THE BESTIARY: PREDATORS
By Sean Butcher (Betabunny Publishing)
250-page PDF, $13.95
At 250 pages,
The Bestiary: Predators is the largest PDF I've reviewed to date, but with my love for monster books I couldn't say no when asked if I'd like to review it, especially since this one was so different from all of the other "monster books" out there - it set out to provide realistic d20 game statistics to over 200 real-world animals (even if a small handful of them haven't been proven to exist just yet). Furthermore, it dealt specifically with predators, so it had even further refined its focus.
Well, I was somewhat surprised, but author Sean Butcher pulled it off, and did a very good showing out the gate with what I believe is his company's first published product. (And I'll just mention here, because it seems as good a place as any, that I think his company's mascot looks quite a bit like "lovable, furry old Grover" from Sesame Street with some rabbit ears glued on. That's not a criticism, either - I
like lovable, furry old Grover.) I hadn't thought there were enough disparate predators to warrant so many different stats, but there certainly are; in fact, reading through
The Bestiary: Predators, I was actually surprised that Sean opted to only deal with falconiformes in the "Birds" chapter - for whatever reason, he completely ignores owls, which surprised me as the owl is one of the standard familiars and thus probably plays a significant role in many campaigns. (Perhaps they'll show up in a web enhancement?)
The Bestiary: Predators is one of the most thorough monster books I've ever seen. Besides the stat blocks (more on these later), Sean gives the reader just about all of the material he'd possibly need about each creature in question. There's material covering not only each creature's description, but also its reproduction, diet, lifespan, behavior, treasure (and here we're talking about the monetary value of its body parts after it's slain or its value while living, not the goodies it has stashed back at its lair), food value, and even hunting tips. You'd expect to have a picture to go with each creature in a monster book, and Sean just about perfectly fills that expectation, with high-quality illustrations (and even quite a few photos - it helps when the subjects of your monster book really exist in real life!) of just about every creature in here. (Some of the ones that get minimal descriptions - those who don't even rate their own stat blocks because they're so similar to other animals who are already statted out - don't have their own illustrations.) Better yet, those that leave tracks have a picture of their prints, so the DM can really go to town with his descriptions to the ranger's player! There are also "size comparison" silhouettes (when practical - it'd be kind of pointless with the snakes, for example) of many of the animals flanked by a human and a halfling, so you can get a real feel for just how big of a critter we're talking about. And while not all of the information provided is necessarily going to be needed for each gaming session using that particular animal, it's nice to have the information available and at hand when it does become necessary.
With its emphasis on real-life predators,
The Bestiary: Predators makes an excellent book of monsters for those playing in campaigns that run much closer to reality than the traditional fantasy setting (and the animals are equally well suited to d20 Modern campaigns), but even those playing in a standard, high-magic D&D game will find much of use in a 250-page PDF of animals. Besides their obvious use as combat opponents, many of these creatures would be perfectly suitable as alternate animal companions or even as familiars (although you'll have to come up with your own familiar benefits, as that's beyond the scope of this product), and anybody playing a druid of high enough level to start gaining wildshape abilities is going to drool at all of the possibilities!
Sean also doesn't let the fact that there isn't evidence that all of these creatures actually exist stop him from devising stats and listings for them. Sprinkled in among the "real" animals are several cryptids - animals that are believed by many to exist, although no hard evidence currently exists to support those beliefs. Examples include the sea serpent (exemplified by the Loch Ness Monster), the thylacine (a wolf-tiger that lived in Tasmania up until the 1930s, when the last known surviving specimen died in a zoo), and the thunderbird, believed to be a type of prehistoric vulture that might have survived to the present day (or at least to recent history) much as the coelacanth did.
Besides all of the animal information, Sean also sprinkles in significant chunks of information about historical bestiaries (interesting information in and of itself), and throws in little sidebars here and again showing what the ancient scholars believed about some of the creatures found in the PDF. These could easily be mined for plot hooks for those DMs wanting to add a little fantasy spice into these real-world animals. If nothing else, they make for fascinating reading. Did you know that catgut comes from sheep intestines, not felines? I didn't, until I read
The Bestiary: Predators.
There are a couple things I want to point out about
The Bestiary: Predators, though. Sean made the decision to capitalize just about every game term, including those that we don't usually see capitalized, like "Size" - but this actually works out very well for this product. For one thing, it makes it perfectly clear when he's talking game terms and when he isn't; when he refers to rabbits as small game, it's obvious he isn't using the "Small" size category. Also, it makes for an interesting "feel" throughout the PDF, reminding me of texts from the Pilgrim days when it seems like random nouns were capitalized by popular convention. For a product that's emulating manuscripts thousands of years old (in some cases), this comes across fitting rather well.
He also tends to stick with a term as-is. For instance, a stat block for a creature that uses claws as its primary attack will have something like "Attack: Claw +3 melee, Full Attack: 2 Claw +3 melee" or whatever; he doesn't pluralize it to "2 Claws." When reading through the PDF, I started marking those down as mistakes until I realized it was a conscious decision on his part. It's kind of jarring (mostly because I've never seen anybody else do it that way), but I guess it all just boils down to a design choice.
Sean also takes some liberties with the d20 rules when it comes to creature stats. I can see why he did - Sean's interested mainly in capturing as close as possible each animal's true abilities in d20 game terms, even if he has to disregard things like how many feats a creature of a given number of Hit Dice should have. (It's not uncommon to see an animal with less than one Hit Die have as many as four or five feats.) Sean also made a conscious decision to drop the rule that secondary attacks only provide half of the creature's Strength bonus, so if one of these predators has a +3 Strength modifier, he'll be adding +3 to both his primary and secondary attacks. I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I can sympathize with Sean's wanting to capture the real-life abilities as closely as possible, and he really put a lot of work into this PDF. On the other hand, this really "beefs up" the animal creature type in a way that the other creature types don't benefit from (or haven't yet, anyway), so it seems to me like the overall effect would be somewhat unbalancing. (Unless, of course, you decided to provide full Strength bonuses to all creature types - and the PCs - across the board, which would bring these predators into line at the expense of having to tweak every other monster stat you own. I think I'd just as soon stick to the standard d20 rules, myself.)
So, that said, I'm not going to "ding" Sean for the full Strength bonus he gives those predators that have secondary attacks, nor will I point out every time an animal gets more feats than its Hit Dice normally allow - there are provisions for "bonus feats," after all, even if Sean hasn't made that distinction here. However, even with those constraints in place, there were plenty of other stat block problems in
The Bestiary: Predators. I recommend making the following changes:
- p. 20, Polar Bear: Has 7 HD, yet Advancement is listed as 9-10 HD - what happened to 8 HD? (Incidentally, note that the polar bear in the Monster Manual has 8 HD - Sean's not afraid to ignore the Monster Manual and rework an animal from scratch when he feels it's necessary. In this case, he believes the grizzly bear is tougher than the polar bear, and statted them out accordingly.)
[*]p. 26, Coyote: I'm not sure why the fact that the coyote has the Alertness feat, the Scent special quality, and the Track Scent feat (one of several new animal feats in this PDF, by the way) combine to give it a +2 bonus to Survival checks. This sort of thing pops up all over the place, with some slight variation, but it isn't specifically spelled out as a rule in the sections in the back detailing the skills, feats, and special qualities. Yes it is, right there on p. 214. Silly me!
- p. 27, Dhole: Bite damage should be 1d4+2, not 1d4+3 (+1 Str, +1 Awesome Bite - another new feat). Likewise, Thrash damage should be 1d6+2, not 1d6+3. Bite damage after a Charge should be 1d4+3, not 1d4+4 (+1 Str, +1 Awesome Bite, +1 HD; one of the new rules Sean comes up with is that an animal gets to add its HD to an attack after a Charge).
- p. 33, African Wild Dog: Bite damage should be 1d6+1, not 1d6+2 (+1 Str). Charge damage should be 1d6+3, not 1d6+4 (+1 Str, +2 HD). Thrash damage should be 1d8+1, not 1d8+2.
- p. 34, Gray Wolf: Bite damage should be 1d6+1, not 1d6+2 (+1 Str). Charge damage should be 1d6+3, not 1d6+4 (+1 Str, +2 HD). Thrash damage should be 1d8+1, not 1d8+2. After Grappling prey, automatic damage should be 1 point/round, not 2 points/round (the automatic damage is the Strength bonus plus any points from Awesome Bite; in this case, the wolf has a +1 Str modifier and no Awesome Bite).
- p. 35, Maned Wolf: Using Vice-Like Bite, Grapple checks should be at +0, not +1 (+0 BAB, +0 Str).
- p. 36, La Bête: Bite attacks should be at +7 melee, not +5 (+3 BAB, -1 size, +5 Str). Bite damage should be 2d6+10, not 2d6+11 (1.5 x +5 Str = +7, +3 from Awesome Bite). Charge damage should be 2d6+15, not 2d6+16 (+10 as above, +5 HD). Thrash damage should be 3d6+10, not 3d6+11. Automatic damage after a Grapple should be 10 points/round, not 11 points/round.
- p. 41, Cheetah: Has 2 HD, yet Advancement is 4 HD. What about 3 HD?
- p. 45, Clouded Leopard: Strangle attacks should do 2 points of damage per round, not 3 (+2 Str).
- p. 48, Lion: Charge damage should be 1d8+12, not 1d8+11 (+6 Str, +6 HD). Trip check modifier should be +10, not +3 (+6 Str, +4 size).
- p. 55, Liger: Trip check modifier should be +12, not +3 (+8 Str, +4 size). Has 7 HD, yet Advancement is listed as 7-10 HD; should be 8-10 HD.
- p. 59, Caracal: HD should be 1d8+1 (5 hp), not 1d8 (4 hp) - it has a +1 Con modifier.
- p. 70, Aardwolf: HD should be ½d8+2 (4 hp), not ½d8+1 (3 hp) - it has a +2 Con modifier. Bite damage should be 1d4-1, not 1d4 (-2 Str, +1 Awesome Bite).
- p. 72, Spotted Hyena: Bite damage should be 1d6+6, not 1d6+7 (1.5 x +3 Str = +4, +2 Awesome Bite). Charge damage should be 1d6+8, not 1d6+9 (+6 as above, +2 HD)
- p. 75, Nandi Bear: Bite damage should be 1d8+13, not 1d8+14 (1.5 x +7 Str = +10, +3 Awesome Bite). Charge damage should be 1d8+18, not 1d8+19 (+13 as above, +5 HD).
- p. 78, Guinea Baboon: Bite damage should be 1d4+1, not 1d4+2 (+1 Str).
- p. 80, Mandrill Baboon: Bite damage should be 1d4+1, not 1d4+2 (+1 Str).
- p. 87, Black Rat: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
- p. 88, Brown Rat: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
- p. 90, Thylacine: Speed should be "30 ft. (6 squares)" or "35 ft. (7 squares)" but definitely not "30 ft. (7 squares)." Bite damage should be 1d4+3, not 1d4+4 (+1 Str, +2 Awesome Bite). Charge damage should be 1d4+5, not 1d4+6 (+3 as above, +2 HD). Thrash damage should be 1d6+3, not 1d6+4.
- p. 95, American Buzzard: Talon damage should be 1d3-1, not 1d3-0 (-1 Str).
- p. 98, Thunderbird: Speed should be 10 ft., not 11 ft. (I suspect this one's just a typo, but you need to have speeds in multiples of 5 ft.) Talon attacks should be at +9 melee, not +4 (+3 BAB, -1 size, +7 Str). Beak attacks should be at +7 melee, not +2 (+9 as above, -2 for secondary attack with Multiattack).
- p. 102, Peregrine Falcon: When using the Cling special attack, Grapple checks should be at +3, not -6 (according to the Cling rules, the falcon gets to ignore its size penalty, and it gets to use its +3 Dex modifier instead of its -2 Str modifier because it has Weapon Finesse).
- p. 103, Black Vulture: Beak damage should be 1d4-2, not 1d4-1 (-2 Str).
- p. 104, African White-backed Vulture: Beak damage should be 1d6-1, not 1d6+0 (-1 Str).
- p. 105, Rüppel's Griffon Vulture: Beak damage should be 1d6-1, not 1d6+0 (-1 Str).
- p. 113, Killer Whale: With 12 HD, it should have 5 feats, not just 3.
- p. 120, Sperm Whale: Slam damage (under Full Attack) should be 1d8+12, not 1d8+13 (+12 Str). With 14 HD, it should have 5 feats, not just 4.
- p. 121, Great Whale: Bite and tail slap attacks should be at +17 melee, not +18 (+15 BAB, -8 size, +15 Str, -5 for secondary attacks). With 20 HD, it should have 7 feats, not just 4.
- p. 123, Walrus: Slam attacks should be at +9 melee, not +3 (+3 BAB, -1 size, +7 Str). Gore attacks should be at +4 melee, not -2 (+3 BAB, -1 size, +7 Str, -5 for secondary attack).
- p. 129, Green Moray Eel: Bite damage should be 1d6+1, not 1d6+2 (+1 Str).
- p. 130, Black Piranha: Bite damage should be 1d4-2, not 1d4-1 (-2 Str). Also, this is just a personal observation, but I would think the piranha would work much better as a swarm than as an individual creature - I'm surprised there aren't stats for both.
- p. 131, Sea Serpent: Bite damage should be 3d6+10, not 3d6+15 (+10 Str, and this isn't its only attack form so it shouldn't get the 1.5 multiplier). Slam damage should be 1d6+10, not 1d6+15. With 10 HD, it should have 4 feats, not just 2. Finally, the artwork accompanying this creature is the only one inappropriate to the description of the animal in question; the illustration is an old-fashioned "giant frilled sea snake" picture, while the sea serpent described is based on an elasmosaurus.
- p. 136, Colossal Octopus: With 12 HD, it should have 5 feats, not just 3.
- p. 139, Kraken: Grapple attacks should be at +44, not +48 (+15 BAB, +12 size, +13 Str, +4 racial bonus).
- p. 146, Oceanic Whitetip Shark: Bite damage should be 1d6+4, not 1d6+5 (1.5 x +3 Str = +4). Thrash damage should be 1d8+4, not 1d8+5.
- p. 147, Shortfin Mako Shark: Bite damage should be 1d6+7, not 1d6+8 (1.5 x +5 Str = +7). Thrash damage should be 1d8+7, not 1d8+8.
- p. 166, Medium Crocodilian: Bite attacks (under Attack) should be at +3 melee, not +9 (+1 BAB, +2 Str). Tail slap attacks should be at -2 melee, not +3 (+1 BAB, +2 Str, -5 for secondary attack).
- p. 167, Dwarf Crocodilian: Bite attacks (under Attack) should be at +1 melee, not +9 (+0 BAB, +1 Str). Tail slap attacks should be at -4 melee, not +1 (+0 BAB, +1 Str, -5 for secondary attack).
- p. 172, Alligator Snapping Turtle: Initiative should be +0, not +2 (+0 Dex).
- p. 173, Gila Monster: Bite damage should be 1d4-3, not 1d4-2 (-3 Str).
- p. 179, Giant Anaconda: Bite damage should be 2d6+13, not 2d6+14 (1.5 x +9 Str = +13). Constrict damage should be 1d6+13, not 1d6+14. With 9 HD, it should have 4 feats, not just 3.
- p. 180, Boa Constrictor: Bite damage should be 1d4+4, not 1d4+5 (1.5 x +3 Str = +4). Constrict damage should be 1d2+4, not 1d2+5.
- p. 181, Reticulated Python: The Combat write-up says it gets +2 points of damage on its bite attacks - why not just give it Awesome Bite (+2)? Constrict damage should be 1d3+9, not 1d3+11 (1.5 x +6 Str = +9; the +2 to bite damage shouldn't apply to this non-bite attack).
- p. 182, Giant Python: Bite damage should be 1d8+14, not 1d8+15 (1.5 x +7 Str = +10, +4 from Combat write-up - which again prompts the question as to why it wasn't just given Awesome Bite (+4)). Constrict damage should be 1d4+11 (like it says in the Combat section of its write-up), not 1d4+15 (like it says in the stats).
- p. 183, Burmese Python: Bite damage should be 1d6+7, not 1d6+8 (1.5 x +5 Str = +7). Constrict damage should be 1d3+7, not 1d3+8.
- p. 185, Puff Adder: Bite damage should be 1d4-1, not 1d4+0 (-1 Str).
- p. 186, Boomslang: Bite damage should be 1d3-3, not 1d3-2 (-3 Str).
- p. 187, Bushmaster: Bite damage should be 1d4-2, not 1d4-1 (-2 Str).
- p. 188, Egyptian Cobra: Bite damage should be 1d4-1, not 1d4+0 (-1 Str).
- p. 189, Indian Cobra: Bite damage should be 1d4-1, not 1d4+0 (-1 Str).
- p. 190, King Cobra: Bite attacks should be at +6 melee, not +5 (+2 BAB, +4 Str); no reason for it to have Weapon Finesse with Str 18 (+4 bonus) and Dex 17 (+3 bonus)!
- p. 191, American Copperhead: Bite damage should be 1d3-3, not 1d3-2 (-3 Str).
- p. 192, Coral Snake: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
- p. 193, Cottonmouth: Bite damage should be 1d4-3, not 1d4-2 (-3 Str).
- p. 194, Krait: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
- p. 195, Black Mamba: Bite damage should be 1d3-3, not 1d3-2 (-3 Str).
- p. 197, Taipan: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
- p. 198, Malaysian Pit Viper: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
- p. 199, Russell's Viper: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
- p. 200, Saw-Scaled Viper: Bite damage should be 1d3-4, not 1d3-2 (-4 Str).
On a more generic note, Sean also makes the mistake with many of these animals of specifying attacks that apply Dexterity modifiers to attacks via Weapon Finesse, so there are quite a few "Weapon Finesse (Bite)" or "Weapon Finesse (Claw and Bite)" feats showing up in the stat blocks. I'm not sure whether they're there because Sean forgot that Weapon Finesse in 3.5 applies to all of the creature's attacks, or if again he was purposefully ignoring the d20 rules in his striving for accuracy in the animal kingdom. In either case, it's another instance of where the d20 rules were incorrectly applied, whether purposefully or not. All in all, even discounting the places where Sean purposefully deviates from the d20 norms, there are plenty of errors that crept into his animal stats, which was my biggest disappointment with this product. (Fortunately, as with all PDFs, they're easily and quickly fixed.)
While I'm pointing out the downsides to
The Bestiary: Predators, I'll also note that the proofreading and editing jobs - attributable to Carmen Butcher, who I assume is Sean's wife - were a bit below average. You'd expect the occasional error to squeak by in a 250-page product, but there were quite a lot of them that did make to production. Most of these fall into the realms of poor punctuation (apostrophes and commas, especially, although they also kept switching between apostrophes [British style] and quotation marks [American style] when quoting material, even going so far as having one word with an apostrophe at the beginning and quotation marks after!), spelling mistakes ("ice flows" instead of "ice floes" and "spinal chords" instead of "spinal cords" were oft-repeated errors), and forgetting to italicize spell names and capitalize abilities and skill names. There were also many instances where saving throws and ability checks were referred to as "rolls" (as in "Fortitude roll" - or more often "fortitude roll," as the standard capitalization was often ignored - and "Strength roll"). Granted, it's a little thing, but when there's already an established terminology it's always best to stick with it.
So, I'm left with 11 pages of noted errors, both stat-block and otherwise, in my one-time read through
The Bestiary: Predators. This can't help but bring my final review score down. However, since I think
The Bestiary: Predators could very well have been a 5-star product with just a little more polish in those areas, I'm only dropping my rating down to a "4 (Good)." The overall presentation, excellent layout, thoroughness, and fascinating sidebars force me to concede this is well above an "average" product, even with its stat block errors. Those interested in being able to find things esily will be very pleased to note that there's an 8-page Index in the back of the PDF, followed by a full page of animals ranked by Challenge Rating and another full page of alphabetical animal listings. Again, kudos on the presentation!
My understanding is that this is merely the first in a series of similar products, and I can honestly say I can't wait to see the others in the product line.
