Creature Codex

I was all set to skip this book - as I said in my review of "Tome of Beasts", I really have enough monsters for 'general' use, and wasn't really in the market for a "Tome of Beasts 2" (which is pretty much what this is). However, a really good Black Friday deal saw me picking up a copy of this book cheap.

As noted, this book is very much a "Tome of Beasts 2" - 432 pages of monsters, rendered in glorious full colour, and all at a fairly competitive price. So if you liked that book, you'll probably like this one for the same reasons. If you didn't like that book, don't bother with this one. And if you don't have that book, then get "Tome of Beasts" first and then decide. ("Creature Codex" assumes that you have and can reference "Tome of Beasts" in several places. It can certainly be used by itself, but does probably work better as an additional, rather than alternative, source of monsters.)

If making recommendations for 'monster' books for 5e, this would be my third pick: "Monster Manual", then "Tome of Beasts", then "Creature Codex", then "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes", "Volo's Guide to Monsters", and finally "5th Edition Foes". (Indeed, at this point I would skip that last book entirely, and think very carefully before picking up either "Volo's..." or "Mordenkainen's...")

My recommendation here is necessarily conditional. If you're looking for more monsters, this book is an excellent buy. If you're looking for specific WotC-owned monsters, then of course this won't do the job for you. Likewise, if you're looking for monsters that will appear in WotC products, or on the DM's Guild, this book isn't going to help. And if you're looking for anything other than monsters, this isn't the book for you. It does one thing, but does that one thing extremely well.

And that's that. As I said before, I'm now not in the market for any more 'general' monster books. I may pick up another "Guide To..." book from Wizards of the Coast, depending on the specific monsters that are present, and would certainly consider a 'themed' book of monsters. But for general use... well, the Black Friday deal would now need to be exceptional.