Monster Manual III: Buying?

[Gez]

"Monster X in Faerun"
"Monster X in Eberron"
... wheres my Monster in Oerth????

Supposedly, that's where they are by default, so you don't need the paragraph. That's a bit hypocritical, because it's always generic and vague ("That monster lives in cold plains" rather than "that monster lives in the cold plains of Insertname"), but that's all you get.

 

[King_Stannis]

SAw it in the store and passed. I just came to realize that with the original MM, Creature Collection I & II and Tome of Horrors, I have just about all the monsters I'll ever need. Not to mention all the ones from supplementary material ("Dragon" and "Dungeon" magazine, etc.).

 

[jester47]

March of the monsters!

Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

I stop buying your line of monster books after three. WotC gets special dispensation because they are WotC and I want a book called the Fiend Folio.

I use:

MM 3.5
FF
ToHII
CC 3.5

And just aquired:
MMIII

I plan on getting ToHIII

Then 1 more. I do not know what it will be but I will not go over 7 books.

I also have ToHI and MMII but I really don't count them as I have to work to use them. WotC's publishing of old monsters that are already in ToHI has been pretty much co-opted ToHI's usability. As NG makes the updates to their own IP, I will stop using the book entirely. MMII has some crucial stuff in it as far as legacy monsters go, so I will keep it around until it gets redone for 3.5 (doubtful).

I find that I rewrite most of the monsters anyway when I redo their stats. I also make changes for the situation. Especially when running 3.0 adventures.

Aaron.

 

[Arnwyn]

Nope. I don't need/want any more monster books.

The point of diminishing returns has long since been passed, for me.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Wow. My brain must work differently.

To me, saying "I'll never use all the monsters in the books I already have" is a meaningless statement. (I said "to me." Not saying the rest of you are wrong or anything.) Some monsters in the books I've got don't grab me, and I don't plan on using them. OTOH, in every monster book I've ever picked up, there have been at least a few critters that actually sparked story ideas in my mind, ideas that wouldn't have come to me without the new monsters. That, to me, is the best reason to buy a new MM. Not because "I don't have enough swamp monsters" (or whatever), but because anything in the new book that I really like will probably inspire me to use it in ways I wouldn't have used the old ones.

 

[dead]

The format is better than previous MM efforts

But is the format *really* better? Now the game designers are arbitrarily *forced* to conform to a certain space requirement. They either have to: a) chop pertinent bits out; or b) and extra fluff to make up the space quota.

A monster a page is a lot of space to fill . . . unless, of course, you have a very big picture.

So . . . I wonder why they didn't do the MM, MM2 and FF in this format? I mean, the sudden "brainwave" to present a monster a page isn't new. In 2nd Edition, with the release of the Monstrous Compendium, TSR was also spouting such phases as "new and improved format" and "we have finally listened to the fans and are dedicating a monster per page."

 

[energy_One]

Monsters for Money?

I'm not sure yet if I'm going to buy it, because I'm not sure if it's worth the money. There are a lot of monsters in books I already have that I've never used. I generally find the artwork in WoTC books to be wonderfully enough, but even that doesn't add enough for a purchase.

I can always create my own monsters customed to my campaign, though that can be tedious. Modifying monsters is slightly preferrable to buying a book.

But it does look cool.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I live by the rule that you can never have too many monsters. Ever.

Buy a book about theme X and you might never have the opportunity to use anything out of it. Buy a monster book and every session is a chance to throw something at the PCs that they have never seen before.

 

[ivocaliban]

I'm still up in the air on this book. Eberron didn't really interest me (except in the fact that it's obvious where WotC was sending their talent for the past six months), but I could probably pick this up and have a majority of the Eberron monsters without needing to buy the campaign setting. The problem I have with this is that I don't really want warforged tramping around Greyhawk. Many of the Eberron creatures seem to serve a function in Eberron itself, but would just be conspicuous add-ons in other campaigns.

Sadly, it would boil down to me buying this book for maybe a dozen creatures. As much as I would like to have the Kenku, Flind, and Redcap as well as some of the interesting plantlife (Thorns, Wood Woads, Topiary Gardens, etc.)...I'm just not sure there's enough here to warrant the purchase. I still only use about 20% of what's in the Monster Manual II. Maybe something will change my mind, but...as more an more of the mainstream D&D books fill up with Eberron material (a trend I see continuing in the future) it gives me a feeling of exclusion for those of us who aren't interested in another campaign setting.

 

[Gez]

Well, in Greyhawk, there are places you can fit Warforged in. For example, you can make them extraplanar. Give them an alignment of "Always lawful (any)" and the Extraplanar subtype, place them on Mechanus, and you have an exemplar race somewhere between the modrons and the inevitables.