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Summary: Monsters Monsters Everywhere
Review: This book is the final core book needed to run a successful 3rd Edition campaign. Interesting and useful new monsters. Lost of old favorites. Not sure how the monster PC's will work out, but it should be exciting. A must have source book! A+++
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Summary: 3rd ed Monster Manual
Review: A must for all DM's wanting to run a 3rd edition campaign. An excellent tool for any DM wanting to add some challenging monsters to his players' encounters. This book has some great artwork, and many of the monsters are new and improved so players will have to rethink some old strategies.
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Summary: The monsters are back
Review: If you are a true monster lover you will love this book, Better picks more pics it is great
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Summary: The Book of Beasts and other hazards
Review: Wonderful book if you like the new ranger class, this will be a big help in deciding favored enemies. It will also bring much more diversity to the game as many of the monsters contain within have notes on character classes. Now in order to actually play some of these beasties you will need the Player Handbook and many cases the complete book of humanoids(a second edition player's handbook supplemental) for ideas on adjusments to characters stats but all in all, a great book for the new game. It also includes monsters never before scene so you have a good mix of old stand-bys and potential new enemies and allies. A great book that I highly recommend.
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Summary: It lived up to the expectations
Review: This book is great! MANY of the monsters are new and the artwork is great. A challenge rating table in the back of the book is a very useful feature. Despite the numerous monsters of godly power, there are plenty of monsters that cover all of the challenge ratings. The information about creating monster characters is great. The book is better organized than before. More monsters are sorted into appropriate subgroups. My only complaint is that the artwork on The Tarrasque was worse than in the second edition monstrous manual. However, overall, this book is fantastic and a D&D must have.
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Summary: A Must-have!
Review: I just recently bought this booka and I love it! The art-work is superb inside and out. The charts are now easier to read and not nearly as complicated at the other editions od D&D. It is packed with tons of monsters (hundreds) and they are brilliantly draw. You can now, for the first time even play as some of the monsters in your campaign! It also, gives you information and ideas on creating your own monsters, with endless ideas. So if you are a DM (or even not) you will love this book! You will not regret buying this, for it is definetely a worthy companion in any D&D adventure!
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Summary: Ghouls, Goblins, and Orcs Oh MY!
Review: What can I say the the 3rd Core book but GREAT. It a must have for any DM loaded with Ghouls, zombies and the sorts to make any adventure great.
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Summary: Third Edition Monster Manual
Review: I got this book yesterday, and I've already not only read it, I've started using it! This is a crucial work for any would-be Dungeon Master, and a work no player should be without for any longer than they have to be. Very well-written, as close to error-free as any game product I've ever seen, and the artwork is fantastic! All in all, an excellent resource.
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Summary: An incredible followup to the AD&D 2nd Edition
Review: From the very first page to the backcover this Monster Manual is a piece of art. The inside illustrations are the same quality as the Player's Handbook (read: very, very high quality!) and the number of new critters just makes the whole book worthwhile. Although I would have like to have more new material included in this book I guess having the most used monster "updated" to the 3rd edition is worth 30$ Overall: A great resource for new and experienced DMs alike. A must have!
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Summary: Let the games begin¿!
Review: The third of the core rulebooks is finally out, and DMs can at last fill their D&D campaigns with critters and start gaming in earnest. Reviewing the Monster Manual is a bit of a moot point, if you plan on DMing for 3rd edition you simply need to own this book. Like all previous monster books, it reads like an encyclopedia - but there are some aspects of the new Monster Manual that are significant departures from the old way of doing things. First off, the rulebook is thin. Surprisingly thin. "500 fearsome foes" it boasts on the back cover yet it's a third thinner than the Monstrous Compendium of 2nd edition. The alphabetical listing of monsters in the front only has 384 entries... Wha..? Here's what's going on - each monster doesn't get their own page, they are jammed in this book with a shoehorn. In addition to the usual sub-grouping of monsters (the monstrous spider has only one entry in the front listing, yet the entry lists stats for seven types of nasty arachnid - so it's really eight monsters), there are Monster Templates. Templates are to monsters what prestige classes are to characters, additional abilities and powers that can be grafted onto any existing monster, allowing the DM to multiply their options in monster selection. The existing templates are Celestial Creature, Fiendish Creature, Ghost, Half-Celestial, Half-Dragon, Half-Fiend, Lich, Lycanthrope, and Vampire. Templates can be sprinkled liberally into a campaign to ensure that player characters never take any monster for granted. Ghostly goblins...vampiric trolls...now nothing is certain, and no character is safe. The rules on lycanthropy are downright inspiring. In the old rules lycanthropy was something that affected a player once, and they immediately went to a cleric to get the cure. Now the cure is much less certain, and opportunities for role-playing abound. Want to surrender and become a shape-changer? You can, but as soon as you do, your alignment becomes that of whatever were-creature infected you, oops. Great stuff. This new manual also categorizes all monsters into one of 30-odd types and sub-types. Beasts, for example, are non-magical creatures whose abilities stem from physical attributes (like a dinosaur). Outsiders (great name!) are non-elementals from another dimension...etc. This allows DMs to use consistent, unambiguous terms to apply rules to groups of creatures, which is good. ("This sword is +1 vs all outsiders....hmmm the Shadow Mastiff is an outsider so, yes I get the bonus" etc.). --Here's the downside, looking at the entry for Naga in the new Monster Manual, you cannot find language that tells you whether or not the Naga has the ability of darkvision. It does, because the Naga is an "aberration," (as it says under the creature's entry on page 138) and on page 5 (flip, flip, flip) you can read that "Unless noted otherwise, aberrations have darkvision with a range of 60 feet." For a DM looking to create an encounter, one-stop shopping is ideal. You look up the monster, copy the key stats and abilities, and roll some hit points. Now you have to pay attention to what type of creature your copying and check to see what other abilities that type of critter has. To be fair, this has always been an issue with monster descriptions. Shorthand phrases like "this ability is treated like the magic-user's spell lightning bolt, cast at 12th level of ability" have been annoying DMs since 1st edition. They haven't gone away in this edition either. The alternative is to ask WoTC to reprint the same ability and spell descriptions dozens of times, fattening the book and increasing the cost, so I suppose I should count my blessings. They have done a marvelous job with the monster abilities-giving DMs both a central listing of powers, as well as shorthand with each monster description-so the end result is certainly a very usable product. I am curious why the lich was the only category of undead that was created as a template. One would think that zombie-ogres and ettin-ghouls would be sensible additions. Next up, the critters themselves. The same cast of characters have returned, although the revamped abilities will no doubt surprise PCs the first time they run into something like an Old Red Dragon, (Be afraid, folks, be afraid...) The folks at WoTC have sensibly pointed out that the critter statistics are baseline figures and that tougher versions of each can and do exist. So anyone out there who thinks that his or her favorite critter should be meaner already has the framework to do so. Some new critters are in, some old are back - and the Tanar'ri and Baatezu are now filed under Demon and Devil again (I wish they'd make up their minds...). There are easily enough beasties to keep your players challenged and/or terrified. Finally, the art. The art has taken a major leap forward from the cartoonish junk that populated the Monstrous Compendium (the "Giant" illustrations from the MC just make me ill). Todd Lockwood has redeemed himself in the Monster Manual, making up for those laughable depictions of female character races he did in the new PH. Several of the new artists have done some really great work as well (The frost worm looked particularly cool) and since gaming truly starts with imagination - good art is a good thing. Hey, face it. If you're a DM and you're running 3rd edition, you'll end up buying this book. Fuss and procrastinate all you want. It's less than twenty bucks, and it's nothing short of essential. No DM wants to be without a good list of things that go bump in the night. Enough of this, already...I gotta find some dice... Go nuts, folks - and happy gaming.
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