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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crothian" data-source="post: 2212155" data-attributes="member: 232">EN Critters Ruins of the Pale JungleMonsters 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.</blockquote>

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