Ebook Volo Guide to Monsters Dungeons Dragons Wizards RPG Team 0090125919707 Books

Product details Series Dungeons & Dragons Hardcover 224 pages Publisher Wizards of the Coast; Wizards RPG Team edition (November 15, 2016) Language English ISBN-10 0786966017

Volo Guide to Monsters Dungeons Dragons Wizards RPG Team 0090125919707 Books Reviews

• Volo's Guide To Monsters is now, without a doubt, my new favorite 5E book. Part 1 contains a LOT of in-depth information about some of D&D's most notable adversaries Beholders, Giants, Mind Flayers, and others. The second part contains new racial options for players; IIRC, some of these were presented in other books, but it is nice to have them collected in one place. The rest of the book has a bestiary of new creatures, great and small, as well as some "plug and play" NPCs.
  
  For the DM, this book is a treasure trove; I tend to buy 5E books for inspiration, and don't really play pre-generated campaigns, and VGtM is helping me take the campaign I'm running in some exciting new directions (at least, for me). Also, I'm all about giving players more options, so the new player races are also extremely interesting to me. I don't know how much I'll use the pre-gen NPCs, but they're handy to have, just in case.
  
  One of my favorite things about the book is the chief conceit of its design. Peppered throughout the book are comments of Volothamp Geddarm (the "Volo" of the title) and the archmage Elminster Aumar. These little side notes add a lot to the flavor of the book, and help the reader immerse him/herself in the world.
  
  EDIT Another thing I like about this book that I just discovered is that the index of the book has monsters sorted by challenge rating and sorted by location. So, if you're hunting for creatures in, say, the Underdark, it's extremely easy to find them in the book. Nice addition!
• This is a great addition to 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. The cutesy banter between Volo and Elminster is kept to a minimum, leaving some really great, meaty content. While I just received my print copy today, I've been using the online version through Roll20 for two weeks. My review is based on two weeks of experience with the content, plus sitting with the physical book today.
  
  What exactly are you getting in this book?
  
  - Nearly 90 pages of in depth monster lore, focusing on Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblinoids, Hags, Kobolds, Mind Flayers, Orcs, and Yuan-ti. This is very in depth work, with multiple pages providing variants, tables, lairs (including maps), historical background, and even some of the psychology of the creatures that can really help you flesh out these types of creatures in your games.
  
  - 7 new Player Character races, including Aasimar, Firbolg, Goliath, Kenku, Lizardfolk, Tabaxi, and Triton. These are a nice edition, and I especially like how the details for these new races includes tips on how to role-play as these slightly more unique creature types. Overall, these new races feel like they can breathe a lot of new life into campaigns for players who might be starting to get tired of the standard set from the Player's Handbook.
  
  - 6 new Monstrous Player Character races, which feature groups that were represented in the first 90 pages. These are more limited/specialized builds that a DM would really need to weigh before including in a game, but absolutely could provide some fantastic adventures for the right group of players. The 6 Monstrous races represented are Bugbear, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Orc, and Yuan-ti Pureblood.
  
  - An expanded Bestiary.The next 99 pages of the book are dedicated to new monsters for your games. There are an excellent variety of new creatures, including some favorites that didn't make the original Monster Manual. Personally, I was glad to see a nice balance between creature types, and that these new creatures help round out some of the groups, such as Fey. It also is nice to see a book like this deepen the bench; this section of the book provides an especially large amount of new monsters of the type covered in the first 90 pages (Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblinoids, Hags, Kobolds, Mind Flayers, Orcs, and Yuan-ti). A full 10 pages of this is also used to create new NPC stats, which is a great boon to be able to build encounters that stretch across a wider CR level in more civilized locations.
  
  - The book wraps up with 4 pages of Appendixes which provide a quick reference no matter how you are looking for a creature you can find them by CR level, by Creature Type, or by the typical environment that you would find the monster in.
  
  All in all, the content is incredibly useful for any dungeon master who wants more content. The new monsters alone are worth the price of admission. The new character races are also an excellent new addition, although their uniqueness may make them more useful for some groups over others; that said, options are always nice to have. The first 90 pages of lore will be most useful to DM's who are planning on using the types of creatures listed in their campaigns. Especially if you are using those creature types, I highly recommend this as an addition to your collection, as the amount of material provided on these creatures is sure to spark your imagination and spin new adventures for your table.
• The book is laid out in 3 section with the first section giving the DM insight into the a number of different monster races such as Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblin races, Mind Flayers and Yuan-Ti. The next section gives several new player races such as Aasimar, Goliath, Lizardfolk, Tabaxi and my new favorite the Kenku. While the last section has stats for a bunch of new monsters related to the races detailed in the front of the book and some new NPC types. As with all Wizard of the Coast books the art work is great. I really like the Monster Lore section, I used the Goblinoid background to expand the Hobgoblin Empire and Yuan-Ti's that I was using already using in my campaign. I also like some of the insights like monster tactics. This is a great book for your D&D library and I hope future editions will expand out some of the other races that couldn't make this edition.
• Arrived today in absolutely perfect condition, I’ve noticed a few negative reviews here and there and think it’s less of a knock on Wizard’s of the Coast & , and more of a case of in unluck of the draw.
  
  For the book itself, content wise, I love the new races even if they are a little on the basic side design wise (I felt they could’ve spaced them out better and made each new race page closer to players handguude layout where you have a big gorgeous illustration followed by their name in big print spaced out away from the next races, instead it reads with slightly bigger print, illustrations sometimes on the next page, all sort of run into one another. In short, it’s somewhere between a strait up list and what the player handbook does with the core races. Maybe that’s a minor complaint but that did bother me, enough to write this blurb.)
  
  Otherwise, still very happy with this book and happy to have it in my collection.