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
I have thoroughly enjoyed every other Pathfinder book I've bought, but this was a complete let-down. The majority of the entries in this book seem like parts of other monsters have been randomly thrown together and given a silly name.
The remainder are simply taken straight from somewhere else; fiction, books, movies, etc. and given pathfinder rules - really just something a half-competent dungeon master can do in half an hour anyway.
This kind of unimaginative drivel is far below the standard of every other pathfinder book I've read.
Stick to the first bestiary book; this one is pointless.
A Great read through the book head to toe, or front to back.
But a number of Major Fails exist,
1) The Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine are not true to their names, or origins; Ifrit is an other name for Efreet, Oread are a type of mountain nymph, (WoTC got this right in Fiend Folio), sylphs are Air Elementals (again WoTC got it right), and Undine are a type of water nymph.
2) The Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine feel like paizo's version of the Genasi from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and forcefully made to fit into as it's replacement since they don't most likely have rights to Forgotten Realms.
3) Again the same 4 races, have equal CR to an Aasimar and Teifling, but are weaker,i.e. no racial skill bonuses, less total resistance values (Aasimar and Teifling have Three 5 element resistance, they have One 5 element resistance), the only thing they have that Aasimar don't have is Elemental affinity which take me to the next point,
4) Elemental affinity for me is looking at the whole is equaling half its CR value as a waste, and it not class universal and acting as the Favored Class mechanic of 3.X favoring a specific class of specific type with a bonus, So I am house ruling a swap of Elemental affinity for something more appropriate for the race it stands for and that is more class universal.
5) Why are the Aasimar, Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, Undine, and Teifling of type outsider(native) when they are Mostly Human, instead of humanoid(human, Outsider X blood) where X is the outsider's race, and where outsider X blood gives you the ability to use outsider stuff, but also enables effects against that of outsiders on you i.e. bane.
Dispite these major errors, the book is great collection of monsters from previous and coming Paizo works and folklore creatures, but a double checking of the origin of the creature's name, creature types and checking Playable races of equal CR against one another would have made the book much better.
**For reference I did compare the Aasimar and Teifling against the Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine. and checked the Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine in Wikipedia.
If there is the one type of RPG book that nobody ever has enough of, it’s the monster books ! Bestiary 2 for Pathfinder RPG was a no-brainer, so here it is.
===PRESENTATION===
A solid sewn hardcover book with over 320 pages in full color. The artwork is even better than in the first Bestiary. This is perhaps the prettiest monster book in d20 history. There are several navigational aids, including indexes and CR tables. The book is a pleasure to look at and use.
===CONTENT===
Bestiary 2 was certainly a challenge to put together. The first one was rather easy – update as many 3.5 SRD monsters as possible, throw in some sprinkling of retro and Pathfinder critters, voila. Bestiary 2 has set out to meet several ambitious goals:
1. Updating the leftover SRD monsters. Most of them are in Bestiary 2 – Red Reaver, Rast, Tendriculous and several more. A few (Tojanida, Delver) had the dubious honor of being featured in Misfit Monsters Redeemed instead.
2. Presenting as many monsters from Pathfinder Adventure Path and other 3.5 Pathfinder sources as possible. In general, most of the beasties from the first three APs and a few from Legacy of Fire are in Bestiary 2 (including such Paizo staples as Rune Giants, Pugwampis and Lamia Matriarchs).
3. Outsiders. Beings from the great beyond are the main theme of the book, with roughly 1/3 of the monsters coming from the many corners of the multiverse. First off, the leftover 3.5 outsiders are back (hello, Inevitables). Next, the classic groups (demons, devils, angels, archons, elementals) get a few new members such as the classic quasi-elementals.
Then things go fun. Paizo’s reinvention of several outsider groups: Proteans, Aeons and Daemons. Qlippoths, the horrific proto-demons. Agathions (formerly known as Guardinals). All the weird and wonderful beings from The Great Beyond: Fetchlings, Jyoti, Lurkers in the Light and more. This book will make any Planescape fan cry with joy.
4. Filling conceptual niches. The default 3.5 monster gallery is rather short on fey, plants and constructs. Paizo took steps to remedy that with several new monsters of each type.
5. Finally, New Stuff. Paizo adamantly holds to their legend lore and cryptozoology sources, and it shows. Mongolian Death Worm, Charybdis, Scylla, Jabberwocky, Brownie … the list goes on. Oh, and Dragons. Including Neutral Dragons and the very-not-neutral Umbral Dragon and Ravener (Paizo’s Dracolich). Also, many monsters are carried over from Necromancer Games’ Tome of Horrors and Green Ronin’s Book of Fiends, both highly acclaimed 3.5 era bestiaries.
6. Higher CR’s. The Challenge Ratings top at 23 and there are several high-level monsters to challenge experienced groups.
7. Hippogriff. Just that. And how’s that !
The monsters are consistently presented in 1 page = 1 monster format, making the book far easier to use than the 3.5 MM. The universal monster rules system is here as well, with all the common special rules placed in one chapter. Monster advancement now features CRs up to 25.
===CONCLUSION===
This book easily matches, and in some areas (artwork !) comes ahead of Bestiary 1. An excellent addition to any 3.5 library. You won’t be disappointed !
This Bestiary 2, like all other supplemental monster books, suffers from a slight decline in both creativity and production value from its predecessor--though to be fair, its predecessor set the bar so high that a "decline" still produces a solid product.
On one hand, I am very happy to see some monsters from earlier editions converted into Pathfinder (inevitables! juju zombies!), and some of the new original monsters are downright inspiring (though many for other game systems like d20 Modern, oddly enough).
Unfortunately, some crossed the admittedly thin line between "adaptation of familiar folklore" and "ripping off pop culture" or even "bordering on copyright infringement". The Blob? The "Ravener"? A sarlaac? And a Pokemon? Really?
There were also a couple of instances of some sloppy writing, such as the Korred description's "They resemble small, wild-haired humanoids with wild, knotted hair"--not a major sticking point, but I've come to expect better from an official Paizo product.
In all, the Bestiary 2 is absolutely worth the $10 for the PDF, but I'd have a hard time justifying $40 for the hardcover.
Here's our third hardcover Pathfinder RPG book for the year! The first Bestiary was an excellent book, but due to spacial limitations it left us hungry for more. Well here's our solution!
Kytons weren't devils when originally introduced (or at least they weren't in 2e Planescape's Planes of Law box set, I dunno if they ever were around before that.) The change just returns them to the status they held before, denizens of Hell but not true devils.
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Kvantum wrote:
Kytons weren't devils when originally introduced (or at least they weren't in 2e Planescape's Planes of Law box set, I dunno if they ever were around before that.) The change just returns them to the status they held before, denizens of Hell but not true devils.
Ah ok, I used to ignore Planescape back then, because I found the original box set offensive in its tone and embarrassing in trying to be cool with its awful "cant" and DiTerlizzi art.
Ah ok, I used to ignore Planescape back then, because I found the original box set offensive in its tone and embarrassing in trying to be cool with its awful "cant" and DiTerlizzi art.
Not all of us can afford to buy every Pathfinder product. If Paizo put out bi-yearly monstrous compendiums I'd do flips.
You could always pull back your Blu-Ray addiction. ;)
I'm pretty much at where I want to be with it now. And anyway, as not having a gaming group, I have no need to collect every issue of every adventure path.
Kytons weren't devils when originally introduced (or at least they weren't in 2e Planescape's Planes of Law box set, I dunno if they ever were around before that.) The change just returns them to the status they held before, denizens of Hell but not true devils.
Actually, while there certainly ARE kytons in Hell... their main plane is the plane of Shadow in Golarion. But yeah... the weren't devils in 2nd edition when they were initially created, and even in 3rd edition, even though they were CALLED "chain devils," just look at their stats. They're not BUILT like devils. They don't have any devil traits. No spell-like abilities. They're like retrievers and bebiliths (two others who we moved out into their own entries).
Ah ok, I used to ignore Planescape back then, because I found the original box set offensive in its tone and embarrassing in trying to be cool with its awful "cant" and DiTerlizzi art.
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The official Bestiary 2 announcement, very, very NICE!
I am glad that Wayne Reynolds is doing the cover art for this one as well.
(Since there wasn't a Bestiary 1 promo poster, any chance for a Bestiary 2 promo poster?) Pretty Please...?
BTW James... very glad that hippogriffs were mentioned, as well as proteans, and the aeons too. (After hearing talk of the True Neutral outsiders for a while, its nice to have a name, and knowing we'll have much more in about 8 months).
That fellow? A sea life curator? Just use stats for an NPC Expert with Knowledge (Nature - sea life), and use the page-space for something more useful, such as a giant sea crab maybe?
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