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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2009470" data-attributes="member: 1210">Well, after waiting for months to see how it all turned out, I have to say that I am more than happy with my copy of the Monster Manual II.  From the freakish staring eye surrounded by teeth to the CR charts in the back that didn't include other books (that's a pet peeve- charts that refer to books other than the one they're in), I like the way it looks.  Most of the interior art is better-looking on the page than it was on the web preview.  The gem dragons pics are just about the book's only flaw that I've noticed so far, visually.  There's even a picture that saved a monster for me- the gravorg.  Reading its stats online didn't make it sound appealing, but the picture of it makes it one of my favorite monsters in the book- it's cute.  Also, I think they paid a lot more attention to the placement of the art in the MMII than in the MM; this book doesn't have those annoying distorted blocks of text.It seems like the creatures in the MMII are well-thought out, with a good mix of old and new.  Some of the oldies are considerably different than they used to be, and I'm sure that I don't recognize all of them- some of them are from particularly weird sources.  But I like almost everything in the book.  The corollax, or color spray parrots, and ether scarabs are wonderful low-level monsters with a weird approach; neither one is designed precisely as an adversary for pcs, but either could make for a fun and dangerous encounter.  Old favorites include the death knight, neogi, boggle, crimson death, phoenix, son (now spawn) of Kyuss, and more.  One thing of note here: what may be my favorite of the new creatures, the avolakia, ties into the Kyuss legend, something I've profoundly loved since I first set eyes on the 1st edition Fiend Folio.  I do wish the zodar had made the cut, but we can always hope it gets into an adventure or maybe the 3e Fiend Folio.I could have used a quickling, or some sort of evil fey.  There are only four fey in the book; it seemed tilted a little towards outsiders, but that's okay; they have a great deal of variety there.  There aren't any new humanoids in the book, unless you count the captured one, which is a template.  But the balance between lower (below 10) and higher (above 10) CR monsters is perfect for my taste: about half and half.  CRs range from 1/4 to 28, and the high-CR monsters deserve it (with the exception of the mountain giant- I'd give him about a 17).It seems like a lot of the emphasis in this book involves the use of underexploited special abilities.  I noticed a ton of critters that have the Wounding special attack, lots of trample, etc.  The book also includes "Outsider traits" as a special quality for the outsiders in it, unlike the first MM.  There's also a decent amount of attention paid to adventure hooks, which is a quality I truly love about several of the WotC hardbacks for 3e (especially the Manual of the Planes).  The beginning has a long and good section on creating monsters which will spare me the need to have that darned photocopied section of my copy of the Dragon article in my binder of monsters all the time.I also like the fact that WotC put a couple of monsters from the Creature Collection in the back of it.  I love that the OGL has been such a success, and the fact that it's coming full circle is, imho, fantastic.  I gotta go with a high rating on this one; it was well-worth the price I paid, and I hope WotC keeps up the good work on its forthcoming products.</blockquote>

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