Rating: 
Summary: Heartfelt rant from a 2e purist...
Review: After taking a trip to the Natick Mall to purchase a Nile T-shirt and an Iron Maiden album, I stopped by the book store and looked through a copy of the new 3e fiend folio. It looks like they've brought in some creatures from Planescape, but made them into charicatures of themselves as they've done with the others. I really dislike the cartoonish art direction of 3e (1e had ametuerish art that got the atmosphere right). Anyway, the fensir (a personal favorite of mine, as my gallery at Elfwood might indicate) was unfortunate enough to be one of the creatures "revived" in the 3e Fiend Folio, although they now look like twisted parodies of themselves. It's as if the fensir pic was drawn (and written) by someone who was mugged by an Ysgardian troll as a kid and wanted nothing more to do with them. Now they're described as having grotesquely large Kilomulus-like noses and warty skin (as opposed to simply being varied in appearance from hideously ugly to almost human-looking with a propensity for large noses and ears). No mention whatsoever is made of their sexual dimorphism/culture (which is one of the things that made me interested in them in 2e, but 3e is politically correct to ridiculous lengths in regards to anything pertaining to gender). The creatures of 2e had so much more depth. And not just the fensir. Other old favorites are now just cardboard cut-outs with their most interesting aspects undermined and watered down for quick hacking. Other new creatures/ideas in the 3e manuals range from pointless (the plane of mirrors?), ludicrous (troll/barbazu crossbreed? what about the illithid/lizard man hybrid?), needlessly excessive (what about the endless and nonsensical templates? now you can play a vampiric/half-dragon/fiend/tauric/winged/bugbear/half-iron golem...I guess this means more 'freedom in role-playing'), and sometimes creative (I'll have to think a while for an example). Even the expansion books are nothing more than extra rules, templates, artifacts, skills, and monsters, far inferior to their 2e counterparts. It's as if the D&D creatures aren't even real in the minds of WoTC. Though they aren't possible, the world of 2e and it's inhabitants were somehow plausible. I don't believe the 3e creatures exist for a second. Nothing new under the sun I know, but I still find this trend in 3e depressing...
Rating: 
Summary: Better Than Most Monster Manuals
Review: As an avid DM, I own about seven different 3E monster manuals, a few from third-party publishers. Out of what I have, the Fiend Folio is quite possibly the best. The book is populated mainly by monsters that make the most despicably evil and ugly things in the original monster manual look like guests at your tea party. Most of the monsters are demons, devils, undead, or creatures with a decidedly malevolent and unpleasant nature about them. While there are a couple of monsters that buck this trend (there's a few celestials), they serve to round the book out nicely in the end. Fiend Folio is probably the first of WotC's monster manuals to implement more complete monster statistics. Listed for your convenience is the monster's base attack bonus and grapple bonus, things which don't appear in the original Monster Manual--three cheers for the grapple bonus especially, a listing that comes in all too handy; a lot of the monsters in D&D need to use grappling to execute their special abilities, and the formula for calculating a monster's grapple bonus is not an easy one to do one the fly unless you are exceptionally familiar with the rules for doing so. "Exceptional familiarity" is not something that beginner DMs have. I find the art to be four stars. The majority of the creatures are fun to look at, though there are a few shoddy illustrations. Some people think that 3E art in general is too cartoonish, but I find this to be quite untrue. For one, the art is a massive step up from 2E, which was brimming with overly simplistic monster drawings (probably resulting from the fact that a single artist did most of the 100+ monsters in the manual for 2E) and full-page paintings that depicted scenes that were utterly disinteresting. While some of the 3E art is more suited to comic books (a prime example of this is Wayne Reynolds), it would only be suitable for well-done comic books, and the creatures depicted are far more vibrant than before. Rarely is this more true than in the Fiend Folio. Check out wizards.com/dnd to see the art from the books yourself. I recommend Fiend Folio if you were either unimpressed with the Book of Vile Darkness's monster fare, or just simply felt that you needed additional creatures of an especially wicked and/or grotesque nature. You will not be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Monster Book
Review: Better than the slightly disappointing MM2. The art is vivid, and many of the beasts are fiendishly creative and scary. As far as the monsters already covered in Tome of Horrors, yeah, there is some stuff that has been redone, maybe 5 to 10 monsters we've seen elsewhere, but it's interesting to see a different take by another designer (particularly the disenchanter, which has a FF CR 17!)
Rating:
Summary: Not as bad as I'd thought
Review: From various sources, I thought this book would be useless, and impossible to implement. Instead, it has monsters that are in fact easy to add to even lower-level campaigns. There are a few drow-related monsters, which are probably of little use to anyone not inside a Forgotten Realms campaign, but an enterprising DM could add them to an existing campaign without mentioning their origins at all. To sum it up, I am sorry that so many people recommended not buying this book, because I would have liked to have had it sooner rather than later.
Rating:
Summary: Outsiders, undead and constructs, oh my
Review: I held off on buying the Fiend Folio for a while. There was no real reason, other than the fact that the first time I had the chance to look at the book, I'd just been to the optometrist and my eyes were all woogly. I didn't take the chance to look at it again until later. I'm glad I took that second chance. The clear emphasis in this book is on outsiders, undead and constructs. The back of the book says that the major focus is on "fiends," which is a trifle misleading as there aren't that many new true fiends, meaning baatezu or ta'anari. The ones included basically flesh out what was once available in the second edition Planescape compendiums and other sources, so it was very much appreciated. The remainder of the book has some lovely creatures as well, including a number of neutrally aligned inevitable and rilmani, giving the party more than just demons and angels to cope with. CRs are quite high in this book, but again the cover warns you of this, and a simple glance through will show this. Few of the monsters are in the truly unkillable category, though, and many of the high CR guys would make suitable behind-the-scenes villains, bad guys for a low-level party to take on after taking out the beasties minions. This book also doesn't suffer from the Monster Manual II's overemphasis on the Improved Grab feat, which makes for some powerful monsters that won't just grab the PCs and never let go. The grafts section is interesting, providing a way for willful PCs to increase their raw power, for a price. I really liked the fiendish prestige classes, which enable you to create a barbaze or even a lemure with just that extra edge of power and ability to drive the PCs nuts. Once again, though, WotC has decided to shuffle the templates in with the monsters, which is needless and a little confusing. There are also some minor typos and some slight disagreements between the main body of monsters and the stat block, or between the description and the picture. All these issues are easily resolveable, but for [$$], I expect them to be resolved BEFORE I buy.
Rating:
Summary: A good mid to high level monster book.
Review: If you are looking to populate your D&D world with some scary higher level monsters, then this is the book for you. Highs: As stated before, a nice selection of high level creeps (30+). Three new prestige classes for evil outsiders. New rules on grafts and symbiots. 3.5 compatable. Lows: Some of the entries are just reprints from other sources. Not enough undead for my taste. Art is poor for some of the illistrations.
Rating:
Summary: A good mid to high level monster book.
Review: If you are looking to populate your D&D world with some scary higher level monsters, then this is the book for you. Highs: As stated before, a nice selection of high level creeps (30+). Three new prestige classes for evil outsiders. New rules on grafts and symbiots. 3.5 compatable. Lows: Some of the entries are just reprints from other sources. Not enough undead for my taste. Art is poor for some of the illistrations.
Rating:
Summary: A good mid to high level monster book.
Review: If you are looking to populate your D&D world with some scary higher level monsters, then this is the book for you. Highs: As stated before, a nice selection of high level creeps (30+). Three new prestige classes for evil outsiders. New rules on grafts and symbiots. 3.5 compatable. Lows: Some of the entries are just reprints from other sources. Not enough undead for my taste. Art is poor for some of the illistrations.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly Purposeless
Review: It seems to me that this was the product of "Gee, we just finished making money off the monster manual. How can we make some more? Let's just shuffle it around and publish it again!" This book is more or less just a nearly totally random collection of monsters. Some fiends here, an undead there, one totally random celestial, with absolutely no unifying theme or purpose. The monsters themselves are, as usual, well described, well thought out, and many have rather good illustrations as well. However, "What's the point?" is the question that surrounds this book. If you have the opportunity to pick this up for a couple bucks, then it might make sense, as this book, with its few new worthwhile additions and lots of pointless rehashes, is about the D&D equivalent of a 10 cent yard sale grab bag.
Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Purposeless
Review: It seems to me that this was the product of "Gee, we just finished making money off the monster manual. How can we make some more? Let's just shuffle it around and publish it again!" This book is more or less just a nearly totally random collection of monsters. Some fiends here, an undead there, one totally random celestial, with absolutely no unifying theme or purpose. The monsters themselves are, as usual, well described, well thought out, and many have rather good illustrations as well. However, "What's the point?" is the question that surrounds this book. If you have the opportunity to pick this up for a couple bucks, then it might make sense, as this book, with its few new worthwhile additions and lots of pointless rehashes, is about the D&D equivalent of a 10 cent yard sale grab bag.
| 
