D&D 5E Does Anybody Else Seriously Love the Monster Manual? My Thoughts on the MM.

[painted_klown]

Hello all,

I bought the PHB and the MM not too long ago, and have been reading through both of them as time allows.

Prior to making my purchase, I assumed that I would love the PHB, but not get as much enjoyment from the MM. However, I felt as a DM, that the MM was a "must have" purchase.

After checking them out initially, I instantly found myself really enjoying the MM. In fact, I began to feel I liked it even more than the PHB (not that I don't love it as well). Now that I have had them for a bit, I am finding the MM to be seriously fun to read.

Of course, I like the artwork, but more than that, I find the MM to be very inspiring as a DM. In fact, I was rather surprised at the wide variety of monster types that can be found within its pages. I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of monsters that could be used in a horror themed campaign.

I have been pouring over the MM, looking for monsters that would work for this and I feel like there are so many good options, that it will be difficult to decide what to use.

Vampires, lychanthropes, mummies, wolves, bats, hags (witches), demons, ghosts/spirits, various zombies, etc. (How cool is the Blink Dog!!! )

I was brainstorming ideas tonight, and decided that I would like to create my own campaign. It would be a horror themed campaign who's story is propelled along by an evil group of cultists (also in the MM) who are using evil magic & monsters to try to take over the world. Priests are in there as well, and will make great NPCs, as well as surprise foes or maybe even join the party for a bit. You'll have to excuse me, I am still brainstorming. LOL!

Obviously, I don't have the story fleshed out yet, but I ran the idea by my players tonight and they were all down with trying it out in the future!

My plan is to finish the starter box, then have my players roll up their characters, and run through HotDQ, and possibly TRoT after that. One of the players has expressed interest in trying his hand at being the DM, so I figure at that point, I would let him take the reigns, and begin work on my home brew horror campaign. If possible, I plan to try to create an adventure that takes the players from level 1, to level 20 (or until they get bored with playing in that world OR I get tired of creating further adventures in that world).

By the time all of this rolls around, I should have the DMG, (and have read it over) to help me with ideas, and fully fleshing everything out, creating NPCs, dungeons, etc.

Perhaps it's "new player/new DM enthusiasm", but IMO, the Monster Manual is an excellent book, that provides TONS of inspiration for those looking to create worlds of their own. With the vast amount of monsters, and monster types, I cannot imagine any DM would feel let down by this book.

Highly recommended!!!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It's definitely the best one since 2e.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I love the Monster Manual as well. You will probably love the DMG as well. It will really help a new DM like yourself as well.

Also Blink Dogs are cool and they are Lawful good creatures as well. Meaning they can likely be helpful allies or pets to players and such.

 

[painted_klown]

It's definitely the best one since 2e.

I have only read the 5E MM, so I have nothing to compare it to.

Even with all of the praise I heap upon it, I do have a few quibbles, so it's not a total n00b/fanboy love affair.

My biggest issue is that I had to come online to get specifics on how to read the stat blocks. It should have explained how to read them, inside the book. A chart/labeled guide would have easily solved this problem, and not have taken much space.

Issue 2, is that the "monsters by challenge rating" supplement should have been included inside IMO, after all, this is the official MM. It should be self contained, with no internet usage required.

My last nitpick is just that...a nitpick. I would have liked to have seen art for 100% of the monsters. I fully understand why this was not done, though...so that is a very minor thing for me.

I love the Monster Manual as well. You will probably love the DMG as well. It will really help a new DM like yourself as well.

Also Blink Dogs are cool and they are Lawful good creatures as well. Meaning they can likely be helpful allies or pets to players and such.

Good deal, I too think the DMG will be quite inspirational for me. I am guessing the info it contains will help me come up with a fully realized world for my players.

 

[Wolfskin]

I really dig it, though I liked the DMG better of the core books. Lots of nice things in the MM, though!

 

[Kinneus]

I really love the MM. I love 5e in general. That said... I did have some quibbles. Cross-posting this from the Order of the Stick forums:

A (Tiny Portion) of the Writing is Eye-Rollingly Bad: Overall, I loved the flavor text. This is one thing (early) 4e fumbled very, very badly and I really enjoy all the background and flavor (the majority of) monsters get. But... anything in those little "in-character" style brownish text boxes was terrible. I mean awful. The entries for sprites, spined devils, cambions and clay golems strike me as particularly bad. A few were effective, but overall they "brought me out" of the world and fiction in a really bad way. Am I alone in this?

I Kind of Really Miss Monster Roles: I know 4e is not popular, but this was one thing I loved about it. The differently-defined monster roles let you build interesting but thematic encounters. I wish Hobgoblins, for instance, had stat blocks for a gobbo footsoldier, a gobbo archer, a gobbo siege engineer, a gobbo low-level cleric acolyte/chaplain type thing, and a gobbo commander. You know, things that would conceivably make up a hobgoblin force. Instead we have "Hobgoblin," "Stronger Hobgoblin" and "Even More Stronger-er Hobgoblin." This was a problem across the board with monster design.

Many Monsters Feel Very Mundane and Same-y, from a Crunch Perspective: This is related to my above pet peeve. A staggering number of the monsters in the book could be summed up as "Vaguely Humanoid Thing What Walks Up to You and Hits with you Claws, or Maybe a Specific Melee Weapon if You're Lucky." I found myself pining for Artillery-type or Controller-Type Monsters of 4e.
In particular, I remember pulling my hair out upon reading the entries for Salamanders and the imp-like magma things in particular ("Magmi?" Wait, I just looked it up... Magmin). It would have been so, so easy to give them a fire-based ranged attack, so they at least had some tactical options open to them and could be a little memorable. But no. They just walk up to you and hit you with claws and oh by the way happen to be on fire I guess.

The Salamander at least has a ranged option. It throws its spear. Sigh. Why can't the fire-creatures shoot a frickin' fireball every once in a while?

The Creators Seem Almost Scared to Throw Magic-Using Monsters at You: I agree that many 4e monsters were too "high-magic," but this feels almost ridiculous. Even the monsters that do have spells don't seem to have particularly scary spells. Mind Flayers stood out in my mind as not having much they can actually do in combat, outside their Telekinesis spell-like ability and hoping their Mind Blast ability recharges. That a Mind Flayer has to wade into combat and try to eat brains with its tentacles to feel effective just doesn't seem right to me. Overall, spell-casting monsters lack the bite I'd expect from them, but luckily this easily handled by just tweaking their spell-lists, I guess.

Needs More Templates: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed like the only template available was the Spore Servant under the Myconoids, and the Half-Dragons, right? The lack of a Skeletal Template and a Zombie Template seemed like glaring oversights.

Needs Standard Humans/Elves/Dwarves as Enemies: I was disappointed in this in particular, because the current campaign I'm running has a high chance of the PCs fighting a human militia, elven scouts, dwarven guards, etc. It seemed like an oversight that such "regular joe" type creatures weren't included... I guess I'm expected to modify the NPCs in the addendum? Maybe strip the magical abilities from drow/duergar and use them instead?

I understand there's another recent thread talking about the lack of templates. While I agree that we don't need more,the two they do have (spore servant and half-dragon) would not have been my top pick. Skeletons and zombies show up in every campaign always, and a template for them would have been very handy and useful. I'm frankly confused as to why there isn't one.

I want to throw some skeletal elks at my party, dang nabbit.

EDIT: Sorry for the italics, no idea why it's doing that.

 

[steeldragons]

Everything in a [quote/quote] block is automatically italicized. Don't sweat it.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I really love the MM. I love 5e in general. That said... I did have some quibbles. Cross-posting this from the Order of the Stick forums:



I understand there's another recent thread talking about the lack of templates. While I agree that we don't need more,the two they do have (spore servant and half-dragon) would not have been my top pick. Skeletons and zombies show up in every campaign always, and a template for them would have been very handy and useful. I'm frankly confused as to why there isn't one.

I want to throw some skeletal elks at my party, dang nabbit.

EDIT: Sorry for the italics, no idea why it's doing that.

On the little text boxs. Those were awesome how can you dislike them.

The other points are understandable until we get to the Needs standard humans/dwarves/elves part.

Did you miss the NPC stats near the end of the book. Those are the stats for standard humans, dwarves and elves, and any other player race. You want an Elf Scout use the Scout stat block and give it some of the Elf racial traits.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Skeleton Template, as far as I have worked it out:

Con set to 15
Wis set to 8
Cha set to 5

Still working on the rest, but by and large it appears there's no skeleton template because it's supposed to be a GM fiat creature.

Edit: Or, I could just look on page 282 of the DMG and notice they have the entire template for a skeleton, as well as for zombies, spelled out.

 

[Remathilis]

I really love the MM. I love 5e in general. That said... I did have some quibbles. Cross-posting this from the Order of the Stick forums:

A few rebuttals...

A (Tiny Portion) of the Writing is Eye-Rollingly Bad: This is (of course) YMMV. Personally, the writing on the whole is much better than 1e/3e and miles above 4e's original MM. However, there are always clunkers in any book.

I Kind of Really Miss Monster Roles: I don't. 4e's MM seemed redundant when it reprinted the same monster 3-5 times. Making a hobgoblin an archer is to give him a bow. Making a siege engineer is a hobgoblin with proficiency in balista. The only thing I (kinda) agree on is casters, but that is easily fixable (see below).

Many Monsters Feel Very Mundane and Same-y, from a Crunch Perspective: Again, not a real need to re-invent the wheel. Its very in line with AD&D or 3e era monsters. Some monsters could have used more options.

The Creators Seem Almost Scared to Throw Magic-Using Monsters at You: This is a reaction to 3e's "Every creature has Spell-Like Abilities" mantra. People complained that monsters were too complex; with feats, SLAs and stuff making monsters a pain to run. So 5e opted to simplify the process.

Needs More Templates: Not really. Most of the templates were more trouble than was necessary. What is the difference between an orc or human skeleton? An elf vampire or a tiefling vampire? Most of these changes would only need to add a few key racial traits and description to the monsters. Similarly, swapping out lich spells or giving a vampire casting is much easier than having to build a full NPC and then rebuild him with the template. A few others are redundant (half-fiendish compared to cambions or tieflings) or unneeded (summoning aside do you need the celestial template?)

Needs Standard Humans/Elves/Dwarves as Enemies: Didja MISS the giant section of NPC stat blocks? Cultist, Arcmage, Knight, Thug, Guard, etc? THERE are your Human NPCs. Want elves and dwarves? the DMG has a quick page of add ons to make elven archmages, dwarven knights, etc. The DMG page also has some simple monster race stats too, so you can make hobgoblin cultists, skeleton knights, orc thugs, etc. You can even use this page to customize other monsters (elf vampires, hobgoblin ghouls) if you want.