Monster Manual: What's missing which has impacted you?

[neobolts]

Monster Manual: variations within monsters is great for building encounters, but it feels like a few staple monsters are missing now.

To preface: I'm on board with 4e. I think the streamlined combat leaves more room for world-building and storytelling during sessions. But the MM cuts are puzzling at times.

I haven't been looking for missing monsters, it's just that the monsters I'm picking for my adventures are turning out to be omitted. Maybe I'm just unlucky...

Some of the earlier ones I looked for were a bit more obscure...
violet shrieker
xill
formian (ant-people)

Some of this was due to our 4e campaign being a "next-gen" continuation of a 3e campaign. Not too surprised those things got cut.

For fun I wanted to see how the nymph worked in 3e...alas, not there.
nymph

A lot of the good-aligned stuff was dropped to make room for more baddies, and some things made logical shifts to unaligned. But nymphs are classic. Hopefully they will show up in a future book.

But this one tonight really caught me by surprise...centaur is absent. Centaurs are a core fantasy monster race and are prominent in mythology. How did they not make the cut?
centaur

Anything else missing that has affected people's campaigns or shocked them to see it missing?

 

[On Puget Sound]

"normal" animals and giant vermin (scorpions without fire or electric attacks, etc.


A bit of ecology would be nice - a sense of which critters tend to be native to particular climates or terrains. Yes, I know we can make this up or guess, but it would be useful for players (esp those with Nature skill) to have a baseline reference.

It seems like some of the monsters were put in just to sell figures, which would not be as bad if you could just BUY the figure, but you have to get it from the aftermarket or buy boxes of random ones.

 

[Minigiant]

I went over C tons of times looking for centaur.

Also monkeys. Shadowfell monkeys.
Fling Shadow Filth (standard; encounter)

 

[generalhenry]

But this one tonight really caught me by surprise...centaur is absent. Centaurs are a core fantasy monster race and are prominent in mythology. How did they not make the cut?

sure, they're core, but when was the last time the PCs got into a fight with one.

They simply don't fit into many encounters.

 

[beeflv30]

You could also make the missing monsters yourself. I think in the house rules section someone has been updating monsters from the 3rd edition books, and I am sure Formian was on the list.

 

[neobolts]

"normal" animals and giant vermin (scorpions without fire or electric attacks, etc.

Yeah, I did notice the normal animals are gone. I wonder if WotC is trying to move away from people killing elephants and lions. Maybe the 4e design team joined PETA.

 

[neobolts]

You could also make the missing monsters yourself. I think in the house rules section someone has been updating monsters from the 3rd edition books, and I am sure Formian was on the list.

Very true. I didn't mean this as a slam on WotC or a search for alternative solutions...I was just musing on what did and didn't make this first MM. Those would have been some interesting planning session to have been a fly on the wall for...they made some tough calls.

Of course, the pessimists could argue that key mobs were omitted intentionally in order to space them out over multiple MM volumes.

 

[Rechan]

sure, they're core, but when was the last time the PCs got into a fight with one.

They simply don't fit into many encounters.

When was the last time you fought a dryad?

Or a gnome?

I think centaurs would be the cavalry of the Feywild.

I will say that it's very, very easy to re-skin a monster. Want a rhino? Use a dire boar. Etc.

There's nothing that I see that I really, really miss. I think an Iron golem would've been nice to see. The only thing that comes to mind are Skum; a friend of mine actually created the Skum, and the Aboleth Servitor do not look like his Skum, and he is sad.

The lack of bugs, perhaps.

 

[Minigiant]

sure, they're core, but when was the last time the PCs got into a fight with one.

They simply don't fit into many encounters.

I've been near TPK by centaurs.
Stupid Power Attack from the bushes.

 

[Dog Moon]

Considering I haven't DMed 4e yet and my first adventure is gonna evolve around Goblins or Kobolds, anything missing has not actually impacted me at all. Actually, if I went with Kobolds, the number of misc Kobolds will help me out more than the lack of anything is hurting me.