I'm aiming this particularly at people who purchase third party bestiaries, but anyone feel free to chime in.
If you crack open a bestiary, and an entry is a magical beast, what do you expect? Does it have to have some off-the-wall magical power? Or could it get away with just sucking out eyeballs or something? What if something is like an owlbear, which is really just an extra-dangerous animal that looks weird? Is a cool name or illustration good enough to "sell" something that has nothing more exotic going for it than pounce or constrict?
Do you ever stare at a magical beast entry and think, "I don't care if it's half-bird and half-donkey, that should be an animal?"
I do feel like magical beast are is an animal type thrown around to willy-nilly. I always found it weird that owlbears are animals while bulette's are magical beasts. Magical beasts, in my opinion, need to either have and Int higher than two, some supernatural abilities, or a combo of the two. Otherwise I think they should be animals.
The owlbear is actually a magical beast.
Is it? My, how embarrassing. Still, I stand behind my call.
Judging from responses here and elsewhere, I'm gathering that "weird animals" are not a popular type of Magical Beast. Nonetheless, it's how Pathfinder handles it.
Would a creature's type, animal vs. Magical beast, affect how well you like it? If you saw an owlbear or something of the sort in a bestiary for the first time, would you think, "Awesome, that's weird?" or would you say, "What makes this encounter different than one with a grizzly bear?"
A magical beast to me is any animal or animal-like creature that is unnatural, as in, it has origins in magical experiments or no real world equivalent or similar animal.