Needed: Good Monster Books!

[SkeletonKey Ed]

Tome of Horrors (Necromancer Games)
Monsters of Endless Dark (Goodman Games)

And the monster book that probably gets the most use in my game - Monster's Handbook! (Fantasy Flight Games)

- Ed

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

I can't believe one of the best monster books has not been mentioned. Monsters of the Endless Dark by Goodman games is a masterpiece. When I got it for the ENnies I read through it very fast, it was amazing.

I'll agree with you that Monsters of the Endless Dark is a great book, but its not as useful as many of the books mentioned in this thread, unless you are looking for monsters to put in an underdark type setting. It certainly has one of the best layout/designs of any monster book out there (I'd rate it second for design after Monsternomicon).

If you are looking for wide variety of monsters for different settings, it just doesn't stand up to books like Tome of Horrors, Monsternomicon, Monsters of Faerun, etc. But if you are looking specifically for an underdark setting, it will definitly give you alot of new and unusual monsters to use, and may be the best that focuses on this type of setting.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Add one more vote for the Monsternomicon.

Also, SkeletonKey Ed mentioned the Monster's Handbook, by Fantasy Flight. This is a must have if you like making or modifying your own critters. There are enough ideas in there to keep your players on their toes for quite a while.

Perhaps the coolest thing about MH, for the price of one book, all your other monster resources just about triple in usefulness.

 

[Desdichado]

Great sig!

 

[Psion]

Dare I say I think Monsternomicon is a bit overrated? The art is nice, and it has some neat ideas and good approach to background info, but if you aren't playing Iron Kinngdoms, you may not find it as useful as others here might suggest. Many creatures are in the steampunk vein, are specific to IK cosmology, and/or are IK specific rehashes of common MM creatures.

Two of my favored monster books for the sheer variety and freshness (or classicness) of their ideas are Tome of Horrors and Creature Collection II.

I have also found a lot to like in the smaller, more specific creature collections. One of my all time favorites is Green Ronin's Legions of Hell, in which all of the creatures are loaded with plot ideas. FFG's lore series is very nice, especially Necromantic Lore (covering undead) and Twisted Lore (covering abberations, oozes, and shapechangers).

Kenzer's new monster book looks nice, but I can't attest to it's usefulness yet.