D&D 5E Treasure and Monster Compilations - What Sources Should They Have?

[howandwhy99]

With this week's Legends and Lore article suggesting many monsters will receive additional story or setting descriptions to go along with their mechanical designs, I was wondering how people prefer their Monster Manuals and Treasure Horde books created.

I believe many of these works originally were a mix of pre-published content and new content. The interesting thing about using pre-published content is that it already has pages and pages of connections to a setting and adventure. This means a paragraph or two about culture, history, personality, and so on in a Monster Manual or Treasure Horde can't really compare. If you want to really know how Kuo-Toa behave pick up D1-2 "Descent Into the Depths of the Earth". If you want to know how Baba Yaga's Hut works pick up "The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga". Or perhaps a campaign setting like Greyhawk to learn the history the Hand and Eye of Vecna and who this Vecna person was anyways.

 

[Li Shenron]

I would go with legacy.

Additions and new twists perhaps to monsters that have a slim history or never got more than "lives in dungeons"/"lives in forests" description, but leave monsters with a history largely untouched (or at least add but don't change or remove).

 

[delericho]

When a monster is created for an adventure, this can mean one of two things:

- the monster might be specific to the adventure and be of very limited use outside of the adventure. A good example would be the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, which is obviously intimitely connected to the hag herself. Or...

- the monster could be more generally useful - the adventure needs a new type of demon, but that demon could quite easily appear anywhere else.

IMO, the semi-annual Monster Manuals should collect up all the monsters from the latter category into a single, handy reference. Then, any page count that remains (and there should be plenty - thin hardbacks are horribly inefficient) should be given over to new monsters. And, yes, any monsters that appear in the MM should have a full write up.

Of course, it's perhaps also worth noting that the days of published Monster Manuals are probably numbered anyway. When presenting 'stuff' for the game, an online database is probably approach anyway, whether that's in the DDI compendium, and online SRD, or similar.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Since the original MMII and Unearthed Arcana including a large number of monsters and treasure from the adventures that preceded them, I think it's a pretty good model. I voted 50/50/

 

[the Jester]

When a monster is created for an adventure, this can mean one of two things:

- the monster might be specific to the adventure and be of very limited use outside of the adventure. A good example would be the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, which is obviously intimitely connected to the hag herself. Or...

- the monster could be more generally useful - the adventure needs a new type of demon, but that demon could quite easily appear anywhere else.

IMO, the semi-annual Monster Manuals should collect up all the monsters from the latter category into a single, handy reference. Then, any page count that remains (and there should be plenty - thin hardbacks are horribly inefficient) should be given over to new monsters. And, yes, any monsters that appear in the MM should have a full write up.

This is just right in my opinion. A monster that is presented as unique doesn't generally need to be in the MM (excepting creatures like slaadi lords, demon princes, etc).

One thing I really like an edition's monster books to do is both present old-edition monsters updated to new stats and present new monsters. Something like the 3e MM3 or later doesn't have enough cool old stuff for my taste; I want no less than, say, 1/3 old monsters. There are always tons of great old creatures that don't get updated to an edition. I don't think we've seen an official leucrotta since 1e! Where has my mustard jelly been the last few times? Whatever happened to the tendriculous and screaming devilkin? And so on.