Previews for May and Beyond is up

[EyeontheMountain]

I just hope i get my complete Champion a week early like I did with the last two complete books

 

[Razz]

I just hope i get my complete Champion a week early like I did with the last two complete books

Me too, so you can spoil us here

 

[ivocaliban]

In fact, isn't it a good rule of thumb that all products in a given month are released on the same day?

It's also, I think, usually the second Tuesday of the month, but this month is different.

Perhaps it's the second Tuesday of a full week? May began on Tuesday this time around. Who knows. It's almost as complicated as Easter.

 

[Roman]

No, I don't think they are in the book. Sorry!

Ahh... maybe next time, or else I will have to convert them myself.

 

[Razz]

Ahh... maybe next time, or else I will have to convert them myself.

This one guy who comes on ENWorld or the WotC forums, I believe, has them converted here. Only thing they needed done was their psi-like abilities. Really good conversions if you ask me, though I'd change the obsidian dragon's abilities to Fire only:

Gem Dragon 3.5 Conversions

 

[freyar]

RavinRay is here on EN World, mostly in the Creature Catalog forums. He's quite the dragon aficionado and has created some rather nice dragons of his own, too. Take a look in the homebrews Creating new dragons thread.

 

[JustinA]

In response to the criticisms that monsters with class levels are boring, we did things a bit different in MM V. You have new hobgoblins, but they aren't necessarily hobgoblins with nothing but levels in a class. I don't have the book in front of me, but in a few cases we tried to design them more as new monsters than as NPCs. The humanoids that have class levels generally have new feats or other rules modifications to make them more than monster + class levels.

So now the Monster Manuals are feat sourcebooks?

Hmm... Not necessarily a terrible idea. But the feats had better be conveniently collected in one place, not listed haphazardly with whatever monster happens to use it.

There's also a question of the appropriate way to present a humanoid monster. If a creature is meant to be modified with class levels and abilities, it makes more sense to present it that way. For instance, a new humanoid race should probably come with three stat blocks to make it playable out of the box.

One of the things I liked about the 3.5 revision of the MM were the "powered up" versions of the different monsters. It was nice, for example, to create a basilisk lair and then throw in an Abyssal Basilisk as the basilisk queen.

Part of my problem with the MMIV was that these classed monsters were appearing in a resource other than the monster's primary reference. I don't want to have to go to nine different books to pull all my drow references.

So I support having multiple versions of new monsters. That is useful utility and helps keep the monsters relevant for multiple levels of play.

But for those MM races for which this type of support was justified -- well-used humanoids as you say -- separate books should have been done.

WotC is diluting the Monster Manual brand when they could have taken the opportunity to create a new brand with a strong identity.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

So now the Monster Manuals are feat sourcebooks?

Hmm... Not necessarily a terrible idea. But the feats had better be conveniently collected in one place, not listed haphazardly with whatever monster happens to use it.

He might mean "new" in the sense that they have feats that are different from the ones listed for the standard monster.

 

[JustinA]

He might mean "new" in the sense that they have feats that are different from the ones listed for the standard monster.

Hmmm... IK

 

[megamania]

Upcoming books look okay and so far the figures previewed leave me wondering what Desert (Nov 07) set will be like.

Eberron's book on the 100 year war so far is the only one to have my attention.