Soooooooo Many Monsters... How do you use them all?

[Cyberhawk]

Lots of monsters

It sounds like you want to use more monsters without goofing up your ecology too bad. There are a couple ways to do it:

The idea about having Conjurers as the big bad guys was a good one.

Have an area that is connected to other planes, if it's unstable or accidently used (a bunch of goblins opening random doors would be fun) you can pull in monsters from any of the assorted books. And as they just arrived they could easily be scared, angry or hungry.

Third you could have the requisite evil wizard or cleric cast a spell that solidifies people's nightmares. Great excuse for some of the more fantastic monsters out there.

Well, have fun!

 

[Zweischneid]

Anyone else find ways to get a use out of your many monsters?

Nah, I just rattle the dice behind my screen and add some of the vivid (I hope) descriptions and special effects that come to my head.
I don't even have the original Monster Manual.

Than again, the online galleries are always great inspiration

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Often times, the most interesting hook a monster has is one of the following:

its appearance
a specific behavior
a specific power.

Often times, that one thing is not enough to justify the beast's use in the campaign, so as much as I like the one facet, I'd never actually use the monster.

So what I do sometimes is take two or three monsters I'd like to use, pull the appearance from one, the interesting behavior from the second, and substitute them for the appearance and behavior of the one with the interesting power/stats.

In that way, you get the best of all worlds - you can use that cool looking monster who has, frankly, stupid abilities, or you can use that really mechanically interesting monster which normally looks like Bozo the Clown.


Otherwise, I'm like everyone else. I don't try and use all the cool monsters, just the ones which mesh well with the campaign's themes.

Patrick Y.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Imagine if all the monsters in the books were integrated into a campaign. The world would have to be enormous for these creatures to co-exist with everything else in the world without overrunning humand, elves, dwarves, etc.

I like seeing the various options, myself. I like flipping through a monster book to see if anything inspires me to create an entire dungeon or encounter around. Also, for some of these creatures, I just assume (for my campaign, anyway) that for some of the really freaky and weird critters that only one exists - like they were created out of some mad sorcerer's derranged imagination. The same way we are supposed to assume that in Greek mythology there was only one Mintotaur.

 

[3catcircus]

In short - I don't.

I have MM, MM2, FF and ToH. I'm not planning on getting MM3 for quite some time (I'll wait until the errata has been released).

Frankly, unless the monster was already in the 1st/2nd edition monster books, I don't give a second glance. All of those additional new monsters in 3.x? I pay them no mind.

Despite the "binder" format, I actually preferred 2nd edition's Monstrous Compendiums - it allowed me to pick and chose the monsters to fit the campaign (world) - I tended to have a lot of (non-Planescape) plane-hopping and Spelljammer-zip-between-Oerth-and-Toril-for-the-weekend type of scenarios. The 3.x books make up for this with the "Environment" entry for each monster, though, so I tend to use a combination of the 1st/2nd edition and 3.x monster books to specifically place my monsters, depending upon the macro-location (what plane or planet) and micro-location (desert, mountains, etc.)

The one thing that would go a long way to aiding me would be if the 3.x books had a "frequency" entry - i.e. how common or rare the creature is.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Alphabetically.

"As the dread Troll falls dead at your feet, Wan-doo the mystic opens the door to the next chamber. Insectoid eyes peer at you as the Umber Hulk charges to the attack!"

 

[Voadam]

Having been a faithful attendant of the Creature Catalog for a few years, I have a LOT of monsters, the majority of which are unknown to current players [evil DM grin].

I could see finding ways to use all the MM monsters...

...but maybe not all of the ones I have--which is a lot of the Creature catalog.
But I'd hate to let some of them go to waste, after printing them out...

Anyone else find ways to get a use out of your many monsters?

Make your own simple database for the monsters you have.

Enter them with information you will use, for instance:

Terrain, CR, Monster Name, Source.

Or perhaps Type or Subtype instead of terrain.

That way if you are doing an arctic or demonic adventure and you want something appropriate for your 7th level party you can find the 30 monster entries that match your needs and zero in on them.

If you can easily find a list of the appropriate array of monsters quickly you are more likely to use something from a different source than the standards that are known well and second nature to you and your players. If there is only one appropriate monster in a book for your current needs it is a lot easier to look that one up if you know what it is before hand than to flip through the whole book looking for something appropriate.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

Another vote for the conjurer idea! I also like to have intelligent enemies use trained monsters as servants, hunting beasts, bodyguards, dungeon waste-maintenance units, etc.

Anyone know of a good PrC or similar that would justify being able to train & command these monsters? As it is I often give my enemy beast-masters a level or two or druid or ranger just as a nod, but then let them do things a PC with those levels never could.

 

[Gez]

I don't.
I pick and choose the best ones most appropriate for a given situation/encounter... or I plan one around a particularly cool monster.

ditto. I think that's the consensus.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Wow, didn't expect so many replies.

Just to clarify, I don't really intend to use all of my monsters, just more of them.

Plants are easy. There are several that feed on blood (vampire rose) or that have useful byproducts (retch palm), and those can be "domesticated" or otherwise used as defensive barriers or whatnot.

Thanks for all of the help!