Tome of Horrors

[Messageboard Golem]

Disappointed that your favorite First Edition monsters did not make it into the official rulebooks? Contained herein are all the classic monsters you have longed for, plus a whole bunch more! Restore "First Edition Feel" to your game with this manual of monsters both malevolent and benign!

The Tome of Horrors contains over 400 monsters, from the aerial servant and the lurker above to the shadow demon and the skeleton warrior to the Demon Lord Orcus himself! We worked closely with Wizards of the Coast so that the creatures in this Tome do not overlap with any of the official Third Edition books. You will not find any of the monsters in this book in any official product!

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I put in my order for this at my FLGS, expecting to receive it sometime in mid November, and had no idea that I would be getting it this soon...and I am happy for it. If you haven't heard about this book before, it has taken all of the monsters we all loved back in the 1E Monster Manuals that for some reason did not make the cut when it came time for 3E. All of my old favorites are in here, and I am sure you will find yours as well. The Skeleton Warrior, the Flail Snail, the Giant Slug, the Eye of the Deep, the Two Headed Troll, and yes, even the Flumph make their way back into d20 glory. There would be no way for me to list all the monsters that are making their appearances, but suffice it to say, it is an exhaustive resource.

Necromancer Games prides itself on its "1st Edition Feel" and you cannot help but feel that way when you are paging through this book. Personally, I found myself remembering many, many, many times my characters had encountered these beasties, or as a DM I had gleefully put them into my most recent dungeon in the hopes that they would soon be munching on some poor adventurers.

The artwork is very much like the Creature Collections I & II from Sword & Sorcery, which stands to reason since they predominantly used the same artists. In my opinion, I like the black and white art more than the color you will find in the WotC products and some other d20 publishers. It tends to stand out more, and the color can muddle the picture if you are not careful. The no color artwork is also a reminder of 1E as well if you think about it. The cover art is quite nice as well, maybe a bit too dark for my tastes, but not annoyingly so. One of those, "less is more" type things, I guess.

From a technical standpoint, the conversions are dead on. Scott Greene could very well be THE guy when it comes to d20 conversions, and it shows. He is considered the principle author of this work, with help from a variety of others from the Necromancer Games Staff.

One detraction that I have with the book, is that there is an entire section, just devoted to poisonous snakes; about 20 or so of them. It has some new rules for poison damage that seem interesting enough, but probably won't see a lot of use in my campaigns. Still, I am sure some of you out there will find a situation or two to implement them into your games. In all honesty, it is the only party of the book that I skimmed, and it is only 2 pages out of 324.

In conclusion, this book is absolutely awesome, as can be seen by my 5 star rating. If you are a long time gamer that wants to reaquaint yourself with some old sparring partners, or a new gamer looking to drop a surprise on your players, I strongly suggest adding this to your bookshelf. You will not be disappointed.

Fort

 

[Messageboard Golem]

When I bought this book, I spent fifteen minutes flipping through it and cackling with glee.

This book, quite simply, has everything.

The first D&D books I ever read were the first edition Monster Manual and Field Folio. My first game, therefore, I was using my out of character knowledge like mad.

DM: "You enter the cavern. The ceiling is studded with stalactities."
Me: "Watch out for piercers!"
DM: *Killer glare*

Thus I have fond memories of those critters. Now I get to see all of the ones that didn't make the 3e Monster Manuals in their new 3e glory.

For all those that complain there are not enough fey or plants in the current books, this will hopefully satisfy you. Plants galore, including the hangman tree, juniper bloodsucker, algoid, yellow musk creeper, and mandroga. Fey include the forlarren, leprechaun, atomie, and brownie.

Also oozes, oozes, oozes! Dun pudding, white pudding, stun jelly, mustard jelly, crystal jelly, olive slime, the slithering tracker and more.

Also hazards. Green slime not enough for you? How about russet mold, purple moss, memory moss, and symbiotic jelly? And everyone's favorite DM aid, the Hound of Ill Omen?

Lots of new animals, which druids will jump for joy for. Blood hawk, giant carbie (big aggressive fish), dragonnel, and the giant hamster.

Many undead, including the huecuva and crypt thing.

More outsiders than you can shake a stick at. For those that complained about the demon lords and devil princes in the Book of Vile Darkness, you might find the stats here more to your taste. Much higher CRs all around.

Overall I found nearly every single monster that I had missed from all my prior monster book purchases.

In addition, several humanoid races include PC information, including ECLs. Very useful.

Template include the abomination (lets you stick two animals together), a dire template, and a few zombie templates.

There is an appendix that includes a CR summary, but not a type summary.

With more monsters than either of the Monster Manuals for the same 30$ price tag, this book offers a great deal of bang for the buck.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I re-read some articles in Dragon #55 (on CD-Rom) last week. They had three articles about the "new" Fiend Folio for AD&D that had just been released in the summer of 1981. One article was a fairly harsh criticism by Ed Greenwood (a contributing editor at the time, now better known as the father of the "Forgotten Realms" campaign setting). Greenwood raised several complaints against the Fiend Folio, making a case for a "revised edition" of the book. In spite of his remarks, a revised version of the book addressing these issues was never released. Until now.

The Tome of Horrors, by Necromancer Games, is a collection of monsters that is something of a monster itself, weighing in at over 320 pages and over 400 monsters. The bulk of the monsters are conversions of old favorites from the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game (including a substantial number from the old Fiend Folio tome). Many are conversions from other editions of the game, including some from modules that never had an "official" appearance. There are also a substantial number of new creations that are either completely new to D&D / D20 with this book, or that have appeared in previous Necromancer Games modules.

My first concern when I heard about this project was concern that there would be overlap between this book and future "official" books from Wizards of the Coast. However, this book was produced under a special license with Wizards of the Coast to avoid this. The only duplicate monster that I've recognized is Orcus, who has also appeared in the recent Book of Vile Darkness. Apparently Necromancer received special permission to do their own conversion of their mascot.

My other concern was that this book would be filled with all the "leftover" monsters from AD&D that nobody ever really liked or used. Ed Greenwood's old complaints about the Fiend Folio brought up this issue. "There are many incomplete and inadequate monster entries," Greenwood criticized. "Monsters such as the Al-mi'raj and the Hook Horror have strange appearances and little else; there is no depth to their listings. Certainly not enough information is given to ensure that one DM will present them in a manner similar to another DM's handling. Similarly, one needs to know more of the real nature of the Dune Stalker, the Dire Corby, the Eye of Fear and Flame, and the race of Dark Creepers". He went on to complain about how many creatures seemed to be very "gamey", failing to fill any sort of ecological niche, and have a feel of existing merely to torment players.

Many of these monsters make their reappearance in the Tome of Horrors, and almost every creature has been greatly expanded upon and detailed over its first edition appearance. Their typical combat tactics are detailed quite nicely as they have in the Monster Manual, and many notes have been included on non-combat details such as society, customs, habitat, and so forth. Many of the humanoid races include information for running player characters of that race, including attribute modifiers and ECL. Even some of the more notoriously gamey "DM Special" monsters (such as the Nilbog, the Gas Spore, and the Adherer) have now been expanded and detailed to make them much more of a believable monster rather than a surprise attack against players. In short, many of the old "useless" creatures from AD&D have now been presented in a fun and intriguing new light, giving them a new chance to find a home in many D&D campaigns.

One further complaint Greenwood leveled against the original Fiend Folio was that it contained frequent rules errors. While I can't say I've gone through every entry in the Tome of Horrors with a calculator in hand, casual examination has revealed no significant rules blunders thus far. I might quibble over the assigned CR and ECL ratings in a few entries, but I have just as many (if not more) quibbles about such assignments that have appeared in official D&D books. A few monsters (such as the rot grub) are listed as hazards, and have no actual monster stat entry – but rather have detailed rules for handling that particular threat. After all, "fighting" a rot grub is as silly as fighting a poison needle trap – but there is nothing silly about the danger presented from either! The rules in these cases are detailed very nicely. The DM is of course free to expand or modify what is found within based on circumstances, but it provides a very solid foundation that can be used unchanged or built upon as part of an adventure. Everything appears rock-solid and well balanced. As a Dungeon Master without nearly as much time on my hands as I'd like to have for adventure preparation, trusting my source materials so that I can drop things into my campaign "as-is" without having to spend time "fixing" rules errors or balance problems is a big deal with me. So far, I'm happy to say the Tome of Horrors has earned that trust.

Nearly everything in the book (except the art and "credits" information) is under the Open Gaming License. This means that they can be freely used under the OGL with other products. Since no "official" monsters outside of the Monster Manual I and the Psionics Handbook have yet appeared as part of the SRD, this means the Tome of Horrors is a huge source of new monsters for publicly released adventures. To further sweeten the deal, Necromancer Games has included a page of step-by-step instructions (and examples) on how to include the monsters from the Tome of Horrors in your product to make it fully OGL compliant (at least with respect to the usage of these monsters). Publishers, freelancers, internet-publishers, contest-entrants, take note!

Is the book perfect? No, of course not; nothing ever is. Some people may prefer the color artwork of WotC's books over the "first edition" style black & white artwork of the Tome of Horrors. And while much of the artwork is excellent, the book definitely has its share of weak illustrations. As with any work of this size, there are a handful of typos and minor formatting blunder. I find endlessly amusing the note on the Slaad Lord of Entropy: "It is believed that his true form is that of a 15-foot tall black salad." I suppose he moonlights as the Lord of Lettuce. And even with an expanded entry, I still can't figure a thing to do with the Flumph!

None of these minor issues detract from the usability of this volume. This is a gigantic collection of monsters that are rules-solid, interesting, and fun. With this book, Necromancer Games has not only converted "First Edition Feel" to "Third Edition Rules", but has greatly improved upon it in the process. Players beware, and DMs rejoice - if there ever is such a thing as a "must-have" volume outside of the core D&D rulebooks, this is it!

 

[the Jester]

Well, I got it at last- the fantastic (and I do mean fantastic!) Tome of Horrors, which converts almost all the old-school, first edition monsters that weren't already done in an official product! I have to say, I'm very impressed. To begin with, its packaging continues Necromancer's tradition of sleek, good-looking books- the cover is textured-looking, with the same sort of 'thick arcane tome' look that the three core books started. The only possible complaint I could have about it is that it seems to look a lot like the cover to the Book of Vile Darkness- the same rust and black color scheme with a skull motif- but I'm sure this was a coincidence, so I won't dock any points for that. And anyhow, the cover is smooth. It harkens back to the 1ed Fiend Folio (a blurb on the cover calls it a "Folio of Fiends Malevolent and Benign"), which was always one of my favorites. And the back cover gives you the typical spiel about hundreds of newly-coverted monsters along with a bunch more, yadda yadda; the only bad part here is the assertion that "You won't find any of the monsters in this book in any official product." Well, that's just not true. Quite a few of the super-powerful demons and devils are in the BoVD; also, there are a few things like the giant frog or yeti that have appeared elsewhere as well (the giant frog's in the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, the yeti's in Oriental Adventures). If my opinion, if you're going to make claims like that, you have to be very careful to ensure that it's an accurate claim. But this is a minor quibble; there are VERY few repeats in here.

The book itself is 285 pages of monsters before the appendices, which include an animal appendix, another of templates, a third consisting only of poisonous snakes, and a fourth, which is a list of monsters by challenge rating. Finally, there's a "legal appendix" that has the OGL in it, as well as a "how-to" of how to use the monsters in the ToH legally. This is actually, in my opinion, one of the best things that any publisher has done with the OGL and should help continue the expansion of the whole open gaming movement. With everything, the book is a massive 325 pages- and for only thirty bucks, it's a steal.

The monsters are well-rendered in a variety of artistic styles; although the art is black and white, it's very good overall. Some of the monsters are certainly better rendered than others- the gorilla bear and tunnel worm ain't too hot, for instance, while the transposer looks creepy and dangerous and the picture of the bunyip makes me respect that particular monster more than ever (which, until now, was not at all). Some of the art harkens back to the 1ed versions especially strongly, like the dark creeper and dark stalker- and call me nostalgiac, but I love it.

As for the conversions, they have been done with love and faithfulness to the original visions of the monsters. Even where things don't quite fit in the current dnd mythology, there's usually a wink and a nod to the old concepts (such as the reference that brownies "may be distant relatives of pixies and halflings, but this has never been proven." If you remember from the 1e Monster Manual, it's speculated that brownies are a halfling/pixie cross.) This is really cool- but sometimes it leads to rules that don't quite match the current system too well. The greater basilisk, for example, has a poison breath that can kill on a failed save (at least the secondary damage). In 3e, very few poisons do this; I'd have rather seen some extreme con damage. The selection of monsters is great, too; almost all the first edition monsters from the MM, FF and MM2 are now converted somewhere or other. Only a few really weird creatures (protein polymorph, anyone?), totally lame things (pseudo-undead) and a very very few goodies that I wish had made it in (envelopers, zorbos) are missing now. I think BOZ has even posted a list of what's left, somewhere on the General Monster Talk forum. Overall, the monster selection is great- even weird creatures that I never much cared for are now usable, sensible, and exciting. (Gambados? Yep, in there. Phantom stalkers? Yep. Ear seekers? Check. They've even included the stench kow and giant hamster!)

There are also a smattering of new monsters in the book- and they're almost all good ones. They're vastly outnumbered by the conversions, but it's always good to have a few new things in there to freshen the mix up. The new monsters are cool, and they're fairly varied though I did note a lot of aquatic undead; but that's okay by me.

One of the other cool features of the Tome is that each monster has a "credit" section. This tells where it first appeared (or first appeared in AD&D, depending on the creature). I understand they couldn't fully research everything, but unfortunately I found lots of errors in this section. Almost nothing first appeared in the Monster Manual 2; it was almost all gathered from Gary Gygax' Dragon articles and various modules. Still, I can understand why a lot of monsters slipped through as first appearing in the Monster Manual 2; but what puzzles me is that some creatures that first appeared in one module are credited as first appearing in another (the froghemoth, for instance, came outta the infamous S3, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, but is credited as being from S4). Well, nobody's perfect, and I doubt whether anyone's enjoyment of the book will be spoiled by this.

My biggest gripe has to do with the layout. The ToH uses the same sort of two-column multiple monsters per page layout that the 3ed Monster Manual uses, and it's rife with the same problem: bits of text end up oddly compressed or stretched out; for example, the first paragraph of the bog beast has "hu-" (the first part of humanoid) spread on one line and "truding" (as in, the last part of protruding) squished almost into unreadability on another line; they have about the same amount of space. I'm glad that they crammed in as many monsters as possible, and I can live with the wonky text bits, but it is a little annoying and distracting. Still, a minor flaw in an otherwise great book!

I really wanted to give the Tome of Horrors five stars, and it comes close- but I have to go with four for a couple of reasons. One is the occasional rules gaff, such as instant-kill poison. Yeah, it can exist in 3e- but it's a cop-out in my opinion. Another is the layout problems- while minor, they're still distracting enough to catch my attention several times an hour while reading the book. I also wish the book was in color, but I understand that it would have run closer to fifty bucks if it was; and besides, I can always whip out the colored pencils for that.

Overall, I have to say that this is probably not just a four-star book- it's also one that I'll get a lot of direct use out of. I have several supplements that I really liked but have never used; this will not be one of them.

 

[ASEO]

Tome Of Horrors - 5 Superb - deserves a 6 on a 1-5 scale

~323 page Hardback

$29.95, but I'll admit that I got mine at a 20% Discount at my local game store's Annual Holiday Sale.

Let me start out by saying that I have been playing D&D since '79 and that I own every First Edition product ever printed. That being said, I made the transition to Second Edition fairly easily and was still able to use my first edition stuff with very little work. Then came Third Edition...While I love Third Edition, I was a little dismayed that it was now much harder to use my first edition modules. The creature conversions were among the harder things to have to go through and convert. Sure some of the creatures were found in the new 3Ed Monster Manual, MM2 and Creatures of Faerun, but many were still missing. Maybe that was part of the marketing; get people to buy new 3Ed modules instead of using their old ones. I did a lot of buying...but I still long to run the old modules, I just don't have time to do all the creature conversions.

Now, I don't have to. Necromancer Games has released a product that has done all the conversions of all the creatures that appeared in the first edition Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, and Fiend Folio that didn't appear in 3ed. At least not until now. You get over 300 classic monsters plus over 100 are brand new monsters.

This is the first product since The Gryphon's Legacy by Gaslight Press that made me wish that the rating scale went above 5. On the scale 1-5 this product is a 6+!

This book is everything I ever expected a Monster Book to be and more. Sure, the art isn't color, but I think most of it is better than that in the 3Ed MM, 3Ed MMII. Its black and white images are reminiscent of the first edition products, but I think better that that which appeared in the 1Ed Monster books. What's more, many of the old creatures seemed new because there are illustrations of many creatures that didn't have illustration in the 1Ed books. Now you can see the Cave Moray, Transposer, and Floating Eye.

Here is the Ant Lion I remember from the Slaver's Stockade. The Cave Fisher from the Slave Lord's Dungeon. The Giant Crayfish from the famous Moat house. The Boalisk, Dun Pudding, Froghemoth, Marlgoyle, and more from Tsojcanth's Lost Caverns. The Vegrpygmy from the crashed spaceship in the Barrier Peaks. I could go on and on. Truly in Necromancer Games the first edition feel is very alive and kicking.

Additionally there are several templates for Foo Creatures, Thessalmonsters, Therianthropes, Spectral Trolls, Slime Zombies, Skeleton Warriors, Dire creatures...(you want that Dire Sloth, or Dire Giant Hamster...It's yours), Chaos Beasts, Animal Lords and Abomination animal composites.

Within these pages were the creatures I searched in vain for in other 3Ed products like the Aerial Servant, Apparition, Axe Beak, Doombat, Boggart, Bonesnapper, Brownie, Caryatid Column, Crypt Thing, It's got Daemons, Demons and Devils. There's the Shadow Demon that gave my party such a hard time in the Dragon Magazine published adventure Forest of Darkness. There’s the Dire Corby, Disenchanter, Faerie Dragon, Eye of the Deep, Fire Lizard, Flind, Gas Spore, Gloomwing, Grippli, Haunt, Hippocampus, Huecuva, Iron Cobra, Kech, Kelpie, Korred, Leprechaun, Lurker Above, Lurker Below, Mite, Mongrelman, Muckdweller, Mudman, Necrophididus, Nereid, Ogrillion, Orog, Pech, Phantom and Phantom Stalker. Piercer, Quickling, Rot Grub, Sandling from the Slave Lord's Dungeon, Shedu, Slithering Tracker, Soul Eater from the very old Desert Nomad Expert Adventure, Sprite, Tentamort, Thunder Beast, Trapper, Ice, Rock, and two-headed Trolls, Vampire Roses, Volt, Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing, Yellow Musk Creeper, Yeti and Juju Zombies (not to be confused by those tasty candies, juju bees).

This book rocks! You get all those favorites Plus new creatures to spring on your players like the Barrow Wight, Bhuta (the spirit of a murdered person that clings to the mortal world and inhabits it's dead body seeking to slay it's killers), Bloody Bones, Bone Sucker...Jack-O-Lantern...Well hell, there are over 100 of these new beasties, and they are all so cool.

Once again this is one of the very best D20 products that I have ever seen and on a scale of 1-5 I definitely give it a 6. This is the best Monster book I have ever seen!

ASEO out

 

[Melan]

The Tome of Horrors

To be honest, when I first heard of Necromancer's new monster book, I approached the idea with some amount of trepidation and concern. Before that, Necromancer was solely a publisher of adventures, and while Necropolis, Gary Gygax's excellent adventure module contained a well done appndix of Aegyptian monsters, I wasn't sure how it would turn out in the end.

Fortunately, the end result is an excellent resource for most DMs. At $30 for a 328 page hardcover, Tome of Horrors is very competitively priced compared to many other books. Production values are mostly good. The B&W interior illustrations are usually good, even though I expected better. The lack of colour may be a turnoff to some - as an old school DM, I welcomed them wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, the book is hardly perfect: some batches were made with an inferior binding and are prone to falling apart. Necromancer offers free replacements for them, but taking it to a binder shouldn't be to costly, either.

The Tome's main attraction are the monsters. The majority of them are converted from older monster manuals - especially the original Monster Manual II and Fiend Folio. There is also a selection of new creations by Scott Greene and Erica Balsley, plus others from Necromancer's modules. I especially appreciated Scott's attention to plantlike monsters - they are often overshadowed by undead or demonkind.

Speaking of demonkind, they are present in great quantities, from the lowest ones to several powerful demon princes and devil lords. In addition to the old standbys (like Orcus, "The Faceless Lord" - Juiblex in disguise, Geryon, Kostchie and so forth), many are new and make their debut in this book: the froglike Tsathogga, Lucifer (whose Hp modifier is a wonder of monster engineering) and multiple lesser lords, many of whom are retainers and underlings of the aforementioned notabilities. The Demodands (who were called "Gehreleths" in 2e, if my memory of cheesy names doesn't fail me) and the Daemons make a comeback, too - including their master, Charon.

The Tome also offers animals which were missing in the MM. They may not be as exciting as, say, the Flumph or the Flail Snail, but they may come up more often in your game. I still don't understand how WotC could overlook Giant Frogs (or Giant Killer Frogs, or Giant Abyssal Frogs, etc.) or the various and sundry crustaceans of bygone editions.

Like other monster collections, Tome of Horrors has its fair share of templates. Of these, the Dire template is the most usable to me, but there are several more - the Foo Creature, the Abomination, the Bleeding Horror, the Beast of Chaos, Skeleton Warrior, Slime Zombie, Therianthrope (this includes jacklaweres, wolfweres, assweres and other miscellaneous weirdness), Thessalmonster and Yellow Musk Zombie. Most templates come with a selection of detailed samples, a welcome addition in my book.

There is also an appendix on poisonous snakes. The appendix definitely ups the danger level of these serpentine creatures - now their bite has nasty side effects like internal bleeding or tissue damage. Since snakes are too wimpy in D&D anyway, this is a good thing - of course, all of the appendix is completely optional.

Finally, there is a listing of challenge ratings and a legal appendix which offers detailed instructions on how to reuse the creatures of the book in your own d20 publications. This little bonus, along with the way Necromancer Games credited the creators of each and every monster, speaks volumes of their attention to quality and excellence. Subsequent editions of the work should pay a bit more attention to credit (some are falsely attributed to Monster Manul II, when they were originally derived from TSR modules), and a breakdown of monsters by types would be most welcome as well.

In conclusion, I consider Tome of Horrors to be one of the better d20 products to date. While some creatures were later duplicated in WotC manuals, most notably Fiend Folio, the variety and the execution of the monsters more than lives up to the book's minor failings.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

TOME OF HORRORS

OVERVIEW
The Tome of Horrors is a 328-page hardbound monster compendium collecting over 400 monsters, along with additional templates, animals, and vermin. The bulk of the monsters presented are Third Edition updates of creatures originally published by TSR for first or second edition AD&D and D&D, though there are quite a few new creatures and templates, including some that previously appeared in Necromancer Games adventures.

The monsters in the book were selected in conjunction with Wizards of the Coast so as not to overlap with any in the Monster Manuals (with the explicit exception of Orcus, Necromancer's trademark deity, and perhaps one or two others). Since then, it should be noted that perhaps two or three dozen of the creatures appearing in the Tome of Horrors have been published by WOTC in the Fiend Folio and other books. Despite this, there is still a staggering array of creatures present that appear nowhere else in print in Third Edition. A few dubious specimens did manage to sneak their way in (most notably the nilbog, my vote for stupidest monster in all of D&D), but compared to the vast number of useful creatures, this too is an insignificant problem. And the authors did their best to make some of these lame ducks such as the al-mir'aj actually usable in your game without embarrassment.

The primary author of the book, Scot Greene, is responsible for the Creature Catalog site here at ENWorld, which hosts a large number of converted creatures from previous editions of the game. This database became the basis for the Tome, though many of the conversions that made it into the Tome were updated and clarified.

Formatting is reasonably good overall, with the monsters all depicted in black and white illustrations intermingled with the text, in similar fashion to the Monster Manual. This I think is partly responsible for some formatting issues with stat blocks and tables that occasionally appear, and with letter and word spacing to keep margins justified, though these problems are sparse and do not significantly damage the usability of the creatures.

One problem that plagued the release of the Tome of Horrors was a bad batch of glue holding the pages to the binding; Necromancer Games and White Wolf have been excellent about product exchanges, though you can easily fix this problem yourself if you get one of these books with a little Aleene's tacky glue.

One brilliant bit of formatting within the stat blocks themselves that appears, to my knowledge, nowhere else is the inclusion of a "Credit," which lists the original source of the creature in question (as best as the authors could determine them, anyway), and a "Copyright Notice", which states the author, both current and original where applicable. These two items are an excellent and informative addition to the listings, and are complimented by a two-page section at the end of the book targeted to publishers, stating step by step how to use creatures in the Tome in their products and be compliant with the Open Game License.

From my experience using the monsters in my games, I have found them to be well-balanced overall, and Necromancer Games maintains an ongoing list of errata and updates at their forum to fix any mistakes that have appeared. Hopefully we will someday see a "3.5 Edition" re-release of this book, updated to the new revision and incorporating all the errata (though one mistake, a misspelling of the Slaad Lord of Entropy as appearing as a "15-foot tall black salad", has become so notorious that it will hopefully remain in).

RECOMMENDATIONS
Dollar for dollar, the Tome of Horrors at just under $30 is the best monster book for 3rd Edition out on the market today, easily giving double or triple the value of any other monster book out there. After buying the core rulebooks, if you have any love for a variety of monsters in your campaign, this book is an essential purchase. It is also invaluable if you plan on updating any classic modules to third edition for your home campaign. The conversions by Scott Greene, Erica Balsley, and a number of other authors have been done by people with more experience at this than anyone outside of Wizards of the Coast. And the web support for the Tome is, I believe, unmatched by any other book out there, INCLUDING WOTC's books. One of Necromancer Games' and the industry's best values. I highly recommend it!

 

[dok]

Whenever you purchase a book, you want to believe that you, the intelligent consumer, have bought a product of unsurpassed quality, because otherwise, you feel stupid. That was my feeling in purchasing the Tome of Horrors, but after a little time has passed, I'm willing to look more critically at the contents...

First, it is a BIG book. In terms of monster-per-dollar, you get a lot. And the content is widely varied, from traditional 1st edition monsters that are utterly nonsensical (the trapper, the piercer) to a host of animals (need stats for a bison?) to a nice range of templates. If you're not a fan of the strange & odd monsters that populated 1st edition (Wolf-In-Sheep's-Clothing, anyone?) there is going to be some content you won't like. Additionally, a modest portion of monsters appear elsewhere, primarily in WotC's Fiend Folio and the Book of Vile Darkness. However, for DMs whose players own as many books as they do, the variant monsters are good to have.

The next point is a minor one, but important to some. Not only are ALL the monsters Open Game content, but the last appendix quite nicely shows you, in simple instructions, how to use them & keep it OGL compliant. A nice touch for anyone wanting to publish a module with Orcus or another demon lord.

So why not 5/5? Because once you get past the volume of monsters, and the incredible variety from pure Gygaxian fantasy to folklore to just plain wierd, the book has some technical issues. Small, Tiny & Diminutive creatures with Improved Grab have their grapple checks modified incorrectly for size. Many creature abilities have that "1st edition feel" of giving a description of flavor text without rules data to back it up. For example, the Air Elemental Dragon has a breath weapon of "superheated air". Does a ring of Fire Protection prevent that damage? Is it half fire, half buffeting (impact) damage? Other examples of this "missing/wrong game mechanics" mar what is an otherwise awesome creature collection. Missing also from the book is a listing of creatures by type & subtype. While I have no issue with the book's layout & organization otherwise, the absence of such a list makes the book harder for immediate use. I can't simply pick up the book & look for an Undead, I have to search each page.

Overall, the book is very, very good. It's a great buy for the price, it has a lot of varied content which ensures something will fit in your game, and is a fabulous resource for anyone thinking of publishing their own work. It's not perfect, but it does come close.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

There are some d20 products that are just plain useful. The Tome of Horrors by Necromancer Games is clearly one of them.

A 325-page monster book, The Tome of Horrors contains mostly monsters not included in either the Monster Manual or Monster Manual II by Wizards of the Coast. Value-priced at $29.95 and entirely black & white on the inside pages, it is apparent that the publisher wanted to pack in as many monsters as possible at a relatively low price.

This results in the main problem with the product-- because the Tome of Horrors attempts to put in so many monsters (over 400!), the descriptions for each entry is scant. You'll see many monsters (example: Death Dog) with only two sentences for a description prior to going into combat information. This book is clearly intended for those who quickly need to look up 3rd edition stats for monsters left out of the MM or MMII, but not much else. It is not a book that you sit down to and enjoy reading. In fact, you'll probably need the first edition versions in addition to the ones here to get a better idea of the nature of these monsters.

One thing that I noticed is that some of the credits given for each monster entry are simply wrong. It says that a monster "originally appeared" in the first edition Fiend Folio or Monster Manual II, but I know that it was first published in a module or Dragon magazine article. I think this was done often to avoid all the detailed research work involved, but it would have been appreciated (since there was an attempt there).

The cover art is acceptable and many of the interior art is quite good (example: Orcus). Some of them are not so good (example: Lurker Above). The section I liked least was probably the demons and devils section. Most (with some exceptions like Orcus) are just grotesque, but poorly-illustrated. This contrasts to the exceptional drawings of demons and devils in the original first edition Monster Manual.

It would have been better if there was just a little bit more descriptive text for each monster. Though putting in less description means more monsters, I question the reasoning behind including such entries as the devil Lucifer. It may have seemed "cool" to do so, but I don't really need stats for Lucifer because I probably won't have him in my game anyhow. I am guessing that many people, like myself, bought this book to get monsters they felt should have been in the MM or MMII, but weren't. So, why include entries like Lucifer? For a company that boasts ties to first edition, Necromancer Games has even included some second edition monsters like the Fogwarden at the expense of some other good first edition monsters.

There is talk about a Tome of Horrors II, but the list of proposed monsters make it sound similar to the Creature Collection series. I did not buy those books and I don't plan to buy Tome of Horrors II if it also includes a bunch of mediocre, never before used silly monsters. There are many more monsters from the first edition Monster Manual II, Fiend Folio, and Dragon magazines that have not yet been published. A book including such monsters would appeal to me more than something similar to Creature Collection-type ones.

Of course, the Fiend Folio recently released by Wizards of the Coast for third edition included many monsters that were only supposed to be exclusively in the Tome of Horrors. This only makes the Fiend Folio less appealing to me, however, than making the Tome of Horrors less useful. The production value for the Fiend Folio is much better though: better art (colored, too), more descriptions, and better binding. However, it does not have as many monsters. There's the trade-off.

So, in many ways the Tome of Horrors is just that: plain, but useful. A-