[Expeditious Retreat Press] Beast Builder

[Tetsubo]

In the latest issue of Game Trade magazine they have an ad for a book called Beast Builder from Expeditious Retreat Press. It's written up as having tools and templates for designing custom monsters. Has anyone heard anything about this book? TIA.

 

[haiiro]

RPGNow link: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4498&

Looks pretty cool.

 

[DMH]

It is cool with sections on ecology and stats.

 

[amethal]

I like it a lot. I'm pretty sure there's a very favourable review of it on this site (or on one of the affiliated reviewing sites), which inspired me to buy it.

EDIT - found it http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2202865

Its not exactly light reading, though. All that stuff on ecology, when what I was expecting was some nice pictures of things with big teeth ....

I see it mainly as list of things to consider when designing monsters. It arguably makes designing monsters harder (as it makes you think about what you are doing), but hopefully the result will be much more logical, consistent and interesting creatures than you'd otherwise have.

I have a whole raft of creatures to design for my True20 homebrew, and my idea is to use this book to design them from the ground up, rather than doing a quick and nasty conversion of the SRD.

Of course, time constraints being what they are ......

 

[Voadam]

It is also at drivethru rpg

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog...6_116_225&products_id=2081&affiliate_id=17596

 

[jgbrowning]

And the very 1st copy is sitting on my desk right now. We just got in the production copy and it looks sweet. I will come out in August and will be at Gen Con if you're looking for it. If you want to make monsters, I think it's the best source to help you in that process.

joe b.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Its not exactly light reading, though. All that stuff on ecology, when what I was expecting was some nice pictures of things with big teeth ....

Heh, light reading... Expeditious Retreat Magical society books... heh, heh, heh!

The books are wonderful, thick, chewy, useful, detailed... but I will admit that they are not light. (Which is one of the reasons that I recommend them to so very many people of my aquaintance.)

The Auld Grump, waiting on the next XRP Monster Geographica book...

 

[jgbrowning]

The Auld Grump, waiting on the next XRP Monster Geographica book...

Just sent that one off to the printer today and it will also come out in August. The PDF version should be available shortly.

joe b.