Monster Manual III "In the Works"

[Hand of Evil]

I guess the real question is what will be the ratio of creative/inspiring monsters to filler/uninspired monsters?

I kind of hope WotC does something like the Monstericom, plot hooks and back story.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Based on the cover design, I'd put my money on this being a MM to support Eberron. The cover has similar colors and design elements to those we've seen in the promo art and covers for Eberron.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

I am with you on this. None of my fellow players enjoy weirdos very much: the occasional creepy junk creature is ok, but not one after the other.

While I tend not to use some critters due to the "silly factor", I tend to look for silliness in abilities and powers rather than description. Reason being that description is only, well, description. For instance, I think owlbears are one of the stupidist looking creature concepts in the game (well, there are stupider concepts, but it's been around just about the longest, so it sticks out the most to me), but that never stopped me from describing them as monstrous, mutant bears (with a serated bone-ridge for teeth rather than a beak) while using the statistics/combat info provided for them as-written.

 

[Arnwyn]

Besides, flavor text needs no translation *grin*

Exactly. Waterdeep can stay away, thanks. I'd rather WotC spend their limited resources on something I haven't seen many times already.

Overall, it looks like a nice, cheap year for me. I'm no longer buying monster books (like DaveMage I have thousands of monsters, and I certainly don't need any more - my cost/benefit ratio points that out pretty clearly to me) and nothing else interests me other than maybe that October undead book and the FR Serpent Kingdoms (which does have a geographical section).

Woo!

 

[Silveras]

Re: 3.5 Update Accessory

:\ Excuse me, please, but what's this?

When 3.5 came out, WotC put out a booklet for "How to update other books". It specifically contained updates for the all monsters in MMII (lots of changes) and FF (very few changes).

Overall, this free booklet had update info for the monsts, feats, classes, etc in:
Monster Manual II
Fiend Folio
Epic Level Handbook
Deities and Demigods
Manual of the Planes

It is available as a PDF from the Wizards Web Site

 

[Kesh]

Has anyone else noticed there is a book called Frostburn (from the "Environment Series") coming out in September?

What will this be? A book about adventuring in cold climate perhaps?

Noticed that, started a new thread about it in General. I think you're right.

 

[Olive]

While I wish this were true, IMHO, it doesn't seem likely. Only in cases where they're replacing a book entirely (e.g. 3E MM to 3.5E MM) or bringing a monster into a book from an obscure source (e.g. gem dragons from their listing as a PsiHB web enhancement monster to being in the MMII), does WotC completely rewrite monsters that have already been written somewhere. The rest of the time they give a "quick and dirty" guideline for updates.

This is not strictly true. The bariaur was completely rewriten from a CR1 to a CR3 creature between MotP and BoED, neither of which are exactly obscure.
While we're talking 'loths tho, you people should check out Pants' revised Yugoloths for 3.5, which are tougher and awesome.

 

[Richards]

I'm looking forward to Monster Manual III...and, who knows, maybe someday Monster Manual IV, and Monster Manual V, and Monster Manual VI...

Johnathan

 

[johnsemlak]

Rich Baker mentioned it in the "Ask the authors" thread:

Would someone be good enouch to provide a link to that? That ask the author's link is really long .


Wow, thanks for posting the pic Cthulu's Librarian!

 

[MerricB]

The Monster Manual III cover looks like a placeholder for me.

Cheers!