JoeGKushner
Adventurer
One of the things I thought least successful in terms of bringing value to the purchaser for 4th edition, was the Monster Manual. It has enough holes in its core page count to sail the titanic through. The damn shame of it is, there’s a ton of white space and formatting that’s just bad. Add that to the lack of being the same size as the Player’s Handbook (unlike the previous 3.5 edition), and we’ve got monsters that are not only iconic, but well, just plain useful to have.
For example, 3.5 did a couple of takes on the Isle of Dread through Paizo. Not only did it have a lot of source information, it was one of the stepping stones in the last Adventure Path, the Savage Tide. Now if you wanted to bust out with the dinosaur goodness, 4e has officially left you behind. Between rage drakes, boneclaws and the kruthik, no time for mere dinos.
Thankfully, Goodman Games alliance with Blackdirge continues to pay off for fans of 4e. This time, we get Critter Cache: Prehistoric Beasts. Weighing in at 26 pages, Prehistoric Beast is where you can get your hands on twenty six beasties ranging from the lowly Swiftscale Hopper, a level 1 skirmisher, to the mighty Earthshaker Behemoth, a 24th level elite brute. Illustrations are handled by Tim Burgard, Hunter McFalls, Jesse Mohn, V Shane, Mariana Ruiz Villarreal. White space is a little generous in a few places such as the T-Rex but as noted, even the official book suffers this problem. Might be a result of the much smaller stat blocks.
If you’re like me when I first read the book, you’re like, “On Noes! More lame names!” But take heart young reader, the swiftscale falls under the name Coelophysis! And it’s brother swiftscales, while having equally silly names like the swiftscale bandit and the swiftscale racer, also are known as oviraptor and dryosaurus. It’s the best of both worlds really in that we get the names associated with video games for those who want to deny the link and we get some more down to earth names for those who don’t want to tell the party that they’re fighting a knifetoothed raptor when they can just say, “velociraptor”.
There are a wide variety of monstrous types covered ranging from crocodiles and sharks to raptors and T-Rex itself. While the field is certainly large enough that several volumes could easily be made from this topic, Prehistoric Beasts does a nice job of filling the gapping hole in the current D&D rule set.
Each entry includes a little bit of general information about the grouping of dinosaurs, as well as lore and encounter groups. Some of the encounter groups in and of themselves make some interesting ideas as the first entry has the devilsnout behemoth, which is often ridden by elite orc warriors. Now that’s a culture you can get behind. For those using mounts, the book also includes a breakdown of the cost and carrying capacity. Some of the monsters include mount abilities like the Shatterskull Behemoth which can not only do a Golden Axe style charge on its own, but can add its strength modifier to the rider’s damage on any attacks made during a charge. The monsters by level table show you which monsters rank where, and what page they can be found on.
In short, it's another strong resource that's useful for any campaign, especially ones that may wish to add a touch of classic campaigning to their game.
For example, 3.5 did a couple of takes on the Isle of Dread through Paizo. Not only did it have a lot of source information, it was one of the stepping stones in the last Adventure Path, the Savage Tide. Now if you wanted to bust out with the dinosaur goodness, 4e has officially left you behind. Between rage drakes, boneclaws and the kruthik, no time for mere dinos.
Thankfully, Goodman Games alliance with Blackdirge continues to pay off for fans of 4e. This time, we get Critter Cache: Prehistoric Beasts. Weighing in at 26 pages, Prehistoric Beast is where you can get your hands on twenty six beasties ranging from the lowly Swiftscale Hopper, a level 1 skirmisher, to the mighty Earthshaker Behemoth, a 24th level elite brute. Illustrations are handled by Tim Burgard, Hunter McFalls, Jesse Mohn, V Shane, Mariana Ruiz Villarreal. White space is a little generous in a few places such as the T-Rex but as noted, even the official book suffers this problem. Might be a result of the much smaller stat blocks.
If you’re like me when I first read the book, you’re like, “On Noes! More lame names!” But take heart young reader, the swiftscale falls under the name Coelophysis! And it’s brother swiftscales, while having equally silly names like the swiftscale bandit and the swiftscale racer, also are known as oviraptor and dryosaurus. It’s the best of both worlds really in that we get the names associated with video games for those who want to deny the link and we get some more down to earth names for those who don’t want to tell the party that they’re fighting a knifetoothed raptor when they can just say, “velociraptor”.
There are a wide variety of monstrous types covered ranging from crocodiles and sharks to raptors and T-Rex itself. While the field is certainly large enough that several volumes could easily be made from this topic, Prehistoric Beasts does a nice job of filling the gapping hole in the current D&D rule set.
Each entry includes a little bit of general information about the grouping of dinosaurs, as well as lore and encounter groups. Some of the encounter groups in and of themselves make some interesting ideas as the first entry has the devilsnout behemoth, which is often ridden by elite orc warriors. Now that’s a culture you can get behind. For those using mounts, the book also includes a breakdown of the cost and carrying capacity. Some of the monsters include mount abilities like the Shatterskull Behemoth which can not only do a Golden Axe style charge on its own, but can add its strength modifier to the rider’s damage on any attacks made during a charge. The monsters by level table show you which monsters rank where, and what page they can be found on.
In short, it's another strong resource that's useful for any campaign, especially ones that may wish to add a touch of classic campaigning to their game.
