Replacing MM1 With MM2 (3.5)

[Pollip]

I'm starting a new campaign soon, and would like the 'feel' of it to be different from all the adventures my group has experienced before. I'm designing my own player races, so there won't be any elves, dwarves, gnomes, or humans.

I want the monsters and other myriad creatures of the world to be different and exciting as well, and I thought, as an alternative to just renaming and re-flavoring the monsters from our Monster Manual 1 (the only Monster Manual any of us owns), I could buy the Monster Manual 2 (or any other Manual), and use the creatures in there to populate this world.

My question is, does the Monster Manual 2 have enough of a variety of creatures to replace the original manual? Thanks in advance.

[Czin]

I'm starting a new campaign soon, and would like the 'feel' of it to be different from all the adventures my group has experienced before. I'm designing my own player races, so there won't be any elves, dwarves, gnomes, or humans.

I want the monsters and other myriad creatures of the world to be different and exciting as well, and I thought, as an alternative to just renaming and re-flavoring the monsters from our Monster Manual 1 (the only Monster Manual any of us owns), I could buy the Monster Manual 2 (or any other Manual), and use the creatures in there to populate this world.

My question is, does the Monster Manual 2 have enough of a variety of creatures to replace the original manual? Thanks in advance.

You would want to keep MM1's angels, archons, eladrins, demons, devils, inevitables, and slaad; the MM2 is kind of lacking on those.

[AslanCross]

No, there is not enough variety in the supplementary MMs (at least if you only get one on its own) to cover the archetypes in the core MM.

If you combine all of them (MM2-5, Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, and the Fiendish Codices, Fiend Folio) then maybe you will be able to cover them properly.

Maybe that's just me; I like variety, and being able to throw in monsters that the PCs just don't expect. There's also a lot of cool templates in books like MM3 and Lords of Madness.

If you're going to stick to one book, MM2 is a bad idea. It's widely considered to be one of the least balanced MMs out there (CR 9 creature! At-will Disjunction, Implosion and Disintegrate! along with creatures that are in the mid-30s CR without deserving it), and it frankly doesn't have much variety. It has what, at least four magical ape-type creatures? It does have its gems, such as the Nimblewright and the Chimeric and Warbeast templates, but most of the monsters in it, IMO, are rather poorly thought out.

MM3 is good on its own, but it assumes the existence of core monsters, for the most part---Yuan-Ti for the Ssvaklor, the simple core undead (zombies and skellies) in light of the much stronger boss undead (Charnel Hound, Necronaut), etc.

MM3 does have a good spread of various trolls that can cover your giant archetype (plus the badass Death Giant and Eldritch Giants), but I think they deliberately left dragons out of that book (apart from the Ssvaklor). It's also kind of weak on Aberrations. That said, it's far more interesting than using MM2 as your "core" manual, in my opinion.

[Coidzor]

Also, MM2 is 3.0 and has to be manually updated to 3.5 in a variety of cases, so make sure you get the errata and update documents off of the WOTC website.

[Flickerdart]

The MM has plenty of monsters that nobody has ever heard of. When was the last time anyone used an Athach? What the hell is an Ethereal Marauder? Violet Fungus? Grick? Krenshar? Locathah? Rast? Skum? Tojanida?

[LOTRfan]

The MM has plenty of monsters that nobody has ever heard of. When was the last time anyone used an Athach?

I did. They were a bunch of raiders that heavily taxed a town for "protection" in exchange for shiny things.


What the hell is an Ethereal Marauder?

Used 'em too. A cabal of extraplanar criminals stole all the magic items of my players, and they spent the adventure tracking him down on the Ethereal Plane.


Violet Fungus?

Twisted flora that inhabited the area surrounding a portal to a prehistoric group of islands in my campaign.


Grick?

It teamed up with a lich to raid a grave yard. The grick ate the corpses and the lich got to raise the skeletons into an army bent on taken over the countryside.


Krenshar?

Those things were being used at a circus because the gnome ringmaster thought their face-peeling quality was entertaining. Eventually, they burst out and ate him alive, and started to hunt the citizens in the city. The PCs had to put them down. :smallfrown:


Locathah?

A peaceful village who asked the PC's to protect them and a community of reformed Sahuagin against mad Mermaid cultists.


Rast?

An Azer summoned a group of them to enslave the population of a halfling village situated at the edge of a volcano.


Skum?

They are the Aboleth's landlubbers in every aboleth-based adventure I run.


Tojanida?

The Mermaid cultists mentioned above opened a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water, and a group of adult Tojanidas came to wreck havoc against the Locathahs.

...

Okay, I guess I didn't have to go through the whole list. Sorry if it came off as rude. But my point was, just because most people haven't used them doesn't mean they haven't been used in at all in the OP's group's games.

[Coidzor]

Ah, krenshar. Only ever seen them mentioned in discussions of possibilities for gishes taking the Improved Familiar feat.

[LOTRfan]

Really? I was under the impression that they were one of the more commonly used obscure monsters. Probably wrong, though.

[ericgrau]

Maybe you could not give out the monster's name until the PC beats the DC on the knowledge check by 20 or multiple PCs working together figure out a lot of its abilities. Write a brand new 1-2 sentence physical description for everything. In the meantime knowledge checks give a partial list of special abilities and/or weaknesses (1 plus 1 per 5 above the DC, by RAW).

[Elfin]

Actually, I think that, as an experiment, using only creatures and races from the MMII would be quite interesting. it definitely wouldn't cover all the bases that the MM does, but could still be very entertaining.

[rayne_dragon]

The MM has plenty of monsters that nobody has ever heard of. When was the last time anyone used an Athach? What the hell is an Ethereal Marauder? Violet Fungus? Grick? Krenshar? Locathah? Rast? Skum? Tojanida?

Ethereal Marauder, Violet Fungus, Grick, and Skum are all monsters I know well enough that I don't even need to look them up to know what they are. The others I'm a little rough on, except Krenshar, which I don't recognize at all. Rarity is fairly relative and changes over time as different creatures get more attention. I remember when I started kobolds were relatively obscure, but they've gotten more and more developed and the kobolds we have today are a far cry from the ones I used to fight in dungeons.

To address the OP's question, I wouldn't go the way of scrapping MM1 monsters for MM2 monsters. Rather pick monsters that are more obscure or thematically appropriate. If their CR/level doesn't quite work for what you need, tweak the creature to fit what you need. Or just keep the stats of a common creature such as goblins and just change the description to something else... like frog-people (not that there's any lack of frog people). I always like to look at other editions for monster ideas that haven't been as popular in recent editions and revive some of those ideas.

[tanderson11]

I personally have had great experiences with Monster Manual III and have run a game using only this for monsters (only for a short time albeit).

MMIII alone will not be sufficient, however, so I'd choose either MMIV, MMV, or a monster-type specific book.

MMIV and MMV have their gems, but unfortunately also have large portions devoted to stating NPC orcs, goblins, kuo-toa, etc. which are pretty useless.

If, as it seems from the OP, you need this for one campaign, then you have the option of choosing Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, Fiendish Codex I or II, etc.

I personally vouch for Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness, as they contain, in my opinion, the most interesting and unique monsters.

[ericgrau]

I've heard some bad things about MMII. I think because it's 3.0. So if you're going to mess around and don't mind the drawbacks of missing some monster types then maybe you could try MMIII like the above poster.

[afroakuma]

The MM has plenty of monsters that nobody has ever heard of. When was the last time anyone used an Athach? What the hell is an Ethereal Marauder? Violet Fungus? Grick? Krenshar? Locathah? Rast? Skum? Tojanida?

Well, violet fungi are classic low-level dungeon hazards; they have a pedigree from far older editions. I like krenshar at low levels, too, but that's personal taste. Locathah have also been around for quite some time, though they do fill a rather specific niche that most people won't need.

Now, the MMII has a few classics I rather like: banshees, crimson death mists, death knights, gem dragons for you psionics-lovers, phoenix, sylphs, thri-kreen. Its aberration line was largely replicated (in 3.5 fashion) in Lords of Madness, which detracts from its highlights (grell, neogi). It does expand Far Realm madness (rukarazyll, wyste), include some new elemental creatures, vastly expand your construct options (including clockwork horrors, though use them with care) and even stock you up on plants. Generally, though, I feel that the MMII is the most Gygaxian of the monster books published for third edition, and as such runs with a different flavor than its peers.

[Claudius Maximus]

I like the MMII just because it's full of a bunch of weird stuff I never would have thought of.

I think you would be fine using MMII and some refluffed creatures from MMI, even if it's just the standards like skeletons and devils. Fiend Folio also has a lot of fun monsters in it if you want to throw that in too.

[Coidzor]

Really? I was under the impression that they were one of the more commonly used obscure monsters. Probably wrong, though.

It is a bit difficult to gauge something like that.

[awa]

i think what your doing is an interesting idea and a good idea but don't pick mm2 many monsters are poorly cred or bad,y designed since its 3.0 it has no la for most monster making them harder for the pcs to be and if their are no standard races you will need some.
There are no humanoids in the book at all and only a small number of human shaped creatures that are even a little bit playable most have lots of hit dice or weird abilities that would make them unsuitable as pcs.

edit whoops missed the part about designing your own player races in that case you could certainly do mm2 because a world does not needs dozens of different monsters to fill it up if you make use of templates and class levels but just because you could use mm2 does not mean you should

[Callista]

Ah, krenshar. Only ever seen them mentioned in discussions of possibilities for gishes taking the Improved Familiar feat.I like using them as mounts for various encounters. They can be tamed and the rider can learn not to be affected by his own mount's scare ability.

[Zaq]

If you're good at figuring out something close to what the CR of a creature SHOULD be (without looking at what WotC says it is), MM2 is fine. Just . . . tread with care. There's some really devastatingly unbalanced stuff in there. Those monsters can be unbalanced to the point of not being fun.

[SiuiS]

Hector, 'sat you?

---
Using just the MMII should be fine. There are enough monsters with their own culture in it (I think- monster manual 2 and fiend folio are all the same book in my head) that you could run an arc (levels 3-7, 1-6, 4-12, depending on depth and power level of both the culture and the party) that it would work. I'm gonna pull out desmodu as an example- cave dwelling bat folk. Getting through their tunnels to the desmodu enclave, fighting their guards on the way, making peace with the locals, dealing with internecise strife (factions dislike other races, or want to use PCs as disposable chits in their gambles/schemes), and becoming embroiled in conflict with a different race or hazard that abuts their ecosystem could all fill several dozen sessions if handled well.

Best part? Having a campaign set in the caves of the batfolk, even temporarily, makes it so no one bats an eye when certain monsters don't appear. So it buys you time, and fleshes out your game-world culture.