You Know What I'd Appreciate?

[Catullus64]

If illustrations in the Monster Manual and other creature-centric sourcebooks provided a sense of scale, that's what! I know that the creature's Size category can fill you in on roughly how big it's supposed to be, but having just about all the monsters be standing in a void really compounds this issue; at best some of them will have a bit of ground. (On review, a small handful have some contrasting scenery, like the Dragon Turtle.) It's especially a problem when a monster's size has no definite proportion to how much page real estate it will take up, even when it's on the same page as different monsters. The further afield a monster is from humanoid proportions, or the proportions of a real-life animal, the more noticeable this becomes.

Some scenery would be nice (in general, but particularly for establishing scale), as would a little diagram comparing the drawing to human scale. This is technology within the reach of the dinosaur books I read in the first grade, surely the MM could manage it?

I grant this may be low on the list of 5.5 changes, but it matters to me, darn it! Here's a list of monsters in the MM where the drawing really misled me as to the scale:


Basilisk (looks Gargantuan, is Medium)
Behir (looks Small, is Huge; and right on the page opposite the Basilisk!)
Carrion Crawler (looks Small, is Large)
Cockatrice (looks Huge, is Small)
Couatl (looks Huge, is Medium)
Darkmantle (looks Medium or Large, is Small)
Chasme (Looks Small, is Large)
Dretch (Looks Large, is Small)
Homunculus (Looks Large, is Tiny)
Nycaloth (Looks Medium, is Large)


Does this bother anybody else?

[Saelethil]

It doesn’t bother me as much as it seems to bother you but it would be nice.

[KorvinStarmast]

Does this bother anybody else?
Doesn't bother me. I just hope that all of the art in the next book is as high quality as the art in the MM.

[Edgerunner]

I like to see the scaling as it helps my players get an idea of what they are dealing with. Plus I think it just looks cool.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8b/61/ae/8b61ae08be98c6e09363c4e708aa721d--character-concept-art-character-ideas.jpg

[Saelethil]

I like to see the scaling as it helps my players get an idea of what they are dealing with. Plus I think it just looks cool.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8b/61/ae/8b61ae08be98c6e09363c4e708aa721d--character-concept-art-character-ideas.jpg

This is awesome! Where did you find it? Or did you make it?

[Edgerunner]

This is awesome! Where did you find it? Or did you make it?

I was just scrolling thru and there it was. I liked it so I saved it. Ended up becoming an NPC Mayor and his two bodyguards. Much fun was had.

I did use Photoshop to pull the Human and add it to other creature pictures for the players.

[Kurt Kurageous]

You know, I never thought about it much until you brought it up. Now it bugs me. Thanks!

See the illustration of the dragon turtle? Without scale, it's just not all that scary.

[No brains]

This doesn't bother me as much, but I will admit I was thrown a little bit when I realized the couatl was only medium. I just grew up on kaiju and never expected a modestly-sized magic flying reptile.

One of the things to consider is that a portrait of a creature with a background and other figures for scale becomes more costly and time-consuming to make. While it might evoke stronger feelings, it might not be economical to give every creature that much attention.

Not to mention, when an image of a creature gets too big, it hedges out rules text. In Modenkainen's Tome of Foes, the Molydeus is missing a portrait, but the text still lets me know what it is and how it can be used. Zuggtmoy's weird pet snake creature gets a decently sized image with plenty around it for scale, but now knowing its abilities makes me much less invested in it.

I will give credit to those images that do use refence points to punctuate the visual impact of creatures. The myconid portrait works well if you accept that the middle-sized creature is the same size as a human. There's also line drawings in the margins and in the back that give some idea of the scale of flumphs and minotaurs.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

There was a thread a while ago about the worst 5e book and I nominated the MM. It lacks the detail that I appreciated in previous editions, particularly around social structure and groupings. I get that 5e has gone with the (not very popular) CR for building encounters, which may be the reason for this, but to me it's a big detractor to understanding the lore of the monsters.

[KorvinStarmast]

There was a thread a while ago about the worst 5e book and I nominated the MM. It lacks the detail that I appreciated in previous editions, particularly around social structure and groupings. I get that 5e has gone with the (not very popular) CR for building encounters, which may be the reason for this, but to me it's a big detractor to understanding the lore of the monsters. Are you thinking back to the AD&D 2e MM? That had a lot of what you are referring to.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think this would be great.

I suspect that it would increase the cost of production though.

It also seems like one of those things that someone on the internet will eventually do and then we'll all just search for it as a resource when we need it. Has that happened yet, person on the internet?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Are you thinking back to the AD&D 2e MM? That had a lot of what you are referring to.

Yes. Our group went straight from 2e to 5e, so that colors my perception of things.

[Kurt Kurageous]

It lacks the detail that I appreciated in previous editions, particularly around social structure and groupings. I get that 5e has gone with the (not very popular) CR for building encounters, which may be the reason for this, but to me it's a big detractor to understanding the lore of the monsters.

AD&D had all of that. I still have a PDF copy of the first MM (no my pages are not stucketh) that I refer to when necessary. Like, exactly how many orcs make up an orc tribe. Then I layer in all the variants of orcs...seasoned with Yurtis...yum!

I gave up on using CR and replaced it with hit points. An easy encounter has half of the party's HP total, difficult is 100%, and hard 150%. I don't get to 6-8 encounters/day, so this makes the fights meaningful.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yes. Our group went straight from 2e to 5e, so that colors my perception of things. A number of my friends who played a lot more 2e than I did all opined that 5e felt quite a bit like 2e to them, absent the strongholds supplements ... they felt right at home in 5e.

[Telwar]

The old Shadowrun critter books (Paranormal Animals of North America, ...of Europe) did that, too. For example, the juggernaut (an awakened armadillo) had a picture of an armadillo foot next to an adult human for scale.

Or course, they haven't done that since second edition, and it's annoying, a lot of the vehicles and drones really need that.

[Trask]

I too would like to see more art with adventurers and monsters in the same frame, yes. It gives a sense of scale and power to some of the creatures.