Favorite third party monster book

[Dragonhelm]

No love for the Bestiary of Krynn? It took second place at the Ennies a couple of years back.

That's what I voted for. Of course, I am biased.

Beyond the Bestiary of Krynn, my second fave is the Tome of Horrors. One of the best monster books out there.

 

[Voadam]

IH Epic Bestiary. You get a lot more than just monsters with it, and if monsters are really all you care about, then it's got some of the most evocative and interesting ones out there.

Of the ones in the poll, I'd go with Denizens of Avadnu.

And to the OP: if Complete Minions is your favorite, then why didn't it get a poll option?

It did, "other, please specify below"

I tried to come up with what I thought were generally the most popular 3rd party monster books.

I like it best, but I don't think it would be as popular as others.

The fact that Bestiary of Krynn is currently beating out Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary is a little surprising to me, even though PFB is 3.0 and BoK is 3.5 and full color.

 

[megamania]

I went with Tome of Horror but I don't have a 1/3 of the books.

 

[Nightfall]

*seven*

Freyar,

If you ask me it goes like this for monster books:

MM (THE one you need) Tome of Horror Revised, MM2, FF, ToH 2, Creature Collection Revised, CC 3, MM3, Book of Fiends, Fiendish Codex I and II, CC 2, ToH 3 and then the rest of them.

Voadam,

Maybe cause they have better looking dragons.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

He does a good job talking about the appendices, but I don't really get much of a feel for what monsters are in the bulk of the book from that.

You can go to the Dangerous Denizens page and scroll down for a list of the creatures in the book, sorted by type and subtype.

 

[Voadam]

You can go to the Dangerous Denizens page and scroll down for a list of the creatures in the book, sorted by type and subtype.

Mark, Any plans for this to go to pdf any time soon?

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Not at the present. I still have hardcovers in the warehouse to sell.

We generally limit our PDF releases to out-of-print products, or to products that we don't believe will sell profitably enough as print.

 

[Voadam]

Not at the present. I still have hardcovers in the warehouse to sell.

We generally limit our PDF releases to out-of-print products, or to products that we don't believe will sell profitably enough as print.

Crap. I only buy pdfs now and have an interest in this one. As well as the Hacklopedias.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You can go to the Dangerous Denizens page and scroll down for a list of the creatures in the book, sorted by type and subtype.

That's a pretty compelling list of names. Color me definitely intrigued.

I toss down the gauntlet to the Krynn-heads: Is there a comparable list of the contents of Bestiary of Krynn?

 

[Glyfair]

While I'm always, always a HUGE Creature Collection fan, I also realize one thing that's glaringly obvious to most. The mechanics of many of these monsters (and indeed the art at times), isn't anywhere NEAR as good at Tome of Horrors.

I voted for the Creature Collections because I found them to be the most evocative for me. The rules might have been quite weak in some of them, but the ideas they generated...

Tome of Horrors is perhaps my next most used. It's great for filling in classic D&D monsters that haven't been redone yet (or redone in a way that doesn't fit my purpose for usiung it). However, I really found it quite boring, I have to admit.

As for the rest, that I have:

Monsternomicon: Nice, but haven't had it long enough to consider.
Denizens of Avadnu: OK, but overrated, IMO. Good for those who want weirdness.
Book of Fiends: Great, but suffers from the overuse of lower plane denizens in the industry. It's not its fault, but you can't open a book without hitting a demon, devil, yugoloth, etc. anymore.

Liber Bestarius: OK, but seems to take some good core ideas and overdevelop them to where they become less interesting.
Creatures of Freeport: Good, will see use when I run a Lhazaar Principalities game.