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Monster Manual 3 (4e)
 
$16.99
Average Rating:4.5 / 5
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Monster Manual 3 (4e)
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Monster Manual 3 (4e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/04/2022 10:45:20

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/07/monstrous-mondays-d-4th-ed-monster.html

To begin with, I was and am a fan of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. I know it was not everyone's favorite edition, to put it mildly, but there are some really great things about it. For starters, I applaud the design team for daring to try something new and different with the D&D game. Of course, most fans don't want new. They want the same thing, but even for the open-minded D&D 4 was a bridge too far. Secondly, D&D 4 was a masterwork of modular design. You could take out and move around sections of it as you needed. Yes, everything worked together, but many of the pieces could be swapped out for other pieces. This design notion extended to the layout of the books. Nowhere is this better seen than with the Monster Manuals.

To me it seemed that 4th edition took the design elements that had made the Monstrous Compendiums successful; namely one monster per page, and all sorts of information on the monster's habitat, environment, and variations. It is also one of the main reasons I still keep my 4th edition monster books. There is so much information here that I have been using them to inform details in my 5th edition game.

In all cases here, I am considering my hardcover books and the PDFs from DriveThruRPG.

Much like AD&D second edition, the monsters for D&D 4th edition are presented as one page per monster. More or less. Sometimes the monster runs two or four pages, but always a complete page. Where 3e had monsters built exactly like characters, 4e monsters have their own rules, much like how 1st and 2nd Ed built them.

Fourth Edition was most certainly a "miniatures" game or, as it was hoped, to have a lot of online support and content. That did not materialize in the way Wizards of the Coast wanted and strong sales of Paizo's rival "Pathfinder RPG" kept D&D sales low for the first in the history of RPGS. Make no mistake, D&D still sold well, it just wasn't out selling everything else.

That was too bad really. D&D 4 had a lot about it I liked and still like.

Monster Manual 3 for D&D 4e Hardcover and PDF. Color covers, full-color interior art. 224 pages.

This is also the only book of the three that you can also buy as a Print on Demand softcover.

This book was released in June 2010, another year after the MM2. Lolth is our cover girl this time. It would have been interesting to see Graz'zt, but Lolth makes sense too. Eclavdra also shows up in Lolth's entry.

Page for page, this one has a lot more new monsters. Not just new to D&D 4, but new to D&D. These include the new Catastrophic Dragons which I had been looking forward to. There are a lot of new monsters and some additions to MM1 & MM2 ones, like new Fire Giants. That is one of the features of this edition, each variation of a monster needs a new stat-block. To be fair, D&D 3 and D&D 5 also did this a fair bit.

The layout is such, that like the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums, the D&D 4th Edition Monster Manuals PDFs can be printed out with just the monsters you want and organized in a binder. The modularity of the design is so well planned out that it really makes me want to print out these PDFs and just make my own Monstrous Compendium style binder for it. Sure the page numbering will be wonky, but that would not matter, everything will be perfectly alphabetized. I could even re-integrate demons like Orcus and Lolth back to where they belong under demons.

The art is amazing really. The visual style of the monsters flows from the 3rd Edition monster books to provide a sense of continuity even if the worlds do feel different.

I am not currently playing D&D 4th Edition, but I find these monster books still so incredibly useful even in my D&D 5th Edition and Basic/Expert edition games. They are also just great-looking books.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Monster Manual 3 (4e)
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
by Darren P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/18/2014 06:54:37

Not bad, some useful additions to creatures that already exist (such as minotaurs and knolls). Some useful new beasties if your MM1 and MM2 are worn out.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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