M$ User, Drag and Drop Product

[Crothian]

I side with Crothy on this. Mainly BECAUSE there's been MORE monster books that have come out of HIGHER quality than the FIRST MM. While I don't have MM2, I have seen others that have been much more THOUGHT OUT and also takes into consideration MORE than just how cool it might look. I will agree with Khan on one salient point, that IF MM2 HAD something like that on the back, THEN yes it would CERTAINLY deserve a low rating for that. But I think it deserves an average rating MAINLY because some of the monsters in there didn't quite cut the of being good IMHO.

It's not so much on who's right and who's wrong, as a style of review. Now a days it's not "Do I buy this product?" it's "Do I buy this product, or this one, or this one?" as we have many books covering the same area.

In looking back at the review, even if that section was removed I still would only rate this 2/5. I only mentioned a few monsters becasue I didn't want to write up a list of all the monsters in there I didn't like. So, I just mentioned a few good ones a nd a few bad ones.

 

[mmu1]

Huh... I'm just curious, in what ways do you think Creature Collection 2 raised the bar for other "monster" books?

I actually liked MM2 quite a bit - the creatures are, generally, more creative than those in the MM, the art is much better (with some unfortunate exceptions), the monster descriptions seem to have more flavor, the CR mix is quite good...

 

[Aaron2]

CC2 and Monsternomicon raised the bar on monsters books. I really hope people realize this.

The Monsternomicon and MM2 are two different types of monster books. To be fair with a bad rating of the MM2, you'd have to give the Monsternomicon a bad rating because its lacks MM2's variety.
The difference is one of format. You've chosen one format and declared it superior and then fault another book for not following that format. That's your prerogative, but don't come back and say "I really hope people realize this" when someone disagrees with you. I "realize" that I like both books, but I wouldn't like the MM2 if it were identical in format to the Monsternimicon.

Monsternomicon is better than the MM2 at what it does: provide groovy steampunk monsters, while the MM2 is better than the Monsternomicon at what it does: provide a variety of high CR monsters and some conversions of old monsters.

I don't see the CC2 as better than either of the others. Not even close.


Aaron (realized what a pain it is to type "Monsternomicon" over and over)

 

[Crothian]

The main reason for my dislike of MM2 was of the monsters. More then any other product, the sheer amount of creatures that exist just to kill seemed very, very high. I think that was due to the fact that this book concentrated on high CRs. I did list a few of the monsters I didn't like and that list could have easily been four times as long. I don't think that would have helped the review any, though.

My point on using the Monsternimicon and CC2 as raising the bar was because of their information on the creatures. Both products give detailed descriptions on the creatures. I felt that those products made the creatures in there easier to use because of the descriptions.

As I'm still new to this review business I thank you all for questioning some of my points.

 

[Squire James]

Well, I'm not sure about the Monsternomicon because your post is really the first I've heard of it, but CC2 was setting specific. Setting specific means you can include a LOT more detail about "how to use a monster" than a book like MM2 is allowed to, because MM2 is forced to deal with all "worlds". I suspect Monsternomicon also has some level of "specific setting" (probably less than CC2, but still...) that makes it easier to give details.

I'd go so far as to say MM2 and CC2 are "apples and oranges" as far as the sort of thing you're talking about is concerned. "Monsters of Faerun" would be a better clue for how WotC would do a "CC2 style" book than MM2 is.

To use your analogy, MM2 had to account for Mac OS and Linux, and the other products you mentioned didn't.

 

[Nightfall]

Not sure I QUITE agree with that statement SJ.

Yes CC2 is pretty campaign specific BUT you can still take out that part and have very interesting batch of monsters. Example:

Blood Moths (Just some blood sucking moths! Makes everyone more nervous! )
Blade Beast (perhaps a experiment of a transmuter gone horribly wrong)
Vertigen (Some new race that's developed vertigo skills to undo opponents?)
Blade Demons (It's a demon folks! Nough said )
Iron Devil (New shock troops forged in Hell perhaps?)
Bloodless template (A divine version of vampire perhaps?)
Athenia the Sphinx (Well she could be a relation to another great Sphinx?)
Moon Giant (Perhaps a mating of demon and giant gone a bit to far?)
Gaurak Troll (Have to rename it, perhaps Feral Troll but still strong powerful AND enjoys eating people more than the usual troll)
Tauron (Magical enhanced Minatours! )

Those are just some of the ideas I have off my head.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Oddly enough, when Monsters of Faerun came out, it was criticized for having a paragraph or two on how the monsters fit specifically into the Forgotten Realms. So obviously, it's a matter of taste. Which is fine. A review can be a matter of taste. It's an opinion, not a statement of fact.

 

[Drawmack]

I went to my game store this past weekend with two goals
a) pick up a new battle mat, because sometimes an intoxicated DM grabs the sharpie by accident
b) pick up MMII

An hour and a half later I walked out with a new battle mat, traps and treachery II and the book of challenges.

Why drawmack, didn't they have MMII in stock? Yes they did have it in stock.

Why didn't you buy the book then drawmack?
I found that, like most sequels, MMII sucks. I spent about 45 minutes reading through it to decide this. My reasons are simple, about half of the creatures in there I can get either the exact same thing or something very similar from a free online product (be it a net book or another companies free download). Also the quality of the book was low for the price. I could get a creature collection (not the creature collection mind you just a creature collection) from another company with more monsters and better art for the same price. So what I'm getting is a limited collection of monsters and for about half of them all that I'm getting is art. It's not really worth the money.

 

[kenjib]

I liked the MM2 better than both the monsternomicon and CC2. Here are some reasons:

1. The monsternomicon has too much steampunk. I don't play in Iron Kingdoms and I don't care for steampunk.

2. Because of the extensive coverage, the monsternomicon has fewer monsters than the MM2 (then subtract the steampunk ones that I won't use on top of that). The fluff is nice, but since I prefer homebrew as far as I'm concerned the DM can fill all of that in more closely tailored to the campaign setting, thus superior to using pre-made stuff.

3. The creature collection monsters were all pretty much imaginitively stillborn as regards my personal tastes. I don't really care for the Scarred Lands "look and feel," although I acknowledge that many others do and that's fine.

These are all completely subjective criteria. However, for me, monster manual II is clearly the winner between these three.

Crothian,

It's fine that you have a different set of criteria and I think it's good to express your personal opinion and tastes in the review. The only thing I didn't understand in your review was that you complain about the creatures having no world context, but then as regards the Linnorm you complain when it does.

 

[Zappo]

Microsoft is getting into RPGs?