Tome of Horrors III, from Necromancer Games. This review refers to the print version.
First, the basics:
245 black & white pages, including Table of Contents and Open Gaming Liscence
183 new monsters (including sample templated monsters)
9 new templates
What immediately stands out at in this book, amidst the Undead, Aberrations, Demons & Devils, are the Fey. There's a solid selection of all of the above mentioned categories, but on a cursory flip-through, the creatures that grabbed my attention first were the Fey. This book presents another ten fey to add to any game, and each of them is beautifully illustrated.
The Fey:
- Baccae
- Baobahn Sith
- Forgotten One
- Gray Nisp
- Gremlin
- Grimm
- Phooka
- Stroke Lad
- Tombstone Fairy
- Woodwose
Moving on, the ToH3 offers a few more extraordinarily fun goodies. It offers two new types of Iphidians (alternate snake-men to the yuan-ti, and open content to boot), adding some value to anyone who already owns the Tome of Horrors II. Four new devils and seven more demons help fill out the ranks of any abyssal army, and several extraplaner aberrations help populate the hells with a few more interesting creatures which may never have been seen on the material plane. This book isn't all about the planes though - hordes of undead, new plant creatures and aberrations galore help to fill out your prime material plane with interesting and dangerous creatures. And let's not forget the Orcs – we've got four new racial variant Orcs that any GM might love to trick up his players with. Six new sea serpents, ranging from CR 6 to CR 30 help fill in any oceanic voyage, along with the sea spiders, Scylla, Sudoth, Stygian Turtle-Shark, and some other monsters filled with aquatic potential.
Good Stuff:Tons of memorable monsters, nice illustrations, and generally everything one wants to see in a compendium of monsters.
Bad Stuff:There's not much in terms of bad stuff. The only real complaints I have are that the classification of a few monsters seems a bit off, and that the vermin subtype is not given its own appendix in the same way that animals are.
The Boneneedle, for instance, while classified as a vermin, certainly fits more with the aberration monster archetype. It's a neat little monster that is very evocative of the Mad Slasher )
D&D Miniatures Handbook), but its illustration just further serves to make me feel that the monster itself was misclassified. Thankfully, there are very few errors of this type throughout the book.
Conclusion:
The monster that stood out the most for me, on my initial flip-through, was the Corpse Orgy. - CR 13 aberration which incorporates the corpses of its victims. this is one monster that no one is EVER going to forget. This book is filled with memorable monsters, and despite a couple of flaws, Is a solid purchase for any DM. Overall, there's a lot of interesting stuff in here, and I'm quite happy that I purchased the book.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Looks like a solid book. How does it pair up with the previous books in the series?