The Monster Manual 5

[Nebulous]

The art preview is up here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20070709a

Now, i'm a sucker for monster manuals of all sorts, i will be buying this one, but really, can anyone still keep making monsters that aren't just a shade different from other creatures in other supplements? I don't see anything here (judging from the art and names) that i don't have in print in another 3rd party product. The stats i'm sure will vary, but with a thousand monsters to choose from, there's tons of crossover abilities. However, the artwork in the MM5 is gorgeous and better than most other books.

I really can't imagine what they'll be putting in the MM 6 next year. Or maybe it will be the 4th edition MM #1 !

 

[blargney the second]

There's a lot of Wayne England art. :-\

Edit: on second tally, there's no more of him than anybody else. I just don't like his style, so it sticks out more to me, I guess.

 

[Razz]

I really can't imagine what they'll be putting in the MM 6 next year. Or maybe it will be the 4th edition MM #1 !

They have a ton of ideas. They just won't use them.

First off, there's still plenty of creatures from older editions to convert that're ripe for D&D. Even if the creature wasn't well popular, they can spicen it up or rework it entirely. They've done it with several conversions already.

Second, there's plenty of other creatures to build off of. We have tons of demons, quite a number of devils, but what about moving on to something different? Like more celestials and, definitely, more yugoloths. (while they're at it, they need to finish what they started and convert the Hierarch Modrons and the other three Rilmani).

MMV had one new celestial and no yugoloths...yet another 5 demons and 3 devils? I think we have enough of those for now.

 

[Nifft]

Lashemoi and Arkamoi by Franz Vohwinkel


... because "lashez-moi" was too formal?

Ouch, -- N

 

[Moon-Lancer]

wow. I'm really digging some of this art.

thier was one or two that was "meh", but over all really good job.

 

[Aloïsius]

Lashemoi and Arkamoi by Franz Vohwinkel


... because "lashez-moi" was too formal?

Ouch, -- N

Some strange S and M franglish

 

[Felon]

MMV had one new celestial and no yugoloths...yet another 5 demons and 3 devils? I think we have enough of those for now.

It's not feng shui. Including more celestials just for the sake of boosting their representation is not a storng motive. Players don't fight a lot of angels.

Yugoloths are a small fracnhise, not nearly as numerous as demons and devils. Like gem dragons, they arose from the aforementioned notion of monster "feng shui"; you've got lawful fiend and chaotic fiends, so naturally their must be netural ones.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's not feng shui. Including more celestials just for the sake of boosting their representation is not a storng motive. Players don't fight a lot of angels.

True, and that's a good reason for not including many of them. Still, angels make good allies for the PC's, things they can summon or use planar ally to get or plot devices to interact with or things they can change into, etc. Angels, eladrin, and guardinals are useful for PC's, not so much for use against PC's.

Yugoloths are a small fracnhise, not nearly as numerous as demons and devils. Like gem dragons, they arose from the aforementioned notion of monster "feng shui"; you've got lawful fiend and chaotic fiends, so naturally their must be netural ones.

Yugoloths have their own thing going on, too, though. Demons are the destructive force, Devils are the corruptive force, Yugoloths are the "defensive evil," the selfish force, the ones that focus on keeping others out so that no one can see what they're doing.

And the point of "we have thousands of demons and devils already" stands pretty well, ESPECIALLY on the demon side. Do we need more? At all?

I mean, the same is probably true for all of the monster manual, but if we're getting more, we might as well be getting more different, rather than more of the same IMO (part of why I still stand by Denizens of Avadnu as one of the awesomest monster manuals ever)

 

[Mouseferatu]

I should be careful speaking for Felon, since he and I disagree about as often as we agree...

But I don't think he's saying "WotC shouldn't publish new angels or new yugoloths." I think what he's saying--and if I'm interpreting correctly, I happen to agree with him 100%--that WotC shouldn't publish more of them purely for the sake of "evening out" the numbers. If/when the writers and developers have solid ideas for an angel or a yugoloth, by all means, include 'em in the next supplement. But to make an effort to fill pages with them based on some nonsensical idea of "symmetry" is a fool's errand.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But I don't think he's saying "WotC shouldn't publish new angels or new yugoloths." I think what he's saying--and if I'm interpreting correctly, I happen to agree with him 100%--that WotC shouldn't publish more of them purely for the sake of "evening out" the numbers. If/when the writers and developers have solid ideas for an angel or a yugoloth, by all means, include 'em in the next supplement. But to make an effort to fill pages with them based on some nonsensical idea of "symmetry" is a fool's errand.

Agreed, but if WotC can't think of cool ideas for angels and yugoloths and fey and fungus and oozes and all sorts of other types of monsters we don't have much of, I'm gonna hafta say they aren't TRYING very hard.

I mean, that might not be a goal they really do over there when gathering together monsters for a new manual, but "giving love to ignored monster types" IS a pretty worthy goal. The more cool, unique monster diversity there is out there, the more variety there is in the game, and the broader a DM's possible selection of cool antagonists.

I guess that's kind of why I'm a fan of the classed monsters, though, too. Humanoids don't get a lot of love at higher levels because (at least for my games) it's a lot of work to generate unique classed individuals. Classed humanoids in MM's support a more diverse antagonist selection for my games, which is a good thing.