Monster Manual (3.0)

Type: Monster Manual (Core Rule Book III) 3.0 versionCompany: Wizards of the CoastURL: http://www.wizards.com

Designer: Skip Williams, Jonathon Tweet, and Monte Cook

Release: October 2000 Outline: The original and core collection of creatures, monsters, and animals complete with stats, colored pictures, and challenge ratings. Contents:  My reviews of Monster based books like the Monster Manual are going to be slightly different than my typical reviews. Normally I break things down by chapter and discuss merits and flaws at the end. Without chapters I have decided to simply share with you monsters that I have bookmarked and that I might use in my upcoming Planescape campaign(s). There are creatures in this book that I did not bookmark and I may use many of them. What I have done is narrowed bookmarks down to unique creatures that I believe might provide a memorable experience in a planar encounter in and of themselves. So its possible I might have the characters battle some weak fire elementals like Magmin that attack with a touch attack which causes heat damage or get chased by hell hounds but I consider these mostly stock creatures for a planar campaign.

Below I have listed my bookmarked creatures divided by challenge ratings and a few notes.

Challenge Rating 1-4

Allip, Ethereal Filcher, Ethereal Marauder, Howler, Plane-touched, Vargouille.

Allips seem like a cool low level encounter for characters to fight as an assassin they may have seen killed or perhaps even killed themselves comes back for them.

The Plane touched are of course Tieflings and Assimars which can be any level just like player characters.

Ethereal Filcher and Marauders are most often on the Prime but of course in the Planes you could hit them up in the Ethereal as well.

Challenge Rating 5-8

Aboleth, Achaierai, Barghest, Chaos Beast, Mind Flayer, Rast, Ravid, Xill.

The Mind Flayers are glossed over but you have to expect that in a monster manual type book. The Book of Aberrations: Lords of Madness coming in April will hopefully treat these great creatures as the wonderful villains they are.

Chaos Beats have a great ability to turn the PCs into shapeless goo, which everyone will remember!

Challenge Rating 9-12

Couati, Rakshasa.

Challenge Rating 13+

Beholder, Titan.

Again Beholders like Mind Flayers will hopefully get an awesome new coat of paint in the Book of Aberrations: The Lords of Madness.

Various Challenge Ratings

Celestial, Demon (T), Devil (B), Elemental, Genie, Mephit, Salamander, Slaad, Xorn.

Most of these creatures are glossed over by necessity because of the vast variations of these creatures. But if you have older Planescape material or even in addition to material from the Planar Handbook or Manual of the Planes this will give you quick stats you need for these creatures.

Totals

1-4 Challenge Rating: 6

5-8 Challenge Rating 8

9-12 Challenge Rating 2

13+ Challenge Rating 2

Various Challenge Ratings: 9

Total Bookmarks 27

Merits: Large and varied mix of monsters that are ready to drop right into most situations you can imagine in any gaming session. Pretty good color artwork and tables provide quick reference information to stats, challenge ratings, and other info. Flaws: The same thing with most any monster manual not much in role-playing material but a huge collection of stats for quick reference. This is only a half hearted flaw from someone who enjoys books like the Van Richen guides (of Ravenloft) and such that give a few stats but mostly back story and campaign information. Obviously that is not the goal of a monster manual.

I am sure most people who play 3rd edition D&D and plan to run a campaign own this supplement but if you don’t it’s a pretty good quick collection of monsters to own and plug into virtually any campaign.