Pathfinder 1E Question about differences in Pathfinder monsters

[Banshee16]

I just ordered the Pathfinder Bestiaries 1 and 2, and have been reading through them.

Interesting to see the evolution in #2, and how the game is starting to diverge in core...particularly with reimaginings of particular monsters such as the Siren (and Kelpie, I think).

However, I'm somewhat confused by the new stat blocks.

The Advancement rules seem to be gone. However, I think they're at the back in the Appendices. But they just seem to be a template now.

Has this been changed to make it more granular or something? In 3.5, advancing a creature usually meant increasing its HD, which gave it more hp, better saves, new feats, skills, increases to abilities, and if you increased enough HD, the size would go up, which would affect natural armor, attack rolls, and ability scores.

Now, advancing a creature just seems to involve giving it +2 natural armor, and +4 to all abilities. No HD increase.

Or is it just that the process is now more granular? Maybe advancement doesn't mean the same thing? You can advance a monster by giving it the Advanced Creature template, which is kind of like making it "an Elite"....and/or you can increase its HD, which eventually results in a size increase as well.

Is that correct?

Am I missing something?

Banshee

 

[Mojo_Rat]

I haven't looked into it but I think the simple advanced template is there if you are in a hurry. the big thing I noticed when I first looked at it is most monitors of a given category and type should all now be closer to a baseline in stats for their cr hd etc in sync. dire bat changed a lot because if this.

 

[Thazar]

Yes, they have added some templates to allow a quick and dirty increase or decrease on a monster. They have Young, Giant, Advanced, Fiendish, and Celestial as quick templates to apply to any creature.

They also have more advanced rules for adding levels, hit dice, etc to properly level up a key monster. But the quick and dirty templates will work for most monsters that are killed in one encounter and save a DM time.

 

[Gorbacz]

There are two ways of advancing monsters in Pathfinder, basically.

1) Quick Method: Apply Advanced and/or Giant templates.

2) Slow Method: advance by HD/size/class levels. The HD advancement rules have changed considerably (for example, they're no longer tied to size like they used to be in 3.5