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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2008393" data-attributes="member: 18387">I am intending to review several "creature encyclopedias" over the next week or two so I may as well start with the main one.First of all, I have to say that it is my least favorite of the three "core books" for DnD. What follows is therefore a largely negative review. To balance it out, I have to say that the book is exceptionally illustrated and remarkably well edited and that I have yet to find a single rule inconsistency or error. (No wonder, it was done by Skip 'the Sage' Williams himself). That said, however, why do I not like this book ?First reason is one that has been talked about a lot already - format.All the old Monster Manuals and all the other "creature encyclopedias" have a single creature per page. If more space is needed part of the second page is dedicated exclusively to that creature. This format has several advantages: it is easier to navigate, it is easier for DM to photocopy several important pages prior to the game, it keeps same kind of information at the same place on the page thus making it easier to find out a specific info on a given creature without reading its whole entry. Finally, and I admit this is a matter of taste, this way of organizing things, with illustrations in one of the corners, gives the book more stately encyclopedic look.New Monster Manual, to the contrary goes with free-flowing monsters continuing after each other without respect to the page layout. They go so far that at many occasions they cut the stat block of a monster in half by a page cut, practice that makes the book significantly harder to use. Illustrations are also spread around and sometimes it is hard to match them to the particular monster, especially for someone who had not encountered the material before. It has been said few that this was done in order to replace the encyclopedic look with more fantasy one of medieval bestiaries but I do not believe that as the similarities are very few.  Bestiaries, for example, tended to eschew alphabetic categorizing and instead grouped creatures by their geographic and "ecological" properties (something that in fact would not have been a bad idea in a "creature encyclopedia", compounded by a master index of course).Much more likely cause of this formatting, and the source of my contention against this book, is much more frequently quoted reason: "We wanted to give you guys as many monsters as possible in the allotted space". To put aside the question of space allotment (it is not like the Hasbro CEO came down and said "Monster Manual will have 240 pages"), I want to question the more is better philosophy when it comes to monsters. (I believe it is questionable when it comes to prestige classes, feats and practically any other aspect of the game but the sheer prevalence of the "creature encyclopedia" type of books it seems to me that it is most frequent on the monster front). While fantasy and FRP as its sub genre do involve certain amount of the suspension of disbelief, it is a known fact that most successful fiction as well as most successful campaigns take place in the, not necessarily realistic, but believable settings. Having a relatively small set of monsters, but having them well developed with their cultural and ecological significance well explained enhances the value of the campaign world significantly. On the contrary having a weird monster appear in mid-campaign without much explanation of its significance beyond "…well, you know, it is a Grick, they infest dungeons and caves…" makes the world seem much more contrived and diminishes the game itself.      What I am trying to say is that this book fails, because it goes for quantity and thus limits itself in quality. Coming up with combat statistics is to a great problem to me, attaching them to a creature that will remain remembered by my players is much greater challenge and one in which Monster Manual does very little to help me. In this respect this book is a great step down from Monstrous Manual, the big hardback that was for a long time considered one of the core books of the 2nd edition which, although not perfect, went to some lengths to give valuable background to its monsters. Going into particulars, the most valuable thing about the book is that it does feature 3rd edition updates on the old, and well developed, monsters. It also introduces the system of templates which is both very usefull and very practical. For those that do not know it allows the adding a new property, such as lycantropy, to an existing monster or a character. Monsters new to this book are largely uninspired and sometimes outright silly (Attach and Digester being examples of creatures I can not imagine used in a serious campaign) but few new undead are borderline usefull. Fomorians, that are supposed to be taken seriously, (and are even rather prominent in the summoning table) are to drastic adition to an ongoing campaign and a summoning alternative for them would have been nice. That a lot of second edition monsters are missing I find to be a leser flaw then the missing information on the ones included. All in all a servicable book, suffering from quantity over quality problem and formating style and, in my oppinion, overshadowed by some of the creature encyclpedias coming after it.</blockquote>

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