upon more than 10 years of system development
and an Open Playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to
create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time
best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.
The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary includes:
- More than 350 different monsters
- Dozens of monstrous variants to modify creatures and keep
players on their toes
- Numerous lists of monsters to aid in navigation, including lists
by Challenge Rating, monster type, and habitat
- Extensive rules for creating effective and balanced monsters
- Rules for advancing monsters by hit dice, template, or class level
- Universal monster rules to simplify special attacks, defenses, and
qualities like breath weapons, damage reduction, and regeneration
- More than a dozen feats tailored especially for monsters
- Suggestions for monstrous cohorts
- Two dozen additional animal companions
- More than a dozen different wandering monster encounter tables
- AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
Share your thoughts on the Pathfinder RPG messageboards!
ISBN 978-1-60125-183-1
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at
webmaster@paizo.com.
Product Reviews
Average product rating:
 
(4.6)
based on
17
reviews
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review.
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?
I bought the PDF version of this and what a deal. It is formated so that when I need a monster I simply print that page. I have not ran into a monster that takes up more then 1 page. It is so well formated. It saves my ink and paper and Im ready to go with just one page. I write all over it with notes for that game and toss it when Im done. Great job!!!!!!
This book, like the core rulebook, is gorgeous. Not only that, but it has most of the OGL creatures in it, updated to the Pathfinder rules as well as some interesting and logical tweaks.
The only real gripe I have is that, while I understand why it was done, I didn't like that some classic creatures were turned into templated versions of the core version of the monster (I don't know you you need to have separate stats for heavy war horses, but it just doesn't sit right, to me, to have them be "advanced" horses, for example).
All of that having been said, call this one a 4.75, but I'm just too much of a pain to give up a five star review.
When this arrived at my door I couldn't wait to tear it open and as I read it all I could think about was great enemies to use to kill my friends. There is only one problem.... Where's the Bodak? J/K never use him anyway.
My first thought was this product was going to be essentially a reprint of the 3.5 monster manual with the Paizo rules changes and the awesome Paizo design work. As such my expectations were pretty moderate for this book.
I am happy to say that my expectations were greatly exceeded. The book is indeed an amazing piece of design (art!) which I expected from paizo, but it goes a lot further than that. The monsters are rebalanced and often completely reworked. Common abilities are standardized and put in a "common monster ability" section in the back of the book which means the pages are dedicated to strategy, ecology, and generally awesome flavor text.
The artwork is exceptional, there are a few outliers that look out of place in there but in general it's amazing stuff. In a really nice touch the illustrator's names are on the side of each page.
Overall the book is amazingly well organized, it's easy to find what you need and the book is simply the best looking RPG source book I have ever seen.
Simply put, this a high quality product that anybody interested in PFRPG should consider purchasing. The art, for the most part, is top notch. The high spots for me were the angels, demons, and devils. Even the rat entry featured a wicked looking dire rat! The only major disappointment was the Tarrasque - it left a little something to be desired. There were a couple others, but this doesn't take away too much from the book as a whole.
The actual content is superb. I particularly appreciated the designers including guidelines for running some of the races as characters (e.g. aasimar, drow, etc.). The templates are well done too. I have yet to compare the Bestiary directly to the Monster Manual - that should be interesting.
Congratz to Paizo for putting out another great product.
Product Discussion
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yes, oh glorious gods yes!
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Fangasm!
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DAUMN!!! ~spoken in a thick Southern drawl~
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YES!!! I hoping for this book since I saw the mock up for the World Book. Keep up the good stuff Paizo!!!
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...July?
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PZO1112
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seekerofshadowlight,
Lazaro,
Shisumo
(Pathfinder Chronicles Superscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber),
