This area was a big plus (except the monstrous races). I think they added some really cool new race options in this book and many offer some unique options for players. The race options – Everyone always loves new player options. Additionally there are really great lair descriptions and battle maps. This makes it really easy for a DM to add a lot of flavor on the fly when using these monsters. There are lots of tables for really fleshing the monsters that you are using whether it comes to describing what they look like or how they behave. The tables and battle maps – This makes the lore section even more useful. Granted you can find a lot of this kind of lore info in books from previous editions, it is still nice to get an updated take on the lore of these monsters. Mind Flayers and Beholders are some of my favorite monsters. Some pretty interesting monster lore – They selected some really awesome monsters to cover. The final section contains stat blocks for a number of new monster, many of them different types of monsters featured in the lore section of the book. The second section contains options for players and these options are all just playable races (with one new spell). The first section contains lore on a number of different types of monsters. What’s interesting is this book was released in a place where previously they would have probably just released a Monster Manual II.

WotC considered the theme of the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide by putting out a supplement that has options for both players and DMs.

This is the second major rules supplement released for 5e. In this post I will be sharing my thoughts on Volo’s Guide to Monsters.

Volos guide to monsters races