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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary (OGL)

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary (OGL)
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Here there be monsters!

What is a hero without monsters to vanquish? This 328-page 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!

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The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary is available as:

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-60125-183-1

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Last Updated - 9/12/2011

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

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Without Opponents, Combat Sure Wouldn't Be Much Fun!

5/5 —

Bestiaries are Pathfinder's version of the D&D Monster Manuals: reference books containing descriptions and stat-blocks for hundreds of new creatures for PCs to battle, bother, or befriend. They're not designed to be read cover to cover, but that's exactly what I did for this review. The Bestiary weighs in at 327 pages and contains (according to the back-cover) over 350 different monsters arranged in alphabetical order.

The book starts with a two-page Introduction, and it's actually worth reading because it explains what the (28!) different categories of information in a creature's stat block mean. It also introduces the the "Monster Icons" scheme, wherein each monster receives three different icons to visually denote its creature type, terrain, and climate. I like the idea of the icons, but I find them too small and similar to be useful, and I'm not interested in flipping back to page 5 too figure out what they mean. I'm happy just reading the corresponding entries in the stat block.

For monsters, we start with Aasimar on page 7 and run through until Zombie on page 289. This is what the book is all about, but it's a challenging thing to review as my notes are full of bits of scattered remarks about dozens of different monsters. As I can't figure out a coherent way to synthesize them, I'm going to take the unusual tack of just including them as a sort of impressionistic picture of what's in the book. Skim to the bottom for more of the review.

"A"

--aboleths are a lot tougher than CR might indicate!

--Not officially Golarion, but flavour in entries generally compatible

--backdoor cosmology with angels stuff

--really good write-up of Solar Angels

--Army Ant Swarms are pretty nasty!

--like archons--I've never really seen them used outside of summoning, when no RP is involved

--azatas: CG celestials

Bs

--cool how barghests become greater!

--bebiliths: wow, awesome art for an awesome creature!

--bugbear artwork is weird, but fascinating bit on "The Nature of Goblinoid Evil"

Cs

--creepy Choker

--good mixture of animals and various types of monsters

--a lot of classic ones, but some new ones (like chuul) as well

--like history of cyclops and flash of insight power

Ds

--dark folk and dark stalkers?!?! humanoid subtype with language--never heard of them...

--demons! Good, engaging, clear explanation

--don't argue with a balor demon!

--great stories for demons--quasit familiars taking master's souls!

--devils! emphasis on hierarchy

--a good variety of tough foes, with lots of HP and resistances

--great writeup of lemure devils

--fantastic artwork all the way through!

--Devourers are pretty nasty for their CR!

--too many dinosaurs!

--dragons! stat blocks are so long, there's very little description

--driders and drow: underused

E

--elementals

F

--familiar (no idea that was here!)

--froghemoth--really?

G

--gelatinous cubes are really dangerous!

--genies

--love Shaitan genie art

--ghosts: emphasis on story-based customization, 2 page spread

--Giants!

--fun gibbering mouthers artwork

--goblins

--golems

Hs

--half- templates

--occasionally the titles aren't the most intuitive: "Herd animal, bison" for example

--need full stats for combat-trained horses

Is

--intellect devourer--WTF!

Ks

--kytons are cool/creepy

Ls

--lamia artwork is regrettable

--lich: gotta have 'em!

--linnorms are nasty, especially curses and poison!

--lycanthrope template

Ms

--medusas, minotaurs, mimics--all the classics!

--mummy rot sure is nasty!

Ns

-- nagas look dumb

--neothelids are intriguing! need more

--nymphs have cool boons

Os

--Oni need better explanation

Ps

--good amount of player detail for pegasi

Rs

--rakhasa: a lot of potential in the right campaign

--retrievers are scary

--rust monsters!

Ss

--sea hag artwork is great! (and evil eye comatose ability!)

--shadows can be quite more lethal than CR

--touch ACs are so low because of artificial natural armor bonuses, making Alchemists and Gunslingers especially powerful

--shoggoths arent very scary for CR19

--skum have surprisingly interesting write-up

--giant slugs too goofy

Ts

--tarrasque: bad pic, underwhelming

--troglodyte pic is great!

Us

Vs

--vampires: elaborate template

--vargouille's kiss is nasty

Ws

Xs

--xills are awesome!

Zs

--zombie pic is hilarious

Hm, that was embarrassing. Sorry!

After the monster entries are a series of appendices, and these definitely add value to the book.

Appendix 1 is Monster Creation, and it offers a very thorough and clear guide to monster creation. There are a *lot* of moving parts to creating balanced monsters in Pathfinder, so this will take some time until you get the hang of it. Appendix 2 is Monster Advancement, and this is another important part of the book because it shows GMs how to adjust creatures in the book to make them more or less powerful by adding simple templates (like "Giant" or "Young") and by adding racial hit dice or class levels. Appendix 3 is the section of the book I use more than any other, and it's indispensable: Universal Monster Rules. In order to save space and avoid repetition in stat blocks, common monster abilities are fleshed out here: everything from Darkvision to Damage Reduction to Incorporeal and more. Only very, very experienced GMs should try to run creatures just from the stat blocks without remembering to double-check what their monster abilities do, precisely, in the Universal Monster Rules. The same appendix also contains creature Types and Subtypes, which are like packages of basic information that all creatures of a particular category, such as demons or animals, share. Again, this is to save space in stat blocks. Appendix 4 is very short, and provides some advice on Monsters as PCs. I've never used it. Appendix 5 is Monster Feats, though some PCs may actually legitimately use some of them like Craft Construct. If you notice that a monster has a feat you can't find in the Core Rulebook, that's probably because it's listed here. Appendices 6 and 7 list Monster Cohorts (for the Leadership feat) and Animal Companions (for druids and rangers), respectively. Appendices 8-12 are indexes that help a GM who is looking for monsters of a particular type, CR, terrain, etc. Really useful information that most people who just use online databases probably never realized was available. Finally, Appendix 14 contains Encounter Tables broken up by terrain. These include average CRs for an each table, but I still think it'd be foolish to actually roll on them: in a Hill/Mountain, region, for example, your PCs could run into CR 3 orcs or CR 12 fire giants. A party that is challenged by the former would be curb-stomped by the latter. Good random encounter table design needs to have a narrow range of CRs before they become feasible.

I'm not a huge monster guy like some people, but I definitely enjoyed reading the Bestiary and I learned a lot about the core monsters of the setting. I know there are five later books that expand the selection far more, but much of what I see in APs and PFS still draws from this book. Along with the Core Rulebook, it's safe to say that the Bestiary was one of the releases that helped to solidify Paizo's reputation as a company that publishes the highest calibre of RPG books in terms of writing quality, artwork, design, and layout. It's not indispensable since there are multiple websites that present the same information, but for ease of use (and the joy of skimming), the Bestiary is one of those books that every GM should have.

It all starts here babee

5/5 —

One only two books you require to jump in and play Pathfinder, it is the essential meat in the gaming stew. As important and the core rulebook is, it is nothing with out this work.

Expanded and tweaked off the OGL 3.x material, its cleaner, better organized and tweaked for the Pathfinder rules. Every hero needs a foe, every damsel in distress needs a captor, and every GM needs a source of badies to keep the group on their toes. You will find it all here, between these pages is years of destruction and mayhem.

No matter if you playing Pathfinders own setting, one of your own design and creation, or another publishers material, this is the must have companion to your CRB.

They need more monsters

5/5 —

not as useful as the advanced raced guide for the monsters you could play as it does have a lot. i own this and well do my best to keep it hidden from my players. they keep trying to make them fight dragons... they are lvl 5

great reference book

5/5 —

This book has all the monsters you would need on a starting campaine

The standard by which all monster products will be judged by.

5/5 —

By now, there are several Bestiaries out in print, but when this book first came out you arguably needed to own it to play the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Was it worth the purchase? Decide for yourself!

Crunch
When we talk about a book's crunch, we're looking at its game rules, mechanics, and similar stats. As a monster book, the Bestiary is 99% crunch, and for Paizo's first real Bestiary, it is absolutely fantastic. There isn't a whole lot you can really say about monster stat blocks; they work perfectly and there aren't any monsters that feel ridiculous for their challenge rating (CR). The book also includes several new races that are appropriate for player characters; in this book, we have aasimars, the tieflings, and drow, as well as the applicable but seldom appropriate deurgar, drow noble, and svirfneblin. The book stays true to the rules of its predecessors; when you look at a drow, you recognize it as a drow from previous games. Because of the significant power up that the core races received these classically "OP" races aren't very far out of line with your traditional player characrers, and as a result we don't see the Level Adjustment system in Pathfinder. If you're unfamiliar with the term, in older editions of Dungeons and Dragons, some races were deemed so powerful that you had to actually forgo class levels in order to be a member of the race. For example, if you wanted to play a drow, you had a LA of +1, meaning that your race counted as 1 class level when determining your party's level. This either meant you were more powerful than your friends or (and more commonly) your GM had you start at a lower level to compensate. And believe me, it is not fun to be a sorcerer of an LA race because of how far behind your party is! The racial benefits seldom made up for the loss of character levels and it was a pretty terrible mechanic all around, so good riddance.

Although the book's theme is classic monsters, Paizo manages to add its own spin on fantasy games by including weird and amazing monsters. A perfect example is the froghemoth, which is basically a giant aberrant frog-monster. As a huge Lovecraft fan, I was ecstatic to see monsters like the shoggoth creep up in Pathfinder as well. For a first Bestiary, the spread of monsters is well-chosen and you could definitely run a game with only this book if you really wanted to.

What probably amounts to the best change of all, in my opinion, is the changes to the rules for building your own monsters. These rules are difficult to comprehend and enact in other games, but the Paizo team does an excellent job of laying out step-by-step every detail in crafting your own monsters by including handy charts and tables. For a game that knew it wasn't launching with much material and that it wanted to be backwards-compatible with older products, it was a very wise choice to streamline monster-making as much as they did and its probably the best reason to keep a copy of Bestiary I in your library alongside future monster tomes. 5 /5 Stars.

Flavor
When we talk about a product's flavor, we're talking about its fiction content, its style, and its overall feel. This section is always very opinionated, because even though I whole-heartily enjoy Lovecraft and his works, there are those who don't like their minds thrust into insanity and the mere sight of a shoggoth or whatnot. When you read the Bestiary, the one thing that becomes very clear is that there simply is not much room for flavor. Most monsters get a paragraph and a half of descriptive text and a beautiful picture, but that's about it. Honestly, however, that's all this product needs. The monsters that are detailed are classic monsters, so the information provided about them tends to be enough that classic gamers can recognize the creature for what it is and new players can get a sense of wonder and learn enough about the monster to be on the same page with the veterans. The art is fabulous in this book and supplements the descriptions perfectly, even when the monster concept is weird text-wise a beautiful illustration helps to sell it to you personally.

The elephant in the room is that Pathfinder wants to have its own identity as much as it wants to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors. This means that every so often the Paizo team completely re-imagines and redefines the traits of a specific monster. Usually this happens to a relatively unknown or under used monster (we'll talk more about this in Bestiary III), but there is one monster in particular that is relatively well-known and got the Paizo makeover in a big way. That monster, which has become Paizo's mascot of sorts, is the goblin. To give a little bit of background, traditionally goblins have admittedly lacked character; they were little more than evil halflings in most settings. Paizo's very first adventure path, Rise of the Runelords, shook this up by drastically changing the image of the goblin; they were now psychotic savages who were obsessed with fire and scared of dogs and horses. They sang Children of the Corn style songs about death and murder and often filled a role as comic relief in many of the adventures they have been featured in while simultaneously managing to inspire fear and terror in many a party. In my experience, you either love or you hate the new look of goblins. Many classic gamers that I've played with deplore the "new" goblin if only for the art design; big heads, small bodies. Honestly, however, it doesn't bother me much; my gaming generation includes Warcraft's techno-suicidal goblins and Warhammer's hordes of insane, suicidal goblins; next to those, Paizo's take on the goblin fits in rather nicely.

For being limited to several paragraphs of text per monster, the Bestiary gives you everything you'd expect and more flavor-wised. Its a book of monsters that feel threatening and believable; there's nothing too dumb or too far out there unless you're a hard-core medieval traditionalist. 5 /5 Stars.

Texture
When we talk about a book's texture, we're talking about its grammar and layout, among other things. As someone who has actually sat down to try and write a bestiary, let's be clear that if there's one thing I get, its that stat blocks are HARD. They're hard to format, they're hard to standardize, they're even hard to spell check because of the sheer amount of text that a book like the Bestiary has. All of its complex jargon, half of it made of surreal naming conventions. With all this mind, if there's one place that the Bestiary is amazing, its the texture. There is almost no errors of any kind in this document. Perfect grammar. Perfect spelling conventions. Perfect formatting. Everything is perfect.

As you can see in the picture I included, the Bestiary breaks from traditional monster books in that it limits one monster page, with only a few exceptions (mostly animals and familiars). There is extreme attention to detail in the text placement, and its very impressive that the book manages to be as descriptive as it is with as little space as it has; almost every monster is illustrated, after all, so not only are you juggling stat blocks, but you're also juggling them with text descriptions and illustrations. This book is a marvel of editing and layout and nothing less. 5 /5 Stars.

Final Score & Thoughts
Crunch: 5 / 5
Flavor: 5 / 5
Texture: 5 / 5
Final Score: 5 / 5

This book does everything right. It is the shining star by which all monster-based products should be judged. For a first attempt, Paizo smashes their monster book out of the park, past all expectations. It makes me excited to start looking at the future Bestiary products.

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Did kobolds get a boost like goblins did? They are probably the only race that should have had a -LA, assuming you dont include all the dragon effects you could add to them to break them.
Liberty's Edge

James, thanks for being so candid.
James Jacobs wrote:
...but as a preview... gnolls probably don't really make good PCs. They're in the same category as bugbears and lizardfolk... they have racial hit dice and as such are awkward when it comes to pairing up with the core classes. As far as I can remember, the gnoll is relatively unchanged from its SRD incarnation as a result.

It can be solved by removing the racial hit dice...

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Seldriss wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
...but as a preview... gnolls probably don't really make good PCs. They're in the same category as bugbears and lizardfolk... they have racial hit dice and as such are awkward when it comes to pairing up with the core classes. As far as I can remember, the gnoll is relatively unchanged from its SRD incarnation as a result.
It can be solved by removing the racial hit dice...

...which is something we didn't want to do, since gnolls are supposed to be monsters; that's their purpose in the PRPG. Removing their racial HD would also make them a lower CR, and we really tried not to tinker with CR scores since, from an adventure compatibility viewpoint, CR is the most important number in a monster's stat block.

Removing their racial HD DOES make them pretty workable as a player race, though, if that's what you're looking for.
James Jacobs wrote:


...which is something we didn't want to do, since gnolls are supposed to be monsters; that's their purpose in the PRPG. Removing their racial HD would also make them a lower CR, and we really tried not to tinker with CR scores since, from an adventure compatibility viewpoint, CR is the most important number in a monster's stat block.
Removing their racial HD DOES make them pretty workable as a player race, though, if that's what you're looking for.

Absolutely.

And i agree on the CR statement.

Any idea when the pdf might be released?

Almost always a week or two after the book arrives.
Liberty's Edge
James Jacobs wrote:
Removing their racial HD DOES make them pretty workable as a player race, though, if that's what you're looking for.

Okay. Let me ask the master a question here regarding the gnoll. The group is split on ability score mods. I'm for keeping it +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha. Others in the group think this is too powerfil for a player race and it should be scaled back to +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int (or Cha).

Thoughts?

Is there an approximate release date yet. It is almost October.
Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

The book is looking like it is going to hit October. I'll be able to be more specific very shortly, as the print run is currently in transit across the Pacific.

And the ocean, she is a harsh mistress.
Dark Archive
Erik Mona wrote:
And the ocean, she is a harsh mistress.

[RAHeilein]I thought that was the Moon...[/RAHeinlein]

Also I'd like to apologize for my earlier post in this thread.

I can't wait for this book! The previews have been awesome. Another home run for Paizo.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Saurstalk wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Removing their racial HD DOES make them pretty workable as a player race, though, if that's what you're looking for.

Okay. Let me ask the master a question here regarding the gnoll. The group is split on ability score mods. I'm for keeping it +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha. Others in the group think this is too powerfil for a player race and it should be scaled back to +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int (or Cha).

Thoughts?

If you want to make gnolls a PC race, the first thing you should do is probably remove its racial Hit Dice. The second thing to do is to give them a net +2 to ability scores, likely by doing +2/+2/–2. I'd go with +2 Str,+2 Con, and +2 Int, since gnolls are supposed to make good rangers, and Charisma is probably more important for rangers due to their wild empathy (they already have plenty of skill points, so Intelligence isn't as important).

Hmmmmm..... one plus two plus one plus one......

;)
Liberty's Edge
Loopy wrote:

Hmmmmm..... one plus two plus one plus one......

;)

Even if you're right, it would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
Shisumo wrote:
Loopy wrote:

Hmmmmm..... one plus two plus one plus one......

;)

Even if you're right, it would be one plus one plus two plus one, not one plus two plus one plus one.

Clueing in, eh? :)

::humming "Life could be a dream ..."::

I <3 kindred spirits! :D
Liberty's Edge
Loopy wrote:
I <3 kindred spirits! :D

There are 10 kinds of people. Those that understand binary and those that don't!

nice

I know specific questions cant be answered so I will ask a non specific question. Did Outsider lose any traits? A simple yes or not will suffice.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
concerro wrote:
I know specific questions cant be answered so I will ask a non specific question. Did Outsider lose any traits? A simple yes or not will suffice.

There are changes to the outsider traits, yes.

James Jacobs wrote:
mattdroz wrote:

Question on the Skeleton/Zombie (and probably other templates like them).

It says that the base creature loses all class HD and most special abilities (except for any extraordinary special qualities that improve its melee or ranged attacks).

Does this mean that if (for example) a 15th level fighter is made into a Skeleton/Zombie, they would retain the fighter's Weapon Training abilities? Or a ranger's favored enemy/favored terrain?

Yeah; a 15th-level ANYTHING human turned into a skeleton or zombie loses all of his abilities; there's no difference between a skeleton or zombie made from a 1st level human commoner and a 20th-level human wizard. There are (or will be) other templates that allow for 20th level skeletons.

Well there already is, for those who have Book of Vile Darkness, of course, as the Bone and Corpse templates are exactly just that. But I'm sure you meant a Pathfinder version :D

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Razz wrote:
Well there already is, for those who have Book of Vile Darkness, of course, as the Bone and Corpse templates are exactly just that. But I'm sure you meant a Pathfinder version :D

We can't use the bone creature and corpse creature templates, so for our published products, those templates don't exist. We need SOMETHING to replace them.

James Jacobs wrote:
Razz wrote:
Well there already is, for those who have Book of Vile Darkness, of course, as the Bone and Corpse templates are exactly just that. But I'm sure you meant a Pathfinder version :D
We can't use the bone creature and corpse creature templates, so for our published products, those templates don't exist. We need SOMETHING to replace them.

I'm aware of that. Legal stuff and all. Heh.

Now, I've heard a number of mentions of there being work on Bestiary 2. When is that due to be released?

And I dunno if someone here asked already, but what new linnorms are in Bestiary I? Any of them from the 2E Monstrous Compendiums? (like the Frost, Forest, Flame linnorms?)

Does anyone have an official release date yet for the Bestiary? It says October 2009 but I'm unable to find a date more specific than that.

I am a lazy DM and I would love to be able to pull creatures right out of the bestiary rather than needing to convert everything for the adventure that I'm running in mid-october.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Aleriya wrote:
Does anyone have an official release date yet for the Bestiary? It says October 2009 but I'm unable to find a date more specific than that.

Many things can cause delays in customs and delivery, so setting precise dates before things actually arrive in our warehouse generally doesn't work out. If you check the Product schedule page, though, you'll see that we're expecting it in mid-October; that's when we'll start shipping preorders and subscriber copies. The retail release date—and the date we'll begin selling the PDF to non-subscribers—usually follows about two weeks after that, so look for it in stores in early November.

Liberty's Edge

I just looked at my order history and I saw that the expected date is now November, while the product listing still has the release date as October. As I am a bit close to the credit limit I want to make sure of the shipping date, can I get some clarification please?

Wish we had How to Convert Monsters to PathFinder for Dummies guide... ^.^
Paizo Employee CEO
Arda Badgerhill wrote:
I just looked at my order history and I saw that the expected date is now November, while the product listing still has the release date as October. As I am a bit close to the credit limit I want to make sure of the shipping date, can I get some clarification please?

It will almost assuredly ship sometime towards the middle of October, but as Vic said above, we don't have a firm date yet and ANYTHING can happen to delay this since the books aren't in our hands yet. But mid-October for a ship date is our best guess right now.

-Lisa
Lisa Stevens wrote:

It will almost assuredly ship sometime towards the middle of October, but as Vic said above, we don't have a firm date yet and ANYTHING can happen to delay this since the books aren't in our hands yet. But mid-October for a ship date is our best guess right now.

-Lisa

Alright! Happy birthday to ME! Cannot wait for this book.

It looks like quite a few things changed, based on the summon monster lists. For instance, it seems dinosaurs might be coming down in HD or CR or both. And there are more dinosaurs. (Yay for me running the Savage Tide!) And monstrous vermin seem to be replaced by giant spiders and scorpions, possibly with different stats, given the DCs on the poison.

Want this sucker so bad it hurts.
Liberty's Edge

Looks good but why more delays? I have to delay starting my game because this is not out yet. I want to start to run the council of thieves AP, under Pathfinder rules, not 3.5 rules. But some of the monsters in the first part of the AP tell you to look on pages of the beastary for stats.
Dark Archive

Have you checked out the Bestiary previews? I'm pretty sure they feature the monsters that lack stat blocks in the initial Council of Thieves installments.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Ravenmantle wrote:
Have you checked out the Bestiary previews? I'm pretty sure they feature the monsters that lack stat blocks in the initial Council of Thieves installments.

Yep. You can find the Bestiary previews here.

Scarab Sages

Okay, Paizo says it's going to be released in October. Amazon.com says its going to be released in November.

Can somebody give me a confirmed release date that I can go down to my Friendly Local Gaming Store and purchase my copy of the Pathfinder Bestiary?
Liberty's Edge
Tarrintino wrote:

Okay, Paizo says it's going to be released in October. Amazon.com says its going to be released in November.

Can somebody give me a confirmed release date that I can go down to my Friendly Local Gaming Store and purchase my copy of the Pathfinder Bestiary?

Amazon always has a release of at least a week later than the usual release dates Pazio sets if not longer wait time.

They really blew it with the core rule book so maybe they are being very conservative as well.

Sean
Tarrintino wrote:

Okay, Paizo says it's going to be released in October. Amazon.com says its going to be released in November.

Can somebody give me a confirmed release date that I can go down to my Friendly Local Gaming Store and purchase my copy of the Pathfinder Bestiary?

Amazon is notoriously, famously, compulsively way the hell off with release dates on everything from pc games to dvd box sets to books to gaming material. I order things from them all the time, but I never *pre* order. I always default to believing any other source, including tea leaves and animal entrails, over Amazon release dates.

So I'd go with the Paizo explanation a few posts above yours'.
Liberty's Edge
Sothmektri wrote:


Amazon is notoriously, famously, compulsively way the hell off with release dates on everything from pc games to dvd box sets to books to gaming material. I order things from them all the time, but I never *pre* order. I always default to believing any other source, including tea leaves and animal entrails, over Amazon release dates.

So I'd go with the Paizo explanation a few posts above yours'.

I agree re: Amazon and preorders. I learned the hard way with the Core book. There are some people that confuse when Paizo releases books v. when Amazon says it will be available.

I'm lucky enough to have a FLGS that gives a 40% discount for preorders...so I will be picking up the Bestiary cheaper than Amazon and probably before Amazon releases it.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Tarrintino wrote:

Okay, Paizo says it's going to be released in October. Amazon.com says its going to be released in November.

Can somebody give me a confirmed release date that I can go down to my Friendly Local Gaming Store and purchase my copy of the Pathfinder Bestiary?

It won't be *confirmed* until it shows up in our warehouse, because there's still time for stuff to be held up in delivery. However, we currently anticipate that we'll begin shipping subscriber copies and preorders in mid-October, and the current estimated retail release date is November 4.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Githzilla wrote:
I'm lucky enough to have a FLGS that gives a 40% discount for preorders...so I will be picking up the Bestiary cheaper than Amazon and probably before Amazon releases it.

Whoa. Most retailers pay in the neighborhood of 50% of MSRP for their products, so a 40% discount means they're taking very little profit on that preorder. On the other hand, they're taking very little risk, but still... that's a deal that's hard to beat.

I was right on the cusp of subscribing to the PFRPG so I could net a print and pdf version of the rules, when a little math pixie snuck up on me an revealed that the subscription with shipping (and tax since I live in Washington) is *exactly* the same price as buying the $10 pdf online and then purchasing the print book through my local game store.

Pleased to be able to support my local game store without having to pay more for a product, that's exactly what I did.

I tell this story just in case it's not too late to influence plans on Bestiary pdf prices. If the pdf gets priced at $10 too, I can happily support my FLGS with a print purchase and still afford to buy the electric version.

Just in case.
Grand Lodge
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Is the Bestiary going to have split pricing for PDF / Paper?

I'm planing on getting the paper copy at my FLGS, but want to have the PDF as well.

After a looooong break from D&D RPGs I just recently "discovered" Pathfinder. I'm still pouring over the core rule book, but after sampling the tastey previews of this volume, I can't wait to get it. The artwork, the writing, everything about this book has me excited.

I feel a new campaign coming to my tabletop! ;-)
Galnörag wrote:

Is the Bestiary going to have split pricing for PDF / Paper?

I'm planing on getting the paper copy at my FLGS, but want to have the PDF as well.

I'll be wanting the PDF as well too. Just itching to get my copy of the Bestiary, Amazon says the 14th to 19th so here's hoping. I've yet to get anything as of their first estimated delivery date though.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Galnörag wrote:

Is the Bestiary going to have split pricing for PDF / Paper?

I'm planing on getting the paper copy at my FLGS, but want to have the PDF as well.

As with all of our Pathfinder products, the PDF is available for free to subscribers of the appropriate line only, granted when the corresponding subscription copy ships.

The PDF will be available for individual purchase on the retail release date, which is tentatively set at November 4.
Dark Archive

Just checking in on something. Yesterday, the tap on my bank account showed the purchase price for my subscription copy of the Bestiary. In reading upthread, my understanding is that it's still expected 'mid-October'. I have always loved doing business with Paizo directly, and this was highlighted prominently with my Amazon order for the Core book.

But this is, to be honest, slightly unusual behaviour for Paizo. Being charged for something over a week in advance of its shipping expectation?

Could someone let me know if the pending charge on my WaMu is just a pending charge to verify I have cash on hand, or if I'm going to be actually charged well in advance of ship?

Sorry if this is on the wrong thread.

Cheers!
M

*EDIT* I just also noticed, after clicking post, that this has generated order #1241199. I'm still a tiny bit new to this, but I think that order numbers only generate when they start the push to ship?
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Mikhaila Burnett wrote:

Just checking in on something. Yesterday, the tap on my bank account showed the purchase price for my subscription copy of the Bestiary. In reading upthread, my understanding is that it's still expected 'mid-October'. I have always loved doing business with Paizo directly, and this was highlighted prominently with my Amazon order for the Core book.

But this is, to be honest, slightly unusual behaviour for Paizo. Being charged for something over a week in advance of its shipping expectation?

Could someone let me know if the pending charge on my WaMu is just a pending charge to verify I have cash on hand, or if I'm going to be actually charged well in advance of ship?

Sorry if this is on the wrong thread.

Cheers!
M

*EDIT* I just also noticed, after clicking post, that this has generated order #1241199. I'm still a tiny bit new to this, but I think that order numbers only generate when they start the push to ship?

Mikhaila,

You should really post questions like this in the Customer Service forums, as they don't necessarily look in here for such things... but the answer is that when you sign up for a sub and A) it's your only sub or B) you elect to have your subscriptions ship separately, the system generates an order for your starting volume. At that time, your card gets authorized—but not charged—to ensure that your card *can* be charged for that item when it comes time to ship. So everything is functioning properly, and your card has not been charged.
Vic Wertz wrote:


Mikhaila,

You should really post questions like this in the Customer Service forums, as they don't necessarily look in here for such things... but the answer is that when you sign up for a sub and A) it's your only sub or B) you elect to have your subscriptions ship separately, the system generates an order for your starting volume. At that time, your card gets authorized—but not charged—to ensure that your card *can* be charged for that item when it comes time to ship. So everything is functioning properly, and your card has not been charged.

That's two for two today, Vic! Thanks! In future, I will remember all that you have said here today, and again would like to thank you for putting my mind at ease.

I'm still waking up, or I'm pretty sure I would have filed that into the CS forum.

Cheers!
Liberty's Edge

Anyone know when about in October that it will release?
Dark Archive

Ummmm....

Can we have this already!!!!!?!?!??!?!?!?!!!

;)
memorax wrote:
Anyone know when about in October that it will release?

Earlier in the thread, it was stated that the Bestiary was set to release in "Mid October." The release schedule doesn't provide any more detail.

So what're the new linnorms? Other than crag?
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