Worth having?

[mips42]

SO I found a guy who has a Advanced D&D Monster manual / Monstrous Compendium (I don't currently remember the EXACT title). Its a white, hardcover book, NOT the ringed binder thing. If I remember correctly is has a pic of a beholder on the front.
The binding is loose between the back cover and the last page. It's not terrible but it's there. He's asking $15 for it but I could probably get it for less.
Is it worth having and, if so, what is a reasonable price to offer?

 

[Crothian]

The Monstrous Manual? That is what a used one goes for so you might find one in better condition for near the price if you hunted for it. It's a fine book but it is hard to say if it is worth having. I've got a copy somewhere can't say I've looked at it in at least a decade.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's widely considered the best single-volume TSR/WotC Monster Manual in D&D's history. It's very complete, as it contains a lot of the monsters from the supplemental loose leaf Monstrous Compendia. It's got more fluff than 3E or 4E had, which is a good thing if that's the way you lean. The art is definitely of its time, which again, is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your tastes.

It's also very compatible with 1E, OSR and (almost certainly) 5E.

That said, if it's not in great shape, WotC released a deluxe reprint of it last year for $40-something that you can also get used and likely a lot less battered than one from decades ago.

I will say that, despite being a 1E guy and having no particular fondness for 2E, I'm highly tempted to pick up the reprint of it for my C&C game, since it gathers together so many monsters from so many sources between two covers, including many that aren't covered in the OGL and thus are unlikely to ever get exactly reprinted by any third party sources. (And some of the wackier monsters are unlikely to ever get reprinted by WotC in 5E, either.)

 

[Andor]

(And some of the wackier monsters are unlikely to ever get reprinted by WotC in 5E, either.)

I dunno, one of the wild surge results summoned a pile of flumphs. So presumably they'll be printing stats for 5e flumphs. It's hard to get wackier than flumphs, man.

 

[digitalelf]

WotC released a deluxe reprint of it last year for $40-something that you can also get used and likely a lot less battered than one from decades ago.

Yeah, the Premium Re-print of the Monstrous Compendium is well worth spending the extra money (IMO), especially if you are currently playing 2nd edition AD&D...

 

[ephemeron]

It's hard to get wackier than flumphs, man.

If you say so.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I dunno, one of the wild surge results summoned a pile of flumphs. So presumably they'll be printing stats for 5e flumphs. It's hard to get wackier than flumphs, man.

Flumphs are iconically wacky.

The Monstrous Manual also has weirdos like a dozen beholder-kin (including the Bleeder, which has mouths at the ends of its stalks instead of eyes), the cooshee, the crabman, the yellow dragon, composite elementals, the giff (anthropomorphic hippopotami), gorbels, the cave cricket, the land lamprey, the man scorpion, the opossum (which would be necessary to have stats for ... when?), giant black squirrels (because nothing that was even mentioned in passing in the Hobbit can be allowed to not have stats), the tako (evil weapon-using octopi) and the zaratan (island-sized turtles made famous by Sinbad).

... I may have just talked myself into buying this book for my C&C campaign.

Maddeningly, they don't have the (far superior) nosferatu vampire or racial vampires from Ravenloft, which really ought to be core monsters, IMO.

 

[Libramarian]

I would look for a different copy. I bought one a couple years ago for 1 cent (plus a few bucks the seller folded into the shipping fee). 2e books are inexpensive, or at least they were last time I checked.

I'm not a huge fan of it. Too much fluff of dubious utility for my taste. I also don't like the power-down of low level monsters and the power-up of high level monsters. I think the monster attack progression in 1e is more sophisticated.

The DiTerlizzi art is great but clashes badly with the other guy's '70s comic book-style illos.

My favorite D&D monster book is the Book of Beings.