Fifth Edition Foes

Fifth Edition Foes (5eF hereafter) is a third-party monster sourcebook intended for use with D&D 5e. It's published under the OGL, relying heavily on the SRD published alongside third edition, and building on a lot of "special" OGL material provided by WotC for the "Tome of Horrors" book. The book is published by Necromancer Games, who are one of the top-tier third-party producers still in operation.

It's fair to say I had my reservations about this book, for two main reasons. The first is that I was uneasy that it existed at all - WotC have indicated that they're intending to provide a suitable license for 5e and that they would prefer providers to wait until they're ready before entering the field. 5eF, then, is an indication that NG have chosen not to respect WotC's wishes which, while undoubtedly legal, isn't necessarily ideal... but it also means that NG are getting a competitive advantage over anyone who does respect WotC's wishes. (The reality is, though, that last isn't NG's problem - it's WotC's issue to fix, assuming they care.)

But the second reason I had reservations about this book is that I recall another third-party monster book that came out very early in the life of the edition - the "Creature Collection" for 3e. Which was a book with several nice ideas, but which was rendered almost useless by the writers' lack of experience with the system. Indeed, it was sufficiently bad that any monsters that were to be used had to effectively be rebuilt to be useable with the actual rules. I was therefore somewhat concerned that 5eF might suffer the same problems.

Having read through 5eF, my feeling is that that latter concern is largely unfounded. The monsters presented are basically fine for use, subject to the understanding that monster design is not exactly a science to start with (which applies to the 5e MM as well, of course). So these monsters seem to be mechanically fine and quite solid.

In addition, I am well pleased with the range and selection of the monsters chosen, with one caveat. It's certainly a fairly eclectic bunch of monsters, serving as a fine "Fiend Folio" to the official "Monster Manual" (a reference that probably only makes sense if you know the history of the original FF). The one caveat I have to apply is that the book does contain a number of instances of very similar monsters - do we need both a Gallows Tree and a Hangman's Tree as distinct monsters, for example? There are also four or five instances of monsters that are accompanied by a form of zombie spawned by the 'main' creature - did we really need a full-page description of each of these zombie types individually? Heck, given the zombie in the MM, did we need these ones at all?

But those are pretty much nitpicks. And, given that I was crying out for more monsters, this book most definitely hits the spot. Good stuff.

(In terms of physical presentation, the book is fine. It's black and white and full of recycled artwork, but that's not hugely unexpected given that it's a third-party book and an updating of older books, notably the "Tome of Horrors". It also has the big advantage of having a nice, strong binding, which is more than the official 5e books can claim...)

So I'm well pleased with this book, and expect to make significant use of some of these monsters in the near future.