Monster Books you'd recommend.

[Doc_Klueless]

I've ordered the following Monster Books:

Lords of Madness : The Book of Aberrations
Libris Mortis : The Book of the Undead
Fiend Folio
Monster Manual II
Monster Manual III

Any other books that a monsterphile like myself might be interested in?

I've heard of the Creature Collections, but don't know a whole lot about them. Also, I understand that their is going to be a Giant Monsterbook by Mongoose(?) coming out.

If you have the time burning a hole in your "pocket", so to speak, "What monster books would you suggest and why? "

 

[iksander]

The Monsternomicon from Privateer Press is darn sweet, and once again I've gotta recomend Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary. Its not quite a book of monsters, but a book of templates to apply to monsters.

 

[The Lost Muse]

I would recommend any of the books by Green Ronin, particularly: Creatures of Freeport, The Book of Fiends, and the Advanced Bestiary.

 

[haiiro]

Pound for pound, you've already got (or ordered) the monster books that see the most use in my games. But I love monster books, and I own most of them -- there are quite a few others that are good in different ways than the WotC books.

I'll second the recommendations for the GR monster books, particularly Creatures of Freeport and the Advanced Bestiary. Along the same lines as the Advanced Bestiary, Fantasy Flight's Monster's Handbook offers ways to customize, tweak and add variations to monsters by type, including PrCs, feats and other goodies. It's more like a toolkit more than anything else, and it's great.

Monsternomicon is full of flavor and cool creatures, and it oozes style -- I second that recommendation as well.

Malhavoc's The Legacy of the Dragons bestiary is very creative, and offers some unusual creatures (and not "unusual" in the "too weird to ever actually use" sense!). Same goes for the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary, from Atlas, which (apart from being huge) takes a unique approach in its presentation.

I've owned Creature Collections I and II since they were first released, and never used -- or even considered using -- a single creature from them. If you do decide to buy CCI, make sure you get the revised version, as the "beat the MM to print" first printing is full of errors.

I also have Tome of Horrors I and II, which have volume on their side -- they really pack in a lot of creatures -- but not presentation. I look through them for ideas, and the layout and style just doesn't grab me; that said, there are plenty of serviceable monsters in both books.

Dangerous Denizens (for Kalamar) and Eden's Liber Bestarius both have some neat creatures, but a lot of "meh" entries as well. I like them, but haven't used them very much.

That's all I can think of at the moment!

 

[Steel_Wind]

The Ennie award winning Bestiary of Krynn is lavishly illustrated in color and very well done.

It is also sold out and difficult to find. If you see a copy in your FLGS - it's worth picking up.

 

[the Jester]

If you've been gaming since prior editions, especially 1e, you probably want to get the Tome of Horrors. It's got conversions of all the old school stuff in it. It is 3.0, but so are the MM2 and the FF (although the FF is really more or less 3.3).

I also notice that you missed the Draconomicon- that is one fantastic book, lemme tell ya!

 

[Crothian]

May I point out the review section of EN World. Granted it is not the easiest place to find books at the moment, but there are lots of reivews on monster books there.

The ENnie winning Beastiary of Krynn is really good and not just people playing in Dragonlance. Denizens of Avadnu though was the books that impressed the hell out of me last year. Cool art, actually orginal monsters, and high level of creativity make this book really stand out.

 

[Kanegrundar]

Here's my list:

Monsternomicon: This is the best monster book on the market, and it's recently been updated to 3.5.

Book of Fiends: This is essentially 3 books in one. It's a must have for anyone wanting to run adventures in the Lower Planes.

Creature Collection Revised: The original stank, but it had some pretty interesting monsters in it. This revised edition is better beyond compare and gets used a lot by me.

Creatures of Rokugan: It's 3.0, but the amount of cool creatures in it makes it worth the time to convert them over.

Dangerous Denizens: While this book has a lot of rehashes and some silly concepts (like the Bugbear Mage, what's the point when you can simply add levels of wizard or sorcerer to them?). This does have some good monsters and good Kalamar info as well.

Denizens of Avadnu: Beautiful book and full of truly original monsters.

Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary: Yet another 3.0 book, but it's huge and full of really cool and original monsters.

Legacy of the Dragons: Excellent book full of monsters oozing flavor.

Liber Bestarius: This book is pretty good on the whole, but some of the creatures aren't stellar.

Monsters of the Mind: I dare say that this book is essential for anyone running a game with psionics. Very well done.

There are a couple others that aren't as good (IMO) as those above:
Bestiary of Krynn: It's pretty, but some of the stats are a little off. Nothing that's overly broken. The format didn't suit me either, but it's still a decent book.

Minions of Shadow: It's thin and has several rehashes or just silly monsters in it, but overall it's good enough for the price.

Monster Encyclopedia 1 & 2: I just got these, and while it appears like Mongoose has finally gotten a handle on their editing snaffus, there are still a couple errors here and there, but nothing too bad. These books have a lot of monsters in them, but many come off as a little bland.

Tome of Horrors 1 & 2: These books are alright. The stats are great and they pack a lot of monsters into the pages. However, the descriptions are sparse (especially in ToH 1) and it's a boring overall read. Compared to Mosnternomicon and Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary, the ToH line doesn't pack nearly the punch. If you already have ideas for the monsters in the ToH books, you'll be fine with it. However, they are not much more than a collection of stats.

The Everquest and Warcraft bestiaries: If you want some epic enimies that don't exactly fall in line with D&D power levels for some creatures, these are great books. There are a lot of interesting monsters in these books, but there are a lot of rehashes as well.

Hope that helps.

Kane

 

[Psion]

I would recommend any of the books by Green Ronin, particularly: Creatures of Freeport, The Book of Fiends, and the Advanced Bestiary.

I'll second that.

Recently, I've been getting a lot of use out of Atlas' Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary, and Sword & Sorcery's Creature Collection II is a staple in my game.

 

[Nightfall]

Tome of Horrors I, II and III (which is upcoming)

Creature Collection Revised, CC II and CCII.

Advanced Beastiary by GR rocks mightly and Book of Fiends, best fiend collection I could ever hope for.

Legacy of the Dragons, very nice stuff.