GR's Advanced Bestiary

[DMH]

This is a cool book that fits perfectly with The Book of Templates (DE). AB has a better explaination on how to apply templates and BOT has a better explaination of how to use them. There is very little overlap (half-drow, gigantic/gigantean, miniature, half-humanoid/manimal, dread vampire, and ooze/amorphous). There are a bit too many dread undead for my tastes (they are pumped up versions of MM undead). And no suggestions on changing the name (i.e. not to use the templated name like icy belker, but rather something like frozen spirit).

I would give it a 4/5.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

This is a cool book that fits perfectly with The Book of Templates (DE). AB has a better explaination on how to apply templates and BOT has a better explaination of how to use them. There is very little overlap (half-drow, gigantic/gigantean, miniature, half-humanoid/manimal, dread vampire, and ooze/amorphous). There are a bit too many dread undead for my tastes (they are pumped up versions of MM undead). And no suggestions on changing the name (i.e. not to use the templated name like icy belker, but rather something like frozen spirit).

I would give it a 4/5.

Manimal? HAHA. That's brilliant.

SPECIAL ATTACKS:

Poor FX Shapechange (Ex): Once a day, the manimal can spin in a circle and become a generic 80's tv star.

SPECIAL QUALITIES:

Feathered Hair (Ex): Manimal's Aquanet hair-helmet provides him with a +1 fashion bonus to AC, but makes him succeptible to fire: He takes 50% more damage than normal from fire attacks.


Sorry.

Anyway, what are the seasonal creatures like? I'm about 1/2 done with 4 different books that include what I'm guessing is a similar idea, so I wonder if I could fit the templates in there.

 

[Moulin Rogue]

I can tell it's got some creative templates, but does it also have straightforward concepts like adding wings or extra heads?

 

[DMH]

I thought of that... show as well.

Anyway, what are the seasonal creatures like?

The template gives the creature a different personality (and abilities) and powers depending on the season. The powers relate to spellcasting, resistances and saves.

 

[DMH]

I can tell it's got some creative templates, but does it also have straightforward concepts like adding wings or extra heads?

Of those kind there is amphibious, arborial, bipedal, cave, fungal, magma, metal-clad, nocturnal, plague bearer, poisonous, primitive, and quadrupedal. There may be more, but I don't know the parameters of what you are looking for.

 

[DMH]

After taking a close look at both, I have to say that the BOT is more flexible* than the AB, but the AB has more basic templates that allow habitat alteration (amphibious, arborial and the like).

The best thing for a DM is both.

*An example of this is the gigantic (BOT) vs gigantean (AB). The former allows for any size change up, from 1 to 8 steps whereas the latter is just 4 steps (to the max). The same applies to the minature templates (in reverse).

 

[DragonLancer]

I'm tempted to pick this book up, but it seems that a fair few of the templates I already have variations of in other books. So I don't know if its worth bothering with.

*Ponders*

 

[Heretic Apostate]

I'd LOVE to pick up the Advanced Bestiary.

In fact, it's been on order from Amazon since March.

I found out it just was released, so I'm now waiting for Amazon to ship. They were SUPPOSED to ship last week...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Now DMH, you know that you have to throw a review into the review database no? Get the word out man!

 

[DMH]

I'm tempted to pick this book up, but it seems that a fair few of the templates I already have variations of in other books. So I don't know if its worth bothering with.

*Ponders*

Which ones and with what books?

Joe- I really am not good at writing anything at length and the review would only be 4-5 short paragraphs long. If I tried to make it any longer, I would start to ramble and get off topic. :\