Monsters of Faerûn
Personally, I did not find the book all too bad, given its early release date.
The thing that I lack most about it is it not being a hardcover; thereby, it`s automatically put down to the "minor leagues" in the unconscious mind of most D&D gamers, I guess.
The author quite correctly pointed out many errors (and it`s really not very professional by Wizards not to have posted an errata since 2001); but I personally do not care about a few errors here or there in a book - it`s human as long it`s not exuberant, and I think this is not the case with MoF.
The cover design was that of the MM, and this was the only cover design reference at that time because the FR CS was not out yet when MoF was released.
I like the darkenbeast (played the "Sword of the Dales" sage thrice and always had alot of fun with it, although the campaign is a little bit simplistic, as are sadly a lot of D&D modules). But I guess monsters are always a matter of personal taste.
I have used most of the monsters in the book often and with great delight, many of them were quite interestlingly to play.
The biggest downside of the book is maybe the fact that it is still 3.0, but obvioulsy, that`s not the fault of the book.
Most of the illus I found quite superb, on average they are better than in the MM.
By the way, the German translation was done as a hardcover (same as "City of the Spiderqueen"), but D&D is just not cool in German (the German language is a bit too serious for D&D, e.g. to literally translate "Spiderhaunt Wood" into German is super kitchy and quite silly, too. The company did it, though; much to the dislight of many German D&D players. E.G. Daggerford was literally translated into "Dolchfall" which gives the reader the impression that the population of Daggerford spend 24h of their days on the toilet box; not nice).
So, I would give it 4 stars.
