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Monster Manual 3 Impressions
Jun. 16th, 2010 11:53 pmI took a look at this in the store... I'm not yet sure that I'll buy it. Completism and brand loyalty are the two strongest reasons to actually buy it if you have an Insider subscription, though having the copy to leaf through in the bathtub is also a strong consideration for me. But for actually selecting monsters, I'd much rather use the computer tools so I can type in "Orc" or "Kobold" and see everything at once instead of juggling books and flipping pages. Even if I found what I wanted in a book I'd still go to the computer so I could copy and paste the information for my encounter.
Anyway, it's the best designed MM yet... the way the entries are written is better even before you get into the stat blocks, and the stat blocks are a big improvement over the launch version. I really hope they put someone on converting the stuff already in the databases to the new version.
The monsters that are in it? Pretty great. The catastrophic dragons don't do much for me, but I can see the appeal. I love the fact that the Big Bads include a couple of Primordials. I'm very meh about Lolth, both because I overdosed on R.A. Salvatore growing up and because she's at the crux of one of the most problematic aspects of the D&D default setting's racial stuff (Conversation We're Not Having Here: How Dark Elves Aren't Racist No Really They're Not Because...) but I have to say that she's well-done. There's a minor discrepancy in the write-up of the standard disincorporation (actual gods temporarily vanish in a puff of logic when bloodied, they can only be defeated permanently by the proper application of a DM-approved plot coupon)... the side-bar says "one quarter hit points" but the stat block still reads "bloodied". I wonder if the sidebar was in error, or if they've decided to make gods' physical bodies a little harder to vanquish and the stat block didn't get the memo?
One of the more viable/flexible of the old "Ravenous Predator Disguised As Innocuous Dungeon Feature" monsters, the Mimic, receives an awesome update in this book. The classic Mimic is still there, and its nature is well-captured, but it's given both an older/more powerful form and immature one. The more evolved Mimic is something like a more bestial Doppelganger (or Doppelgangers as they were before Eberron made them the new Drow) crossed with John Carpenter's The Thing. The Mimic Spawn give a minion form that can merge into their elders or disguise themselves as miscellaneous furnishings.
One of the less viable "RPDAIDF" monsters, the Cloaker, is also present in this book... the Cloaker was a giant carnivorous manta ray thing that attacked by disguising itself as a cloak and waiting to be put on. The MM3 write-up pays homage to this origin by mentioning in the flavor text that it's possible to make this mistake, but otherwise treats them as ominous flappy things that stalk and strike from darkness. Same basic monster, but much more usable. Purists may be outraged, but I'm happy. Heck, the way they're written, the Lurker Above could be a further iteration of them, thus redeeming not one but two incredibly cool names from the scrap pile of D&D history.
(To find out what a Lurker Above is, click here and scroll down to "Stupid Monster Category #2: Things That Look Like Other Things". You thought I was kidding with the "Ravenous Predator, etc." thing?)
I'm disappointed that there aren't more new examples of Humans, Kobolds, Skeletons, or Zombies, as those are the things I'm most apt to use in the Heroic Tier, but I have to admit that there's good reason not to stuff any into this book: we have plenty of toys to play with in those areas already. There are plenty of new Giants, new Ogres, an impressive selection of new Feywild inhabitants (something I always want more of.) It took them until the third Monster Manual to figure out how to fit Hill Giants into their new Titanomachy-inspired cosmology... I always figured that they would just be absorbed under Earth Giants. but WOTC has decided that Hill Giants don't fit into the elemental cosmology because they opted out of it. They're naturalized, as it were. This lets them fit the same niche they've always fit, and leaves them without any elemental affilitions.
It also took them until the third Monster Manual to present Just Plain Elementals. I'll admit that when I read the first one, I was baffled by their decision to not have any single-element elementals. I thought that the cataclysmic combinations of two or more elements in motion was more interesting than the old contrivances of paraelemantals and quasielementals and so on, and as I read more about their new planar topography I thought it reflected the Elemental Chaos better than mono-elemental Elementals would... but I wondered about the total absence of any "basic" elementals. Now we have them, and even better, we have first and second level versions of them. Back to basics indeed!
There are lots of new Demons and Devils, as well, and this time each one has its own proper entry (Devil, ______) rather than having two sprawling entries for both of them. It's a good organizational choice, and seemed to result in more Demon/Devil types with subtypes.
I'm somewhat disappointed that there aren't PC stat blocks for any of the races presented. I'm not sure which ones would have been chosen if there were, though. Thri-Kreen are going to have a full write-up in the Dark Sun player's book. The Derro? They're a humanoid race with a civilization. They don't exactly interest me, but they seem like at least as viable a choice as Duergar. Gremlins would be interesting.
Anyway, that's about it. I think they did a good job with it.
Anyway, it's the best designed MM yet... the way the entries are written is better even before you get into the stat blocks, and the stat blocks are a big improvement over the launch version. I really hope they put someone on converting the stuff already in the databases to the new version.
The monsters that are in it? Pretty great. The catastrophic dragons don't do much for me, but I can see the appeal. I love the fact that the Big Bads include a couple of Primordials. I'm very meh about Lolth, both because I overdosed on R.A. Salvatore growing up and because she's at the crux of one of the most problematic aspects of the D&D default setting's racial stuff (Conversation We're Not Having Here: How Dark Elves Aren't Racist No Really They're Not Because...) but I have to say that she's well-done. There's a minor discrepancy in the write-up of the standard disincorporation (actual gods temporarily vanish in a puff of logic when bloodied, they can only be defeated permanently by the proper application of a DM-approved plot coupon)... the side-bar says "one quarter hit points" but the stat block still reads "bloodied". I wonder if the sidebar was in error, or if they've decided to make gods' physical bodies a little harder to vanquish and the stat block didn't get the memo?
One of the more viable/flexible of the old "Ravenous Predator Disguised As Innocuous Dungeon Feature" monsters, the Mimic, receives an awesome update in this book. The classic Mimic is still there, and its nature is well-captured, but it's given both an older/more powerful form and immature one. The more evolved Mimic is something like a more bestial Doppelganger (or Doppelgangers as they were before Eberron made them the new Drow) crossed with John Carpenter's The Thing. The Mimic Spawn give a minion form that can merge into their elders or disguise themselves as miscellaneous furnishings.
One of the less viable "RPDAIDF" monsters, the Cloaker, is also present in this book... the Cloaker was a giant carnivorous manta ray thing that attacked by disguising itself as a cloak and waiting to be put on. The MM3 write-up pays homage to this origin by mentioning in the flavor text that it's possible to make this mistake, but otherwise treats them as ominous flappy things that stalk and strike from darkness. Same basic monster, but much more usable. Purists may be outraged, but I'm happy. Heck, the way they're written, the Lurker Above could be a further iteration of them, thus redeeming not one but two incredibly cool names from the scrap pile of D&D history.
(To find out what a Lurker Above is, click here and scroll down to "Stupid Monster Category #2: Things That Look Like Other Things". You thought I was kidding with the "Ravenous Predator, etc." thing?)
I'm disappointed that there aren't more new examples of Humans, Kobolds, Skeletons, or Zombies, as those are the things I'm most apt to use in the Heroic Tier, but I have to admit that there's good reason not to stuff any into this book: we have plenty of toys to play with in those areas already. There are plenty of new Giants, new Ogres, an impressive selection of new Feywild inhabitants (something I always want more of.) It took them until the third Monster Manual to figure out how to fit Hill Giants into their new Titanomachy-inspired cosmology... I always figured that they would just be absorbed under Earth Giants. but WOTC has decided that Hill Giants don't fit into the elemental cosmology because they opted out of it. They're naturalized, as it were. This lets them fit the same niche they've always fit, and leaves them without any elemental affilitions.
It also took them until the third Monster Manual to present Just Plain Elementals. I'll admit that when I read the first one, I was baffled by their decision to not have any single-element elementals. I thought that the cataclysmic combinations of two or more elements in motion was more interesting than the old contrivances of paraelemantals and quasielementals and so on, and as I read more about their new planar topography I thought it reflected the Elemental Chaos better than mono-elemental Elementals would... but I wondered about the total absence of any "basic" elementals. Now we have them, and even better, we have first and second level versions of them. Back to basics indeed!
There are lots of new Demons and Devils, as well, and this time each one has its own proper entry (Devil, ______) rather than having two sprawling entries for both of them. It's a good organizational choice, and seemed to result in more Demon/Devil types with subtypes.
I'm somewhat disappointed that there aren't PC stat blocks for any of the races presented. I'm not sure which ones would have been chosen if there were, though. Thri-Kreen are going to have a full write-up in the Dark Sun player's book. The Derro? They're a humanoid race with a civilization. They don't exactly interest me, but they seem like at least as viable a choice as Duergar. Gremlins would be interesting.
Anyway, that's about it. I think they did a good job with it.