Do you run monsters straight from the MM?

[Lord Pendragon]

When I create my encounters, I tend to envision a critter to fit the scenario, rather than a scenario to fit the critter. Once I know what kind of critter I want, I hit the SRD. If there's already such a critter, I'll use that. If there isn't, then I'll usually just swipe the statblock from an existing critter and use it "under the hood" of the critter I actually want to use.

For instance, I created an encounter in an old, nearly-abandoned house. It was full of small porcelain dolls that I wanted to come to life and attack the party. Then I went to the SRD. Since there weren't any "animated dolls" and "tiny animated object" bored me, I wound up using the Stirge stats. So these tiny porcelain dolls would leap at the PCs, jaws distending to reveal inch-long fangs, and start sucking the blood straight out of them. Worked rather nicely.

In another encounter, I wanted a mummy...so I used the mummy in the SRD. Why reinvent the wheel?

 

[The Lost Muse]

I actually usually just bump a few stats and assign feats as needed; however, for major encounters I will use Savage Species/MM Revised and add class levels and other goodness.

 

[Arkhandus]

I was wondering how many of you actually use the creatures from the MM as is? Me personaly, I never use the MM. I think my players have memorized so many of the creatures, that they know all the specialized attributes, feats, etc.

See, this sorta thing doesn't happen to me or anyone else who owns more than one monster book and actually makes use of more than one on a regular basis. {:^D I can pull stock monsters out of the Monster Manual, Deities & Demigods (greater mummy, anyone? cyclops?), Monster Manual II, Oriental Adventures, Rokugan, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerun, D20 Modern, Arms & Equipment Guide, Manual of the Planes, Psionics Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, Savage Species, Fiend Folio, Monsters of Norrath, AEG's Dragons, Traps & Treachery, and Seafarers Handbook. I also have several issues of Dragon and Dungeon magazines to draw on. It doesn't take long to convert/fix a few stats here and there, like when using a D20 Modern Festergog or an Everquest D20 Graniteback.

But I don't have time to customize every critter my PCs will face. I'll customize NPCs and some monsters, occasionally, but usually I don't need to. If I want to keep the players on their toes, I can just throw a kobold lancer, banelar, bugbear rogue, festergog, lizardfolk blighter, tiefling ninja, ne-thalggu, caller-in-darkness, hengeyokai shugenja, nezumi samurai, le-shay, ghost dragon, or half-green-dragon troll fighter at the party. {:^D

 

[kigmatzomat]

I'd say 75% of the time it's a MM creature, possibly an advanced one, but still an MM creature. IMO the MM provides the "common" threats so they should make up the bulk of encounters. I do have "regional" variants that may look significantly different at first glance. (Hairless hellhounds, tiger-striped worgs, etc).

 

[BullMarkOne]

If I get enough time in the week I will go to the work copier, xerox the pages from the book I need and make notes on the stat block for any minor changes I want to make. It makes it much easier and I can make notes on the back of the page if I need. Then when its all done I can pitch the whole mess and move on to the next encounter or the next week. So in that sense I guess I do kind of use critters straight up from the MM but with minor modifications (if any). I guess I prefer to use my time dedicated to other areas rather than the stat blocks of my monsters.

copiers are too old and slow, I cut and paste from the SRD, then edit, and print.

 

[MonsterMash]

I mostly use things unmodified, except for leaders of groups of the base monsters or specials. I've got a few other books with monsters so I use those as well to break up the repetition.

 

[Li Shenron]

Most of the time I have used MM as-is. It doesn't bother me if players know some monster's specific abilities, after all their player characters might know themselves. And quite often they misremember something and make mistakes, which in turn could still represent a character's wrong knowledge.

When I modify a MM entry is it usually because I add class levels and make them NPCs. I have of course used also templates and HD advancement, but since recently I don't want to spend that much time on changing stats to a monster, which most of the time the players don't really notice...

And finally, I think that making each single monster encountered a different thing, tends to give the group the idea that there is not much consistence in this world and everything is possible, while I prefer to try and make monster races somewhat distinctive and consistence. Then, to support variety I'd rather make the _encounters_ different by changing the battleground features for instance.

 

[derbacher]

To echo an oft stated preferrence:

Thugs from the books, leaders get tweaked.

But there are enough in the three MM, various issues of Dragon and Dungeon, Fiend Folio, Eberron, BoVD, Draconomicon, the various Planes books, Savage Species and others that my players are never sure what is coming at them.

(Can you say half-fiend centaur bard 6 with the elite array?)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Depends. Almost all the monsters in the MM are meant to be advanced, given character levels, or templates, to make them more interesting.

All of them have 'suggested' feats as default, but those are just that, suggestions. None of those feats have to be taken and you can find yourself quickly dealing with some very different beasts with skill changes and feat changes.

I don't feel the extreme need to switch monsters around so much that they're not really recognizable. Part of the 'charm' of playing D&D is knowing that an orc is generally going to be swinging an axe at you with a strong arm. Of course in my world, those are GREEN Orcs who are gathering to perform the great wahgh on mankind and the curses men howl at the greenskins are well known.

 

[yennico]

Hm, both, I guess. For 'routine' monsters the MM is fine. Powerful creatures intended to challenge the PCs benefit from some attention.

Ditto