Monster books: No love?

[Arnwyn]

Even when the new ones are better then the ones you have?

Yes, even then (and the above is, as noted by others and even yourself, a subjective statement... one that I've seen no evidence to substantiate. Yes, I've read a couple of reviews. No, they weren't convincing.)

As many others have said - saturation is saturation.

 

[Garnfellow]

Denizens of Avadnu

OK, I'm something of a monster book whore, and I had never even heard of this one before reading this thread. It sounds pretty cool -- a full-color hardcover with solid game mechanics. My big question is, how portable is this book to different campaigns? It sounds like the Violet Dawn campaign world veers quite far from standard D&D fantasy. (Philosophically I think that's a great thing, but a bunch of neat alien critters doesn't much help my pseudo-European campaign.)

On a similar note, how portable is the Legacy of the Dragons to a non-AU campaign?

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Denizens of Avandu
Fantasy Bestiary
Creatures of Freeport

Denizens of Avandu - I spent about a half hour with this book and decided the acclaim for the production value was WAY over-stated. The blurry artwork turned me off big-time ( especially the comic book style coloring ). Different strokes I guess. I did see some unique "alienesqe" beasts there though.

Fantasy Bestiary - For such a huge book, this one only has a handful of truly original creatures - mostly rehashes of similar existing monsters. Really missed the boat by being released as 3.0 practically a week before 3.5 core books were released.

Creatures of Freeport - A glorious book indeed. Even more setting specific than Monsternomicon though I'd say. Only 17 Entries + a few appendixed animals will relegate this one to niche buyers and hardcore Freeport DM's.

 

[maddman75]

I reached the saturation point a while ago. I have

- Monster Manual
- Monster Manual 2
- Fiend Folio
- Creature Collection
- Creature Collection 2
- Denizens of Darkness

Not to mention the odd creature in various sourcebooks, such as Manual of the Planes, Book of Vile Darkness, and so on. ANd I've found that 90% of the time I just take something from the MM, add a little flavor, maybe some templates or class levels if need be and call it done. Another big fat book of monsters is about the last thing I need really.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Sorry BFG, but while the Monsternomicon is good, unless you are running an IK or steampunk campaign, its of limited use. Too many of the monsters rely on a steampunk gimmick, or are simply rehashes of existing monsters (there are TONS of monstrous humanoids in that book, and some undead seem repetitive). I did like the format and story hooks- very cool idea.

I'd rank the following monster books from the past year or so as top-notch.

Book of Fiends!!!
Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary
Tome of Horrors II
Denizens of Avadnu
Liber Bestarius (don't remember if its over a year old, but I use it a lot)
Fiend Folio
Deadliest Creatures Tome (I know its FFE, but most of the monster ideas are really pretty cool)
FFG's Lore books (Necromantic, Elemental, Twisted, and Giant)

You are not wrong in your Monsternomicon assesment, although you could definietely use most of the creatures without a steam/gun setting. I find that there are two main aspects ( although many secondary aspects) to a creature entry in a monster book that cause me to use them in my game:

1) Enough "flavor"/background to fire my imagination and really bring the creatures motivation and place in my game world alive. Thus the minimal WotC approach to monsters is getting really dry for me.

2) Completely new abilites or truly original combinations of characteristics and special abilities. Something beyond "As the spell XXX" twice per day.

I love the BoF!

Liber Bestarius is almost 2 years old now I believe...

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

Well one monster book that people should still get:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/store/hlm/artpreview/index.html

The idea of a monster book designed to be used with existing miniatures is very cool! As I've been running playtests for Masters and Minions, I keep running up against the problem of not having anything in my warchest that represents the new monsters (although I think I did okay nevertheless; see here for some pictures).

The fact that proceeds go to an anti-hunger charity is also quite cool, and it's got a great list of authors. Hats off to Sean!

Personally, I think monster books are a kind of crutch. Honestly speaking, if you look into the ecology and flesh out the culture and background more, you'll have a very interesting monster. Unfortunately, most of them end up being a bunch of stats.

I agree with you that fleshing out the ecology of the monsters you're already using is a great way to keep presenting new challenges without turning the campaign into a zoo, Krug. That's the approach Behemoth3 took for Masters and Minions, so it shouldn't be surprising that I agree!

If, as the buttons have it, "reality is a crutch for people who can't handle D&D", I love crutches! Being a DM is hard enough that I don't mind taking whatever shortcuts I can get as long as it doesn't compromise the integrity of my game.

IMHO, the part of using a published book that goes beyond being just a crutch is the playtesting it represents (or should). The concepts of the monsters in each Horde Book were easy to get right on the first try, but the first draft of the stats was almost always broken in some way: too easy, too hard, too skewed in a certain direction, etc.

When I've created monsters just for my own campaign, I fudge behind the screen to make things come out right. As a DM, I certainly never put in the time it took as a designer to really make sure that the published stats hold up--and when the books come out on August 19th, I'll be holding my breath to see if y'all agree that they do!

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

If you aren't playing IK? IMHO, lots.

And the IK setting book is still not out...

The Monsternomicon is nicely arranged, but too many of the creatures are either variants of things that either you already have (like goblins and ogres) or steamtech creatures that many not fit. It's a great book within its niche, but otherwise...

Creatures of Freeport is really a better monster book. It takes the same general concept and improves on it -- for example, there is more lore categories, and they are broken down by knowledge types, and the uses section is more robust and the plot hooks are much more developed. AND the creatures are more applicable to a common campaigns.

The IKCG is out ( I got it at my FLGS yesterday and started a thread in general for discussion ), and it has 400 pages of material - It includes more than enough setting material to start an IK Campaign, even though the "World" book is a few months out yet.

I hope the paradigm of more meat for setting specific monster books like CoF and LotD continues. Less creatures for sure, but they are especially great for DM's running games in that setting. The Monsternomicon has a LOT more generic utility than either of these books though, even with the large number of monstrous humanoid as you point out.

 

[mearls]

Monster books are an interesting nut to crack. Of all the d20 product types out there, they're the only one to follow a clear development path. All of those d20 companies saw Privateer getting award after award for the Monsternomicon, and many of them have chosen a similar design approach. There's an increasing tendency to make detailed, long entries that give a lot of information about a few monsters.

I think that leads to the sort of book that is fun to read, but not necessarily easy to use. The more monsters a book offers, the greater its inherent utility. A book with 5 creatures of CRs 1/4 to 20 has a much greater chance of purchase/use than one that has 12 creatures of different CRs. If your game is at level 3, or level 8, or whatever, the book with more creatures has a greater chance of having something you need. You may have had more fun reading the book with a lot fewer monsters, but it's less likely to have a creature that you can use, and a lot of the details may never work their way into the game.

So that's the first problem - you can't really judge a monster book until it's been on your shelf for a year, unless you buy RPG books as literature to read. That's why I don't trust monster book reviews. There's a big gap between the monster collection that's fun to read and the one that's easy to use.

But here's the second, and more difficult to overcome problem: familiarity.

Most veteran gamers, the type that are going to go out and buy a new monster book, have a good grip on the monsters in the Monster Manual. They know them from second edition, they've used them before in 3e. When a DM sits down to create an adventure, he might think "I need a CR 12 or so creature with a lot of magical abilities." If he thinks about it for a minute or two, he can come up with a bunch of classic D&D monsters from the MM - mind flayer, beholder, lich, and so on. If he wants to use a non-standard monster book, he has to make the effort to pull the book off his shelf and flip through it.

That's more work. Work is bad. So in goes the familiar monster.

So, you might now see the fundamental dilemma - companies are trying to break that familiarity barrier (wittingly or not) by sticking in lots and lots of detail. But that in turn cuts down the basic utility the book offers. In essence, the designer robs Peter to pay Paul.

I think that monster books are an excellent example of the d20 market's inability to really look at the problem of design in a new and interesting way. d20 companies generally just try to do what WotC does, but they lack the budget to do it better, especially since monster books are so art driven.

You'll notice that most, if not all, of the new monster books that have been released are tied to a setting. In Malhavoc's case, Legacy of the Dragons sells great because we have lots of AU fans who need monsters for their games. The book pushes aside the MM in terms of that game. I think it woud be really interesting, though, to peer into some alternate universe where Legacy of the Dragons wasn't an AU product and look at the sales numbers.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

LotD is very nice. Some of the monsters did feel kinda like AU versions of MM monsters; the one that pops to mind is the lastrogos, which seemed illithid-y. The Monsternomicon is really good. Gristle and Flay are some of my faves, but I love all the Grymkin fey. I understand the the IKCG doesn't have any info on them, though MN1 is useful for any pulp or fairy tale horror game. I will definately be buying the 3.5 one when it comes out. ToH2 is a mite bit too expensive for me, though.

 

[Desdichado]

Sorry BFG, but while the Monsternomicon is good, unless you are running an IK or steampunk campaign, its of limited use. Too many of the monsters rely on a steampunk gimmick, or are simply rehashes of existing monsters (there are TONS of monstrous humanoids in that book, and some undead seem repetitive). I did like the format and story hooks- very cool idea.

While I continually hear (read) the complaints about all the "steampunk"ishness of the Monsternomicon, I have to admit, that leaves me scratching my head a little bit. Out of the 50-60 or so monsters in the book, there's about 5-6 that are "steampunk"ish. A more valid complaint that I've been hearing lately is that it rehashes creatures; the farrow replaces the gnoll, the gobbers replace goblins, the various trolls replace a variety of other monstrous humanoids, etc. Still, even that's not a bad thing; they don't replace them by being exactly the same with some IK stuff written in. It's of tremendous utility to DMs who homebrew, and might well see gobbers as a much more interesting take on the traditional ole goblin.

I'd still say the Monsternomicon is my favorite monster book, and I use it quite frequently.

Book of Fiends!!!

Yep, I agree. Along with Monsternomicon, this book sees the most use in my campaign. Then again, my campaign may be specifically well suited for those two kinds of books; a kind of Warhammer meets John Carter of Mars meets Robert E. Howard's Conan (as opposed to the movie's Conan) meets the X-Files. Weirdo undead, some aberrations (especially if they aren't chock full of gimmicky magic abilities) and fiends are especially prominent. An iron lich is a primary villain. Etc.

Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary

I don't own this one, but I've been underwhelmed to the point that I haven't picked it up yet. It didn't look particularly impressive from a presenation standpoint, and I didn't think it had a lot of particularly useful creatures for my purposes. It's also extremely expensive.

Tome of Horrors II

Another one that I don't have, but based on my experience with the first one, I'm not that excited to get it. The first one does indeed have some good creatures in it (although talk about redundant -- how many different types of undead are in there?) but the signal to noise ratio is quite bad. Granted, that maybe because the first one's main purpose was to convert older creatures that didn't make the cut into official products, and I think they didn't make the cut for good reason, so maybe ToH2 would actually be more useful to me than the first. But I doubt it.

Denizens of Avadnu

I just saw this the other day and it was the first I'd heard of it. If you complain about Monsternomicon being a bit of a niche product, you have to pay the piper his due and admit that this one is as well, even moreso, IMO.

Liber Bestarius (don't remember if its over a year old, but I use it a lot)

It is older. I actually use it very little for some reason; it seemed like exactly my thing when I was listening to the development of it, but I haven't found the occasion to use it ever. Before starting my current (albeit still fairly young) campaign, I went through all my monster books making lists of what I could potentially use in this campaign. This one had one of the smallest lists I made...

Fiend Folio

As did this one. I give kudos to WotC for going a little bit out on a limb with some of the ideas in here, but unless you're playing a very unusual planes oriented game, I can't imagine much of these get used. The weird ideas often end up being just weird instead of "hey, that's really different and cool"

Deadliest Creatures Tome (I know its FFE, but most of the monster ideas are really pretty cool)
FFG's Lore books (Necromantic, Elemental, Twisted, and Giant)

And those I have little or no familiarity with.