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.

 

[Retreater]

Right, @Paragon Lost and @Eyes of Nine , I'm sure the rules are very adaptable and can be expanded with some GM finesse. But I was a player in the games without the power to alter the rules. And given that the home GM I played with was extremely "by the book" because we were trying to learn a new system, and I'm assuming the MCG-sanctioned GMs at the Cons were also trying to present an authentic experience, I can only go by my experiences, which left much to be desired.
The last game I played I was a Nanos (basically a wizard, for those unfamiliar with the game). We were intro level adventurers in a game run at last year's Origins. I had a light weapon (2 damage). Monster had - I think - DR 5. My character, burning his Might to do more damage would succeed only in depleting his HP so low he would be killed.
Then he had something like a less impressive version of the 0-level 5e spell firebolt. He could ramp it up a couple of times by draining his Intellect pool, but it was basically going to do nothing against the monster at its base value, and limited even if supercharged. And that was it. That was every option my character had.
And you can say "this is a bad designed adventure." This was an official Con game from MCG. There was no way to avoid the fight. And this has happened in every session of Numenera I've played (which has been around 6).

 

[Paragon Lost]

Right, @Paragon Lost and @Eyes of Nine , I'm sure the rules are very adaptable and can be expanded with some GM finesse. But I was a player in the games without the power to alter the rules. And given that the home GM I played with was extremely "by the book" because we were trying to learn a new system, and I'm assuming the MCG-sanctioned GMs at the Cons were also trying to present an authentic experience, I can only go by my experiences, which left much to be desired.
The last game I played I was a Nanos (basically a wizard, for those unfamiliar with the game). We were intro level adventurers in a game run at last year's Origins. I had a light weapon (2 damage). Monster had - I think - DR 5. My character, burning his Might to do more damage would succeed only in depleting his HP so low he would be killed.
Then he had something like a less impressive version of the 0-level 5e spell firebolt. He could ramp it up a couple of times by draining his Intellect pool, but it was basically going to do nothing against the monster at its base value, and limited even if supercharged. And that was it. That was every option my character had.
And you can say "this is a bad designed adventure." This was an official Con game from MCG. There was no way to avoid the fight. And this has happened in every session of Numenera I've played (which has been around 6).

I find myself frequently irked at the "No! You have to play it this way and this way only otherwise it's not Numenera!" Crowd. I feel that they're stifling the growth of the Cypher system with that mindset. I've seen it with other rpgs as well on Reddit that I follow. It's a terrible mindset, it stifles creativity and growth. The rules are meant to be a guide in any rpg you play. Being consistent and fair is important and the only time playing by the rules exactly as written is important is when you are playing via The Pathfinders Society or Adventurer's League which both have certain hard rules.

 

[Nebulous]

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 haven't played, but it seems like the GMs weren't using cyphers correctly, which greatly boost what characters can do and add a pseudo-magic element to everyone.

 

[Nebulous]

Right, @Paragon Lost and @Eyes of Nine , I'm sure the rules are very adaptable and can be expanded with some GM finesse. But I was a player in the games without the power to alter the rules. And given that the home GM I played with was extremely "by the book" because we were trying to learn a new system, and I'm assuming the MCG-sanctioned GMs at the Cons were also trying to present an authentic experience, I can only go by my experiences, which left much to be desired.
The last game I played I was a Nanos (basically a wizard, for those unfamiliar with the game). We were intro level adventurers in a game run at last year's Origins. I had a light weapon (2 damage). Monster had - I think - DR 5. My character, burning his Might to do more damage would succeed only in depleting his HP so low he would be killed.
Then he had something like a less impressive version of the 0-level 5e spell firebolt. He could ramp it up a couple of times by draining his Intellect pool, but it was basically going to do nothing against the monster at its base value, and limited even if supercharged. And that was it. That was every option my character had.
And you can say "this is a bad designed adventure." This was an official Con game from MCG. There was no way to avoid the fight. And this has happened in every session of Numenera I've played (which has been around 6).

I admit, after six times of trying a game and not liking it, I would hate it too.

 

[seankreynolds]

My frustration with MCG Kickstarter's is the communication really lacks.

I'm not sure why you think that. Just for the Arcana of the Ancients Kickstarter (which BTM is part of), we've posted status updates on June 5th, April 14th, Feb 25, Jan 15, Oct 18 2019, Aug 9 2019, July 15 2019, and Jun 19 2019. Other than the gap around the holidays, that's an update about every six weeks on the status of the books in the project.

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.

Well, I mean ... it takes time to write, develop, edit, layout, proof, print, and ship a book. The Kickstarter ended in April 12, 2019. AOTA is a 300-page book. If Bruce and I were writing at peak capacity (about 4 pages per day, which is really hard to maintain), with the work split equally between us, that's 37.5 work days just to get the bulk of the writing done. With about 20 work days per calendar month, that's two months right there, which puts us at June 12. Add in a couple of weeks for the creative director (Monte) to read it and give comments, another week for Bruce and I to make changes, and that's mid/late July. Then we lose about two weeks for Gen Con 2019, so that's mid-August. Add a month for editing, that's mid-September. A week for the managing editor and designers to review editor questions, that's late September. A month for layout (maybe, I don't know, I'm not a graphic designer, but it's a BIG book), that's late October. A couple of weeks to proof the layout file, that's mid-November. Roll the files over to the printer in China, hopefully it gets done before the Chinese New Year (when the printer shuts down for several weeks). Getting it on the boat from China to the US takes a month or more, including the variable time it takes for cargo crates to clear customs. We fulfilled PDFs to backers in early March in anticipation of shipping out physical copies to backers, and by mid-March we were shipping print copies to backers, and the book was live in our store on April 1st.

And that's if we started immediately as the Kickstarter closed, working at peak efficiency, no gaps or problems (like COVID-19, which shut down printing operations in China for a while, and also delayed shipments of things out of China). And we generally don't start writing as soon as the Kickstarter closes because we have other current projects that we're writing. So I understand there is a lead time and that's frustrating for you, but we really can't work any faster than this without sacrificing quality.

And for the next book in the series after AOTA (Beneath the Monolith), it's out now, only three months after AOTA became available, which is pretty impressive. We're working as fast as we can.

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.

That's because PDFs have value. They're not a freebie, even though many people treat them like freebies. It's a $45 hardback book with a $18 PDF. There are people who only want PDFs, and they think $18 is a good value for that book. If buying the $45 hardback from our webstore got you the $18 PDF for free, what message does that send to the player who spends $18 on that "free" PDF? What message does that send to the brick-and-mortal retailer who sells the book for $45 and doesn't include the PDF? (It makes them not want to carry our books because there's a big incentive for people to buy it from our webstore and get the PDF for free.) So yes, backing the Kickstarter is a good deal because we're giving you the PDF as part of your print backer level--it's a thank-you for trusting us with your money in advance (a year in advance, or more) to make a good product.

And of course, our PDFs aren't just a text-and-copying-locked version of the print book—they're hyperlinked and bookmarked, which takes extra work.

I appreciate that the time to create a book is frustrating for you, and I appreciate that you back the Kickstarter because you like the products and the people at the company. But we really are working as fast as we can on these things. I write more per month at MCG than I did at Wizards (back in 2000 when I was a designer on Forgotten Realms, a designer was expected to finish ~32 pages of material per month and my sustainable MCG writing pace is about two to three times that) and I think I'm a better writer and designer now than I was then. It's okay if you feel that you wait too long for Kickstarter rewards and want to just buy them at retail once they become available.

 

[seankreynolds]

Right, @Paragon Lost and @Eyes of Nine , I'm sure the rules are very adaptable and can be expanded with some GM finesse. But I was a player in the games without the power to alter the rules. And given that the home GM I played with was extremely "by the book" because we were trying to learn a new system, and I'm assuming the MCG-sanctioned GMs at the Cons were also trying to present an authentic experience, I can only go by my experiences, which left much to be desired.
The last game I played I was a Nanos (basically a wizard, for those unfamiliar with the game). We were intro level adventurers in a game run at last year's Origins. I had a light weapon (2 damage). Monster had - I think - DR 5. My character, burning his Might to do more damage would succeed only in depleting his HP so low he would be killed.
Then he had something like a less impressive version of the 0-level 5e spell firebolt. He could ramp it up a couple of times by draining his Intellect pool, but it was basically going to do nothing against the monster at its base value, and limited even if supercharged. And that was it. That was every option my character had.
And you can say "this is a bad designed adventure." This was an official Con game from MCG. There was no way to avoid the fight. And this has happened in every session of Numenera I've played (which has been around 6).

Retreater, I'd really like to figure out what adventure they were running for you, because if you were playing a tier 1 character, I'd be very surprised if the adventure had a creature with Armor 5 (considering that plate mail is Armor 3). And if it's an official MCG adventure, and that Armor 5 creature is in there, I'd like to take a look at the encounter and see if that's an error (or if there was something else your characters were supposed to be able to do). And as a starting Nano, I'd expect you to have the Onslaught ability, which is (your choice) a force blast that inflicts 4 damage (subject to Armor) or a psionic blast that inflicts 2 damage (which ignores Armor), so I'm wondering what's up with that (pregenerated?) character.

 

[imagineGod]

Nah, they decided to run a 5e adaptation of the Numenera setting to jump in on the popularity of D&D since Cypher wasn't getting as much traction in the community.

True talk. I was first excited by Cypher, a breath of fresh air. But then almost nobody wants to play Cypher and rather just play D&D 5th Edition. Hence, I too have lost interest in Cypher myself.

 

[Von Ether]

The last game I played I was a Nanos (basically a wizard, for those unfamiliar with the game). We were intro level adventurers in a game run at last year's Origins. I had a light weapon (2 damage). Monster had - I think - DR 5. My character, burning his Might to do more damage would succeed only in depleting his HP so low he would be killed.
Then he had something like a less impressive version of the 0-level 5e spell firebolt. He could ramp it up a couple of times by draining his Intellect pool, but it was basically going to do nothing against the monster at its base value, and limited even if supercharged. And that was it. That was every option my character had.

I'm not trying to change your mind, enjoy what you want to enjoy, but some of that sounds off. At most a monster had Armor "DR" of 3, so the 5 sounds weirdly off, especially for an intro game.

I assume you had Onslaught, which does 4 damage and, sure is only one point over but between cyphers (many which do good damage), other players, and one or two lucky rolls (a 17-20 can add 1-4 points of extra damage), could have probably taken an intro adventure monster down.

The pool/hp concept is one of the things that trips up people who already have exceptions of how RPG mechanics go. Most assume if you deplete one pool, you're dead (it's all the pools), Edge makes things cheaper (so either your Effort is cheaper or some of your powers are free) and you can also spend an Action to do a Recovery Roll (1d6+1)

An Intellect Edge and effort gave you two options:

• Effort (3)+Onslaught (1) - Intellect Edge (1) is three points and does 7 points of damage; but you have to trust the die roll.
• Effort (3)+Light Weapon is three points again and does 5 points of damage; but a light weapon gives you an asset and thus you traded off damage for extra accuracy

Do either one twice, let the Warrior slide in and do some crazy damage as you roll for a recovery as you eventually discover that Cypher characters are actually hard to kill. Odds are the monster would be finished by next round or two.*

I don't blame you for the bad taste in your mouth, but it seems something was a little off and the GM needed to help players understand the different expectations of the game.

Retreater, I'd really like to figure out what adventure they were running for you, because if you were playing a tier 1 character, I'd be very surprised if the adventure had a creature with Armor 5 (considering that plate mail is Armor 3). And if it's an official MCG adventure, and that Armor 5 creature is in there, I'd like to take a look at the encounter and see if that's an error (or if there was something else your characters were supposed to be able to do). And as a starting Nano, I'd expect you to have the Onslaught ability, which is (your choice) a force blast that inflicts 4 damage (subject to Armor) or a psionic blast that inflicts 2 damage (which ignores Armor), so I'm wondering what's up with that (pregenerated?) character.

I totally forgot the psionic version of Onslaught. Well, if I'm going to drop the ball, it's awesome when one the designers picks it up and runs with it.

*And this is for a first level character, even more options and levels of Effort open up as you play. I always say Cypher, power wise, is like D&D from 5th to 20th with a lot less math and overhead.

 

[Retreater]

@seankreynolds I'll see if I can figure out the name of it, but I played it at Origins 2019, so it's been a while. I'll try to collect whatever information I can, but the only thing I really remember is the frustration at the whole experience and the hopelessness of a TPK that ended the entire group. (I may not remember the exact DR, but I do know that I couldn't harm the creature, nor could most of the other pregenerated characters). The adventure was kind of set up like a gladiator fight, if that helps.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm a little burned out from 5e, so the idea of a new system and setting is enticing, but not exactly the learning curve of knowing the system.