Anyone else miss monster books?

[Voadam]

I can use more. Certain things need to be fleshed out. But these require specialized monster collections. Rather than a case of hollow-point shells (like the ToH and ToH2), I need precision shots. Less quantity, more quality.

And for that I'm wanting to turn more and more to campaign settings or supplements. I want a book, for instance, of monsters suited for the cold northern fjords of my land, or the icy marsh, or the rocky desert. I don't need more temperate forest critters or evil undergroudn aberrations or dinosaurs or giants.

Arctic

En Pub Critters (EN Publishing)Turjenford is an arctic themed monster book
Frost and Fur (Monkey God) has a big monster section in additon to being all about Cold Climes
Frostburn (WotC) as well
Strange Lands: Lost Tribes of the Scarred Lands (SSS) has about a third devoted to an arctic continent with a big monster section

 

[DMH]

You returned ToH2?! *floored* I just...DMH dude, I can semi-appreciate you feeling that way about CC I and CC II, (though I felt CC2=way better but still), but doing that to ToH?! No way.

The Hellraiser concept is not my cup of tea- demonoids worse than demons defeats the point of demons. As for the rest of the TOH2, the only one I remember is the crystal catterpillar. The TOH- I own all the old monster books and the only thing that interested me much was the template section. Also replacing Sekola with Dagon annoyed me for some reason.

As for Brixbrix's Guide- each creature has an ecology, map, miniadventure, 3 hooks and sample treasure. Some even have footprints. What I like about it is the rules for undead plants and all the new dragons. There is also several pages devoted to the stat blocks of everyone in those miniadventures.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't love monsters, but a lot of monster books that are released are just rehashes on the same old topic. To truly strike me as an inspiring product, I want to see at least 1 new unique and interesting mechanic per monster as well some cool background elements. All of the new races and big creatures that come up really just bore me. The first thing I look at anymore with new monsters is Special Abilites and Special Qualities. If there isn't something new there, they really need to shine somehwere else. Otherwise I'll pass. I've seen far too many cool looking concepts using the same old mechanics. Maybe its just me, but that's how I feel lately...