E.N. Critters Volume 1 - Ruins of the Pale Jungle

[HellHound]

Bring the jungle alive!

Ever been busy designing an evening's gaming for your players and needed to populate an area with a variety of new and exciting creatures which make sense? A whole slew of unique critters which perfectly suit the environment?

E.N. Critters - Ruins of the Pale Jungle is the first in a line of themed d20 monster books from E.N. Publishing. When you need a selection of new monsters to surprise your players with, look no further! This first book in the line provides you with 40 pages crammed with jungle themed monsters - from plants to animals, from humanoids to outsiders, from fey to insects, from spirits to hostile avians. Each entry comes with a Notes & Game Balance entry, which provides advice and tips for the GM when using the creature.

The jungle may be pale and appear potentially sickly, but the inhabitants are as healthy and interesting as ever. The usual array of fauna can be found here: apes, bats, monkeys, rats and plenty of snakes. There are also two new species of deadly snakes here, the Quick Death and the Spitting Asp. Lastly, statistics have been provided for the ocelot and the peccary just to add a little additional flavor.

The flora, not to be outdone, has adapted in a few interesting ways. The Leechvine and Sand Trapper both vie for live prey, while the Earthbound is actually a plant template that propagates itself not by eating the animals, but by instead taking them over entirely to provide itself with mobility.

On the less predatory side of things, although not a plant but pretty close, is the Banyaba, a fey relative to the dryad and very protective of her grove.

A step up from the regular animals of this place can be found those who have developed special adaptations for survival. The Creeper Cat is hardly ever seen due to its considerable camouflage, unless you happen to be its current victim. The Root Roper appears as part of the foliage waiting for unsuspecting prey. The lizard-rat or Scrimp while not hard to see, is easy to underestimate until its poison stinger sinks into your foot.

Speaking of the smaller creatures, the Pale Jungle is home to several swarms and a unique version of arachnid. In the canopy are the Piranha Bird and the Vermiliant Swarms, while closer to the ground and fetid pools of water are the Delerium Swarms. Covering both of these levels of the jungle are the Colony Spiders, working together in cunning fashion to feed not only on the swarms but also on many much larger creatures that happen into their webs.

Humanoid races native to the region include the evil spider folk or Arachs, the kinder, gentler bird folk or Parryns and finally, dwelling amidst the ancient ruins and performing obscure rites are the Leaflings. Often cults of these humanoids or of more common humanoid races choosing to live in the jungle will develop around the sacrificial rituals to their godlike Balam Chac or the foul Bloodhunter Devil.

Other outsiders who make the Pale Jungle their home are both the Pashinor Demon and the Kithrotto. While the Kithrotto stick to their rank pools, the Pashinor wanders near and far seeking the most difficult of prey to hunt, often including players foolhardy enough to cross its path.

Primarily in and around the ruins is where the guardians and spirits of those left behind dwell. These include the lost spirits known as the Animus, the long entombed Revered Ancestors and the guardian constructs written on the wall called the Engraved. Close to the ruins but often ranging further afield is the dreaded Haze Horror. To round out the undead and vengeful spirits are two creatures that fit very well in this environment. First there is the Baya Tumbili, an undying spirit of anger manifesting itself as a dread ape with a troupe of minions. Second, and also in the semi simian category are the Shetani, or zombie monkeys, though they are anything but slow and shambling.

To complete this assembly of critters are a pair that can be found anywhere in the Pale Jungle, both widely known, feared and avoided. The Jungle Drake is the master of this realm, opposed perhaps only by the Balam Chac, and then only in the rarest occurrences. It eats with impunity and watches the ruins in its territory carefully in case anything of value should turn up to be claimed. Sometimes a Pashinor will grow bold enough to try and hunt a Jungle Drake, but it often ends badly. The other beast falling under the most feared category is the Detritus Lurker, more because of its insatiable hunger as well as having no chance to negotiate with it and almost the same chance of escaping it.

 

[John Cooper]

E. N. CRITTERS VOLUME 1: RUINS OF THE PALE JUNGLE
By Joshua Courtney, Robert Lajoie, Charles Lewis, Jim E. Vilandre, and Nancy Vosnidou
E. N. Publishing product number ENP7710
43-page PDF, $7.45

I was really interested in seeing Ruins of the Pale Jungle, not so much because I was particularly interested in jungle creatures, but because this was (to the best of my knowledge) the first Monster Manual-like product from the creative minds of E. N. Publishing, and I was eager to see what they'd come up with. Those of you who have read my previous reviews know that I'm a fan of monsters, and an even bigger fan of correct monster stats. How would Ruins of the Pale Jungle turn out?

Not very well, as it turns out. In fact, "amateurish" is the first word to come to mind.


The PDF is 42 pages (43 with the cover), formatted in a "portrait" (as opposed to "landscape") configuration. The cover art, by Jeffrey LeBoeuf (going by the initials in the corner and the artists listed on the credits page) is a colored sketch of a step pyramid, with jungle foliage in the foreground and a snake twining around a branch overhead. The coloring job was nicely done - I particularly like the shading of the sky - but it suffers a bit in being a sketch; there is little detail present. Still, as the authors were kind enough to explain that their primary goal with the artwork was to minimize file size, I won't ding them for the general sketchiness and lack of detail in the cover or the interior art.

Speaking of which, the interior artwork consists of 33 black-and-white and 3 color pictures by four artists: Allen Kerswell, Jeffrey LeBoeuf, Matthew Lyons, and Mike McMenemey. This runs a bit of a gamut, from some nicely-shaded pieces like the baya tumbili gorilla head on page 9, the water-dripping, stone-bodied kithrotto on page 24, and the bulbous sandtrapper plant on page 33, to the silly-looking (the banyaba on page 7 - supposedly a jungle dryad-child - looks like a Muppet), the cartoony (the panicked monkeys escaping from the detritus lurker on 15 look like they escaped from a Disney cartoon), to the anatomically incorrect (it looks like Jeffrey just plain got lazy when it came to the "spots" on the fur of the balam chac's jaguar form on page 5). Still, the hands-down winner of the worst picture is arguably the parryn on page 29: the poor thing looks like an overly-happy baseball mascot wearing a bird costume, taking a breather with its "bird mask" off. How in the world am I supposed to treat the parryn as a sensible race with that staring me in the face? I just can't. My other complaint in the art department is that several pieces are hardly worth the effort it took to attach them to the PDF. I'm not sure what purpose the creators thought was being served by adding a half-inch by inch-and-a-half picture of a pair of eyes to stand in for an illustration of baya tumbili spawn, but it doesn't really add much to the entry. Likewise, there's a line drawing of some sort of flylike insect on page 19 whose purpose I have yet to discern, as it's neither the jungle drake on that page nor the earthbound on the next, and it has only two body segments (the head and thorax - no abdomen!). Overall, I'd rate the artwork as quite a bit lower than average, but I appreciate the authors at least stating the reasons behind it.

The first thing I noticed about Ruins of the Pale Jungle was the proofreading and editing job - or, perhaps I should say the lack thereof. Robert Lajoie is listed in the credits as the d20 Line Manager & Editor, so he's going to bear the brunt of my complaints in this department (and please correct me if I'm making an incorrect assumption, Robert, but there's no proofreader listed in the credits for me to pick on). Hoo boy! Where to start? I guess I could just cut to the chase and mention that while reading this 42-page PDF, I documented 9 pages of errors - that's both sides of four sheets of paper (legal-sized paper, mind you), and one side of a fifth; easily more errors per page than I can recall in any other d20 product I've reviewed to date. (The last product I made such a big stink about this level of poor proofreading was The Quintessential Sorcerer, and I only compiled 5 pages of errors on that one - and it was a 128-page book!) The biggest error by far was a definite misunderstanding of simple punctuation principles; apostrophe usage was particularly bad - I'll bet at least a full page of the nine was spent documenting times when "it's" was used to denote possessiveness. It's enough to make an English teacher cry.

Then, of course, there were the monster stats. Quite a few of them had errors; in fact, of the 38 monster stats appearing in Ruins of the Pale Jungle, only 8 emerged error-free from my one-time read through the PDF. That works out to be 78.9% of the monster stats having a problem in them somewhere - definitely not good. For the record, here are the changes I recommend making to the monster stats that appear in Ruins of the Pale Jungle:

• p. 3, Animus: AC should be 17, not 14 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 deflection). Touch AC should be 17, not 14 (+1 size, +3 Dex, +3 deflection). Flat-footed AC should be 14, not 11 (+1 size, +3 deflection). (It looks like they just forgot about the Charisma-based deflection bonus all incorporeal creatures get.) The creature's description mentions the "beast" creature type, something that should have been excised from a product using the 3.5 version of the D&D rules.
• p. 4, Arach: Poison Fort save should be DC 15, not DC 14 (10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier = 10 + 4 + 1).
• p. 6, Balam Chac, Hybrid Form: The creature's +1 keen dagger should have a critical threat range of 17-20 (as under Full Attack), not 15-20 (as under Attack).
• p. 6, Balam Chac, Godlike Jaguar Form: Flat-footed AC should be 21, not 25 (-4 size, +15 natural). Claw attacks should be at +30 melee, not +32 (+22 BAB, -4 size, +12 Str). Bite attacks should be at +28 melee, not +30 (+22 BAB, -4 size, +12 Str, -2 for a secondary attack with Multiattack). Fort should be +22, not +16 (+13 as a 22-HD outsider, +9 Con). Frightful Presence Will save should be DC 27, not DC 26 (10 + 1/2 HD + Cha modifier = 10 + 11 + 6).
• p. 7, Banyaba: Grapple attacks should be at -4, not +0 (+2 BAB, -2 Str, -4 size).
• p. 10, Baya Tumbili, Incorporeal Form: Shouldn't "possess gorilla" be considered a Special Attack? The description goes out of its way to mention that the baya tumbili has no Special Attacks, then describes how it can automatically possess any gorilla within 30 feet. Also, why do awakened gorillas get a DC 14 Will save to avoid this fate, when the very similar "dominate apes" Special Attack has a DC 15? The DC should be 14 if it's Charisma-based and 15 if it's Wisdom-based; neither is specified, but you'd think both attacks would be based on the same ability. Finally, Special Qualities should include "weaknesses" - not all Special Qualities are necessarily beneficial.
• p. 10, Baya Tumbili, Possessed Gorilla Form: Special Qualities should include "weaknesses" - not all Special Qualities are necessarily beneficial.
• p. 10, Baya Tumbili Spawn: Flat-footed AC should be 16, not 18 (-1 size, +7 natural). Special Qualities should include "weaknesses" - not all Special Qualities are necessarily beneficial.
• p. 12, Colony Spiders: HD should be 1/2d8+1, not 1/2d8 (+1 Con bonus). As a result, average hit points should be 3, not 2. Poison Fort save should be DC 11, not DC 10 (10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier = 10 + 0 + 1). Escape Artist checks to escape from the web should be DC 7, not DC 10 (10 + 1/2 HD + Str modifier = 10 + 0 - 3). Strength checks to escape from the web should be DC 11, not DC 14 (10 + 1/2 HD + Str modifier + racial bonus = 10 + 0 - 3 + 4).
• p. 13, Creeper Cat: Bite damage should be 1d6+1, not 1d6+2 (half of its +3 Str bonus; round fractions down). Also, this creature was apparently called a "camocat" at one time, but they forgot to replace one of the usages of its previous name.
• p. 14, Demon, Pashinor: Either Initiative should be +6, not +10 (it has a +6 Dex modifier), or it should have Improved Initiative as a bonus feat.
• p. 16, Detritus Lurker: Grapple attacks should be at +24, not +23 (+9 BAB, +8 size, +7 Str). Slam attacks should be at +14 melee, not +13 (+9 BAB, -2 size, +7 Str).
• p. 16, Detritus Lurker (Swamp): With HD 25d10+225, average hit points should be 362, not 363 (round fractions down).
• p. 17, Devil, Bloodhunter (Coagadirra): With HD 12d8+60, average hit points should be 114, not 104. Claw attacks should be at +17 melee, not +18 (+12 BAB, +5 Str). Also, given that its claws do 2d6+5 points of damage (+5 Str), you'd think its "impale" damage would either be 2d8+5 (Str modifier of +5) or 2d8+7 (1.5 x Str modifier of +5), not 2d8+6.
• p. 18, Dragon, Jungle Drake: With HD 30d12+300, average hit points should be 495, not 395. (I'm sure that extra 100 hp is going to make a significant difference in most battles!)
• p. 20, Earthbound Ogre: Greatclub damage should be 2d8+12, not 2d8+11 (1.5 x Str modifier of +8). Slam damage should be 1d8+8, not 1d8+11 (+8 Str). Under Feats, Weapon Focus should specify "(greatclub)."
• p. 23, Haze Horror: With HD 6d12, average hit points should be 39, not 42. Will should be +6, not +5 (+5 as a 6-HD undead, +1 Wis). Also, as per the "Notes & Game Balance" section, the creature should have the "(Fire)" subtype.
• p. 24, Kithrotto: Under Advancement, 15 HD is listed as both Large and Huge; it should be split up as either 9-14 HD/15-25 HD or 9-15 HD/16-25 HD.
• p. 26, Leafling Warrior: The Organization line refers to "dire monkeys" - where is the information on these creatures found? (It's certainly not part of this PDF or in the SRD.)
• p. 26, Leafling Shaman, Sor4/Rog2: Fort should be +3, not +5 (+1 as a Sor4, +0 as a Rog2, +2 Con).
• p. 27, Leafling Ancestor, Sor6: Speed should specify that this is a fly speed.
• p. 27, Greater Leafling Ancestor, Sor 11: With HD 11d12, average hit points should be 71, not 77. 60 feet does not equal 8 squares; its fly speed (not specified as such, by the way) should either read "60 ft. (12 squares) (perfect)" or "40 ft. (8 squares) (perfect)." Bite attacks should be at +8 melee, not just "+8." Will should be +8, not +9 (+7 as a Sor11, +1 Wis).
• p. 31, Root Roper: With HD 9d10+9, average hit points should be 88, not 94. Bite damage should be 1d8+4, not 1d8+3 (1.5 x Str modifier of +3). With 9 HD, it should have 4 feats, not just 3. 16 HD is listed under Advancement as being both Medium (10-16 HD) and Large (16-24 HD).
• p. 33, Sand Trapper: First of all, the creature's name should be "sandtrapper" (one word), not "sand trapper" - at least, that's how the creature's referred to umpteen times in its description. Alluring Scent Will save should be DC 14, not DC 11 (10 + 1/2 HD + Con modifier = 10 + 2 + 2).
• p. 37, Swarm, Piranha Bird: With HD 3d8, average hit points should be 13, not 14 (rounds fractions down).
• p. 38, Swarm, Vermilliants: Flat-footed AC should be 14, not 16 (+4 size).
• p. 39, Ocelot: Initiative should be +1, not +2 (Dex 13 means a +1 Dex modifier). AC should be 12, not 13 (+1 size, +1 Dex). Touch AC should be 12, not 13 (+1 size, +1 Dex). The Attack line reads "Claw melee (1d3-1)" - it should specify "+2 melee." Under Full Attack, claw attacks should be at +2 melee, not +3 (+0 BAB, +1 size, +1 Str/Dex), and bite attacks should be at -3 melee, not -2 (+0 BAB, +1 size, +1 Str/Dex, -5 for secondary attack). Claw damage should be 1d3+1, not 1d3-1 (Str 12 means a +1 Str modifier). Bite damage should be 1d4+1, not 1d4-1 (+1 Str). Ref should be +3, not +4 (+2 as a 1-HD animal, +2 Dex). With Str 12 and Dex 13, Weapon Finesse is a useless feat, even if it is a bonus feat. (Of course, if you bump Dex up to 14 or 15, then the AC values, Initiative, Full Attack attack bonuses, and Reflex entries all fall into place as written; in that case, the claw attack under Attack should be +3 melee (+1 size, +2 Dex).) No Alignment is given; it should be "Always neutral." (Yes, I realize it's an animal and thus "always neutral" is a given, but unlike the Monster Manual it doesn't state that anywhere in the PDF, and there's more than enough white space on this page to fit the extra line in.) Finally, in the Skills description, it says that the ocelot "swims well," yet the stats do not include a swim speed and the creature has no ranks in the Swim skill.
• p. 39, Peccary: HD should be 2d8+7, not 2d8+4 (due to the Toughness feat). As a result, average hit points should be 16, not 13. Of course, with 2 HD, it should only have 1 feat, not 2 as listed, so you can either delete the Toughness feat (and ignore my corrections above), or make one of its two feats a bonus feat. No Alignment is given; it should be "Always neutral."
• p. 40, Quickdeath Snake: BAB should be +1, not +0 (as a 2-HD animal). Grapple attacks should be at -10. not -11 (+1 BAB, -8 size, -3 Str). Bite attacks should be at +5 melee, not +4 (+1 BAB, +2 size, +2 Dex with Weapon Finesse). Fort should be +5, not +4 (+3 as a 2-HD animal, +2 Con). Ref should be +5, not +4 (+3 as a 2-HS animal, +2 Dex). It's admittedly very picky of me to point this out, but the creature's two feats should be alphabetized. No Alignment is given; it should be "Always neutral."
• p. 40, Spitting Asp: AC should be 18, not 16 (+5 Dex, +3 natural). Touch AC should be 15, not 13 (+5 Dex). Bite damage should include "plus poison." Under the Poison description, mention is made of the asp's poison paralyzing its prey, but this is not mentioned in the poison stats (it only mentions Str damage and blindness, depending upon whether the venom is injected into the prey's body through a bite or spat into its eyes). No Alignment is given; it should be "Always neutral."

There were also several references to non-SRD creatures, like yuan-ti, displacer beasts, and tanar'ri, that will have to be excised from the product. Fortunately, Ruins of the Pale Jungle is a PDF, and I make it a point to type up my list of errors and email them to the PDF's editor in the hopes that they can be corrected. (It's obviously much easier to make corrections to an electronic product that it is to reprint a book.) It'll probably take me several hours to type up all of the mistakes I noted in this PDF, but I intend to follow the suggestion printed on page 41 - "Please send suggestions and feedback on the content to: beardeddragon@gmail.com" [edit: apparently that should read beardeddragonpublications@gmail.com] - and let them have my list of corrections. With any luck, the PDF will be corrected without too much of a delay, and people plunking down their $7.45 might actually get something closer to their money's worth. (I notice that Ruins of the Pale Jungle is also available as a print product; naturally, I don't recommend buying it in that format just yet.) [Additional edit: The product has been fixed to the point where I no longer recommend holding off purchasing the print product - see comments below, after the review.]

Okay, so besides the poor proofreading and poor quality control on the monster stats, how did I like Ruins of the Pale Jungle? Well, it was okay. To their credit, the authors did pretty much confine their creativity to jungle-related monsters, and they managed to get in a wide variety of both creature types and challenge ratings. (Of the 38 stat blocks, we've got 1 aberration, 5 animals, 1 construct, 1 dragon, 1 elemental, 1 fey, 3 humanoids, 2 magical beasts, 1 monstrous humanoid, 2 oozes, 5 outsiders, 3 plants, 9 undead, and 3 vermin (and 1 template), with challenge ratings from 1/3 to 20.) I particularly liked the "Notes and Game Balance" section at the end of each creature's entry, where the authors explain how the creature in question stacks up against other monsters of the same CR, or else describes how the creature was designed (often using an existing monster from the SRD as a starting point). I really enjoy such "behind the scenes" peeks at the creative process. I also really appreciated the fact that page 41 gives full credit to the author(s) and artist for each specific monster in Ruins of the Pale Jungle. That's a classy move, giving credit where credit is due (or blame, as the case may be), and one that I wish more game companies would do.

However, despite its name, Ruins of the Pale Jungle doesn't really have that much information on the Pale Jungle itself. On page 2 we learn that the Pale Jungle gets its name from the "bleached out" look of much of its ground cover, and although several possibilities are given as to why this might be, no conclusive answer is provided. Sadly, that's about it as far as background goes; those hoping for a map of the Pale Jungle as a "drop-in" location to add to their campaign world are in for a disappointment. Ruins of the Pale Jungle is simply a monster book, nothing more.

Despite the fact that I'm hoping my list of corrections will eventually improve what the authors of this PDF have created, I really have to rate it as it stands now, and I honestly feel it deserves a rating of "2 (Poor)." It's a nice concept, but the presentation is particularly bad. An additional round of proofreading/editing (or, for that matter, an initial round - I'm not convinced this PDF was ever proofread at all!) would certainly have helped. As it stands, I'm a little bit insulted that the creative team actually expects people to shell out $7.45 for this work - either they have a low opinion of the typical gamer's education and mastery of the English language or are blissfully ignorant about their own shortcomings in these areas. Either way, I'm not impressed.

However, Ruins of the Pale Jungle is merely the first in a series of similar monster books, so I hold out hope that future volumes in the series will be much better.

 

[Crothian]

EN Critters Ruins of the Pale Jungle

Monsters are always useful. Most of them time monsters are presented to be killed but thankfully books are coming out that make them more useful and versatile. The more information a DM has the more chances they have to be creative and use the monsters in different ways. I never can understand the opinion that there are enough monsters and monster books in publication. For me it is not having enough monsters, but having the right monsters. It does me no good to have ten monsters books but have none of them contain the monster or concept that I am looking for. So, the more monster books I get the better the chances of my finding the right creature for an adventure or campaign. I am also really enjoying the themes monsters books that deal with creatures in a certain location. Goodman Games, Expeditious Retreat, and now EN Publishing have monster books like this. It makes it easy for when I have the adventure set in a jungle that I can just grab one book and have lots of options.

EN Critters Ruins of the Pals Jungle is the first in a new line of books by the EN Publishing. Looking through the credits the books has different people working on all phases of the book then the company normally has. The book is forty three pages long. The layout is okay but the art for the most part I was not that happy with. The book is mostly black and white with some color so printing will be a little tough on ink jets. The book has no book marks so it will not be that easy to use from a computer. The production values across the board can use improvements.

The book presents monsters from a place called the Pale Jungle. However, information on the Pale Jungle is mostly missing. A few pages on this place and some adventure hooks and hints of sites would really have benefited and made the book a lot more useful. The more ways a book can be useful to a DM the better. There are quite a variety of monsters in here from aberration to new outsiders and oozes to undead. There are about three dozen new creatures here and one template. The challenge rating on the creatures also vary greatly from a third to twenty but with more creatures on the lower end then the higher.

The stat blocks are not perfect. I do not go through them and find errors as I just do not have the eye for it and I think a little off on the stats blocks is not that big of deal. However, If there are enough mistakes that I take notice then there is something wrong with the process of the stat blocks. Most of them I say were not a big deal but knowing there are this many errors in the book will make me trust it a little less. Another problem is the book references creatures not in the SRD and are basically off limits. As a player of the game this does not concern me. But I know it does bother some people and at the very least the publisher should be made aware and make the changes.

The book is not all bad. I know I have mostly mentioned the negatives first but there are some bright spots as well. The first being the creatures are creative. They are at times based on Mayan and other civilizations. This link to something real world makes them a little easier to use and design adventures around. There are also a number of good plant creatures and man eating plants are always good to startle the players with. The creatures also each have a section on notes and game balance. This is a great section that talks about the more mechanical and meta game issues of the creatures. It talks on how the creature came and if it is inspired or like other creatures that exist.

Overall the book is a disappointment. It really could have been done a lot better. More time needed to have been spent on the editing and lay out stages of the design. There are good ideas here but the DM may need to alter the stats if they are particular on that sort of thing. The book is not the best looking but again it is something that some people can look past. It hits on some parts and misses on others. I am sure it will be useful to some people out there.

 

[Rob Lajoie]

Explanations and Revisions

Good evening,

First up: The email address to contact me for questions, problems, errata, suggestions, etc. is beardeddragonpublications@gmail.com.

Next, I'd like to thank John personally for his very in-depth and professional look though this product - it is much appreciated and I'll explain why a little later in this response.

I thought I was having a bad week before, and then I read this review -- now I know how the folks that made Creature Collection 1 must have felt. Unlike that ill-fated volume gathering dust on my shelf, this is in PDF format and much easier to fix.

There is also a version problem here. Given the mention of the incorrect email address in the review as well as the its/it's problem, it is apparent that the first draft copy was being reviewed by John, and not the final version currently on sale (that has most if not all of the spelling/grammar problems taken care of along with some of the stat problems). I think this was noted in a different thread and I am confirming here although I will make note of it in the other thread as well.

"Amateurish" I can accept considering it was our first venture out into the world of d20 publications. This PDF was ultimately supposed to be on par with #2 and #3 of the series, although technical problems and tight production deadlines limited it to its current incarnation.

Ok, now back to my appreciation. I personally find stat errors untenable, and errata annoys me. That is why this review pained me so much and why the in-depth look will help considerably. I see three main reasons behind the stat problems:
1) Tight deadline - I left the stat checking to my rules guy only when it should be a job for more than 1 person. In #2 and #3, myself, my proofreader and my rules guy have all checked the stats. For #1, instead of stat checking, I was up to my ears in layout. After #1 though, I had a base template and that freed up more time for checking. (...and yes I did mention proofreader. I made it a point to break that out as a credit on #3. As noted above, the problem on #1 is with the version being reviewed.)
2) Last minute changes - I noticed that many of the errors stemmed from changes made during the final crunch to get it completed and corresponding values were not adjusted - the ocelot is a good example.
3) Sheer number of stats and monsters. The amount was too large to handle effectively in the timeframe for our first pdf. We've decreased the number of monsters to the low twenties for #2 and #3, increasing quality at the same time.

None of these are excuses, just reasons. As a result of the significant amount of errors, I feel terrible. I would ask that everyone who purchased the pdf email me at the above address and I will personally make sure that you receive the revisions. If you know others that purchased it, please direct them to this thread.

On another note, a revision was actually planned prior to seeing this review to bring #1 in line with #2 and #3, adding knowledge tables, counters, links, bookmarks, more information on the environment and converting it all to full color. Unfortunately due to production schedule, this has taken longer than expected. Seeing so many stat errors, I will be posting a revised version at the beginning of next week to cover any new purchases. It will have the minor and major corrections suggested by John included, as well as at least half a dozen of the pictures converted to color. Again, I appreciate the corrections and agree with almost all of them. Making sure stats are 100% takes quite a bit of effort as there are so many things to consider - doing this project gave me new appreciation for the folks putting together the other creature books out there.

The one correction I disagree with is the Balam Chac saves -- outsiders of 22 HD have all saves as good, and the good save for a 22 HD creature is +13 (not +12) if I am following the save progression correctly (I double-checked the 24HD elder earth elemental just to be sure) then 16-17 HD = +10, 18-19 HD = +11, 20-21 HD = +12, 22-23 HD = +13 and 24-25 HD = +14. It's easy to miss details with stats, especially when dealing with large numbers of them.

Regarding the non-SRD creatures, those references will be fixed as well. My rules guy and proofreader missed them, as did I. Tanar'ri and yuan-ti, fairly easy calls, but displacer beasts hurt. Those have been a staple creature since the first AD&D monster manual (yes I admit to playing that long). I guess the key to the SRD is to assume nothing.

Regarding the artwork -- usually the coloring process tightens it up and improves it, but we ran out of time and opted for the black and whites. Another limiter of monster type books - considering the expected revenue from them, it's tough to pay artists enough to justify the number of illustrations needed. Many of the other PDF products I've seen are fairly light on number of illustrations. So why make a product like this? Love of the game and love of drawing really. Of course, I imagine that's why most of the folks putting out d20 pdfs these days are doing it.

That reminds me: The E.N. Critters series was designed as a set of theme-based monster books with the emphasis on monsters not the theme. It appears folks took the title to mean more of a campaign supplement. My apologies to anyone who purchased it looking for such a supplement - hopefully the nature of the monsters presented will make up for it. To reduce confusion and to respond to popular requests, I've done two things. The line 'A Creature Compilation' has been added to the cover to reinforce the name of the line (E.N. Critters) as a monster collection, and I am including several extra pages of text on the environments for those tied to specific ones (#2 Beyond the Campfire wouldn't qualify, but #3 Tulenjord: Land of the Fallen One would), though not necessarily any maps. We'll save those for any adventures we may write for these environments

On a final note: John, if you have a moment, could you email that list of corrections you mentioned to my correct email address listed above? I'll make certain you receive a revised PDF when it becomes available. Thanks again for your input! Should there be anything I didn't address that you would like to know, please post here or in the other thread about this pdf and I'll endeavor to respond quickly.

Thanks!
Rob Lajoie