Favorite Monster Compendium?

[Lastgrasp]

What's everyones favorite Monster Book for 3.X? Personally I loved Monsternomicon from Privateer Press. I'm a sucker for steampunk/construct monsters. Plus the art was amazing.

I'd give a nod to the first Creature Collection from Sword & Sorcery. Since it was really the first legitimate book from 3rd party and I remember picking it up right around the time 3.0 hit and was like nice. Can't believe a third party publisher produced a sweet book.

[AslanCross]

Monster Manual III, followed by Monster Manual V. III had well-designed monsters that were both interesting by fluff and crunch. The boneclaw, bonedrinker, death giant, and voidmind creatures are among my favorites from that. Also, 3.5 update for yugoloths.

MMV had the Xorvintaal dragons, the Mind Flayers of Thoon (most interesting core monster supplement, ever, as it was more than just "Mind Flayers with class levels"), and one of the...three external references to Tome of Battle that I remember.

[Eldariel]

I always loved Fiend Folio. So many wonderful, strange creatures. Also a sucker for the official Fiendish Codexes.

[GoatBoy]

MM3 for solid, usable monsters. Fiend Folio for fantastic, imaginative creatures.

But despite the overall flaws in the book, most of the monsters I really like come from the Epic Level Handbook. You have the floating foetus of death, unholy gibbering mouther/beholder offspring, super-elves, horrors from realms beyond comprehension, and a sentient Sphere of Annihilation. Epic level play may not be very viable, but monsters like these are a great way to make for memorable fights. Good candidates to be de-CR'd so a <=20 party could handle them.

[Eldariel]

MM3 for solid, usable monsters. Fiend Folio for fantastic, imaginative creatures.

But despite the overall flaws in the book, most of the monsters I really like come from the Epic Level Handbook. You have the floating foetus of death, unholy gibbering mouther/beholder offspring, super-elves, horrors from realms beyond comprehension, and a sentient Sphere of Annihilation. Epic level play may not be very viable, but monsters like these are a great way to make for memorable fights. Good candidates to be de-CR'd so a <=20 party could handle them.

ELH has many classical beasts from mythology too; Hecatoncheires, Infernal, Colossi, etc. And some really cool ones like Phane or Genius Loci.

[Eldan]

Fiend Folio, for updating a lot of the good, old stuff.

[Keld Denar]

MMIII. It has a load of high level monsters that actually are able to deal with moderately optimized PCs with counters to things such as flight and superior action economy. I'm a huge fan of Cadavar Collectors, Charnal Hounds, and Arcane Giants. Solid stuff there.

[Sdonourg]

Fiend Folio and Tome of Horrors. Some good stuff.

[Undercroft]

Fiend Folio, for being my first introduction to symbionts, grafts and the awesome fun monstrosity that is the half-ilithid template. Plus lots more outsiders to hurl at my players :)

[Tvtyrant]

Lords of Madness for giving me tons of Aberrations.
MMI for giving me tons of Evil Outsiders and Good Outsiders to kill.
I wish there were better books on the undead because they go in my list of "awesome."

[Keld Denar]

Libris Mortis: The Book of Bad Latin, has lots of information on Undeaders in general. It is for undead what Lords of Madness is for aberrations.

[Tvtyrant]

Libris Mortis: The Book of Bad Latin, has lots of information on Undeaders in general. It is for undead what Lords of Madness is for aberrations.

I own it, it just doesn't tickle my fancy as much. What I really like the most are extra-planar undead, which are essentially unexplained in D&D but get you the coolest undead (Nightcrawlers/walkers/wings, Bodaks, etc.) Maybe its just a style thing but I like undead that are made of shifting darkness and have burning red eyes more then ones that drip gore.

[AslanCross]

With regard to Fiend Folio: The coolest monster in that book that I've always wanted to run? The Hullathoin.

http://images.wikia.com/sfery/images/b/b0/Hullathoin.jpg

It's a dragon-sized "WHAT" that causes a vampire plague. How awesome is that? I only hated its charisma draining attack that was caused by it twisting you into ugly and deformed shapes. :smalltongue:

[Thurbane]

WotC: MM 3, easily.

3rd party: Tome of Horrors...so many of my favorite monsters from my AD&D days given 3.X stats. :smallbiggrin:

[Bang!]

3rd party: Tome of Horrors...so many of my favorite monsters from my AD&D days given 3.X stats. :smallbiggrin:
YES!

I also shipped enough monsters from the 2e MM to 3e that it probably counts.
>.>

[Lastgrasp]

I think Tome of Horror is being update again this summer. This time all three books are getting revised into Pathfinder Rules. Plus it's going to be close to 1000 pages. Can't wait to check it out.

Pathfinder Bestiary I & II are pretty nifty. Good mix of creature, nice production values. Only minus is it loses the copyrighted D&D stuff like Beholders & Mind Flayers.

Anyone have Book of Fiends by Green Ronin? Worth checking out?

[Seth62]

I like monster manual V. The Far realm is awesome, and lets not forget crazy dragon games! (XORVINTAAL)


Thoon........Thoon........Thoon

[Bang!]

Anyone have Book of Fiends by Green Ronin? Worth checking out?It really aims for the gross-out.

It might would work for a horror game, but D&D is about the last system I'd use for that. I passed on it; your mileage may vary.

On the other hand, if you got a kick out of Vile Darkness, you'd probably dig Fiends. Or if you're just trying to populate hell. One thing it definitely has going for it is demons at varied CRs.

[AslanCross]

Thoon........Thoon........Thoon

Thoon is Thoon, and THOON IS ALL!