Looking through the PDF of Bestiary 2, I find myself remembering the days in the 1980s when I'd sit in the back of the mall bookstore and leaf through the various gaming tomes I couldn't possibly buy all of.

Crystal Dragons, Aeons, and several others in this book remind of that golden era, when DMs had such a wide variety of unusual (and often new-age-y) creatures at their disposals, they couldn't possibly ever use them all.

Sure, some of the creatures are a little odd, but on the other hand, the vast variety will lead to some adventurer groups with a far different list of encountered monsters than the norm.

I personally can't wait to spring the Dullahan (aka Headless Horseman) and Animate Dream on my party!

Not as extensive as the first, yet the same price...

I do not mind the creatures in this book, but it does get less use than my other bestiary. However it still has the same problem as the first also. The use of generic rules for a creature type. For an actual hardcover book to be useful in a game (for creatures) you MUST be able to have all rules for the creature on the one page. The use of rules based on a type of creature that you need to leave the creatures page to reference is irritating and a waste of in game time.

Please fix this problem. I understand that constructs all have similarities but I need the rules on each constructs page to reference. Not have to skip to the end of the book to see if they have something relevant when they need it.

I find some of the artwork choices dubious and some of the stat-blocks clearly don't hold up under close examination.
Also only about a third of the creature content is of current use/interest to me.

BUT, all that said, in a book this size at this price that third of content is the right side of value for money for me, and there's enough variety here in the creatures that I don't personally have much time for that I'm certain most of them will appeal to a fair portion of the audience amongst other readers. This is a follow-up bestiary - and like most such works it faces the challenge that most of the decent staples of fantasy have already been covered in an earlier work, inviting the editors to try and diversify to give everyone a bit of what they might want...

Warts and all this is a pretty spiffing book, and I would cautiously recommend it.
I give it a rating of four stars.

The level of quality of the bestiary 2 is excellent. In previous incarnations of he game, the quality of Monster Manual II and MMIII dropped dramatically compared to MMI.

With B2, this is not the case.

The book is full monsters of every type, even fey. Fiends Fans, like myself, will be really pleased.

The art is almost all high quality (not unusual for Paizo) and this book is already well-used in my game. There are some boring additions, monsters seen before like the aranea, the athach, the grey render, but also plenty of variant elementals, humanoids, aberrations and swarms of monkeys.

What pleases me the most, apart from using the very difficult and challenging viper vine, are the aberrations. The Cthulhu mythos has been drawn in here heavily, something paizo has been doing for a while now (old ones and old cults). This is only a positive, the Leng spider, the Denizen of Leng the Hound of Tindalos and its unusual means of movement are all good resources for a dm. I’ve used them well thus far and it spices up games. The mongrelman makes an appearance, but unfortunately has no special ability to sicken or horrify on the stats. A dm can change this (see the hideous giants the thawns in kingmaker), or put the effect on the players themselves by describing their appearance at length, and hinting at their ancestry, especially if it starts to get… weird.

The Krenshar alas looks terrible, use other available pics for that if thrown into a game.

...and things that go bump in the night fill this second volume of the new "monster manual". 285 monsters from classics like the peryton and skulk, to classical, like the Siren and Scylla, make a DM's job easier. Check out my full review Bestiary II

I have seen many monster books in my day but I have never seen a monster book #2(or more) that was at least as good, if not better, as the first in the seies. This book is awesome with monsters like the Jaberwock, Scylla, Primal dragons, soulbound dolls, cool familiars, interesting playable races, Aeons, Proteons, actually interesting undead,NEW FEY and much, much, more.Paizo rules.

I have thoroughly enjoyed every other Pathfinder book I've bought, but this was a complete let-down. The majority of the entries in this book seem like parts of other monsters have been randomly thrown together and given a silly name.
The remainder are simply taken straight from somewhere else; fiction, books, movies, etc. and given pathfinder rules - really just something a half-competent dungeon master can do in half an hour anyway.
This kind of unimaginative drivel is far below the standard of every other pathfinder book I've read.
Stick to the first bestiary book; this one is pointless.

A Great read through the book head to toe, or front to back.
But a number of Major Fails exist,

1) The Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine are not true to their names, or origins; Ifrit is an other name for Efreet, Oread are a type of mountain nymph, (WoTC got this right in Fiend Folio), sylphs are Air Elementals (again WoTC got it right), and Undine are a type of water nymph.

2) The Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine feel like paizo's version of the Genasi from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and forcefully made to fit into as it's replacement since they don't most likely have rights to Forgotten Realms.

3) Again the same 4 races, have equal CR to an Aasimar and Teifling, but are weaker,i.e. no racial skill bonuses, less total resistance values (Aasimar and Teifling have Three 5 element resistance, they have One 5 element resistance), the only thing they have that Aasimar don't have is Elemental affinity which take me to the next point,

4) Elemental affinity for me is looking at the whole is equaling half its CR value as a waste, and it not class universal and acting as the Favored Class mechanic of 3.X favoring a specific class of specific type with a bonus, So I am house ruling a swap of Elemental affinity for something more appropriate for the race it stands for and that is more class universal.

5) Why are the Aasimar, Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, Undine, and Teifling of type outsider(native) when they are Mostly Human, instead of humanoid(human, Outsider X blood) where X is the outsider's race, and where outsider X blood gives you the ability to use outsider stuff, but also enables effects against that of outsiders on you i.e. bane.

Dispite these major errors, the book is great collection of monsters from previous and coming Paizo works and folklore creatures, but a double checking of the origin of the creature's name, creature types and checking Playable races of equal CR against one another would have made the book much better.

**For reference I did compare the Aasimar and Teifling against the Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine. and checked the Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine in Wikipedia.

If there is the one type of RPG book that nobody ever has enough of, it’s the monster books ! Bestiary 2 for Pathfinder RPG was a no-brainer, so here it is.

===PRESENTATION===

A solid sewn hardcover book with over 320 pages in full color. The artwork is even better than in the first Bestiary. This is perhaps the prettiest monster book in d20 history. There are several navigational aids, including indexes and CR tables. The book is a pleasure to look at and use.

===CONTENT===

Bestiary 2 was certainly a challenge to put together. The first one was rather easy – update as many 3.5 SRD monsters as possible, throw in some sprinkling of retro and Pathfinder critters, voila. Bestiary 2 has set out to meet several ambitious goals:

1. Updating the leftover SRD monsters. Most of them are in Bestiary 2 – Red Reaver, Rast, Tendriculous and several more. A few (Tojanida, Delver) had the dubious honor of being featured in Misfit Monsters Redeemed instead.

2. Presenting as many monsters from Pathfinder Adventure Path and other 3.5 Pathfinder sources as possible. In general, most of the beasties from the first three APs and a few from Legacy of Fire are in Bestiary 2 (including such Paizo staples as Rune Giants, Pugwampis and Lamia Matriarchs).

3. Outsiders. Beings from the great beyond are the main theme of the book, with roughly 1/3 of the monsters coming from the many corners of the multiverse. First off, the leftover 3.5 outsiders are back (hello, Inevitables). Next, the classic groups (demons, devils, angels, archons, elementals) get a few new members such as the classic quasi-elementals.
Then things go fun. Paizo’s reinvention of several outsider groups: Proteans, Aeons and Daemons. Qlippoths, the horrific proto-demons. Agathions (formerly known as Guardinals). All the weird and wonderful beings from The Great Beyond: Fetchlings, Jyoti, Lurkers in the Light and more. This book will make any Planescape fan cry with joy.

4. Filling conceptual niches. The default 3.5 monster gallery is rather short on fey, plants and constructs. Paizo took steps to remedy that with several new monsters of each type.

5. Finally, New Stuff. Paizo adamantly holds to their legend lore and cryptozoology sources, and it shows. Mongolian Death Worm, Charybdis, Scylla, Jabberwocky, Brownie … the list goes on. Oh, and Dragons. Including Neutral Dragons and the very-not-neutral Umbral Dragon and Ravener (Paizo’s Dracolich). Also, many monsters are carried over from Necromancer Games’ Tome of Horrors and Green Ronin’s Book of Fiends, both highly acclaimed 3.5 era bestiaries.

6. Higher CR’s. The Challenge Ratings top at 23 and there are several high-level monsters to challenge experienced groups.

7. Hippogriff. Just that. And how’s that !

The monsters are consistently presented in 1 page = 1 monster format, making the book far easier to use than the 3.5 MM. The universal monster rules system is here as well, with all the common special rules placed in one chapter. Monster advancement now features CRs up to 25.

===CONCLUSION===

This book easily matches, and in some areas (artwork !) comes ahead of Bestiary 1. An excellent addition to any 3.5 library. You won’t be disappointed !