Tome of Foes: Your Wants & Fears?

QuietBrowser said:

So, with Tome of Foes some 3-4 weeks away from release at the time of my writing this, I thought it might be interesting to discuss what people really want to see - or what they really hope we don't see - now that we know the broad outline of what the Tome of Foes will contain.

For the remainder, we know that the book features sections on the Blood War, on Dwarves & Duergar, on Elves & Drow, on Gnomes & Halflings, and on the Gith. Not counting the bestiary, of course.

Wants:
If we're going to have a whole section on Gith, then I really hope that the Githyanki's monstrous allies return. I am speaking, of course, of the Duthka'gith, the Kr'y'izoth and Tl'a'ikith, the b'kallash dreadnought and the spectral hound.

Duthka'gith PC stats would be awesome, even if it just a racial feat for githyannki PCs.

Some details on the Seldarine, Morndinsamman, and Gnomish pantheons would be really good.

If they could provide information on how to bring back the distinct Feywild Gnome and River-runner Halfling of 4e, that'd be awesome. Maybe they could even bring back the Arcane & River Gnomes froM Dragon, or the Wavecrest, Ice, Chaos and Whisper Gnomes.

A racial feat for Duergar PCs to play a poison-quilled duergar, ala the Durzagon from 3e which became the default duergar in 4e, would be great.

Abyssal and/or Yugolothic Tieflings to go alongside the Archdevil Tieflings are a pipe dream, but I can wish. An official ruling for Arcanoloth Tieflings is something I really crave.

Maybe we could get stats for Karach Blades and/or Githyanki Silver Swords?

"Monster Adventurer" stats for some of the humanoid races we know will be showing up, like the Giff, would be awesome.


Fears:
I really hope they don't go too old-school with githzerai... basically, back before Planescape: Torment gave us Dak'kon, who literally redefined his race, githzerai were more blatant mirrors of the githyanki, complete with having an evil wizard-king who kept himself in power by eating the souls of githzerai who grew too strong - Zaerith Menyar-Ag-Gith, also known as the Great Githzerai.

I can live with shadar-kai becoming Shadowfell-tainted elves who swore themselves to the Raven Queen. I just hope they don't bring back the selfishly stupid evil aspect of their 3e backstory, where the shadar-kai damned themselves because they were snobs who wanted to avoid mortals and now they blame mortals for their ever-draining souls.

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QuietBrowser said:

Fears:
I really hope they don't go too old-school with githzerai... basically, back before Planescape: Torment gave us Dak'kon, who literally redefined his race, githzerai were more blatant mirrors of the githyanki, complete with having an evil wizard-king who kept himself in power by eating the souls of githzerai who grew too strong - Zaerith Menyar-Ag-Gith, also known as the Great Githzerai.

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Jester David said:

General Desires
I'd also like the presence of dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings to allow more NPC statblocks of those various races.


Wants
I'd like to actually have Mordenkainen's thoughts on the subjects rather than just confined to post-it-notes scattered throughout the book.

It'd be nice if the introductory paragraphs of each section written by Mordy with his thoughts on the subject before it switches to the generic 3rd person text.
And I'd also like his injections in the rest of the text to be substantive and offer an in-world perspective or details rather than lame jokes that just fill the page's negative space.

Fears
It'd going to be exactly the same as Volo's Guide to Monsters and Xanathar's Guide to Everything, where Volo and Xanathar where just random names pulled out of a hat that have literally zero impact on the book.
That the random sidebar notes are going to be more of the lame meta jokes with a modern slant, like in XGtE.

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Jester David said:

General Desires
I'd also like the presence of dwarves, elves, gnomes, and halflings to allow more NPC statblocks of those various races.


Wants
I'd like to actually have Mordenkainen's thoughts on the subjects rather than just confined to post-it-notes scattered throughout the book.

It'd be nice if the introductory paragraphs of each section written by Mordy with his thoughts on the subject before it switches to the generic 3rd person text.
And I'd also like his injections in the rest of the text to be substantive and offer an in-world perspective or details rather than lame jokes that just fill the page's negative space.

Fears
It'd going to be exactly the same as Volo's Guide to Monsters and Xanathar's Guide to Everything, where Volo and Xanathar where just random names pulled out of a hat that have literally zero impact on the book.
That the random sidebar notes are going to be more of the lame meta jokes with a modern slant, like in XGtE.

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vincegetorix said:

I wish the art is good. So far 5e as really good art selection that inspire me somehow. I just started buying PHB/Monster manuals to each of my players because most of them are not big on reading rules material, but many are artists in different domains so the pictures really inspire them to learning the stuff without even noticing it.

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