Monster Manual V

Overall score:

Its been a year since Monster Manual IV was released. I've fought, killed (and been killed) by plenty of creatures from it. Thanks to Time Waster's Guide, I now have a copy of Monster Manual V. So what horrors does this newest installment hold, and is it worth the price?

The layout is very similar to that of MMIV. It uses the new NPC statbock format, and each creature is generally given a 2-page spread. The introduction explains how this statbock format, and I recommend reading it, especially if you are used to the older MMI style. I'm still not totally sold on this newer format myself; its better than the older NPC condensed statbock, but more complicated and I think a bit more spacey than the older monster statblock format. After the monster's appearance, stats, and general description, there are several textblocks that go into further details about the monster: strategy and tactics, sample encounters, ecology, etc. In some ways, this is needed (monsters that could be summoned or created from MMI are listed in the spell descriptions, and these newer monsters don't have that luxury). In other ways, this is a vast improvement over the original Monster Manual, which generally only contained sparse story details of the creature.

Like MMIV, it also revisits some old monsters, using alternate stats or advancing them with class levels. Four hogoblins, four kuo-toa, a 23-page section detailing a group of mind flayers (note that the book cover has a stylized mind flayer head), and two high-level vampires. The mind flayers detailed are followers of Thoon, something unknown from the Far Realms, perhaps a philosophy or even a deity. They search for a magical energy known as quintessence, which practically anything may or may not contain.

An impressive full-page painting opens up the Mind Flayers of Thoon. It gives stats for a mind flayer cleric 4 of Thoon. There are alternate stats for both a 'shadow flayer' whose favored class is rogue and can turn invisible in a way similar to the ninja class, and a Thoon elder brain that has been moved down from CR 25 to CR 15. Seven other Thoon-themed creatures are in this section, along with lots of text about the cult of Thoon and how to include it in your game.

There are 100 monsters in all, including example statbocks for the four or so templates and the advanced/alternate stats mentioned above, and comes in at 222 pages. I could only find two monsters with the "sample lair" entry, complete with map and area descriptions (not to be confused with "sample encounters", an entry that nearly every monster has, which gives details on where you might find the monster followed by one or two examples). Monster Manual IV has several more statblocks in 221 pages, and quite a few more sample lairs. Even so, I think I like MMV a sliver more than MMIV, maybe because the monsters are more interesting or maybe just because its new.

Some of my favorite monsters starts with the very first one, Arcadian Avenger. These are silvery angelic females who view everything with law and logic, dual-wielding longswords against anyone who violates their faith (including good-aligned PCs). They are also listed with a +2 level adjustment, with 8 outsider HD, letting a person play one starting at 10th level if they are so inclined.

Another favorite is only 4 entries further in, a unique demon called Dalmosh of the Infinite Maws. This thing is a 50-ft tall humanoid covered in mouth-like scars who never stops eating. If you manage to kill him, he just reappears in two days on his home plane, several layers of the Abyss called the Flesh Mountains. It also includes rules for summoning Dalmosh, which anyone can do (even non-spellcasters, although the ritual is quite pricy and may be difficult to discover). This guy is CR 17, but I doubt even a balor would want to go toe-to-toe with Dalmosh.

I also found the elemental magi interesting. These are ogres with elemental-based powers (earth, fire, or air), and are quite a bit different from both ogre and ogre-magi. They have no spell-like abilities, but do have 2-3 supernatural abilities. The one that they all share in common is shared strength, that lets them use the best saving throw bonus among all nearby elemental magi. They each have a level adjustment of +5, with either 8, 12, or 17 HD. They also have fast healing of 5 (Ken-Kuni), or 10 (Ken-Li and Ken-Sun), which is notably different than the ogre-magi's troll-like regeneration.

The Jaebrin is a tricster fey with no monster HD, +1 LA, and a full list of racial traits so they can be used by PCs (similar to the racial entries in the PHB). Their favored class is the Beguiler, a new base class from Player's Handbook 2. While I'm thinking about it, its also worth mentioning that MMV has no qualms with bringing up new rules from other books, but they generally include enough information to get you by if you don't have the book in question (or just don't remember the rule off-hand).

Another monster than got my attention is the phantom, and is actually a template. It makes the creature a strange combination of both corporeal and incorporeal. The weakest phantoms simply become incorporeal when they take a move, while the stronger phantoms can change between corporeal and incorporeal as a swift action (or a standard action if they've already used up their swift action for the round). Despite the name, not all phantoms are undead. The example creature is Kugan, a male phantom ghast ninja 4.

I tried to compare as many of these monsters to the stats of similar CR/theme creatures in the other Monster Manuals. MMI has two tiers of monster CRs, those for the standard monster and those for iconic monsters. Something like a beholder, mind flayer, solar, or true dragon (the iconics), are simply more powerful than other monsters of equal CR. To give you an idea of the difference, I'd probably rate the iconics around 2 CR higher than other monsters (which is supposedly twice as challenging, you get twice as much experience from a CR 10 monster as you would a CR 8 monster). By the time you reach MMIV, nearly every monster has that 'iconic' level of strength. Its kind of hard to judge by just comparing stats, but some creatures in MMV seemed about equal (or maybe a sliver harder) to the MMI where others seemed noticably more powerful (iconic level, and maybe even above that). Where I think MMIV's increase in difficulty was probably an answer to power creep, I can't say the same for MMV one way or the other. Some of it might be from power creep, but some of it might simply be from fine-tuning CRs after so many years of monsters and adventuring.

With a cover price at nearly 35 dollars, I give my thumbs up on this book only after you've got the other DnD books you've been really interested in, or are a DM who is looking for a new monster book that sacrifices number of monsters for extra story detail. And as I mentioned before, I like Monster Manual V a bit more than last year's Monster Manual IV.

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Written by Eagle Prince on July 27th, 2007