Monster Books you'd recommend.

[Mark]

The Monsternomicon from Privateer Press is darn sweet

The art alone makes that an excellent book.

 

[philreed]

SSS correct...but not 2006. Late Oct/early Nov 2005 actually.

Which is now only four or five months away.

Where did 2005 go?

 

[Grazzt]

Which is now only four or five months away.

Where did 2005 go?

[off topic] Ya got me....but it certainly has flown by. [/off topic]

So- back on topic....other than the Tome books (I'm biased obviously ), Monsternomicon is a damn good book. Well written, good art, nice layout....overall, very well done.

 

[Nightfall]

SSS correct...but not 2006. Late Oct/early Nov 2005 actually.

Well sorry must have confused it with the other Necromancer releases for some reason.

*doesn't think Monsternomicion compares all THAT well with ToH, but then is also very biased.*

In your favor anyway Scott.

As to where did 2005 go? Easy, it went into Summer and got devoured.

 

[Grazzt]

Well sorry must have confused it with the other Necromancer releases for some reason.

*doesn't think Monsternomicion compares all THAT well with ToH, but then is also very biased.*

In your favor anyway Scott.

As to where did 2005 go? Easy, it went into Summer and got devoured.

Bards Gate is early 2006 and Tales of Brass is Jan 2006 (City of Brass is Nov/Dec 2005 last I heard).

Yeah- Im biased too but as for monster books to recommend, other than Monsternomicon (which I mentioned above): Fiend Folio, MM3 (its ok, but FF is better, IMHO), Book of Fiends by Green Ronin is pretty slick.

 

[Nightfall]

Agreed on Book of Fiends.

FF over MMII certainly but I felt FF was dwarfed by ToH IMHO.

Just to clarify Scott, I meant Necromancer releases that might not necessarily be S&SS distributions.

 

[Voadam]

A several hundreds pages long PDF is a pretty hardcore audience sort of product, unfortunately. The choice to either print and print and print and print or be tethered to a computer isn't one a lot of us (including me) want to make. If there was some way to slice the content into smaller books and sell it for an actual appropriate profit margin (my understanding is that ToH1 was accidentally priced below what's really profitable for Necromancer), I'd be first in line.

Actually I find pdf more useful as I run my e-mail campaign. Copy and paste rock. I'm compiling a master document with entries for every monster I've got from pdfs. So far (still a ton to add) that is over 1,500 pages and a list of monsters by CR, type, and sourcebook so I can grab appropriate monsters quicker. I've run out of shelf space for more game books so all I am getting now are pdfs. I also found for the face to face games that printing out the six individual pages of specific monsters I want for that game is more convenient then hauling four monster books with me for those same six monsters.

And for TOH specifically, many people already know all the monster descriptions from previous editions and just want the 3e stat blocks from the book, which can easily be copy and pasted from the pdf instead of carrying the book to a game.

 

[diaglo]

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

for the newer editions other books i don't see on your list you should get are:

the Tome of Horrors I, II, and III

Draconomicon

Book of Fiends

 

[Kanegrundar]

And for TOH specifically, many people already know all the monster descriptions from previous editions and just want the 3e stat blocks from the book, which can easily be copy and pasted from the pdf instead of carrying the book to a game.

True, but there are a good number of people new to D&D with 3E. ToH gave the old school people (of which I am one) a good book to work with, while not doing quite as well for new players. Even being someone that knew most of the monsters from previous editions, I still found the descriptions and backgrounds (if there were any backgrounds given) to be rather bland and uninspiring. Don't get me wrong, I liked ToH, but I thought it could have been better.

Kane

 

[Voadam]

Even being someone that knew most of the monsters from previous editions, I still found the descriptions and backgrounds (if there were any backgrounds given) to be rather bland and uninspiring. Don't get me wrong, I liked ToH, but I thought it could have been better.

Kane

But that was my point, TOH is stats and cut down, bare bones descriptions, so the value was in the stats and the number of creatures included. I expect most people who knew the originals to only use the TOH for the stats and rely on memory or the more fleshed out descriptions from older editions. In that scenario, printing out the stat block separately for a creature that inspired you from the old sourcebook is more useful than having the full 300+ page book to haul out in addition to the older edition one with the better flavor description.

I did the same thing for bladelings in the 3e MMII finding lots of great flavor from the two page description in the 2e planescape monster entry in my pdf of planes of law that was not in the two paragraphs or so of the 3e description. Although I appreciated having the 3e statblock.