I don't play 5E, but these pawns got me hooked by the list of contents and a fanmade Youtube video (can't find the right one again to link it here, sadly). Ordering them in Europe was a pain, but today the package finally arrived. Wow. Just wow.
Quality is excellent, pawns don't smell (sometimes happens after opening), artwork is amazing and the selection of creatures is great. Bestiary boxes try to cover everything, with the drawback of including quite mundane creatures or many instances of a given creature. But Tome of Beasts focusses on twisted, crazy or ugly adversaries. They should be best to fill a huge dungeon, though there is enough material for many other terrain types. Some creatures overlap with Bestiary boxes, but it's less than I would have expected - and in such cases you basically get a different pawn to point to a slightly different specimen.
Many creatures get only one pawn, the rest gets two. This is a blessing when it comes to variety and gain per buck, but it restricts encounter design a bit. If you want a big group of similar foes to surround the PCs, you will have to add pawns from Paizo - or from another Tome of Beast Pawns box. ;) Finally, roughly 20 pawns work for PCs, in my opinion - it's not a focus of this collection, but a small plus.
Great one! I really hope Kobold Press and other 3pp developers will dive into pawn production more often...
Tome of Beasts filled with Fey, Clockworks, Arch-Devils, Drakes, & More!
Kobold Press jumps into the pawn market with a gorgeous product! If you're like me and you own pretty much every pawn set ever produced, then you'll still have a place for this pawn set on your table. If you don't have every pawn set ever produced, then this is a great place to start. Based on your individual table's needs, this should be your second required purchase after the Bestiary Box.
Inside, you'll find a brilliant mix of beasts collected from the various Kobold Press/Midgard Bestiaries from over the years. This was collected and released as one volume for 5E players, so it works for any gaming table that needs more pawn representations on the table.
If you need Fey - this the set for you. If you're planning to run Courts of the Shadow Fey, like myself, this set has everything that you need to bring the shadowy realm of Fey to life. This set doesn't contain Fey alone, as it offers pawns for everything from clockwork creations to desert dwelling undead, and even dangerous drakes and archdevils in abundance!
If you're familiar with the Paizo pawns, then you'll be pleased to know that the Tome of Beasts matches those products in terms of quality and fantastic artwork. The artwork for the Void Dragon is one of the most gorgeous pieces that I've ever seen. The pawn for Arch-Devil Mammon is sinister and seductive and just one of many fantastic planar pieces in this set.
If your table contains meta-gaming players that know the Bestiaries inside and out, you'll get alternate artwork for creatures like the Shoggoth or Dullahan and more to trick your players into thinking they're encountering something for the first time.
Buy it today and bring your game to life with this great set of pawns.
* The art for these, from the book, is awesome and evocative.
* Setting them side by side they're IDENTICAL to Paizo's Pathfinder pawns, same shape, same heavy cardstock, sturdy, and fit the Paizo pawn bases perfectly. Yes, that means VERY occasionally a little part here or there bleeds off the punched out area but that's really unavoidable without reshaping the art, it's no problem.
* When it's better you meet more then one, you get two pawns for that one. :-)
* Trying to figure out how, if anything, they left out. Even the little clockwork librarian (who I doubt anyone would want to fight) is still represented.
I mean, you could use other minis or pawns for some of these but overall the distinct shapes of many of these creatures deserve their own image to see on the table. Void Dragon!
When I backed the Kickstarter I thought this was one of the best incentives ever. You come up with all these great unique looking beasties you want to see them on the battlemat! Very satisfied customer.
Wolfgang Baur
Contributor; Publisher, Kobold Press; RPG Superstar Judge
Going to make my home game easier, and also awesome for anyone running a Midgard or Southlands game, whether you play Pathfinder, Fantasy AGE, 5th Edition D&D, or 13th Age.
So I'm a sucker for pawns, and I want to pick this up, but I'm not 100% sure where I'm going to find all the stat blocks for these creatures. In particular, I'm looking because I organize my pawns by creature type, so knowing that would be helpful. (In addition to having stat blocks so I can throw them in my Pathfinder games.) I understand picking up the Southlands Bestiary takes care of a lot of them, but what other books/pdfs would I need to pick up?
I just ordered my set from the Kobold Press store. I'm going to run Courts of the Shadow Fey soon, so this set is going to be a great asset for that module.
I'll post a review once I receive my set.
The various Midgard bestiaries contain the stats for these. Aside from that, it's always good to have more pawns as many monsters don't have a pawn yet.
Will this come to UK stores/Amazon etc anytime does anyone know?
I went to purchase here but even with paizo discount my shipping to UK is $27, eek sadly just too much.
Would love to get this if I can.
Will this come to UK stores/Amazon etc anytime does anyone know?
I went to purchase here but even with paizo discount my shipping to UK is $27, eek sadly just too much.
Would love to get this if I can.
That sounds cheap for postage, as the book weighs 3 pounds!
I do know that Esdevium carry the book, so local shops can (in theory) order it from them. Whether they do so depends on their ordering and customer requests, of course.
There is a pawn in the box that doesn't seem to correspond with anything in the book: the Lovelorn. I found neither the name, nor the picture anywhere. Can someone clear up this mystery for me?
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Just got a note that my order had to be canceled because the product sold out and Kobold Press won't be printing any more. I hope that's not true. I was really excited about this one!
Yes, the last sets available sold just recently. From launch to all gone in about 120 days. It's tough to reprint these, as they are a bit of a specialized niche.
I would not be surprised to see other companies give it a shot.
Threeshades, the Lovelorn was a monster cut from the book (too thematically similar to some others in the book). There are Pathfinder stats for it in the Monsters of Sin Collection.
Wow! Sold out already? This must have sold like gangbusters. Hopefully this success breeds more pawn sets outside of Paizo.
I would love something directly out of WotC. A lot of my pathfinder pawns are not appropriately sized anymore, now that all the giants and balors are huge, but glaabrezus and nalfeshnees have been demoted to Large size. Also there are no beholders, mind flayers, displacer beasts and the like.
Threeshades, the Lovelorn was a monster cut from the book (too thematically similar to some others in the book). There are Pathfinder stats for it in the Monsters of Sin Collection.
Thanks for the answer. I'll hazard a guess that the ones it is too similar to are the likes of drowned maidens, abominable beauties and loreleis.
Just so i can finally sort the pawn into my boxes, what creature type would the Lovelorn have been?
I have two sets of this and my local shop still has one in stock. I may just go ahead and pick it up based on the rarity. You never can have too many fey on the battlemat!