Liber Bestarius: The Book of Beasts

Rating:
Summary: What Monster Books Should Be
Review: This hardcover book is a collection of monsters for the D&D 3rd Edition game. Done under the d20 Open Gaming License, this is a small company product presenting the gamer with a small assortment of creatures to use in the game. Though it has a few minor flaws of it own, it excells as a supplement to a D&D game, and in many respects excedes the quality of the monster supplements released by the larger companies.

This book introduces 61 new monsters, drawing on all types and sizes. They range in Challenge Rating (CR) from 1/4 to 18, with a fair distribution up to CR 13, and one or two of each CR up to 18, and the largest number of creatures falling into CR 3. The introduction to the book claims that the CRs are probably lower than other game supplement producers might rate them, but I've found that Challenge Ratings are largely arbitrary among the other supplements anyway. This product seems to have given a bit more thought into the ratings than Wizards might.

The descriptions of the monsters include more depth than any other product I've seen. In addition to the brief descriptions and standard combat abilities, each monster page includes a section on PC Suitability, ranging from "High. This is a PC race" to "Zero. GMs who allow [this monster as a PC] are insane." If a race has any PC suitability at all, they are given a level equivalent in the stats block.

Another new section in this book is the "Usage" section, which presents a few ideas, or "hooks," on how to introduce this creature to your campaign. Every single monster is presented on two more more pages, with a fair number taking up 3 or 4 pages of good solid game and campaign information. Though the illustrations are all black and white, they are all very high quality artwork.

An additional feature of this book is the "Bada--" sections in the description of a few of the PC races. This section gives a named individual of the race described, given levels in PC classes, generally brought up to a CR of 11-13, compelte with an illustration of the character. The stats of such creatures are fairly high, unlike some of the high-level monsters and creatures included in more popular products, which in my campaign approaches the stat level of the PCs. Finally, a game company that knows that the players are not average characters! I like this book.

Those flaws I mentioned are ever so minor. For one thing, the book is too small. The 61 new monsters here left me hungry for more. I want to see more stuff from these guys. Also, some of the monster abilities don't strictly conform to the d20 formulaic approach to special abilities, which means little, since all the other independent d20 products I've seen have similar quirks. Another minor problem I had was that I couldn't reconcile the CR given for some of the "bada--" character examples with the level equivalent given for the race. Minor editing flaw or printer's typo, or just a different method of calculation. Whichever, it barely detracts from the quality of the product.

After the monster descriptions is an appendix section which, in addition to listing monsters by type, size, and CR, also gives a brief overview of a possible campaign setting. In this section is a short description of several areas of a campaign world which DMs might take inspiration from to set their game in. This section is unfortunately, but necessarily, brief. Though this campaign information is included, the makers of this book assert that these monsters can be fit into nearly any existing campaign as they are. Also in the appendix are two new feats and a listing of the Monster Summoning level of the outsiders included in the book ("You must be this tall to summon this monster"). Useful information that could easily be fit into most any campaign.

In the deluge of d20 products available under the Open Gaming License, it's hard to tell which products are good, and which are a waste of money. If you're looking for a well-presented high-quality collection of challenging and original monsters, Liber Bestarius does not disappoint.