Using Non-Monster Manual Monsters

[NewJeffCT]

How often do you use exotic monsters? The reason I ask is that I see a lot of alternate d20 versions of the Monster Manual out there. However, I flip through them and often think, “Well, these are some good (and not-so-good) ideas, but I don’t think I’d ever use something that strange/unusual/exotic in game as a DM.”

I mean, I think I can still surprise the PCs with the standard goblins, orcs, kobolds, and hobgoblins right from the Monster Manual (or, be surprised by them as a player). Throw in some undead (skeletons, zombies, ghouls, vampires, etc) and some more powerful beings (standard MM dragons, demons and devils) and a few others: lycanthropes, giants, ogres, trolls, and a few others, and I’m happy. Our chief "campaign level" villains generally end up being human, with the occasional demi-human in the mix.

We do use other monsters in gaming, but those are unusual and usually have a good explanation as to why they are there. But, then we can use a beholder, or a mind flayer, or lizard folk as rarer monsters, and still not have used more than 25% of the MM.

Not to say that using an unusual/exotic monster from another d20 tome is bad or wrong, mind you, it’s just that there seems to be a lot of choices out there, and most of the time I tend to make do with just stuff from the MM...

 

[EricNoah]

I like having variety though I don't necessarily use the weirder, more "out there" monsters. I do like having, say, several flavors of giant bug handy, or some different fiends to throw at PCs, or different varieties of undead.

 

[Desdichado]

Some of the MM monsters are pretty out there, frankly. I don't think that the other monsters I have from other books are necessarily more exotic.

 

[Drawmack]

I tend to use only the MM and my own creations. The reason for this is that I find the other monster manuals out there tend to suffer the most balance problems of any suppliment. For example I saw two almost identical monsters except one had 10' reach and one did not. One was listed as a CR4 and one as a CR6 and the one with the reach was the CR4.

I'm not saying I have anything against any particular product, just that from what I've seen there are a lot of balance problems with the CRs.

 

[Voadam]

Let's see, in the last game I ran, the party encountered one air elemental out of the MM, one large snake out of the MM, a couple gnolls out of the MM, one pyre elemental out of Denizens of Darkness, one zombie golem out of DoD, and weretigers with the ravenloft lycanthrope template.

I usually get one non core monster into each game. A mix of the recognizable and the unkown for them.

 

[EricNoah]

I don't worry about CRs too much -- I usually am more concerned about Attack Bonus with weapon/natural attacks (add 10 to that and that's the AC they're going to be hitting half the time), AC (subtract 10 and that's the attack bonus the PCs will need to have in order to hit half the time), and DCs of any special abilities like poison, magic, etc.

 

[EricNoah]

Oh, and I do like templates. I put together half-dragon creatures as "dragon replacements" in a lower-magic setting I'm working on. The dragons of this world are only half-dragon dire snakes, giant lizards, and huge sharks. That helps with variety immensely.

 

[alsih2o]

i am a firm believer that you cannot have too much info to work with, i have scaled up and down and based on and every opther variety, i think it is great....even the "out there" ones

 

[kenjib]

I agree with you. I don't particularly care for most of the d20 monster books for exactly that reason. Monsternomicon has too much steampunk for a standard fantasy game. The Creature Collections have too many strange creatures in general that just don't grab my attention and they all start to look the same after a while. The Liber Beastarius is full of strange new humanoid races - how many sentient civilizations with random species traits do you need in a world? I do like the Tome of Horrors though.

Assuming an infinite rpg book budget, sure you can get something good out of all of them, but I didn't think that the signal to noise ratio was good enough for me.

 

[Desdichado]

I agree with you. I don't particularly care for most of the d20 monster books for exactly that reason. Monsternomicon has too much steampunk for a standard fantasy game. The Creature Collections have too many strange creatures in general that just don't grab my attention and they all start to look the same after a while. The Liber Beastarius is full of strange new humanoid races - how many sentient civilizations with random species traits do you need in a world? I do like the Tome of Horrors though.

Assuming an infinite rpg book budget, sure you can get something good out of all of them, but I didn't think that the signal to noise ratio was good enough for me.

Oddly enough, IMO, the Tome of Horrors has probably the highest count of "out there" monsters of any monster book I own. Because they are historical D&D creatures, though, you overlook that, and instead complain about the Monsternomicon's steampunk (which is really only half a dozen or so tops of all the creatures in the game) or other books that certainly are no worse offenders than even the base MM.

IMO, the best monster books I own are the Book of Fiends series from Green Ronin and the Monsternomicon from Privateer Press. Scarred lands has some interesting stuff, but also some stuff that would never fit in a campaign I'd be interested in running, and the basic D&D monsters exemplified by the MM books and the Tome of Horrors has, IMO, the highest percentage of "out there" monsters that I'd never use of any monster book I own.