D&D 5E Volo's Guide to Monsters - Which monsters do you want to see?

[Parmandur]

Any hints from the podcast about which mind flayer variants? And does it seem from what they said that the variant stat blocks will be in Chapter 1?

It was pure lore discussion, other than saying there would be "lots" in Volos the only info was that there is a mini-mod detailing a colony.



They went over rogue Mindflayers, colonies, Elder brains, Illithid Liches, no humanoids who have been mutated by Mindflayers (something about a Mindflayer-Beholder abomination?), Illithid arcanists and "ullithids" who go off and become new Elder brains. Some Illithids maintain memories and personality from before being...whatever you call Mindflayer breeding?...so you can have deviant Alignment Mindflayers.

My Illithid-Fu is weak, so I may have missed some, it's a short segment.

 

[Demetrios1453]

It was pure lore discussion, other than saying there would be "lots" in Volos the only info was that there is a mini-mod detailing a colony.



They went over rogue Mindflayers, colonies, Elder brains, Illithid Liches, no humanoids who have been mutated by Mindflayers (something about a Mindflayer-Beholder abomination?), Illithid arcanists and "ullithids" who go off and become new Elder brains. Some Illithids maintain memories and personality from before being...whatever you call Mindflayer breeding?...so you can have deviant Alignment Mindflayers.

My Illithid-Fu is weak, so I may have missed some, it's a short segment.

Well, that covers pretty much all of the mind flayer variants I wanted to see, so great to know they will be in Volo's. I would have been happy if we just had the alhoon (illithid lich), the ulitharid, and the elder brain detailed, but looks like we'll be seeing even more variants than I expected/hoped for! From this and knowing we'll be seeing giant variants, it looks like we'll be getting a good amount of monsters to fill up those higher CR levels that were rather sparse in the MM...

By the way, the ulitharid is the type of mind flayer that appears on the deluxe cover version of the book - you can tell from the extra tentacles.

 

[Parmandur]

Roll20 has the digital copy page up with some details: they have "over 130 started tokens featuring original artwork" to drop into the VTT, so that suggests that there are over 130 stat blocks in the book, all told.

Also, "Delve into the belly of the beast with all 7 monster lair Battle Maps from the book..." so there are at least 7 detailed monster mini-dungeons; we know of six races in chapter 1: I tend to doubt dragons are the seventh, because "Volo's Guide to Dragons" sounds like the inevitable followup...

 

[Mefistofulee]

I'd like to see:

-Gem Dragons (I love me some psionic dragons).
-More beholder-kin (which we are pretty much guaranteed to get).
-The more powerful Modrons (including Primus of course).
-More celestials like Archon the other two types of devas and maybe guardinals and classic planar eladrin (although maybe the last ones may be better represented as Fey in this edition?), at least we're getting the Ki-rin, which is a good start.
-Speaking of Fey, more of those please, specially evil ones.
-The remaining Yugoloths.
-MORE dinosaurs.
-Some of the dragons introduced as chromatic and metallic dragons in 4e.

I do not know the 4e dragons but want everything else in this post.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Roll20 has the digital copy page up with some details: they have "over 130 started tokens featuring original artwork" to drop into the VTT, so that suggests that there are over 130 stat blocks in the book, all told.

Also, "Delve into the belly of the beast with all 7 monster lair Battle Maps from the book..." so there are at least 7 detailed monster mini-dungeons; we know of six races in chapter 1: I tend to doubt dragons are the seventh, because "Volo's Guide to Dragons" sounds like the inevitable followup...

130 stat blocks seems pretty reasonable - we know we're going to get just under 100 new monsters in Chapter 3, so the 30+ other stat blocks should be the variants for creatures in Chapter 1. If what you've surmised is correct, and there are seven "featured" monster types in that chapter, we'll be seeing around 4 - 5 stat blocks on average for the featured monsters, which seems pretty reasonable given the monsters being covered (although I hope we get more in the giant chapter; while that fire giant dreadnought is cool and all, I do want at least one other fire giant variant in there, not to mention extra variants for other giant types as well, just for variety).

As for dragons, you may be right and they won't get their own featured section. But even if that's the case, I can't see them not statting out at least one new type in Chapter 3 then. I can't think of a single "monster book", from the very genesis of D&D, that didn't have at least one dragon type detailed in it...

Oh, and the firbolg, as a playable race, has been previewed on the WotC page for the book:

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/volos-guide-to-monsters

 

[Parmandur]

130 stat blocks seems pretty reasonable - we know we're going to get just under 100 new monsters in Chapter 3, so the 30+ other stat blocks should be the variants for creatures in Chapter 1. If what you've surmised is correct, and there are seven "featured" monster types in that chapter, we'll be seeing around 4 - 5 stat blocks on average for the featured monsters, which seems pretty reasonable given the monsters being covered (although I hope we get more in the giant chapter; while that fire giant dreadnought is cool and all, I do want at least one other fire giant variant in there, not to mention extra variants for other giant types as well, just for variety).

As for dragons, you may be right and they won't get their own featured section. But even if that's the case, I can't see them not statting out at least one new type in Chapter 3 then. I can't think of a single "monster book", from the very genesis of D&D, that didn't have at least one dragon type detailed in it...

Oh, and the firbolg, as a playable race, has been previewed on the WotC page for the book:

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/volos-guide-to-monsters

Yeah, you are right that surely something Draconic is likely in the book; but I realized in the morning that we know all seven sections in Chapter one already: six mentioned in the initial product description, and Giants. So, Dragons don't seem to be getting chapter one attention, at any rate...

 

[Mefistofulee]

just ran into this article which has a couple of monster previews in it

 

[Parmandur]

just ran into this article which has a couple of monster previews in it

Whelp, that answers a lot of questions:

Chapter one will have no stat blocs, Beholders take up 14 pages in Chapter one but their stat blocks are in Chapter three (based on Firbolg being on 106-107, I had already estimated thst the seven monster groups in chapter one get 12-14 pages each).

Chapter three has 96 stat blocks, which includes the variants for the chapter one races.

There is a separate NPC appendix after all.

"Mearls says that, if the book is successful, he intends for his team to handle more of the upcoming sourcebooks in a similar way," namely being a deep dive on fluff, with character and story being thought through.

 

[Parmandur]

Also, among the six new preview pages, the beginning of the Mindflayer stat blocks on page 171 states that "Three members of the horrific Illithid family appear here, joint the regular Mindflayer in the Monster Manual," and begins an elongated description of the Alhoon.

Quotes from Chapter one describe variant critters, and refer the reader to chapter three.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Also, among the six new preview pages, the beginning of the Mindflayer stat blocks on page 171 states that "Three members of the horrific Illithid family appear here, joint the regular Mindflayer in the Monster Manual," and begins an elongated description of the Alhoon.

Quotes from Chapter one describe variant critters, and refer the reader to chapter three.

Not totally though. The section on Eye Tyrants states that there will be a description of an Eye Tyrant (the Xanatar to be precise) later in Chapter 1.

I'm wondering (and hoping) if certain variants that don't require full stat blocks will still be in Chapter 1, just given quick "This creature is the same as the one in the Monster Manual, except with the following changes and a CR of X" that you see in the APs. That's something I can definitely see them doing with the fire giant dreadnought, for example...