Monster Manual 3 Available at Gencon [merged]

[War Golem]

Here are the unanswered questions I could find:
Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight Otu
- Are the "Monster XYZ in Eberron" and the "Monster XYZ in Faerûn" notes about equal in number, or is one clearly more abundant?
- Trolls - Are there also Giants among them (as there should be), or only Monstrous Humanoids (as the War Troll)?
- The (Living) Subtype - is it used beyond the Warforged? Possibly even fully explained?

Quote:

More slanted toward Eberron, I'd say, but FR is represented.

All of the other trolls are Giant type.

Living Construct subtype is only for warforged creatures in this book. Almost an entire 1/2 page of the book is taken for the explanation and specs of this subtype.

 

[War Golem]

Here are the unanswered questions I could find:
Quote:


Originally Posted by pierworker
So how does the flind look in 3.5?

Quote:
Originally Posted by NiTessine
It [Lumi] also means 'snow' in Finnish. This also has (hopefully) nothing to do with the monster. Or does it?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gez
I'm curious concerning the difference between the Desert Giant from MM3 and the Sand Giant from MM2. (If someone can elaborate a bit on the Death and Eldritch giants too, that would be nice.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kobold Avenger
How many monsters have something to do with the Far Realms/Xoriat?

How many other monsters other than the Ssvaklor have something to do with the Yuan-Ti?

How much better is a Flind than a Gnoll?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight Otu
Are there Deathless in the MM3?

Quote:

Flind is listed as a Gnoll sub-species. CR 2. The art is by V. Rams. The picture is good, but I don't like Rams' style for D&D, personally.

Lumi remind me a lot of the Luminous race from Fantasy Flight's Mythic Races. Except the Lumi has a floating head that is not attached to its body, which just seems kind of silly to me. Otherwise, they seem pretty cool.
No "snow" relationship that I can see. They're from the Positive Energy Plane.

The MM2 has a Sun Giant, not Desert Giant.

Death Giants are CR 16. They are connected to the Neg Energy Plane, and have a "Steal Soul" power. Eldritch Giants are NE, CR 15, arcance powers and sworn enemies of Storm Giants. Both monsters have great illostrations and Round-by-Round Tactics sections.

Not sure about the Far Realms.

No other obvious Yuan-Ti related monsters, but I wasn't looking too closely for that. The monsters with the Reptilian subtype are a pair of Lizardfolk subspecies.

No Deathless that I can see. What are those? The name sounds familiar, but I cannot recall from where off the top of my head.

Cheers,
War Golem

 

[War Golem]

Unholy Toughness

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but there is a new (or I don't recall seeing it before) Special Quality for many of the undead in this book called Unholy Toughness. This essentially lets the undead creature use its Charisma instead of its (missing) Constitution for determining bonus hit points.

Undead overall have a lot more hit points then they have in the previous monster books. It makes me wonder if the designers don't wish they couldn't go back and retrofit many of the previously published undead with this special quality.

I'll say that as a DM, the pathetically low hit points of many undead has been rather annoying. I like this new special quality. Many of the undead in MM3 have it.

p.s. last but not least, not only did the Ultroloth not get a respectable "power-up" for 3.5, but the illos for the ultroloth and the nycaloth are both not so good, IMO - both are too dark and vague. The new illos for the canoloth and mezzoloth are both great, though - much better than MotP. (All the illos are by James Zhang, by the way.)

Cheers,
War Golem

 

[Knight Otu]

I'll try and answer some of these pending questions for you all now...

Thank you for your effort, War Golem!

More slanted toward Eberron, I'd say, but FR is represented.

While I like Eberron, I'm not sure if I like this. I fully understand if you don't want to do this, but if we could get a count...?

All of the other trolls are Giant type.

What you just heard was a sigh of relief.

No Deathless that I can see. What are those? The name sounds familiar, but I cannot recall from where off the top of my head.

Deathless are a new type introduced in the Book of Exalted Deeds, and again used in Eberron. Anti-Undead, basically.

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but there is a new (or I don't recall seeing it before) Special Quality for many of the undead in this book called Unholy Toughness. This essentially lets the undead creature use its Charisma instead of its (missing) Constitution for determining bonus hit points.

I'm not quite sure if that should make me happy, or if it should worry me...

 

[Gez]

The MM2 has a Sun Giant, not Desert Giant.

Yeah, this has been pointed out and corrected before. You got confused yourself, since the error was Sand Giant, not Desert Giant. Desert Giants are the giants from MM3, if the previous listing is correct.

So, are the desert-dwelling Sun Giant of the MM2 redundant with the assumedly-desert-dwelling Desert Giant of the MM3?

(As a reminder, a Sun Giant is a Huge Giant (Fire), with 13 HD, the SLA of spike stones, stone shape, and wall of stone, they have a +4 racial bonus to Hide (+8 in deserts), Str 37 Dex 14 Con 25 Int 15 Wis 18 Cha 14, are usually neutral, live in warm and temperate deserts, and are CR 12.
The Sand Giant from the Tome of Horrors is a Huge Giant (Earth), with 17 HD, the SLA of control earth (as control water but for another element, obviously) and the Su ability of turning a volume of sand into a very long arm that can attack foes once per day, they have Scent, Str 37 Dex 13 Con 23 Int 12 Wis 12 Cha 14, are usually neutral evil, live in warm deserts, and are CR 14.)

 

[War Golem]

Yeah, this has been pointed out and corrected before. You got confused yourself, since the error was Sand Giant, not Desert Giant. Desert Giants are the giants from MM3, if the previous listing is correct.

So, are the desert-dwelling Sun Giant of the MM2 redundant with the assumedly-desert-dwelling Desert Giant of the MM3?

The previous listing is wrong. MM3 has an entry for "Sand Giant," not "Desert Giant." Semantics aside, the MM3 monster amounts to the same thing. It's a desert dwelling giant. CR 10, usually LN.

I really don't think they add much to the game, other than filling yet another ecological niche for the giants.

 

[Crothian]

so, how does it compaire to other monster books like Monsternomicon?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but there is a new (or I don't recall seeing it before) Special Quality for many of the undead in this book called Unholy Toughness. This essentially lets the undead creature use its Charisma instead of its (missing) Constitution for determining bonus hit points.

Undead overall have a lot more hit points then they have in the previous monster books. It makes me wonder if the designers don't wish they couldn't go back and retrofit many of the previously published undead with this special quality.

I'll say that as a DM, the pathetically low hit points of many undead has been rather annoying. I like this new special quality. <i>Many</i> of the undead in MM3 have it.

I guess I should be thankful that this unholy toughness was created. Undead do have pitiful hit points. Their d12 Hit Dice doesn't even come close to compensating for no Constitution score.

The nostalgist in me would rather go back to previous editions' rate of attacks, than slap hit points onto every single monster that needs them to compensate for PCs' ability to dish out so much combat damage from so many attacks per round. But the kind of change I want would better come about in a 4th edition, while the rules-patch that is unholy toughness is quick and dirty substitute.

Anyone care to wager that we'll see unholy toughness appear in the WotC undead book coming soon?


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[War Golem]

Anyone care to wager that we'll see unholy toughness appear in the WotC undead book coming soon?

I think that's a given. The only question (in my mind) is if they will somehow go back and apply it to vampires, liches, etc...

 

[War Golem]

so, how does it compaire to other monster books like Monsternomicon?

MM3 is not so different from MM2 and FF that you could not answer that one for yourself even without having yet seen MM3. It is different from Monsternomicon in all the same ways those previous WotC monster books are.

I just think MM3 is a definite notch above MM2 and FF - in artwork, content, layout, etc.