Advanced Bestiary (PDF)

[Crothian]

Bring On the Monsters!

Awaiting you between the covers of the Advanced Bestiary are over 100 new templates that put the power back into your hands! With concepts ranging from the apocalyptic four horsemen to the bizarre id ooze and stone idol, this book offers unprecedented flexibility for campaigns of any style. These templates can be combined with monsters from any other source to create an endless variety of new creatures, making every monster book you already own even more valuable. In addition, to enhance this book’s usefulness, each template includes a sample creature, showing ways to overlay templates on a variety of creatures, while giving monster stats ready to play right out of the book. Used by itself, or in conjunction with Green Ronin’s Advanced Player’s Manual and the Advanced Gamemaster’s Guide, your games will never be the same. Inside the Advanced Bestiary you will find:

* Extensive guidelines for applying templates to any creature in the d20 system.
* Over 100 new templates with CR modifiers ranging from –4 to +6
* Dozens of new templates applicable for player character use.
* Templates within templates, with variations among existing templates like the devil bound, demon possessed, and metal clad creatures.
* Templates to create all your favorite undead, from ghouls and mummies to their more powerful varieties like dread morghs and dread wraith sovereigns.
* Sample creatures for every template with CRs ranging from ½ to 24.
* Beautiful illustrations by top artists like Julian Allen, Kent Burles, Mike Vilardi, Kev Crossley, Toren “Macbin” Atkinson, Tyler Walpole, Ilya Astrakhan, Caleb Cleveland, and Britt Martin.
* Each template identified by complexity level to enhance the books utility for times when you need a template in a hurry.
* The ability to surprise your players with an assortment of terrifying foes!

Written by Plot & Poison author and Dragon Magazine editor-in-chief Matthew Sernett, the Advanced Bestiary is a monster-building toolkit like none other!

Requires the use of the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. This product utilizes updated material from the v.3.5 revision

 

[Crothian]

Advanced Bestiary

Advanced Bestiary

Templates are one of the most versatile features of the d20 game. And I feel I have said that before in other review of books of templates. But it remains true and with this book of templates by one of the bigger companies out there e in the d20 market we might be seeing more of them. Advanced Bestiary is a different type of monster books since it offers templates instead of new creatures.

Advanced Bestiary is the first in the Advanced line by Green Ronin. The book is offered as a print book as well as a PDF and while this review focuses on the PDF version the print version has the same content. The PDF is over two hundred and fifty pages. It comes in a zip file over eighteen megs. The art and layout are up to Green Ronin’s standards and the book is well book marked. There is a table of contents and an index. The front cover is done in color but the rest is black and white.

The best part of the book is at the beginning. It is a basic walk through of using templates. This type of information is usually left out of books. It is of course more using for inexperienced DMs but the advice and insight here should offer something new to even the best of them. The section also has information on creating ones own template. This section again is great for everyone. It also covers altering existing templates. This section alone makes this book well worth it to get. Nothing really like this has been but in print for the d20 system so it is nice to see new areas still being covered and covered well.

Templates though take up the bulk of the book. Each template ha sa sample creature for it all stated up and ready to go. Many also have some good art to go along with them. There are over a hundred new templates in the book so they cover a lot of different areas and should offer many new and interesting version of the already y familiar monsters of the Monster Manual and other monster books.

Some of the templates are similar to other ones we have seen in them like the celestial blessed and the Elementally fused creatures. Others though are very different like using templates for the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Some of the templates actually weaken creatures like the Feral Dragon template. There are a number of undead oriented ones like the Dread Ghost, the Dread Skeleton, the Dread Lich, and the Dread Ghast. There is a large variety of templates and it would be hard to mention them all.

Most of the templates only alter the challenge rating by a few points. Only four of them in here change it by more then three though there are a half dozen that vary the modification. There is a nice chart that relies the CR adjustment of each template making it easy to find one of the right power level needed. There is also a list of all the challenge ratings of the monsters presented. Most are ten or under but the Dread Lich Titan does top it with a challenge rating of twenty four.

This is a great book to make the same old monsters seem new and surprise the players. There are so many options in this book that combined with a single monster book it will create a very large amount of possible combinations. Green Ronin once again puts forth a very good book. The production values are high, the creativity is impressive, and the rules are very sound.