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Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual: Roleplaying Game Core Rules, 4th Edition
by Wizards RPG Team
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Large Photo
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Edition: Hardcover
Publication Date: June 06, 2008
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
ISBN: 0786948523
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 24064
Average Customer Rating: 
List price: $34.95
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Showing page 1 of 12
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Reviews
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 Solid material... Just not classical DnD anymore., December 6, 2008
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4th edition is bound to be regarded as the love-child of collectible card games and online RPGs. And no book displays this feeling any stronger than its 4th edition Monster's Manual. I've been playing dnd since 2nd edition came out and did a lot of DMing during 3rd edition. In those times you would create a monster in a way very similar to a PC: You would choose your monster's race, give it a class and choose its feats and spells before you were done. The whole system was incredibly powerful to the point of being overwhelming. 4th edition changed all of this. Monsters now are presented "as-is", no tweaking necessary. You can't trace how many levels it has or what feat choices it took. It is basically a non-adaptable stat block. This, of course has its upsides. In 3rd, for example, between feats, spells and abilities, a normal adult dragon would have around 30 different options during combat. In 4th? Even the most powerful has about 7. And most of them are pretty linear. Of course, you can't level it up to scale the encounter to your group's level or even choose to give it different abilities (some monster templates are presented though) but it does make it a lot easier just to put one out of the book and into the battlefield. In the end, it seems monsters and enemy NPCs work in ways very different from normal PCs. They have a lot less options, a lot less depth and no way to scale. However they do look a lot user-friendlier, with a simpler, cleaner stat-block and easier to understand powers.
Bottom line, the question comes down to the Player's Handbook. If DM and players like this novel approach to dnd then the Monster's Manual follows suit and delivers a good, solid work for the busy DM. If the whole cRPG / CCG look doesn't strike your fancy, I seriously think this book won't convert you.
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 A Sold Buy, November 15, 2008
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I believe this title to be a sold buy. Most people are distressing over the fluff that was left out of the book; I rather like this approach. It gives me as a DM the ability to customize most of my monster selection to what I need.
This title gives you everything to run monsters. Thats what it is a monster manual. The stats are streamlined into easy to read and run stat blocks, and the encounter experience is labeled right with each monster. Over-all this is a easy to use and master Monster Manual.
It is nothing more or less; if you are looking for a fluff filled book with more about the back story then tactics and stats find one of the upcoming specialized monster handbooks (for instance Open Grave).
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Great Ideas--Hurt by Bad Presentation, November 3, 2008
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This Monster Manual shakes things up a lot. Like a lot of the new edition, it's about reimagining the old in a fun new way. Once you get to the good stuff, it's really wonderful. The problem is the good stuff is buried in the monster entries (scattered between the two to three sentence introduction, and the lore bits that give backstory to characters depending on how well they roll). You end up having to hunt around and end up missing a lot of stuff that gets buried in between big striped blocks of stats.
There's not a lot written, but man is it tightly written. No waste, very efficient and packed with new flavor and background information. Just think what they could have done if they spent a whole page on each monster. Unfortunately none of the monsters get that depth of coverage--just a few sentences. That's it. They get in a lot in those few sentences, but it's a shame they didn't expand on that. It's one of the things I really miss from the old 2nd edition books. Now it's all statblocks.
Each monster has several statblocks at different levels with different names. No time is given describing the differences between the various types of monster, in fact in most cases the name seems to be entirely about what level the monster is and what special attacks it has--rather than any particular role in it's society or anything. The difference between a drider fanglord and shadowspinner? Beats me.
The art is good and pretty consistant, but a lot of it feels like redone versions of art from the old books--and some of it is copied straight out of the old books. Not cool. The night hag, or the deathknight for example, yanked right out of their original Monster Manual entries. When they redo one though, it's ususally real eyecandy. The lich, for example, or the foulspawn, or the new take on the lamia.
I love the new ideas they're rolling out for fourth edition. Certainly the new Monster Manual gives lots of fun new twists on even the most boring of the classic monsters. But the format. Argh, the format. They really needed to devote more space fresh art and to talking about the monsters and less time statting up multiple versions of each one. Who needs six kinds of kobold? Certainly not me.
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 A book of miniatures / card game stat blocks, October 1, 2008
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This product is purely a straightforward down to the point book of creatures with stats, nothing more. There is hardly any interesting tidbits about the monsters and their behaviors. No ecology or terrain types or lair fluff and barely any aquatic monsters which irked me.
The tactics are clearly laid out. While the stat blocks are interesting in keeping the players on their toes the creatures themselves are more like video game automatons with push button type functions (much like the player characters). Not recommended for those who love interesting juicy monster books. Considering the thickness of this volume most of the space is consumed by stat blocks making this volume a snore to enjoy outside of DMing sessions.
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 no longer D&D, September 8, 2008
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The other reviews are right. This is no longer D&D, it's simply a board game. A board game involving stats. The monster manual has virtually no actual description of the monsters. No ecology, no habits, no history... just numbers. I was looking forward to this... extremely disappointed. Basically all I paid for is a bunch of pretty pictures. The 4th edition should have been released as a separate product from D&D. Maybe as an add on. If you don't have the time to play a real D&D game, you could play this board game version. The 4th edition is nothing but a waste. It really is a shame.
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Reviews
