The 4E Monster Manual: good...bad...ugly..

[Mephistopheles]

1E MM- still my fave- some of those illustrations to this day have not been equaled (of course there are some really bad ones).

Absolutely. Some of my favourites are from the 1E MM. It's very hard to beat, and nothing yet has managed to, the picture of the Bulette humping a tree. Gaming in high school one of the guys in our group did a version of that picture with the bulette up against a giant's leg and I don't think I need to elaborate on how this altered the role of the bulette in our games in those days.

 

[Festivus]

The good: Stat block layout is clear and consice, I can run any monster in there with about 5 minutes of reading and prep time.

The bad: Not enough variety of roles for each type of monster, and not enough monsters overall.

The ugly: Recycled artwork from 3.5 books... bleh.

 

[Pants]

It's... okay.

The Good: The layout is great, the art is nice, it looks like it's really easy to use without any prep (something most of the other MM have lacked). Variant monsters are a great idea and seem well implemented.

The Bad: There are very few hooks in the monsters. I don't know about anyone else, but when I buy a monster book, the flavor text usually inspires me to use a monster. That's why I loved the 2e MM, the 3e FF (which had lots of cool ideas), and the 2 Monsternomicons. All of those are just packed with cool ideas and the 4e MM... just isn't. The creatures all look easy to use, but nothing in the book makes me want to use them.

It's missing some classic monsters.

I don't like that monsters are now basically just a collection of combat info. Sure, that's important, but I liked it when they had some weird non-combat abilities. Now everything seems only useful in a fight.

Also, I dislike the fact that there aren't any real descriptions in the book, just pictures. And that templates are in the DMG. Whu?

Consensus: Very good book for actual play, but it doesn't spark my imagination at all. To this day, I still pull out my old 2e MM and read it every once in a while. It's just fun to read. Horrible to use in actual play, but fun to read. Now, the various 3e books seem like a good balance between the two. It's too bad the 4e MM couldn't hit that same middle ground.

 

[Shemeska]

There's a yugoloth right in the book, and still he disses it.

I saw a statblock for a CE tanar'ri that looks like it had a decent mezzoloth picture accidentally tacked onto it, and I saw a whopping two line "description" that doesn't physically describe it or provide even a paltry amount of flavor. I haven't looked yet, but I think the 1e mezzodaemon entry might have more information in it in terms of fluff than the 4e version. That's not a competition that 4e wants to win.

Grossly underwhelmed on all of the fiends in the 4e MM, and that's about when I stopped bothering. They're statblocks with art in that book. There's absolutely nothing engaging about any of the creatures to give them personality, give them flavor, and make me want to use them in the slightest. The 4e MM's presentation of its monsters is the "antithesis of fun" AFAIC.

Also, which "classic" monsters are you talking about? It seems like this MM is more of an all-star list than we've ever gotten before.

Maybe I was disengenuous before. But when I say "classic" I meant as far as planar monsters go. 4e tossed the baby with the bathwater in that regard. Dumping entire major iconic groups of outsiders and being derogatory about them in the process, and then giving us such gems as the "evistro" demon in the space you saved... don't wait for my phone call the next day after that first date.

 

[Soel]

Totally hating the recycled artwork. This is 4E, probably the most hyped edition of d&d and this book has so much recycled art? I don't understand...

 

[Kunimatyu]

I saw a statblock for a CE tanar'ri that looks like it had a decent mezzoloth picture accidentally tacked onto it, and I saw a whopping two line "description" that doesn't physically describe it or provide even a paltry amount of flavor. I haven't looked yet, but I think the 1e mezzodaemon entry might have more information in it in terms of fluff than the 4e version. That's not a competition that 4e wants to win.

The flavor-quotient wasn't huge, but it IS worth pointing out that the 4e description is both consistent with the original ways in which mezzodaemons were used, and allows for easy introduction of the yugoloths as distinct from "normal" demons. Not bad for two sentences.

Maybe I was disengenuous before. But when I say "classic" I meant as far as planar monsters go. 4e tossed the baby with the bathwater in that regard. Dumping entire major iconic groups of outsiders and being derogatory about them in the process, and then giving us such gems as the "evistro" demon in the space you saved... don't wait for my phone call the next day after that first date.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not singing a swan song for the rast and ravid.

While your campaign setting/cosmology preferences understandably color this, I think most DMs aren't sorry to see guardinals/archons/formians go. The geniunely popular guys (demons, devils, angels, eladrin, slaadi, some inevitables) survived just fine. I suspect formians will be back, but I won't miss lion-headed angelic things -- give me the "living flame" Biblical-ish new angels any day.

Disses aside, the evistro filled a necessary niche for the demons, just as the legion devil does for the devils. Now both groups have a "foot soldier" type; legion devils embodying the orderly precision of the devils, and evistro embodying the vicious destructive rage of the demons. Evistro vs. Legion Devils is also a *much* more compelling Blood War image than one with dretches and lemures.

 

[Khuxan]

I've been reading through the 4E MM and writing at least a paragraph on each monster entry (by entry I mean section, not stat block - so I wrote about both chokers in the one section). I've found it easier to write about than Monsters of Faerun or Monster Manual V - the monsters are more interesting, the description is tighter (more quality, less quantity) and the hooks are not abundant but they are there. Running them is a breeze as well.

 

[Ander00]

Also, which "classic" monsters are you talking about? It seems like this MM is more of an all-star list than we've ever gotten before.

While I don't mind monsters like the frost giant, the rust monster, or the metallic dragons not being in the MM, all-star is not the impression I got from the selection of monsters at all. I find many of them goofy, and not in a The Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing kind of way, but rather trying to be cool and failing hard at it (coupled with some really uninspiring "art").

Other than that, I like it well enough, so overall I'd say it's okay.


cheers

 

[TerraDave]

Surprisingly negative. I guess I was so relieved to not be using 3E stat blocks...

But I agree the 4E MM is also suprisingly thin in terms of description. Especially since they where supposed to do this whole big rethink on the monsters, their role, etc....its almost like a broken promise