What are your favorite monster books?

[blackshirt5]

OK, this is inspired by people talking on my Monsternomicon thread about different monster books. I was wondering what people thought were the best monster books.

Myself-
Monster Manual-A classic. The Monster Manual has so many classic monsters(Mind Flayer, Beholder, Dragons) as well as classical ones(Medusa, Hydra, Chimera) that it'll always have a place at my gaming table.
Monsternomicon-A new favorite, the Monsternomicon is very detailed and just flipping through the pages is often enough to give me a whole slew of new ideas for my next session. Plus, it's steampunkish.
Tome of Horrors-Even more classic monsters, it reprints a lot of oldies(including a personal favorite, the Piercer), and the volume to price ratio is awesome. I waited for quite a while to see pictures of all the creatures from the Creature Catalog, and I wasn't disappointed.
Monster Handbook-Greatly increases the utility of any of the monster books. An amazing value.

Anybody else wanna share there favorites?

 

[Nightfall]

Creature Collection 2 and hopefully CC Revised will rock as well. (Should though with templates like Unhallowed and Hag templates.)

 

[Pants]

1. Monster Manual - Old faithfull. The monster book that I always come home to.
2. Fiend Folio - I love all of the new outsiders. Swarms are a great addition as are the graft rules and the Fiendish Prestige Classes. The templates are great as well.
3. Tome of Horrors - some of the monsters may suck, but this book is huge, with some great old favorites. However, the CR's on some of the critters are a bit wonky. The Orog is CR 1?
4. Book of Vile Darkness - the monster sections are a bit small, but it makes up for it in quality. Even though others seem to have issues with how the Archfiends and Demon Lords were handled, I don't have a problem with them. Some good ole favorite monsters here too, like the Eye of Fear and Flame and a some good new ones as well e.g. the Vilewight
5. Monster Manual 2 - Some good stuff in here, but it suffers from CR wonkiness and wonky critters. Although, it has the Deathknight template, so I was sold.

Honorable Mention:
Creature Collection 1: If this book actually followed most of the monster rules, then it would probably be in my top five. As it is (and until the Revised one) it stands as a great idea that was poorly executed.
Monsters of Faerun: It has it's nice share of monsters, but I never seem to use any of them. I have no idea why...
Savage Species: I am waiting to see if I'm going to be getting any use out of this book. As it is, it has some really poor editing, but some great ideas (the templates, the monster classes, and the prestige classes). Plus, it has the Half-Ogre, even if it's LA should be +2.

 

[caudor]

I just picked up FFG's Twisted Lore. I *really* like this one. It contains 30+ creatures of the aberration, ooze, and shape-changer variety.

 

[bwgwl]

Monster Manual. probably 99% of the monsters i've used as a DM have come from that. it's got all the classic monsters, and a good variety of anything you'd need.

i own the MM, MM2, Fiend Folio, Tome of Horrors, and Monsters of Faerun, but i only seem to use monsters from the original.

 

[el-remmen]

ahem. . .

 

[DerianCypher]

Deities and Demigods

 

[BOZ]

Re: ahem. . .

i reference it frequently when working on or fixing conversions for the Creature Catalog (which, for those of you who don't know, birthed the Tome of Horrors!)

 

[Falcon]

Monster Manual 1
Monster's Hanbook
Monstermonicon
Necromantic Lore

 

[Voadam]

The srd! Even if the Monster Manual doesn't have good descriptions or layout The srd is easily searchable and free.

Denizens of Darkness has lots of good horror critters including many templates, mostly a conversion book of old ones, it grows on you.

Minions Rebirth has lots of different critters and it is in pdf so you can print out just the pages you need for the upcoming game instead of hauling an entire book.