Why review a four year-old book, particularly one with more than a half-dozen reviews already? For one thing, the existing reviews are all rather short and lacking depth. But I think it also might be valuable to look back at some of the earlier d20 products from a more current perspective. We know much more about the d20 rules and conventions than we did in 2001, and we have come to expect a lot more. Perhaps it's unfair to say so, but from the vantage point of 2005, Monsters of Faerun is a pretty poor effort.
Monstrous Compendium: Monsters of Faerun is a 96 page, full color softcover book, written by James Wyatt and Rob Heinsoo. The artwork is credited to the usual suspects: Wayne Reynolds, Todd Lockwood, Sam Wood, Richard Sardinha, and others. There are monsters in here ranging from CR 1/3 to CR 14, covering all of the D&D monster types except for animal, as well as several templates and a monster-only prestige class. Most of the monsters fall in the CR 3 to CR 8 range. It uses 3.0 rules and conventions, although in many cases it feels more like 2nd edition (see below). There is no particular theme or emphasis, other than the fact that these creatures all appear somewhere in the Forgotten Realms setting.
This is, and isn't, a Forgotten Realms book. Some of the monsters are Realms-specific, such as the phaerimm and the sharn. Many others date back to the earliest days of AD&D, including the leucrotta and peryton. Each monster has an "In the Realms" section, detailing where the monster appears in the Realms (obviously), and providing some more historical background. However, it is seemingly not an "official" Realms book, with the distinctive cover design.
There are a number of good monsters in here, particularly the old favorites from earlier editions, such as the genasi, leucrotta, peryton, abishai, aarakocra, bullywug, meazel, and hybsil. Not being a Realms player myself, I was unfamiliar with a number of the creatures, but I liked many of the Faerun-specific ones, including the tall mouther, the illithilich, and the deepspawn. Even though the book is Realms-flavored, all but a few of these monsters should be usable in any campaign.
The art ranges from excellent to mediocre. I'm particularly fond of Wayne Reynolds's tieflings, peryton and alhoon, and the unsigned pictures of the chitine and beast of Malar. I enjoyed the pictures of the myrlochar, abishai, and Dekanter goblin rather less.
There are several major problems with the book. First is the writing style, which for some of the entries is strangely informal, almost bizarre, and often very clumsy. The greater doppelganger entry begins thusly: "Greater doppelgangers are the paranoid's ultimate nightmare: a monster who can eat your best friend's brain and then not only look like him, but talk like him, have all of his memories, and wield all of his abilities." Leaving aside the lack of number agreement before and after the colon, this introduction reads as if it were penned by a player (not even a player character), rather than the sages who scribed the Monster Manual and its sequels. It's jarring, and what's worse, it's inconsistent. Some of the monsters are handled like this (the stinger, the phaerimm, the Thayan golem), but others are addressed more straightforwardly. Even where the writing is more traditional, however, it is still often clumsy and confusing, as with this line from the gibberling entry: "For every two gibberlings that are grappling a foe, all gibberlings get a +2 competence bonus on attacks against that foe."
Some of the monsters are downright silly (the darkenbeast, which is tantamount to a scroll with claw attacks), and others are merely very boring (the dread warrior, an undead creature with no special attacks or special qualities). There are five drow-related creatures in the book, which is at least four too many. Sadly, three of them are also spiderish, which raises the number of such creatures in the various Wizards monsters books to about seventy. Maybe it just feels that way.
The most important problem, though, is d20 rules adherence and feel. Even without John Coopering the book, there are a number of obvious errors: the beholder mage prestige class has a non-standard save progression; the stinger allegedly advances by character class, but we are told that "[f]ew stingers progress as characters"; the CR 4 malaugrym can shapechange at will as a 20th level sorcerer; the tomb tapper can apparently shove foes into its stomach maw, but does not have the swallow whole ability, nor indeed any description or rules to explain what would happen in such a situation; "[o]nly evil wizards" may cast the create chosen one spell, despite the fact that it's a Sor/Wiz5 spell (of the "Alteration" school [sic!]), and it doesn't even have the [Evil] descriptor. The list goes on.
Many of the monsters, while perhaps not technically incorrect, violate the unwritten rules of d20. The ghost dragon has a breath weapon which ages its targets, a bit of 2nd edition stupidity which was one of the first things jettisoned by the 3e design team. Bullywug clerics can cast only inflict wounds and summon monster spells. Wemic spellcasters must be druids or adepts only. Quaggoths can advance as characters, but despite having a Wisdom bonus, can "never gain spellcasting ability" (can they still summon familiars or turn undead?). What happened to options, not restrictions?
This was one of the first supplements on the market, and therefore it's understandable that the designers were still getting a feel for d20. On the other hand, this is a Wizards book released after the 3.0 Monster Manual, written by two 3rd edition insiders, and thus it is very strange that it has so many problems and such a 2nd edition feel. No errata for the book have ever been published, and they are sorely lacking. The web enhancement for the Player's Guide to Faerun updates the monsters in this book to 3.5 rules, but there are problems in that document as well (note the banelar's typical wizard spells prepared), and it does little to address the structural problems with many of the monsters.
Monsters of Faerun is part of the d20 fossil record. It reveals a stage in the evolution of the game from 2nd edition to 3rd edition, but is also a creature of the past, and isn't fit to compete in the modern market.
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