D&D 5E Monster Manuals - Too Many, Not Enough?

[Nellisir]

You must be more particular than your description suggests; because this seems a low bar that just about every bestiary I’ve seen meets.

It's not just about CR or desert elves or wet goblins. It's about a broad spread of multiple types of monsters over multiple categories.

 

[Rogerd1]

Has anyone got the Corpus Angelos - Codex of Good.

That is well worth getting hold of in my opinion.

 

[Yora]

It's not the amount of monster books, but the portion of interesting monsters per book.

I think in the last 25 years, WotC has had a very poor record with introducing new monsters that caught people's attention. Eberron did it very well with its setting-specific monsters, but that's about it. The only real exception I can think of is the chuul, and I guess the nothic has gotten a bit of a breakthrough in 5th edition. I believe because it's in Lost Mines of Phandelver?

The Monster Manual for 5th edition is pretty much still all monsters from AD&D 1st edition.

 

[Li Shenron]

In theory the more the better.

However, after Volo's Guide to Monsters, I didn't get the feeling I really wanted to get more monsters books... I looked into Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes but both the lore part and the bestiary part of the book seemed seriously less inspiring than Volo's, very boring lore, and too many garbage monsters in the bestiary. So when Fizban came out I didn't even bother checking out what it offers.

As a DM I absolutely need both the tactical/stats side of a monster and the narrative/lore side to be interesting. I want monsters I can build either a bit of story or a reasonable ecology around. But if I am going to use the monster in combat encounters, then I also need interesting abilities that call for new tactics or tactical adaptations by the players.

I think 5e designers are too conservative and don't have the guts to really do something new, every time they have a provocative idea they first brag about it and then silently remove it before release. It started off with the "intoxicated" condition... Mike Mearls claimed it was his favourite during playtest, have you seen it afterwards? The latest example is the Kender's ability to take out objects semi-randomly from their pockets, a brilliant idea to reconcile the old Kender's narrative of being cleptomaniacs with the fact that other players don't want to be stolen from: of course, now removed, so Kender will be yet another race of... samey humanoid.

 

[Rogerd1]

Honestly I think some monsters, should be there stats should be between X-Y, with these possible powers etc. I have never seen the need for a gazillion different outsider stat blocks, and this is something that Fantasy Age does really well.

 

[JarooAshstaff]

there is never such a thing as too many monster books

tho when they give you the exact same monsters you already have, feels cheap.

 

[Tallifer]

As far as buying and curating a collection fueled by disposable wealth and a desire to support D&D, never enough. Inasmuch as what I need to run, I just make up my own sh*t.

 

[Maxperson]

I love more and more monster books. One of my favorite things to do as a DM is go through books for something cool that I haven't ever used or not in many years and bring that monster into the spotlight. The more books and monsters I have to pick from, the better.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

It's not just about CR or desert elves or wet goblins. It's about a broad spread of multiple types of monsters over multiple categories.

That is only slightly more descriptive than your previous statement. Basically I was correct, you do want more than you originally stated

 

[Stalker0]

I'm with Paul on this one. There are times when less is more.

I much prefer the current 5E single Monster Manual, followed by occasional books like VGtM and MToF that provide much more depth to the creatures in the game

Very much agree here. At the end of the day, I like more monsters, but I want monsters of quality. I would rather have a selection of well thought out monsters than a book full of generic weird concepts that are hard to fit in a campaign.

So in that respect, I've been a big fan of VGTM and MTOF, I think they are a great format for auxiliary monster books.


In terms of the 5e monster book, its a fine book, but to me it suffers two core problems:

1) Monsters at higher CRs are commonly overCRed. The game really does feel like it was designed for "easy mode" sometimes.
2) Monsters are often too generic, just relying on bland attacks instead of neat abilities and cool synergies. The "bag of hitpoints" often thrown at 5e is because of the core monster book.


Probably my favorite MM to date is 4e's MM3. 4e's monsters are interesting and unique, really creating synergies that make fight's dynamic and fun. However, 4e's core MM suffers from the "grind problem", monsters have too much defense and not enough offense, leading to many fights where the party is clearly going to win, but it will take another 4-5 rounds to end it. Solos in core 4e are notorious for this issue. However, 4e steadily improved on the design in MM2 but perfected it in MM3. MM3 monsters are interesting and offensively focused, finally solving the issue and leading to some very cool monsters.