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Disclaimer
I: I have seen in reviews that the content had "spoiler"
ascribed to it. I feel that if you are reading a review, you invite
that upon yourself. If you don't want "spoilers," why would
you read a review of a product you do not own? I will not use the phrase
of "Contains Spoilers" in my reviews, if you want a non-biased
review that doesn't reveal content-look elsewhere.
Disclaimer II: The majority of this review is opinion; your actual enjoyment of this product should vary accordingly. |
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"…Ogres
are big, ugly, greedy creatures that live by raiding and scavenging.
They join other monsters to prey on the weak and associate freely with
ogre mages, giants, and trolls…" (Ogre description, p. 144)
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WARNING SHOT: This is the first Dungeons & Dragons 3e creature book, though not the first 3e creature book. Within its pages lurks "more than 500 creatures, both hostile and benign" for your campaigns, but the question is, is it worth the 19.95 (or 29.95, depending which version you snagged) before the 3.5 revision hits? |
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The Monster Manual has a lot crammed into its 224-page length. As a D&D reference, this motley gathering of critters has got a lot of things working in their favor. By having mind flayers, beholders and yuan-ti, along with art and descriptions allows this book to move more than the D20 System Reference Document monster section. (The awesome beholder picture rocks.) While some of the D&D elements makes for a solid book, content begins to mangle the book overall. Sections of plain creature statistics, broken columns, and art layout make for a difficult to manage text in some places. (The purple worm picture embedded with the pseudodragon stat-block, for example.) I started out with the Monster Manual to try to get a baseline from which to judge other creature books. Will the book stand up next to the D20 System deluge of monster collections, or will it take the revision to make the Monster Manual a book to be reckoned with? I'm afraid I'll need to see the revision before I can say that, some monster collections clearly fail to match with the jammed-packed-crammed-foot wedged the box closed-art laden book that Wizards produced. However, the Monster Manual isn't quite a healthy standard to follow in terms of creating a personal monster book. Personal thoughts: I've been working on a monster book for a while and tried to find a standard of quality to follow in the D20 arena. The Monster Manual offers a bit of nostalgia with the D&D revision (much like the other D&D sourcebooks), but doesn't make it easy on customers to follow in places. So, while the book is good (damn good at the 19.95 price I snagged) it isn't the best there is and sadly lacks a cohesion that would make the product better. |
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