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Beholder dnd 5e monster manual entry8/5/2023 It actually opens with a nicely evocative introduction and explanation of the book which includes an acknowledgment that capturing the history and nature of the game is a “warts and all” kind of process. And since most of the rules revolve around how to read a stat block, that seems just about right. Title, Credits, Contents, 8 pages of rules and 2 pages of ( delightfully illustrated) index. The non-monster content in this book is pretty brief. If it’s not going to be a dragon, then the Beholder is probably the second best choice. It also means we have a situation similar to the PHB where the image on the back cover is something interesting rendered dull by having no color contrast with anything around it.īut lest that sound too picky, let me restate: The Beholder on the cover looks scary as all heck. Once put on the book, the cover centers on the beholder, and that works, but from that perspective, the lightning (which is close to the spine) distracts more than anything else. Looked at as a whole, that is the first thing you see, not the Beholder. There seems to be a point that draws the eye, which is basically the lightning strike in the middle of the piece. That said, the interior once again contains the full image used on the cover, which reveals something that maybe I don’t get, lacking any real training in the arts. The trade dress and presentation is identical to the PHB, so I won’t go over that territory again. So, of course, I went online to check out the preview images for the DMG and I guess it looks kind of purplish? Different, I guess, but probably not different enough to suggest the intent that I was looking for. It struck me that if this was intentional, it’s a good trick to differentiate the three core books at a glance. Like the PHB, the range of colors of this piece is rather limited, but where the PHB was lots of red, this is lots of blue-grey. The cover illustration is less painted than the PHB, but it has a clear sense of action and (surprisingly for a monster book) has characters placed more prominently, albeit running from a quite terrifying looking beholder. The fire/banner on the spine is thankfully the same size as the PHB, despite the MM being a thicker book (352 pages, vs the PHB’s 316), but this is accomplished by leaving a bit of space to the sides of the image (some of which is necessary, and would probably not merit mention if I were not already looking). The exterior of this book is designed in the same fashion as the PHB, including the lovely mix of gloss and matte finish on the back that makes the PHB so pleasant to pick up. it does suggest that the DMG is going to be more than just the book of hacks, but given that it’s also going to have the rules for magic items, I guess that’s no surprise. There’s a smaller annoyance that the encounter construction rules are held off for the DMG, but that is more a matter of impatience than a real problem. I sincerely hope that when this book hits the market and WOTC puts up electronic support docs (which they have been really great about so far) this might be on their list. And just as people have already done with the spells-by-class, sometime after release an enterprising soul will no doubt put this information into a google spreadsheet, but it is not a good thing when we are driven to data entry. When I actually sat down to use it in play, I quickly discovered that I had no real way to go “I want to put together a challenge for a party of 3rd level characters. It is annoying that there is no table of monsters by Challenge Rating (CR). I won’t be sharing any images or anything from it (which is a shame, because the art is amazing) but I may have a few words to say about it.īefore anything else, I’m going to get my one big complaint about the Monster Manual out of the way so I can get on to the enthusiasm. At Gencon, WOTC had some advanced copies of the Monster Manual, and they were kind enough to provide me with one.
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