Release Monte Cook’s Numenera setting comes to 5e with Beneath the Monolith

Beneath the Monolith brings the setting of award-winning science-fantasy RPG Numenera to the Fifth Edition ruleset!

Take your wizard, ranger, and rogue to the Amber Monolith, across the Cloudcrystal Skyfields, and to other wonders of the Ninth World.

The Ninth World:

They say there have been eight worlds before ours. Eight times the people of this planet, over vast millennia, built their civilizations, reaching heights we cannot even fully imagine now. They spoke to the stars, reshaped the creatures of the world, and mastered form and essence. They built cities and machines that have since crumbled to dust, leaving only their barest remnants.

This is the Ninth World. The people of the prior worlds are gone—scattered, disappeared, or transcended. But their works remain, in the places and devices that still contain some germ of their original function. To the ignorant, these workings of the ancients are magic. But the wise know differently …

The Ninth World is the setting of Monte Cook’s multiple-award-winning Numenera RPG. Beneath the Monolith brings this critically acclaimed world to 5e. Explore the ruins of incomprehensible civilizations. Discover the numenera, ancient technologies so advanced that most people think they’re just magic. Encounter creatures weird, fierce, and dangerous. Open doors to new worlds and alternate dimensions. And, perhaps, unlock some of the mysteries of the prior worlds.

This is one of our most-requested releases—5e fans, come visit the Ninth World!

Our first 5e release, Arcana of the Ancients, will help you get the most of this book. It contains loads of cyphers, artifacts, creatures, and additional content that brings a Ninth World campaign to life, along with great advice and information on running weird science-fantasy games in 5e.

 

[Nebulous]

I haven't actually run Numenera before, how does the ruleset compare to 5e? It seems very different. I just wonder if the original is catered more to the setting, and slapping 5e on it will just muddle things...

 

[Nebulous]

I actually have the 2e slipcase edition in hardback, it set me back a pretty penny too, but that was before the pandemic and i still haven't played.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Let's just say I'm not a fan of everything jumping on the 5e bandwagon. We had that bubble burst in the early to mid naughties with everybody and their cat switching to d20.
Systems are best when they stand on their feet IMO. At some point the market will become over saturated again, with the looming recession, sooner rather than later at that, because people will be less inclined to buy stuff for the sake of ownership.

OTOH, if Monte Cook and Privateer Press feel like a 5E adaptation will help keep the lights on, that gives them a better chance of surviving the recession.

The third party marketplace is also in a much different place than in the 3E era, which had the same sort of gold rush mentality, and comparable quality, to the Atari gold rush in the 1980s. This time around, it's mostly small, crowdfunded stuff, PDF stuff or stuff put out by mature companies that survived the 3E boom and bust.

 

[dalisprime]

The main difference between the current situation and what happened back in the early 2000's is that there won't be shelf space occupied by lesser quality products. Now everything is handled via PDF and/or kickstarter orders.

But I do agree with you with products being converted from a proprietary system to a "generic" one just to ride on the popularity of a game system, be it 3.x, PF1 or 5e, is a bad decision. It won't help the sale of the other line as often times the conversion process is either too complicated system-wise or needs to rebalance every encounter in case of adventures/campaigns.

They do still flood game store shelves though. My FLGS has scores of RPG books that don't ever seem to move off the shelves. The other FLGS puts ttRPG books on sale on a regular basis just to shift them. It may not appear as prevalent, but in my perception the bubble is very much growing and it's a matter of time before it bursts. The biggest issue now is crowdfunding - the output from that source alone is far greater than it ever has been.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I haven't actually run Numenera before, how does the ruleset compare to 5e? It seems very different. I just wonder if the original is catered more to the setting, and slapping 5e on it will just muddle things...

There are lots of differences, but the key mechanical one is:
You almost always modify the DC, not the roll.

In other words, there are 10 levels of difficulty, each creating a DC of difficulty x 3 (so if you are at difficulty 5, it's DC15). (btw, they don't call it DC, they call it something else [Edited to add: They call it "Difficulty" ]). If you spend effort, or you have a skill in that thing you are rolling for, then the DC drops by a difficulty level or two or three. So if you spend effort, and are skilled, your DC drops from 15 down to 9. So the GM is figuring out all the DCs in their head.
The player just says they do this thing and then they roll. They don't have to add anything up. If they hit the number or beat it, they succeed.

There's a bunch more that's different (GM never rolls dice for example); but that core mechanic is how it differs from 5e.

I'm still not actually sure the different rules set actually is "better" for me. It still feels fiddly, and deciding to spend effort is a mechanical bit that takes me out of the fiction and doesn't seem to really add to the narrative flow that we could have going. "I try real hard" all the time doesn't seem very fictionally exciting. But that may be how we are playing it...

The setting though, that's smoking awesome.

 

[seankreynolds]

Yup. Got mine, lovely book. My issue with MCG Kickstarter's though is for the rest of the year I'll be waiting for the rest of the books, one at a time, shipping each time. Four shipments, it's a drawn out process to be sure. I also backed the Ptolus Kickstarter as well, went all in. I think though that's going to be my last one because their Kickstarter's are so frustrating. Where as Steve Jackson Games, Ballistic Games or your Judge Dredd Kickstarter were painless affairs.

Hi, I'm Sean, and I'm a designer/developer for Monte Cook Games.
We guarantee that we'll have your books available for you for at least a year, so if you want to wait to get them all at once, that's totally fine--a lot of people do that to save on shipping costs!

 

[Retreater]

There are lots of differences, but the key mechanical one is:
You almost always modify the DC, not the roll.

In other words, there are 10 levels of difficulty, each creating a DC of difficulty x 3 (so if you are at difficulty 5, it's DC15). (btw, they don't call it DC, they call it something else). If you spend effort, or you have a skill in that thing you are rolling for, then the DC drops by a difficulty level or two or three. So if you spend effort, and are skilled, your DC drops from 15 down to 9. So the GM is figuring out all the DCs in their head.
The player just says they do this thing and then they roll. They don't have to add anything up. If they hit the number or beat it, they succeed.

There's a bunch more that's different (GM never rolls dice for example); but that core mechanic is how it differs from 5e.

I'm still not actually sure the different rules set actually is "better" for me. It still feels fiddly, and deciding to spend effort is a mechanical bit that takes me out of the fiction and doesn't seem to really add to the narrative flow that we could have going. "I try real hard" all the time doesn't seem very fictionally exciting. But that may be how we are playing it...

The setting though, that's smoking awesome.

I greatly disliked the mechanics of the system, but I like the setting idea. I've played several different characters with a variety of GMs, including home games and con games (in MCG-sanctioned events). Low level characters basically have "one good thing" they can do - no variety of attacks or abilities. In every game my character was worthless because of the high DR creatures featured in nearly every combat were impervious to anything but a fighter's (glaive's) attack. The "really cool stuff" about my characters never came up. The artifacts/cyphers never came up.

The rules are bad, bad, bad. Hopefully the conversion to 5e will help my opinion of the game experience.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I greatly disliked the mechanics of the system, but I like the setting idea. I've played several different characters with a variety of GMs, including home games and con games (in MCG-sanctioned events). Low level characters basically have "one good thing" they can do - no variety of attacks or abilities. In every game my character was worthless because of the high DR creatures featured in nearly every combat were impervious to anything but a fighter's (glaive's) attack. The "really cool stuff" about my characters never came up. The artifacts/cyphers never came up.

The rules are bad, bad, bad. Hopefully the conversion to 5e will help my opinion of the game experience.

Huh. Interesting. One thing is you can spend Might effort to increase the damage. Which of course costs you your pool, so isn't sustainable.

But yeah, breaking all physical weapons into Light (2 dmg) and Heavy (4 dmg) seems a bit too simplistic, and having many monsters have DR of 2+ isn't great. I get where they were going - Numenara is not a gear-porn game. It's about exploration and this weird 9th world setting. Potentially they over simplified. I bet (have never researched) there's hacks out there doing more interesting stuff with combat and the damage math.

I agree with the low level characters only being able to do that ONE thing. But once you get to Tier 2, things spread out more. It might be useful for intro games to give players 2nd or 3rd tier characters, so they can do a few things...

Also, that your cypher's weren't useful sounds like a failure of GMing. If it was me running a 1 shot, I'd provide everyone at least one cypher that was useful-ish in the scenario.

It is tough, as a long-time D&D player, with the permanent magic items, to break my mindset away from "use this cypher at the most optimal time, as I won't have it ever again". What's been helping me on that front is basically saying "yolo" and trying to use them with in 2 sessions of getting them. Or trading them with someone else.

None of the above is to invalidate your experiences - if I had the same experience, I'd be pretty unhappy with the rules as I perceived them. And as I noted up thread, I'm still not 100% sold on the rules. I'm still not sure I understand what the emotional tenor of play should be; and I don't think the rules necessarily make that clear.

 

[Paragon Lost]

Hi, I'm Sean, and I'm a designer/developer for Monte Cook Games.
We guarantee that we'll have your books available for you for at least a year, so if you want to wait to get them all at once, that's totally fine--a lot of people do that to save on shipping costs!

Think you're missing the point Sean. Don't get me wrong, I love MCG's products. Heck my wife just talked me into snagging the Invisible Sun black cube which I'd been sitting on the fence with since it came out for various reasons. So we snagged that along with the Bundle of Holding pdf of the Invisible Sun since it was one that was aiding Human Rights Watch, I just couldn't say no. So that means that we just spent $300.00 on MCG games in the last week alone. I tossed $500.00 in for the Ptolus Kickstarter, so I talk with my wallet.

My frustration with MCG Kickstarter's is the communication really lacks. Also the very long lead time on when a project actually ships which tends to be one year after the Kickstarter funds. I'm ok with that part, its the next six months to a year of getting "everything" which gets really old. So you could be looking at upwards of two years from the time the Kickstarter funds potently. That's a problem for me and it annoys me to no end.

Also the Kickstarter's are about the only way to get the PDF's thrown in with the physical product. MCG is a part of a small group of developers who doesn't toss in the PDF in with the physical product. So going with the Kickstarter is a nice thing for that reason, and then of course the desire to support superior products like MCG does. So I find myself always torn with backing a MCG Kickstarter.

Anyhow, I just wish you all operated slightly differently, maybe more efficiently. You, Monte, Shanna, Bruce, Darcy and the rest of the crew at MCG are some of my favorite folks. I follow you all on Twitter just and tend to find myself in agreement with things you all post. I want to support you all but I don't like how frustrating the Kickstarter's are. Keep up the awesome creative work that you all do.

 

[Paragon Lost]

I like how the rules are

I greatly disliked the mechanics of the system, but I like the setting idea. I've played several different characters with a variety of GMs, including home games and con games (in MCG-sanctioned events). Low level characters basically have "one good thing" they can do - no variety of attacks or abilities. In every game my character was worthless because of the high DR creatures featured in nearly every combat were impervious to anything but a fighter's (glaive's) attack. The "really cool stuff" about my characters never came up. The artifacts/cyphers never came up.

The rules are bad, bad, bad. Hopefully the conversion to 5e will help my opinion of the game experience.

I like how the rules are really flexible. You can add in a lot more mechanically or complexity wise. Regardless of what some players/gms say on Reddit which I repeatedly see. That's not cypher system! Or you can't do Numenera that way! Poppycock, it's your game of course you can. If you want meatier mechanics, add em. You want encumbrance systems and survival mechanics, add em. Add variety etc, whether its combat or whatever. Basically I see the base mechanics systems as a good starting point.