Knight Otu
First Post
I mentioned on the Necro forums that I have a list of possible errata for the Tome of Horrors II (great book), and I also have a few opinion pieces. For now, I'll post this list here, but later on, I'll post it on the Necro boards, too (minus the opinion pieces, of course. 
).
pg 3: Monsters by Type, Goblinoid subtype mentions the Troblin. However, the Troblin does not have the Goblinoid subtype. The silid, on the other hand, does, but is not mentioned here.
pg 9: In the special attacks line of the ahlinni, a 14 appears after breath weapon. Apparently, this is the save DC of the breath weapon, which is missing from the description.
pg. 10: The Empyreal should have the Angel subtype.
pg 23: In the special attacks line of the caterprism, a 2d6 appears after crystal silk. The description of the ability mentions that it deals 3d6 points of damage. Which is correct?
pg 28: The clamor is extraplanar, but apparently lists no home plane.
pg 30: As a mindless construct, the jade colossus should propably always neutral, not usually neutral. If the „usually“ alignment is supposed to allow for a lawful evil alignment for the guardian of the City of Brass, it could be mentioned as such in the sidebar „Ruby Star of Law“.
pg 31: The Advancement line of the corpse rook seems to be in error, since it grows from Large directly to Gargantuan. I suppose that advanced corpse rooks should be Huge from 7 to 12 HD, instead of Large?
pg 32: The corpsespinner is supposed to be native to the Astral Plane, and thus should propably have the Extraplanar subtype.
pgs 56+57: Boo! Neither the Dungeon Dragon nor the Smoke Dragon are true dragons. Disappointing.
(But I do like the dungeon dragon...)
pg 57: If the dominate monster ability of the dungeon dragon is supposed to include a +4 racial bonus to the DC, the DC should be 25 (10+ 9 [spell level] +2 [Cha bonus] +4 [racial bonus]). Was the creature first written with dominate person in mind?
pg 61: Similar to the clamor, the encephalon gorger lists no home plane, but in this case I suppose it is intentional.
pg 76-79: All the giants use the non-revised definition for trample instead of the revised definition (Most other creatures with trample use the revised definition, though).
pg 79: The volcano giant does not have a slam attack. Intentionally?
pg 97: I wonder, where exactly came the first Inphidian Gauntlets from? I have a hard time believing that they were created by the inphidians themselves...
pgs 98-100: While I believe that humanoid subtypes should not be limited to humanoids, the official rule is that they are limited to humanoids, and Reptilian is a humanoid subtype, while inphidians are Monstrous Humanoids.
pg 109: Was it necessary to provide the complete revised definition of the trample ability for the nuckalavee? If yes, why is it not in Appendix F?
pg 110: The ogren should propably have either Giant Blood or Goblinoid Blood, not Ogre Blood. XXX Blood in half-races is based on existing types or humanoid subtypes.
pg 112: The oil shark, which is never encountered outside of its home plane (either Plane of Fire, or Plane of Molten Skies) is a delicacy to the volcano giants, which are native to volcano giants, which are native to the Material Plane. Sounds like an extremely rare delicacy, if epic characters are (nearly) necessary for the hunt!
pgs 113-118: The stat blocks on these pages use a different font than the rest of the book.
pg 115: If good and evil proscribers have the appropriate alignment subtypes, why not lawful and chaotic ones?
pg 121: It might fit for the Transmute Acid to Water spell to have the Water descriptor.
pg 128: Seeing its picture, I have a hard time taking the renzer serious. That face...
.
pg 139: The way the scythe horn on the picture holds its hoof doesn’t look exactly healthy...
pg 152: If the stygian leviathan is supposed to be related to cetaceans, it propably should not have the aquatic subtype.
pg 154: As fishes, shouldn’t the piranha swarm have the aquatic subtype?
pg 156: The Hit Dice line of the velvet ant swarm does not reflect its Constitution bonus, which should be +5. This increases the swarms hit points to 27. Also, the swarms’ Skills description does not mention that it receives a +8 racial bonus to Climb checks (due to its climb speed), and that it uses its Dexterity modifier for Climb checks. The Climb bonus in the Skills line reflects these things, though.
pg 167: Vapor creatures - Are they two creatures trying to masquerade as a template? Or a template trying to mask as two creatures?
pg 169: Personal preference, really, but shouldn’t the blood weird also be an elemental?
pg 190: The woolly rhino, like the giants, uses the non-revised trample definition.
pg 206: The Landwalker template does not specify whether the creature loses the Aquatic subtype. The sample shark no longer has it, but the template adds the amphibious ability, which seems to indicate that the subtype remains.
pg 208: The damage paragraph for phase creatures says that damage cannot drop below 1d2, however, the table says that 1d2 is reduced to 1. It seems likely that the table is in error.
pg 227: In the Plane of Time morphic traits paragraph, the Plane of Time is referred to as the Plane of Shadows once. Seems like a copy and paste error from the SRD.
pg 231: The Gaze to Ray feat seems to be nearly useless, since creatures with gaze attacks automatically have such an ability:
pg 231+232: The Native Spell-Like Ability feat increases the caster level of a spell-like ability. However, the second sentence of thesecond paragraph („All effects dependent on ...“) seems to talk about the spell’s actual level.
pg 232: The „Special“ paragraph of the Spirited Runner feat describes what a creature without the feat can normally do. That is usually done in a „Normal“ paragraph.
pg 244: With the inclusion of the Riptide Horror, shouldn’t Blacksway’s site be included in Section 15?
No love for giants: At least, template-wise. The Cheitan, Ravenous and N’Gathau templates can be applied to humanoids and monstrous humanoids, but not giants.
General note on oozes: Oozes now can have natural armor, which might be appropriate for a few of the oozes presented in the book.
. A little more variety in alignment would have been better, IMHO.
General note on the descriptive blurb: Or at least, what is supposed to be the descriptive blurb - the italic text at the beginning of the monster’s entry. I admit that many books make the mistake of adding things that belong into it, but in my mind, the ideal descriptive blurb would be about as much as a first impression. The retch hound has a good descriptive blurb, for example, while the renzer does not, because it is not a descriptive blurb. And let’s not talk about the animals that have italic text at the start of their entry...
).pg 3: Monsters by Type, Goblinoid subtype mentions the Troblin. However, the Troblin does not have the Goblinoid subtype. The silid, on the other hand, does, but is not mentioned here.
pg 9: In the special attacks line of the ahlinni, a 14 appears after breath weapon. Apparently, this is the save DC of the breath weapon, which is missing from the description.
pg. 10: The Empyreal should have the Angel subtype.
pg 23: In the special attacks line of the caterprism, a 2d6 appears after crystal silk. The description of the ability mentions that it deals 3d6 points of damage. Which is correct?
pg 28: The clamor is extraplanar, but apparently lists no home plane.
pg 30: As a mindless construct, the jade colossus should propably always neutral, not usually neutral. If the „usually“ alignment is supposed to allow for a lawful evil alignment for the guardian of the City of Brass, it could be mentioned as such in the sidebar „Ruby Star of Law“.
pg 31: The Advancement line of the corpse rook seems to be in error, since it grows from Large directly to Gargantuan. I suppose that advanced corpse rooks should be Huge from 7 to 12 HD, instead of Large?
pg 32: The corpsespinner is supposed to be native to the Astral Plane, and thus should propably have the Extraplanar subtype.
pgs 56+57: Boo! Neither the Dungeon Dragon nor the Smoke Dragon are true dragons. Disappointing.
(But I do like the dungeon dragon...)pg 57: If the dominate monster ability of the dungeon dragon is supposed to include a +4 racial bonus to the DC, the DC should be 25 (10+ 9 [spell level] +2 [Cha bonus] +4 [racial bonus]). Was the creature first written with dominate person in mind?
pg 61: Similar to the clamor, the encephalon gorger lists no home plane, but in this case I suppose it is intentional.
pg 76-79: All the giants use the non-revised definition for trample instead of the revised definition (Most other creatures with trample use the revised definition, though).
pg 79: The volcano giant does not have a slam attack. Intentionally?
pg 97: I wonder, where exactly came the first Inphidian Gauntlets from? I have a hard time believing that they were created by the inphidians themselves...
pgs 98-100: While I believe that humanoid subtypes should not be limited to humanoids, the official rule is that they are limited to humanoids, and Reptilian is a humanoid subtype, while inphidians are Monstrous Humanoids.
pg 109: Was it necessary to provide the complete revised definition of the trample ability for the nuckalavee? If yes, why is it not in Appendix F?
pg 110: The ogren should propably have either Giant Blood or Goblinoid Blood, not Ogre Blood. XXX Blood in half-races is based on existing types or humanoid subtypes.
pg 112: The oil shark, which is never encountered outside of its home plane (either Plane of Fire, or Plane of Molten Skies) is a delicacy to the volcano giants, which are native to volcano giants, which are native to the Material Plane. Sounds like an extremely rare delicacy, if epic characters are (nearly) necessary for the hunt!
pgs 113-118: The stat blocks on these pages use a different font than the rest of the book.
pg 115: If good and evil proscribers have the appropriate alignment subtypes, why not lawful and chaotic ones?
pg 121: It might fit for the Transmute Acid to Water spell to have the Water descriptor.
pg 128: Seeing its picture, I have a hard time taking the renzer serious. That face...
.pg 139: The way the scythe horn on the picture holds its hoof doesn’t look exactly healthy...
pg 152: If the stygian leviathan is supposed to be related to cetaceans, it propably should not have the aquatic subtype.
pg 154: As fishes, shouldn’t the piranha swarm have the aquatic subtype?
pg 156: The Hit Dice line of the velvet ant swarm does not reflect its Constitution bonus, which should be +5. This increases the swarms hit points to 27. Also, the swarms’ Skills description does not mention that it receives a +8 racial bonus to Climb checks (due to its climb speed), and that it uses its Dexterity modifier for Climb checks. The Climb bonus in the Skills line reflects these things, though.
pg 167: Vapor creatures - Are they two creatures trying to masquerade as a template? Or a template trying to mask as two creatures?
pg 169: Personal preference, really, but shouldn’t the blood weird also be an elemental?
pg 190: The woolly rhino, like the giants, uses the non-revised trample definition.
pg 206: The Landwalker template does not specify whether the creature loses the Aquatic subtype. The sample shark no longer has it, but the template adds the amphibious ability, which seems to indicate that the subtype remains.
pg 208: The damage paragraph for phase creatures says that damage cannot drop below 1d2, however, the table says that 1d2 is reduced to 1. It seems likely that the table is in error.
pg 227: In the Plane of Time morphic traits paragraph, the Plane of Time is referred to as the Plane of Shadows once. Seems like a copy and paste error from the SRD.
pg 231: The Gaze to Ray feat seems to be nearly useless, since creatures with gaze attacks automatically have such an ability:
The ray, of course, cannot avoided by a blindfold or averting ones eyes, but I do not believe that this justifies the multiple costs (feat slot, need to make a ranged touch attack (admittedly not much of a cost), being disoriented for a short time and losing the gaze attack for that time). If the feat instead allowed the ray to be fired at a greater range (normal plus 30 feet, or maybe doubled), it would be better balanced in my opinion.SRD said:
pg 231+232: The Native Spell-Like Ability feat increases the caster level of a spell-like ability. However, the second sentence of thesecond paragraph („All effects dependent on ...“) seems to talk about the spell’s actual level.
pg 232: The „Special“ paragraph of the Spirited Runner feat describes what a creature without the feat can normally do. That is usually done in a „Normal“ paragraph.
pg 244: With the inclusion of the Riptide Horror, shouldn’t Blacksway’s site be included in Section 15?
No love for giants: At least, template-wise. The Cheitan, Ravenous and N’Gathau templates can be applied to humanoids and monstrous humanoids, but not giants.
General note on oozes: Oozes now can have natural armor, which might be appropriate for a few of the oozes presented in the book.
General note on undead: Such a huge menagerie of undead, a total of 15 creatures! And with the exception of three of them, they are all chaotic evil.SRD said:
. A little more variety in alignment would have been better, IMHO.General note on the descriptive blurb: Or at least, what is supposed to be the descriptive blurb - the italic text at the beginning of the monster’s entry. I admit that many books make the mistake of adding things that belong into it, but in my mind, the ideal descriptive blurb would be about as much as a first impression. The retch hound has a good descriptive blurb, for example, while the renzer does not, because it is not a descriptive blurb. And let’s not talk about the animals that have italic text at the start of their entry...
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