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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2009747" data-attributes="member: 1210">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.</blockquote>

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