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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!

Available Formats

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary is available as:

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

Errata
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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Things of power are widely feared. And truly, this is a thing of power.
Didn't Salma Hayek recently save an African nation with one of hers? Who knows what a marilith's might do?
Dark Archive
Callous Jack wrote:
Woo! Nice cover!

Wayne's an amazing artist! Sean, thank him on my behalf, too! (BTW, is he *really* your brother?!?)

Sovereign Court
James Jacobs wrote:


We wanted to be able to sell the book in USA bookstores, and in the USA, a lot of people have a deep, overwhelming fear of the nipple. Stories of nipple sightings are front page news, after all!

but always manages to conceal the naughty bits with conveniently placed weapons/arms/dead adventurers.

Chances of malfunction are just too great.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Kata. the ..... wrote:
A long long time ago ... (oh OK, it was only November), Vic Wertz (whose "new" avatar is not nearly as good as the old one) said that plans on including this in the subs had not been decided. Is there any news on this, or being that release is still 5 months away, is his comment still "official".

This will be the second book in the subscription, after the core rulebook.

Liberty's Edge
Vic Wertz wrote:
Kata. the ..... wrote:
A long long time ago ... (oh OK, it was only November), Vic Wertz (whose "new" avatar is not nearly as good as the old one) said that plans on including this in the subs had not been decided. Is there any news on this, or being that release is still 5 months away, is his comment still "official".
This will be the second book in the subscription, after the core rulebook.

I hope we'll get an email advertising the PRPG Subscription.

seekerofshadowlight wrote:
well as someone pointed out she could use the support to stay off back problems

Bah. That only happens to feeble mortal backs.

James Jacobs wrote:


I'm not sure where we said each critter gets two pages.

In the version of the text up there in the product description that I misread.

To my defense, the innovative design threw me off track, making me overread the full-page thing.

James Jacobs wrote:


We wanted to be able to sell the book in USA bookstores, and in the USA, a lot of people have a deep, overwhelming fear of the nipple. Stories of nipple sightings are front page news, after all!

You know, for computer games, there are often several versions (at least two) - the normal one, and one for a market where there is an excess of people overly sensitive to something that is then taken out of the game (often for really ludicrous versions).

Any chance Paizo will do that, too? One version for the prudes from the US, and one for grownups from everywhere else? ;-D

Hurumph. September in the America means in the shops October in Blighty! I'll have to dig out that quantum manipulator from wherever I buried it in t'garage...

Eh by gum.
Silver Crusade
Mairkurion {tm} wrote:

Things of power are widely feared. And truly, this is a thing of power.

Didn't Salma Hayek recently save an African nation with one of hers? Who knows what a marilith's might do?

mmm. Salma Hayek. Drool.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Andrew Turner wrote:
I hope we'll get an email advertising the PRPG Subscription.

I hope you will too.

Dark Archive
James Jacobs wrote:
We wanted to be able to sell the book in USA bookstores, and in the USA, a lot of people have a deep, overwhelming fear of the nipple. Stories of nipple sightings are front page news, after all!

You could publish the book with the bared Marilith but put a sticker in form of a bra on the possibly offending bits.

Now the "naugthy" DMs can enjoy the nippled Marilith (btw. does she also have six of them? I mean she has six arms after all...). And the more fashion minded can see her in a bra.
Maybe even publish collectible bra's for her.
Might be a hit on the RPG market.
James Jacobs wrote:
Stories of nipple sightings are front page news, after all!

Sounds like a Bestiary entry waiting to happen ...

Liberty's Edge
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I'm drooling over this cover. :)

Hey!

I usually pontificate and don't actually have a question....

This time, let's call it a question.

One thing that has concerned me is that I'm running some 3.5 Paizo AP's. Right now, I convert monsters as best as I am able to PFRPG. When the finished rules come out, I'll convert fully to the Pathfinder rules.

When the Bestiary comes out, I'll be able to plug in most of the common monsters.

However, what about the monsters that are not in the Bestiary?

Like ol' Muck Graul from Pathfinder #3? He's a tendriculous. He might not make the cut in the book.

If that's true, I won't be mad.. but how will I convert him to PFRPG?

I guess I'm wondering if there will be anything (like and appendix) to help convert 3.5 monsters to PFRPG. Backward compatibility and all.

Didn't they say something about posting some guidelines for conversion? Or including it in the PfRPG? I'm pretty sure I'm kind of remembering something...
Paizo Employee Creative Director

We'll be releasing a conversion guide to aid in converting monsters. And said conversion is going to be pretty easy anyway...
James Jacobs wrote:
We'll be releasing a conversion guide to aid in converting monsters. And said conversion is going to be pretty easy anyway...

Great!

Contributor
Asgetrion wrote:
Wayne's an amazing artist! Sean, thank him on my behalf, too! (BTW, is he *really* your brother?!?)

Depends on what you mean by "really."

Do we have the same mother or father? No.
Do we both like gaming? Yes.
Do I think he is a cool cat, and vice versa? Yes (I hope!)
Do we both like candy? Yes. :)
Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Asgetrion wrote:
Wayne's an amazing artist! Sean, thank him on my behalf, too! (BTW, is he *really* your brother?!?)

Depends on what you mean by "really."

Do we have the same mother or father? No.
Do we both like gaming? Yes.
Do I think he is a cool cat, and vice versa? Yes (I hope!)
Do we both like candy? Yes. :)

The mental imagery of you two doing a "Great Cornholio" at Paizocon '09 has me in stitches of laughter... :P

Huh...and I thought what was at issue was what was meant by "brother"?
Can't believe SKR suckered you guys on April Fools...
Mairkurion {tm} wrote:

Huh...and I thought what was at issue was what was meant by "brother"?

Can't believe SKR suckered you guys on April Fools...

We shall sucker he and Wayne into the Great Cornholio Sugar-enduced Bender @ PaizoCON '09... :shakesfist*:

Silver Crusade

Once this product comes out will you still be using supplements like the Advanced Bestiary in your adventures. Or will this book have all that we will need.

I'd bet my family that there will still be bestiaries with shiny new golarion and otherwise beasties!

Many of the old ones might get updated in bestiary 2!
Turin the Mad wrote:
Mairkurion {tm} wrote:

Huh...and I thought what was at issue was what was meant by "brother"?

Can't believe SKR suckered you guys on April Fools...
We shall sucker he and Wayne into the Great Cornholio Sugar-enduced Bender @ PaizoCON '09... :shakesfist*:

You make me so sad I can't come...maybe 2010 will be better...A Paizo Odyssey, if you will.

Paizo Employee Creative Director
brent norton wrote:
Once this product comes out will you still be using supplements like the Advanced Bestiary in your adventures. Or will this book have all that we will need.

We'll be VERY likely to be doing a Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, and so on. But we'll CERTAINLY continue to use other d20 products like Book of Fiends, Tome of Horrors, Necropolis, Advanced Bestairy, etc. in our adventures. That's part of the reason we wanted to stay compatible with 3.5, after all!

RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
James Jacobs wrote:
brent norton wrote:
Once this product comes out will you still be using supplements like the Advanced Bestiary in your adventures. Or will this book have all that we will need.
We'll be VERY likely to be doing a Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, and so on. But we'll CERTAINLY continue to use other d20 products like Book of Fiends, Tome of Horrors, Necropolis, Advanced Bestairy, etc. in our adventures. That's part of the reason we wanted to stay compatible with 3.5, after all!

Which Necropolis, specifically, is this, if I may ask? I'm trying to get in either PEF or, if I'm very lucky, hard copy, the different books ya'll are using :)

Dark Archive
James Jacobs wrote:
brent norton wrote:
Once this product comes out will you still be using supplements like the Advanced Bestiary in your adventures. Or will this book have all that we will need.
We'll be VERY likely to be doing a Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, and so on. But we'll CERTAINLY continue to use other d20 products like Book of Fiends, Tome of Horrors, Necropolis, Advanced Bestairy, etc. in our adventures. That's part of the reason we wanted to stay compatible with 3.5, after all!

Wow, that's great to hear... will you do (3E) PHB 2/Complete X-style of books as well? Maybe ste... I mean, er, *rewrite* some of the feats and spells for PF RPG? I personally wouldn't mind more options (Charging Smite or Bounding Assault being "Pathfinderized", for example), as long as there no added "sub-systems" or hundreds upon hundreds of prestige classes. :)

Dark Archive
Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Asgetrion wrote:
Wayne's an amazing artist! Sean, thank him on my behalf, too! (BTW, is he *really* your brother?!?)

Depends on what you mean by "really."

Do we have the same mother or father? No.
Do we both like gaming? Yes.
Do I think he is a cool cat, and vice versa? Yes (I hope!)
Do we both like candy? Yes. :)

Aah, you bald and nasty man... you actually managed to trick me! ;P

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Gamer Girrl wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
brent norton wrote:
Once this product comes out will you still be using supplements like the Advanced Bestiary in your adventures. Or will this book have all that we will need.
We'll be VERY likely to be doing a Bestiary 2, Bestiary 3, and so on. But we'll CERTAINLY continue to use other d20 products like Book of Fiends, Tome of Horrors, Necropolis, Advanced Bestairy, etc. in our adventures. That's part of the reason we wanted to stay compatible with 3.5, after all!
Which Necropolis, specifically, is this, if I may ask? I'm trying to get in either PEF or, if I'm very lucky, hard copy, the different books ya'll are using :)

Necropolis is a Gary Gygax mega-adventrue that was recently updated to 3.5 by necromancer games.

The best place to look for the books we use is in each product's OGL. The end of the OGL lists all the books.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Asgetrion wrote:
Wow, that's great to hear... will you do (3E) PHB 2/Complete X-style of books as well? Maybe ste... I mean, er, *rewrite* some of the feats and spells for PF RPG? I personally wouldn't mind more options (Charging Smite or Bounding Assault being "Pathfinderized", for example), as long as there no added "sub-systems" or hundreds upon hundreds of prestige classes. :)

We probably will... but not nearly as often or as many times as WotC did.

Silver Crusade

I have to admit, this is the release I am most looking forward to right now.

I'm also happy mariliths got their groove back. 3E presented a cool look for them, but I prefer it as a variant rather than as the standard.

Every monster getting at least a full page makes me even happier though. That's one thing I really missed in the shift from 2E to 3E.
Contributor
Asgetrion wrote:
Aah, you bald and nasty man... you actually managed to trick me! ;P

The funny thing is, I wasn't intending it as an April fool's joke--Wayne and I have been calling each other "brother" for years. :p

What's really funny is that Carnivorous Bean and Sean Bean are brothers.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Mikaze wrote:

I have to admit, this is the release I am most looking forward to right now.

I'm also happy mariliths got their groove back. 3E presented a cool look for them, but I prefer it as a variant rather than as the standard.

Every monster getting at least a full page makes me even happier though. That's one thing I really missed in the shift from 2E to 3E.

Again... not every monster gets a full page. They all get at least HALF a page, with the vast majority getting 1 page and a few getting 2 pages.

Silver Crusade
James Jacobs wrote:
Mikaze wrote:

I have to admit, this is the release I am most looking forward to right now.

I'm also happy mariliths got their groove back. 3E presented a cool look for them, but I prefer it as a variant rather than as the standard.

Every monster getting at least a full page makes me even happier though. That's one thing I really missed in the shift from 2E to 3E.

Again... not every monster gets a full page. They all get at least HALF a page, with the vast majority getting 1 page and a few getting 2 pages.

Ah. That's cool though, some of those monsters are jerks anyway.

James Jacobs wrote:
Mikaze wrote:

I have to admit, this is the release I am most looking forward to right now.

I'm also happy mariliths got their groove back. 3E presented a cool look for them, but I prefer it as a variant rather than as the standard.

Every monster getting at least a full page makes me even happier though. That's one thing I really missed in the shift from 2E to 3E.

Again... not every monster gets a full page. They all get at least HALF a page, with the vast majority getting 1 page and a few getting 2 pages.

Amd how many pages are SILVER Dragons getting, James?

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Sharoth wrote:
Amd how many pages are SILVER Dragons getting, James?

1) We don't know yet, since we're still working on the RPG and haven't really focused on the Bestiary y et.

2) Even if we DID know, it's too early to reveal concrete info about the book. It's still months away.
James Jacobs wrote:
Sharoth wrote:
Amd how many pages are SILVER Dragons getting, James?

1) We don't know yet, since we're still working on the RPG and haven't really focused on the Bestiary y et.

2) Even if we DID know, it's too early to reveal concrete info about the book. It's still months away.

~sighs~ Did Heathy, KC, Sebastian and all the rest bribe you to give me, errrrr......., us an half a page?

~GRINS~

P.S. - I was jsut messing with you, James. I figured that you had not quite gotten to the MM yet.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
Sharoth wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Sharoth wrote:
Amd how many pages are SILVER Dragons getting, James?

1) We don't know yet, since we're still working on the RPG and haven't really focused on the Bestiary y et.

2) Even if we DID know, it's too early to reveal concrete info about the book. It's still months away.

~sighs~ Did Heathy, KC, Sebastian and all the rest bribe you to give me, errrrr......., us an half a page?

~GRINS~

P.S. - I was jsut messing with you, James. I figured that you had not quite gotten to the MM yet.

However long the silver dragons are, the t-rex's will have one line more ;}

Dark Archive
Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Asgetrion wrote:
Aah, you bald and nasty man... you actually managed to trick me! ;P
The funny thing is, I wasn't intending it as an April fool's joke--Wayne and I have been calling each other "brother" for years. :p

Alright, I'll forgive you... but just because you did such an amazing job on 'Gods and Magic'! ;)

(Seriously, that book is as good and well-written as the three FR "deity books", and I'm going to get a huge amount of use from it!)
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I kind of liked the idea that Pathfinder might, in whole or in part, adopt the Iconic Bestiary critters:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2118&it=1

Link

Paizo Employee Creative Director

I don't really have much of an interest in including replacement monsters for those missing from the SRD. I'd rather spend those pages supporting monsters that ARE in the SRD, or ARE available via sources like the Tome of Horrors in that we can support the monsters themselves, not their doppelgangers.

New monsters (either those based on myth or on literature or entirely brand new) will also be showing up in the Bestiary line. Some of those will fill niches that things like mind flayers and githyanki filled, but I'd rather see those niches filled organically and logically than try to duplicate them on purpose.

The intellect devourer, for example, fills the mind flayer role quite nicely in Golarion. And the denizens of Leng (see Pathfinder #6) make a pretty nifty replacement for the Githyanki. Yet both of those monsters are far more than mere "replacements." They're cool monsters with tradition and weight and history to them... unique tradition and history TO them. They have a reason to exist beyond replacing missing monster niches, and don't NEED to replace a monster niche to be justified. That the can fill said niches is secondary. Cool and neat, but secondary.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32
James Jacobs wrote:
I don't really have much of an interest in including replacement monsters for those missing from the SRD. I'd rather spend those pages supporting monsters that ARE in the SRD, or ARE available via sources like the Tome of Horrors in that we can support the monsters themselves, not their doppelgangers.

Does this mean that the Proteans won't be in the Bestiary? What about Daemons?

Dark Archive
James Jacobs wrote:
Asgetrion wrote:
Wow, that's great to hear... will you do (3E) PHB 2/Complete X-style of books as well? Maybe ste... I mean, er, *rewrite* some of the feats and spells for PF RPG? I personally wouldn't mind more options (Charging Smite or Bounding Assault being "Pathfinderized", for example), as long as there no added "sub-systems" or hundreds upon hundreds of prestige classes. :)
We probably will... but not nearly as often or as many times as WotC did.

I'd kiss you, James, if you were an attractive female... so I'll just *hug* you instead! ;)

Sovereign Court

I'm just sad there won't be a PFRG version of the Hook Horror, one of my favorite monsters.
:(
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Ross Byers wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
I don't really have much of an interest in including replacement monsters for those missing from the SRD. I'd rather spend those pages supporting monsters that ARE in the SRD, or ARE available via sources like the Tome of Horrors in that we can support the monsters themselves, not their doppelgangers.
Does this mean that the Proteans won't be in the Bestiary? What about Daemons?

We aren't ready to list what will and won't be in the Bestiary yet. But the majority of what isn't in Bestiary I will probably end up in Bestiary II.

Hi James,

I don't know of this question has been answered elsewhere in this or another related thread, and I don't have time to sift through hundreds of posts, so please forgive me if the question is redundant...

1) This may be too late for the current Bestiary (hope not!), but in addition to alphabetical and CR listings of monsters, would it be possible for Paizo to include terrain, climate, and creature type listings of monsters? I'm a big fan of Expeditious Retreat Press' Monster Geographica books, and liked the way they used those additional categories (exception of climate) to list the contents of the book... I know that saves me alot of time during adventure design.

Thanks in advance for your time... looking forward to the release of the book!
Paizo Employee Creative Director
TwiceBorn wrote:
1) This may be too late for the current Bestiary (hope not!), but in addition to alphabetical and CR listings of monsters, would it be possible for Paizo to include terrain, climate, and creature type listings of monsters? I'm a big fan of Expeditious Retreat Press' Monster Geographica books, and liked the way they used those additional categories (exception of climate) to list the contents of the book... I know that saves me alot of time during adventure design.

The monsters will be presented in alphabetical order, and that includes animals and vermin. Beyond that, I hope to be able to include an index of monsters, a list of monsters by CR, a list of monsters by creature type, and a list of monsters by terrain/climate. I'd also love to include some wandering monster tables; that actually might be a fun way to list the monsters by terrain/climate, actually. How much ROOM we'll have to do all this... I'm not sure yet. If we have to cut something, we'll probably cut the terrain/climate lists first, then the CR list, and so on.

Regardless of what we do with that whole thing, it'd also be cool to create an interactive list of monsters on paizo.com that combines name, page number, climate/terrain, CR, type, and all that in one big spreadsheet that can be sorted easy. Of course, that's also something that any fan with a spreadsheet program and some free time can create anyway, so chances are good that there'll be SOMETHING out there to satisfy that need even if we can't get those tables into the book... but I'm gonna be trying real hard to get them in the book anyway.
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