D&D 5E Volos Guide Seems Good But......

[Zardnaar]

I was expecting a parcel from Amazon on Wednesday NZ time but it got here on Monday.

I have had a quick read of Volos and it is quite good, Dungeonology was a bit pants ($14 who cares), but the other problem I have had was Kobolds Press Tome of Beasts arrived in the same package.

Production values on 5E MM are slightly better in terms of looks but 400+ pages makes ToB a MM2+FF in one. The amount of lore in that book I have barely had time to digest it. A lot of higher CR critters in it as well.

So whats better then Tome of Beasts or Volos? Right now I am on the fence, Volos is better if you are a player I suppose and a general read the ToB I like a lot as a DM and I already have the 5E Midgard, Southland and Unlikely Heroes from the Kobolds to play with so more races in Volos were a bit meh/no big deal.

 

[Ath'kethin]

It depends on what you want from a monster book. I have found Tome of Beasts to be pretty much useless; it's very 3rd-editiony in my opinion. Too much so for my tastes. It has a zillion monsters, and didn't even merit a second look in my opinion. I'm glad I went cheapo and just got the PDF. YMMV; many people love it.

On the other hand, I was expecting Volo's Guide to be full of Forgotten Realms crap and to be next to useless; I bought it only for the collectibility of the Limited edition cover. However, I have found it to be the opposite of what I expected; the Keystone Kops garbage I expected from the Elminster-Volo "humor" was kept to an absolute minimum, and the monsters add some interesting mechanical options I can use in my game. In short, for my money, it's Volo's Guide all the way.

NOTE: one major downside to Volo's Guide as written is that it REALLY harps on the "The Gods Made Us/Made Us Do It!" trope for a large portion of the monsters. Depending on how positively/negatively you view that factor. you may enjoy the book more or less.

 

[Charles Rampant]

NOTE: one major downside to Volo's Guide as written is that it REALLY harps on the "The Gods Made Us/Made Us Do It!" trope for a large portion of the monsters. Depending on how positively/negatively you view that factor. you may enjoy the book more or less.

It is entirely possible that this is a deliberate focus by the team, in order to give novice DMs a way around the 'killing Orc children/ Orcs are racist' problem that sometimes plagues D&D. In other words, when a player asks the hypothetical novice DM, "Why is it okay for us to massacre Orcs?", the DM can confidently and easily reply, "Well, because their gods created them for the express purpose of murdering good people." It may be a bit black and white, but ultimately D&D's core game assumptions (Good heroes delve into the darkness, kill monsters, take their stuff) work best with a black and white morality underlying them.

You can certainly go down the path of making Orcs essentially the same as humans, shades of gray sort of stuff, but I think that then will lead towards an essentially amoral message to the game - might makes right, you are right to take their stuff because you can. I've done this with the Hobgoblins a little in my setting - the players met members of an ancient civilization of them - time travel - and are keen to find them in the Astral to help out the currently debased Hobgoblins return to civilized status. But they have also plundered Hobgoblin tombs and killed a fair few of them as well; I'm dealing with the disconnect there (which the players have picked up on) by stipulating that the Ancient guys that they met were followers of the Aesir, while the modern debased lot are followers of Maglubiyetetetetstst (spelling not guaranteed to be correct). So I get to have my black and white morality cake, and eat it with a side order of cool-former-bad-guy-allies.

 

[TerraDave]

When I saw both in the store, all doubts left and I bought both. Have not regretted it one bit.

Tome vs. Guide:

Tome is bigger, literally much bigger. Its wins in terms of monster count, monster originality, fresh ideas for the DM, and high CR monsters, including many unique ones.

Guide: Wins in terms of building on the familiar. Many classic monsters now have official stats, and of course we have much more lore on some monsters. And PC stats for some (which can also help with NPCs).

If you want more in depth focus on classic D&D critters, Guide wins. But if you just want more, its the Tome.

Interesting question is synergy. Off the top of my head, putting the two books together and you really have a lot for hags or hobgoblins. On the other hand, outright overlap is pretty small. Two versions of the redcap? Maybe a few others.

Each also has NPC sections that should be quite handy.

 

[TerraDave]

NOTE: one major downside to Volo's Guide as written is that it REALLY harps on the "The Gods Made Us/Made Us Do It!" trope for a large portion of the monsters. Depending on how positively/negatively you view that factor. you may enjoy the book more or less.

YES, it really does, and it is very annoying. One very creative section is the beholder one. I think because there is no "beholder god".

It is entirely possible that this is a deliberate focus by the team, in order to give novice DMs a way around the 'killing Orc children/ Orcs are racist' problem

Hmm. I think they are separate things. They could have mindless killing machines without invoking gods, and they could have divine pressure and still have some nuance (like Drow that don't follow Lloth..).

The real problem with mindless killing machines is that we have those elsewhere, as undead, as constructs, as more bestial monsters. We also have fiends as avatars of pure evil, and aberrations for so alien its practically pure evil. It seems like "humanoids" should have another niche.

The other problem: lets kill these humanoids because of who they are, and their gods that made them that way. Not racist?

 

[Zardnaar]

It depends on what you want from a monster book. I have found Tome of Beasts to be pretty much useless; it's very 3rd-editiony in my opinion. Too much so for my tastes. It has a zillion monsters, and didn't even merit a second look in my opinion. I'm glad I went cheapo and just got the PDF. YMMV; many people love it.

On the other hand, I was expecting Volo's Guide to be full of Forgotten Realms crap and to be next to useless; I bought it only for the collectibility of the Limited edition cover. However, I have found it to be the opposite of what I expected; the Keystone Kops garbage I expected from the Elminster-Volo "humor" was kept to an absolute minimum, and the monsters add some interesting mechanical options I can use in my game. In short, for my money, it's Volo's Guide all the way.

NOTE: one major downside to Volo's Guide as written is that it REALLY harps on the "The Gods Made Us/Made Us Do It!" trope for a large portion of the monsters. Depending on how positively/negatively you view that factor. you may enjoy the book more or less.

I boiught the Tome as a real copy as it is the type of book I want in dead tree format. Sometimes having something tactile enhances the experience.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Jester David]

I do like Tome of Beasts more. It does have problems: I've described it in the past as a "Monster Manual 3" for a game that only had one MM. It's all the really obscure mythological creatures and made-up stuff. A lot of filler. But there's more than enough awesome to make up for that.

Volo's Guide to Monsters is an all-hits-no-filler Monster Manual, which is awesome, and has lore on some other cool critters. But that's hit and miss and really brings down the book. The IP monsters are well treated (beholders, mind flayers, yuan-ti) since the book can focus on what makes them cool. And the ones they included because they were excited by the monster (yuan-ti again, and hags) are amazing. The gnoll section was solid as well. But the goblin, orc, and kobold sections were incredibly ho-hum. For very different reasons.
The goblin section failed as it didn't really unite the three disparate goblinoids. The kobold section failed to make the creatures a menace: it could have been describing a race of Neutral creatures rather than Evil ones. There were no hooks or way to use them in your game. The orcs failed because it focused so much less on what makes the races cool and interesting and more on what makes it different from Warcraft and Lord of the Rings orcs. Doubly annoying, they

 

[TerraDave]

No. Not in that way.

From a broader perspective, it depends on how you run the game. Is it more like some classic action movies, where the protagonists can gun down hordes of faceless enemies, without thinking about those hordes' motivations, families, and the fact that they are just doing a job, like him?

Or is it more realistic, wherein the protagonist and the antagonist are simply two people fighting on opposite sides.

*shrug*

But again, does this approach solve that problem.

Biggest enemy slaughter of the current campaign: human cannibals. Second biggest, lizardmen. (Both Ilse of Dread...good times, good times).

On the other hand, the party has an adopted goblin that travels with them. They did bring the hurt to hobgoblins that lorded over him.

In each case, the body count was justified (if justified) by context. I think something where race alone, some races and not others, justifies slaughter is not really going to work that well in a lot of campaigns.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*