Quote from: Gib;559011I ordered the second Dark Sun appendix today. Remember kids, Noble Knight is great, but check Amazon first.

I thought second-hand stuff at Amazon was all horrendously overpriced.

Also I have a hard time trusting some of the sellers using Amazon. When you're paying for overseas shipping you tend to err on the side of caution.

Quote from: The Butcher;559049I thought second-hand stuff at Amazon was all horrendously overpriced.

Also I have a hard time trusting some of the sellers using Amazon. When you're paying for overseas shipping you tend to err on the side of caution.

Well, over the last year, the cheapest price I've seen for it on noble knight is 10$ over what I paid, and I did not even take the least expensive option. What's truly odd, though, is last i looked on amazon it wasn't anywhere to be found, today i checked because I had a gift card and there were like two dozen of the things.

I can't speak to the shipping, of course,  but as far as price goes I have found, as this case illustrates, that it really pays to jettison your assumptions and look everywhere, every time.


FWIW, I tend to buy my used stuff from amazon resellers that have fulfillment through amazon itself because on order over 25$ I can get free (super slow) shipping. I got the Scarred Lands campaign guide today as well because Melan said good things about it and wanted have a look (and it made the shipping free).

Quote from: Gib;559018The DS illos seem pretty cool, is there a problem with the set as a whole? BTW, can you get that stuff in a book or are you stuck with binders?

I recall the DS illos being some of the better ones, but in general the Monstrous Compendium loose leafs had some pretty dubious artwork.

There is a Monstrous Compendium, with better color illos, but it's pretty poorly assembled/edited.

In general, I find, the 2e MCs to be more poorly organized and edited than their 1e counterparts.

Quote from: The Traveller;558756Absolutely need them. My opinion of D&D as a system is that it isn't great, but what distinguishes it from other games is the tremendous depth of resources it brings to the gaming table. Monsters, spells, magical artifacts, and to a lesser degree campaign worlds.

Any hack can throw a couple of darts at a dictionary and crank out "dogs" in say.. a "vinyard"... but the variety is something that takes hard work, real creative talent, and plenty of it. Even just browsing through the listings fires the imagination for me.

Anyway commentary aside, its great to have as many options as possible when spinning up game worlds, random encounters and adventures.

Quote from: J Arcane;558782I firmly believe that the existence of a well-stocked monster manual is why D&D has never been successfully toppled.

The ability to run a game without having to generate a single stat for oneself is a massive advantage in D&D's favor, one that the competition has perpetually failed to grasp, and constantly slacked off on providing.

These, then, are the fundamental truths of the universe.

Quote from: StormBringer;559068These, then, are the fundamental truths of the universe.

Yes, no, maybe?  Hold on...."you are posting in a troll thread".

Quote from: Marleycat;559090Yes, no, maybe?  Hold on...."you are posting in a troll thread".

At some point, there has to be some heavy lifting in monster design.  The same 'generic monster template' cannot possibly serve both kobolds and dragons, otherwise you really will have wandering bundles of xp that occasionally cause damage.  There is a far wider range of possibilities for 'kobold' than 'weak lizard-dog with short sword', and those possibilities can (and probably should) be very different than the 'weak humanoid with short sword' goblin.

On a side note, David A Trampier was the greatest D&D artist of all fucking time:

Quote from: RPGPundit;558751...or just a few dozen?

I have to admit I really don't get the necessity some people have to collect "monster manuals" of different kinds.  I've never found the need for it in any of my fantasy campaigns; for starters, usually the list of monsters in, say, the basic 1e monster manual or the monster section of the Rules Cyclopedia has more than enough variety.

And beyond that, I find it much simpler to just take one of those, and put some slight spin on it (it can even be precisely the same stats but with a different physical appearance), than to have a collection of a dozen monster-books full of unique creatures.

RPGPundit

My sentiments as well. I've gotten far more use out of standard-issue monsters (MM1 or the Basic Set), plus Katherine Briggs' Encyclopedia of Fairies than I ever got out of all the other monster books. I prefer to take an existing monster (where the stats are already written up), change its name (this is where Briggs' book comes in handy) and appearance, and a few attributes.

For example, I took the standard vampire, changed it to the Bavanshee (a Gaelic bloodsucking monster), and changed its weaknesses from garlic etc to iron. New monster made easy.

This is especially useful for tripping up players who have read the monster books and know what do against all the published creatures.

Quote from: Elfdart;559173This is especially useful for tripping up players who have read the monster books and know what do against all the published creatures.

I haven't had to deal with this since the early 90's. I'd forgotten that monster books can be porn for rules lawyers.

As far as changing the names and whatnot, doesn't everyone do this?

Quote from: Gib;559176I haven't had to deal with this since the early 90's. I'd forgotten that monster books can be porn for rules lawyers.

As far as changing the names and whatnot, doesn't everyone do this?

You better if you want to keep the game interesting.

I wrote an essay on this topic once. It has cuss words.

Quote from: Gib;559180I wrote an essay on this topic once. It has cuss words.

The differentiation between 'monster' and 'critter' is awesome.

Quote from: StormBringer;559182The differentiation between 'monster' and 'critter' is awesome.

Thanks. It may be the only interesting thought I've ever had in regards to RPGs.

Quote from: Gib;559176I haven't had to deal with this since the early 90's. I'd forgotten that monster books can be porn for rules lawyers.

It's a pain, isn't it?

QuoteAs far as changing the names and whatnot, doesn't everyone do this?

Apparently not.

Quote from: Planet Algol;559063

Quote from: Gib;559018The DS illos seem pretty cool, is there a problem with the set as a whole? BTW, can you get that stuff in a book or are you stuck with binders?

I recall the DS illos being some of the better ones, but in general the Monstrous Compendium loose leafs had some pretty dubious artwork.

There is a Monstrous Compendium, with better color illos, but it's pretty poorly assembled/edited.

In general, I find, the 2e MCs to be more poorly organized and edited than their 1e counterparts.

A long time ago I came up with a way of dealing with some of the really crap artwork in the monster books.

Instead of lugging around all my books I just photocopied the pages I used most often and assembled them into a binder. When I got hold of dilapidated copies of rulebooks, I would cut out pages (or parts of pages) and put them in my binder too, along with Dragon articles or whatever else I wanted. At this point, because I was already cutting and pasting, I decided to cut/paste and swap out pics I didn't like for ones I did like. With the Interwebz and PDF files this is a thousand times easier (and cheaper) and with better-looking results.

For example, I always though pig-faced orcs were stupid, so I found pictures of orcs from modules or Dragon Magazine and used them instead. I also rearranged the text so "Orc" was all on one page:



I did this for other monsters, too. The only bad thing is that this can very quickly become addictive and you can find yourself spending WAY too much time doing it.

*backs away slowly*







Anyways, I print out the PDFs of my monster books as digest sized booklets so they're pretty small and light and I easily stuff all of them in my satchel.

Arts and crafts D&D is awesome D&D.