D&D 5E 07/08/2013 - Legends & Lore Monsters and the World of D&D

[Jeff Carlsen]

Privateer Press printed the "Monternomicon" for their Iron Kingdoms setting. Each creature had a 2 page write up complete with what locals believed about the monster (knowledge check DCs) and ways that the PCs might find value from the defeated creature (achemists might find the creatures spleen useful for potions). By far the best monster book I've read.

Yes. The Monsternomicon is the standard by which I judge all monsters books. And I've found them all wanting.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think I would like to see two versions of the monster manual. A lore-heavy version for inspiration and a B/X version to take to games and actually use in play. I'd buy both.

Or, we could have a SRD instead of the second, like we had in 3e.

 

[Orius]

I like 2e's general monster approach with 2 exceptions. First sometimes the combat information isn't presented well. The stat blocks themselves jumble combat and non-combat info together, and the Combat section in the description sometimes was too vebose to be easily useful. Second, while the Habitat/Society and Ecology entries were usually pretty good, there were occasional monsters that had little more than combat applications where these sections felt bloated.

The ettercap description here is interesting, at least more interesting than the ettercap has been in the past. I like the idea of them herding spiders, twisting forests, and collecting fairy dust and trading it with hags (maybe the hags give them something that helps them twist the forests). I can see them collecting the dust like how birds will take shiny stuff to put in their nests. The aranea link though isn't needed, araneas are their own seperate race of shapeshifters that resemble spiders, they don't need a link to ettercaps.

 

[Balesir]

Yes. The Monsternomicon is the standard by which I judge all monsters books. And I've found them all wanting.

I think this points up well what I found disappointing in the article. The Monsternomicon is a world-specific book; it sets monsters into their context in a specific world. That is something I don't want the "core" monster books doing. It represents unwanted restrictions that I don't need, albeit I can (thankfully) ignore them (so they "just" represent wasted space).

What I do want in the core monster book is statblocks - but not just combat statblocks. I want statblocks for all three "pillars" - combat, exploration and social interaction. Now, maybe some of this blurb fits there; pixies/pixie dust as potential currency would fit under social interaction, for example. But, in general, the restrictions (to "herders" of spiders, rather than just living near them or having the same prey, for example) are just annoying. Maybe in some worlds they do "herd" the spiders and live off a share of the prey the spiders catch - but not in all.