M$ User, Drag and Drop Product

[Mr Fidgit]

thanks reiella!

Crothian, are you 'neverminding', too?

 

[JacktheRabbit]

I would like to comment that CC2 has all of the dark Carnival stuff that does not move into just any old campaign well and Monsternomicon has all the steam punk items that also transplant poorly.

So when you cut those out CC2 and Monsternomicon both become MUCH more expensive than the MM2 which has few if any creatures at all that wouldnt fit just about anywhere in the average DnD realm.

 

[Crothian]

thanks reiella!

Crothian, are you 'neverminding', too?

I hit quote instead of edit and didn't notice it until I posted.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I would like to comment that CC2 has all of the dark Carnival stuff that does not move into just any old campaign well

So when you cut those out CC2 and Monsternomicon both become MUCH more expensive than the MM2 which has few if any creatures at all that wouldnt fit just about anywhere in the average DnD realm.

Uh, there's only 4 entries/pages on the Carnival of Shadows in CC2. In CC there was a great deal more however (about 10(?) pages worth).

I would challenge the notion that the Carnival of Shadows couldn't be put, rather easily into 'standard' fantasy campaign (ie European/Medieval times based). For things like a Dark Africa, Eastern/Asian setting I readily agree it would be more difficult (but certainly not impossible).

I don't know anything about Steampunk and probably never will.

As to the original poster - the review seem far too short in my opinion. I would have liked to see more details on the specifc things you didn't like and why. Even if you added 6 more monsters to praise/condemn the review would still have been a little short. More details on why some parts of the book worked and why (most) didn't.

 

[Crothian]

As to the original poster - the review seem far too short in my opinion. I would have liked to see more details on the specifc things you didn't like and why. Even if you added 6 more monsters to praise/condemn the review would still have been a little short. More details on why some parts of the book worked and why (most) didn't.

I agree and it was my review. I've asked over in Meta if some one can delete it so I can redo the review and do it right this time.

 

[Nightfall]

Thanks Bov for explaining that. I know there were MORE than just Dark Carnival monsters in CC2. CC1, yes, has a lot of them. But not CC2.

 

[Graf]

Lots of fire and very little smoke

I got the MM2 recently. I was suprised at how low quality the book was over-all and considered writing a review or a message board about how unfortunate it was. Somebody else has done it for me.

Crothian wrote a servicable review hitting some key points and giving it a harsh grade. I'm a bit surprised to see so many luminaries out bagging him for it.

Its a low quality product from Wizards. While you might like it more or less than some other product you hated recently there are some things not to like:

Art
the arts gotten worse not better (MofF or MM) -- WotC (or at least RD) made a big push to create a new style of art for 3e. Someof there stronger competitors have really responded. They have to live up to that standard now.

Repeats
many of the monsters have been in print before (gem dragons, avolakia, etc). having more monsters you already own doesn't really make a strong selling point.

Unintelligent (or motivationless)
many are of the ravening-killers-who-hate-everything-and-live-only-to-kill type. Do we need a paragraph talking about how ravinous and obsessed with destroying everything this monster is?

Is the book a 2? not to my mind
(in my imaginary review it was going to be but the yakmen, of all things, convinced me that it was too harsh).
but I wouldn't say it was better than a 3 either.

they did a great job with the mid-to-high level focus. The higher CR monsters are fine, if anything epic level gamers will be disappointed. (The Monsternomicon had things with CR 40+ so I don't really follow this though)