What Do You Look For in a Monster Book?
Herremann the Wise
First Post
For me, I like the whole package. Good colour art, readable, useable Statblocks, and most importantly, a reason why I'd use it in my game. This may be because of a quirky original ability, it may be because I want to get a reaction from the group by saying "you see THIS in front of you" as I hold up the illustration, or it may be because it fills a niche that I want in my game (or more to the point that I put into my game because it is so good).
Getting back to the package thing, I suppose what I'm talking about there is that in terms of verisimilitude, the monster works. It doesn't just come across as a collection of interesting parts, it comes across as a whole.
For me (not including the core Monster Manual), out of the additional books by WoTC, I would say the highwater mark was set by MMIII. Yes the mistakes in it were many, but in terms of flavour and the "you must put me in your game" factor, there was a lot in there. Maybe it was the great artwork that did it for me? I'm not sure but concept-wise, I just loved this one.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
Getting back to the package thing, I suppose what I'm talking about there is that in terms of verisimilitude, the monster works. It doesn't just come across as a collection of interesting parts, it comes across as a whole.
For me (not including the core Monster Manual), out of the additional books by WoTC, I would say the highwater mark was set by MMIII. Yes the mistakes in it were many, but in terms of flavour and the "you must put me in your game" factor, there was a lot in there. Maybe it was the great artwork that did it for me? I'm not sure but concept-wise, I just loved this one.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I need art and text that is descriptive, not only of physical appearance (although that's key and strangely sometimes overlooked), but also what they eat, where they live, how they behave, what their society (if any) is like, and so on. I like a range of CRs, I like useful information about environments ("Any" is a giant cop-out, 99 percent of the time) and I like flavor.
I can make a handful of ordinary skeletons scary and cool. I need to be given a reason to want to use a new monster. It might be a really interesting ability (interesting at the table, not just to number-crunchers or armchair tacticians) but it's probably cool flavor. Both are nice to have, but if I get one without the other, I'll make it work. (The ethereal marauder is easy to remake as a vastly cooler shadow grue from Zork, for instance.)
I can make a handful of ordinary skeletons scary and cool. I need to be given a reason to want to use a new monster. It might be a really interesting ability (interesting at the table, not just to number-crunchers or armchair tacticians) but it's probably cool flavor. Both are nice to have, but if I get one without the other, I'll make it work. (The ethereal marauder is easy to remake as a vastly cooler shadow grue from Zork, for instance.)
