The REAL reason that Flee Mortals! is such a great monster book… that no one is talking about.

hello everyone and welcome to the henchman's Memoirs this is a special episode where we are doing a product review of flee Mortals a book that unless you have been living under a rock for the last 6 months you've already heard about why this is been such a hit with so many dungeon Masters but the most important thing about it that makes it your new go-to book hasn't been talked about and we're going to explain it to you in this video If you haven't bought this thing yet so why is flea Mortals going to be the ultimate replacement for the monster manual yes they give the monsters cooler Powers yes they have ways for uh they have cool rules for minions they have cool rules for adopting a bug bear or a shambling mound as your pet they have good rules for having henchmen be anything from having a vampire henchmen to having having a you know uh Elemental meridon henchmen uh and one thing they do that I really appreciate is they make it so that legendary resistances cost the monster something uh instead of it just being a pip off of their legendary resistance which doesn't feel that great when you're the player that just uh spent a highlevel spell just to take down one of their legendary resistances in here the hag or the dragon or whoever has the legendary resistance they have to um you know they don't get to take a reaction on their next turn or they do something that's going to cost them one of their special abilities for a couple rounds something like that the legendary resistances always cost the monster something and he has these villain actions that are very cool for making uh boss battles uh better and more interesting the art obviously is fantastic you've already heard all that stuff and it's all true the design of this thing is absolutely topnotch but you know there are other great Monster books out there you say henchmen what about the Grim Hollow monster grimoire we all know the henchmen is interested in uh Dark Fantasy Gothic horror campaigns all day long what about the the nightfell bestiary you know loaded with cool stuff out of Italian uh folklore has all these great monsters they have all this fantastic art uh what is it about the Matt kville book that makes you say that we should uh go ahead and donate this piece of trash to your kid brother who's just learning to play and uh only use the Matt kville book as opposed to some of these other awesome Monster books out there well here's the thing that enough people aren't talking about okay there's a big difference between the Grim Hollow monster grimoire and some of my other favorite Monster books including flea Mortals um it's something that the uh Dark Souls uh 5e monster book to of strange beings has going for it it's something that this fan-made uh darkest dungeon um monster Manuel has going for it it's even for me in particular something that fifth edition foes uh which I've been using quite a bit in my dungeons of dra campaign has going for it what do these books have going for them that other Monster books lack well it's actually pretty simple when you get a copy of the nightfell bestiary and you start looking through it and you read the descriptions of some of these monsters in here you think oh that's kind of cool I need to find a chance to use the the black Druid in here I need to find a chance to use the silent necromancer oh what about uh what about the tasel verm from uh this nightfell Beast are oh I need to find a chance to to use that you read through these books you see the monsters you see the lore it seems like a cool monster you'd want to use but you can't possibly remember all of these monsters their CRS and the situations they're going to be useful for it just doesn't penetrate your consciousness to where you're going to remember where to use these things you might think at the time that it's great but when it comes time to actually populate an adventure and you're thinking oh I want to use something out of that cool uh Italian folklore book all of a sudden you're opening this thing up you're going to the index in the back and you're trying to find what CR monsters are in here that are about right for the CR uh of the encounter counter you're trying to make up and inevitably you see the names like the nephu and you don't remember what it is you can see in the index that it's cr12 but you don't remember if this thing goes in a forest or in a city or in a dungeon or in a sewer you don't know if this thing is from the Fay wild um you're basically starting all over grabbing a monster from a book like this when it actually comes time to write your adventure but the thing that nobody is mentioning about flea Mortals is that all the monsters in here are monsters you're already familiar with these are rewrites of creatures you already know how to use like bug bears like uh a manacore like well these guys don't count like shambling Mounds like uh beholders with the uh with the uh serial numbers filed off like a oo right you can use this thing very easily because you're already familiar with the monsters in it you already have an idea when you open this thing up and you look through the table of contents you're like oh I am in a garbage pit or a swamp I'm going to get myself an AAG you can just use the one from flea Mortals instead of the one from the monster manual it's better the idea are better it's new it's fresh it's exciting for you and it's exciting for your players but you don't have to try to memorize a whole bunch of new monsters that's why I liked fifth edition foes a lot of the monsters in here like the chupacabra and the church grim and let's see the fungoid a lot of these things uh Margo were actually from lava child was from first and second edition so when I look through the table of contents of fifth edition ition foes I'm seeing the patch I'm seeing a bunch of things that I already screaming devil can know what they are I already the pyol Lisk these are things from first and second edition so for an old guy like your friend the henchman I know how to use these things right away I can just find it uh it's got cool art it's got fifth edition conversions of a creature I already know how to use that's why I like this supplement so much if you've played the game or if you've played Dark Souls uh I also have one uh fan-made one for The Witcher I can use monsters from these things because just looking at the names in the table of contents I know what I'm looking at and I I feel bad for people who are trying to create uh books that are a whole slew of new monsters with new art and new abilities those things are great I'm glad people are doing them but to be honest with you it's never going to replace the the monsters that you know and are familiar with this does that it gives you a Medusa just with new cooler stats and some new cooler abilities so this is the real reason why flea Mortals should be your go-to monster manual in 2024 and Beyond thanks for joining us uh our next episode will be back to our regular campaign recap of our fifth edition Dark Souls of drenim campaign join us then thanks

Channel: Henchman's Memoirs

Views: 12,227

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Id: M3PPWSS4mNQ

Length: 8min 34sec (514 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 31 2023