Monster Manual IV Table of Contents

[treehouse]

Link:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060626a


So, is anyone else worried about the large number of reprinted monsters in there? I'll have to look at the actual book to be sure, but the ToC strongly suggests that they reprinted the orc, the drow, the ogre, the yuan-ti and several others, simply giving them class levels as an excuse to reprint them.

I want NEW monsters in my NEW monster manual, dammit! I cancelled my Amazon preorder, but I'm going to check this one out in person to be sure it's crap before I write it off, because I was sort of looking forward to it.

[Aavarius]

Well, it might very well be as you say, but I always wait until game books are printed and in stores before I even think about buying them. I avoid the whole preorder mess entirely for the sake of being able to see every page of what I buy before I buy it. In all honesty, I'm more excited by this book all about The Abyss and the subsequent companion all about Baator that gives the skinny on all the fiends. I believe they're going to be more along the lines of The Book of the Undead and The Book of Abarrations (can only remember the subnames for them off hand) where rather than giving DMs more and more monsters to play with, they make the monsters you already have better.

[Linklegacy77]

Actually, I have the fiendish codex, and they have 16 new demons for 3.5, and reprinted 3.5 stats for 14 demon lords, and they introduce 2 new demon subtypes instead of just Tanar'ri.

[treehouse]

My friend has already picked up the Fiendish Codex I, and he says it's pretty good. They added two new races of demon in addition to the tanar'ri, and some pretty cool new rules (including porting over the posession 'template' from Eberron, which was much needed IMO).

I'll probably be picking up both Fiendish Codexes eventually, but they aren't much use to me while I'm running Eberron, which uses a different planar cosmology that de-emphasizes the importance of the non-native fiends.

[Linklegacy77]

Very true. As for Monster Manual IV, my friend is going to get it first, and I'll take a look, and then decide if I want it.

[nightinverse]

MM I, II and III were good, but I do need proof before purchase.

[hedgeknight]

35 bucks for rehashed monsters that I don't need?
No way in hell.
-g-

[BigRedRod]

WotC should produce something more akin to the WFRPG MM, but without the horrific overpricing. I like a good few pages of fluff per monster. I want to know what they eat, their mating habits and all that nonsense.

[akiko]

Yeah, that doesn't look so good. Damnit after MM3 I was looking forward to this.

I still like MM3 and I also suggest the Monsternomicon from Iron Kingdoms. Not everything fits wih flavor of other games but some of the stuff is truly genius (all new material) and well laid out. You get a new page for each entry, a picture with a human for size comparison, an action picture, an adventure hook, treasure it likely has, combat plans and legends/lore with the appropriate skill checks to remember them.

[nightinverse]

Monster fluff is always a bonus, though I prefer constructing that area from scratch much of the time. Different tribes of goblinoids with different habits... regional groups of species, you know...

Rehashing is where I stop buying.

[Mercutio]

I had been thinking about buying MMIV when it dropped at the local store, but now I'm not sure. The table of contents seems a lot like the old Monstrous Compendium updates that made silly monsters or new variants of old monsters rather than totally new creations.

[LeadPal]

Off-topic, Hordes of the Abyss is merely okay. Not a whole lot of mechanical stuff, but most of the fluff beyond the first chapter is interesting. Some of the demon lords got mediocre treatments, although some were well-enough that I've had to re-evaluate my opinion on them. The complete list of lords and layers is incredibly handy, mind you, and I'm glad to have it.

Pertaining to tables, though, I do note that the table of CRs at the back is completely useless. Apparently, there are several demons that can automatically summon other demons with higher CRs than themselves... :worry:

Meh, oh well. I'm just waiting for Fiendish Codex III: Odles of Yugols! :D


More to the subject...

Unfortunately, this doesn't come as a surprise to me. They're still a ways away from 4e, so they're straining to come up with money-making schemes. So, they're creating NPCs for us, like back in Enemies and Allies. Of course, they'll be packaging them along with new monsters, because no one bought E&A and no one would buy a new book like it.

From the names of most of the rehashes, though, I have a strong feeling that they'll all feature a small amount of new material, even if it's just that the gnoll raider has some new gnoll-exclusive feat and nothing else. I'm guessing (wildly) that the WotC wouldn't want to piss everyone off too badly, and so are going to make sure that their 3rd level orc warrior is not quite completely OGC. (Because, you know, that's what it would be, even if the book didn't say so...)

[treehouse]

I'm definitely not putting my money into this product if it ends up as you say, LP. I hope others follow suit and the MMIV falls on its face, so that WotC realizes that their fan base can't be fooled by a simple trick of packaging.

I also hope they give the yugoloths the attention they deserve, in the form of their own book. I don't see how that wouldn't sell; they haven't exactly been exhausted in 3rd edition canon yet.

[nightinverse]

They also happen not to have an incredible use base, or, to be fair, any visibility.

I want a Monster Manual devoted to... Epic Monsters and Psionic Monsters. I actually enjoy Epic D&D, when well DMed, and Psionics opened up so much for the universe...

[hedgeknight]

Unfortunately, this doesn't come as a surprise to me. They're still a ways away from 4e, so they're straining to come up with money-making schemes.

Are they really gonna do a 4th edition? :tsk:
-g-

[BigRedRod]

Of course they are. Although seeing as everybody is pretty happy with 3e it will be a fairly small change I suppose.

[treehouse]

Yeah, there is one key marketing advantage to keeping 4th edition largely compatible with 3rd edition material - they can continue producing and selling books from this vast array of books that they've assembled for 3rd edition.

What I'd like to see streamlined in the next ruleset is the skill system. It's leaps and bounds ahead of the non weapon proficiencies (from what I've heard, I only started playing right before 3.5 came out), but after seeing skill systems like the ones in Iron Heroes and Spycraft, I think core D&D can be improved even more by adding the concept of skill groups. In my opinion, skill-focused classes need a power boost anyway, so I'd like to see some new uses of existing skills, even beyond what they've given us in the Complete series.

[BigRedRod]

Yeah, there is one key marketing advantage to keeping 4th edition largely compatible with 3rd edition material - they can continue producing and selling books from this vast array of books that they've assembled for 3rd edition.
That's a disadvantage. They'll want to resell all of the old books updated to fourth edition.

What I'd like to see streamlined in the next ruleset is the skill system.
I'd like to see more thoughtout psionics and magic and something to be done to the hp system to make it better (even if it just becomes a wounds/vitality thing). I doubt it will though, so I can't really imagine what they'll change.
Unless they persue multiclassing in a big way and make it more of a tree structure, which would be hot.

[akiko]

That's a disadvantage. They'll want to resell all of the old books updated to fourth edition.
Agreed they would want to reprint everything.

I'd like to see more thoughtout psionics and magic
The piece I think I love about Eberron the most is the inclusion of psionics. I am not even a psionic playing person and I don't really care for them much beyond "meh, they exist". But I think they gave psionics/Eberron a lot of cool flavor by including them. I would also like to see less of a distinction between the two, maybe more similar power or usage mechanics. Like instead of spell slots go with the points or some new system.

Unless they persue multiclassing in a big way and make it more of a tree structure, which would be hot.
That would be really cool. Less of you need these prereqs and more of to become a excelsior gunmage, you must be gunmage 1, pistoleer 2. Or something even more wicked. Hmmm... just realized my suggestion may be even more limiting than it is now, maybe something better than that.

[treehouse]

That's a good point, BRR. Yeah, they may try to make 3rd edition just obsolete enough to force us to repurchase material.

I'm not really sure how they'll do that, though. In my opinion, there isn't too much they can do to improve the current ruleset. I'd like to see prestige classes be a bit less common, with more prestige associated with them. Maybe if they split the current prestige class list up into prestige classes and 'expert' classes, with the latter being purely mechanical in nature and the former being privileged use only (as in, DM's discretion).

That's one of the things I love about Eberron. Almost every single PrC introduced in that product line interacts with the campaign world in a noticeable way beyond pure mechanics.

[BigRedRod]

Agreed they would want to reprint everything. Much like the 3.5'd versions of the Manual of the Planes and the Psionics handbook but on a much larger scale and hopefully with less of a feeling of buying the same thing twice.


The piece I think I love about Eberron the most is the inclusion of psionics. I am not even a psionic playing person and I don't really care for them much beyond "meh, they exist". But I think they gave psionics/Eberron a lot of cool flavor by including them. I would also like to see less of a distinction between the two, maybe more similar power or usage mechanics. Like instead of spell slots go with the points or some new system. I'd like to see them split off more types of magic. Arcane, Divine and Psionics should all be different. Sorcerer should also be more different from the Wizard somehow.


That would be really cool. Less of you need these prereqs and more of to become a excelsior gunmage, you must be gunmage 1, pistoleer 2. Or something even more wicked. Hmmm... just realized my suggestion may be even more limiting than it is now, maybe something better than that. A few years back I was on a doomed project to design an RPG and I was thrashing out a system based on very similar mechanics. Looking back though I think I strayed into video game territory, which is a shame. It's a nice idea, but I worry about the book keeping aspect.
Everybody loves gunmages though.

That's one of the things I love about Eberron. Almost every single PrC introduced in that product line interacts with the campaign world in a noticeable way beyond pure mechanics.
I'm finally getting down to resdesigning the godawful mecha rules I knocked up for d20. One of the points I'm still considering are my prestige classes, at the moment they're general and that's bad. The problem is that my choices seem to be general or designing a dozen slightly different classes to reflect different regions of origin. It's a very tough call.

[Linklegacy77]

Actually, Akiko, I'd like to see more distinction between magic and psionics. I've always loved psionics, especially the flavoring. But the fact that it uses points instead of slots has been another thing, it's an actual mana system.

[Mercutio]

I'd like to see a shift toward skill and feat trees - like CoH. Have basic archetypes (base classes) that you can customize through picking skill and feat trees. That won't happen of course because D&D is tied so tightly to classes, but it would be nice.

[Linklegacy77]

The only problem with that is that it isn't as customizable. Not that I disagree with you, but it's why Wizards probobly won't do it. As for 4.0, I really don't see that many major upgrades that they can do to the system, persay. I can see them releasing a version 3.6 though, lol.

[BigRedRod]

It's called Iron Heroes :)

[treehouse]

It's called Iron Heroes http://www.online-roleplaying.com/forums/images/smilies/smiley%20-%20happy.gif

Yeah, the Iron Heroes ruleset is pretty awesome. Certain elements of it feel rushed, but the core mechanics are a definite improvement over standard d20, particularly the feat mastery system.

God, I love feat mastery.

[nightinverse]

I personally would like spells to remain on the memorization system, and psionics with points. I'm glad the druid is no longer a specialist cleric, and that there are three general sources for spells.

The Sorcerer feels very different from the Wizard to me, though I think possibly the removal of Familiars for Sorcerers and the implementation of something else like a Totem might change the dynamic in a positive manner. I tried to do that at one point a few years ago, but lost interest due to my complete lack of involvement in actual games.

Trees of classes should be a common prerequisite system for Prestige Classes, but considering how imbalanced most of the newer PrC releases are, I don't especially care. I always have to redefine the boundaries of new PrCs so the Basic Classes remain viable, and it's really just a big mess.

[LeadPal]

Well, the bloodline feats that Dragon mag introduced a while back go a long way towards making the sorcerer more distinct from the wizard.

I was mostly kidding about 4e, actually, because I can't see them bothering to make any major changes at this point. The closest I can imagine would be them putting out a singular book of updates and then saying "alright, everything from now on uses this stuff."

No, even better: they'll make a couple of significant changes, and then reprint it in every single book they write henceforth, relying on these changes to provide more potential material. It would work exactly like the Swift and Immediate Action sidebar that nearly every book contains now, except on a grander scale.

This, of course, would be before they slow down the D&D machine to a crawl. Eventually, as more and more people say "alright, enough," they'll start getting diminishing returns on their sales, and they'll just produce less to no material, turning their attention elsewhere to other products they can market. After all, D&D isn't the only thing that WotC puts out (though the only decent thing, maybe ;) ), and WotC isn't even the only division of Hasbro.

Most likely any new system would be marketed as a new but similar game, sort of in the same sense as Iron Heroes, the idea being that they'd get less people refusing to acknowledge its existance that way. Of course, at least until enough people have forgotten and calmed down about 3e. That's when they'll strike with the Monster Manual 4e I, II, III, and so on, until they reach L and start designing 5e. :\

[Mercutio]

I predict 4E by 2010. That's gives 3rd edition a good 9 years of existence, which is about in keeping with the previous editions' lifespan.

[treehouse]

That would be nice if you are right, Merc. I'll be out of college by then at a job that pays real money, so I'll be able to invest in the new edition without guilt.

[Linklegacy77]

Soon enough, they'll start selling MM's for $30 each that each has 1 monster in it and a whole bunch of fluff.

[LeadPal]

Naw, the books'll just start getting thinner and thinner. Fiendish Codex I seems pretty short, considering it's the same price as many previous books...

[akiko]

That would be nice if you are right, Merc. I'll be out of college by then at a job that pays real money, so I'll be able to invest in the new edition without guilt.

That's what you think.

[Linklegacy77]

Well, I didn't expect FC1 to be that large.

[nightinverse]

I anticipate a few thick books among the thin, however.

[Linklegacy77]

I got the book, and I'll put up a full fledged review at some point, both here and at 3ebb once it is back.

[akiko]

I flipped through my DM's copy. It didn't look as bad as I originally thought. But I only flipped through it and enjoyed some of the demon artwork.

[Flagg Thornington]

If you're looking for some variety for your cmpaign's monsters check out the Ultimate Monsters volume 1. There a lot of cool material, it's inexpensive, I believe it's distributed by Mongoose Publishing.

Personally, I can't forsee and improvements that would make version 4.0 books worth the investment.

I played AD&D in grade school, second edition in middle school, and returned to the scene right before they announced the release of v.3.5.
Hence I have two copies of the PHB, MMI, and DMG, one from each edition.
Now I agree that 3.5 is much better, but will 4.0 be worth the money? Can't the just release the PHBiii or something to present any changes as variant rules or update everyone via downloadable erratta?