Is the Tome of Beasts worth it?

[NRSASD]

Hey everyone!

Just wondering if anyone's bought the Tome of Beasts by Kobold Press(?) and what they thought of it. I'm debating picking it up, and have the base Monster Manual and Volo's Guide to compare it to. Did it bring a lot to the table? Were the monsters too oddball to use? Any fun features? In short, is it worth the asking price?

As always, thanks for any and all input!

[Trum4n1208]

I bought it, and have used a few of the monsters in it here and there. By and large, I like it. I think it's worth the money, if only because it gives you plenty of monsters to use or modify as needed. I'm not in love with some of the fluff presented, but on the whole, I'd give it a solid B.

[DracoKnight]

F*CK yes, it's worth it! I don't think I've gone a single session without using it since I bought it.

[Biggstick]

It's great if you have players who have memorized the standard Monster Manual. Tome of Beasts hasn't been out long enough for them to have learned all the nitty gritty about the monsters and creatures within.

The fluff is fantastic, as are the descriptions and what not.

Tons of new "big bads" for your campaigns as well.

And I mean, you get more Dragon types. Who doesn't love new types of Dragons?!

[DracoKnight]

It's great if you have players who have memorized the standard Monster Manual. Tome of Beasts hasn't been out long enough for them to have learned all the nitty gritty about the monsters and creatures within.

The fluff is fantastic, as are the descriptions and what not.

Tons of new "big bads" for your campaigns as well.

And I mean, you get more Dragon types. Who doesn't love new types of Dragons?!

New Dragons are always good! ^_^

Something I've done: I have allowed PotC Warlocks in my games to get either a pseudodragon or a Lantern Dragonette, if they want the draconic familiar. It's about a 50/50 split on which they choose.

[Biggstick]

New Dragons are always good! ^_^

Something I've done: I have allowed PotC Warlocks in my games to get either a pseudodragon or a Lantern Dragonette, if they want the draconic familiar. It's about a 50/50 split on which they choose.

Just gotta keep that supply of candles on them at all times...

XD

[Sir cryosin]

The cr is off on the monsters. Expecially the dragons with spell casting.

[Spellbreaker26]

New Dragons are always good! ^_^


These ones especially. The standout is definitely the Void and Mithral dragons. Magic slashing damage breath attack... mmm...

[DracoKnight]

These ones especially. The standout is definitely the Void and Mithral dragons. Magic slashing damage breath attack... mmm...

The Mithril Dragon is sexy AF :smallbiggrin:

[LudicSavant]

I'd take the Tome of Beasts over Volo's Guide to Monsters any day. CR concerns aside, it provides a considerably more interesting menagerie of monsters and fluff.

Volo's, on the other hand, can largely be summed up as "Oh, you were getting tired of orcs in the old Monster Manual? Well, here's Generic Orc Beatstick Variant A, Generic Orc Beatstick Variant B, and Generic Orc Beatstick Variant C!" There are exceptions, but altogether too few for my taste.

If you want new ideas, Tome of Beasts is the superior pick in my opinion.

[INDYSTAR188]

I'd take the Tome of Beasts over Volo's Guide to Monsters any day.

I really like all the fluff in Volo's, especially the maps of the lairs and their descriptions. On the other hand, I believe Tome of Beasts has way more monsters.

[mephnick]

I read through it once and felt like 90% of the monsters had an auto grapple on an attack. I just remember thinking there was a lot of lazy design like that. But it's been quite a while so maybe I should take another look.

[War_lord]

I just ordered my copy of Tome of Beasts, so I can't make specific criticisms, but I will point out that "more monsters" isn't necessarily an advantage. With 400 monsters there's inevitably going to be filler, and not everything is going to fit with your style as a DM.

Volo's Guide might have a relatively small selection of new monsters, but they're all good ones, with none of the oddball "how is this useful" stuff that plagued older Monster Manual sequels. Then there's the new Beast Races and the ecology articles.

But I guess if you just want more monsters, you have no intention of ever using beast races and you really don't care about stuff like how Orc tribes are actually organized, you're better off with the tome.

[TrinculoLives]

Well, it's currently going for 55 dollars for the print + pdf combo from the Kobold Press website*, or you can find the print-only for 33-ish on Amazon.

So is it worth it? Yes. The artwork is mostly good, and amongst the tons of creatures in the book there are several that are interesting with new mechanics.


*If you have ToB and you want a Monster-by-Type chart, that same website has a free PDF of that.

That being said, I would first get Volo's Guide to Monsters before I purchased Tome of Beasts.

Volo's has far, faaaar less monsters in it, but they are most of them interesting and usable. The monsters in ToB are mostly not usable, and simply too far outside my experience in fantasy for me to be very excited about using them.

I mean, how many people have heard of a *flips to random page*: an Erina, or Far Darrig, or *flip-flip* an Alehouse Drake (okay this one is pretty humorous), or Likho, Sathaq Worm, Spider of Leng, Paper Drake, Ink Devil, *flip-flip-flip* Myling, Deathcap Myconid, Vine Lord, Lorelei, Living Wick, or Qorgeth the Demon Lord of the Devouring Worm? (the last one is really cool actually for a dark campaign)

Many of the monsters in ToB just feel kind of silly or too strange. I would only use the Arboreal Grappler, an evil red gorilla with long Dr. Seuss coil-tentacle, if I... yeah I can't imagine using it. Really cool monsters like the Oculo Swarm hiding in amongst several less-inspiring creatures like the shark with a bear head or a Gibbering Mouther re-painted black and called a Shoggoth.
The book is good simply because of how many monsters it contains. But it is strongest, I feel, in its development of the Fey Lords and Ladies and, to a lesser extent, the Demon Lords. (Alquam, the Demon Lord of Night is one my favourites, with thematic lair-actions and a sweet illustration.)


But Volo's, on the other hand, has some great lore for several common monsters, and a good list of monsters with many (some might say too many apparently) customizations of existing races. Expanded monster sub-types are there for: Beholders, Demons, Dinosaurs, Giants, Gnolls, Hags, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Mind Flayers (Elder Brains! Neothelids!), Orcs, Yuan-ti, and NPCs (several NPCs-with-class-abilities-type statblocks).

There are some great new monsters though. Flail Snails, Froghemoths, Catoblepas, Boggles, the Bodak, and Morkoths are some of my favourites.

The playable races from Volo's are half-great, half-meh for me. The Kenku and Tabaxi are okay, but I like the Firbolgs, Tritons, and Lizardfolk a lot. The different races' Quirks tables are especially entertaining.
(Lizardfolk: "You hate waste and see no reason not to scavenge fallen enemies. Fingers are tasty and portable!")


Conclusion: Tome of Beasts is definitely worth the price, but I've gotten more use out of my Volo's.

[Potato_Priest]

I'd take the Tome of Beasts over Volo's Guide to Monsters any day. CR concerns aside, it provides a considerably more interesting menagerie of monsters and fluff.

Volo's, on the other hand, can largely be summed up as "Oh, you were getting tired of orcs in the old Monster Manual? Well, here's Generic Orc Beatstick Variant A, Generic Orc Beatstick Variant B, and Generic Orc Beatstick Variant C!" There are exceptions, but altogether too few for my taste.

If you want new ideas, Tome of Beasts is the superior pick in my opinion.

Volo's guide to monsters is great, but definitely not for the monsters. The Korred s the only really interesting monster in that book.

The fluff and the much larger NPC sections are both awesome tho.

I'll have to look into this "tome of beasts" thing. I do have players who've memorized the monster manual, so whipping that out ought to keep me ahead in the ol' memorization arms race.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Volo's guide to monsters is great, but definitely not for the monsters. The Korred s the only really interesting monster in that book. The fluff and the much larger NPC sections are both awesome tho.
While I agree with your conclusion about what makes the Guide worthwhile, I think you're selling it a little short. It's nice to see updated 5th ed versions of things like the Devourer or the Anathema and I think the fluff makes some of the creatures, like the Meenlocks or the Morkoth, more interesting than they'd otherwise be.

[Nicrosil]

I definitely think it's worth it. The monsters are all mechanically interesting, and each comes with a page of lore and nice artwork, so it's fun to flip through even if you don't intend to use any of the monsters. There are some caveats, however; nothing that really detracts from the book, but more things to look out for. First, since many of the monsters are republished from previous Kobold Press products, some artifacts of Pathfinder are still there. Some monsters may call for a fortitude save, for example. Second, since some of the monsters are republished from other products, there's 5-6 monsters for each niche you might never even use in a campaign. Like, there's several seductress monsters, a lot of tiny trickster fey, a lot of weirdly specific undead, etc. Finally, the pictures are a lot darker in the physical book. Again, nothing huge, it's still a great book, just something to keep in mind.

[Spellbreaker26]

I just ordered my copy of Tome of Beasts, so I can't make specific criticisms, but I will point out that "more monsters" isn't necessarily an advantage. With 400 monsters there's inevitably going to be filler, and not everything is going to fit with your style as a DM.



Yeah. There's at least four monsters that all fit the bill of "naked lady that kills her victims" and one that's a handsome guy with the same deal. Sometimes it feels a little redundant.
That being said, there are some cracking monsters in there (see, Baba Yaga's horsemen) and more importantly loads of Fey, something the monster manual was lacking in.

[Gryndle]

The Tome of Beasts is pretty awesome. The variety of weird crap in it gives you an arsenal of critters to throw at your players to make them go "What the...?"

You probably wont use it when planning every session, and you do need to watch the CR on the monsters, they can be pretty off. My experience so far is that the monsters from ToB aresignificantly tougher than their CR would indicate if played well. but then that is also a plus for my group

[Christopher K.]

I backed Tome of Beasts when it was kickstarting and was not disappointed - it has a healthy amount of interesting monsters, though some are bizarre niche creatures that you may never use(Despite it allegedly being one of their iconic critters, I don't see any use for the Fext in my future).

That said, I will restate what others have mentioned: the CR math that Kobold Press used is somewhat off, especially if you use the monsters well. I nearly caused a TPK for my players with a Dragonwood Tree and two Salt Golems in an enclosed area.