How do you like your Monster Manuals?

[GreatLemur]

As a potentially interesting side note, the stuff I see via email is much different than message board talk. For instance, with the monster makeover series I received probably 50 - 100 emails for each column. About 80% of them were positive, 20% were generally positive but took issue with a specific decision or idea, and 3 were screechingly negative. I think it's the public nature of message boards, along with the greater perceived anonymity, that makes people more negative on boards.

It could also be said that, when people say something they like, they're much more likely to actually tell the creator of that thing what they think. Similarly, when they see something they dislike, they're a lot more likely to go and bitch about it in public, theoretically out of the creator's earshot. So I don't think you can take email as a more reliable barometer of public opinion than forum posts.

But for the record, I dug the monster makeovers.

 

[Pants]

I wonder how many of the people who complain about classed monsters also complain about how complicated it is to build PCs/NPCs in 3E....

I'm curious about this as well...

BTW, Thanks for the insights Mike!

 

[delericho]

I wonder how many of the people who complain about classed monsters also complain about how complicated it is to build PCs/NPCs in 3E....

Actually, I'm nt sure those two complaints are as mutually-absurd as you seem to imply.

Those two positions can be rationalised by a person taking the view that the game designers should be providing them with useful and easy-to-use tools. As such, by making the game too complex, the designers have failed, and if they had done their jobs properly then there would be no place for the monsters-with-levels.

That's not a view I hold (I feel that creating levelled bad-guys is rather too time-consuming, but I have no objection to levelled monsters in and of themselves), but it is a view I think makes a certain amount of sense. After all, it is simply not possible for Wizards to provide levelled monsters of every, or even most, uses. So, one might argue that providing levelled monsters at all indicates a defeat on the "easy-to-use tools" front.

Or something like that.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Way back when, there was this little book called Enemies & Allies, which I snapped up as soon as I saw it, thinking, from the title, that would it be chock full of ready-made stat blocks. Instead, I got what appeared to be the designers' personal characters. One of the only WotC books that's truly been disappointing to me.

I voted for liking classed monsters and new critters in my monster manuals, but a seperate product...what Enemies & Allies should've been...full of classed critters would be stupendous. The organization entries in the first MM indicate all sorts of potential classed critters, yet provides no info. So, if I want to set the PCs on a raid of an Orc Tribe, those level 7 leaders and level 3 sergeants, and blah, blah, blah, I have to come up with myself. Given that making all those stat blocks is time I'd rather spend on plot and campaign development, I end up not running my raid on the Orc tribe.

So, while I have absolutely no problems with classed critters in the newer monster manuals, an updated version of Enemies & Allies would be appreciated as well, with human stat blocks too. Speaking of needing to update monsters from older editions...humans! Bandits, warlords, viking-style raiders, cultists, the city guard, etc, etc...all human antagonists that I end up having to stat up...and don't because I just really don't want to take the time.

 

[Thomas Percy]

Those two positions can be rationalised by a person taking the view that the game designers should be providing them with useful and easy-to-use tools.

Are you talking about software?