Fiend Folio (3e)

Vanquish Terrible Evil

The noblest heroes must contend with the foulest monsters. Whether torn from the darkest planes of existence or spawned as blights upon the natural world, the creatures bound within these covers will challenge stalwart adventurers of every experience level.

This accessory for the D&D game captures over 150 monsters, including some of the most diabolical beings imaginable. While focused on extraplanar and otherworldly creatures, you'll also stumble across new creatures of every type, with Challenge Ratings that range from 1/8 to 25. Along with three new fiendish prestige classes, six new templates, and rules for swarms, grafts, and symbionts, the Fiend Folio offers a multitude of challenges for every hero.

To use this supplement, a Dungeon Master also needs the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide. A player needs only the Player's Handbook.

Product History

The Fiend Folio (2003) is a 224-page hardcover. The third Fiend Folio to be published for Dungeons & Dragons, this book focuses on extra-planar monsters and brings back several nostalgic favorite monstrosities for players to fight. Approximately half of the book's 150+ monsters are brand new, with a portion of the remainder hearkening back to the original Fiend Folio of 1st edition AD&D.

Old Friends, Absent Flumphs.This book captured some of the nostalgia that many long-time gamers feel for the original Fiend Folio. Carytid columns, dark creepers and dark stalkers, death dogs, huecuva, iron cobras, necrophidius, a new slaad, yellow musk zombies, yurians (aka crab-men)... these and many more monsters raise fond memories for former AD&D gamers, and their inclusion was well received. The most notable exclusion of classic Fiend Folio monsters is the much-maligned flumph, the only Lawful Good monster that appeared in the original book.

Putting Fiends Back in the Folio. The Fiend Folio predated the 3.5 edition of D&D rules, but its contents anticipate and introduce new concepts that were intended to be used in the upcoming rules revision. The book introduced the extraplanar and swarm subtypes, for instance, as well as three prestige classes intended for use only by fiends. Keeping with the theme of extraplanar and fiendish threats, this book provided a mix of monsters weighted to mid- and higher-level PCs; a CR 22 devil and a CR 25 demon were included, giving high-level heroes something more challenging to fight once they had decided that powerful fiends like balors were no longer a particular threat.

Looking Good, Feeling Deadly. The goal of art in a monster book isn't solely to illustrate the monster. Its job is to entice players and DMs into saying, "That monster's cool! I want to fight it!" With at least one piece of color art on almost every two-page spread, the Fiend Folio overwhelmingly meets that goal. That said, a few illustrations have since been held up by fans as examples of problematic monster art (the senmurv, a rainbow-colored winged wolf, is one of the few egregious offenders here). It's a good sign, though, that such illustrations are the exception and not the rule.

About the Creators. The Fiend Folio was built by a team of exceptional designers, including  Eric Cagle, Jesse Decker, James Jacobs, Erik Mona, Matt Sernett, Chris Thomasson, and James Wyatt.  

About the Product Historian

History and commentary of this product was written by Kevin Kulp, game designer and admin of the independent D&D website www.enworld.org. Please feel free
to mail corrections, comments, and additions to kevin.kulp@gmail.com.

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