What exactly is Volo's Guide to Monsters?

[MustacheManny]

Hey all, new DM here and already all of your advice has been super helpful. I now own the three core books (PHB, DMG, MM) and have been wondering about the supplimental stuff, especially Volo's. Is it essentially MM part 2, and is it worth buying since I have the MM already?

[Jorgo]

Volos the most beautiful thing i love it. Eleven new pc races yay

[MustacheManny]

Okay, cool! New PC races! Are there new monsters as well?

[Spiderguy24]

Mhm! There's quite a few new monsters in there, and some extra lore for current races like goblins, orcs, mindflayers, etc etc.

[Sariel Vailo]

Its is amazing and gives amazing buffs.

[Millstone85]

You should check the official product page (http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/volos-guide-to-monsters) and more particularly the full table of contents (http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/Volos_TOC.pdf).

Now, can VGtM be considered to be the second MM? I would say yes.

[Fishybugs]

Most of you friendly, local gaming stores will let you look through it before you buy it as well. Even if you don't buy it, actually.

[Millstone85]

I like the monster lore chapters. Plenty of fluff for enemy humanoids (gnolls, goblinoids, kobolds and orcs), a couple aberrations (beholders and mind flayers) and more (giants, hags and yuan-ti).

The monster stat blocks later in the book reflect these first chapters. If a particular version of a monster was mentioned, like the elder brain that rules over mind flayers, its stats are there. But there are also plenty of monsters that apparently needed no particular reason to be there, like a bunch of demons. Personally, I feel like they stole the place of additional beholderkin and such.

I am pretty meh on the playable races, except for the revised aasimar with its three subraces. It is awesome.

NPCs are great. There is, among other things, a stat block for every subclass of warlock or wizard in the PHB.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Hey all, new DM here and already all of your advice has been super helpful. I now own the three core books (PHB, DMG, MM) and have been wondering about the supplimental stuff, especially Volo's. Is it essentially MM part 2, and is it worth buying since I have the MM already?

It's less like a Monster Manual part 2 and more like an expansion. Most of the book takes some of the more common or 'iconic' monsters from the Monster Manual with pages of lore, sample lairs, some variants for each, and optional PC rules for most them. There's also a bit on some other more monster-like PC races and some entirely new monsters (most, but not all, of whom are related to the focus monsters in some way, even if it's just being common minions for them).

Focus monsters include: Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblinoids, Hags, Kobolds, Mind-Flayers, Orcs, and Yuan-Ti. Of these Goblinoids, Kobolds, Orcs, and Yuan-Ti get PC race write-ups. Other PC races included are Aasimar, Firbolgs, Goliaths (I guess instead of having full giant PCs), Kenku, Lizardfolk, Tabaxi, and Tritons.