Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 3 (OGL)

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 3 (OGL)
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Test your courage against the most infamous foes of myth and legend! Bestiary 3 presents hundreds of monsters for use in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Within this book you’ll find demiliches and demodands, grave knights and goblin snakes, norns and nephilim, imperial dragons and unfettered eidolons, and so much more! Yet not every creature needs to be an enemy, as winged garudas, crafty tanukis, and leonine lammasus all wait to join your party and answer the call of glory.

The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 3 is the third 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 bestselling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.

The Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 3 includes:

  • More than 300 different monsters
  • Classic terrors from myth and literature, from the frumious bandersnatch and the righteous valkyrie to the cunning dybbuk and elusive kappa
  • Hordes of new creatures you can construct, grow, or summon to aid your party in its adventures
  • New player-friendly races to let you adventure as canny ratfolk, genie-blooded sulis, and more
  • New familiars, animal companions, and other allies
  • Challenges for any adventure and every level of play
  • Some of the strangest and most beloved creatures from fantasy roleplaying history and the Pathfinder campaign setting
  • Hosts of new templates and variants
  • Appendices to aid in monster navigation, including lists by Challenge Rating, monster type, and habitat
  • Expanded universal monster rules to simplify special attacks, defenses, and qualities
  • ... and much, much more!

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-378-1

Errata
Last Updated - 11/10/2014

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

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription.

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A Major Contribution to the Game

5/5

The third bestiary of monsters for Pathfinder is chock-full of cool stuff. A few major themes for the book can be extracted: creatures from myth and literature (like sasquatches and valkyries), creatures with an Asian theme perfect for adventuring in Tian-Xia (such as kami and jiang-shi vampires), and the just plain really weird (like yithians and zoogs). As always with reviews of books like this, there's no way I can go through the hundreds of monsters individually, but I can say the writing and artwork is top-notch. Some particular things to note:

* The book has five new playable races: catfolk, ratfolk, suli, vanara, and vishkanya. There's always a demand for anthromorphic races like catfolk, and ratfolk later become prominent (under the name ysoki) in Starfinder. Suli don't do much for me and vishkanya are a race I've never seen played. But I do have to shout out to the monkey-like vanara, since a vanaran PC features prominently in my Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign!

* Several of the attempts from Misfit Monsters Redeemed to make goofy old monsters cool again are reprinted here, such as adherers and wolves-in-sheep's-clothing.

* Man, vulnudaemons are creepy.

* Love the artwork for animal lords--very Black Panther.

*The book introduces several new categories (sub-types) of monster: asuras (very cool concept I've never seen used), behemoths (creatures of divine vengeance on entire nations or worlds; a neat story idea), clockworks (a classic), demodands (titanspawn who hate the gods), divs (corrupted genies who strive for the ruin of all things made by mortals), imperial dragons (wingless, serpent-like dragons of Asian legend), kami (fixed-location nature spirits), kytons (creepy devils from the Plane of Shadows!), leshy (plant-like sentients), linnorms (cruel wingless dragons with a death curse), oni (evil spirits given form--the opposite of kami), rakshasa (drawn from Indian myth), sphinxes (with an interesting write-up), and thriaes (female bee-like seers). There's a real contribution to the richness of the game here, as all of these categories can then serve as the basis for rules-coherent variants introduced in later books.

All in all, Bestiary 3 is an excellent book and a smart purchase for a GM.


Another great addition to the Bestiary products

5/5

Reading through Bestiary 1 and 2, I was hoping that there will be even more eastern themed monsters. This Bestiary delivers just what I wanted! A must buy! Also, Flumph!!!


Best of the Bestiary

5/5

Bestiary 3 review is up on my blog.

This is probably my favorite of the Bestiaries so far, the content covers many iconic monsters from editions past, and stuff from the Adventure Paths. With great Asian flair for the Tian Xia world guide that is coming up, as well as many incredible monsters that have never graced the pages of a monster guide but are very welcome.


A great addition!

5/5

Although I'm generally opposed to the concept of core book "sequels," the content in 'Bestiary 3' is top notch. Whereas it took me some time to realize the usefulness of the monsters presented in 'Bestiary 2' (extraplanar/dimensional encounters rarely play a role in my campaigns), I immediately recognized many of the creatures in 'Bestiary 3' as either "iconic" or interesting variations on an established monster class.

As is to be expected, this book is well laid out and the illustrations are (mostly) top notch - Paizo rarely disappoints here! The Pathfinder Campaign Setting is still missing a few iconic monsters (mostly due to WotC's draconic licensing practices), but this volume (and the two which preceded it) gives GMs a huge variety of creatures to populate their encounters.

If I could make any suggestions for future 'Bestiary' volumes, the first would be to expand upon the lore provided - I realize it would likely halve the number of creatures included per book, but a two page spread (even for "simple" creatures like oozes) might help a GM find a place for a given creature within his campaign setting. Also, better illustrating a creature's size (perhaps even graphically) would be useful - general size classifications only go so far, and being able to see a silhouette of a given entry next to a human-sized creature would give both GMs and players a clear understanding of exactly how big a monster is (this was employed beautifully in an old FASA publication for Shadowrun: 'Paranormal Animals of North America' by Nigel Findley). Again, these are just suggestions on ways to improve an otherwise outstanding collection of Bestiaries. Keep up the good work!


Dodging the law of sequels

5/5

An excellent monster book, strong mythological presence (from various cultures). Probably even better than Bestiary 2. And it has the flumph! (this is a good thing, well its worth a page) If you're looking for a monster book for some critters outside of the real core you would well to pick this up.


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Dark Archive

Sprites are Diminutive. "This lithe, diminutive creature looks like a humanoid with wispy, mothlike wings and long, thin ears." is the descriptive text. The spite in the picture has long ears, wild hair, face and body paint, a pointed twig or thorn as a weapon, and clothes made from leaves and plant parts. I think the sprite's wings look like leaves in the picture provided, which is kind of cool. Sprites have Constant Detect Good/Evil, At will Dancing Lights/Daze, 1/day Color Spray, Perfect Flight, Low-Light vision, DR 2/ Cold Iron, and are Luminous (able to shift color and intensity). Sprites can be taken as familiars by CN spellcasters that are Level 5 or higher.

Atomies are CR 1; there isn't an option to use them as familiars.

Sovereign Court

Has anyone else notice that the Spectre figure in the Heroes and Monsters set looks EXACTLY like the picture of the Allip in the Beatiary 3, the Allip picture in the Bonus Bestiary was much different and IMO moe accurate.


Did they change or add any abilities the Nixie had from bonus beastairy version?

Darn we can't get Atomies as familiars.

Looks like the sprites lost the ability to become invisible but I gues they had to if they were going to be a familiar. Though they still sound like a CR1/2 to me.

What in opinion are the top 5 artwork for the monsters?

What in opinion are the top 5 coolest monsters?

So ther is a new artwork for the Allip, cool.

Did the Tetzlwyrm, Peluda, or Hodag make it into the book?

What are all the Fey creatures that are in the Beastairy 3?


Dragon78 wrote:

Did they change or add any abilities the Nixie had from bonus beastairy version?

Darn we can't get Atomies as familiars.

Looks like the sprites lost the ability to become invisible but I gues they had to if they were going to be a familiar. Though they still sound like a CR1/2 to me.

What in opinion are the top 5 artwork for the monsters?

What in opinion are the top 5 coolest monsters?

So ther is a new artwork for the Allip, cool.

Did the Tetzlwyrm, Peluda, or Hodag make it into the book?

What are all the Fey creatures that are in the Beastairy 3?

Bandersnatch, Boogeyman(mainly because he looks like a Jaeger from Girl Genius), Catfolk, Ghul, Fossil Golem win for me the best art slots though in no particular order.

Coolest monsters eh I can't really say as I haven't read indepth and won't till I get my physical copy (300+ pages on a computer screen is painful) but Zoog is up there for me for sure.

Tetzlwyrm and Hodag made the cut Peluda did not.

Dark Archive

* Did they change or add any abilities the Nixie had from bonus beastairy version?

No, but they added an evil variant called the Bog Nixie that is CR 3 and has Captivating Song, Change Shape, and Minor Wish.

* So ther is a new artwork for the Allip, cool.

It appeared as the artwork for the example Allip in Undead Revisited if you had that.

* Did the Tetzlwyrm, Peluda, or Hodag make it into the book?

Tatzlwyrm and Hodag, yes. Peluda, no.

* Coolest / best looking monsters

I'll get back to you a bit later on that one. There's a lot of interesting monsters here. The artwork by and large is very good, making it hard to pick 5 pieces in particular that stand out. 'Fossil Golem' is an initial standout in my mind, primarily because of the T-Rex-skull-hands.


Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Are Tanuki in Bestiary 3? If so, are they playable as PCs?


Ashanderai wrote:
Are Tanuki in Bestiary 3? If so, are they playable as PCs?

Yes, and No


How did the Norns turn out ???

Dark Archive

Norns are pretty awesome. They're CR 18 Fey. They cat cut the threads of someone's life (20d6 untyped damage with a Fort save for half), preventing resurrection without Miracle or Wish if they kill you with it. They also have some fate manipulation, magic shears, and a fairly good assortment of magic powers.


What are all the Fey type creatures that made into the book?

I know about the Atomie, Sprite, Norns, and the one new gremlin.


Dragon78 wrote:

What are all the Fey type creatures that made into the book?

I know about the Atomie, Sprite, Norns, and the one new gremlin.

Creatures with the fey subtype are listed as bogeyman, cold rider, faun, fey giant toad, fuath, nuckelavee, rusalka plus the ones you named already.


So for Fey there are:
1)Nixie
2)Atomie
3)Sprite
4)Gremlin,Fuath
5)Rusalka
6)Norns
7)Faun
8)Nuckelavee
9)Bogeyman
10)Cold Rider
11)Fey template

Is the fey template like the celestial or fiedish template in power or is it more powerful?

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Twin Dragons wrote:
Dark_Mistress wrote:
Twin Dragons wrote:
Dark_Mistress wrote:
I like the pic of the cat folk now I want to play one.
What pic? Where?
On page 47 of the new Bestiary 3 book.
Are the catfolk Small or Medium size?

Yes with PC race stats.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Now that Bestiary 3 is out it is time to plan Bestiary 4. I have a request for a new template that can be added to any creature. How about a Mummy Template?
Just like any creature can become a skeleton through foul magic, someone has to prep a body and cast create undead to create a mummy. This should be able to apply to any creature someone wants to make into an undead guardian.


Lord Gadigan wrote:
Norns are pretty awesome. They're CR 18 Fey. They cat cut the threads of someone's life (20d6 untyped damage with a Fort save for half), preventing resurrection without Miracle or Wish if they kill you with it. They also have some fate manipulation, magic shears, and a fairly good assortment of magic powers.

AWSOME.....

Do the Cold Rider fey have anything to do with the cold fey of Irresen ?

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
nighttree wrote:
Lord Gadigan wrote:
Norns are pretty awesome. They're CR 18 Fey. They cat cut the threads of someone's life (20d6 untyped damage with a Fort save for half), preventing resurrection without Miracle or Wish if they kill you with it. They also have some fate manipulation, magic shears, and a fairly good assortment of magic powers.

AWSOME.....

Do the Cold Rider fey have anything to do with the cold fey of Irresen ?

There is no mention of Irresen in their text.


Dragon78 wrote:

Is the fey template like the celestial or fiedish template in power or is it more powerful?

I'd say slightly more powerful as it gains a variety of abilities based on its HD including DR, low light vision, gains a fly speed (or improves it if existing), gains an ability tree that improves with HD, gains spell like abilities based on HD, gets bonuses to Dexterity, charisma and Intelligence as well as a skill points pool and languages. The downside is a reduction in Natural armor and a small penalty to strength.


If I recall correctly, the cold rider is reprinted from a 3.5 adventure where they were, yes, created by the winter witches of Irrisen.


So what are the asian monsters that got in?

I know about the Tanuki, Kappa, Kirin, Yuki-onna and that there are Oni.

I was hoping that ether the Tanuki or the Kappa would be Fey.

Sounds like an interesting template that is more like the half-celestial/fiend/dragon templates, thanks for the info atheral.

Are there any celestials except for the Archon familiar one?

Dark Archive

*Are there any celestials except for the Archon familiar one?

Legion Archon, Peri (though the Peri is native)

*So what are the asian monsters that got in?

5 Imperial Dragons
5 Kami
Shinigami
Baku
Foo Creatures
Jorogumo
Nue

If you're counting Indian stuff in the Asian category:
5 Rakshahsa
2 Nagas
5 Asuras
Garuda

There's also the Humbaba, which I think is technically from somewhere in Asia.

That's just from a glance. I may have missed some or miscounted a bit.


Sweet Baku, Nue and Jorogumo.

Wow 5 new types of rakshasa.

Cool 2 new Nagas one being the Royal Naga from one of the APs.

Thanks Lord Gadigan.

Humbaba is from the story of Gilgamesh.


The wait is killing me! I check email every 5 minutes to see if my subscription shipped yet agrgh!

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

This is a combination preview and a complaint about a missing appendix, so I just made one on my own.

New Familiars from Bestiary 3

Improved Familiars are listed as (Alignment, caster level)

Archon, Harbinger - (LG, 7th)
Asura, Tripurasura - (LE, 7th)
Carbuncle - (N, 5th)
Div, Doru - (NE, 7th)
Dragon, Faerie - (CG, 7th)
Familiar
- Flying Squirrel
- Fox
- Goat
- Otter
- Pig
- Raccoon
Kami, Shikigami - (LN, 7th)
Kyton, Augur - (LE, 7th)
Oni, Spirit - (LE, 7th)
Rakshasa, Raktavarna - (LE, 7th)


Just downloaded and looked it over. Some nice stuff in there. I'm still waiting for some borogoves and mome raths and such but I'm pretty happy.

But...what's with the kung fu panda? That one's maybe a bridge too far! :)
M


are the azis in this bestiary?


mearrin69 wrote:

Just downloaded and looked it over. Some nice stuff in there. I'm still waiting for some borogoves and mome raths and such but I'm pretty happy.

But...what's with the kung fu panda? That one's maybe a bridge too far! :)
M

I assume you mean this guy

The depiction is similar to the stylized (very) statues but bears little resembles to the actual real world animal. This makes me somewhat sad as the actual beastie is, I think, every bit as cool as their mythlogical counterpart.


Hopefully the next Beastairy will have the Cheshire Cat, Mome raths, and Borogoves.

Thanks for the Familiar info Kvantum.

What are the new types of Drakes?

Are there any dragons other then the Imperials, Linnorms, Drakes, Faerie dragon, Gorynych, and Tetzlwyrm?

So what are the CR20+ monsters?

Shadow Lodge

Got my warning notice. :)

Unfortunately, putting a hold on my mail Friday due to holiday travel. :(

But I'll get my PDF soon! :)


Dragon78 wrote:

Hopefully the next Beastairy will have the Cheshire Cat, Mome raths, and Borogoves.

Thanks for the Familiar info Kvantum.

What are the new types of Drakes?

Are there any dragons other then the Imperials, Linnorms, Drakes, Faerie dragon, Gorynych, and Tetzlwyrm?

So what are the CR20+ monsters?

Let me see new Drakes include:

desert drake, , rift
drake, river drake,

As far as other draconics just one more the kongamato,

and High CR Beasts

CR 20
akvan, ancient sovereign dragon, asurendra, eremite,
jinushigami, maharaja, thalassic behemoth, void yai
CR 21
tor linnorm
CR 22
tempest behemoth
CR 24
hekatonkheires

the hekatonkheires is a very very scary critter.

The Exchange

Enough talk of Oni and Kami and other asiany monsters...

Why is no one mentioning the Awesomeness that is the Cannon Golem or the Pale Stranger?

Sovereign Court

Lord Gadigan wrote:


** So ther is a new artwork for the Allip, cool.

It is the same as the Pathfinder Battles Mini for the Spectre.


atheral wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:

Hopefully the next Beastairy will

the hekatonkheires is a very very scary critter.

define Scary let me guess the tarrasque is breakfast for him


hellharlequin wrote:
atheral wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:

Hopefully the next Beastairy will

the hekatonkheires is a very very scary critter.

define Scary let me guess the tarrasque is breakfast for him

Not quite, but they would both have a fight on their hands. Just one example as a full round action the hekatonkheires can make four attacks starting at +38 dealing 6d6+22 , this attack hits any creature with in its 30ft reach and damage is epic and evil typed. These are weapon attacks, all weapons held by the hekatonkheries (has 100 hands by the way) count as +3 enhanced.

err edit on the damage was reading hp lines...*embarrassed silence*

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

It's not that they hit "any" creatures within 30 ft., it's that their "4 attacks a round" are made against ALL creatures within reach. Critical hits only apply against one target per attack (their choice), though.


Puts on evil gm grin*smile*


Kajehase wrote:
Shem wrote:
Well, I would love to get a copy of them. Word works.
Well, since there's two of you who's asked for it now - give me a few days to make it complete (some of the Kingmaker stuff hasn't been added yet because... I was lazy around that time, I guess) - and once I have somewhere to e-mail it, it'll be in your mailbox.

And my e-mail (which is good to know if you want to send me one) can be found in my profile.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Dark_Mistress wrote:
nighttree wrote:

AWSOME.....

Do the Cold Rider fey have anything to do with the cold fey of Irresen ?

There is no mention of Irresen in their text.

The Core Rulebook line is campaign setting–neutral, so the fact that Irrisen is not mentioned doesn't mean anything.


Dark_Mistress wrote:
nighttree wrote:
Lord Gadigan wrote:
Norns are pretty awesome. They're CR 18 Fey. They cat cut the threads of someone's life (20d6 untyped damage with a Fort save for half), preventing resurrection without Miracle or Wish if they kill you with it. They also have some fate manipulation, magic shears, and a fairly good assortment of magic powers.

AWSOME.....

Do the Cold Rider fey have anything to do with the cold fey of Irresen ?

There is no mention of Irresen in their text.

Cold riders originally appeared in the "Carnival of Tears" module

and it also talked a bit about their origins in Golarion

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Vic Wertz wrote:
Dark_Mistress wrote:
nighttree wrote:

AWSOME.....

Do the Cold Rider fey have anything to do with the cold fey of Irresen ?

There is no mention of Irresen in their text.
The Core Rulebook line is campaign setting–neutral, so the fact that Irrisen is not mentioned doesn't mean anything.

Yeah I know, I was just answering the question there was no mention in the Bestiary 3 of Irrisen.


So what are the Golems?

So what are all the types of Giants and Trolls?

What CR is the Kirin?

What are Bandersnatches powers, and what does it look like?

Any interesting plant creatures?


What dinosaurs are there?


Bone golem, cannon golem, fossil golem, bronze golem.

Lots of constructs to make.

The Exchange Kobold Press

The kirin is CR 7.

The dinosaurs and megafauna are archelon, baluchitherium, basilosaurus, dimetrodon, iguanodon, megalania, Pachycephalosaurus, spinosaurus,.

And my derhii made it in. The illustration is art I wish to put on my wall.

Every page is full of inspiring, top-shelf art and design.


Dark_Mistress wrote:
nighttree wrote:
Lord Gadigan wrote:
Norns are pretty awesome. They're CR 18 Fey. They cat cut the threads of someone's life (20d6 untyped damage with a Fort save for half), preventing resurrection without Miracle or Wish if they kill you with it. They also have some fate manipulation, magic shears, and a fairly good assortment of magic powers.

AWSOME.....

Do the Cold Rider fey have anything to do with the cold fey of Irresen ?

There is no mention of Irresen in their text.

The Cold Rider was introduced in the Carnival of Tears module, and yes, they do have stuff to do with the cold fey in Irrisen.

Dark Archive

Did the Divs make it to this book?

Paizo Employee Director of Narrative

3 people marked this as a favorite.
DragonBlood472 wrote:
Did the Divs make it to this book?

Yup, plus two new ones.


Adam Daigle wrote:
DragonBlood472 wrote:
Did the Divs make it to this book?
Yup, plus two new ones.

Humata, Hukhta, Huvareshta

The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6

Dragon78 wrote:

What are Bandersnatches powers, and what does it look like?

Any interesting plant creatures?

Hard to describe the art for the bandersnatch...sort of like a nightmare version of a six-legged quill-covered cat. Power-wise, it's a bit like a cross between a tiger, a howler, and a manticore. Plus it has a confounding gaze and shakes off many negative conditions.

Once you see the picture, keep in mind that it's the size of a school bus. And it's coming right at you.

Plant creatures....there's leshys, which are cute as can be, mind-controlling fungus men, and a fair few more :)


What about Giants and Trolls, what types did we get?

What misfit monsters other then the Flumph, Flail snail, wolf in sheep's clothing make it in?

Did the Almiraj, Beatific one, Danse Macabre, Buraq, Giant Stympalides, Vouivre, Troll Hound, or Dweomer cat make it in?


Robots?

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