Fantastic Basic Creature Collection . . . although, Randall has Spent Many Nights Contemplating Why the Book is Considered NON-CORE . . . Progression in D&D is Based Primarily on Destroying Monsters .

Print is nice and crisp. The image on the first page is too dark to make out anything, but from my first cursory flip through, it looks good.

An awesome accessory for BECMI or B/X and I use it just about every week for several years. At the time I posted this, the lowest rating for this product was a 3 star. I read that review and it was inaccurate. None of the creatures in this product are in the Rules Cyclopedia. I love how there are both fantastic and real-life creatures like hawks, eagles, and even skunks. I also love the Environment Tables at the rear of this book.

This is the best companion to the Rules Cyclopedia, rounding out an already great assortment of monsters with many more.

If you already have the RC, grab this book immediately.

I love this suplement! The print quality is great and its crisp and clean. I had to have this for the undead dragon, hands down still a nasty fight. These monsters can be used in any eddition of the game and I like to surprise players with them.

Excellent print on demand product. The text is crisp and I love the colors of the cover. Highly recommended!

Now I have gone on and on (and on and on) about how pivotable the AD&D 1st Ed Monster Manual was to my life in RPGs. So much so that I would later pick up any monster book that came out. I loved AD&D and played it all throughout my High School days and beyond. But it was Basic D&D, in particular, the B/X flavor of D&D that was my favorite. I wanted a Monster Manual for that game. Eventually, TSR granted my wish.

The next Creature Catalog (DMR2) came out in 1993 for the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. Most of the same monsters that appear in the Creature Catalog AC9 are here. In fact, a lot of the exact same art is used. The net difference is this book has 158 monsters. This book is the more customary 128 black & white pages with two, color covers. The monsters in this version are all listed alphabetically. This is also a much better scan and a print option is also available.

This book was designed for the Rules Cyclopedia and not BECMI the rules are 99% the same and thus both this and AC9 can be used interchangeably. DRM2 Creature Catalog came out at the same time as the AD&D 2nd edition Monstrous Compendiums so the layout and style reflects that. The color trim here is red instead of blue.

This PDF does bookmark every monster entry and since all monsters are listed together it is easier to find what you want here. Missing though is some of the advice in the earlier AC9 version.

But like the AC9 version, this is a fantastic book to use with your classic games or retro-clones of them.

In both books you won't find demons or devils since they were not part of the D&D world of Mystara, but that is not a big deal. For me, the loss is nothing compared the amount of undead both books have. Some of my favorite undead monsters to use to this very day made their appearances in these books. Elder Ghouls, Death Leaches, Dark Hoods, Grey Philosophers and Velyas still rank among my favorites.

Monster content is ok. The rating is for the POD aspect. It's decent, but not perfect. There are some distortions I see in various words throughout. Would I order it again? Yep.

This is a great book if you love retro D&D, together with the Rules Cyclopedia, you have E. Gary Gygax complete legendary work that brought the entire industry to what it is today.

To rate the content, everything is perfectly done. Easy to track and good for reference.

The pdf scanning is good. However magnifying it to 500% with your pdf reader reveal pixelated images and text unlike the original electronic format. The texts are OCRd and some scanned images are not as clear, say for example the next page after the cover page.

I test print it with Epson L210 series (colored) on a 70 g. paper result to good and readable copy, except some text which shows minor fade on the upper tip or the lower tip.

Brother HL 1110 series (black and white) is quite better, however the images with darkened color take some time to determine the details. If you bought a physical copy of Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary B&W edition, you can have an idea of what I am talking about. The text fading is less evident in this test print.

To sum it all, it's already good copy and scanning. Looking forward for a better one if there is. But am happily contented with my purchase.

Great quality scan, wonderful to be able to get these classics again!

I gave this product a four-star review in October 2008, taking off one star for the quality of the scan. That issue has been fixed, so I am giving this product the five stars it deseves.

The Creature Catalog adds 150 monsters to BECMI D&D which aren't in the Rules Cyclopedia. (including early versions of the Neh-Thallgu/brain collector, the choker, the mimic/polymar and other favorites)

The best parts of this book are the new wilderness encouter tables and a comprehensive index of which creatures are located where. This saves a lot of book-flipping and frustration.

The Creature Catalog and the Rules Cyclopedia are the only two books you need to run an real old-school campaign of D&D.

An expanded monster listing for the D&D rule set. If you have the cyclopedia there won't be anything new here otherwise it has more than the B,X and C sets

Awesome! This is a must have for the Basic D & D player and DM. It adds over 150 new creatures that aren’t included in the Rules Cyclopedia. It makes developing a rich and diverse environment for any adventure easy. The updated creature index and wilderness encounter tables makes playing a lot more fun too. The random wilderness encounter tables cover Cold/Arctic, Desert, Hills, Jungle, Mountain, Ocean, Open, River/Lake, Ruins, Settled, Swamp, Woods, and Flying Creatures. The PDF scan is slightly faded but very legible and easy to reproduce. The illustrations and artwork throughout the book are great too. At $4.95 this is a steal and I highly recommend this product if you play Basic D&D.