Preview VOLO'S GUIDE TO MONSTERS

Polygon has scored a look at the upcoming Volo's Guide to Monsters from WotC - six full pages, in fact, which give a very clear idea of what we can expect from the book when it arrived next month! From the looks of their article, it seems that WotC is using this as a testbed for the way they handle future sourcebooks. Polygon confirms the overall product description - 96 new (to 5E) monsters, tons of rules for monster PCs (goblins, orcs, firbolgs), and a buch of deep dives into some iconic monsters. The beholder section is nearly 14 pages on its own. Check out the article at Polygon for more!

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[EthanSental]

I was already planning on picking this up, even more so now with the recent previews WoTC has released.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I've made peace with the fact that if I want high-level monsters, I'll have to design them myself, so it's not a huge complaint, but... one of the issues with these monsters is that they -- like many of the high-CR monsters in the Monster Manual -- are rare and solitary. There's only one Elder Brain in an illithid colony, for example. You can't roll on a random encounter table and say, "You encounter four Elder Brains!" Whereas in low-level adventures, you can make random encounter tables for every single terrain type and never run out of options.

So it's not just that we need high-CR monsters. It's that we need high-CR monsters that can roam dungeons and forests and deserts and mountains in great numbers. Almost everything that we have now -- behirs, dragons, beholders, purple worms, liches, etc. -- are rare and solitary.

I suspect that there were great herds of high CR things running around, humanoids would be extinct or a lot different (no wizards here, wizards attract kaiju with all those bright glowing spells, kaiju squished everywhere that wizards were). Still a body can move the action to the Planes, and you can run into a room and find 2 pit fiends talking to a lich and an ancient red dragon.....

 

[I'm A Banana]

This stuff is SEXXY. I am SO excited for a different kind of monster book!

So...same price as the MM but with a quarter of the monsters? Sorry but IMHO this just looks like WotC trying to see how much filler they can put into a book and still get people to fork over their cash.

You say "filler" I say plot hooks.

Here's a few I derived just from the first page:

• An ally of the PC's is kidnapped and undergoes ceremorphosis. The resulting mind flayer uses its vague memories of the party to show up where they dwell, leave trikets that remind them of their fallen friend, and spread secrets that the party thought were safe. ("I remember our long talks, about all your hopes and all your dreams..." says the creature as its tentacles stroke your cheek affectoinately. "....I wonder how they taste...")
• An squad of githyanki are raiding the underdark to destroy an Elder Brain, and it sends a mind flayer to entreat the party - save it from these raiders and pirates, and it will agree to release the captives it's taken.
• An aged mind flayer is returning to the Elder Brain, and wreaking havoc through the countryside as it goes. The party must follow it, limit it's damage, and slay the brain it is returning to.
• In the wake of an elder brain's destruction, renegade free-willed illithids start fighting amongst themselves, wreaking great collateral damage in their efforts to dominate and control each other, and using the humans caught in the middle like pawns.

Those could fuel entire sessions of D&D. In terms of hours of use/page, this beats a statblock, any day.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Groups of Mind Flayers would be dangerous to high level parties. And the two monsters we have gotten stats for have always been fairly weak. So I am not shocked about their CR.

As for the book costing 50$ it's 35$ right now on Indigo were I ordered my copy.

 

[Prakriti]

That's the effects of supply & demand at work.

Ah yes. The question is, has Wizards correctly gauged supply and demand in this case? Since Volo's Guide appeals to both players and DMs, the presumption is that they can charge more for it. I think they over-shot the mark a little, but they're in possession of far more information than I am. There's really nothing more I can add.

The other question is: Will I buy it anyways? And the answer is much closer to "yes" than it was before these last two previews, because the quality of the content is much higher than I expected.

 

[Prakriti]

I suspect that there were great herds of high CR things running around, humanoids would be extinct or a lot different (no wizards here, wizards attract kaiju with all those bright glowing spells, kaiju squished everywhere that wizards were). Still a body can move the action to the Planes, and you can run into a room and find 2 pit fiends talking to a lich and an ancient red dragon.....

You're not wrong, but my answer is... Let me worry about that. Just give me the monsters, and I'll design a world that makes sense.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Since Volo's Guide appeals to both players and DMs, the presumption is that they can charge more for it.

Actually, I was meaning more that because this book is less likely to be bought my as many people as a book like the DMG was, that the price has to be higher in order to achieve similar profit (and cover that in printing, costs are typically a bit higher per unit when not making as many units).

The other question is: Will I buy it anyways? And the answer is much closer to "yes" than it was before these last two previews, because the quality of the content is much higher than I expected.

I guess you can call that an advantage of having low expectations.

I know I'm going to buy it, and I have since it was announced, but that's because I was expecting the quality to be similar to the 5th edition books produced thus far (which is to say I expected the quality to be worth the asking price).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Also as I said you can get it for 35$ now.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm less against it than I used to be, but I still note the low CRs of the previewed creatures.

Both the Elder Brain and the Alhoon are stated as going to be fully statted out (in fact, we have basically the whole Alhoon description other than the stat block!), and both of those will be high-CR monsters. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Elder Brain clocking in at over CR 20! And I imagine that the Xanatar, as an example of an Eye Tyrant, should have a high CR as well (I'm guessing since it will be appearing in Chapter 1 and not Chapter 3 that it will get the SKT-type write-up for variants - "it's a typical beholder with the following changes and a CR of X")

Absolutely giddy about seeing the Gauth. I was almost 100% certain it would be in, but glad to see it confirmed!

 

[JeffB]

It's a common critique -- people said the same thing when the 2001 forgotten realms campaign setting came out, was their first 40 dollar book, but people still paid it all the same because it was chock full of story detail as opposed to stats. I'm all for more crunch as long as it's worthwhile, but good story elements are worth a lot to me, too. Also I o be considered is that things like the Hanjin Shipping debacle have repercussions, too, sometimes in very indirect ways.

Either way, if the market doesn't bear it I'm sure they'll find out quickly.

However, the 3.0 FRCS had very small font, was extremely text dense and on top of it, more artistically complex (frayed page edges, pages that looked like parchment, etc.). It was truly a deluxe book for it's time. After people saw how text dense it was , most of us realized it was worth considerably more than the first couple of $ 19.99 core book print runs. Do not forget also that the page counts on the 3.0 MM and DMG were low compared to tbeir predecessors and that was an issue with many.. The original 3.0 MM in particular was lambasted because it was so much leaner than the defacto late 2e book- The Monstrous Manual. There was plenty of discussion (nerd rage) on the original ENW forums and the wizards boards where SKR and others @ WOTC tried to provide some damage control on the lean nature of the 3.0 MM.

So far this Volo Guide doesnt seem to be very text dense, the page count is lower AND it commands the premium price.. Very unlike the 3.0 situation.

Quality is another matter entirely...