Breaking my Monster Manual NDA? Gotta share my joy...

[storyguide3]

I thought this was what was actually promised -- not one monster per page, but at least no stat block split across pages. The question is, did they deliver?

I too believe that what was actually promised was clearer presentation and an effort to keep stat blocks from being split up. One monster per page is nice and all, but I would rather have more monsters per book with the same page count than have "one per page" set in stone. I find that some books that have been set up according to the latter policy are draeful space-wasters.

Frankly, I have no problem with a "stream of monsters" format, so long as the stat blocks stay together. Maybe its because the 1E MM was laid out that way and I just got used to it. Then again, there are a few non-WoTC d20 monster books that are not 1-per-page. Certainly no one slammed Necromancer for retaining the older format with Tome of Horrors.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Not to sound like a broken WOTC record, but I hesitate to make comments on layout-- nothing is final until you see it in the store. My version is, after all, a big pile of xeroxed pages.

And I am still bein' wary of my NDA, you know (although it seems a little pointless since some retailers apparently have the books already...)

Wulf

 

[thalmin]

Not to sound like a broken WOTC record, but I hesitate to make comments on layout-- nothing is final until you see it in the store. My version is, after all, a big pile of xeroxed pages.

And I am still bein' wary of my NDA, you know (although it seems a little pointless since some retailers apparently have the books already...)

Wulf

Well, we had a LOOK at the books already. It's not like we had a supply to sell, or even a single copy to hang on to.
Still, seems pointless. But who wants to tangle with legal.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Wulf!

Any major changes to the Planetar or Solar? I'm curious if they were boosted in the same vein as the Pit Fiend ~ I heard they weren't.

 

[Enceladus]

Wait a minute.


Is there or is there NOT going to be one monster per page? I'm going to be incredibly pissed off if it isn't. Not that I'll be able to do anything but shake my fist at the heavens and curse futily at WoTC but I really want to know.

 

[Will]

A minimum of tactics sections??

That really disappoints me. Not that I'm going to rant and go all '3.5 sucks!' or anything, but this was the single thing I was most looking forward to in 3.5 MM.

As for 'experienced DMs will know this'... uh. Yeah, if you've used a monster a bunch of times before. But I've sat staring at a DM flipping all over the place to try to figure out what a monster will do and what it's best approach would be many times. And this DM has been running a single D&D game for many years.

Ah well.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I put the negative stuff first because that's what struck out to me. I didn't go over the stat blocks with a fine tooth comb or anything but wanted to see what were the major differences.

Unfortunatley, I don't remember if the stat blocks spill over from page to page. Someone also asked about dragons. Don't remember what types of stat blocks they had listed.

I think they blew it with the tactics bit. I may have missed some entries for that, but I was looking pretty hard for specific information and did look through the whole monster section. For racial stats, for me as a GM, it makes it much easier to customize NPCs.

The CR vs. LE (Level Equivilent not Lawful Evil, wish they kept the ECL in this one) was for the author of Bastard's and Bloodlines who pretty much felt that the two were equal while I didn't.


Templates being in the text instead of seperate is personal preference. I always like having the templates seperate so I can study them as a group instead of having to flip through the different sections to see what template I might be interested in.

The Page number for the CR thing bothers me because some of the sections, like dragon, demons, devils, angels, are large and knowing exactly what page the thing would be on, instead of going, Solar should be under S right? would be nice and I don't think it would've added any pages since they CR table is on a seperate listing of it's own in the back.

Better than 3.0? Yes.

It is a book I'll be buying right off the bat.

 

[thalmin]

Joe, are skeletons now templates? If so, this illustrates why templates in the main text are a good idea: Monsters can be found where you expect them even if you don't know whether or not they are templates.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Skeletons and Zombies are templates. A few other undead though were not. I don't know if I'm recalling this correctly, but I don't think specters, ghouls, ghasts, wights or wrights were templates, although I do remember seeing a more powerful version of the wight.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Templates in the text is good for me -- I get a lot of use out of the alphabetical sequence, and not finding something, then realizing it's a template and it's at the back always throws me off.

Tactics sounds a bit disappointing, but it's not like I needed it. Monster descriptions also sound pretty good. I just hope the stat blocks don't require flipping pages -- at least if they split across pages, make them facing pages!

Of course, I've already preordered, so it's not like I was going to cancel ... still, nice to know the new product has added value.