What is in Tome of Foes?

[Atalas]

My question is, besides the listed general information, like new race options, story hooks, etc, does the book have new spells in it?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

No new spells, subclasses or feats. Player options are limited to new races and subraces, of which there are a fair few.

[Beechgnome]

New Tiefling variants, Eladrin, Sea elves, Shadar-kai kai as elves, Githyanki and Githzerai. That's pretty much it for new player crunch (they also reprint duergar, deep gnome). No spells or anything like that.

There is lore about fiends, Gith, elves, dwarves, Halflings and gnomes but no new options.

Really, it is a DM book: lots of monsters, with an emphasis on demons/devils,yugoloths, Shadowfell creatures, constructs, elementals and the astral plane, in that order. No celestials, no dragons, only Eladrin for fey, one interesting ooze.

[Unoriginal]

The books contains:

-New lore on various the Fiends, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes & Halflings (including subraces)

-New monsters.



Really, it is a DM book: lots of monsters, with an emphasis on demons/devils,yugoloths, Shadowfell creatures, constructs, elementals and the astral plane, in that order. No celestials, no dragons, only Eladrin for fey, one interesting ooze.

Also interesting Drows, Duergars, Ogres and Trolls.

[Blackbando]

Worth mentioning is that not all the "new" subraces are really new. There's (iirc) Deep Gnome and Duergar there, both of which have been printed in previous content. There might be others like that, too, but I can't recall.

[kraitmarais]

I love it as a DM, I'm really looking forward to writing an adventure with the new monsters and statted fiend lords.

As a player, there's really not much of interest beyond what's been mentioned above, unless you just like reading lore.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Worth mentioning is that not all the "new" subraces are really new. There's (iirc) Deep Gnome and Duergar there, both of which have been printed in previous content. There might be others like that, too, but I can't recall.

Eladrin have been done before as well. They got a UA and were in the DMG. All three versions are slightly different.

[KorvinStarmast]

My question is, besides the listed general information, like new race options, story hooks, etc, does the book have new spells in it?
Lore and bloat. Plenty Lore for elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings.

Of the new monsters, the ones that intrigued me most were the starspawn. (A lot of the rest were (IMO) bloaty but then I didn't like the AD&D fiend folio either...So maybe it's just me).

While I enjoyed some of the other new monsters, I am beginning to lose my patience with the bag of HP approach to far too many monsters in D&D 5e.

On the bright side, for those who like 'end game content' ...

Loads of major end game BBEG's: demons and demon princes are spelled out in some detail. Likewise some devils.

[EvilAnagram]

Lore and bloat. Plenty Lore for elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings.

Of the new monsters, the ones that intrigued me most were the starspawn. (A lot of the rest were (IMO) bloaty but then I didn't like the AD&D fiend folio either. (So maybe it's just me).

While I enjoyed some of the other new monsters, I am beginning to lose my patience with the bag of HP approach to far too many monsters in D&D 5e.

On the bright side, for those who like 'end game content' ...

Loads of major end game BBEG's: demons and demon princes are spelled out in some detail. Likewise some devils.

You know, I really enjoyed the Nightwalkers and elemental bigwigs, but nothing else really piqued my interest. The Star Spawn especially left me completely disappointed. It was bad enough that they were completely ignoring the concept of evil, living stars that send their avatars to the material plane to devour life, but it ended up just being gross looking cultists instead. When I saw only one of seven entries had any art at all, that closed my wallet.

[MilkmanDanimal]

I like the book, but I'm a sucker for lore and background, and the Blood War stuff in particular is something I found really interesting. I like the fact there's plenty of detail about that and that the book very much expands on the numbers and types of devils and demons, which helps you take the lore aspect of the book and apply it in a practical way. I do find some of the monsters just odd choices, as they don't factor into the nature of the book at all; having a couple new types of Ogres is I guess fine and all, but they would have "fit" better in Volo's.

Dig the devils/demons, dig the Drow, dig the Shadowfell/Duergar stuff, dig the other stuff that really feeds into the lore sections in the early part of the book. I'm not playing a high-level campaign so a lot of the monsters aren't going to factor in, but, really, as a frequent DM, I think the book adds enough for me to make it worthwhile. If you're a player, well, there's not much there other than a few subraces, but I think the book did a solid job of expanding the universe and adding some challenge, and I have no issue with it at all. Solid book.

[KorvinStarmast]

You know, I really enjoyed the Nightwalkers and elemental bigwigs, but nothing else really piqued my interest. The Star Spawn especially left me completely disappointed. It was bad enough that they were completely ignoring the concept of evil, living stars that send their avatars to the material plane to devour life, but it ended up just being gross looking cultists instead. When I saw only one of seven entries had any art at all, that closed my wallet. Yeah, that was a disappointment to me, as most other things had art. I forgot: I did like the coverage/lore for the Raven Queen and the Gith. (I had forgotten about the Gith lore in my first post). We now have a semblance of edition specific lore, regardless of how well or how badly the veterans of Gith playing receive it.