D&D 5E What do you like, and what do you not like about Volo's Guide to Monsters? (spoilers)

[Slit518]

What do you like, and what do you not like about Volo's Guide to Monsters?

What I like:

1. Monster Lore
2. Extra Playable Races
3. The Nilbog
4. The return of older monsters which hadn't made it yet into a 5th edition book
5. The cover art (both limited edition and regular edition)

What I dislike:

1. No Nymph
2. No Gibberling
3. The most iconic monster races seem to be an after thought instead of a priority (Goblin, Kobold, Orc, etc...)
4. The re-inclusion of the Goliath (I like the Goliath, but they were available in the FREE Player's Guide to Prince of the Apocalypse, and the re-inclusion of them didn't change a thing)
5. Aasimar, it was in the DMG, though with no sub-races. And it seems to be the only race with a sub-race. I don't recall the Tiefling having sub-races in an official book.
6. The fact the Aasimar is the only race added with sub-race options.

 

[flametitan]

I'm planning to pick it up tomorrow, but from what I've read around the web:

like:
-Monster lore is always nice
-Monsters are unique and interesting, so adding them will add new complications to a fight
-Lairs, though I haven't heard too much about whether they have maps or not. I'm more in need of maps than if they're adventures.

Dislike:
-the return of the stat penalty. I really don't think this is a good mechanic, either for encouraging you to play to type or for balance.
-Really, the fact that they a warning that the races might be imbalanced. It just feels wrong for an official product to say "the materials here are probably imbalanced," as it doesn't make it feel like monstrous adventurers should be rare, but rather that wotc didn't care to make something in line with the official races. I'm not saying that they didn't, but rather that's what including such a warning gives the impression of.

That said, it seems like the good outweighs the bad (a page or two on stats for 2 races vs a book full of what sound like interesting monsters) so I'll probably pick it up anyway. I'm just not looking as forward to future products if this book implies anything.

 

[Hathorym]

I am, overall, very pleased with the book. I've had it less than eight hours and have already had numerous ideas for storylines. That to me is a sign that it is well done. I feel the intention was to spark the imagination in new ways, and this is the way to do it.

I didn't, however, have certain expectations about which creatures made it into the book, so exclusions are not an issue for me. While I think that dislike is too strong a word about how I feel, I would have preferred a bit more expansion on the new character races instead of including the aasimar and goliath.

 

[Tony Vargas]

-Really, the fact that they a warning that the races might be imbalanced. It just feels wrong for an official product to say "the materials here are probably imbalanced," as it doesn't make it feel like monstrous adventurers should be rare, but rather that wotc didn't care to make something in line with the official races. I'm not saying that they didn't, but rather that's what including such a warning gives the impression of.

That 'warning' shouldn't be necessary at this point. I know, conspiracy theory time: it's not a warning to the DM, it's a fig-leaf for DMs who decline to add the races to their campaigns. "Can I play a Tabaxi?" "No, don't want to risk it, there was a warning y'know..."

(Oh, and can that really apply to Kobolds? We need a cartoon Kobold saying "I'm overpowered! RAW!")

 

[flametitan]

That 'warning' shouldn't be necessary at this point. I know, conspiracy theory time: it's not a warning to the DM, it's a fig-leaf for DMs who decline to add the races to their campaigns. "Can I play a Tabaxi?" "No, don't want to risk it, there was a warning y'know..."

(Oh, and can that really apply to Kobolds? We need a cartoon Kobold saying "I'm overpowered! RAW!")

The overpowered/underpowered warning was only on the kobold, orc, Yuan-ti, and goblinoids, if I recall. The Tabaxi is just presented as "Yeah, this race is fine. He might not fit the tone of your game, but he's fine mechanically."

 

[Tony Vargas]

The overpowered/underpowered warning was only on the kobold, orc, Yuan-ti, and goblinoids, if I recall. The Tabaxi is just presented as "Yeah, this race is fine. He might not fit the tone of your game, but he's fine mechanically."

Oh (so much for that conspiracy theory, funny how seldom those work out, huh).

In that case, our cartoon Kobold needs to be all angry and persecuted for being singled out!

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

That 'warning' shouldn't be necessary at this point. I know, conspiracy theory time: it's not a warning to the DM, it's a fig-leaf for DMs who decline to add the races to their campaigns. "Can I play a Tabaxi?" "No, don't want to risk it, there was a warning y'know..."

So it's perfectly fine for a company that has touted its credentials as providing a balanced game and leveraged that to sell product to then suddenly about-face and say that they didn't bother to balance things?

And on top of that you then accuse DM's who don't want imbalanced mechanics in their games as needing an excuse?

As far as I'm concerned, this was just plain lazy design.

 

[Azzy]

I like the return of some classic monsters, and some new races. The new presentation of the Aasimar makes me want to play one for once. I'm on the fence, for the most part, about the expanded lore—I don't think it was particularly necessary, but it should be fun to read.

What I don't like is that there are still a lot of monsters missing from 5e (though I didn't expect Volo's to solve that problem single-handedly), and that it doesn't include some of the races that I wanted to be there (*sigh*). But the main thing that grinds my gears is that I don't have the book yet (I preordered from Amazon, so...).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

1. The most iconic monster races seem to be an after thought instead of a priority (Goblin, Kobold, Orc, etc...)

On just this. These races got massive chapters in the first part of the book far beyond what any PHB race has gotten. There is just no point in reprinting of a bunch of info in chapter 2.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I like the book overall. I like the inclusions for the most part.

I like a lot of the stuff in Chapter 1. The return of illithid grafts and technology was cool, and I like how the information in this chapter was followed through in Chapter 3.

I like the new NPCs, even if the presence of a few of them invalidates an article idea I had for En5ider.

I like the inclusion of new types of mechanics, even just as part of a monster stat block; the kobold inventor, for example, provides a bunch of ideas on how an alchemist might work.

I like the section on hags in Chapter 1. I bring this up because I don't think hags have had much love before in any edition, and it was nice to have them fleshed out and investigated.


I dislike slapping a half-assed Forgotten Realms connection to it ("Volo's Guide" etc). The information is almost entirely setting-neutral, so what was the point of making it "Volo's" guide? I almost disregarded the book entirely due to this association.

I think the art is much more sparse than it has been in the other books. That may have been so they could include more text, so this isn't a negative exactly, but it was noticeable to me.

I also don't like the layout as much, since many entries begin halfway down a page or toward the bottom of the page. Again, I believe that this approach was taken to include the most text possible, so I'm not really complaining, but again it was noticeable.

I have no use for monster races. I like having the ecology information on the monsters, and names and heights and whatnot, but I could have lived without the "here's how to use these as PCs" specific stuff.


Overall: a great book. I'm glad the Forgotten Realms specific junk is in the margins and easily ignorable.