Monster Manual IV, from Amazon.com

[Shazman]

Had I have only known. Unfortunately, I got it sight unseen. The first three were great, so why would the fourth be any different.

I agree with the two amazon reviewers. It's not worth the money. Lots and lots of wasted pages. Githyanki with class levels. Gnolls with class levels. Ogres with class levels. Orcs with class levels. Why Wizards, why?

Because it's extremely useful for DM's who need classed creatures, but don't have the time to stat them out. It's nearly impossible to hand craft every minion or encounter with the limited time and energy that is so common in our society. This let's you have more time to create the major villians and monsters. I think it's a useful idea.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think about the reasons why they made the changes they did, and other than to cross-market their lucrative miniatures line, I think it was in response to a perceived need to make the job easier on the DM.

I think MM4 is a great value in that regard. The new stuff is more of a kit format to make encounters easier on the fly. I don't use random encounter tables, and don't always have time to preplan every encounter out, this is a nice in between of "nothing" and "everything". An adventure being everything.

It's funny that folks call for adventures, then decry fleshed out encounters for some monsters.

It's possible that WOTC R&D have gone too far in this respect, based on the limited feedback and noise I've seen already about MMIV. With the caveat that you can't use the internet to base your success or failure with gaming products,

Seriously, people who have never seen the book, or are judging by the art gallery are decrying the book from on high. This is exactly why the internet is not a good guage, because anybody is an instant authority. People can take up the cause to bash dragonspawn because the pictures look generic, but that doesn't mean their opinions are valid as anything useful.
Especially on ENworld, where everything WotC does is knocked and some third party put on a pedestal.

I imagine that there is not as big an audience out there for Monster Manuals with maps, classed versions of existing monsters, and so forth as they thought. I especially noted that comment of the second reviewer - the DM can do this himself.

Sure, the DM can also come up with new monsters, making a book of monsters useless. Carried to the extreme, the DM can come up with everything, and doesn't even need Core rules. I know that's not what you mean, of course.

It's just one of those points that comes up in threads about products "the dm can do it himself" doesn't really apply to a book, since otherwise WotC would simply not publish anything. Same way saying "if you don't like it, don't buy it" misses the point of the complains sometimes.

Meanwhile, WotC has made it known in the past that folks wanted more, easier information. Hence why they're reintroducing adventures as well.

If D&D 4.0 comes with pre-loaded modular archetype characters a step beyond those in PHB II, there's a good chance that while it will be much easier to pick up and run with the game, the real gamer audience is going to feel talked down to.

I agree, but assuming the Core gives you all that you need to design whatever you want, I don't see anything adverse about including more restrictive, premade stuff in expansions. In fact, I think that's what a lot of expansions ARE.

 

[Kunimatyu]

3) Let me mentally smack with a rolled up copy of the Weekly World News, leaving an imprint of Bat Boy in smeared ink on the nose of whoever decided to use the Marshal class out of the Minis Handbook on a creature in the MMIV. Bad! No treat for you! Keep DDM seperate from actual D&D, thank you very much.

You know, Shemmie, you're going to have to get over that dislike of the miniatures -eventually-...

But more seriously, don't knock the Marshal so quickly -- a leader-type that boosts its followers without having to sing silly songs... it's useful. Even without miniatures.

 

[Psion]

Not that I care that much for the marshal... excess base class cruft is my bane... but I don't really think that was a bad use for the class. Not at all.

The MiniHB was sort of a problem, but I think that's no reflection on this book or the actual small amount of worthwhile content from the MiniHB.

 

[Vocenoctum]

1) Wasting space on monsters we already have, just with class levels added to them. That's a good idea for some DMs, but it's not something that is deserving of being in a monster manual, nor something I expect in a monster manual.

They did a book on NPC's early in 3e and it tanked, IIRC. They've been expanding NPC's and encoutners in many books, and while ENWorld may dislike it, I'd think WotC has been watching feedback closely enough to know what people that are actually buying their books want. They may have done too many lairs, or too many classed creatures, but I don't think the lairs or stats themselves are a bad idea.

2) Then turning around and not using any psionic classes on the githyanki that you're adding class levels to and presenting as new nifty monsters. Made of lose and fail right there.

I'd assume it's because you simply can't drop in psionics in teh book. You can't print every power a psion uses to fulfill the encounter, though you can quickly and easily explain a scouts abilties or a marshal's.

3) Let me mentally smack with a rolled up copy of the Weekly World News, leaving an imprint of Bat Boy in smeared ink on the nose of whoever decided to use the Marshal class out of the Minis Handbook on a creature in the MMIV. Bad! No treat for you! Keep DDM seperate from actual D&D, thank you very much.

Does that mean they shouldn't have D&D RPG monsters in DDM then? Of course not, the two are linked and will remain so. The Marshal is a GREAT class and has seen more use then many other core classes in my campaigns, and it's FREE on the WotC website, so why not use it anywhere and everywhere they want?

4) Dropping the naming convention for Yugoloths that has been in place for around thirty years. The 'loths themselves are rather nice, and I'll give them credit for that, but I'll be renaming the Voor and Corrupter of Fate as the Vooroloth and Lesser Gacholoth respectively.

30 years? Anyway, ending all the names in 'loth never did much for me, but I really wish they had common names and names they call themselves. I can't see folks knowing what the race calls themselves, nor the race having silly names for themselves. But hey, you're not getting the book anyway, so you don't need to worry about integrating them into your campaign.

 

[Vocenoctum]

What I like so far
1) Table of Contents. It has "creatable creatures" listed, as well as "mounts/companion creatures" and such. Nicely done.
2) Clockwork mounts and Clockwork Mender are just neat.
3) Avatars of Elemental Evils, Lodestone Marauder, Joystealer
4) Yuan Ti, Githyanki


Boring so far: Oaken Defender, orcs, gnolls, drow, lunar ravager.

Dislikes are really limited to the bloodhulks, but then I never liked them much.

 

[briezee]

I'ven't had too much opportunity to peruse the book, but the format did throw me for a loop. The stat block was fine, but the rest seemed pretty expansive. The monsters I had a chance to look at all seemed to take more than one page, and I kind of lost track where I was, as I'm used to the compactness of MM3.

I'll have read the book more closely this weekend to see if the format grows on me and what my overall impression is.

 

[Torpedo]

The Githyanki points are very good. How do people feel about the lack of psionics for the Yuan-Ti, also psionic creatures(if not iconically psionic like the gith)?

I would love to see the Yuan-ti get more psionic love from WotC. Another poster mentioned the possibility of a psionic monsters book. I say bring it on. I run my Yuan-ti as psionic like they are presented in the Expanded Psionics Handbook and the same goes for Mind Flayers and Githyanki. I hope to see fully psionic versions of these long standing D&D monster / villains that take advantage of psionic classes, prestige classes, feats, skills, and items.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

4) Dropping the naming convention for Yugoloths that has been in place for around thirty years. The 'loths themselves are rather nice, and I'll give them credit for that, but I'll be renaming the Voor and Corrupter of Fate as the Vooroloth and Lesser Gacholoth respectively.

That naming convention isn't 30 years old. The whole 'loth thing still seems new to me, as I'd been playing for years before TSR decided to rename demons and devils as a sop to the controversy about alleged devil-worshipping in D&D in the mid 80s.

If you like the classed characters then wouldn't you like a book with a wide variety of them?
I certainly would.

Yes, me too. There have been a few attempts at such a product - Everyone Else foremost among them. The trouble with most of these NPC books is that the designers simply seem incapable of just presenting a variety of stat blocks for generic NPCs and classed or advanced monsters without larding them down with background material.

They did a book on NPC's early in 3e and it tanked, IIRC.

That was Enemies and Allies. I don't know how well it sold, but it likely sold better than most d20/OGL books. Regardless, I was disappointed with the book. As time has gone on, I've come to appreciate it more. It provides a variety of useful NPCs - city guards, clerics and wizards that the PCs may need to ask for help, thieves the PCs may run afoul of, etc. - as well as the stats at various levels for most of the D&D Iconic characters, which would work well in a pinch as pregenerated PCs. There are also a number of adventuring groups that could become rivals for the PCs. Overall, it's a nice book, but is far too short and contains too much background or fluff text to be really comprehensive.

I'd like to see a book that combines Enemies and Allies with the old 1e Rogue's Gallery, as well as the classed monster bits from the various Monster Manuals.

 

[Shade]

That naming convention isn't 30 years old. The whole 'loth thing still seems new to me, as I'd been playing for years before TSR decided to rename demons and devils as a sop to the controversy about alleged devil-worshipping in D&D in the mid 80s.

True, but if you replace 'loth with 'daemon, the naming convention is over 20 years old, and is the way it has always been for yugoloths/daemons.