Pathfinder BESTIARY 5 Is Coming!

The fifth hardcover monster book for the Pathfinder RPG is set to hit shelves in next month. 300 new monsters, a bunch of player races, psychic critters, templates, and more. The new races include caligni dark folk, deep one hybrids, plant-bodied ghorans, and simian orang-pendaks. Paizo are holding an elimination contest to reveal previews of a bunch of monsters.

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The elimination contest involves simply voting for the critter you want to see via a series of poll questions.

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[Dire Bare]

The new races include caligni dark folk, deep one hybrids, plant-bodied ghorans, and simian orang-pendaks.

Yes, just what my campaign was missing! Plant people, orangutan people, and, ah, dark people. Perhaps this is what they refer to when they use the term "bloat".

I kid, just a bit, and I'm excited for the new bestiary as we can never have enough (cool) monsters. But sometimes . . . sometimes I think we're filling niches that don't even exist with some of these new monsters and races.

 

[Shieldhaven]

Yes, just what my campaign was missing! Plant people, orangutan people, and, ah, dark people. Perhaps this is what they refer to when they use the term "bloat".

I kid, just a bit, and I'm excited for the new bestiary as we can never have enough (cool) monsters. But sometimes . . . sometimes I think we're filling niches that don't even exist with some of these new monsters and races.

Absolutely true - if you think of every monster in every book as coexisting in a setting. But if you took a fistful of monsters from each book and hung your campaign's story on them (with or without designing a whole new setting), you might paradoxically get more bang for your buck.

Not that I'm here to defend Pathfinder's content model - as it happens I think that 5e's slow rollout of content is perfect.

 

[turkeygiant]

Yes, just what my campaign was missing! Plant people, orangutan people, and, ah, dark people. Perhaps this is what they refer to when they use the term "bloat".

I kid, just a bit, and I'm excited for the new bestiary as we can never have enough (cool) monsters. But sometimes . . . sometimes I think we're filling niches that don't even exist with some of these new monsters and races.

I agree, I love more bestiaries, the more monsters the better. I don't as much like the idea of putting player races in a bestiary, don't mix GM content with Player content, it puts a player who likes the sound of one race in that book in the position where they would have to buy a book that is 90% stuff they cant use as a player.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I've always loved the Pathfinder Bestiaries, can't get enough honestly (and I've been converting my favorites to 5E, too). Since my Saturday group has resumed Pathfinder this will definitely get some use.

I have no idea about monster bloat, but like Shieldhaven says, it's not that problematic if you avoid the kitchen sink approach and instead pick some interesting stuff and define your campaign with those choices. Not every campaign or world needs to assume a couple thousand monstrous species exist coterminously.....

 

[Evenglare]

Also to be fair at this point it might seem like "bloat" but pathfinder only releases like... 4 actual rule books a year. Yeah, they do adventure paths and supplements for their campaign world, but if we are taking about core rules they release them at a good pace. It's just that the game has been around so long that it literally can not be avoided when we start getting into year 7-8-9 etc. Let's compare that with 3.5 and 4.0 model where a core book was released every single month for years on end.

 

[PurpleDragonKnight]

can't wait for Bestiary 5... the grays!!! my lord THE GRAYS!!!!! O_O

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Does every Pathfinder Bestiary have 300 monsters? If so, that means that they've come out with 1,500 monsters for Pathfinder (and I'm sure there are other monsters in products besides the Bestiaries. That's a crazy large amount of monsters.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Awesome. I don't play Pathfinder, but always love me a monster book to flip through and steal from, and convert, etc Oh, and the PF Bestiaries are VG. In fact, I need to get more of them

 

[Connorsrpg]

Double post. Sorry.