A Flock of Foes

[genjitsugaming]

A Bestiary of Inspirations

Do your players know every creature they run into like the back of their hand? Are you tired of heaping completely new elements into your game every time you want to give them something different? Or are you a new GM daunted by the amount of work required to template even a single vampire, ghost or lycanthrope?

A Flock of Foes will help you use the familiar elements of the game you already know how to play. This book takes the templates and classes you understand, and uses them in original combinations to make the iconic creatures you're getting tired of fresh again for you and your players. Included are some suggestions for campaign hooks, alchemical creations, spell components, common treasure and, of course, complete stats. New rule content is kept to a minimum to facilitate the easy use of these creatures and encounters in your game.

• Over 40 creatures with a "new" feel that you already know how to run, plus 20 skeletons and zombies.
• Evocative illustrations bring several creatures and antagonists to life.
• Suggestions for related items, power components, story hooks and other tidbits to help integrate these creatures into your game.
• New templates for creating golems from other base creatures.
• Complete adjusted game statistics for each creature to speed up game preparation.

A Flock of Foes is Genjitsu's first offering of new creatures built from familiar pieces, designed as an excellent resource for time-starved gamemasters.

This guidebook requires the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 3rd Edition, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. This product utilizes updated material from the v.3.5 revision.

 

[Crothian]

Flock of Foes

Monster books are pretty common these days. It takes something to have one stand out from the rest. Some books go for hard cover and full colt arts combined with other high production values. Some books go with themes of monsters like underwater or artic monsters in one book. Some are reprints from past editions and others are just a jumble of new creatures. Flock of Foes though takes a new twist on a monster book. It combines monsters from the System Reference Document with templates and classes to creature new and interesting tougher creatures.

The PDF of Flock of Foes is one the few releases by Genjitsu Games. The PDF is fifty pages long with a nice look and lay out. There are two version of the PDF one in landscape and one in portrait format. The book has some art but not pictures for each creature. The book is nicely book marked and in the back has creatures listed by challenge rating and creatures listed by advancement type. Finding what one needs in the book is fairly easy with these resources.

The book takes a different approach to creatures then any other I have seen. The writers not only just present stat blocks of advanced creatures but give them names and distinctions to make them a new creature type. The creatures are given short but complete descriptions and usually there are two or so to a page. It is a very cool and interesting take on monster books and I think it makes a great PDF product.

The book starts of with some good information on the author and illustrators. It also covers what the book is and why it was written. These little pieces from the author to the reader are always welcome and I make a point to always read them first when they are present.

The creatures are a nice mix of options and sometimes not what I would have expected. For instance the very first creature is a Cropminder. That is a Celestial Ankheg. The creature basically tills and protects the great farms and gardens of the celestial planes. Sometimes the creatures made are filled with mystery and intrigue. The Dark Historian for instance is a Cloaker with Bard levels. It just begs to ask the question what is a Claoker trying to learn and why is it so interested in history? The answers to this are not in the book but they are presented to get the DM thinking and they do that well.

The names given the creatures are very flavorful. I personally like the Rainbow Apparition and the Howling Haunt. Another thing the book does is have little rules flags. There are not many of these but they are there when things are changed and to explain why they are changed. Some of these explain a why damage has been increased or why the damage reduction of the creature has been changed.

Some of the creatures are almost comical sounding but really can be quite deadly. For instance there is the Horrendous Howling Horde which is a swarm of monkeys with the fiendish template. There are many other swarms in this book as well. They have swarms of tiny constructs, quasits, ravens, and even vipers.

The book also has a nice big appendix of animated creatures. There are skeletons and zombies version of many different creatures here. There are even construct versions of some well known monsters. It is a simple yet helpful section making it easy for the DM to use and saving him time by not having to create all these creatures himself.

This is a nice creative book showing some really interesting and cool ideas that can be done by taking normal monsters and changing them and advancing them. The author chose a wide variety of creatures and ways to alter them. Many of the creatures are similar enough to get players to be complacent and different enough to really startle them when they realize their mistake. This is a very useful book filled that will make a good addition to any fantasy game.

 

[DMH]

You forgot one thing- there are 4 templates that allow mages to create the 4 main types of golems in other forms. All are under "crafter servants."

 

[Crothian]

Ya, I try to cover most things in the reviews but some things just don't always get mentioned. THanks for pointing that out.