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Tome of Beasts #2
Tome of Beasts 2
A Murder of Monsters for 5th Edition!
Inside Tome of Beasts 2, now in this convenient, more portable softcover edition!—you’ll find monsters for almost every location your heroes might journey: from farmlands to forests, dungeons to deserts, and bustling cities to fantastical planar realms, all with an emphasis on dungeons and the underworld!
Tome of Beasts 2 brings you:
- Angelic enforcers and avalanche screamers
- Imperial dragons and swordbreaker skeletons
- Kami and clockwork tigers
- Void drakes and zombie dragons
- Death vultures and demon lords
- Swamp nagas and magma octopuses
- Chameleon hydras and skriekbats
- Walled horrors and wraith bears!
Keep your players surprised, entertained, and terrified with all-new opponents they’ve never seen before—and won’t ever see coming!
Now in this convenient, more portable softcover edition!
Inside Tome of Beasts 2, now in this convenient, more portable softcover edition!—you’ll find monsters for almost every location your heroes might journey: from farmlands to forests, dungeons to deserts, and bustling cities to fantastical planar realms, all with an emphasis on dungeons and the underworld!
Tome of Beasts 2 brings you:
- Angelic enforcers and avalanche screamers
- Imperial dragons and swordbreaker skeletons
- Kami and clockwork tigers
- Void drakes and zombie dragons
- Death vultures and demon lords
- Swamp nagas and magma octopuses
- Chameleon hydras and skriekbats
- Walled horrors and wraith bears!
Keep your players surprised, entertained, and terrified with all-new opponents they’ve never seen before—and won’t ever see coming!
Now in this convenient, more portable softcover edition!
416 pages, Paperback
First published November 24, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 31, 2022
Another collected assembly of monsters for D&D (and general story-telling) enjoyment.
There's nothing in here that you can't go without, as a GM. But it's always handy to have more monsters in your bag, especially ones that the players may never have even heard of, let alone know any stats for.
There were a lot of new cultural pools to dip into, this collection explored the legends of Asian ghost and devil, North American Indigenous peoples monster legends, etc. So if you're doing a themed setting there are some gems in here.
Also an obsession with mosquitos.
Additionally, I think they used anything tiny and just added a "swarm of.." prefix. But hey, whatever works.
There's nothing in here that you can't go without, as a GM. But it's always handy to have more monsters in your bag, especially ones that the players may never have even heard of, let alone know any stats for.
There were a lot of new cultural pools to dip into, this collection explored the legends of Asian ghost and devil, North American Indigenous peoples monster legends, etc. So if you're doing a themed setting there are some gems in here.
Also an obsession with mosquitos.
Additionally, I think they used anything tiny and just added a "swarm of.." prefix. But hey, whatever works.
November 10, 2020
Another fantastic collections of critters and foes for D&D 5e.
June 23, 2023
Cool new monsters, but wish it had nicer paper.
September 2, 2023
Good addition to your monster list for the DM that wants to throw some new twists as their players. Artwork is usual good quality one comes to expect from Kobold Press.
February 16, 2021
This is the third of the monster compendiums by Kobold Press for 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. I love what Kobold Press has done with these books and I find any one of them more useful for a DM than Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes put together. I would recommend any one of the three books (Tome of Beasts, Creature Codex and this one, Tome of Beasts 2) as your first purchase after the three core books for any DM planning on making their own material. The monsters are different, evocative and conducive to story telling.
The question then becomes should you buy this one. If you buy all three you have 1200 additional monsters on top of what is in the Monster Manual. Surely no one needs that. Well, that's probably true, but it didn't stop me and I have no regrets. Anyone who has already bought the first two books can decide for themselves if they want this, for everyone else the question is where to start.
I would say generally speaking, that the monsters in the Tome of Beasts are on average slightly more interesting than Creature Codex and that book is slightly more interesting than Tome of Beasts 2. It's worth noting that the original Tome of Beasts does not have appendices listing monsters by CR, type and terrain, which is annoying in practice. That's a possible reason to prioritize this book. I also thought that the maritime and arctic monsters were more interesting in Tome of Beasts 2 than in the other two volumes. The big standout for Tome of Beasts 2 is the large variety of monsters from non-European folklore. This is far better than the other two books. This book has fewer monsters above CR 10 than the other books, or at least that's my impression.
I'll just add a tip for using the monsters in these book. I have a tendency to treat Kobold Press Monsters as unique and put "The" in front of the name when you use them (not always but usually). This has many advantages. It makes the world seem more magical and fantastic. Players also remember and interact more strongly with monsters when they think that they are unique so having a bazillion is great.
Honestly, I have been playing D&D since the Red Box and have played every edition, except 4th (because I am immensely old), and the Kobold Press monster books are my favorite supplemental monster books to the Monster Manual ever. I use them all the time. They are as classic to me as White Plume Mountain or the original Planescape box.
The question then becomes should you buy this one. If you buy all three you have 1200 additional monsters on top of what is in the Monster Manual. Surely no one needs that. Well, that's probably true, but it didn't stop me and I have no regrets. Anyone who has already bought the first two books can decide for themselves if they want this, for everyone else the question is where to start.
I would say generally speaking, that the monsters in the Tome of Beasts are on average slightly more interesting than Creature Codex and that book is slightly more interesting than Tome of Beasts 2. It's worth noting that the original Tome of Beasts does not have appendices listing monsters by CR, type and terrain, which is annoying in practice. That's a possible reason to prioritize this book. I also thought that the maritime and arctic monsters were more interesting in Tome of Beasts 2 than in the other two volumes. The big standout for Tome of Beasts 2 is the large variety of monsters from non-European folklore. This is far better than the other two books. This book has fewer monsters above CR 10 than the other books, or at least that's my impression.
I'll just add a tip for using the monsters in these book. I have a tendency to treat Kobold Press Monsters as unique and put "The" in front of the name when you use them (not always but usually). This has many advantages. It makes the world seem more magical and fantastic. Players also remember and interact more strongly with monsters when they think that they are unique so having a bazillion is great.
Honestly, I have been playing D&D since the Red Box and have played every edition, except 4th (because I am immensely old), and the Kobold Press monster books are my favorite supplemental monster books to the Monster Manual ever. I use them all the time. They are as classic to me as White Plume Mountain or the original Planescape box.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews