[UPDATE: NOW LIVE] TOME OF BEASTS Preview - A 5E Monster Book from the Kobolds!

Kobold Press is continuing its D&D 5E offerings with a new Kickstarter which is set to launch today (Monday). I'll update this article with the link when it arrives (update - it's now live), but the project is a new 5E monster book called Tome of Beasts. Kobold Press, of course, made the Tyranny of Dragons adventures for WotC. They've kindly sent along a preview of this new book - an eye golem - which is one of the more than 300 monsters in this book.

[UPDATE: The Kickstarter has now launched!]

This makes the second major monster book from a third-party (Necromancer Games produced 5th Edition Foes earlier this year). Here's what I know about it so far - it's 300+ new monsters which are compiled from Kobold Press' history, full colour, and will be Kickstarted for 30 days starting Monday 5th October. They mentioned that the book would include clockwork creatures, drakes, dragons, devils, and dark fey.

There's also a Book of Lairs which features short adventures (and also starring some of these monsters), each with a large encounter map.

What else have the Kobolds produced for 5E? Aside from the two Tyranny of Dragons adventures for WotC, they've already brought us an adventure called The Raven's Call, and a pile of races and backgrounds in Midgard Heroes.

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[Guyanthalas]

[MENTION=22474]Monkey King[/MENTION]

One of the criticisms of "5th Edition Foes" was that the Challenge Ratings were off. Granted, they did this before 5e was out yet and the monster design rules were in place. Are you guys using the 5e design principles for monster creation and challenge rating?

(I only ask because I gave up making my own monsters after reading the guidelines, figuring it was just simpler to do palette swaps!)

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Pretty cool ... except I dislike when established companies use Kickstarter ... it's not for preorders.

Theres probably under 5 full time employees, that's hardly established. Kobold Press ran patron projects previously (that's a lot of P's!), where in order to fund a project, a certain amount of support needed to be secured - this is no different. Small operations cant afford to take a bath on a new book, and this ensures they get a minimum number of sales in order for the project to be viable. In the age of rampant torrents and downloads, its nice to know you'll be paid for your work even if it ends up on the internet 24 hours after release.

 

[Riley]

I'm in!
I've been a patron of several Kobold Press (nee Open Design) projects, and so far I've always been quite pleased with the final product.
Plus: Monsters!

 

[Monkey King]

I figured the cost had to do with the art expenses. Is the intention that every monster will have an illustration then?

Yes, every monster will have an illustration. No invisible stalkers here!

Are you open to including add ons like for an additonal amount a person could include a pdf of Lairs with a physical Beasts pledge?

That sounds like one of the existing tiers, but yes, you can add the Lairs PDF to the printed Tome if you like.

 

[Monkey King]

One of the criticisms of "5th Edition Foes" was that the Challenge Ratings were off. Granted, they did this before 5e was out yet and the monster design rules were in place. Are you guys using the 5e design principles for monster creation and challenge rating?

We are using the 5e design principles and are vetting out challenge ratings pretty carefully. That includes development, in-house playtests, and yes, some backer playtests as well. We want to get them right.

 

[Matthan]

Yes, every monster will have an illustration. No invisible stalkers here!

That sounds like one of the existing tiers, but yes, you can add the Lairs PDF to the printed Tome if you like.

It absolutely is an existing tier. I don't even know how I missed that. I feel like a heel. Thanks for being gracious about it.

 

[Matthan]

And... now I'm a backer.

 

[Monkey King]

Thank you for your support, Matthan! (And all the other 200+ backers to date! It's only 8 hours in and this project is almost funded and ready to start adding stretch goals.)

 

[BrockBallingdark]

Son of a bitch... I'm in!

 

[BMaC]

How much $ to ship to Ireland ?