D&D 5E Let's Read: Volo's Monsters

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, the only interesting thing about dinosaurs is that they are dinosaurs.

Though, it is interesting to see a Gargantuan creature. Those are rare.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The gap-filling nature of the Volo’s monsters are fairly obvious: we get an animal companion-legal Dinosaur, one that you can ride into battle, a low-CR and medium sized carnivore to fight, and the herbivores to fill out the ecosystem a little.

It's funny, but when the MM came out, I read the dinosaur entry and went thought it was terribly incomplete. I thought they needed to add a sauropod, a stegosaur, one or two smaller predators (deinonychus and velociraptor would be ideal I thought), quetzalcoatlus as a bigger flying threat, and maybe a hadrosaur just for completeness. And... VGtM gave me that exact list! With dimetrodon as an added bonus!

Needless to say, I was very happy with the VGtM dinosaur entry...

The only thing missing now to create a full "Lost World" are more marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs. And you can always use the dolphin stat block for an ichthyosaur...

 

[Leatherhead]

One of my favorite encounters from Eberron back in the day was a group of Talenta halflings riding some Glidewings.

Glidewings are Pteranodons, but Quetzalcoatlus allow such shenanigans to be applied to a wider range of species. Most of the humanoids in fact. Hobgoblins, in particular, can make excellent use of the Flyby Dive attacks.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Man, the more I think about at-will Dispel Magic opens so many possibilities for Babau to lead the charge on an infiltration, or sneak up to the city walls and slowly tear apart the wards that protect it. Eventually they will roll high enough to break the spell.

There are a number of other demons (Glabrezu, Nycaloths for sure) who also have at-will Dispel Magic. It makes them tricky to Planar Bind. Still possible, but tricky.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There are a number of other demons (Glabrezu, Nycaloths for sure) who also have at-will Dispel Magic. It makes them tricky to Planar Bind. Still possible, but tricky.

I never noticed that before. Awesome

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Going back to the Devourer for a bit. I should point out they are technically not Demons just fiends. Possibly due to being an odd fusion of Demon and Undead, but that is fairly minor.

I actually used one in a recent session. The villain for the last chunk of the game is a Necromancer servant of Orcus. Orcus has promised to teach him how to turn himself into a Lich if he can cause the deaths of 3000 intelligent creatures in Orcus' name. The Necromancer plan kicked off recently and he summoned a Devourer into Baldur's Gate. As he summoned the Devourer and they serve Orcus this will count towards the death total he needs to cause. Along the collection of lesser undead the Necromancer has created the Devourer is currently running around the city eating people and spitting out new undead who will being more people to it to increase the undead numbers.

So currently the party is going around in the city destroying the lesser undead while trying to find and stop the Devourer before it causes anymore harm.

 

[Mecheon]

Quetzalcoatlus (huge bird dinosaur)

I'm sorry Charles, but these words cause me to drag myself from my lair and lay some science down. Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. They're Pterosaurs, closely related Archosaurs, but not dinosaurs. Dinosaurs and pterosaurs are closer related than crocodiles and dinosaurs

However if you ever want to use a Quetzalcoatlus, which you should, I always highly recommend the work of pterosaur researcher Mark Witton. They're basically giraffe-sized murder storks who's food is 'Anything smaller than them', plus we have fossil evidence they traveled in flocks.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm sorry Charles, but these words cause me to drag myself from my lair and lay some science down. Pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. They're Pterosaurs, closely related Archosaurs, but not dinosaurs. Dinosaurs and pterosaurs are closer related than crocodiles and dinosaurs

However if you ever want to use a Quetzalcoatlus, which you should, I always highly recommend the work of pterosaur researcher Mark Witton. They're basically giraffe-sized murder storks who's food is 'Anything smaller than them', plus we have fossil evidence they traveled in flocks.

Since we're looking at it from a scientific standpoint, I do have to applaud the treatment of dinosaurs (and other prehistoric reptiles) in 5e, especially in comparison to previous editions. The 3e MM came out a full seven years after Jurassic Park, but read like a textbook from the '60s, if not earlier! Granted, the 5e MM isn't perfect, but it's a lot better. The only real blunder (other than unceremoniously dumping them all into under "dinosaur" entries of course), is calling Plesiosaurus a dinosaur. Compare that to Dimetrodon, which is stated to be a reptile "commonly found where dinosaurs live" (implicitly stating that it itself is not a dinosaur), or Pteranodon, which is called a reptile and not a explicitly dinosaur (this is a bit more ambiguous, but at least it's a start, which carries over to Quetzalcoatlus, which is only described in terms of being a relative of Pteranadon). Velociraptors are correctly described as feathered for the first time in D&D history that I'm aware of (although this is only implied for Deinonychus, as a "relative of Velociraptor", and ignored entirely for Tyrannosaurus). And with Brontosaurs quite possibly being a valid taxon again, they can actually use it without everyone coming down on them for not using Apatosaurus instead...

As I said above, I very much like the selection we've got for dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles in the MM and VGtM. I can't wait to send my players into a nasty dinosaur-infested area in some upcoming campaign!

 

[Charles Rampant]

I'm sorry Charles, but these words cause me to drag myself from my lair and lay some science down.

I'm the Latinist running games for engineers- tell me more of your science outrage. It gives me power.

However if you ever want to use a Quetzalcoatlus, which you should, I always highly recommend the work of pterosaur researcher Mark Witton. They're basically giraffe-sized murder storks who's food is 'Anything smaller than them', plus we have fossil evidence they traveled in flocks.

Murder storks is pretty cool. As I mentioned, these guys seem solid as a way to bring aerial adventures into the game, and being hunted by them definitely doesn't sound fun.

 

[Mecheon]

I'm the Latinist running games for engineers- tell me more of your science outrage. It gives me power.

On the Dinosaur side of the Internet is an ever-waged war against those claiming that pterosaurs, dimetrodons and even plesiosaurs are dinosaurs. I'm sorry to bring it here

But yeah, if you ever have a scenario in which dinosaurs or other Mezozoic-era creatures are attacking, any problem where you need the party to be more threatened is "Okay, a giraffe sized thing has just landed from the sky, picked up a smaller dinosaur, and swallowed it whole. It is taller than a T-Rex.". Or let them ride them! Dinotopia famously had Quetzals as the flying mount of choice. And I think someone's done the work and figured that you could ride a Quetzalcoatlus

Also various bits of not completely published work propose that Brontosaurus had a neck designed specifically for battering things