What would you like to see in future monster books?

[DonaldRumsfeldsTofu]

-I know this would probably make all the work Boz has done over the years seem wasted, but I really want to see future monster books actually convert all of the ing monsters from previous editions. If there's not official statistics for fricking Leprechauns and Brownies, I don't really give a damn about pseudo-Lovecraftian monsters that just look silly and have gibberish names, or thr 500th new undead that looks exactly like a ghoul.
-A lot less undead. Here's all the undead I'll ever need; Ghost, ghoul, ghast, allip, vampire, lich, wright, wraith, skeleton, zombie. I don't need a whole damn vampire ecology.
-Instead of making up monsters, the monster books need to focus more on monsters from mythology and classic literature, or at least monsters made up in previous editions that are actually cool (see point one). Some of the monsters they make up are cool, some...aren't. >< For example, there needs to be a book of monsters from Native American mythology, or a whole book that was like the back section of Oriental Adventures. (I recall a third party did this and it wasn't very good.)
-For christsakes, just make lines in the creature statistics for "Languages known", instead of trying to remember to add it to the end of the description every time. There also needs to be another line added; "Weight/Highth [or length". I know exactly how tall a half-elf is on average, but my Dungeon Master always never knows what to do when I ask him how tall a monster is.

Seriously, if the Monster Manual 3 was nothing but reprints of the Creature Catalog monsters, and 3.5 updates of the monsters featured in sections of non-monster books, I'd be happy.

 

[BOZ]

I know this would probably make all the work Boz has done over the years seem wasted, but I really want to see future monster books actually convert all of the ing monsters from previous editions.

naaaaah... not at all. if they did that, i could retire and do something more productive with my life!

Seriously, if the Monster Manual 3 was nothing but reprints of the Creature Catalog monsters, and 3.5 updates of the monsters featured in sections of non-monster books, I'd be happy.

yeah, me too. c'est la vie...

 

[dhaga]

-For christsakes, just make lines in the creature statistics for "Languages known", instead of trying to remember to add it to the end of the description every time. There also needs to be another line added; "Weight/Highth [or length". I know exactly how tall a half-elf is on average, but my Dungeon Master always never knows what to do when I ask him how tall a monster is.

I agree wholeheartedly. Languages spoken would be a great addition to the stat block. And it is much easier to describe a creature to my PCs when I know how big it really is, instead of guessing based on its facing numbers (face/reach).

 

[the Jester]

D'you guys like having advanced versions of monsters in your monster books, a la the 3.5 MM?

 

[BOZ]

you guys do know that most creatures in the 3.5 MM now have heights and weights listed right?

 

[dhaga]

Ah, well how about that. I don't own the 3.5 MM, just the 3.0. Guess I'll quit my complaining about that particular point...

 

[BOZ]

i'd go and list them all for you, if i had the time. if you have some that you would like to know about in particular, post a list.

 

[demiurge1138]

Let's see. I'd like...

The yugoloths to get some more respect. And members. From what I hear, the new ultroloth is pretty sad, and I don't have much higher expectations for the rest of them.

Less anthropomorphics. If you want to make a new humanoid, fine. Just make sure it's more than "a human with the head of a panda!" or whatever.

Modrons! These guys deserve entry in a real book (not just the web enhancements).

Flavor text. I pine for the good ol' days of 2e. In terms of ecology, habitat and society, of course. Not much else.

Demiurge out.

 

[Ferret]

D'you guys like having advanced versions of monsters in your monster books, a la the 3.5 MM?

Only on some, they got it right with the 3.5 monster manual.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

I want much of what Shade said combined with a Bucket 'o Parts because I'm one of those freaky homebrew people who isn't satisfied with whatever new rulebook has just been released for $33. I want to customize the gaming experience I'm inflicting on my players... I want:

Special Quality DNA Templates -- Lots of monsters have regeneration. I want my monster to have regeneration. I don't want my monster having to put up with a troll heritage -- just give me an untyped template that gives Regeneration (or Fast Healing), maybe a Con bonus and an appropriate CR modifier. Now do that for all sorts of nifty yet fairly minor special features ("this monster has the clerical Travel domain as spell-like abilities," for another example) that don't involve every bloody NPC the party meeting being the byproduct of dragons, trolls, fiends, celestials, and hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional shades of blue. Assigning partial CR modifiers to smaller templates is A-Okay.

Reduced Huge-CR Beasties of Doom -- Open up Savage Species to the monster progressions chapter -- see all of those advancement grids? I want those for your insanely high CR critters. I want my level 10 party to go up against an abomination that's somewhat imprisioned such that they've got half a chance of surviving the encounter, but know that they'll have to come back to it when they have a chance at winning. So what does that abomination look like at a level that my party might survive? See the nifty species CR progression table...

Playtesting Notes -- Because I know that the half-fiend template wasn't tested with an advanced gibbering mouther. Result is really cool, but the CR is way way way off. So when you're setting CRs on creatures and templates, let us know who they killed (and how) to get rated so darn high. Why is it that a Dokufu (Oriental Adventures) got a CR 19 without SR, DR or even energy resistance? Which of the CEO's characters got eaten to get that rating, hrm? Compared to the Catoplepas' CR 6 with Death-Ray Eyes! See, if I get a copy of your playtesting notes, I'll be able to tell whether your playtesting sound about par for my PCs or not, thus enabling me to adjust CR and such (maybe even according to that CR progression tables included as mentioned above).

For comparison, the MM3 looked pretty nice and more in-depth than previous offerings, but I won't be buying a copy because I don't need a bunch of trees and trolls -- given a basic troll and lots of upgrade/downgrade options, I can make my own trees, trolls, and even tree-trolls to fit my campaign world and its limited subset of sentient species quite nicely.

::Kaze (wonders how "this monster was probably created by failed wizard experiments" would work in homebrew settings that don't use wizards...)