2 out of 5 rating for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
For D&D’s 5th Edition, Wizards of the Coast committed not to releasing books that players might have purchased before. They didn’t want to just do the same book they’d done two or three times previously but with new rules. Instead, they’re experimenting with format a little. And in this case, the experiment didn’t work.
Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes is somewhat of a mess. It tries to be several things at the same time, attempting to be a monster book and a racial sourcebook for players and a DM’s book of lore and the book on demihuman deities, with multiple new subraces on top plus an introduction to the Raven Queen. And as a result, it does nothing particularly well. It wastes an entire chapter for no good reason and has lots of content you wouldn’t expect while omitting several things you would expect. While more demons, devils, and drow make sense and gith racial options fit perfectly, having this be the book with shadar-kai is unexpected, and the sea elves come out of nowhere. And I in no way anticipated this would be the halfling and gnome racial expansion book (let alone the third book I’d have with the svirfneblin write-up). And having well over a dozen pages of the book devoted to non-human deities is just a curious choice.
It really feels like they had half of a planar version of Volo’s Guide to Monsters and half of a book on the various PC races and just smooshed the two Word files together. Given the tagline I was really hoping to see more multiversal and planar conflict. Maybe more on the Modrons, and perhaps some details on angels and the good planar being’s conflict with the planes below. And it’s easy to imagine what a book on the player races could be with more room to work in feats, campaign setting variants, magic items, and more.
This is biggest selling feature of the book is the new monsters. More monsters is almost always a good thing. Tome of Foes is 135 pages of new monsters and some other stuff. Between this, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, and the offerings from Kobold Press I think I’m good for 5th Edition monsters for, well, the rest of the edition.
If you’re running Out of the Abyss and want some quick extra lore on demon, duergar, and drow, then this book is a good choice. If you want more lore on pretty any other subjects on in this book, I’d direct you to the Dungeon Masters Guild. And if you want more monsters that can pose a challenge to your party, try the
Tome of Beasts instead.
Read my full review
here.