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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pinotage" data-source="post: 2532514" data-attributes="member: 15194">A Magical Society: Beast Builder is a pdf supplement from Expeditious Retreat Press. It features a detailed guide on creating realistic, entertaining and challenging monsters, a definitive guide to monster building. This pdf has a page count of 225 pages - 2 devoted to covers and cover art, 3 for credits and a table on contents, 2 for OGL declarations (including an enormous section 15), 3 pages of advertisements, 2 pages of introductory material, leaving 213 pages of monstrous goodness. A Magical Society: Beast Builder normally retails for $13.50 on both RPGNow.com and DriveThruRPG.com.Initial Impressions:I was excited when I started reading this pdf, and was very pleased to find that I was not disappointed. This book is excellent - a fantastic resource and guide to monster creation, both in providing clear and concise design guidelines, but also as a resource for monstrous material such a special attacks and qualities, tables and types and subtypes. The layout is in two columns throughout the book, with simplistic borders, which is fine for a pdf product. My only complaint was that it was often hard to discern headings from sub-headings from sub-sub-headings, given the many layered structure of the book and its contents. Thankfully, it's fully bookmarked, and that's a tremendous help navigating the pdf.Art was superb in places, mostly the greyscale pieces rather than the often mundane looking black and white drawings in-between all the monstrous content. There is a comparatively good amount of art, fifty pieces in total, and the majority very good - the kind you need to stare at for some time just to absorb what you're seeing. I have to admit that I was hooked from the start when reading this material. It contains a little more detail than I'd like to see on some subjects (fine details on monster environment), and a little less on others (examples of how to apply environment details to SRD monsters), but I think it's a fine guide to monster design, providing a clear path to follow in creating interesting monsters, particularly campaign specific monsters.The Details:A Magical Society: Beast Builder consists of seven chapter and three appendixes. The introductory material contains a brief history of the pdf as well as a summary of each chapter and what you can expect to find in them, giving a taste of what lies ahead, but also a more detailed guide on where to look for what you're interested in. And, if you're like me, there's a lot to be interested in, even if it's something simple as delighting in the special attacks and special qualities all combined into a huge list from a score of different sources. A definitive guide indeed!Chapter 1: This is an exciting and fun chapter detailing monster concepts and functions. It's particularly useful in aiding in coming up with a decent concept for a monster, by listing typical examples used to generate concepts, such a myth and folklore, or using false cognates, monsters that don't appear as they seem. There are a whole host of others, giving enough inspiration in searching for monster ideas. The chapter continued from here to monster functions, again giving a detailed list of what the monster actually does. Is it a drainer that causes ability score damage, or a misdirector that uses illusion magic, or even a PC killer that has certain attacks that can be deadly to PCs? Whatever type of monster you want to create, this chapter gives full details on concept generation and function. Each monster function also lists all the creatures from the SRD and Monster Geographica: Underground that fit that particular category, a useful way of getting an complete idea of what each function entails. There's nothing to disappoint in this chapter.Chapter 2: Probably the most detailed chapter in the pdf, this chapter details monsters and their environment, looking at such aspects as what monsters do, how they interact with other creatures, where they live and other aspects. It is, as mentioned, very detailed, trying to establish a very realistic view of a magical ecosystem of which monsters and magical creatures form a part of. It's a bit much for me, particularly because there were very few examples of how typical monsters found in the SRD relate to the information contained in these pages. Describing the ecosystem of several different varieties of forest or desert is very useful in developing monsters along those environmental lines, but I'd have liked to see how, for example, a troll fits into that ecosystem - what it feeds on, how it hunts, how it interacts with the other creatures, and what its dependencies are. While I could conceivably fill those details in myself, if would've been a great addition to the pdf.Details in this chapter include such things as food chains, food webs (multi-faceted food chains), types of ecosystems, aspects of what creatures do, what they eat, where they live and a host of other information. Near complete details on each possible monster environment are given, such as forests or underground, with each environment often consisting of a number of different sub-varieties, each detailed with weather, fauna and flora considerations and other bits and pieces. Design guidelines are given relating to each environment and information on how to fit a magical ecosystem on top of these environments. As if that wasn't enough (I said it was detailed, didn't I!) the chapter concludes with interspecies relationships, intelligent creatures and their cultures, and brief details on using monsters as races and how to adapt them to your game.I can see this chapter as being tremendously useful for those building campaigns and trying to generate new monsters in their campaign environment, but as less useful for those of us just wanting to generate a quick critter to scare the daylights out of the party. Given that many of the SRD monsters don't contain the details given here, or rather don't contain as much detail, it might be a kind of verisimilitude that many won't be requiring on an everyday basis.Chapter 3: This chapter is a crunch chapter. Its details the mechanical aspects of building a monster, pulling apart the monster stat block and explaining each section in a clear and concise manner. It's extremely useful, given that each aspect of the stat block described contains details on CR considerations, one of the trickier pests in the current game. Tables are given on a variety of different things, from size increases, to damage vs. size, to CR vs. HD and CR vs. type tables generated from the SRD. All these tables offer a huge amount of valuable information in comparing your newly design monster with those contained in the SRD. Monster advancement is discussed in detail, and while this information in repeated in parts of the book, it does save time flipping (clicking!) through the many pages of this book. The advice given on CR selection and LA selection is sound, and for those looking for that information, let me repeat it here: playtest! There's a lot more to it than that, of course, but that's the most reliable way of constructing CRs and LAs.Chapter 4: This chapter delves into the various types and subtypes, giving design advice on deciding which type or subtype should be used, and full details on the type traits. Another useful and full chapter containing useful reference data, and in addition listing for each type and subtype the typical special attacks and qualities that monsters of that particular type and subtype contain. This is another solid chapter filled with useful design information and complete reference material.Chapter 5: Templates, one of my personal favourites, are covered in this chapter. Templates are broken down into typical themes, such as half templates and planar aligned templates, giving guidelines in designing your own templates. In addition, it lists a number of ways in which templates can be acquired, ranging from combining creatures to creatures formed from planar leaks. Like the preceding two chapters, this chapter continues to delve into the aspects of creating a template, with full details given on each aspect of writing and creating a new template. The latter part of the chapter, for reference, lists the typical special attacks and special qualities that templates from the SRD grant, and the source for each of these abilities.Chapter 6:  An unexpected addition to this great book, this chapter deals in holistic magic, or creating short duration magical items from monster body parts within a campaign specific environment. While I generally like the ideas contained in this chapter, and certainly the great flavour text provided for each monster 'recipe', it's not everybody's cup of tea. For one, there are some balance issues that may arise when PCs or other cults and groups decide to go on mass monster slaughter fests, although that in itself could provide an interesting adventure for PCs. While every effort appears to have been taken to ensure that these items are not 'over-harvested', it is a distinct possibility, and one that turns fighting a monster to overcome it into fighting a monster to grab its bits to do cool things with. It really depends what you like in your game.Chapter 7: The beefy part of the pdf. Or the beefier part. This lists all the special attacks and qualities from the monsters contained in the SRD and Monster Geographica: Underground. I sincerely hope they add the monsters from the other environments to this series (Marsh and Aquatic, and Forest), perhaps releasing the special abilities and 'monster building' goodness in separate short pdfs as it relates to this pdf. I'd certainly like to see that, as it would be an invaluable reference. In any event, each ability also lists the monsters that have that ability and the source for said ability, and concludes with a list of all the conditions that may arise from critters using these abilities. This is a great chapter - not only because you can delve through the abilities to find new and exciting abilities you may not know of, but also because you can search for monsters based on particular abilities. Having a search function connected to this as a database would've been great!Appendixes: There are three appendixes to seal off a well done and complete package on monster building. The first if a extremely helpful checklist, providing you with a handy reference to make sure you've got everything correctly. The second contains probability tables, indicating the probability of success when, for example trying to hit a certain AC with a given attack bonus, or trying to make certain DC save with a given save bonus. This is useful in designing certain aspects of monster in relation to typical party members of the monsters' CR. Lastly, the third appendix contains a random monster generator, which is fun, but not necessarily something many people will use.What can I say about such a grand pdf? It's an excellent design resource, both on the advice front and on the mechanics front, containing a well balanced mix of crunch and fluff. There's not a lot missing from this book, although maybe one or two examples in certain places would've been more useful. This is most definitely a useful addition to any monster builder's gaming library - if you like designing monsters, you should not leave home without this pdf, or the print version.Conclusions:A Magical Society: Beast Builder is a comprehensive guide to designing and building realistic monsters within a campaign environment or as a general creature to scare you party. It's very detailed, an invaluable resource, and an almost must-have for any serious monster builder's gaming library. If you want to create interesting, detailed monsters that have a realistic feel to them, yet provide a fun and challenging experience to your players, thereby enhancing your campaign world, then this is the product for you. Based on its excellent material and value for money with very few holes in said content, I'd grade it with four and a half stars, rounding up to five stars.</blockquote>

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