Fifth Edition Foes vs Complete Core Monster Pack?

[callahan09]

I've got the other two core products, the PHB and the DMG, in my Fantasy Grounds account (on Steam, actually). I am pretty content with the monsters in the SRD Bestiary and didn't buy the Monster Pack when it was on sale a week ago. I was wondering about everyone's opinion... is the Fifth Edition Foes pack (which costs less than half as much as the Core Monster Pack) a worthy add-on to complement what's already in the SRD Bestiary, vs the Complete Core Monster Pack? Which do you personally think is the first one that's worthy of a purchase? I think most of the Core Monster Pack is duplicated in the SRD Bestiary, just without the graphics/art/tokens and the in-depth descriptions of each monster. But the monsters and their stats, while not entirely the same, at least there is a lot of overlap. Fifth Edition Foes seems like a good book, with different monsters all-together, and I think maybe that's the better buy to complement the monsters I already have from the SRD? I generally like and respect Frog God / Necromancer games and their work a lot, and I also kind of like the idea of just supporting their efforts and having their work on Fantasy Grounds, since I think Wizards of the Coast products probably do very well on FG in the first place, but the third party stuff maybe needs all the support they can get. So what do you all think?

[JohnD]

It's decent.

[timdog88]

Personally, I have high hopes for the Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press. It should be out fairly soon, and by all accounts should be a very high quality beastiary with over 400 monsters. Sorry I don't have Fifth Edition Foes to compare to the Monster Manual.

[Koreapsu]

Personally, I have high hopes for the Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press. It should be out fairly soon, and by all accounts should be a very high quality beastiary with over 400 monsters. Sorry I don't have Fifth Edition Foes to compare to the Monster Manual.

I've been waiting so long I forgot I backed that.

[lesliev]

How many monsters are there in 5th edition foes? The product page doesn't seem to mention.

[Gwydion]

How many monsters are there in 5th edition foes? The product page doesn't seem to mention.

With the large caveat that I don't know if the print copy translated directly into the FG copy and I don't know the reviewer, attached is a link to the only review I can find on the hard copy product. It appears to have 250 monsters, but again, treat with caution as I don't see any other reviews.

https://www.5mwd.com/archives/2454

[callahan09]

How many monsters are there in 5th edition foes? The product page doesn't seem to mention.

I found the table of contents for the PDF version of the product and if I counted correctly it looks like there are 241 monsters.

In general, though, how much would you all agree with the assertion that buying a third party bestiary might be a better addition / complement to the SRD Bestiary than buying the official WOTC monster pack, which contains a lot of the same monster stats as the SRD Bestiary, just fleshing it out with descriptions, art, and tokens (with compared to third party bestiary products a relatively small number of unique monsters that aren't in the SRD)?

[Zacchaeus]

That's all going to depend on whether you want the artwork, tokens, background information and missing monsters. It's not a question that can be answered because it depends on whether you would use/want those things or not. If you don't then there's nothing in the MM for you; if you do then get it. If you want another bunch of monsters that aren't currently in 5e then get the 5th edition foes. I don't have the latter because I don't need it for running published modules. If you run a lot of your own stuff then more monsters are going to (probably) be better.

[timdog88]

My decision to buy the official monster manual was based on the fact that I plan to run almost exclusively published modules that can be bought here on FG, or sometimes the adventures league stuff. Having all of the monsters ready to go with tokens and pictures was something that I wanted. I think if you plan to do a good bit of homebrew, or to play around with different monsters in published campaigns, then you probably are right that you'll get more mileage from a 3rd party product + the monster SRD material.

[JohnD]

I like having more options to choose from, personally. I guess the question is whether the quality is there with 3rd party materials. In this case I personally see a lot of things I'll never use in my games, but it's the same way with the MM.

[callahan09]

Interesting advice from all of you, thank you! I do plan to do some homebrew adventures, but also to do some published adventures. Really a mix. Probably more published for a while until I get particularly good at running on FG, which I'm still very inexperienced with right now. I think someday I'd like to have all the bestiaries to be honest! I like to support good publishers, I want to support FG, and I want as many options and graphics at my disposal as I can get. For now, I will just live with the SRD until I determine that I need something more, and then make my decision at that time.

[JohnD]

If you are making your own adventures, but using stock foes, or stock foes with minor modifications, then the MM and 5EFoes and others like them will be of significant time savings to you.

There's another one coming down the pipe soon which deals with adversaries that have class levels which I personally will get a maximal use out of based on how my games go.

[spite]

:zoidberg: Why not both? :zoidberg:

But I'm one of those whales that Smiteworks loves where I buy as much of the products as I can. Also par5e in as much monsters from as much sources as I can. If you want to, you can get Fifth Edition Foes from DriveThruRPG at a slightly lower cost and parse it yourself, same with the monster manual. But buying them from Smiteworks supports this great community aswell as the publishers. Win win