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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[Demetrios1453]

Weren't the Mindflayer gods killed by Orcus.

Just one, Maanzecorian, the illithid god of knowledge and philosophy. The main illithid deity, Ilsensine, is still out there. Ilsensine is pretty much the ultimate Elder Brain, but it's not actively worshiped by most mind flayers, more like ultimate respect and fear. I would assume it will get a mention and maybe a short write-up. The main beholder deity, the Great Mother, who has a similar lack of outright worship, will probably get similar coverage. The pantheons of the more humanoid races (goblinoids, giants, etc) featured in Chapter 1 as well as those of the yuan-ti will likely get more extensive coverage, as they are actually worshiped and have been better detailed through the various editions.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

The Yuan Ti gods are pretty interesting in fact. Mershaulk particularly

Mershaulk the main yuan ti god is said that he will destroy the world when he awakens and the Yuan Ti will rule it's remnants. The Yuan Ti believe in order to awaken him they must preform acts of evil. But those acts don't count if they benefit the Yuan Ti in any way other then them feeling pleasure from it. As a result Yuan Ti tend to preform acts of cruelty purely for the sake of it.

 

[ninjayeti]

Here's my thing:

I need maybe 5-10 stat blocks and 100 awesome ways I could use them.

Great! I am genuinely glad that this product works for you - but please stop telling me I am wrong because my gaming needs are different than yours.

I have 100+ awesome ideas, but I would like more NPC resources so I can put together interesting encounters quickly without having to stat everything up from scratch.

Your argument about having more stat blocks than I actually use makes no sense. I only watched 5-10 shows on Netflix last month - does that mean Netflix has too many shows? Or does having a ton of shows increase the chance that I will find exactly the show I want to watch at any given time. (Also - are you going to actually use 100 story ideas for mind flayers? Or is it just nice to have lots of options?)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Great! I am genuinely glad that this product works for you - but please stop telling me I am wrong because my gaming needs are different than yours.

I have 100+ awesome ideas, but I would like more NPC resources so I can put together interesting encounters quickly without having to stat everything up from scratch.

Your argument about having more stat blocks than I actually use makes no sense. I only watched 5-10 shows on Netflix last month - does that mean Netflix has too many shows? Or does having a ton of shows increase the chance that I will find exactly the show I want to watch at any given time. (Also - are you going to actually use 100 story ideas for mind flayers? Or is it just nice to have lots of options?)

I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong, I'm just trying to persuade you that this isn't "filler." (and to maybe help you find a bunch of stat blocks, if that's what you need) It's of real, practical value, in actually playing the game.

And I think if Netflix announced tomorrow that it was bringing on 300 brand new shows, I'd be like "Okay, but I'm not going to get a lot of benefit out of these!" If it announced 100 new shows and offered to pay off my student loans, I'd be like "Okay, great, that helps with something I actually needed help with! Now I can work less overtime and watch more cool shows!" More new shows doesn't really give me more real options for how to spend my limited time - more stat blocks doesn't actually give me many more options for monster use, since I've still got the same number of slots open, every week.

 

[BMaC]

Elder Brains! Hell yes!

 

[Dualazi]

Here's my thing:

How many unique monster stat blocks did you use last session?

Last session of D&D I played, it was one. Rocs.

I've seen more - sometimes maybe 5-7, if we're having a very diverse kind of night.

D&D's been out for 2 years now. If I ran a session every week and used, say, three distinct stat blocks every week on average, no repeats, no homebrews, no templates, not counting racial modifiers (so "dwarf scout" = "orc scout"), I've used 312 monster stat blocks.

That's not even every monster in the monster manual. And it's not counting running the official adventures and using their stat blocks (which, by far, has been my personal experience - I'd be surprised if I've used half the monsters from the MM).

I might be atypical...but how many monsters from the MM have you used? Like, do you have a %? A weekly average? Is it especially high?

If so, Here's 250 more. And here's 400+. Here's a load more, on the cheap.

How long do you think those would last you? Because me, I could play with these stat blocks for decades and not use them all.

5e's got more of a glut of monster stat blocks than it does any other product. There are perfectly good monsters in these products that I will just never use. Hell, that last session of D&D? It's the first time in ever that some of the table fought against Rocs! These guys have been playing for 20-30 years!

What I've got less of is inspiration, setting material, useful plot threads. Context. My campaign doesn't need to be set up to accommodate them already, they inspire me to use them in my campaign. I didn't know I'd have ceremorphs in my game until I really liked the idea of making one an antagonist!

I don't need 1,000 stat blocks (though I've got 'em!).

I need maybe 5-10 stat blocks and 100 awesome ways I could use them.

"More Stat Blocks" is a solution to the problem of "I don't have enough monsters!"

I don't fully understand why someone would have that problem at this point in time in 5e, unless they're running a really unusual group for one reason or another ("Oh, I can't use undead or humanoids or beasts, so once you remove those...." / "Oh, I'm philosophically opposed to non-WotC stuff" / "Oh, my games feature 30 monsters every night and we meet 3 times per week, so I run through these books in like, three months")

My problem is more, "Why should I use Mind Flayers when I've got 1,000 stat blocks to choose from?"

That one page gave me at least a small handful of reasons to do that.

The only way this applies in my opinion is if you actually treat most of those as independent entities worthy of consideration. Functionally there's very little between an ogrillon, an ogre, and a hill giant. They're all big bags of HP with high damage single-target abilities. So I personally don't really consider those to be distinct enough under 5e's simplified rules.Most generic humanoid opponents have one quasi-unique ability like Rampage or Aggressive, and then the same basic weapon attacks at +4-5 for average damage.


The thing is that I can make all of those interesting through lore, cultural, and personal traits, but I simply don't have the time or inclination to make interesting and semi-balanced opponents from a mechanical standpoint. That's ostensibly what I pay a game designer to do, not to tell me what stories to tell with their product.


Also, to answer your question, I would say I average between 4-8 different creatures per session, give or take. Very rarely is it below 4, usually reserved for a major climactic boss encounter or something.

 

[wedgeski]

I would have been happy with an MM2 of the same quality as the first, but this is exactly the book I want right now.

 

[JeffB]

Wow! My 5e core books are still in great shape, and i've been using 'em for two years now. Got them from Barnes & Noble brick & mortar, don't know which print run, though.

Of course, my 1e books are in somewhat worse shape, but that's to be expected with them being 30+ years old, and all.

My 5e books are all 1st prints, I believe (?)

Barring some of the orange spine madness, my TSR era hardcovers both 1e and (early) 2e have held up quite well, considering.

 

[Jester David]

I just don't understand the complaints regarding fluff.

I don't need more monster stat blocks. It takes zero effort to grab a monster of the appropriate CR and refluff it at something else. (Hey, this hypnotic fungi creature uses the succubus statblock.) And I barely have time to use the monsters I have.
Fluff gives me a reason to use the monsters. The stat block lets me use them at the table, but the fluff makes me want to. A monster with no flavour is one I don't even bother to read. It could have the coolests powers ever, but unless I'm given a reason to care I'll skip passed that page.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Every time I hear "brain", I think of Krang the Enforcer, and not a mind flayer. Maybe I should stat that dude up for 5e...