Title: Pathfinder Bestiary (P2) Pdf
Author: Paizo Staff
Published Date: 2019-08
Page: 360
Over 400 of fantasy's fiercest foes burst from the pages of this enormous compendium of the most popular and commonly encountered creatures in the world of Pathfinder! From familiar enemies like orcs, dragons, and vampires to new horrors like the nightmarish nilith and the three-headed mukradi, to suitable servants for summoners of every alignment, this must-have companion to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook is crawling with creatures to challenge characters of any level.
The Pathfinder Bestiary includes:
• More than 400 monsters drawn from mythology, genre classics, and more than a decade of Pathfinder, with plenty of new monsters too!
• Gorgeous full-color illustrations on nearly every page!
• Detailed monster lists sorted by level, type, and rarity to help you find the right monster for any situation!
• Universal monster rules to simplify special attacks, defenses, and qualities like grab, swallow whole, and regeneration.
• Guidelines for providing appropriate monstrous treasures for any occasion.
• Detailed lore sidebars offering additional information about Pathfinder’s most popular monstrous friends and foes!
"Woke" Monsters Before I delve into the politics of "woke" monsters meant to appeal to the ultra-left, indulge me, if you will, to comment upon the non-political aspects of this tome...Positives:- Book is gorgeous, with mostly excellent art and layout.- There are some new, surprising monsters in here, and a lot of good old classics. The number of monsters packed into this book is huge - 414 -, though many are variations on a theme and some are basically animals, like a dog.- Statblocks are, blessedly, much shorter now, and it's very cool that monsters now have individualized reactions, and aren't beholden to the same design parameters as PCs. This leaves more room for "fluff" and descriptions of the monsters' places in the world of Golarion. This space is usually taken advantage of, making it all the more glaring when it is absent, as in the case of the wendigo.Negatives:- Too much space is wasted on basic animals, such as horses and dogs. For some reason, Paizo felt it necessary to illustrate these as well, as if we don't know what a horse looks like.- Too many "Good" creatures are included, unlikely to be opponents for many gaming groups.- Flavorful and traditional creature names have often been replaced by much more generic ones (e.g. replacing stirge with "bloodseeker", ettercap with "web lurker")- While much of the art is quite good, a number of the interior art choices are middling to poor at best (bugbear, hobgoblin, ogre, troll, vampire, etc.).- In contrast to Pathfinder 1E bestiaries, not nearly enough of the creatures in this book have specific sizes listed, simply "small", "large", etc. How big is a typical frost drake, gogiteth, etc.?- Locations where creatures are most likely to be found is missing from statblocks and only occurs sporadically in descriptions. Big drawback. Paizo could have even leaned in to their embrace of Golarion and indicated where within their world specific monsters can be found. To add insult to injury, there are no encounter or location tables in the back of the bestiary!Now, onward to political-correctness!- There is a lot of gender activism in here (all tilting towards feminism), and you'll find immersion-breaking statements concerning gender stereotypes, certain female creatures being stronger than the male versions, and a number of societies that are matriarchal, while you'll find none that are patriarchal. Odd, that. Apparently, within Golarion, all societies are either perfect exemplars of gender equality or tilt strongly towards matriarchy. This is silly and a huge blow against verisimilitude. (-1 star) Personally, I'd find it far more interesting to have characters explore a world of true diversity, reflective of the myriad and divergent cultures of its inhabitants, some of whom will craft matriarchies, and some patriarchies. Some might be ruled by Elders, some by the wielders of the arcane, others by seers and oracles, some ruled by those unburdened by base sexual desires, and perhaps some by gifted youth whose talents fade as they age. But having every culture reflect gender parity or matriarchy is just goofy.- As well, the usual Paizo paternalism and puritanism is present - apparently females aren't allowed to visibly express their sexuality anymore. This manifests, as an example, with the illustration for the succubus, which is now apparently a Modesty Demon. (-1 star)In sum, Paizo allows their desire to "include" everyone and engage in gender activism to lessen what would otherwise be a decent product. It's pretty clear at this point that most of Paizo's leaders do not respect masculinity, perhaps even being misandrists. Nonconformance to masculinity seems to be placed on a pedestal, save for, ironically, when Paizo is attempting to subvert stereotypes by portraying female versions of aggressive, strong warriors. And thus, we get nearly every female crafted to "play against type", subvert stereotypes, and change the thinking of their, apparently, neanderthal readers who can't think for themselves. This is completely ineffectual, for in order for stereotype subversion to be effective, you need stereotypes to exist, and people to harbor biases. This apparently does not occur in Golarion, where every community seems to be either an exemplar of gender equality or a matriarchy. Without a foundation of stereotypes, you can't play against type and subvert them. What you're left with is a world without a sense of mooring or verisimilitude, just a shadowy reflection of some modern, ultra-liberal idea of utopia.For those who have followed Paizo for a while, none of this should be surprising. For those new to Paizo, you'll find these viewpoints infesting nearly every Paizo product these days. Paizo apparently lives in such fear of offending or angering the far-left that they find it impossible to creatively portray a fantasy world where male versions of a creature (not just humans) are physically stronger than females, or where a patriarchal, non-evil society exists. Of course, all of this runs contrary to our own history of humankind, but never mind that!Conclusion: If you consider yourself ultra-liberal politically, want this portrayed in your purchases of fantasy RPG products, and don't mind a lack of verisimilitude, this bestiary is for you. For all others, there's not nearly enough positive or new here to outweigh the negatives.Worth the purchase, but far from the best in the new edition I almost loved this book. While I still believe the book is worth buying, I do not believe it is the best 'bang for your buck' of the new edition.First, the good:- There is plenty of variety of creatures;- The artwork is excellent, and in a very fitting style.- Stat blocks are almost universally straightforward to use, and display all the information you need.Now, the bad:- I felt some of the flavor text for some creatures was lacking. The wendigo, for instance, is the most egregious example - a single line of description? C'mon. A lot of relevant info for some creatures is relegated to one or two short sentences in the sidebar. I felt this made the book fall short of what it could have been.- There are no monster creation guidelines. Now, this by itself would have not been as bad, if not for the fact that some creatures have sidebars that describe variants of different levels - but you have no rules in this book to create these new creatures! They are also not in the Core Rulebook, although recently Paizo has released the monster/hazard rules. Nonetheless, I wish they had been in this book - as they did with the Alien Archive for Starfinder, for example.Great update Great artwork andeasy to use information. The book has new monsters and is very user friendly.
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