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Title: Monster Manual: Core Rulebook III (Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition) by Skip Williams, Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet ISBN: 0-7869-1552-8 Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Pub. Date: November, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.1 (93 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: WOW---the wait was DEFINITELY worth it
Comment: It took quite a while to get all three third edition rulebooks, but now they're out. DMs and players alike will enjoy this new spin on the monster manual. It has many many many encounter charts and they have taken a whole new approach by giving PC stats on all of the creatures. I always thought that they should have done this long ago; it really helps when trying to decide, say, if an Ogrillon could bash through the locked door protecting our brave and intrepid heroes. Plus it lists standard feats and skills that certain creatures always have. This is a new move for the D&D game...it breaks down the barriers between "player" races and "monsters." Wanna be a Black Pudding fighter, go for it! But you'll really need this book to get all of the necessary information. Like the other two books, the illustrations are just great. They really help you visualize the creatures, and the artwork is a little more edgy than previous editions. Another thing that I was quite glad to see was the revival of the Demons and Devils. I mean obviously in second edition they just called them Baatezu and whatnot, but now they are back and unapologetic about it. In fact they go into quite a lot of detail as to the fauna of the lower planes, which should really make for some interesting adventures. They also have added some new spins to old creatures, the celestial hound for instance. Also a whole new subtype of creature: the dire animal. Since these are listed in the summoning tables in the Player's handbook, it is really essential that anyone playing a spellcaster get this book to find out the details....all I can say is you WON'T be disappointed.
If you have purchased the other two books and, like me, have been frustrated with the lack of good monster descriptions in the DM guide, then you really MUST buy this book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Indispensable... but incomplete
Comment: This book is necessary for anyone wanting to run the D&D 3rd Edition game. It is helpful for anyone wanting to play the game, so that they can familiarize themselves with the kinds of creatures they can expect to encounter in the course of the game. In that regard, it fulfils its function well. If you're starting to play 3rd edition D&D and are wondering whether to get this book, my answer is that I highly recommend it.
But it's too short. Not only in quantity of monsters, but also in the description of those monsters themselves. Given the quality of the previous edition, it was a bit of a disappointment. The creature descriptions lack the brief ecology and background information, so that the descriptions consist of a collection of creature special abilities, and little else. Adaptability aside, that information from the 2nd edition manual was helpful from time to time in understanding the nature of the creatures, to allow the DM to run them better. This brevity of creature description means that creatures are not allotted a page each, which give the manual a somewhat crammed appearance. Many of the subtypes are omitted for no clear reason. Only two types of Genie are presented, the djinn and the efreet - the marid and the dao, most notably, are absent.
Another possible flaw I see in it is that the new XP system is far too generous with the weak monsters. It may well have been the intent of the system designers, but in this edition, 1st-3rd level characters now get 75 XP from killing a goblin (CR 1/4). That might be a bit too much for some DMs' taste.
But there is also much that is good about this volume. I really like the idea of template creatures. The concept is that certain creatures are individuals who were formerly or simultaneously other things. For example, each vampire, lich, or lycanthrope was some sort of character type first. By taking the character and applying the template, these old cutout monsters all become unique.
I also like the artwork in this book. The monsters no longer look like 2-dimesional comic-book line drawings. I don't agree with all the artists' concepts of the creatures (the minotaur is too hairy, for example), but I do think the quality of the work is improved over previous editions.
I also like that each creature is given a full set of ability stats. Creatures' hit points are affected by high or low Constitution scores. Creatures' attack and damage rolls are affected by high or low Strength. The drawback to this is that some creatures are listed as doing damage that will never actually do any damage. The Skeleton (tiny) does 1-2(-2) points of damage. According to these numbers, it has a 50% chance of actually healing a point. Of course it doesn't work that way, but they should have included measures to make sure that the damage never ended up negative.
Definitely worth getting, but far from perfect. I hope that future monster supplements will return to the more readable one-monster-per-page format. But this one is still pretty good, even with that flaw.
Rating: 4
Summary: It's Just So Pretty To Look At
Comment: Open this book up and in about .5 seconds you will be mesmerized by the art in this book. Almost every single monster listed has a picture, and it's all gorgeous.Add to that the detailed, comprehensive, and RELEVANT detail to each one, and you have a book that is well worth the money.The new Third Edition introduces these nifty new things called challenge ratings. No more arbitrarily throwing in monsters that accidentally end up too easy or too tough for your party. Each monster is assigned a number that tells you exactly how tough it is. Plus a quick reference chart will tell you how much experience your party gets. However, this chart, as well as the random encounter chart, is in the DM Guide, a clever way for Wizards of the Coast to make you buy all three books.
What perhaps I love most about this book is that each character is given attributes, just as if it were a player character. This means that potentially any monster in the book can become a player character in the game. So if you ever get bored with the half-orc, you can always play a pixie. More importantly, subraces for each race are listed (such as wild elves and the classic heavyfoot halflings) with appropriate attribute modifications for each.
Now what I'm about to say is no doubt going to earn me more than one not-helpful vote, but I have to say it. I don't like the new emphasis on demons and devils. TSR has always managed, despite the criticisms of it in the past two decades, to avoid outright satanic themes in D&D. Wizards of the Coast, however, flourishes them with pride. This is going to give too much bait to wackos who have been saying for years that D&D is nothing but a recruiting tool for satanic cults.
A much smaller criticism I have is in regard to many of the descriptions, which refer to the planes from which the monsters originate. Well? What are these planes? I want to know more about the planes! Wizards intends to put out a book describing the different planes in about six months, (and I'm quite certain there's some 2nd Edition material on the subject) but in the meantime I'm dying of curiosity.
Bottom Line: If you play D&D, you must own this book. Even if you never use it in a game (which you will), you will have hours of entertainment browsing through it and looking at all the pretty monsters.
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Title: Dungeon Master's Guide: Core Rulebook II (Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition) by Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams ISBN: 078691551X Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Player's Handbook: Core Rulebook I (Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition) by Wizards of the Coast ISBN: 0786915501 Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Pub. Date: August, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Monster Manual II (Dungeons & Dragons Supplement) by Jeff Grubb, Rich Redman, Steve Winter, Ed Bonny, Skip Williams ISBN: 0786928735 Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Pub. Date: 25 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Character Sheets (Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) by Wizards of the Coast ISBN: 0786916427 Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Pub. Date: 28 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Masters of the Wild: A Guidebook to Barbarians, Druids, and Rangers (Dungeons & Dragons Accessory) by Mike Selinker, David Eckelberry ISBN: 0786926538 Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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