Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary [ハードカバー]

Following the release of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Core Rulebook Paizo comes up with the Bestiary. Since the Pathfinder is a refreshed, upgraded D&D 3.5, there was no question that the Monster Manual needs an update as well.

===PRESENTATION===

A solid sewn hardcover book with over 320 pages in full color. As usual, the artwork and layout is above and beyond. Paizo books have their unique art style, and it shows. There are several navigational aids, including indexes and CR tables. The book is a pleasure to look at and use.

===CONTENT===

The Pathfinder Bestiary offers circa 350 monsters for use in Pathfinder games. A quick glance at the index shows that the vast majority of monsters from 3.5 Monster Manual are here. Several are missing, be them either intellectual property of WotC (beholders, mind flayers, giths, displacer beasts, carrion crawlers, kuo-toa) or left out as particularly unpopular (tojanida, delver).

However, there are also monsters not found in the original MM - among others such fantasy classics as Cyclopi, Giant Slugs and Sea Serpents. A few classic D&D monsters, made open content via Tome of Horrors are here as well - Vegepygmies, Dark Creepers and Shadow Demons, to name a few.

Curiously, the fantasy classic Hippogrifs are missing, likely an oversight.

The monsters are presented in 1 page = 1 monster format, making the book far easier to use than the 3.5 MM. All the critters received a major refurbishing, with vital stats adjusted for the new rules. In a few cases, the upgrade fixed major 3.5 errors with monsters such as Rakshasa, Ogre Magi or the Undead in general.

However the biggest changes lie with the streamlining of monster use for the DMs. A vast number of generic monster rules were lifted out of the statblocks and placed in a convenient chapter called "universal monster rules", meaning that rules such as Improved Grab are no longer reprinted in several places across the book. The monster advancement rules - a major pain in 3.5 - were reworked as well, with an extensive chapter on "beefing up" the printed monsters.

A monster creation chapter is present as well, with advice on creating new critters from the scratch.

The Paizo design team made a controversial decision of removing the LA and ECL mechanics, stating that the book is a DM's monster book and that the "monsters for players" rules belong somewhere else. There is a short chapter on playing the monster races, but fans of monstrous heroes should be warned that Pathfinder doesn't focus on the idea nearly as much as 3.5 did.

===CONCLUSION===

Overall, this is one of the best fantasy bestiaries out there. With outstanding art, evocative flavor text and solid rules upgrade, this is a great purchase for both Pathfinder and 3.5 players.

PS: Several additional monsters are available in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bonus Bestiary (Pathfinder) which complements the Bestiary.

My gaming crew tested out the Pathfinder Beta rules when they first came out, and we were all impressed with how user-friendly it all was. Skip ahead about a year and, with the advent of the Pathfinder Bestiary, Paizo has continued their tradition of support for D&D 3.5 enthusiasts while, again, making things just that much easier for the DM to handle.

The Bestiary is a beautiful hardcover volume of 320+ pages (with Wayne Reynolds art on the cover, by the by) and contains 350+ monsters, from Aboleth to Zombie and then some. Here are my thoughts:

The Good: First and foremost, bang for your buck. The production quality of this book is exceptional, from the sturdy binding to the pages, which are decorated with arcane, gothic whirls and swirls throughout. The paper is of good quality, and everything is in full color - everything. Additionally, every monster is fully illustrated, and 90% of the art is of excellent quality. Paizo obviously spared no expense in printing this book and getting it to fans.

Now, for the contents. There are some innovations that old-school players may have to get used to. The Bestiary uses a 3-symbol system (explained at the beginning) to define the monsters: for example, each monster, after its name, has three symbols - one denotes its kind (aberration, undead, etc.), another its native terrain (urban, aquatic, dungeon, etc.), and another its native climate (cold, extraplanar, etc.). Additionally, each creature, in addition to Challenge Rating, has listed its XP awards - no more flipping pages in a DMG to figure out how much XP to give to your players. Additionally, each creature is fully statted on one page, with no space wasted. In some cases, there are 2 related creatures to a page (such as Bear and Dire Bear), but by and large each creature gets its own page (or, if the creature is complicated, like a Vampire, 2+). There are no separate sections for Swarms or Vermin, or to separate regular and dire animals; spiders and spider swarms are listed together, for instance, under Spider, and boars and dire boars under Boar.

Something else that's great - Appendices. The Monster Creation system offered in the book is comprehensive and detailed and seems able to take care of any contingency - you can tailor any creature you make to a particular CR without any problems, see how much XP and gp it should generate, and so on. Same with monster advancement and alteration: want to change the listed creature's size, for instance, but aren't sure how that would affect the stats? There's an app (or in this case, a table) for that. There's also a section on universal monster rules so to avoid stat block clutter, and another on traits of creature types, and even another on monster feats.

The Bad: Not much, but a couple things worth mentioning. First, when viewed critically, this is essentially the D&D 3.5 Core Monster Manual, just dressed up a bit. Certainly its very nice and, I think, worth the money, but this is probably only going to be useful to you if you are planning on writing up your own Pathfinder Campaign, since most of the monsters in Paizo's pre-written campaigns are already statted out for you in those products. Second, the book could have set itself apart by creating a few new signature monsters (of which there are precious few). Third, I was disappointed that the guide paid short-shrift to using monsters as PCs; while not outright discouraging it (and providing PC guidelines for creatures like Goblins, Tieflings and Drow, for instance), it doesn't really encourage monsters as PCs outside of the basic races in the Pathfinder CRB. For some, this may be a minor nuisance.

Overall, I have to say that the Pathfinder Bestiary is money well spent, especially for those of us who refuse to convert to 4th Edition.

It's rare to come across a roleplaying product that advertises what it does, delivers exactly that and still leaves you smiling with pleasure.

The Pathfinder Beastiary simplifies and codifies a lot of what became very cludgy with 3.5 gaming mechanics. Rather than giving the rules for improved grab (now just "grab," which makes sense as 3.5 never had a "grab" option anyway) and trample in each monster description, it just notes that they have these attack modes. If you want more information on those attacks, there's an appendix in the back, clearly labelled, that has all those rules for you. I love the use of visual icons to describe the monsters - you can flip through the book rather quickly and just look for the icons rather than try to train your brain to pick up the words "temperate hills" on each page. And the icons will always be on the same level on the page because there's only and always one to two monster entries per page. Pathfinder understands: this is a book, not a scroll.

The ruels for monster advancement feel looser than in 3.5 and at first seemed daunting but after running through them three or four times, I found I was moving much, much faster than I ever did adjusting monsters in 3.5, and the results were more satisfying - the creatures felt like new creations, not like the same monster, only with more hit dice.

I do miss some of the monsters from 3.5 - the illithids are gone, as are the umber hulks - but that's a copyright issue and no fault of Paizo and, hey, free froghemoth. Who doesn't love the froghemoth?

Based on this book, I am saving up my dollars and cents for some of the other Pathfinder products in the hopes that their design and layout are as keen as this book's. The main handbook is fantastic, but Paizo really hit it out of the park with their beastiary.