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Monster Manual V
- Thread starter Mortis
- Start date
Shade
Monster Junkie
Despite the continued presence of MM creatures with class levels, this one looks light years better than MMIV.
The arcadian avenger is a nice addition to the planar landscape for one of the most underrepresented planes.
The solamith is more interesting than all the MMIV demons.
The bladerager is what the war troll should have been.
The presence of a new obryith is icing on the cake.
Now if only they'd start including creatures from past editions again...
The arcadian avenger is a nice addition to the planar landscape for one of the most underrepresented planes.
The solamith is more interesting than all the MMIV demons.
The bladerager is what the war troll should have been.
The presence of a new obryith is icing on the cake.
Now if only they'd start including creatures from past editions again...
Shade
Monster Junkie
I picked it up yesterday. Here are my (very favorable) first impressions:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=201664
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=201664
freyar
Extradimensional Explorer
Shade said:
Maybe they figure you and BOZ have been doing a good enough job.
Not sure when I'll pick this one up, but I'd rather have new monsters than a reprint of something from the CC. Of course, if they converted one that you haven't gotten around to yet, that's another story. 
Kain Darkwind
Explorer
What I like about the Monster Manual V
Fey. More fey. It appears that even if WotC hasn’t decided to publish a fey-nomicon, they are at least half-way listening to the cries for more fey. In this book there are six new fey types, including one appropriate for ECL 2 player characters. While this doesn’t seem like much, compared to the tons of undead, monstrous humanoids, magical beasts and new constructs in the book, it is a step in the right direction. In addition, one of the magical beasts (hound of the wild hunt) and one of the undead (forest haunt) are closely related to the fey, as well as some others, like the ruin elemental.
Incidentally, the highest CR in the book, CR 22, is one of the fey. The master of the (Wild) hunt, a 32 HD monstrosity, holds that unique privilege. And what a beast. Large creature with 35 Str, 40 Dex and 38 Con? And the mental stats of 20 Int, 30 Wis and 35 Cha….the guy is closer to a demigod than an epic creature. His hounds are CR 18s.
Devils. Or perhaps I should say, devil. I’m not too fond of devils number 1 and 3. None of them are downright bad, but they don’t hold enough devilish looks for my taste. My main point is, I like devils and they should keep making more, so long as they make sense.
Demons. They made another obyrith. This might not mean anything to others, but I am glad they are actually using the mechanics they put out elsewhere. And while I think they could stand to have named some of their other tanar’ri obyrith (Adaru, I choose you!), it is a step in the right direction. The carnage demon follows in the proud tradition of the deathdrinker, abyssal eviscerator and ghour as big meaty destructive demon with no demon-subtype. Which is too bad, since I think all of them would make for great tanar’ri. In fact, the carnage demon has every tanar’ri trait save summoning and telepathy. But, demons = good as far as I am concerned. I also like the Juiblex tainted water elementals.
Speaking of using mechanics, I’d like to pause and say something about that. There are two types of people, those that buy every damn DnD book that comes out and those that don’t. I happen to be strongly in the former group. So I may be biased when I say, I appreciate books that make strong use of the previous books, rather than pretending they don’t exist. Classes from the Complete series and PHB2 both show up in this book as well as feats taken from them, which is nice. I’m glad that policy at the moment seems to be to reward those that do buy more books, rather than those that buy only a few. If only the Epic Level Handbook could see some honest recognition…but I digress. One more thing from other books (Tome of Magic, in this case), is the immobilized condition. It seems to be, like the swift and immediate action, taking a place in official/core rules.
More things I like. Unique monsters. Dalmosh and Illurien are two unique entities, rather than standard monsters. Dalmosh is a gluttonous demonic giant from The Abyss (with a Demiplane for a stomach!) and Illurien is a water-like outsider from the Outlands. Both have interesting enough flavor and range in the high CRs (Dalmosh is CR 17 and Illurien is CR 15), so they can serve as campaign backdrops long before the PCs ever encounter them. I like unique monsters in my Monster Manuals. Really, I think that is something that has been missing since 2nd Edition. You can’t pick up a Monster Manual and gets stats for Bahamut, Imix and Asmodeus anymore. Which is really too bad, so thumbs up to WotC on this point.
Monsters with class levels. WotC said they were going to do it differently this time around and they did. In some cases, they just gave a creature class levels, like the kua-toa monitor (monk 4). In other cases, they made an entirely new creature, like the hobgoblin warsoul or spellscourge. I was never a big complainer of the classed monsters in MM4, but these are definitely better. Of interesting note (to me) were the two vampires, the Black Duke and the Red Widow (truly, inspired names). The Duke is a knight/ronin and the Widow is a ninja/fighter/ghost faced killer. However, she does need the ninja-fighter feat from Complete Scoundrel to take full advantage of her build. However, I look at their hit points…97 and 110, for CR 17 and 19? Vampires would really benefit from unholy toughness, especially since their CR typically sits at HD + 2. And while I would be the first to say that the vamps especially belong in an NPC sample villains book, I don’t mind them too much here. The art isn’t bad for them either, although I wonder how R. Spears came to the decision that Red Widow’s longsword should stand chest high from tip to hilt and roughly as broad as her waist. Final remark on this section…the elemental magi. Perhaps some people have already heard how the water magi doesn’t exist. I’ve looked them over…while the water magi might have made a decent addition, it is hardly essential to how they made these guys. They aren’t really based on the elements, they aren’t even the same CR (thank G-D, btw!). What might have been cool would have been to use the Chinese five elements rather than the traditional ones, since they are modified ogre magi. Anyways, decent concept, and if I used ogre magi more often, I’d definitely throw these guys in there to mix it up.
The god-blooded template. This would have been better named the god-blessed template, since not only is it not powerful enough to reflect a god’s children, but each sample template has directions for how to gain it. For instance, the Yeenoghu-blooded can be added to any gnoll by killing a gnoll who has the template and drinking its blood. It also can be added by eating the flesh of a slain aspect of Yeenoghu, which apparently gnolls are known to fall upon in a frenzy in order to gain the template. In any case, they give samples of Grummsh, Imix, Orcus, Kord, Yeenoghu and Vecna. It is an interesting idea, much better than the similar Lolth-touched template.
The garngrath. CR 20 Colossal creature? Yep, the tarrasque has competition. These non-unique beasts are natives of Pandemonium, created by Erythnul. Nice super-huge destructive creatures. Quite a bit faster than the tarrasque though. 80 ft. speed and 60 ft. burrow. Plus a 20% miss chance due to a dimensional shield. And their horns generate prismatic spray. I like these. I’ve never had an issue ‘challenging’ my PCs with the tarrasque because I never bother to fight them with it….it goes stomping through their low level loved ones’ hometowns. These guys look to be much the same…save they are faster, can planeshift and have ranged attacks. Nasty.
Dragon template. The Dragon of the Great Game…seriously, if the person who wrote the Wild Hunter was stealing from the Freak-fey project, the guy who wrote this decided to take a number from Terry Goodkind and plagiarize Robert Jordan like the man’s work wasn’t copyrighted at all. Dragons play a Great Game of Houses, excuse me, I mean, xorvintaal. The template itself is actually pretty cool. It strips a dragon’s spellcasting ability and makes all of its draconic powers more serious. Then it adds a few unique abilities, some of which might be very common to dragon legends…like a rejuvenation power that operates once the dragon dies. These abilities make for cool additions to any dragon, not just those that sacrifice their spellcasting for the full template. Many of them wouldn’t be bad ideas for [Prereq: dragon] feats.
Less ooze and spider monsters. Nuff said, go read through MM3 and 4 if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
What don’t I like.
The Thoon Mind Flayers! Thoon is the new Spawn of Tiamat. We have a CR 15 elder brain (which, to their credit, they give several plausible situations and explanations for how to use it in conjunction with the supposedly weaker/equal CR 25 elder brain). We have a mind-flayer that can damage itself to go invisible for a round. We have a normal mind-flayer with cleric levels. And we have some constructs. Now, don’t get me wrong. Of things that I don’t like, this is by far the best of them. The entire idea isn’t bad, but it needs some polish. And I’m tired of hearing “but it’s too powerful for PCs to deal with often, so we made a lower CR version”. PCs don’t get to fight great wyrm dragons at 14th level. Why should they get to fight elder brains? Honestly, the Thoon stuff would get a neutral overall, which is why I mentioned it first on this side of the fence.
Tokens. This entire idea smacks of miniature mechanics. Keep them the hell out of my DnD game, thank you.
Self-damaging powers. See directly above. Activated by the creature dealing 5 hit points to itself, and gaining some lame power.
The dragon artwork. Two beautiful dragons drawn by W.A.R. This is actually a really good picture with a minor nitpick. The silver dragon depicted in the picture is as large as the fang dragon…while the actual character depicted is merely a large silver dragon compared to a gargantuan fang dragon. Yet the large (which is horse-sized, let’s remember) dragon is towering over a small tower. Comparing her head with the frantic human on the steps, I’d say it is about 12 feet long. Her head. Pretty damn big horse. Incidently, W.A.R. did a nice full sized pic of the Thoon flayers as well. Shows a Thoon flayer discarding the dry husk of a fellow flayer it has just sucked the brains out of. The artwork is actually pretty good throughout the book, by my non-picky tastes, so I’m only mentioning it here to have something to actually complain about again. I want to appear fair and balanced, after all. Like Fox News.
So, all in all, I liked this book. I felt it was much better than the MM4 and the creatures more useful/usable in games than the MM3.
I’d still like a Monster Compendium. Collected monsters from the Complete, Races of, Environs and any other non-monster based supplement, such as Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, Dungeonscape, etc. With expanded flavor. Because I seem to use/like those monsters more than others, and it is a true pain in the ass to haul out 8 books for 8 monsters. But until then, or until MM6, I’m really happy with MMV.
Fey. More fey. It appears that even if WotC hasn’t decided to publish a fey-nomicon, they are at least half-way listening to the cries for more fey. In this book there are six new fey types, including one appropriate for ECL 2 player characters. While this doesn’t seem like much, compared to the tons of undead, monstrous humanoids, magical beasts and new constructs in the book, it is a step in the right direction. In addition, one of the magical beasts (hound of the wild hunt) and one of the undead (forest haunt) are closely related to the fey, as well as some others, like the ruin elemental.
Incidentally, the highest CR in the book, CR 22, is one of the fey. The master of the (Wild) hunt, a 32 HD monstrosity, holds that unique privilege. And what a beast. Large creature with 35 Str, 40 Dex and 38 Con? And the mental stats of 20 Int, 30 Wis and 35 Cha….the guy is closer to a demigod than an epic creature. His hounds are CR 18s.
Devils. Or perhaps I should say, devil. I’m not too fond of devils number 1 and 3. None of them are downright bad, but they don’t hold enough devilish looks for my taste. My main point is, I like devils and they should keep making more, so long as they make sense.
Demons. They made another obyrith. This might not mean anything to others, but I am glad they are actually using the mechanics they put out elsewhere. And while I think they could stand to have named some of their other tanar’ri obyrith (Adaru, I choose you!), it is a step in the right direction. The carnage demon follows in the proud tradition of the deathdrinker, abyssal eviscerator and ghour as big meaty destructive demon with no demon-subtype. Which is too bad, since I think all of them would make for great tanar’ri. In fact, the carnage demon has every tanar’ri trait save summoning and telepathy. But, demons = good as far as I am concerned. I also like the Juiblex tainted water elementals.
Speaking of using mechanics, I’d like to pause and say something about that. There are two types of people, those that buy every damn DnD book that comes out and those that don’t. I happen to be strongly in the former group. So I may be biased when I say, I appreciate books that make strong use of the previous books, rather than pretending they don’t exist. Classes from the Complete series and PHB2 both show up in this book as well as feats taken from them, which is nice. I’m glad that policy at the moment seems to be to reward those that do buy more books, rather than those that buy only a few. If only the Epic Level Handbook could see some honest recognition…but I digress. One more thing from other books (Tome of Magic, in this case), is the immobilized condition. It seems to be, like the swift and immediate action, taking a place in official/core rules.
More things I like. Unique monsters. Dalmosh and Illurien are two unique entities, rather than standard monsters. Dalmosh is a gluttonous demonic giant from The Abyss (with a Demiplane for a stomach!) and Illurien is a water-like outsider from the Outlands. Both have interesting enough flavor and range in the high CRs (Dalmosh is CR 17 and Illurien is CR 15), so they can serve as campaign backdrops long before the PCs ever encounter them. I like unique monsters in my Monster Manuals. Really, I think that is something that has been missing since 2nd Edition. You can’t pick up a Monster Manual and gets stats for Bahamut, Imix and Asmodeus anymore. Which is really too bad, so thumbs up to WotC on this point.
Monsters with class levels. WotC said they were going to do it differently this time around and they did. In some cases, they just gave a creature class levels, like the kua-toa monitor (monk 4). In other cases, they made an entirely new creature, like the hobgoblin warsoul or spellscourge. I was never a big complainer of the classed monsters in MM4, but these are definitely better. Of interesting note (to me) were the two vampires, the Black Duke and the Red Widow (truly, inspired names). The Duke is a knight/ronin and the Widow is a ninja/fighter/ghost faced killer. However, she does need the ninja-fighter feat from Complete Scoundrel to take full advantage of her build. However, I look at their hit points…97 and 110, for CR 17 and 19? Vampires would really benefit from unholy toughness, especially since their CR typically sits at HD + 2. And while I would be the first to say that the vamps especially belong in an NPC sample villains book, I don’t mind them too much here. The art isn’t bad for them either, although I wonder how R. Spears came to the decision that Red Widow’s longsword should stand chest high from tip to hilt and roughly as broad as her waist. Final remark on this section…the elemental magi. Perhaps some people have already heard how the water magi doesn’t exist. I’ve looked them over…while the water magi might have made a decent addition, it is hardly essential to how they made these guys. They aren’t really based on the elements, they aren’t even the same CR (thank G-D, btw!). What might have been cool would have been to use the Chinese five elements rather than the traditional ones, since they are modified ogre magi. Anyways, decent concept, and if I used ogre magi more often, I’d definitely throw these guys in there to mix it up.
The god-blooded template. This would have been better named the god-blessed template, since not only is it not powerful enough to reflect a god’s children, but each sample template has directions for how to gain it. For instance, the Yeenoghu-blooded can be added to any gnoll by killing a gnoll who has the template and drinking its blood. It also can be added by eating the flesh of a slain aspect of Yeenoghu, which apparently gnolls are known to fall upon in a frenzy in order to gain the template. In any case, they give samples of Grummsh, Imix, Orcus, Kord, Yeenoghu and Vecna. It is an interesting idea, much better than the similar Lolth-touched template.
The garngrath. CR 20 Colossal creature? Yep, the tarrasque has competition. These non-unique beasts are natives of Pandemonium, created by Erythnul. Nice super-huge destructive creatures. Quite a bit faster than the tarrasque though. 80 ft. speed and 60 ft. burrow. Plus a 20% miss chance due to a dimensional shield. And their horns generate prismatic spray. I like these. I’ve never had an issue ‘challenging’ my PCs with the tarrasque because I never bother to fight them with it….it goes stomping through their low level loved ones’ hometowns. These guys look to be much the same…save they are faster, can planeshift and have ranged attacks. Nasty.
Dragon template. The Dragon of the Great Game…seriously, if the person who wrote the Wild Hunter was stealing from the Freak-fey project, the guy who wrote this decided to take a number from Terry Goodkind and plagiarize Robert Jordan like the man’s work wasn’t copyrighted at all. Dragons play a Great Game of Houses, excuse me, I mean, xorvintaal. The template itself is actually pretty cool. It strips a dragon’s spellcasting ability and makes all of its draconic powers more serious. Then it adds a few unique abilities, some of which might be very common to dragon legends…like a rejuvenation power that operates once the dragon dies. These abilities make for cool additions to any dragon, not just those that sacrifice their spellcasting for the full template. Many of them wouldn’t be bad ideas for [Prereq: dragon] feats.
Less ooze and spider monsters. Nuff said, go read through MM3 and 4 if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
What don’t I like.
The Thoon Mind Flayers! Thoon is the new Spawn of Tiamat. We have a CR 15 elder brain (which, to their credit, they give several plausible situations and explanations for how to use it in conjunction with the supposedly weaker/equal CR 25 elder brain). We have a mind-flayer that can damage itself to go invisible for a round. We have a normal mind-flayer with cleric levels. And we have some constructs. Now, don’t get me wrong. Of things that I don’t like, this is by far the best of them. The entire idea isn’t bad, but it needs some polish. And I’m tired of hearing “but it’s too powerful for PCs to deal with often, so we made a lower CR version”. PCs don’t get to fight great wyrm dragons at 14th level. Why should they get to fight elder brains? Honestly, the Thoon stuff would get a neutral overall, which is why I mentioned it first on this side of the fence.
Tokens. This entire idea smacks of miniature mechanics. Keep them the hell out of my DnD game, thank you.
Self-damaging powers. See directly above. Activated by the creature dealing 5 hit points to itself, and gaining some lame power.
The dragon artwork. Two beautiful dragons drawn by W.A.R. This is actually a really good picture with a minor nitpick. The silver dragon depicted in the picture is as large as the fang dragon…while the actual character depicted is merely a large silver dragon compared to a gargantuan fang dragon. Yet the large (which is horse-sized, let’s remember) dragon is towering over a small tower. Comparing her head with the frantic human on the steps, I’d say it is about 12 feet long. Her head. Pretty damn big horse. Incidently, W.A.R. did a nice full sized pic of the Thoon flayers as well. Shows a Thoon flayer discarding the dry husk of a fellow flayer it has just sucked the brains out of. The artwork is actually pretty good throughout the book, by my non-picky tastes, so I’m only mentioning it here to have something to actually complain about again. I want to appear fair and balanced, after all. Like Fox News.
So, all in all, I liked this book. I felt it was much better than the MM4 and the creatures more useful/usable in games than the MM3.
I’d still like a Monster Compendium. Collected monsters from the Complete, Races of, Environs and any other non-monster based supplement, such as Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, Dungeonscape, etc. With expanded flavor. Because I seem to use/like those monsters more than others, and it is a true pain in the ass to haul out 8 books for 8 monsters. But until then, or until MM6, I’m really happy with MMV.
BOZ
Creature Cataloguer
i'll agree with your last sentiment - the Monstrous Compendiums were one of my favorite aspects of 2E.
and i'll definitely take Shade's endorsement for the MM5 as an MM4 hatah, but haven't had a chance to hit the bookstore yet for a browse.
Re: conversions, some comments i've seen from Wizards' people regarding the DI recently speak volumes as to why they rarely use conversions.
and i'll definitely take Shade's endorsement for the MM5 as an MM4 hatah, but haven't had a chance to hit the bookstore yet for a browse.
Re: conversions, some comments i've seen from Wizards' people regarding the DI recently speak volumes as to why they rarely use conversions.
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