I recently acquired two monster books: Volo’s Guide to Monsters from Wizards of the Coast and Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press. The Tome of Beasts turned out to be the most expensive monster book I ever bought. It was sold out in my local game store, and they didn’t have any copies on Amazon, so I decided to buy it from Kobold Press in the U.S. When you included shipping, it was already pricey. Then they picked it up in customs, and added a fee. Then the tax man came and added his value-added tax of 25% to the customs fee (yes, crazy, I know). Ultimately, I paid more than 150 USD for Tome of Beasts and another 50, plus shipping, for Volo’s Guide. Was it worth it? So far, yes.

 

I – obviously! – haven’t read them cover to cover. Who does that with monster manuals? I’ve flipped through them several times and I’ve used monsters from both – and will use the fearsome Neothelid in my next session, and can see many more that I’m likely to use.

500 monsters

The two books are quite different. Volo’s Guide is not just a collection of monsters, but contains lore to a lot of the classical monsters (goblinoids, beholders, gnolls, giants, beholders etc.), several new playable races, 7 cool lair maps and a collection of around 100 monsters. Tome of Beasts has more than 400 monsters and some lore for each, with special Midgard lore in boxes for many of them. All of it in full color.

Both books have a lot of cool and useful monsters. My favorites include the gnoll variants and all the illithid creatures in Volo’s Guide, but there are many classics, like the Cave fisher or Tanarukks. In Tome of Beasts some of my favourites are the Clockwork creatures, Rotting Wind and Mordant Snare.

Tome of Beasts significantly expands the fey portfolio, which is useful for my campaign, and also has plenty of undead, which are almost always useful.

Ultimately, the monsters in Tome of Beasts are better suited for my home brew campaign, but I will be using the various beholders and illithids from Volo’s as well. Most of the lore in Volo’s isn’t useful in my current campaign, which also reduces its usefulness.

The negative – too low CR

One of the reasons I will by using more from the Tome of Beasts is the – to me – relatively low CR of most of the creatures. This touches the core issue for me with both books. Too many of the monsters that are likely to be the focus of a story or session, and mostly meant to be met as single creatures, are too low Challenge Rating. And there are not enough creatures which characters of mid to high level might meet in groups. One example is the Clockwork creatures. They range from CR ½ to 6. If am to use them with my group, which is already level 7-8, and has seven characters, I will need to buff them significantly.

For the original Monster Manual it makes sense that the selection of creatures is skewed towards the lower CRs, but why make the Cave Fisher CR 3 with 58 hit points, or the very rare master mind Ulitharid CR 9?

But all in all, they are two great products with great value for years and years of D&D campaigns, which is good, given how much I ended up paying 🙂

Why should I especially buy Tome of Beasts?

• If you just love having a ton of monsters
• If you need a lot of Fey creatures
• If you run a desert campaign
• If you use a lot of undead
• If you run the Midgard campaign setting from Kobold Press.

Why should I especially buy Volo’s Guide?

• If you want more character races
• If you use a lot of humanoids in your campaigns
• If you like to have quick drop in content
• If you want more lore for many of the classic D&D monsters
• If you like beholders and mindflayers