Rating: 
Summary: By the Numbers
Review: The *Fiend Folio* has 166 creatures, 224 pages, and 8 templates, as well as 3 prestige classes for fiends and a section on grafts and symbionts (which is very cool, if not necessarily easy to implement).
Its CR values: mean ~8.3; mode 9; median 8; low 1/8; high 25.CR values of *MM1 3E* for comparison: mean ~5.4; mode 3; median 5; low 1/10; high 26. It retails at [$$$], which is a cost of $0.13 per page. Overall, these values are close to *MM2*, and the focus of the text is true to its title, as over 50% of the entries are extraplanar in some fundamental way. If one is looking to enhance some kind of Blood War narrative or planewalking game, then this book would be highly useful, for it does round out the possibilities hinted at in the Manual of the Planes; it is not so obviously useful for a straightforward "let's jump in the pickup and git us some kobolds!" type of game. Noteworthy templates include the "half-fey," "half-troll," and "half-illithid" (along with a cool sidebar on illithid reproductive activities heh). The "huecuva" and "swordwraith" templates are also decent. Specific creatures worthy of comment: 1) Constructs such as the "blackstone gigant," the "caryatid column," the "necrophidius," and the "zodar" (this last is especially well rendered), along with two new "inevitables" of high CR. 2) Undead: the "crawling head" and the "crypt thing" are decent, and the "hullathoin" is good. My favorite is the "quth-maren," a mid-range beastie that is pretty much the skinless guy from *Hellraiser*. Very nice. (but where's Pinhead, beeyotch?) 3) Dragon: only 2, but they're alright-the "sunwyrm," which is decent, and the "sea drake," which is very well executed (it likes to charge tolls to ships that pass through its territory, and if they don't pay, it constricts the vessels and sinks them; it especially hates pirates). 4) Planar-stuff, which is the meat by which this text must be judged: --the "rilmani" entries are a nice touch (creatures as adamant about true neutrality as the tanar'ri are about CE); --the "nerra" (from the "Plane of Mirrors," an area mentioned in *MotP*, but not at all developed until this entry, which is pregnant with idea); --the "kaorti" (from the "Far Realm," another area mentioned in *MotP*, which i interpret to be some space outside of the normal planes that is not subject to the axes of Good-Evil and Order-Chaos, and with plenty of other weirdness about it, etc); --more "planetouched" types e.g., dwarf-demon combos, &c; --the old 2E gehreleths return, but with their 1E name of "demodands," to round out Carceri's politics; --a miscellany of cool bits: the "khaasta," some "slaad," more "formians," more low ranking "yugoloths" (much needed, since *MotP* & *MM2* give mostly tougher ones), and the "ethergaunts" (a malevolent culture on the Ethereal Plane--very well conceived, since before the Ethereal was an apolitical space with ghosts and other nasties that merely want to eat people); --and of course tons of Celestials (2 "deva" types), Tanar'ri (7 or so types, some aquatic), and Ba'atezu (2 with high CR) plus allied creatures, like the "canomorphs," the "varrangoins," and some innovative golems. 5) A so-so assortment of oozes (the best is the "bloodbloater," a floating fried egg-looking thing that forms swarms to feed on the unwary), fey (some evil ones, too), plants, monstrous humanoids, beasts, and the like, though nothing about which to cream one's pant-except for: --the developments herein to the yuan-ti, where we now have the "yuan-ti anathema," a huge nasty-nasty with no human bits at all, and 6 snakeheads instead-high high CR, as well as notes on the "ophidian," a yuan-ti slave race of humans morphed into snakey-things, the "ti-khana" template (yuan-ti breeding experiment), and of course tons of fairly sickening (and completely characteristic) yuan-ti grafts in the appendix; --perhaps, also, the rules for swarms are useful, though the focus in the samples is clearly on tougher planar swarms, rather than on mundane types that (I believe) show up in *MM1 3.5E*; --one last thing here of interest is the "sarkrith," a mid-to-high CR lizard-thing that hates magickes; the entirety of sarkrith society (based in the underdark) is intent on destroying magic and enslaving those who use it-a fine addition to any game's eco-political system. 6) There is, I should note, a perverse worm fetish here; I just can't understand why anyone would need tons of high CR worm-things that a) have no intelligence, and b) are useful only insofar as they bust out of the ground, swallow half a party, and then retreat (isn't there already a "purple worm" and a "frost worm" for this purpose in *MM1*, as well as a hellacool "fiend worm" in *MM2*?). Anyway, *FF* offers the "century worm" (CR 19), the "lucent worm" (CR 17), the "slasrith" (CR 7-coolest one, since it is just a flying worm that yugoloths use as mounts, and has a useable CR), the "thunder worm" (CR 21), the "tunnel terror" (CR 15), and the "ulgurstasta" (CR 11-an undead worm-thing that swallows whole, like the rest of the lot, but instead of eating you, turns you into a zombie, then barfs you up hahahahaha); well, yeah, you get the point-should be the *Worm Folio*, &c. Otherwise, the text has the same high production values-great art here (best drawing by far is for the "blood golem of hextor," which looks just like a Mad Cat mech (a gift to the battletech cross-pollination geeks, i guess), no obvious editorial errors, and for the most part 3.5 compatible, though the DR system needs to be updated with the WotC web enhancement. The cover art is 100% better than *MM1* or *MM2*, since it's obviously a view from a cavern-type area out onto some abyssal plane, complete with a pit, volcano, and fire-stuff shooting out everywhere, rather than the silly eyeball-thing on *MM1* or the braindead mouth-thing on *MM2*. Ultimately, worth the money for game's that are not content to hunt orcs through level 30.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of Fiends in a Folio-like Compendium
Review: The thing I like about the Fiend Folio is that there's lots of fiends in it. The fiends are arranged into a... how shall I put it.... folio-type of arrangement. So, to sum it all up, there are lots of fiends in the Fiend Folio and that makes it cool.
If you, the player-character ever have trouble defeating one of the numerous fiends enumerated within the hallowed pages of the Fiend Folio, my suggestion would be to cast a Magic Missle at it because there -is no saving throw- for Magic Missle.
Rating: 
Summary: Not good
Review: The updated Fiend Folio is nearly as disappointing as the original book, although the art is admittedly better. The Monster Manual II is far superior in terms of content. Technically, the book is a match for any of the other excellent 3rd or 3.5 edition products; in every other way, it is considerably inferior. There are a very few creatures which are both innovative and interesting, such as the neutral aurumachs, which provide a middle ground between the fiends and celestials, and the nerras, strange mirror creatures from the Demiplane of Mirrors. However, in this book there are quite a few creatures that are just basically boring (really, how many different kinds of carnivorous flightless birds can you have? And there are also at least 2 creatures in this book which fall into the category of 'big bovines with sharp horns' -- mere filler, since there is nothing unique about any of these things) or that continue the unfortunate trend in recent D & D supplements of adding the freakish and just plain gross to the game. The revolting appendix on fiendish grafts and symbiotes is a case in point; it is alright for a scabrous 'dungeon-punk' or pseudo-horror campaign, but it's utterly useless for a high fantasy game in the tradition of Tolkien (and I like to think that there are still a few around); the crawling head is also utterly disgusting, and there are many other creatures of a similar kind. The bottom line: if you want to turn your game into an "Aliens with swords" game, then buy this book, call in Sigourney Weaver, and prepare for new explorations of grubbiness and grossness; if you want a high-fantasy, non-scabrous game, steer clear -- there are only 6 or 7 creatures in all that fit a non-horror style of gaming and these are ones you can live without.
Rating: 
Summary: Much inferior to the Monster Manual II
Review: The updated Fiend Folio is nearly as disappointing as the original book, although the art is admittedly better. The Monster Manual II is far superior in terms of content. Technically, the book is a match for any of the other excellent 3rd or 3.5 edition products; in every other way, it is considerably inferior. There are a very few creatures which are both innovative and interesting, such as the neutral aurumachs, which provide a middle ground between the fiends and celestials, and the nerras, strange mirror creatures from the Demiplane of Mirrors. However, in this book there are quite a few creatures that are just basically boring (really, how many different kinds of carnivorous flightless birds can you have? And there are also at least 2 creatures in this book which fall into the category of 'big bovines with sharp horns' -- mere filler, since there is nothing unique about any of these things) or that continue the unfortunate trend in recent D & D supplements of adding the freakish and just plain gross to the game. The revolting appendix on fiendish grafts and symbiotes is a case in point; it is alright for a scabrous 'dungeon-punk' or pseudo-horror campaign, but it's utterly useless for a high fantasy game in the tradition of Tolkien (and I like to think that there are still a few around); the crawling head is also utterly disgusting, and there are many other creatures of a similar kind. The bottom line: if you want to turn your game into an "Aliens with swords" game, then buy this book, call in Sigourney Weaver, and prepare for new explorations of grubbiness and grossness; if you want a high-fantasy, non-scabrous game, steer clear -- there are only 6 or 7 creatures in all that fit a non-horror style of gaming and these are ones you can live without.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: This book is excelent! Filled with fiends, undead, oozes, and some fey, this book has so many ideas for that monster for the climactic battle, or if you just want to keep your players on their toes. There's also new rules for grafts, if you want a demonic leg or something, and fiendish prestiege classes! The only [minor] downsides are that most creatures have an incredibly high challenge rating, and for some reason there's a celestial in here... oh well. Anyway, I seriously recommend this book for any DM with even the slightest intrest in using Fiends in their campaign.
Rating:
Summary: Not good
Review: This book is of average quality, much like the Monster Manual II but unlike the Monster Manual II, this book is neither fully compatible with 3.0 or the 3.5 D&D systems. This book came out during the transition between 3.0 and 3.5 and, as a result, you will have to either convert the monsters to 3.0 or to 3.5 if you want to use the monsters accurately. I admit there is less converting to do if you want to use the monsters for 3.5 but still... any conversion is too much. The problem is that the monsters in this book do not incorporate the new damage reduction system or the pricing system for constructs. If this book had been fully 3.5 I would have at least considered buying it but as it is, you should wait for a new "revised" version of this book (if there ever is one) before you buy, otherwise your buying a book for a gaming system that just isn't there.
Rating:
Summary: Not good
Review: This book is of average quality, much like the Monster Manual II but unlike the Monster Manual II, this book is neither fully compatible with 3.0 or the 3.5 D&D systems. This book came out during the transition between 3.0 and 3.5 and, as a result, you will have to either convert the monsters to 3.0 or to 3.5 if you want to use the monsters accurately. I admit there is less converting to do if you want to use the monsters for 3.5 but still... any conversion is too much. The problem is that the monsters in this book do not incorporate the new damage reduction system or the pricing system for constructs. If this book had been fully 3.5 I would have at least considered buying it but as it is, you should wait for a new "revised" version of this book (if there ever is one) before you buy, otherwise your buying a book for a gaming system that just isn't there.
Rating:
Summary: Better than MM2
Review: This book was definitely better than MM2, but nearly 80% of the new creatures are extraplanar, fiends, or devils, making it possibly a little harder to find a space for them in your campaign. I would reccomend getteing the Manual of the Planes to fully understand all of the creatures. Overall, it's great reading even outside of a regular game.
Rating:
Summary: Monsters Monsters Monsters!!!
Review: This is a good text of monsters, mostly updated from 1st or 2nd edition DND. It's compatible with DND 3.5, and it has a lot of good monsters for your DND campaign. This is NOT a book for players, this is a text to help DMs come up with challenging encounters for their players. As such, it's a worthy edition to your library of DND suppliments.
Rating:
Summary: #1 Monster book!
Review: This is the best monster book EVER! I don't know what the original is like but this one is AWESOME! Just get it. If you want to know what some of the monsters are like go to wizards.com.
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