Monster Manual IV - an ongoing review

BryonD said:
Fine.
However, that has nothing to do with the point of caring about canon now.

Rather than derailing this thread further debating the merits (or lack thereof) regarding canon from past editions, let me refocus: The point I was trying to make relative to this thread is simply that, outside of the MMIV, all yugoloths in this edition of the game use a naming convention ending in 'loth. Thus, a doodleloth or wedgieloth has instant name recognition as a yugoloth. Corrupter of fate gives you no indication that it's a yugoloth, any more than if it were called "hook horror" or "carrion crawler". If you feel that name recognition is a good design decision, the MMIV fails in this area.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Meh. You want a Corrupter of Fate to have a name ending in "loth"? Give it one. I like zerns, but I'm not going to call them that when I use'em.
 

Thomas Percy said:
For tens of thousand non-native English speaker D&D players (such as I) it isn't possible to distuinguish what sounds more creepy: "Vitreous" or "Sight". The difference is I must llok for "Vitreous" in the vocabulary, but it inn't a problem.
My problem is that vitreous on its own isn't really anything to do with eyes: The vitreous humour is part of th eye (as is the aqueous humour), but URL=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vitreous]vitreous[/URL] of its own means glasslike or related to glass.

So I read vitreous drinker as 'glass drinker', which is just odd. :D

Overall though, my I am quite likely to buy the book as a result of MB's review. My only question is, has John Cooper done a review yet? EDIT: Yes, he has!


glass.
 
Last edited:

How did this turn into a 'whose canon is better?' fiasco? :confused:

Primarily, this is why D&D canon bugs me so, you can't sneeze without offending someone's principles about how Campaign Setting Y/Idea Z used to be and how much Edition X porked up the butt.
 

Thomas Percy said:
For tens of thousand non-native English speaker D&D players (such as I) it isn't possible to distuinguish what sounds more creepy: "Vitreous" or "Sight".

Vitreous is creepier because it refers to the fluid inside your eye - it's viscerally more disgusting to imagine a monster that drinks the juice from your eyeballs than one that merely blinds you.

If there was a "common" name for the monster, it should be something like "eyeball juicer," not "sight drinker." You can't drink "sight," but you can drink vitreous humour if you squeeze it into a glass.

Glass' point about vitreous meaning merely "glasslike" on its own is well taken, though.
 

Pants said:
How did this turn into a 'whose canon is better?' fiasco? :confused:
Sorry. That isn't what I meant. My position is more that new stuff shouldn't be tied down by old canon of any type.
I really agree with your point.
anyway...... no big deal.
 

BryonD said:
Sorry. That isn't what I meant. My position is more that new stuff shouldn't be tied down by old canon of any type.
Yeah, I agree. The canon-fiends get to me, but I'm not sure how giving the Voor or the Corruptor of Fate more 'yugolothy' names really ties it down in anyway. I mean, you're making 'em yugoloths, might as well give them names to fit.

Or at least provide both names (like with the devils), but people would still complain I'd think.

*sigh*
 

Pants said:
The canon-fiends get to me,

Would those be canonloths, canon'ri, or canonlezu? Maybe canongons?

My $0.02: there are some interesting critters in MMIV; I used a couple within 8 hours of buying the book. However, there's a lot of padding in the book. I'm very glad MMI-III, FF, and MoF weren't done in the same style (seems like we'd just be getting to deep dragons and hook horrors in MMIV ;) ).

Regarding the classed monsters -- I think a book dedicated to those kinds of monsters (and other variants -- templates, subraces, etc.) would be great (especially if some of them were given in an abbreviated, but easy-to-use, format; e.g., a drow/orc/githyanki assassins/scouts/knights at several different levels, maybe in a table of some sort). Then, when I need a quick & dirty orc raiding party, I can bust out "Menaces & Minions", and use 'em. However, as part of a regular monster collection, it's kind of bleh for me, at least as it was implemented in MMIV.
 

coyote6 said:
Would those be canonloths
Canoloths mang. Gotta stick with what came before!

Regarding the classed monsters -- I think a book dedicated to those kinds of monsters (and other variants -- templates, subraces, etc.) would be great (especially if some of them were given in an abbreviated, but easy-to-use, format; e.g., a drow/orc/githyanki assassins/scouts/knights at several different levels, maybe in a table of some sort). Then, when I need a quick & dirty orc raiding party, I can bust out "Menaces & Minions", and use 'em. However, as part of a regular monster collection, it's kind of bleh for me, at least as it was implemented in MMIV.
QFT.
 


Pets & Sidekicks

Remove ads

Top