Carnifex
First Post
Hi all, I'm back once again. I've barely been around at all over the last few weeks, just been too busy, but I am returned! Sadly my story hour has fallen well behind, but I hope to renovate it at some point.
Anyway, onto the point of this post! Today I bought the Tome of Horrors. An interesting read. Not a *bad* buy. It has lots of useful monsters in it, even if some of the conversions I disagree with, and I dislike the insistence on calling yugoloths daemons - it has the potential to confuse new players. After all, in the current edition both devils and demons exist, with baatezu and tannar'ri correlating to them, but there's no mention of daemons in the main MM. And my main gripe; the really, really bad art.
There's some good pieces in there, it has to be said, but generally it really isn't up to any standard. I mean, compare with something like the Monsternomicon! If '1st edition feel' translates to 'not very good pictures' then, well...
Of course, you can say that art is not the most important facet of a book designed for mechanics to use in gameplay. I disagree, as art both provides visual images to aid you in understanding the beastie and getting a better idea oif it in your mind. IT also is useful for showing to players to let *them* get a better idea of what they're up against. Furthermore, bad art just puts one off reading the actual text itself, and makes it a less enjoyable experience.
Because of the art, I find I can only consider the ToH an average product, I just find that as I'm reading it I keep on getting put off. I mean, if I showed many of thos epictures to my gaming group the monsters would win easily, as they could just pick off the adventurers at will, who would be helplessly laughing on the floor!
Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest...
Anyway, onto the point of this post! Today I bought the Tome of Horrors. An interesting read. Not a *bad* buy. It has lots of useful monsters in it, even if some of the conversions I disagree with, and I dislike the insistence on calling yugoloths daemons - it has the potential to confuse new players. After all, in the current edition both devils and demons exist, with baatezu and tannar'ri correlating to them, but there's no mention of daemons in the main MM. And my main gripe; the really, really bad art.
There's some good pieces in there, it has to be said, but generally it really isn't up to any standard. I mean, compare with something like the Monsternomicon! If '1st edition feel' translates to 'not very good pictures' then, well...
Of course, you can say that art is not the most important facet of a book designed for mechanics to use in gameplay. I disagree, as art both provides visual images to aid you in understanding the beastie and getting a better idea oif it in your mind. IT also is useful for showing to players to let *them* get a better idea of what they're up against. Furthermore, bad art just puts one off reading the actual text itself, and makes it a less enjoyable experience.
Because of the art, I find I can only consider the ToH an average product, I just find that as I'm reading it I keep on getting put off. I mean, if I showed many of thos epictures to my gaming group the monsters would win easily, as they could just pick off the adventurers at will, who would be helplessly laughing on the floor!
Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest...
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I hadn't thought of that.
