John Cooper reviews MMIII, and finds loads of mistakes

[Pants]

I'd add Frostburn to that list.

Ditto.
So far, in terms of content and editing, Frostburn seems pretty, darn good. I've caught only one editing glitch, but that's it.

Can anyone honestly say that the MMIII has added more to the game?

Not at all.
If I were to review MMIII, I'd most likely give it a 2. Yes, that's harsh, but the editing problems are glaring and whether or not anyone thinks that they are a problem or not, they shouldn't be there to begin with. Plus, so far the monsters in the MMIII havn't clicked with me yet. A few have, but not many at all.

Then again, one man's monster is another man's wasted book space.

 

[Eremite]

In first and second edition nobody complained about the mistakes because nobody knew how to deconstruct the stats. (snip)

I think that was more a function of the absence of the internet although the collection of ad hoc rules that was both 1E and 2E did make deconstruction a pointless exercise.

(snip) but instead, the reviewer can just go through all of the entries to see if they were done correctly. In the process, the critique goes from whether or not these are interesting monster ideas or whether they will make for cool encounters to something more along the lines of how many mistakes the designers and/or editors made. While I agree with Sean's point above, and I do feel that designers should strive to turn in work that is as accurate as possible, I don't feel that many of the mistakes pointed out in this review will actually result in a noticeable difference in gameplay.

Another way of looking at this is that the reviewer is doing the job of the editors... and if I owned WotC I would be looking at that issue very seriously just as Mongoose did after the Conan disaster (NB: I am not comparing Mongoose and WotC).

And while I do understand your point of view, I'm a firm believer in getting the details right. If you get the small details right then the larger details tend to look after themselves.

For me, part of the issue is that I like to tweak monsters by advancing them, adding classes or templates etc... and I don't like to have to firstly check the maths in the book before checking my own.

 

[Vocenoctum]

And while I do understand your point of view, I'm a firm believer in getting the details right. If you get the small details right then the larger details tend to look after themselves.

For me, part of the issue is that I like to tweak monsters by advancing them, adding classes or templates etc... and I don't like to have to firstly check the maths in the book before checking my own.

While I agree that the stats should be right (since whether advancing or using the monsters as is, you're not likely to recheck everything), they're fixable. (Via errata or a forum or whatnot.) The value of the book is the monsters themselves for me. If you'll never use a monster because it's dumb, then having correct stats doesn't matter at all.
So, if MM3 got 3 of 5 stars because it was an average monster book, that's fine. If it got 3 of 5 because the monsters were great but the stats had some errors, then I think that's unfair. I've enjoyed plenty of the monsters, though I haven't used them in a game yet, I've fought a couple in another game.

I have had plenty of monster books I haven't used, most of which were fairly well rated review wise. The quality of monsters is subjective, so I'd rather there be more information about what's actually IN the book, rather than nitpicking every stat block.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Thanks, Whisperfoot. That makes sense, and I agree with both points (WotC shouldn't put out products with so many errors, but no I don't think these errors will really be a problem in game play, so they're not damning).

While I agree that the stats should be right (since whether advancing or using the monsters as is, you're not likely to recheck everything), they're fixable. (Via errata or a forum or whatnot.) The value of the book is the monsters themselves for me. If you'll never use a monster because it's dumb, then having correct stats doesn't matter at all.

True -- it's a little bothersome, but not the end of the world. As for the scoring (from the other part of your post, which I haven't quoted), I don't think it's unfair. If correct stats are important to the reviewer then he should score based on them -- the review is his opinion. I'd rather people were honest -- at least he's indicated in his review that the book, were the stats correct, would have received a higher grade. I think it's plenty fair.

Nick

 

[Woas]

A lot of this threads shows what is wrong with the RPG Industry. We get books that have errors in them, lousy playtesting, and little too no proofreading; yet the people buy them and smile and most don't even notice or care that they have errors. If we aren't going to start holding companies to higher standard then this is what we will always get.

Same thing happening (and has been happening) in the video game industry. Developers and publishers want to meet deadlines so bad, they push games that are only 70% complete out to the market, and already have Patches for download before the game is available in stores!

Wizards of the Coast is a professional company. There work should be flawless. Nothing less! It's not like printed material is some new industry. When someone wants to publish their intelectual work in a printed medium, it HAS to be flawless. No grammar mistakes, no factual mistakes. It's just the way things work. Things like "See page XX" or are just not acceptable.

I feel John Coopers review is not strict enough about the problems in the book. I know no other book that is this careless in its publishing.

 

[3d6]

Another mistake in the review -- the death giant's initiative is given correctly as +8. (+1 for Dexterity, +7 for guardian souls ability.)

 

[Vigilance]

I didn't feel like the review was very informative.

Most of the mistakes were values of +1 either way. Do people really feel like this matters in the great scheme of things?

Sure the goal should be perfection... but other than show me that John Cooper would make a great fact-checker/proofreader, I'm not sure what this says about the book itself.

Look at it this way- in the statblocks we'll say 1,000 mathematical computations were performed. If 100 errors are found, that's a pretty high accuracy percentage.

And as near as I can tell from the review, he liked the monsters a lot, but knocked it down from a 5 to a 3 because of the mistakes (which again were usually a +25 rather than a +24 to hit).

I give the reviewer a 2/5.

Chuck

 

[Richards]

Actually, he said in a post earlier in the thread that he brought it down from a 4/5 to a 3/5 as a result of the errors. I'm kind of in Kajamba Lion's camp - a "final score" in a review is pretty much just the reviewer's opinion, which naturally is going to be somewhat subjective. As long as he explains his reasoning in the review itself, I really don't care what the final score is. John rates "accurate game stats" pretty high up on his list; some others don't really care all that much about a few stats being off by a point or two. Personally, when I read a review I'm more concerned about what the reviewer actually says about the product than I am about what score he gave the book.

Johnathan

 

[Connorsrpg]

Wizardru wrote: Animals, in particular, may vary somewhat due to the fact that they are, well...animals. For example, to compensate for the fact that Elephants have a ST30, we get "Natural Tendencies: Some creatures simply aren’t made for certain types of physical activity. If it seems clear that a particular creature simply is not made for a particular physical activity, that creature takes a –8 penalty on skill checks that defy its natural tendencies. In extreme circumstances the creature fails the check automatically." To prevent that super-jumping elephant from coming into play.

Exactly. That is why I love to mess with animal's skill ratings. for eg I like to create different breeds of horses that have different qualities. One breed that can jump well. I take a couple of skill points from Spot and Listen and add to Jump instead. That is why it is a help if they are correct in the first place.

Wizardru wrote: But for horses? I'm not seeing what you're refering to, here. I see the Heavy Warhorse has a Listen +5, versus other horses...but he also has one more hit die, so that's where he spent his skill point, AFAICT. The mule has a Listen and Spot of +6...but he also has the alertness feat, so that should be OK, too. What are you refering to, specifically?

Correct again. My bad I did what I should have done b4 posting. Horse stats are OK. I found where I had a prob...ponies.

A pony has +5 Listen and +5 Spot? 2hd, no Wis modifier and no mention of bonuses. Shouldn't it have +5 in ONE of these stats or have +5 split between the two skills. (BTW INT=2).

Again, I am no laws lawyer either, and care little for mistakes in play. But it is a shame when you go to modify something, using the rules, and find errors in the original.

Don't take this out of context. I don't see this as a major flaw and I won't ban ponies from my game...it is just something that errs me. And makes creating those special breeds difficult. IF the problem is there and there is something that I haven't missed . Please tell me if I have

Though in MMIII ther obviously are several errors and I still am not pleased. So I will simply use John's list as errata and move on

Connors

 

[Psion]

I'd add Frostburn to that list.

I wouldn't.

It was decent, no doubt, but engaged two pet peeves of mine.

First, some of it looked like... how do I put this... flavored topings. Okay, I don't really know how to put it, so let's call it one pet peeve.

That one being: they gave a spellcasting class with lots of abilities full spellcasting advancement. After BoED, I though WotC had that one figured out.