The Briar Man Is A Monster From Kobold Press' Tales of the Old Margreve

Tales of the Old Margerve is a collection of 5E adventures set in an ancient, enchanted forest in Kobold Press' Midgard setting on Kickstarter right now. Kobold Press has sent along a preview of one of the monsters from the book -- the Briar Man, an undead fey vampiric monstrosity!

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The Kickstarter itself contains two books (and an optional pawn stretch goal). The primary book contains the adventures, which range from levels 1-10, while the accompanying Player's Guide includes new player options such as subclasses, spells, and more.

 

[Matthan]

Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to back this one. I love Kobold's stuff and I've backed all of their prior 5e kickstarters, but the lack of a PDF option is killing this one for me. I didn't realize how important that option was for me until it wasn't there. I use physical books to read at home, but I use the PDFs to be able to prep and run from my phone. I don't take books out of my house. I even bought a decent tablet just for reading my PDFs.

I run PbP games over Discord and I can update everything from my phone no matter where I am as long as I have the PDF. I can't access Roll20 on my phone (maybe they have a paid option for that, but it's not something that I'm interested in for one product) and I don't think FG meets that need either.

I appreciate their desire to meet a need in the VTT market. I just wish that they didn't abandon me as a customer to do it. I know I'm an outlier and presumably the VTT market is massive for them to make this leap. I just hate that they didn't even bother to poll their customers. I've backed all of their 5e kickstarters. I back their Patreon. I would have happily filled out a survey on how I use their products and what I want to see from them to help them get some data instead of them launching a product to test the waters.

 

[Rhylthar]

Same here.

And the really high shipping costs to Germany. I know shipping is quite expensive but I backed the Creature Codex and the shipping costs were a lot smaller than at this one.

 

[Marc Radle]

Ben McFarland created a survey asking how fans how they use Kobold Press products.
If you have strong feelings about VTT vs PDF formats, this is an excellent place to make them known!!


https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RTF3PTF

 

[Matthan]

I filled out that survey this morning. I wish it had a little nuance to it, but at least someone is doing something to try to get some data.

 

[Zaukrie]

I love Kobold, and I really wanted to buy this.....but I use PDFs a lot. I prefer to read the print, and print out the parts I need for table play. It's a lot easier to use individual pages at the table than giant books......

I used Fantasy Grounds for a bit, but I am not gaming remotely now, and have no interest in a VTT version of any of this. I prefer not to pay for the tool that allows me to read something.....for one reason.

 

[Ghost2020]

Yeah, a real head scratcher to NOT offer PDF.

Maybe they'll turn it around and offer it as a stretch goal or after the fact.

 

[Ghost2020]

Was the creature originally called a "Briar Bully"?

See the Multiattack last line, "...and the brier bully uses it's Thorny Grapple..", and under Entangle it mentions Brian Bullies as well. A bit of proofing needed on this one.

 

[Marc Radle]

Quite possibly ...

This is mostly an early mock up to give folks a feel for the overall page look, etc. The final product will have gone through MANY more rounds of editing, proofing, etc.!

Was the creature originally called a "Briar Bully"?

See the Multiattack last line, "...and the brier bully uses it's Thorny Grapple..", and under Entangle it mentions Brian Bullies as well. A bit of proofing needed on this one.

 

[Mistwell]

Does the book have no fluff description for the monsters? Why is this creature even an undead? What is it? How would a DM typically use it in a scenario? What is it's motivation? Etc..