General Monster Manual 3 Thread

[Obryn]

I have to say... wow. This is an amazing book of monsters. By far, the best yet. I dig the increased damage. I dig the increased accuracy of Brutes. I think those things together will encourage DMs to run level-appropriate encounters, and cut down on combat length as a result.

The monsters themselves are pretty insane. I'm already planning to use the Banderhobbs in an upcoming session - and probably the Catoblepas, too. In fact, I'm going to end up excising quite a few encounters from P3 and replacing them with new ones.

Some random thoughts...

* Sorry, WotC, but "page xx" errors are frankly inexcusable in a published product.
* Thank you for bringing back pure elementals! Finally! The only brokey ones I see are the Fire elementals - 15 Ongoing at Epic just isn't much punch.
* Lolth is awesome and badass. Such a well-designed Epic creature.
* I think most Solos need something along the lines of Immortal Resilience. I like that all the Named threats here have it.
* They weren't screwing around with the increased damage. I was tentative on the "double the static bonus" fix, but having seen the new monsters, it looks just about right.
* For the first time, a 4e Monster Manual is good reading! I was a big fan of the sparse layout in MM1 at first - but that was when I was using it in play rather than either DDI printouts or Masterplan. Now that I have easy ways to keep the fluff from interfering with my crunch, I want fluff!

All in all, well done. I was tentative about buying the book, and even cancelled my pre-order at one point, but I'm glad I ended up picking it up.

-O

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

How useful is it for people who DM a Heroic tier game? My current 4e game is low Heroic; it will probably be at least a year before we hit Paragon. Will I get much value out of the MM3?

 

[Lancelot]

Very useful for Heroic Tier. A lot of cool monsters for the lower tiers; typically with a lot more flavor than your average goblins and orcs. There are also many variations to existing creatures (ogres, gnolls, minotaurs, etc) that make them more interesting.


I agree with Obryn - this is probably the best pure Monster book I've seen since 1st edition (or maybe 2nd edition - I'm a huge fan of the Planescape monstrous compendiums with the diTerlizzi art). There's a ton of flavor in here, and a lot of it is old school. Shout-outs to the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Isle of Dread, Temple of Elemental Evil, Blood War, Vecna, specific demonlords and archdevils... plus more detail on the unique 4e-isms (Dawn War, Primordials, Astral Sea, etc).

 

[Obryn]

There's a good spread of monsters in MM3. Judging by appearances, I'd say about 40% are Heroic tier. The rest are at various Paragon and Epic levels.

-O

 

[Rechan]

I am still upset about the ToC. WHY put individual monsters in the ToC, rather than just the subheading? Why bother having both 'Spawn of Kyuss' heading and then 'Wretch of Kyuss', a version of the Spawn of Kyuss monster, in the ToC?!

It's just a waste, cluttering up the ToC.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Depends on what kind of monsters you want to face - sure, there is a lot of paragon and epic stuff in there, but there is some neat/useful heroic monsters too, for example:

For clarity: low heroic = lvls 1-4, mid = 4-6, upper 7-10 -ish

Apes - mid heroic
Arcanian [an undead wizard] - upper heroic
Behemoths [dinosaurs, 2x tricertops, 1x pteradactal] - upper heroic
Cambions [half-devils] - upper heroic
Cave Fishers [ambush monsters] - low heroic
Chitine [drow abominations] - mid/upper heroic
Craud [giant crabs] - low heroic
Dark Ones [shadow halflings] - mid heroic
Demons - though most are higher tiers, there is one that is low heroic, and one upper heroic
Devils - as per demons, but one is upper heroic
Dragons - have some mid and upper heroic elite versions
Dread Warriors [bound undead] - mid heroic
Elementals - have low heroic versions
Foulspawn - 2 are upper heroic, one of which is a minon
Frogs - low heroic
Gargoyles - upper heroic
Ghouls - mid heroic
Gnolls - mid heroic
Gremlins - mid/upper heroic versions...

And that's just half the book... so yeah, there's a bunch of heroic stuff in there.

Myself, as an upper heroic DM (PCs just hit 8th), the thing I like about it is that the upper level monsters gave me a better idea of where things might go plotwise as the PCs climb the tiers... really had no idea what I would do for epic before. Now I do, and can start laying the groundwork/plot hooks/foreshadowing now.

 

[Rechan]

I used the Crauds in an encounter yesterday. They hit hard. One monster, the Brute, has an encounter power that does 2d12+10 and knocks the target prone. It did a solid 24 points of damage to the Warlord, would have dropped him straight to 0 had it not been for the Swordmage using a utility that let him reduce damage of an attack to an adjacent target.

The Skrimisher has an AW power that lets it make two attacks, and if both hit, its encounter power recharges and it uses it for free. All three hit the same target and he went down.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I am still upset about the ToC. WHY put individual monsters in the ToC, rather than just the subheading? Why bother having both 'Spawn of Kyuss' heading and then 'Wretch of Kyuss', a version of the Spawn of Kyuss monster, in the ToC?!

It's just a waste, cluttering up the ToC.

I'm the opposite. For a book like an MM, I'd rather they put each and every creature, including individuals and subtypes. Makes it easier to find things quickly, especially if you're dealing with a creature where the subtype name isn't as obvious a connection as the one you mentioned. (Also, for someone new to the game, they may not remember off the top of their head that "Spawn of..." is the proper heading; maybe they're thinking "Wretch of..." is the actual name, and can't find it under W.)

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Very nice book, I'm using some of the frogs tonight, pairing them with some bullywugs. Should be fun.

 

[Victim]

Our copy has some printing errors where some pages are missing a green ink - the headings are all blue instead of the normal color.

Providing terrible 'in character' stories instead of actual information about the monster is pretty dang weak. Each monster doesn't get too much space for non-stat information, so it should really count. A little story that's as much about people around the monster doesn't strike me as an efficient use of that space.

I'm not sure about the new damage guidelines. MM1 damage could be kind of flat - OTOH, there were often ways to exploit synergies between monsters or within their abilities to crank it up.