Best Non-Core Monster Books

[Nellisir]

Mongoose released the Monster Encyclopedias I & II near the end of their time with d20. I make absolutely no excuses or justifications for the stat blocks, but many of the monsters were interesting concepts. There was enough range you probably run a campaign without the core books, or come pretty close. A lot of monster books seem to add primarily Rare or Very Rare monsters (ToH2), or they want to do something ALL NEW, which seems to be giving everything names like uthrikcoiwe and blweingwpg (cough Dark Sun cough).

 

[Argyle King]

Dungeon Fantasy Monsters is short, but good. It has a few ideas which break from the typical, but also has enough familiar content to be well rounded.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 1

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by core. That word became a bit of a loaded word when 4e declared that everything was core. By the same token, is an older edition (or Pathfinder) basic Monster Manual or Bestiary 1 core but 2 (or higher) not? I think that's a problematic designation.

To be clear - the first vanilla monster manual of any D&D-type system. Books that contain the stats of the basic monsters - orcs, skeletons, dragons, etc. The basic MM that's essential to play the game. It's sort of like shouting "Freebird" at a concert, or yelling your favorite edition on a D&D forum.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide is fantastic. I've also used several of WotC's Practical Guides young adult books. I've also recently picked up The Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary, and it's pretty great as well.

 

[Mark CMG]

Advanced Bestiary from Green Ronin (PDF link) has been very useful to me.

hardcover link - [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Bestiary-Dungeons-Dragons-Roleplaying/dp/1932442162/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320821607&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Advanced Bestiary from Green Ronin[/ame]

 

[Thanael]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/286267-best-monster-books-3-5-a.html

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Since some of the monster books that introduce monsters (Planescape, Mystra MCs, the Tome of Horrors) have been mentioned already several, I often find books that flesh out or facilitate the customization of monsters to be quite nice. From Ravenloft, the various Van Richten's Guides (including the Guide to the shadow fey and the guide to the walking dead that were released in 3e by White wolf under license Wotc) to be really useful and inspiring in exploring the monster mythos and fleshing them out.

I'm also fond of Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary (3.X) and Rite Publishing's Book of Monster Templates (Pathfinder) for giving me some really good ideas on making my own monsters and even coming up with whole storylines. Well-done templates are a fairly good mechanic for quickly altering critters or even fabricating entirely new ones based on the mechanics of existing ones. (The Civilized Creature and Positive Energy creature templates from the Book of Monster Templates I've found especially useful).

 

[Grazzt]

Tome series. Though my answer is probably slightly biased.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Tome series. Though my answer is probably slightly biased.

Given how many entries appeared in the Year's Best D20 (another good monster book, incidentally), Monte Cook clearly agrees with you.

 

[avin]

All Planescape monster compendiums.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Creature Collection I and II, some awesome monsters in there.