Buy this instead of "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" and using the D&D MM! This quickly and concicesly provides several options that provide significant flavor text for clues to the monster that they are about to see (e.g. "You see large, chicken-like footprints in the mud") and how they find it (a large cockitrice it eating bugs). until MCDM's Flee Mortals! is released, this is the best DM monster reference!

Maybe the best 3rd party book I own, and I own a lot! The monsters here are far more interesting and flavorful than their comparatively drab WOTC counterparts it also includes names fof monsters, suggested encounters, tactics and behavior, and (my favorite) roll tables for signs of the monster and behaviors they're engaging in when they encounter the PCs. Superior to the original MM. If you're like me and love to run interesting monsters, you won't regret picking this up!

I initially gave this five stars and I've only grown more fond of it since. The GM supports around this monster manual are so much better than WOTC ones, and only get better the deeper into them you go.

Every monster has tables of lore; potential encounter activities; environmental tables that they mesh with thematically (and biologically, according to the principles of Gygaxian realism); CR tables combined with associated monsters to instantly make full, balanced, level-appropriate, and themed encounters; and so much more. Gone are the days of "there's a vampire, basically standing there in video game T-pose waiting for you, because the random table said there'd be a vampire." Welcome are the days of "There's a vampire and 3 vampire spawn finishing draining a victim. When they see you they will not engage, for their hunger is sated, but go back and warn their nearby Vampire Lord of your arrival." Or maybe not exactly that, but things along those lines, and which can easily be turned into something that rich and enmeshed in your world.

Their CRs also make sense, their abilities are fun and flavorful, it basically addresses almost all the classic critiques of the original 5e monster manual.

Sly Flourish aka Lazy DM aka Mike Shea has a number of youtube videos where he sings the praises of this book as a true better monster manual, such that you can throw the old monster manual in the trash. You don't need it anymore. I definitely agree.

This is the strongest of the three core A5E books, and it's clear that it was written with a coherent and comprehensive vision for what monsters in A5E should look like. Many of the monsters here are based on their base 5e counterparts, with tweaks to abilities, attack economy, etc., but there are also some new, definitely-not-under-WotC-copyright monsters that are very cool on their own. Honestly, the monsters in this book could be used to create more exciting combat encounters in your base 5e game as well.

In addition to the mechanical statblocks for each monster, this book includes, like the Monster Manual before it, a section of flavor text describing the nature of the creature, its modes of activity, etc. In a welcome addition, each monster section also includes a "Legends and Lore" table that provides a means for players to gain information on the creature and suggested tidbits for DMs to dole out at given check DCs, as well as tables for "signs" that can alert PCs to the presence of the monster and tables for its out-of-combat behavior and presentation. These aren't something that everyone will use, but it might be useful for new DMs and for my money it's a great addition in terms of helping spark creative interactions with these fantastic creatures. Each monster also includes a set of suggested encounters for the monster at different CR ratings, with possible allies for the monster as well as possible rewards, again helping everyone from novice to time-crunched DMs create encounters that are more multidimensional and engaging.

Most crucially, the monster stat blocks in this book are better designed for readability, with magic-wielding monsters having their spell attacks just listed in the Actions block, saving you as the DM from having to flip back and forth between two books saying "just a moment!" as your players fall out of the tension of wondering what fresh hell the demon they just summoned is about to wreak. Blocks also have combat descriptions, giving an intuitive and explicit description of what a monster might do in combat, discussing its priorities and self-preservation methods, etc. Particularly appreciated are the bits that say "at X HP or fewer, the monster flees to safety via Y method" -- for new DMs especially, I expect that the explicit recognition that not every monster fights to zero HP like a video game will really prompt some excellent reflection on the game.

Finally, a greater number of monsters than in base 5e have variants presented, which can help lend flavor to your combat encounters or just create opportunities for players to engage in "elite" boss fights of a much higher challenge level. Overall, it's clear that the authorship and editorial process for this product succeeded the best out of all the A5E content, as everything here feels like it was intentional, cohesive, and designed with all aspects of a player's experience in mind. My only major gripe with this book is the layout -- unlike the base 5e MM, which puts stat blocks in their own very obviously visually-separated sidebars, stat blocks here are simply included in-line, sometimes breaking over columns or across pages. It's the kind of thing that just adds a few seconds to the time it takes to look up a monster, but it is an annoyance from a design perspective.

Overall, though, this book is easily worth the money to purchase digitally, if only for the benefit you will gain in designing and implementing combat encounters that are more than sacks of HP taking turns flailing at each other until one of them reaches zero. I wish the entire A5E system could have been designed with this level of quality.

From a DM's perspective, this is easily the best book of a good series. A lot of monsters are short chapters, They could have been printed as stand alone supplements. Lore, behaviour, tactics, variants... you could run multiple oneshots on a lot of the individual entries.

So i'll keep this brief; while this is structured for A5E, the level up system and all that, its totally backwards compatible with the original 5e system. And tbh, while the other books are great, you can find some questionable decisions in the other 2 books, (Adventurer's Guide and Trials and Treasures.) Not everyone can agree with EVERYTHING that everyone does.

But then theres this book. The A5E monstrous Menagerie is so good that I can genuinely say its a better monster manual in every fashion and aspect. A5E has significant fixes to Challenge Rating system, and makes it understandable, and this can be kept in original 5e too, since the CR system was always a mystery. So, this book can be used in both systems Every single monster type has unique qualities. I'm going to use the Chimera as a review subject, because its a classic creature. This book goes into detail on aspects such as:

1. Legends and Lore, Roll an arcana nature check, and you can see what you have heard about the creature, with two different options, one for a DC10 and a DC15.
2. Signs: 4 options (d4) here, some creatures have more. 'Signs' are clues you can use to know that a certain creature is nearby without giving away everything. Chimera's include ' charred trees', 'tracks with a mix of big cat and hoof prints', and 2 more options. These signs are not totally unique to the chimera, but thats the point, theyre clues, many things can have them, and youre just trying to help clue your party in.
3. Behavior: what it would be doing in the moment you see it, a d6 option here, including "Two of its heads are fighting with one another" or "flying overhead looking for prey."
4. Sample Treasure
5. the statblock, of course
6. Combat Tendencies
7. Variants and regional chimeras. Chimeras that differ based on the region there from, like the sea chimera, which seems to be a lobster-shark-narwhal. theres 5 more variants but you get the point

This book I can genuinely recommend no matter the system, its just so good.I love the easy to understand CR system is, and all the extra detail that was put into each creature, making them all unique and very improvisable.

The Monstrous Menagerie is by far the strongest of the Level Up A5E line. It can be used with 5e D&D, unlike the A5E other books which use a different, incompatible system, and it seems to have been written by a different individual or team that is much more familiar with the mechanics of 5e D&D. It adds some problems the original MM did not have, including making CR even further from accurate than even the flawed math in the original, but the majority of the changes to existing monsters are legitimate improvements, unlike the poorly thought out changes to the core rules in the other A5E books. It is one step forward, one step back, with some improved monster mechanics, but an even less usable CR guideline system, so on the whole, this book is about equal to the original flawed 5e Monster Manual, which is a 3 out of 5.

I have no intention of ever using the regular Monster Manual ever again. Monstrous Menagerie does an excellent job of updating almost every single monster into something that feels fun and distinct. It's unfortunately that certain monsters weren't able to get the glorious conversion for reasons of intellectual ownership—I'd love to see waht a Monstrous Menagerie beholder or illithid would be like.

I love using these monsters. Included knowledge checks? Ways you can use tools like poisoner's kits to harvest monster goop? This is all very very very good stuff. I use them in rime of the Frostmaiden and Tomb of Annihilation and Dragonlance and all three games have thrown some welcome suprrises at my verteran players.

I've played with a lot of groups, some including people who have played since first edition, so I normally find myself spicing up monsters to give seasoned players surprises. And some monsters in 5e need it- at the end of the day, battling goblins, bandits, skeletons, and others are often the exact same fight, other than how the DM describes them. Maybe this one has a shield, to spice things up, or this one has an axe. While some common enemy groups have seen a bit more variety added in expansion books, the core 5e books put all the work on the DM to make a fighting goblins interesting or memorable, and running multiple groups of 3-5 regular goblins throughout a dungeon can be a chore. Now, even enemies like goblins that are traditionally cannon fodder are interesting, with many variants to choose from, notes on combat and behaviors, and more. I also never enjoyed running monsters with long spell lists- there's enough prep work for DMs already without researching and taking notes on spells for a monster you may only run once. Now, commonly used spells have descriptions right in the stat blocks. Do your players like to talk to their opponents and try to negotiate? Now there are names listed right in the monster's section. There is treasure, example encounters, what lore a character might gain if they make checks to recognize the creature, signs that a creature is in the area, and more. This book not only saves me a lot of time and energy as a DM, but also makes encounters much more interesting for both me and my players. My group and I love A5e as a whole package, but even if you're not sure if you want to convert your whole 5e game for whatever reason, this book alone is worth it.

Wow, what can I say!

EnPublishing changes the game with their Monstrous Menagerie. Making all the monsters in this book feel special, and not just a rehash of claw and bite attacks. Adding information that is useful to the players about the monsters examples being...

• Legends and Lore of the monsters. (DC for finding information 10-20)
• Example Encounters
• Signs of this creature in area.
• Behavior of this creature.
• What this creature does in combat.
• Then the awesome statblock!

This is not a book you want to miss, even if you do not like the rest that Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition has to offer.

I rarely (almost never) run monsters right out of the book, instead taking a statblock and modifying it in some way to make the creature more interesting to me. The Level Up monsters are a lot more interesting, which means I'll likely have to do a lot less modifications in the future. The addition of tables for behaviors and signs also helps to make the creatures more real and gives them a greater impact on the world around them. The encounters table for each monster helps to scale encounters very well.

I will say that a couple of the new monsters in the book, by which I mean the ones that were intended to replace the monsters unavailable due to legal issues, feel a bit lacking. The khalkoi, for instance, has a fascinating concept but not enough is done to make them into a people with a culture of their own (and they're shown wearing rich clothing, so they must have some sort of culture); they feel like one-note monsters. This is the kind of creature that desperately needs an "Ecology of the..." article!

With only a couple sessions under my belt running A5e I haven't yet reached a point where I can put my finger on specifics but between creatures themselves & variants along with templates I feel like there is a larger variety of monsters for me to work with as a GM without needing to scour the monster sections in a bunch of wotc's largely largely player facing books to find monsters close enough to my need that I can refluff. That saves mne a lot of time I can better spend preparing other parts of the game I expect to run.

I bought this as a resource rather than with the intention to play LevelUp as a game on its own right, so I can only review the part of the rules I used - the encounter tools. Each creature in this book has a number of example encounters it often appears in, and also has a table to randomly determine what the creature happens to be doing at the moment. Both of these resources are hugely useful, especially in concert with the random encounter rules from Level Up: Trials & Treasures.