3.5 Quick Notes

[Knight Otu]

3. Full utilization of racial trats not made. The aranea has a level adjustment of +4 but no racial stats listed. Combat tactics are practically nonexsistant.

The bit about racial traits is not really needed given that we get the stat block. The important things can be extrapolated from it. I'm split about the tactics section... It's sad that they will be so rare, but it's certainly better than getting a tactics section for dire rats.

4. Templates aren't in a seperate section but in the main body of the text.

That's sad. I preferred them to be in a seperate section, as they are not full monsters.

5.For the MM, Feats and one skill are at the back of the book. Some are simple like IMproved Natural Armor where you get a +1 bonus to AC while others like Empower Spell Like Ability will quickly even the meta-magic odds.

That's good. Is the skill Control Shape for the afflicted lycanthropes?

8. The Level Equivilence is not the same as the CR and every time I saw it, it was higher. i.e. a CR of +2 from a template wasn't a +2 to Level but maybe a +3 or +4.

9. Humanoids when listed, all have a class, usually warrior one.

10. Some creatures, instead of a level adjustment, have a note like Improved Familiar (quasit/imp) or cohert (mephits).

Good. I hope they did something with the kobold to reduce the konfusion about the half hit dice.

12. Lot of beasts from Manual of the Planes updated here like the Inevitable and the Gith races.

Do you remember if the yugoloths made the jump? I rememmber reading on the WotC boards that they didn't, but if even the Inevitables made it...

On the whole, this strengthened my intention of buying the R3E Monster Manual. I'm not yet sure about the other two, but likely I'll keep to the SRD for a while.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Joe!

Appreciate the heads up (on the Monster Manual 3.5 especially).

Well, at the EN World Gameday, I had the chance to look through the books.

1. Not all art is new. Layout is pretty similiar too.

Have no qualms about them keeping a lot of the art, much of which was good. But they could have shook the layout up a bit.

2. Monster Manual is still piss poor in terms of layout and making the book readable. Very much the same book in terms of layout and style.

Thats going to leave a scar.

3. Full utilization of racial trats not made. The aranea has a level adjustment of +4 but no racial stats listed. Combat tactics are practically nonexsistant.

Seems silly that they would make a fuss about better incorporating raciial traits then not.

4. Templates aren't in a seperate section but in the main body of the text.

No real problems with that as long as they are listed as templates in the contents.

5.For the MM, Feats and one skill are at the back of the book. Some are simple like IMproved Natural Armor where you get a +1 bonus to AC

That should have been +2.

while others like Empower Spell Like Ability will quickly even the meta-magic odds.

Sweet.

6. When listing monsters by CR, where is the page #? Not there.

I can live with that, alphabetical after all.

7. There is some great new art. The giants, demons, and devils all have some new illustrations in there.

Excellent.

8. The Level Equivilence is not the same as the CR and every time I saw it, it was higher. i.e. a CR of +2 from a template wasn't a +2 to Level but maybe a +3 or +4.

I suggest you make the ECL the same as the CR x1.5 (as a general rule of thumb, going by WotCs 3.5 CRs).

9. Humanoids when listed, all have a class, usually warrior one.

Okay.

10. Some creatures, instead of a level adjustment, have a note like Improved Familiar (quasit/imp) or cohert (mephits).

Nice.

11. Lot of specialty creatures, usually a more powerful version of the mosnters in question. Take the Nessian Warhound, one of the devil prince's own hell hounds or the harpy archer, a 7th level harpy fighter.

Very interesting, I like this.

12. Lot of beasts from Manual of the Planes updated here like the Inevitable and the Gith races.

I think Knight Otu already asked this, but what about the Yugoloths?

13. Tons of examples for the templates. Skeleton has human warrior, wolf, owlbear, ettin, and others.

Good idea.

14.Racial Traits (I consider racial traits only valid if they have stat modifiers and may have missed some): Azer, bugbears, centaurs, doppelgangers, dwarves, elf, gargoyles, janni, hill giants, stone giants, githyanki, githzerai, gnolls, gnomes, goblins, grimlock, halfling, hobgoblin, kobold,s kuo-toa, lizard folk, mind flayers, minotaurs, ogre, ogre magi, orc, rakshasas, satyrs, troglodyte, and Yuan Ti Purebloods.

Did they include the 'Human' as an entry in the Monster Manual?

15. Tactics: Balor, Pit Fiend, Mind Flayer, Titan. I must've missed some but there weren't many listings.

Other than the Monster Manual layout status quo that is the biggest dissappointment I can think of. The Tactics outline was a fantastic idea! I'm annoyed they didn't capitalise on it.

Players Handbook replaced the old coins and illustrations for combat with miniatures.

Makes sense.

For feats, the greater ones, like weapon focus and weapon specialization and spell focus (all greater), do the same thing as the original feat but stack with it.

As expected.

DMG has material on Epic level gaming.

I wonder if they copied and pasted stuff from the ELH?

I think the planes were larger too.

Do you mean information on the planes?

DIdn't take a lot of notes but have some fresh memories and I was more focused on the MM then the other books but overall,

Did you notice any major changes (HD, Ability Scores) to the Deva; Planetar or Solar?

I like then new look

By that you mean the covers presumably, you said the internal layout was much the same.

and feel and can't imagine that these books will stay $29.95 for long with their increased size so I'll be buying mine soon.

I'm still buying them, but now I'm a little less excited about the whole thing.

Thanks for the update Joe.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I thought one of the selling points of the new Monster Manual was that each monster was going to have its own page. This doesn't sound like the case and I was really looking forward to an easier to use Monster Manual. Very disappointing.

 

[Drawmack]

1. Not all art is new. Layout is pretty similiar too.

some of the art in the original MM was great, I Wouldn't expect them to replace it all.

2. Monster Manual is still piss poor in terms of layout and making the book readable. Very much the same book in terms of layout and style.

I liked the layout of the original MM, but I'm probably just weird.

3. Full utilization of racial trats not made. The aranea has a level adjustment of +4 but no racial stats listed. Combat tactics are practically nonexsistant.

I have to see the book myself to understand what he's talking about here and make my own decision on this.

4. Templates aren't in a seperate section but in the main body of the text.

I use a lot of templates and kind of enjoyed having them in their own section, however I have an excel workbook with all my monster manuals in it and the templates get their own sheet in that which lists name, cr, book and page so I don't think I need this and it probably won't make much difference to me.

5.For the MM, Feats and one skill are at the back of the book. Some are simple like IMproved Natural Armor where you get a +1 bonus to AC while others like Empower Spell Like Ability will quickly even the meta-magic odds.

this is pretty cool.

6. When listing monsters by CR, where is the page #? Not there.

Since I own 5 monster books I already have an excel spreadsheet that lists the monsters by CR, gives their book and page number so I'll probably never even use these. For all I care they could have taken them out all together and put in an extra monster or two.

7. There is some great new art. The giants, demons, and devils all have some new illustrations in there.

cool

8. The Level Equivilence is not the same as the CR and every time I saw it, it was higher. i.e. a CR of +2 from a template wasn't a +2 to Level but maybe a +3 or +4.

We've been hearing for years that CR != ECL so I don't find this surprising at all.

9. Humanoids when listed, all have a class, usually warrior one.

They did in 3.0 too, they just didn't tell you that.

10. Some creatures, instead of a level adjustment, have a note like Improved Familiar (quasit/imp) or cohert (mephits).

I have to see this to understand it and make a decision on it.

11. Lot of specialty creatures, usually a more powerful version of the mosnters in question. Take the Nessian Warhound, one of the devil prince's own hell hounds or the harpy archer, a 7th level harpy fighter.

Cool ideas on how to beaf up the monsters or change them just enough that the PCs are confused. Great idea.

12. Lot of beasts from Manual of the Planes updated here like the Inevitable and the Gith races.

Cool I get MotP monsters. I didn't buy that book cause I didn't think it would be particularly useful but I liked some of the monsters. Now I'll have them.

13. Tons of examples for the templates. Skeleton has human warrior, wolf, owlbear, ettin, and others.

rock on like a true rocker rockin

14.Racial Traits (I consider racial traits only valid if they have stat modifiers and may have missed some): Azer, bugbears, centaurs, doppelgangers, dwarves, elf, gargoyles, janni, hill giants, stone giants, githyanki, githzerai, gnolls, gnomes, goblins, grimlock, halfling, hobgoblin, kobold,s kuo-toa, lizard folk, mind flayers, minotaurs, ogre, ogre magi, orc, rakshasas, satyrs, troglodyte, and Yuan Ti Purebloods.

Why do you only consider racial traits valid if they have stat modifiers. So spider climb at will isn't a valid racial trait?

15. Tactics: Balor, Pit Fiend, Mind Flayer, Titan. I must've missed some but there weren't many listings.

I thought they were doing tactics for all the monsters. *pout*

 

[Knight Otu]

Warrior Class stat blocks

They did in 3.0 too, they just didn't tell you that.

Actually, they did. It was usually the last line of the decription block. "The stats above present a 1st level warrior." or some similar line.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Re: Re: 3.5 Quick Notes

and this is surprising/worth noting why?

A while ago when Bastards and Bloodlines came out, a pretty good book, I told the author that I felt that there shoudl be a seperate listing for CR and ECL. He disagreed. Just pointing out for those who feel that the CR does = ECL, that it is not the official way things go.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Lets see...

"Cool ideas on how to beaf up the monsters or change them just enough that the PCs are confused. Great idea."

There is a section in the book on how to increase a monster's power. It has use of classes, CR, templates, and something like an "elite stat block" where the stats are buffed from the average or something. Reminded me a little of the old DMG where the p values increased depending on what special abilities you gave the monster but it's not necessarily a how to make a monster. That's a seperate section.

The full stat advancement blocks for the different types (giants, undead, humanoid, beast, etc...) was done farily well too if I recall correclty.

Someone asked about yugoloths. Sorry, wasn't looking for those bad boys. There is a huge section on angels though and it includes solars and planetars.

The MM breaks down kinda like this:

Chapter One: Monsters A-Z
Chapter Two: Animals
Chapter Three; Vermin
Chapter Four: Improving Monsters
Chapter Five: Making Monsters
Chapter Six: Monster Skills and Feats
Chapter Seven: Glossary

As far as racial traits goes, when I say without the stats, I mean if I have to breakdown the stats to custmozie the creature, then it's making me do more work then necessary and some of the choices for making the list, like stone giant, and not making the list, like the aranea, are very odd.

The improved familiar and cohert I image are for the mages who have improved familiar or druids and rangers who have coherts.

The whole thing with the level and class being listed with the humanoids was great and made things clear. Funny thing is kobolds are CR -3 if they have an NPC class. I didn't notice how that would work with lower level creatures though so can't answer any more questions on that oddity.

Didn't notice if humans were listed.

 

[drnuncheon]

As far as racial traits goes, when I say without the stats, I mean if I have to breakdown the stats to custmozie the creature, then it's making me do more work then necessary and some of the choices for making the list, like stone giant, and not making the list, like the aranea, are very odd.

It could be a nod to the people who use polymorph - with its stats, size, and ability to use equipment, the stone giant is a fairly common shape chosen for the spell.

J

 

[zoroaster100]

Did you notice what the rules were for fire subtype and cold subtype by any chance? Fiend Folio had one version and Savage Species had another, one using -10 on saves v. opposing element and the other using +50% damage. I was curious which is used by the 3.5 Monster Manual.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I didn't notice the cold/hot notes. Sorry about that.