D&D 5E Volos Guide Seems Good But......

[Dualazi]

Uncalledfor sarcasm.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]I don't know as much about < 4E, but in 5E the stat blocks at completely driven by the ability scores, hp is a function of size and level. It's not like 4E where you could level creatures up or down or had level-based DPR formula determined by whether the attack was single- or multi-target and limited use or not.[/FONT]

Monster design in 4E was way more convoluted a process. The only thing challenging about monster design in 5E is slapping a CR on things and deciding their appropriate number of hit dice (both of which are fairly arbitrary).

uh, are you being serious right now? Monster math in 4^th edition was so tight by the MM3 people can and did fit it on a single card. Of all the many faults you could lay at 4^th edition's feet,convoluted monster design was in no way one of them. By comparison,numerous people on these forums have posted about discrepancies between the monsters in the MM, and the guidelines for creating them in the DMG. The general consensus as I remember it was that MM monsters in 5^th edition were intentionally under-tuned out the gate, but there's still an annoying lack of guidance in regards to special qualities or resistances.


In regards to the OP, I would say go with ToB if you have to choose. If lore is what you're after then it's got more than enough to be usable in that capacity, and in every other aspect it pretty much blows Volo's out of the water. This is doubly true if you're the DM and don't plan on running a campaign with oddball races anytime soon, since you don't lose space to that content. There's way more creatures, with a much wider range of CR, and a lot of the creatures are more-or-less brand new.


That being said if you're truly hungry for options then I would just go with the'both' option as stated by others.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Uncalled for sarcasm.

I don't know as much about < 4E, but in 5E the stat blocks at completely driven by the ability scores, hp is a function of size and level. It's not like 4E where you could level creatures up or down or had level-based DPR formulae determined by whether the attack was single- or multi-target and limited use or not.

Monster design in 4E was way more convoluted a process. The only thing challenging about monster design in 5E is slapping a CR on things and deciding their appropriate number of hit dice (both of which are fairly arbitrary).

5th edition is fine if you are wanting to make a brand new monster. Trying to upgrade (or downgrade) an already existing monster to a certain CR you want is more problematical. Definitely more so than in 3.x, where the MM told you how many class levels/hit dice you needed to bring a monster up to a certain CR and the rest was just crunching the numbers in a few easy steps. 5e has you playing The Price is Right games ("Higher! Lower! No higher again!") to bring your updated monster to your target CR. I've been trying to work on creating some elite giant types, and it's such an irritating process compared to 3.x that I keep getting discouraged...

 

[RCanine]

The general consensus as I remember it was that MM monsters in 5^th edition were intentionally under-tuned out the gate

4E had exactly the same problem. I remember looking at some of the monsters from the first 4E hardcovers and they were laughably undertuned.

Trying to upgrade (or downgrade) an already existing monster to a certain CR you want is more problematical.

Right...I think the authors intentionally do it by "feel" which means that from a story perspective monsters are easy to kick out, but from a balance/tuning perspective it's a bit of a nightmare. I don't think they see that as a problem; the 5E adventures we've gotten so far don't seem particularly concerned with whether or not the PCs run into monsters that are too easy or too difficult for them.

 

[Uchawi]

To be honest with the availability of content in regards to monsters and what I already own. I see no need to buy any 5E monster supplements. The only value may be the lore, but I would find it more useful to have a world setting with monster lore included.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I disagree a bit; although you're right, "we're pawns of our gods" is overdone in Volo's, I actually think the book does a decent job of making goblins, orcs and mind flayers far more three-dimenisonal than they've been presented in the past. Their evil is a somewhat reaction to their circumstances and their fears.

I still have the copy of the Illithiad I bought in 1997, as well as the 3.5 Book of Aberrations. The Beholder section in the new Volo guide is most excellent, and the Illithid section is superb, but to call either unprecedented is inaccurate at best. Similarly, if your object is garden-variety orcs, sure, the new book is great, but if you'd like some personality and history and significance for them, the 3.5 Eberron setting has no equal.

I am a huge fan of the new Volo's Guide. It exceeded my expectations in almost every way. But it isn't perfect, and my big gripe is with its approach to the god-monster relationship.

As has been pointed out, that approach is not new to 5e, but in no other edition I've played has the connection been so explicit and hammered in. 4e might have been an exception, but I didn't play it.much so I wouldn't know.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The orcs failed because it focused so much less on what makes the races cool and interesting and more on what makes it different from Warcraft and Lord of the Rings orcs. Doubly annoying, they

Coming from the perspective of someone who hasn't dived deep in DnD lore before 5th edition... is there anything that makes Orcs cool and interesting in DnD?

They always seemed like the stock "savage horde" monster from everything I have ever run into, except when I started looking into their pantheon, but everyone seems to be complaining about the focus on the Gods of the various monster races....


It's a little confusing to be honest.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Coming from the perspective of someone who hasn't dived deep in DnD lore before 5th edition... is there anything that makes Orcs cool and interesting in DnD?

They always seemed like the stock "savage horde" monster from everything I have ever run into, except when I started looking into their pantheon, but everyone seems to be complaining about the focus on the Gods of the various monster races....

It's a little confusing to be honest.

Humans get like 300 gods in D&D, but we're supposed to believe that all orcs are slavishly devoted to one or two. I have some issues with that.

No earlier edition tied monstrous humanoids so closely to gods in a core rulebook (unless, again, 4e did, which just means the silliness began a little earlier than I thought).

If you are looking for something to make orcs interesting in D&D, I can't recommend Eberron highly enough. Instead of mindless screaming hordes, you have a savage culture that discovered the secrets of druidic magic and played a huge part in fending off an invasion of what was essentially the Eberron version of the Far Realm - a dimension of madness and horror, filled with incomprehensible bulbous horrors.

A decent place to start is here: http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Orc

The creator of the Eberron setting, Keith Baker, wrote a bit about them too outside the rulebooks. You can find an example a couple questions down in the Q&Q on this page: http://keith-baker.com/dragonmark-31914-orcs-mean-streets-and-more/:

 

[I'm A Banana]

Humans get like 300 gods in D&D, but we're supposed to believe that all orcs are slavishly devoted to one or two. I have some issues with that.

No earlier edition tied monstrous humanoids so closely to gods in a core rulebook (unless, again, 4e did, which just means the silliness began a little earlier than I thought).

I dunno specifically about humanoids but "gods made us do it" is all over the place in 4e.

 

[RCanine]

Humans get like 300 gods in D&D, but we're supposed to believe that all orcs are slavishly devoted to one or two. I have some issues with that.

Why? We have real-world analogues of a small group of monotheists spreading their religion by the sword, largely exterminating polytheism.

 

[Jester David]

Coming from the perspective of someone who hasn't dived deep in DnD lore before 5th edition... is there anything that makes Orcs cool and interesting in DnD?

They always seemed like the stock "savage horde" monster from everything I have ever run into, except when I started looking into their pantheon, but everyone seems to be complaining about the focus on the Gods of the various monster races....


It's a little confusing to be honest.

In D&D? Not much. Orcs, like elves and dwarves, are pretty generic in D&D. Archypal. Like LotR.

Then all these orcs appear in new properties - like Warcraft - that are orcs... but different. Now D&D feels the need to differentiate their orcs. Make D&D orcs distinct. So rather than spending the pages telling us why orcs are cool, how to use them in game, and customization options it gives us pages of backstory.