Rating: 
Summary: the best book of AD&D
Review: The monster manual is a good book, i think it has avrything you have alot of writing in it, it has a lot of good picthers ond the cavor on it is a hardcavr book sow that makes it beter loking and is more camfertabel to hold i think it is a good book for pepole who whant to draw picthers of strang animals and crithers.I hope you wil read may review,tanks a lot.
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Summary: Monster Manual, Frightfully Delicious
Review: This, the third incantation of the Dungeons & Dragons Monster manual continues to live up to the high-quality expectations of the dicerning players. New players and old-school hardcores will agree that the art and writing has only improved now that DnD has reached the new millenium. Definately worth having, it will make your DMing life a lot happier.
Rating: 
Summary: A must have for a DM...
Review: overall, a good product though there could have been more monsters. If you re playin 3rd ed. d&d you gotta have this book. I didnt give it a 5 star because I hate TSR for creating 3+ books (players,dms,monstrous) where as a single guide for a player, an all in 1 set would have been great. If you wanna play 3rd ed d&d, you gotta buy it!
Rating:
Summary: Indispensable book for D&D
Review: This book, along with the players handbook and the dm guide are the best the series has seen. The 3rd edition rules are very simple and easy to unterstand. Gone are obscure rules and difficult scenarios from the previous edition. This book gives all the information you need for all your old favorite monsters as well as a few new ones. The information is easy to understand. The Ilustrations are great. This book is a definite must buy.
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Summary: The Holy Trinity is complete... and such a bargain.
Review: Come all ye faithful. The Monster Manual is here (and properly named... none of this compendium nonsense). This is a must have for playing 3rd Edition D&D and a welcome addition it is. The book is a bargain at under $20 and cover to cover color illustrations make to book a pleasure to veiw. Every piece of data needed is right at hand and the new format allows multiple monsters per page with a clean layout. The monster advancement tables in the front of the book (though somewhat obtuse) are another happy surprise allowing a scale of power for the monsters presented including levels in character classes for the more humanoid monsters. The book closes with a VERY satifactory layout for template momnsters... Vampire, Lycanthropes, Part-demons, etc... where a template can be grafted onto another monster to customize the more interesting variations allowed by this section. Rush right out and plunk down your $20 for this product and you'll find it a bargain...
Rating: 
Summary: Well made, but inferior to previous references
Review: I was among the many long-time AD&D'ers who was very nervous about WotC's remake of the AD&D game. I admit I was quite impressed with the Player's Handbook, but not so with the Monster Manual. The artwork is incredible; the fact that it's in color is a nice touch. But the big pictures, placed in the middle of the page, sometimes make it difficult to find the information one is looking for. That, and there aren't pictures for all the monsters. That wouldn't be a horrible thing, but the written descriptions are quite short and incomplete, often much more so than even the 1st ed Monster Manual (a Nalfeshnee is simply described as a 20-foot cross between and ape and a boar with wings...accurate, but I could only visualize it because of previous knowledge). Most monster descriptions/information (outside of combat stats) comprise four sentences or so. Further, the organization is sometimes rough. The creature names in the book are only slightly larger than the subheadings, such as "combat." This is no major problem, but it makes it difficult to quickly pick out where the monster listings begin. This format was terrific for the PHB; but the MM is more of a reference work, written for information-at-a-glance, rather than for enjoyable reading. On the plus side, some new features are included (necessary for any remarketing of old material, I suppose). Rules for augmenting monsters are a very nice addition, as are monster templates; though to be fair to 2nd ed., templates existed then even though they weren't called such or as thoroughly explained (liches were still wizards, vampires could have classes, etc.). Some monsters are new, though fairly unremarkable; some are further clarified for increased realism, most noticeably the fire elemental. In general, the old monsters were simply refitted to make them more impressive on paper; more hit points, tougher bad guys. No big whoop about making monsters more difficult by giving them better stats. I admit, I'm biased. I come from old-school AD&D, where monster hit points and armor class weren't the key to making challenging foes. In conclusion, the book is useful for updating monsters to 3rd ed. rules, but is otherwise unremarkable. It is the perfect resource if one is already familiar with the monsters from 1st and/or 2nd ed., and is merely looking for new stats. When one considers the very reasonable price, it's a worthwhile purchase. And yes, dragons were beefed-up again.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy on the stats, thin on the role-playing...
Review: Ever since the Diablo expansion for AD&D came out earlier this year, there seems to have been a migration towards hack-and-slash campaigns. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that, and I have even taken part in some pretty gory, combat-happy campaigns myself, such a trend ignores the other half of role-playing games--namely, the non-combat, character-development aspect of it. The 3rd Edition D&D Monster Manual is nothing more than that: the bare bones description of monsters allowing for DMs to incorporate them into combat situations--as fodder for player characters. Perhaps 95% of this book is devoted to statistics and combat strategies of the creatures. All but gone are the ecological and social descriptions of these monsters, transforming them into two-dimensional adventurer-bait. Players of the old edition of AD&D can use the plethora of works detailing and describing these monsters from 2nd Edition AD&D and substitute the statistics presented herein. I imagine there will be a lot of that going on, with the focus on rules of play and combat in 3rd Edition. With all that said and done, this is still an excellent tome. More than anything, the monsters have benefitted from the rules-overhaul and are now neatly categorized and described within the framework of the rules. There is a great sense of consistency throughout the work that helps the DM adjudicate situations that may come up in the campaign. All of the monsters now belong in several different types, much as player characters are defined by different classes. These types determine hit die, attack bonuses, skill points, saving throughts, and various abilities. Supernatural and magical abilities were unified, as much as possible, so that one set of rules can define breath weapons, energy drains, fear auras, etc., while still allowing the variation between different monsters. A good ten pages in the beginning is devoted to all of the general rules concerning monsters and really shows the extent to which the design of this game is very smooth and logical, not to mention consistent. The selection of monsters in this book is extensive--truly over 500 creatures. Add to that templates that allow the DM to customize creatures with a certain condition instead of simply presenting, for instance, twenty different variations of vampires, and the vast scope of this system becomes staggering. All monsters now have an "Advancement" entry, which indicates how the monster might improve over the base entry described in this book, either in Hit Dice, or in character class levels. The ability scores given for the monsters are easily-worked with using the information from the Dungeon Master's Guide, allowing DMs to create unique, customized versions of any monster in this book, or to allow players to play monster characters. I do have a few additional quibbles about this work, however, one of which being variant caster levels for a certain creature. For instance, pit fiends cast most spells as a 17th-level sorceror, except for the wish spell, which is cast at 20th-level, and his fear aura, which is cast as if a 15th-level sorceror. This is troublesome and confusing, and while it shows the variation of the pit fiend's different abilities...is this really necessary? Still, this book is a well-written work by none other than Skip Williams, who has answered "Sage Advice" questions in the Dragon Magazine for 15 years. The well-coordinated rules and the seamless system of 3rd Edition D&D no doubt bears his mark, and this book is a fine example of the improvements made by TSR in this new edition of D&D.
Rating: 
Summary: Content: Meh... Book Quality: HORRIBLE
Review: Being someone new to the Dungeons and Dragons scene, I had great hope and joy when I opened my amazon.com package containing the Player's Handbook (PHB) and the Monster Manual (MM). First note: all the D&D books are quite hard to understand without playing first. That would be why you buy the "Adventure Game" using the same ruleset. The MM is the shortest of the D&D books, which makes sense, as it mostly talks only about monsters. The content is hard to understand first hand, however it is quite detailed. Now, we go onto the quality of the book. Both the DM Guide and the PHB have a hard cover binding and high-quality full-colored pages. The MM has this too, but in my recent experiences, the binding at the spine (the binding that is holding the pages together) is quite loose. So loose that in fact, one player of mine has all the pages completely out of the binding. True, out of 12 NEW MM's that I have seen, all of them had an extremely loose binding, especially with the pages in the back. You can see the rope that is holding the pages together there. Just note: a lot of the pages in this book will fall out with heavy use. something not too normal with hardcover books. My suggestion, since you are looking at this, is to wait until July 2003, where a new, revised MM will be avaliable. That MM will have 108 more pages, and hopefully a better binding with that many pages. All the D&D core rulebooks are being revised and released in July 2003 (at the end of the month). If you want the D&D books right now, then I suggest the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual II. The MM II will not be revised, and was released recently, so it will be easier to understand. If there is one rulebook that you should not buy, it would be this one. Wait for July 2003 and reap the rewards.
Rating:
Summary: Worth Every Penny
Review: This book is worth every penny you spent on it. Not just because it is essential to running a third edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign, but also because it is a great book. I'll start with a little refresher course on the philosophical history of D&D. When Basic Dungeons and Dragons came out, the idea of the game was this: make a character, kill stuff, get money, get powerful. As the game took on new dimensions of complexity, the term "roleplaying" took shape. But the game was orignally a kill and get powerful game. And thus, when first edition, second edition, and now third edition were released, that was kept foremost in mind. However, some people have simply gone too far with the term "roleplaying." That is the reason for the pockets of dissatisfaction about this book. If you are a true D&D gamer, this book is a gift from the heavens. It gives you an easy-to-read stat block, and then some basic information on habitat, appearance, ecology, and culture. The combat section details tactics and describes their attacks, which is a bonus for DMs looking to be descriptive (If you want a mind flayer to lock on with Improved Grapple, you don't have to say "the mind flayer gets you with Improved Grapple." You can say "The Illithid's four slimy tentacles bore into your skull as it draws your head toward its dripping maw"). For the sentient and more or less civilized races, they also give a primer on society and sometimes classes. However, if you are one of the so-called "roleplayers" of D&D, you will not enjoy this book, as it does not give you a five-page essay on the culture and ecology for every single monster. The artwork is great. However, not every monster is drawn (this is most true for monsters like Devils, where there is a massive stat block detailing all the types, and info on all of them, but pictures of only one or two) which can be a slight hassle. Still, the descriptions should hold you over. Finally, the indexing and assignment of challenge ratings really aids the frustrated DM. Also, templates add a whole new dimension to altering monsters, and though the creature advancement is confusing, it is efficient and balanced. It is definitely one of the better D&D books out there, though I can't wait for the additions from other books like the Monster Compendium and the Monster Manual 2.
Rating:
Summary: Badly needing revision
Review: Good art and descriptions, hard as heck to find any creatures that you're familiar with. Could use a good index.
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