Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
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Quartz
Hero
3 out of 5 rating for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
This is a thoroughly muddled tome. The Monster Manual part is excellent and I wish it were most of the book. But most of the demi-human [del]fluff[/del] lore doesn't belong in this book, being that they're mostly not foes, and is pretty much a waste of space and money for those who have created their own worlds. Really, if you shuffled the contents of this book with the contents of XGTE, with the fluff mostly in the latter, then you'd have two excellent books.
This is a thoroughly muddled tome. The Monster Manual part is excellent and I wish it were most of the book. But most of the demi-human [del]fluff[/del] lore doesn't belong in this book, being that they're mostly not foes, and is pretty much a waste of space and money for those who have created their own worlds. Really, if you shuffled the contents of this book with the contents of XGTE, with the fluff mostly in the latter, then you'd have two excellent books.
delericho
Legend
4 out of 5 rating for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
This book is more or less what it says on the cover - it's a big thick book covering some of the great conflicts of the multiverse, between demons & devils; between elves & drow; between dwarves & duergar; between githyanki & githzerai; between Englishmen & Scots; and between... um... gnomes & halflings.
The book is split, roughly, into two halves - the first 'half' consists of five chapters of lore, each covering one of the conflicts above; the second and larger 'half' gives many more monsters for the game.
Each of the chapters of lore follows the same format - an overview of the conflict; then a reasonably detailed look at one of the two factions, including details of culture, character, history, and religion; then a detailed look at the other side; and then a collection of game options and mostly-useful tables.
I found the lore in four of these five chapters to be functional but fairly dull - in most cases there was very little here that hadn't been covered before, often in much greater detail and often better. (And I find it rather telling that of all the lore presented here, only a tiny sidebar concerning the Blessing of Corellon has excited much discussion. While I understand why that has been discussed at length, it doesn't say too much for the rest that it's pretty much the only thing.) However, it serves as a good summary of the subject, and would be ideal for DM's who hadn't seen it before.
The only thing I found really poor was the handling of the deities - too often we were presented with a big table of between a dozen and a score of names (too many to remember), followed by slightly more detailed summaries of some of the deities. Additionally, those deities tended to be narrow variations on the underlying theme of the race, without a great deal of variety, followed by exactly one 'outcast' member of the pantheon - presumably to give an option for Evil PCs to follow.
Of the five lore chapters, the one that was best, and simultaneously worst, was the one dealing with the Elves and Drow. D&D has always had a bit of a fetish for elf-love, right back to OD&D days when they were unique in acting both as Fighting-Men and Magic-Users, able to switch between them between adventures, and it's something that seems to have touched every edition and almost every setting in some way. It seems that whenever the designers have some cool idea or bit of lore that they've thought of, and need somewhere to connect it to the game, their default option is to give it to the elves.
And so it is here. In addition to the much-discussed (but ultimately fairly innocuous) Blessing of Corellon, they've also taken the decision in this book to turn Shadar-Kai into an elven subrace, and recast the Raven Queen as their deity. Presumably, that is the reward for new bits of lore that gain the elusive 'traction' - if you're successful you get promoted to Elvendom. Yay!
On the other hand, this book does a good job of addressing the apparent disconnect between 4e's elf-like Eladrin and the more freeform examples we've seen in previous editions. Basically, there's a continuum from those who remain closest to Corellon versus those who became more elf-like. Good stuff.
Of course, that means that this chapter really does have something for everyone: there are the innocent but, crucially, nubile good-girl Elf maids; the bondage-themed bad-girl Drow; the moody goth-girl Shadar-Kai; and the nature-loving hippie-girl Eladrin. And, for those who would prefer their Elf maids to be Elf males, the Blessing of Corellon has you covered there, too.
One last thing on the lore-chapters of the book: one thing I really don't care for is this book's insistence that it represents The Truth of the multiverse - all elves everywhere are descended from Corellon, even on those worlds where he's unknown, and even where the lore of those worlds directly contradicts the origin here. I'm well aware that I can simply ignore it, and indeed will be doing just that, but "just ignore it" is frankly a rather poor solution for a problem they didn't need to create.
I don't have a great deal to say about the last chapter of this book. It's basically great - a big expansion of monsters, and in particular some higher-CR monsters. Good stuff.
The only criticism I might raise would be concerning the 16 pages given over to reprinting the two-page spreads of demon lords from "Out of the Abyss", and indeed the 12 pages given over to two-page spreads for archdevils. Not just these are extremely high-CR unique creatures and so of use in a very limited range of campaigns, and not just because of the extensive reprinting from OotA. But it also seemed rather excessive given that many of these individuals were also covered in chapter one, leading to repeating information within the same book!
I should note at this point that while I have spent most of this review highlighting my criticisms of the book, these are all niggles, rather than deal-breakers. I actually found this book to be better value than "Volo's Guide...", largely due to the longer selection of monsters (though the greater page-count helped also), and much better value than "Xanathar's Guide..."
As such, I would recommend this book, especially to a DM needing more monsters (especially high-CR monsters), and also especially to a newer DM for whom this lore would indeed be new. And, of course, if you can get it at a strong discount, all the better!
This book is more or less what it says on the cover - it's a big thick book covering some of the great conflicts of the multiverse, between demons & devils; between elves & drow; between dwarves & duergar; between githyanki & githzerai; between Englishmen & Scots; and between... um... gnomes & halflings.
The book is split, roughly, into two halves - the first 'half' consists of five chapters of lore, each covering one of the conflicts above; the second and larger 'half' gives many more monsters for the game.
Each of the chapters of lore follows the same format - an overview of the conflict; then a reasonably detailed look at one of the two factions, including details of culture, character, history, and religion; then a detailed look at the other side; and then a collection of game options and mostly-useful tables.
I found the lore in four of these five chapters to be functional but fairly dull - in most cases there was very little here that hadn't been covered before, often in much greater detail and often better. (And I find it rather telling that of all the lore presented here, only a tiny sidebar concerning the Blessing of Corellon has excited much discussion. While I understand why that has been discussed at length, it doesn't say too much for the rest that it's pretty much the only thing.) However, it serves as a good summary of the subject, and would be ideal for DM's who hadn't seen it before.
The only thing I found really poor was the handling of the deities - too often we were presented with a big table of between a dozen and a score of names (too many to remember), followed by slightly more detailed summaries of some of the deities. Additionally, those deities tended to be narrow variations on the underlying theme of the race, without a great deal of variety, followed by exactly one 'outcast' member of the pantheon - presumably to give an option for Evil PCs to follow.
Of the five lore chapters, the one that was best, and simultaneously worst, was the one dealing with the Elves and Drow. D&D has always had a bit of a fetish for elf-love, right back to OD&D days when they were unique in acting both as Fighting-Men and Magic-Users, able to switch between them between adventures, and it's something that seems to have touched every edition and almost every setting in some way. It seems that whenever the designers have some cool idea or bit of lore that they've thought of, and need somewhere to connect it to the game, their default option is to give it to the elves.
And so it is here. In addition to the much-discussed (but ultimately fairly innocuous) Blessing of Corellon, they've also taken the decision in this book to turn Shadar-Kai into an elven subrace, and recast the Raven Queen as their deity. Presumably, that is the reward for new bits of lore that gain the elusive 'traction' - if you're successful you get promoted to Elvendom. Yay!
On the other hand, this book does a good job of addressing the apparent disconnect between 4e's elf-like Eladrin and the more freeform examples we've seen in previous editions. Basically, there's a continuum from those who remain closest to Corellon versus those who became more elf-like. Good stuff.
Of course, that means that this chapter really does have something for everyone: there are the innocent but, crucially, nubile good-girl Elf maids; the bondage-themed bad-girl Drow; the moody goth-girl Shadar-Kai; and the nature-loving hippie-girl Eladrin. And, for those who would prefer their Elf maids to be Elf males, the Blessing of Corellon has you covered there, too.
One last thing on the lore-chapters of the book: one thing I really don't care for is this book's insistence that it represents The Truth of the multiverse - all elves everywhere are descended from Corellon, even on those worlds where he's unknown, and even where the lore of those worlds directly contradicts the origin here. I'm well aware that I can simply ignore it, and indeed will be doing just that, but "just ignore it" is frankly a rather poor solution for a problem they didn't need to create.
I don't have a great deal to say about the last chapter of this book. It's basically great - a big expansion of monsters, and in particular some higher-CR monsters. Good stuff.
The only criticism I might raise would be concerning the 16 pages given over to reprinting the two-page spreads of demon lords from "Out of the Abyss", and indeed the 12 pages given over to two-page spreads for archdevils. Not just these are extremely high-CR unique creatures and so of use in a very limited range of campaigns, and not just because of the extensive reprinting from OotA. But it also seemed rather excessive given that many of these individuals were also covered in chapter one, leading to repeating information within the same book!
I should note at this point that while I have spent most of this review highlighting my criticisms of the book, these are all niggles, rather than deal-breakers. I actually found this book to be better value than "Volo's Guide...", largely due to the longer selection of monsters (though the greater page-count helped also), and much better value than "Xanathar's Guide..."
As such, I would recommend this book, especially to a DM needing more monsters (especially high-CR monsters), and also especially to a newer DM for whom this lore would indeed be new. And, of course, if you can get it at a strong discount, all the better!
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
5 out of 5 rating for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
I really like the mixed-use formate of the non-core books. Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and now Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes have all been excellent. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is my second favorite non-core book after Volo's Guide to Monsters. It is the only 5e hard-cover that I've read cover to cover as a novel. If you like lore and background information, you'll enjoy this book. Of course you don't have to use this lore if it doesn't fit your vision for your campaign, but most DMs and players will find it an enjoyable read that inspires their planning and play.
I really like the mixed-use formate of the non-core books. Volo's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and now Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes have all been excellent. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is my second favorite non-core book after Volo's Guide to Monsters. It is the only 5e hard-cover that I've read cover to cover as a novel. If you like lore and background information, you'll enjoy this book. Of course you don't have to use this lore if it doesn't fit your vision for your campaign, but most DMs and players will find it an enjoyable read that inspires their planning and play.
Grainger
Explorer
4 out of 5 rating for Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
I won't comment on the Lore sections as that is not of use to me (it conflicts with my home-brew world, so I ignore it).
This book is useful to me for the monster section. Lots of ideas for adventure hooks. However, once again they've omitted physical descriptions of the monsters. This seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I find the monster books hard to use without this information. I often don't like simply showing pictures to my players (often, the pictures hugely contradict the tone of my campaign anyway). But reverse-engineering a picture (no matter how evocative it may be), trying to figure out what the artist felt were the key features of the monster (and remember what I said next time) is a real pain. I don't know how other DMs are doing this - perhaps they all show the picture? I've even had to Google this information from earlier edition materials or rival games. I shouln't have to do this! So I've had to mark down the book as a result.
Come on Wizards - a couple of sentences of description for each monster would surely be do-able.
I won't comment on the Lore sections as that is not of use to me (it conflicts with my home-brew world, so I ignore it).
This book is useful to me for the monster section. Lots of ideas for adventure hooks. However, once again they've omitted physical descriptions of the monsters. This seems to be an unpopular opinion, but I find the monster books hard to use without this information. I often don't like simply showing pictures to my players (often, the pictures hugely contradict the tone of my campaign anyway). But reverse-engineering a picture (no matter how evocative it may be), trying to figure out what the artist felt were the key features of the monster (and remember what I said next time) is a real pain. I don't know how other DMs are doing this - perhaps they all show the picture? I've even had to Google this information from earlier edition materials or rival games. I shouln't have to do this! So I've had to mark down the book as a result.
Come on Wizards - a couple of sentences of description for each monster would surely be do-able.
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