So many monsters ... way too many, in fact

[Driddle]

I s'pose we wouldn't become quite so jaded and need just the right monster to surprise players if ... well, if the players weren't so gosh-darned familiar with all the monsters already. Memorized stats of every single beastie in the book? Maybe not that excessive, true, but it doesn't take much study before the average gamer has soaked up everything he needs to ruin his own surprise.

I'm also in favor of Wombat's idea to limit the really smart critters populating the world.

 

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

I second the people who defended all of the monster books. If anything there aren't enough monsters. Well, there aren't enough mythological-esque entities and too many demons, undead, Lovecraftian things, ect.

But comparing the "real world", where human beings are the only creatures of the planet with our intelligence, and can easily gain a lasting spot on the ecological chain, to a fictional world where there are about twenty different races of humanoids is crazy.

Besides, we have to remember it is just a game, and telling an interesting story is more important than zoological realism.

 

[arwink]

Me, I figure I always need more monsters.

And the way I look at it - I can go camping and encounter a few "dangerous" things, but that's because I'm the kind of person who likes to go camping in safe areas where nothing is going to jump up and eat me. I don't go looking for trouble.

Adventurers, on the other hand, are the Steve Irwin's of the Adventuring World - they want to manhandle every dangerous critter they can get their hands on, so they see far more dangerous stuff in a week than I will in my entire lifetime.

 

[Turanil]

I had never before considered how many monsters are available in a D&D game to eat/kill/destroy a person. It really is ridiculous in some sense, when you take a look at your own life and count up the number of (excuse the term) bugaboos that you might find out in the wilds eager to rend a limb or two. On your worst nightmare camping trip, for example, you might be threatened by wolves and bears and angry deer with pointy antlers and maybe a rabid fox or badger or wolverine or stampeding buffalo or kamikaze eagle ... but the total number of critters (predatory or otherwise) that you could face in a lifetime still doesn't even come close to the variety of D&D monsters that PC heroes come across as a matter of casual adventuring.

I guess I'm just saying that I appreciate a little more how silly it is to try too hard to make D&D gaming sessions seem "realistic." Too many of the base assumptions simply can't be translated. Can't Be Done.

Still, though ... Way too many monsters.

I agree with you. Far too many monsters, at least if you intend to use them all. This is the sort of things that irritates me in many Dungeon Magazines' adventures: you find often everything_and_its_brother together when crawling the most simple of abandoned cave.

Nonetheless as far as I am concerned, I only use a small selection of monsters, certainly not all. My last campaign had a traditional medieval feel so you wouldn't find all those freaks such as the Mimic or Yrtak... Now, that I envision some campaign looking like Elric's world there certainly will be much more aberration types, but still not everything!

 

[fnork de sporg]

What would a campaign that tried or could use all/any monsters from all/any book look like?

 

[Etan Moonstar]

www.sulerin.com has a searchable monster index of 6537 creatures from over 400 sources. I use it pretty regularly when I'm looking for, say, a new cold climate creature to use.

 

[Fieari]

What would a campaign that tried or could use all/any monsters from all/any book look like?

Probably a lot like "The Worlds Largest Dungeon" which you might have seen threads for in this very forum, due out shortly, which contains at least one of every monster in the SRD and can take a party of first level characters all the way to epic levels if they go from start to finish, which the author does not believe many if any will actually be able to do since the thing is so blasted HUGE in scope.

 

[Fenes]

I don't use many monsters, my main opponents for the PCs are NPCs. From time to time I insert a monster, but not too often. And if possible, intelligent monsters, so the PCs can talk to them if they want to.

So, while I do not think there are too many monster books - clearly, other DMs want them - I myself don't need them at all.

 

[MonsterMash]

I personally don't want or need too many monsters - after all with class levels and good tactics Kobolds can be deadly.

I just have the MM, ToHII, and some creatures in the Players Guide to the Wilderlands and Seas of Blood which supplemented with some stuff from the Tome of Horrors is enough for me.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

So, does anyone have a database of all the monsters, or at least all the free ones in the SRD? It would be much easier to find the perfect monster if I could do a sort. For example, I want a random encounter, the party is going through a forest, and are level 7 on average. It would be very convenient if I could sort the monsters by challenge rating, then by environment, and have a list of possible encounters. Of course it should also show the alignment so I could automatically remove good creatures if I wanted.

Behemoth3's online database doesn't have the sort by environment and filter by alignment options yet, but it does have every piece of info about the free monsters in the SRD (although not all are currently displayed). Those are great ideas, though, and we'll definitely implement them soon! Our database is based on Seeker95's excellent Excel file, which does allow a sort by environment, but which isn't crosslinked to the SRD itself.

Kealios and Beholder Bob, your databases sound mighty cool as well, and the Sulerin DB is also quite impressive!