Go beyond goblins with an army of fantasy's most fearsome foes! Bestiary 2 presents hundreds of different creatures for use in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Within this collection of creatures you'll find undead dragons and mischievous gremlins, shrieking banshees and unstoppable titans, the infamous jabberwock, and so much more! Yet not all these monsters need to be foes, as new breeds of otherworldly guardians, living shadows, and vampires all might take up adventure's call. In addition, new rules for customizing and advancing monsters and an expanded glossary of creature abilities ensure that you'll be prepared to challenge your heroes wherever adventure takes them!
The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 is the second indispensable volume of monsters for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and serves as a companion to the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook and Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. 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 320-page Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 includes:
More than 300 different monsters
Creatures both new and familiar, drawing upon the best-known beasts of legend, literature, and Pathfinder RPG adventures
Challenges for any adventure and every level of play
Hosts of new templates and variants, including simple templates for on-the-fly creature customization
Numerous lists of monsters to aid in navigation, including lists by Challenge Rating, monster type, and habitat
New rules for creating and running high-level menaces
Expanded universal monster rules to simplify special attacks, defenses, and qualities
New familiars, animal companions, and other allies
As its name implies, Bestiary 2 is the second full-length collection of creatures for Pathfinder. It's a big (320 page) book, and introduces, according to the back cover, over 300 different monsters. The vast majority of creatures get one page each (art, stat block, description), though there are a few pages with two monsters and a few monsters that get double-page spreads. In format, it's very similar to the first bestiary collection. Obviously, I can't review all the monsters individually, but I would like to list some of the creatures or new creature types that jumped out at me:
* Aeons: Embodiments of neutrality striving to maintain universal balance, these cosmic entities are hard to conceptualise but interesting and important for planar travel. Several varieties are included here. I particularly liked "bythos", monitors of disruptions to time or space.
* Agathions: Beastlike outsiders native to the neutral good plane Nirvana. The theme works surprisingly well, with each type having a distinct role. I've never really used these, but should.
* Aranea: Super creepy pic!
* Athach: Dumb, bizarre arm monster with no background.
* Crypt Thing: Special teleport ability is pretty cool.
* Daemons: Outsiders with a special desire to consume mortal souls. Still too similar to "demons" and I don't really see what distinct niche they fill.
* Primal Dragons: Elemental-themed dragons plus a shadow plane-themed umbral dragon.
* Elementals: Four new ones here (mud, lightning, magma, and ice)
* Elemental (playable) races: Ifrits, undines, etc., are introduced here.
* Giants: Four new ones, including rune and taiga.
* Golems: Six new ones, with adamantine and clockwork the best.
* Gremlins: New creature type, a good and suitably annoying addition to the game.
* Inevitables: Lawful Neutral outsiders implacable in their goals. Each has a good nice.
* Lycanthropes: Three new ones, with wereboars and weretigers having good, scary art.
* Megafauna: Four new ones.
* Nightshade: Introduced as a creature type, with a really cool description.
* Proteans: Chaotic neutral outsider type. Not particularly interesting, and not obvious how to use well in a game.
* Qlippoths: Pre-demon residents of the Abyss, they hate demons and mortals whose sins form them. A cool concept.
Generally speaking, there are a lot of high-CR and a lot of gargantuan- and colossal- sized creatures. The book fills in a lot of the classics that weren't included in the first collection, and I also noticed a lot that appeared in Rise of the Runelords (including art reproduction). However, there are also a lot I've never heard of before despite gaming for a couple of decades. A good mix! Overall, an excellent, high-quality expansion to a GM's toolkit.
This book so far has been my favorite purchase of ALL of my RPG books.
I don't know if I can explain the fervor I have for this book but I will try.
So first of all there is the cover, the ever feared Jabberwock(y) of Lewis Carroll legend. Having a tough SOB (CR23) on the cover is the best way to start things off I think. Lets me know im in for a ride with this book.
While the first Bestiary was the standard array of Monsters we have all come to know and love through years of them being reprinted for games the Bestiary 2 is where Paizo took off on its own with a whole slew of new monster and just general new ideas for monsters. A handful of new extraplanar monsters of various alignments were added such as The Aeons, Qlippoths and Daemons all have decently written history and offer a lot of inspiration for using them in games.
The two things I love best about this book are as follows.
One: New dragons, and not just more "coloured or metal" dragons, but a new type of dragon altogether: Primal Dragons. These bad boys have probably the best art in the whole book (magma, im looking at you) and they make for a nice change from the everyday.
Two: The art, while the art in Bestiary 1 is GOOD, its not near as sharp, crisp, and detailed as this book. The colours, the textures, the everything, all done very well. You will not be disappointed when looking through this book.
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.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFSPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER
WHEN YOU SEE THE WHITE WHALE
BREAK YOUR BACKS AND CRACK YOUR OARS MEN
IF YOU WISH TO PREVAIL
THIS IVORY LEG IS WHAT PROPELS ME
HARPOONS THRUST IN THE SKY
AIM DIRECTLY FOR HIS CROOKED BROW
AND LOOK HIM STRAIGHT IN THE EYE
Hey, Mek'm'liis appears to have made his second cover illustration (being notable as a keketar without a crown, which the one on this awesome cover lacks). I'm going to be teasing Reynolds about this even as I wish I could afford the original painting.
;)
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
Todd Stewart wrote:
Hey, Mek'm'liis appears to have made his second cover illustration (being notable as a keketar without a crown, which the one on this awesome cover lacks). I'm going to be teasing Reynolds about this even as I wish I could afford the original painting.
;)
If you could afford it and I could too, we might have to thumb-wrestle for it!
The pugwampi is a kind of gremlin. A close look at the cover, though, should reveal that there's actually THREE types of gremlin on the cover; a pugwampi, a vexgit, and a jinkin.
Hey, Mek'm'liis appears to have made his second cover illustration (being notable as a keketar without a crown, which the one on this awesome cover lacks). I'm going to be teasing Reynolds about this even as I wish I could afford the original painting.
;)
If you're going to tease anyone, tease me for not making sure that the crown goes in.
And to be honest... I think they look better without their hats; sometimes, the artist knows better, in other words, when it comes to how monsters look. Something like a rune-shaped crown of energy just doesn't always translate well into art is all... (and this is a case where the art causes revisions to the monster, I believe—while the proteans will retain their energy crowns, they'll likely be revised in the Bestiary 2 so that they're not ALWAYS on... we'll see.).
The lesser jabberwock is a CR 20 Chaotic Evil Dragon (Air, Fire) that comes from the First World in Sound of a Thousand Screams. It has whiffles, burbles, shoots eye rays, and is generally awesome; it is also, of course, weak to Vorpal weapons, as it should be.
RAGE aside, I am looking forward to seeing how the Jabberwocky has been interpreted here. Is it a dragon? An aberration? Fey?
"Tanes... Goliaths of war and madness dreamt and stitched into being by the eldest, the most feared of a group of notorious fey known as the Twisted." (From Skinsaw Murders)
Hey, Mek'm'liis appears to have made his second cover illustration (being notable as a keketar without a crown, which the one on this awesome cover lacks). I'm going to be teasing Reynolds about this even as I wish I could afford the original painting.
;)
If you're going to tease anyone, tease me for not making sure that the crown goes in.
And to be honest... I think they look better without their hats; sometimes, the artist knows better, in other words, when it comes to how monsters look. Something like a rune-shaped crown of energy just doesn't always translate well into art is all... (and this is a case where the art causes revisions to the monster, I believe—while the proteans will retain their energy crowns, they'll likely be revised in the Bestiary 2 so that they're not ALWAYS on... we'll see.).
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFSPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER
WHEN YOU SEE THE WHITE WHALE
BREAK YOUR BACKS AND CRACK YOUR OARS MEN
IF YOU WISH TO PREVAIL
THIS IVORY LEG IS WHAT PROPELS ME
HARPOONS THRUST IN THE SKY
AIM DIRECTLY FOR HIS CROOKED BROW
AND LOOK HIM STRAIGHT IN THE EYE
If you're going to tease anyone, tease me for not making sure that the crown goes in.
And to be honest... I think they look better without their hats; sometimes, the artist knows better, in other words, when it comes to how monsters look. Something like a rune-shaped crown of energy just doesn't always translate well into art is all... (and this is a case where the art causes revisions to the monster, I believe—while the proteans will retain their energy crowns, they'll likely be revised in the Bestiary 2 so that they're not ALWAYS on... we'll see.).
Crown or not, I'm still tickled pink that something I created made it onto the cover of Bestiary 2. :D
And yeah, plenty of ways to rationalize it, such as the cloud/crown/halo of swirling symbols isn't always manifested, or it temporarily blinks out for a while after they use one or another of their powers, etc. I would tell you to make something awesome in the flavor text, but I've found that's oftentimes a redundant thing to ask of you. ;)
Or I could complain and whine till you give me another project to work on, or somesuch ploy to get in on the fun.
If you're going to tease anyone, tease me for not making sure that the crown goes in.
And to be honest... I think they look better without their hats; sometimes, the artist knows better, in other words, when it comes to how monsters look. Something like a rune-shaped crown of energy just doesn't always translate well into art is all... (and this is a case where the art causes revisions to the monster, I believe—while the proteans will retain their energy crowns, they'll likely be revised in the Bestiary 2 so that they're not ALWAYS on... we'll see.).
Crown or not, I'm still tickled pink that something I created made it onto the cover of Bestiary 2. :D
And yeah, plenty of ways to rationalize it, such as the cloud/crown/halo of swirling symbols isn't always manifested, or it temporarily blinks out for a while after they use one or another of their powers, etc. I would tell you to make something awesome in the flavor text, but I've found that's oftentimes a redundant thing to ask of you. ;)
Or I could complain and whine till you give me another project to work on, or somesuch ploy to get in on the fun.
What do you mean, Books of Damned vol.3: Daemons has not been assigned to Todd yet ? JACOBS AND MONA YOU SLACKERS !
Well, now that the Jabberwock features prominently on both the cover of the Bestiary II and as a key encounter in the latest Adventure Path, I can't wait to see the miniature.
There's no reason BotD III (if we choose to do it) has to be about daemons. It could instead be about:
rakshasa
divs
asuras
demodands
qlippoth
oni
In any event, If you DO want to see a BotD III (about ANY fiend race) the best way to let us know is to ask for it like you're doing, so that's a start! :-)
For me, this is just a given (that there will be a Celestial book or books), but "Good Guy" monster books never sell as well as the "Bad Guy" ones. At least that's what they say. I haven't actually seen a "Good Guy" monster book in many years.
Aye, you're probably right. Using celestials as more than just planar allies has always appealed to me and I'd like to see such a book eventually. I understand if it's not a top priority for Paizo, though.
The pugwampi is a kind of gremlin. A close look at the cover, though, should reveal that there's actually THREE types of gremlin on the cover; a pugwampi, a vexgit, and a jinkin.
Plus the jabberwock and the protean. Good times!
OK, that's at least four monsters from a previous AP revised. I think I heard somewhere in this thread that the Citizens of Leng are confirmed as inclusion? Personally I'd be tickled pink if the Gug made it in as well.
There's no reason BotD III (if we choose to do it) has to be about daemons. It could instead be about:
rakshasa
divs
asuras
demodands
qlippoth
oni
In any event, If you DO want to see a BotD III (about ANY fiend race) the best way to let us know is to ask for it like you're doing, so that's a start! :-)
Somewhat selfishly, I vote for divs with daemons being a close second (or first, really). Gotta love NE outsiders.
I'd love to see a book on each of the different fiends! I do think that (depending on preference of Paizo) a couple could be combined, but no matter what
Now, I agree with Cappadocius's idea of keeping Oni until Tian Xia is more explored (fitting with the theme and all). Mind you, I like my themes all to sit together nicely in a row (my bookshelf is evidence of that!). So, BoTD Oni should be near the Tian Xia release to fit more awesome together.
Ravenmantle:
I absolutely agree on the celestials book as well. I do think that they should wait until teh Daemons book has come out. Then I definitely vote to do a trio of books on celestials, but what to name them?
If we can fit this between Tian Xia and the BotD III: Daemons, that would be wicked cool. However, we do have to let them sleep sometime, otherwise they might send the Jabberwock after us! (I kid I kid!)
BTW:
James, thank you for such a wonderfully quick reply and heartening reply for someone pining for a book of Daemons for quite a while!
It's a natural resource that used to exist in great quantity in the early and middle 20th century that, unfortunately, was all but used up and depleted once the highly reactive new element "INTERNETIUM" was discovered in the mid to late 80s.
This is the pricelessness of the Paizo messageboards at its best. You've just created about 1,000 forum taglines here.
No wonder James' avatar is a T-Rex, not only does he create monsters, he IS one!
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
cappadocius wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
oni
I'd hope you'd put the Oni book off until Paizo's "Year of the Chrysanthemum" when we learn all about Tian Xia!
Well, considering there have been quite strong hints about that being 2011...
For myself, it makes sense for Daemons to be the next one of these, as they are the last remaining Evil exemplars. It seems sensible to finish them off before expanding on other ones.
Green Ronin had a book full of lovely devils, Demons and Daemons that would just lovely to use in this respect. Heck part of it was even written by Erik Mona himself. But a book just on Oni would be nice.