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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jhaelen" data-source="post: 5300145" data-attributes="member: 46713">I had been lucky to get Draconomicon 2 at a reduced price and was very pleasantly surprised. After reading it, I decided I wouldn't use any of the chromatic dragons in my campaign. Now, there are a 12 metallic types, there's enough variety, and they're less well known than the chromatics. I also found the new take on metallic dragon psychology very exciting. Even the rare good-aligned dragons are going to make great villains!I was also impressed by the Lair write-ups. Calling them 'Lairs' doesn't really do them justice. They're all complete 'delves' of 3-4 encounters with lots of background and ideas to turn them into full-fledged adventures.My favorite 4e books so far have been Plane Above and Hammerfast.Imho, Plane Above showcases what makes the 4e versions of supplements the best yet:Seamless integration of fluff and mechanics, sufficiently detailed to be put to use in your game without (extensive) prep work.3e supplements often had more 'fluff' but it wasn't immediately useable. Yes, they inspired adventure ideas, but you'd have to invest a lot of work before you could actually use them.And Hammerfast has to have the best ratio of adventure hooks per page I've ever seen in any supplement! Initially it didn't look like much, but after reading it I realized, that it has everything that has been lacking in WotC's 4e adventures so far.For pure monster fluff, though, I still go back to my 2e monstrous compendiums. Regarding MM3, I actually felt it was a step back in usefulness. While there's more fluff than in previous monster manuals, it often felt like 'fluff for fluff's sake'. It's also less organized. I liked the short write-ups for monster knowledge checks. The ones in MM3 are unsuitable for that purpose. And several tactics sections only contain fluff now instead of concrete advice.Some things that I deem important are still missing:- a short write-up describing how the monster looks (a picture (which is sometimes missing, too) is not sufficient!)- a habitat/society entry, i.e. where do you encounter the monsters most often, and how do they live.The monsters in MM3 are an improvement regarding their mechanical aspects, though. (Almost) all of them seem to be very carefully designed.</blockquote>

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