And John saves me another $35

[JoeGKushner]

John's review of the old Mongoose book proves that once again, talk is cheap.

Now I'm going to have to wait for a review of their ultimate tome that's coming out at Gen Con because I'm not popping $100 bones down sight unseen unless it's a really gorgeous book.

With many of the WoTC products, while they have similiar issues, they're in full color and generally better laid out and easier on the eyes. We also get errata. I believe the last time Mongoose had a monster book with similiar qulaity, they quitely marked it half off.

 

[Garnfellow]

John's review of the old Mongoose book proves that once again, talk is cheap.

*shakes head*

Cooper has certainly saved me a lot of money.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Yep,

I bought Ultimate Monster I. Worthless, unless you count its value as fuel for my Chimmny Starter when I BBQ.

Since then, I had bought no other Mongoose Books. Matt claimed they changed, to try out their new books.

Finally did with ME 1 & ME 2. I should have read them more closely before I bought them.

I just started really paying close attention to ME 1, and already alarm bells are starting to go off.

For instance, the Bladeleaf is a tiny, winged fey creature. Whose native enviroment is listed as Underground. 'Strange' I thought, as the picture showed some type of sprite in a woodland setting. Read through the flavor text. Says they are native to WOODLAND settings.

A few others have this problem as well (and I'm just up to the D's).

Also, they seem to be very confused about how Level Advancement/ECL works. The number of times the LA = the CR seems to happen way too often to be coincidence. Other creatures have advance by Character Class, or no advancment is possible, and I can find no pattern in what determines what.

I haven't even tried to take detailed notes like Cooper does.

Has Mongoose improved? Yes, compared to the last book I bought, Ultimate Monster I. OF course a complelty blank book would have been an improvement.

I took Matt's challenge up finally. And, to be frank, Mongoose has gone from NEVER, NEVER, EVER AGAIN to PROBABLY NEVER AGAIN. They've gone from F- to C-. I still have better places to put to my gaming dollar.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I ended up buying both books. ME1 had some interesting creatures and is a much better book overall in terms of originality. ME2 was one in which I would have bought the pdf instead. Editing errors aside, there's not nearly as many monsters in it that I would actually want to use. Rehashes annoy me, but they can be useful if well done. Well, these are just too boring to be of any use.

Mongoose may still get a little slice of my gaming dollar, but they are right back on my "thumb through before I buy" list. Hopefully they will improve their editing procedures again and ramp up the creativity before their $100 monster book. As of right now, I doubt I'd even consider plunking down that kind of cash.

Kane

 

[DaveMage]

Now I'm going to have to wait for a review of their ultimate tome that's coming out at Gen Con because I'm not popping $100 bones down sight unseen unless it's a really gorgeous book.

I don't think the $100 price tag has been confirmed. Since it's a 1000-page book, it may be more than that...

 

[Breakdaddy]

Thanks to John for the review and Joe for the link. I haven't enjoyed Mongoose's products overall but have occasionally found a gem in the rockpile. This appears to be a standard rock, so I wont be wasting my time trying to do a thumb-through at the local shoppe.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I don't think the $100 price tag has been confirmed. Since it's a 1000-page book, it may be more than that...

It's possible, but $100 seems to be the extreme high-end price ceiling in the idustry right now. If it's more than $100, I would hope they put it out as a pdf. I have a cable connection, so even a 75 - 100 Mb book wouldn't be an issue to me. That is, if it ends up being a lot better than the ME books...

Kane

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Finally figured out what's bugging me about ME 1 and the Level Adjustment/Advancement style of this book.

The writers weren't on the same page. Many of the Advancement entries in the book just have a '-', while a near identical monster has a 'by Character Class' and another similar monster has a 'x-y HD (size)' entry.

That's what's bugging me. They have no sense of homogeneity in regardes to how to advance monster in this book. It seems if they were in doubt as to how exactly the Advancing Monsters worked in d20, to just put 'None'.

Not really important, I figure fewer than 25% of DM's regularly advances a monster by hit dice. Plus, I can quit racking my brains trying to figure out why it doesn't seem 'right' to me.

 

[Krug]

John Cooper = Epic Reviewer.

 

[Voadam]

It's possible, but $100 seems to be the extreme high-end price ceiling in the idustry right now. If it's more than $100, I would hope they put it out as a pdf. I have a cable connection, so even a 75 - 100 Mb book wouldn't be an issue to me. That is, if it ends up being a lot better than the ME books...

Kane

They've put out everything as a pdf now that they are on drivethru. But generally discounted only about 30% from print cover prices. Which is the one factor why I haven't picked up any of theirs yet, so many others more reasonably priced that I want to get, and so I will get the others first and for the foreseeable future according to my rpg budget.