Monsters new to 3E?

[demiurge1138]

The Fiend Folio has many monsters from past editions...probably closer to 50% split.

MMIII carryovers include flinds, kenku, sussurrus, trillock, visilight (used to be called parai), chrall and of course the yugoloths you mentioned.

Most of the Fiend Folio monsters, though, were Planescape-y, and therefore somewhat obscure - took me a while to track down keepers, vorr, and the like. Also, of the MMIII monsters, many of the converted ones were quite different than the originals. Kenku were originally more like tengu as opposed to sneaky urban humanoids, and the susurrus wasn't originally crystalline.

Demiurge out.

 

[Huw]

Is everyone sure The Tojanida is new? I could have sworn it was in the first edition FF or MMII.
They looked less like turtles and more like Buck Rogers rockets as I recall.

You're thinking of the Kharga. They do look similar. I think this because the designers took the trilateral symmetry of the Xorn and Kharga and used it as a general design look for inner planar creatures. Both the Tojanida and the Arrohawk are trilateral. Fire already had salamanders, so no new creature was needed for the plane of fire.

 

[Gez]

Also, I remember seeing a quote (from Skip Williams?) about some of these new monsters, in essence explaining them as ways to introduce (generally low-level) characters to new mechanics. Perhaps the phantom fungus was one example used -- showing 1st-level neophytes how invisibility worked.

It was Monte Cook.

Other than in the initial playtests, I can't remember ever seeing a phantom fungus in play. I can't remember ever seeing it in a product. I know as a designer and as a DM, I have never used it.

It's not that it's a bad monster. The illustration doesn't thrill me, but that's just personal taste--it's a fine illo. But something about it just says "don't use me, keep on looking..." whenever I'm looking through the MM for a monster to use. I don't know why for sure.

Do you feel this way too? Or have you used the monster? If so, how did you use it and did it work well?

I can tell you why the monster exists. We felt the game needed certain monsters in certain roles and niches. Specifically, we wanted a low-power monster that was invisible in its standard state, so that low level characters would get used to fighting invisible things now and again, and new players would see the value (and shortcomings) of invisibility early on. It also serves a role as a low-CR plant monster so druids have something to use their plant spells against.

I'm just curious, because that and the ethereal filcher may be the only two monsters (not counting animals) in the 3E Monster Manual that I've never used outside the initial 3E playtests.

 

[CRGreathouse]

It was Monte Cook.

Gez, if I'm ever over in France, I owe you a beer or something.

 

[Particle_Man]

The Darkmantle was a total re-work of the 2E Piercer. I read that somewhere on the WotC website on an article they recently had.

Wasn't the Piercer from 1st ed?

 

[Grazzt]

Wasn't the Piercer from 1st ed?

Yeppers. Appeared in the 1E MM1.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Yeppers. Appeared in the 1E MM1.

Scott, a quick question of terminology if I may...

What was the progression of MMs? There was the 1E Monster Manual, the 2E Monstrous Manual, the 3E and 3.5 Monster Manuals -- right? 2E also had Monstrous Compendiums: were those expanded MMs or were they more like the MM II? It's been a long time since I played 2E (and I've never played 1E), and I gave all my old books away. Also, are there MMs from before 1E?

 

[glass]

Scott, a quick question of terminology if I may...

What was the progression of MMs? There was the 1E Monster Manual, the 2E Monstrous Manual, the 3E and 3.5 Monster Manuals -- right? 2E also had Monstrous Compendiums: were those expanded MMs or were they more like the MM II? It's been a long time since I played 2E (and I've never played 1E), and I gave all my old books away. Also, are there MMs from before 1E?

I can answer for 2e:

The Monstrous Compendium came first. It comprised monsters on punched sheets, and binders to put them in. There were several volumes (two of which cames with binders), and some of the boxed sets of the time also had loose MC sheets in them. The idea was you could assemble all you monsters into a single library. Unfortunately it had two key problems:

1. The thing was fairly fragile & bulky. The sheets in particular had a tendancy to tear arrounf the punch hold.
2. They didn't stick to one monster per sheet, so you couldn't keep the monsters in alphabetical order.

Nice idea, didn't work in practice.

The Monstrous Manual was a replacement for the MC. It took the basic monsters plus quite a few others selected from the various MC volumns and complied them into a single large hardbacked volume.

EDIT: I should note that after the MM came out, they continued to produce supplements styled 'Monstrous Compendium Appendix', but those were (softback) books, rather than collections of sheets for the binders. The Monstrous Compendium Annuals were also in this category.


glass.

 

[diaglo]

The new Monster Manual also includes 25 monsters that, to my knowledge (and I'm pretty confident in this), have not been published for D&D before: the allip, the arrowhawk, the chuul, the delver, the destrachan, the digester, the ethereal filcher, the ethereal marauder, the frost worm, the gray render, the grick, the krenshar, the phantom fungus, the phasm, the shocker lizard, the spider eater, the tendriculos, the tojanida, the yrthak, the celestial template, the fiendish template, the half-celestial template, the half-dragon template, and the half-fiend template (though you could argue that one, with alu-demons and cambions in 1st and 2nd Editions). I'll happily take corrections to that list.

allip was in previous editions
arrowhawk too
frost worm too... under another name

celestial template, fiendish template, half-celestial template, half-dragon template, half-fiend template have all had some basis in previous editions.

 

[sjmiller]

First Edition AD&D started out with the Monster Manual. After a good few years with just that (and creatures from modules and The Dragon) we got the Fiend Folio from TSR UK. Finally (unless I am rather mistaken) came the Monster Manual II, which included some creatures from Dragon Magazine and a bunch of other new creatures. There's also a few creatures in the Deities & Demigods book. I think that's about it. Oh, wait, there were some new creatures introduced in the AD&D Monster Card sets, which I seem to own most of. There, I think that's it now.