D20 Menace Manual - Is it worth buying?

[ThoughtBubble]

I've gotten more use out of the thing than I have UA. The orginizaions are cool, as well as the enemy groups.

 

[Psychic Skeksis]

Bran did a fantastic review but I thought I'd add one more thing, reread the Ghoul, it's been changed from it's DND roots to be a Resident Evil style Zombie


.

DHTBIFOM...how has the Ghoul changed from the D&D version?

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Bran did a fantastic review but I thought I'd add one more thing, reread the Ghoul, it's been changed from it's DND roots to be a Resident Evil style Zombie

I wouldn't call that a review as much as a preview/summary by a very biased individual.
Incidently, there is a ghoul statted out in the free Trouble At Blackrock adventure available for download on WoTC's site, which is more in line with the D&D version.

<snip> I thought, "I can run an entire campiagn around just these guys" Then I realized over half the creatures in the book are that way.

Absolutely. There's a lot of that going around.

DHTBIFOM...how has the Ghoul changed from the D&D version?

DHTBIFOM??? OK, I have to admit that this one is totally new to me, and as a bonus, does not appear anywhere on Google.

The new ghoul is a template that can be applied to any "living corporeal creature that has flesh", rather than a creature in it's own right. Also, the new ghoul inflicts the same supernatural flesh eating disease that created it rather than paralysis. Finally, it advances by character class instead of "3 HD (Medium-size), or by character class".

If you like the old version, its stats can be found as I mentioned above. If you like the new version, the Menace Manual is very nice.
As dream66_ said, the new one has a definite Resident Evil feel to it. Especially since animals can "catch it" as well as humans.
I've found that in D20 Modern you can go any direction you want. If you want magical or supernatural creatures you can have them, but if you want creatures to have an origin linked to science you can do that too. It doesn't even require a change in stats, you just change the story. Weren't the zombies in one of the Night of The Living Dead movies created by chemicals left behind by the army? When I run Trouble at Blackrock the

Spoiler

wood chipper isn't possessed by a demon, but is instead animated by nanites released when an alien spacecraft crashed.

. But anyway, you get the idea. Ghouls could be magically created undead, the result of experiments in bio-engineering, or victims of a disease as in the Menace Manual.
That kind of freedom is cool... Well, you know, until you get caught in the zipper or something.

 

[King of Old School]

DHTBIFOM??? OK, I have to admit that this one is totally new to me, and as a bonus, does not appear anywhere on Google.

Have never seen it before either, but I'll guess:

Don't Have The Book In Front Of Me.

KoOS

 

[Ranger REG]

Got my copy and I like it. Some would say that some of the material in Menace Manual should have been the core rulebook (they prefer d20 Modern to downplay the "fantasy" archetype found in D&D).

Anyone who is familiar with Dark*Matter will find some of the known elements in the Menace Manual.

 

[Dismas]

I posted my thoughts here http://www.otherniceman.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=572

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Have never seen it before either, but I'll guess:

Don't Have The Book In Front Of Me.

KoOS

AAARRGGHHHHH!!!

Thank you. Of course. Sometimes you see it and sometimes it just doesn't make sense.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Love the book.

I thought I would hate it, but the DnD-style monster content is quite low.

I like the demonic ichor - replace domination with radiation blast and it's a copy of the "black oil" from X-Files.

Now, if only I could find a flukeman...

 

[Psychic Skeksis]

DHTBIFOM??? OK, I have to admit that this one is totally new to me, and as a bonus, does not appear anywhere on Google.

"Don't Have the Book in Front of Me." Thanks for the reply on the Ghoul, too. I hadn't really read it close in the Menace Manual but I definitely will now...I *love* the Resident Evil influence...heh heh

 

[Andy_Collins]

d20 Menace Manual and Dark Matter

Anyone who is familiar with Dark*Matter will find some of the known elements in the Menace Manual.

And the new Dark Matter d20 Modern setting--coming out in Dungeon #108/Polyhedron #167--takes great advantage of that.