Product Description

Hundreds of old and new monsters for your 4th edition D&D(R) game!

This core rulebook presents hundreds of monsters for your D&D campaign. Classic monsters such as centaurs and frost giants make their first 4th edition appearance here. In addition, this book includes scores of new monsters to challenge characters of heroic, paragon, and epic levels.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21729 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-19
• Released on: 2009-05-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780786951017
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

Good stuff
This book continues to build on the 4th edition core mechanics by providing tons more creatures for DM's to choose from when building encounters.

As mentioned by a previous reviewer, there are lots of variations on existing monsters and fewer brand new monsters. I personally think that is the better way to go. D&D has a lot of good core monsters, no need to include all sorts of bizarre, weird, and silly new creatures. What is much more useful is to creature variations of existing monsters at different encounter levels, and this book just does that.

The encounter groups listed at the end of each monster race entry include both Monster Manual 2 and original Monster Manual creatures, a nice touch.

Lots of humanoid races are included such as Duergar, Bullywugs, Myconids, Centaurs, and other classics from previous editions. They also expanded on some of the existing core races from both the Player's Handbook and Player's Handbook 2: Eladrin, Devas, Humans, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, and Goliaths.

This book focuses almost exclusively on monster mechanics and it delivers exactly that. However I ding it one star for a combination of little things.

1) There is a great table in the back breaking down monsters by level, listing their type (Skirmisher, Brute, etc.) and the page number. Scattered throughout the book are pre-built encounter groups and they vary in level from the monsters they contain. It would have been trivial to gather up all those encounter groups into a table in the back of the book like they did for the individual monsters, but they didn't. (They didn't do this in the original Monster Manual, which I didn't like either.)

2) There is no good mechanism for adjusting monsters up or down in level based on the adventuring party's level. There are only so many monsters in the book so I think it would add more to the playability to have a way of altering existing monsters based on the target encounter level. I am hoping this will come out in the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 but I'll have to wait and see. (Again, the original Monster Manual didn't have this either.)

Overall a great reference for DM's.

It didn't blow me away but . . .
I like it.

What I loved about it: the metallic dragons. I've been waiting for this to come out specifically for the dragons and it didn't let me down. My favorite is the adamantine. I'm anxious to work that one into a campaign i've just started. It's a little odd that the metallics are now unaligned, but I think I understand the logic in that monsters in these books should be able to combat Player Characters without the logical inconsistency of "good" aligned beings fighting each other. I'm not entirely convinced that it was necessary, but here it is, codified and in print. So we roll with it.

What I like: more variations on many monsters we're all familiar with from the first MM. New angels, demons, devils, drakes, races, slaad, etc. should make for interesting twists to any pre-made or custom campaign. And I was impressed with a couple of the new monsters, most notably, the Behir (ok, so it's really more like a dragon variation but, I'm there).

What I don't like: the Ooze. I really think DnD needs to quit wasting our time with oozes, they're boring. Ironically, part of me dislikes something that I also like, the variations on monsters from the first MM. I'd really rather see MM2 contain more genuinely new monsters (this includes keeping the metallic dragons in the original MM) and less variations on known creatures. For that reason, part of me wanted to give it 3 stars and question it's value . . . Despite this, if I'm being honest with myself, I still like the book, hence 4 stars. (and are they ever going to improve the index on any of their books?)

In conclusion, if you are looking for many new monsters to throw at your players, you'll probably be let down by this book . . . in that case, borrow it from the library (or a friend) and save your money. However, if you're not bothered by a lot of variations from the original MM, you might like MM2. If you love metallic dragons, like me, you will probably like MM2 and the cash you spend will be worth it.

Cool dragons: 5 Stars
Few *genuinely* new monsters: 3 Stars
Overall: 4 stars

It's not a Hit, but some may really like it.

Excellent volume
Like others have mentioned, I like the fact that there are a lot more low-level monsters to round out the epic tier campaign... especially staples from past editions (giant ants, bullywugs, etc.). I also like the tact they've taken in providing numerous builds and variances for common monsters and races. It makes it easier to create tier-appropriate encounters on the spur of the moment (and to create preplanned adventures without having to resort to creating your own appropriate variances... at least not as many).