It is the year 2000. We don't have flying cars, but I have a brand new baby, and Wizards of the Coast, the brand new owners of Dungeons & Dragons are putting out their new 3rd Edition material. The Monster Manual was the last of the three core rule books.
For today I am going to consider the 3.0 and the 3.5 versions of the Monster Manuals. I am also considering the Print and PDF versions from DriveThruRPG.
3.0 220 pages. 3.5 324 pages. 425 monsters.
More so than the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums or Manual this book felt like the Monster Manual of old.
It was the start of the new millennium (almost) and we all survived Y2K. I had been moving away from D&D for some time by this point and this was the edition that brought me back. I do sometimes still get the urge to play 3.x and this book is one of those reasons.
The art budget for D&D (no more "Advanced") was heavily increased. Art that would have been chosen for cover art for products in the 1990s now joins several more just like for interior art. Every monster in illustrated in full color now and the book itself is a work of art.
Inside are all the favorites and many new ones to boot. Demons and Devils are back AS Demons and Devils, although they also retain their bowdlerized names of Tanar'ri and Baatezu respectively. This works out to Wizards of the Coast's advantage since now those names can be considered Product Identity under the newly formed OGL. Sure other publishers can, and do (and boy do they!), talk about demons, but Tanar'i are off-limits.
What is special about this book, and 3.x in general, is now monsters are built using the same rules as characters. They have the same abilities, a great wyrm blue dragon has a strength of 39, and built like characters are with the same skills and the new feat system. So that same ancient blue dragon can have a fly-by attack feat. I can't say everything is perfect, but it is certainly better than the catch as catch can abilities of AD&D where a Will-O-the-wisp can has ridiculous stats.
The implication is here is that some monsters could even be characters. For a crazy example take the Skum (p.229). It has 2d8+2 HD. At the bottom of the stat block is a "Level Adjustment" of +3. Skum start out at 3rd level but still 0 XP. Once they gain enough to get to 4th level they can advance. Usually, there is a preferred class listed, but almost everything can advance as a fighter.
Creatures also get a different hit die based on their type. Faeries get a d6 while undead gets a d12. Type is very important here.
There are also templates which is a great idea. Have a 14th-level fighter who is changed into a vampire? Well in older forms of D&D he would have gone down to the HD of a vampire. In 3.x he is now 14th level (yeah level drain is gone, more or less) and you add vampire abilities on top. It was something hinted at with Ravenloft, now it is part of the rules.
I mentioned the art, it is great though there are some changes between the 3.0 and 3.5 versions.
In fact, there are some monsters not illustrated in the 3.0 version that do get illustrations in the 3.5.
It is really a great resource. My one complaint is that the one monster per page layout is gone. This does conserve space and makes the book smaller, I just had gotten used to the format with 2nd Ed. 4th Ed would bring it back.
I have very fond memories of this book. My oldest son as a small child would spend hours flipping through it, just like I had done with the original Monster Manual.
I should also point out that because of this book and the Open Gaming License I was able to get my first ever professional RPG writing gig working on Eden Studios' Liber Bestarius.
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