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I think that after Bestiary 3, we will either see most monster entries come from campaign setting type books, or we will have more "Themed" bestiary-style books. Focused on broad categories of monsters perhaps.
In relation to this, I wonder if Paizo will continue making books that only cater to players OR game masters. The only books they have so far that cater to both are the setting ones like the Lost Omens World Guide or the upcoming Mwangi Expanse book. Will we see something like a book centered around dragons that gives lore and monster stats for the GM in addition to archetypes, items, and feats for players?
After Bestiary 3 was mentinoned that would be themed monster books with more lore on it. I guess that you could imagine something like the old draconomicon book.
In relation to this, I wonder if Paizo will continue making books that only cater to players OR game masters. The only books they have so far that cater to both are the setting ones like the Lost Omens World Guide or the upcoming Mwangi Expanse book. Will we see something like a book centered around dragons that gives lore and monster stats for the GM in addition to archetypes, items, and feats for players?
The new big books after APG was said that will contain lore, game master stuff and player options, and that the first one would be the Secrets of Magic doing that.
One example that was given was that the book of Guns and Gears will have rules of stuff like barrels of gunpowder exploding.
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I am a bit concerned with the player options + GM options books. 5e did it with volo's guide and mordenkainen's tome.
It becomes very hard for some players to avoid simply reading the book cover to cover and spoiling a bunch of new / interesting monsters for them. And when someone has paid for the book and likes the art, I honestly don't blame them.
GM rules, mechanics and the like tend to be fine; monsters and adventures are in a special area though imo.
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I am a bit concerned with the player options + GM options books. 5e did it with volo's guide and mordenkainen's tome.
It becomes very hard for some players to avoid simply reading the book cover to cover and spoiling a bunch of new / interesting monsters for them. And when someone has paid for the book and likes the art, I honestly don't blame them.
GM rules, mechanics and the like tend to be fine; monsters and adventures are in a special area though imo.
It isn't hard to players to read up on monsters now with AoN.
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I don't like the trend towards merged player+gm books, but I think that boat has sailed. There's definitely more players than GMs so I can understand from a marketing/print run size perspective.
I would love a 2E version of the Construct makers handbook but mix in a gm side with all the clockwork, magitech and technology monsters. Although maybe we will see some of this in Guns and Gears.
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Personally, my players look through the monster books for their summon spells, create undead, for their own GMing, and for a variety of other reasons, so long as they aren't referencing monster stats at the table I don't mind them having half remembered impressions of the monsters.
GM + Player books I think make a lot of sense so long as there is a solid theme to the book. 5e's way of doing it where they just throw a bunch of random stuff at you is bad because of how random it is, and how anemic content is in that system overall-- buying a book and getting to the section you won't get to use can be frustrating. But I don't think Pathfinder 2e has quite the same problem since we get plenty of content in the first place.
For instance if the Darklands book JJ was conjecturing in the Drow thread was one part Darklands Ancestry and Heritage Options, and One Part Darklands Bestiary, with a third part covering Lore on various places in the Darklands I wouldn't complain at all. As a whole, the book would be a comprehensive guide to Darklands-- a GM would appreciate the whole book because not only would it yield their players options, and they would get monsters, but because taken together they get a comprehensive guide to the place with even the player options providing additional context and lore.
Meanwhile a Player could just get access to the odd player option on Nethys, so doesn't have to actually buy the book, but its still useful to them for all of the lore on the Darklands, which includes the monster write ups, could be relevant to their character, or represent common knowledge useful in their campaign.
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It isn't hard to players to read up on monsters now with AoN.
There is a big difference between going out of their way to lookup stats (reading AoN) and just absorbing info because they spent money on a book and want to read more of it than a player section.
I have zero players who will research statblocks online, I have two players who will read a book cover to cover that they bought because they bought it and are ravenous for art / lore they can get a hold of.
I accept that this will be happening, but I saw it happen in 5e (worse, I saw it happen with a book with player options, monsters and an adventure) and it is sad to see it happen here from my personal point of view.
We are probably getting something along the lines of BotD or the Planar Adventures, books in which we got lore, rules and a bestiary section. Or perhaps something more akin to the Occult Bestiary or the Inner Sea Bestiary, in which all monsters are tied by their theme or the region from where they belong.
My only question is in which book are we finally getting the planar dragons or at least new true dragons... I would love to get them sooner. I was sad to know that they wouldn't be covering the imperial dragons in addition to the primal dragons in Bestiary 2... I suppose dragons aren't really a big thing in paizonians mind.
I, honestly don't care if my players want to look up the stat blocks of monsters. If they want to win that badly, and don't care if that interferes with the integrity of the game, then I'm not going to police how they have fun.
I personally recommend that they don't do that, or at least not with boss monsters, but some players just want to feel like a badass in combat for a moment, and get back to exploring/roleplay.
And I myself have used Archive of Nethys when I was almost certain that a GM that was newer to PF2 was using a monster's power incorrectly (because I had used the same monster earlier that month in one of my own games), but to be fair we have the sort of gaming relationship where that's cool to do and he had specifically asked me to backseat GM for him because he was still learning the system.
And in the same vein, sometimes I just know what a monster's weakness is because I both play and GM and so I read a lot about the monsters on my own time.
And I tend to find that there is rarely anything specific that reading the stat block will tell you that some basic common sense and deductive reasoning won't tell you anyways. It's not like it's hard to figure out that the Ogre's best save is Fortitude and the White Dragon resists Cold damage.
The only time it could be a problem is if you've adjusted a stat block and a player who has read the standard stats gets mad because "What do you mean that doesn't hit!? That monster's AC is only 22!?" Or even worse when they just get pissed but don't tell you why because they're afraid to admit they looked at the stat block. A good GM who communicates with their party and let's them know they'll be changing up stats to better suit their encounters can generally avoid this.