D&D 5E Am I the Only One Not 100% Impressed with the Monster Manual?

[SilverfireSage]

I'm also a bit bothered by the size of the art. The PHB took up about 20% of pagecount with artwork and the MM probably took up at least that much. I do think that they could have made the art a bit smaller and crammed more content in without sacrificing anything real. But that too is a minor gripe. Less content means more monster books in the future.

As others have said, this likely isn't a zero sum game, i.e., we have all this art but only 316 pages so let's cut down on the amount of material. I wager it was more of a "here's all of the stats, flavor, crunch, how can we fit it into this book while keeping the layout well designed?" and then they filled most of the negative space with artwork. Same is true of the MM.

 

[Zaukrie]

It is a good to great book, but some simple things would add to it, imo.

1. More interesting abilities, for monsters.

2. A size comparison pencil drawing on each page.

3. I miss tactics in the fluff.

4. More on where they live.

 

[arjomanes]

I am a huge fan of the decision for more art, better art, and bigger art. The art in both the PHB and MM have blown me away, with only a few exceptions, and it's head and shoulder above any other game books I own (I heard Numenera has good art as well, but I'm not that interested in the game). I think the Monster Manual is far better than the previous ones, and even better than the Pathfinder Bestiaries.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Monster books are very visual things, because people want to see these things. I can't remember the number of times a DM has awkwardly covered the rest of the page so we could see what we were fighting. Smaller pictures would make it harder to see the creature, both in that situation and in general.

There is nothing wrong with having art in a book, but I'm not interested in the finer detail of it so I didn't need it to be that big.

 

[SilverfireSage]

There is nothing wrong with having art in a book, but I'm not interested in the finer detail of it so I didn't need it to be that big.

What makes you think less art would mean more content? I doubt the artists had anything to do with any of the writing, nor did the layout designers have anything to do with either.

 

[mouselim]

For all its worth, I am also not 100% impressed with the MM. It's good no doubt and definitely a necessity as a basic buy into D&D 5e but it is certainly lacking certain easy reference tables and it also seem to bland. I'm not saying that the quality of the physical book is poor and neither are the content bad but it just didn't stand out much...moreover, it lacks a certain degree of depth (ecology?).

 

[prosfilaes]

even better than the Pathfinder Bestiaries.

The Pathfinder Bestiary left me somewhat unimpressed, most particularly with the way that descriptive text was based on how much space the stats took up; there was filler text for a few mechanically simpler creatures, and demons and devils got shortchanged on fluff. The bronze dragon got one line.

 

[KarinsDad]

Regardless of how much we like it, art is pretty much filler. They made a design change (compared to 3.5 at least) in this version that each new content starts on a new page. In 3.5 one monster goes into the next in the middle of a page. In 5e each new monster or group of associated monsters starts on a new page. I like this for organization's sake and being able to just look at the top of the page to figure out what monster you are at in the book as you are thumbing through. What do you do with the wasted space on each page? Fill it with art.

This appears to be the case.

About 100 pages or 28% is dedicated to artwork for precisely the reason you state.

 

[karmaween]

Yeah, I'm not 100% on it either. Missing the how-to on applying class levels to humanoids, lack of templates to apply lycanthropy or vampirism to existing humanoids (with the subsequent CR changes), among other things, makes this a bit lackluster for me.

Don't get me wrong, it's a needed resource as a DM, but having to wait two more months for the final core book to flesh out the missing pieces I expect in my monster guidebook, is a bit frustrating. All the art in the world can't make up for the poor decision to do a staggered release of core manuals.

 

[Kaychsea]

I like 95% of the book. The only bit I feel is a bit of wasted space is all the good dragon entries. We're unlikely to fight those guys, we dont really need them. I would have preferred some more higher level bad guys in that space.

You might aspire to be fighting alongside them though?