D&D 5E Small Book of Monsters for 5E

[Shiv]

A friend of mine is considering creating a Kickstarter to publish a small book of monsters that he's designed for D&D 5E. A lot of bigger companies have published books of hundreds of monsters.

(These would be homebrew monsters. Nothing impinging on WotC IP. Not legal for Adventurer's League play. Info provided akin to what's in the MM. My author-friend has multiple freelance design credits for D&D.)

Assuming the monsters in the book are the types of monsters you'd be interested in, would you be interested in a book that contains 30-50 monsters?

How much would you pay for a fully laid out and illustrated PDF of, say, 30 monsters? 40 monsters? 50 monsters?

Would you be interested in a reasonably-priced physical copy, like a softcover book?

Craig

 

[Quickleaf]

I guess it depends what you mean by "monster", whether that's a monster type with potentially multiple statblocks (in which case the 5e MM has over 130), or whether those are distinct separates statblocks (in which case the 5e MM has over 400).

My general approach, assuming all else being equal (which is a BIG assumption), would be to compare the monsters to price ratio of the 5e MM ($49.95) to your hypothetical project.

However, there are things I feel are lacking in the 5e MM that I wish were there in subsequent monster supplements (including Volo's Guide), notably the AD&D style ecology entries (esp. what can be crafted from a monster) & descriptions of the monster using the five senses.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A friend of mine is considering creating a Kickstarter to publish a small book of monsters that he's designed for D&D 5E. A lot of bigger companies have published books of hundreds of monsters.

(These would be homebrew monsters. Nothing impinging on WotC IP. Not legal for Adventurer's League play. Info provided akin to what's in the MM. My author-friend has multiple freelance design credits for D&D.)

Assuming the monsters in the book are the types of monsters you'd be interested in, would you be interested in a book that contains 30-50 monsters?

How much would you pay for a fully laid out and illustrated PDF of, say, 30 monsters? 40 monsters? 50 monsters?

Would you be interested in a reasonably-priced physical copy, like a softcover book?

Craig

Well, I bought both 5th Edition Foes (Frog God Games, two copies) and the Tome of Beasts (Kobold Press) so I'd say that there's a pretty good chance I'd buy a physical copy of your friend's book too.

The odds also go way up if your friend does something innovative with the monsters, such as giving them a fantasy ecology, goals/motivations, or social structure. If they're just 5E MM-style sacks of HP and attack/damage lists, my interest is less. (This is one of my big criticisms of the Tome of Beasts, but--it doesn't seem to have stopped me from purchasing it, although it has stopped me from making much use of it at the table.)

 

[GameOgre]

If it's good we will buy it. Price is a issue only in the sense of what I'm willing to shell out for a unknown product. Once reviews are out and those reviews are favorable price doesn't enter into it as much.

 

[Shiv]

Without revealing what my friend is working on (since I don't think he wants me to do that)...

The monsters are all very different, but share a theme. Most (or maybe even all) of them haven't shown up in any 5E monster books that I know of,

And he's a guy who has done some D&D freelance work in the past. So not a completely unknown quantity. He knows his way around D&D design

 

[Terry Herc]

Shiv, there is a huge potential for publishing a monster manual, especially themed ones. I would suggest that if your friend has not yet published something professionally, they use a few of these monsters to build a teaser or sample publication to release on dmsguild or drivethrurpg, at either the 1.00 or the pay what you want price. This will help get their name out there, start to build some work around their name, and get feedback from people who purchase that kind of product.

I wish your friend the best of luck. When your they publish something, they should advertise it in the promotional forum here on enworld.

-Terry

 

[Shroomy]

Hello everyone! I'm the friend in question, so I figured I should add some details. All of the monsters are based on real world mythology and folklore, which by itself is no big deal. However, I'm trying to remain as faithful as possible to the original myths in terms of both lore and statistics (though there are some exceptions; for example, aspects of one monster are based on it's theosophic interpretation). I've rarely added my own material; most of the changes have been to "sanitize" some of myths or modify them to fit into pre-existing game terms (in lots of European folklore, fey are the souls of unbaptized children or fallen angels not quite evil enough to go to Hell, neither of which really fits into D&D's conception of fey). In style, the monster entries are similar to the MM and ToB entries (I actually adopted one of my folklore monsters, the clurichaun, for the Tome of Beasts). Each entry has 300-500 words of lore and a stat block. Where applicable, I did (and will continue to) add some player-orientated information such as familiar rules and magic items. So far, there are two familiars and one magic item. This project is an intersection of my love of tinkering with D&D rules, folklore, and making monsters. There are 19 "finished" entries, a bunch more in various stages of completion, and plans for a bunch more. As I wrote them, I started thinking about ways of sharing them with a wider audience, which is how Craig and I started discussing Kickstarters. Your feedback has given me a lot to think about and is much appreciated.

BTW, here is a list of the "finished" monsters (I use "finished" in quotes because I do return to them to tinker and because I've been the only editor, though I've incorporated feedback from friends like Craig who've taken a look at them):

Abatwa Tribe - Fey (Swarm) - CR 3 - Culture: Zulu
Alicanto - Elemental - CR 1 - Culture: Chilean
Aralez - Celestial - CR 3 - Culture: Armenian
Barbegazi - Fey - CR 1/2 - Culture: Swiss (Romandy)
Baykok - Undead - CR 9 - Culture: Ojibwe
Bluecap - Fey - CR 1/4 - Culture: Northern England (Yorkshire)
Boo Hag - Undead - CR 5 - Culture: Gullah
Bubák - Fey - CR 4 - Culture: Czech
Dokkaebi - Humanoid - CR 2 - Culture: Korean
Douen - Fey - CR 1/4 - Culture: Trinidadian
Gashadokuro - Undead - CR 22 - Culture: Japanese
Ilomba - Construct - CR 1 - Culture: Lozi
Jurua - Fey - CR 1/4 - Culture: Andamanese
Klabautermann - Fey - CR 1/4 - Culture: German (North Sea/Baltic Coast)
Lechuza - Fiend - CR 6 - Culture: Tejano/Mexican (Northern Mexico)
Ouktazaun - Undead - CR 4 - Culture: Burmese
Pukis - Dragon - CR 1/4 - Culture: Latvian
Ramidreju - Monstrosity - CR 0 - Culture: Cantabrian
Sigbin - Monstrosity - CR 5 - Culture: Filipino (Visayan)
Umutwa - Fey - CR 0 - Culture: Zulu (Umutwa is a singular Abatwa)

I'm trying to have a good spread of monsters from different cultures. Upcoming monsters come from Ancient Greek, Norse, Japanese, Koori, Taureg, and Breton cultures. I'm hoping to add some more high CR monsters too.

 

[Terry Herc]

Those all sound very interesting, would you consider sharing a stat block so we can see how they read?

-Terry

 

[Dualazi]

I'd be really interested in this, since I'm a sucker for monsters and I would really like to see expansions (official or unofficial) into many of the lesser known cultural influences on D&D.

Price-wise I can't imagine a 30-50 page book selling for less than 20$, which is probably what I'd throw down for it. As others have said though, it's really hard to gauge in a vacuum. For instance, I love great artwork in MM, and if I'm impressed by that I'd be willing to spend more. Likewise, as Quickleaf pointed out, a smaller monster list might allow for more ecology and fluff to be included, which is also a plus.

 

[dave2008]

A friend of mine is considering creating a Kickstarter to publish a small book of monsters that he's designed for D&D 5E. A lot of bigger companies have published books of hundreds of monsters.

(These would be homebrew monsters. Nothing impinging on WotC IP. Not legal for Adventurer's League play. Info provided akin to what's in the MM. My author-friend has multiple freelance design credits for D&D.)

Assuming the monsters in the book are the types of monsters you'd be interested in, would you be interested in a book that contains 30-50 monsters?

How much would you pay for a fully laid out and illustrated PDF of, say, 30 monsters? 40 monsters? 50 monsters?

Would you be interested in a reasonably-priced physical copy, like a softcover book?

Craig

If it is something I want, price isn't much of an issue, but as a rule of thumb I think about 5-10 cents per monster depending on the quality of the art and graphics.