Monster Book Suggestions?

[Kitsunekaboom]

Ok here's what I've got.
Monster Manual 1, Creature Collection 1, Nyambe: African Adventures, Psionics Handbook, AEG Monster, Necromancer's Legacy, Tome & Blood, Masters of the Wild, and the Monster's Handbook. As well as numerous issues of Dragon.

So what's good?

I am crazy about templates I must admit.

Also, Outsiders with alignment subtypes are less useful in my campaign. (They kinda got kicked out by the local populace.) But I like them anyway.

So, what is suggested? So far Tome of Horrors and Monster Manual 2 are favorites. (MM2 has the tauric template which I find fun Fiend Folio also looks nice. Buuut open to suggestions here.

 

[Gez]

Tome of Horrors: Lots of oldies, including weird monsters. Very useful if you want more outsiders, undead and/or faeries. Templates include "abomination" (to make hybrid creatures like owlbear), animal lord (the quasi-divine embodiment of a specie), "beast of chaos" (twisted by the entropic essence of the Abyss) "bleeding horror" (gory undead keyed to an artifact), "dire animal" (self-explaining, with lotsa sample), "foo creature" (celestial creature for your oriental campaign), "skeleton warrior" (the fightery equivalent of lich, except unwilling to transform), "slime zombie" and "yellow musk zombie", plant-controlled corpses, "spectral troll", self explaining (the reason it's a template is because there are lots of variant trolls in the book), "therianthrope" (animals that are were-humanoid), and "thessalmonster" (to turn things into sorta hydra).

Monster Manual 2: More "earthly" creatures, lots of strange humanoids or monstrous humanoids, several nice constructs.
Templates include "captured one" (what happens when your gear decides it's your turn to be a tool), "chimeric creature" (turn things into chimera), "death knight", "half-golems" (with more in the WebEnh), "monster of legend" (unique paragon creature), "spellstitched" (nasty enchanted undead), "tauric", "titanic" (big freaking huge) and "warbeast" (from horse to warhorse, but with any other creature).

Fiend Folio: Weird extraplanar creatures (each author was tasked to write "what could become the new Githzerai/yanki", so you have several alien menaces from other planes, my own favorites being the kaorti and ethergaunt), strange stuff, and especially, new way to tweak monsters (symbionts and grafts, fiend PrC).
Templates include "half-illithid" (ceremorphised weird things), "half-troll", and other. I'm not much familiar with it right now.

 

[BOZ]

Tome of Horrors: Lots of oldies, including weird monsters... "slime zombie" ... plant-controlled corpses ... and "thessalmonster" (to turn things into sorta hydra).

thank you, thank you, thank you...

 

[Krishnath]

Kitsunekaboom: You should definetly get the Tome of Horrors first, then Monter Manual 2, and Lastly Fiend Folio, as they are all good monster books, but the tome clearly wins with the sheer amount of content in it. I am personally Partial to Lucifer, and the classic monsters from greek mythology (True Gorgons rock!)

Edit: Forgot the color closer

 

[Kitsunekaboom]

I have to admit, the flumph does make that one stand out quite a ways.

 

[Grazzt]

Get the Tome of Horrors first (hmmm...wonder why I would say that ), then the new Fiend Folio (it rocks), and then maybe MM2. I really havent found much use for the MM2, but that's just me. I have, however, found several uses for the new FF (and of course the Tome....)

 

[Kitsunekaboom]

Well, as for the MM2, I know I will put the tauric template to use if I get it. (Still waiting on that good old tax return >_<) But from what I have seen and read Tome is definately the first, most useful stuff. Fiend Folio and MM2 is almost a tossup, the Half-Illithid puts the FF over the top I think.

 

[BOZ]

kitsune, are you still drawing for us? you've got some competition now.

 

[Kitsunekaboom]

Would you believe I was an utter flake and forgot all about it? I kept having a problem with an image I wanted to do for my characters page on my comic. Took an entire week to get it even tolerable and I still wasn't very happy with it. Anyhow, will see what I can do about Mr. Tentacle Yeti.

 

[Frilf]

Here's a shameless plug, Kitsune, but if you really like templates, you should check out our Book of Templates on RPG Now. It's cheap and it has a lot of neat mods for monsters found in other books. Right now, there are 40 templates (including the WE, free with purchase). With the new edition, there will be over 85, the vast majority of them originals. OK, shameless plug is over.

With regard to the other monster books out there, my preferences are ToH, MM I, MM II, and then FF. So now I'm kinda on topic for the thread again.

Cheers!
Ian