Customer Reviews

Dark Sun Creature Catalog (Dungeons and Dragons: Roleplaying Game Supplement)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was torn between 4 and 5 stars for this, but in the end, I decided to round up because the price is so insane. For less than every other 4e book to-date, you get...

* A *hardbound* book with about a hundred pages of tough, scaly, chitinous, psionic, spiky, mutated beasts perfect for Dark Sun. (According to WotC, it was supposed to be softcover, but the printer's error is our gain!)
* A 20-page section on Important Personages, including all the Sorcerer-Kings and a few other notables from Heroic to Paragon levels. (This section also has stats for some templars for several of the cities.)
* A very nice, very important section for adapting existing monsters to Dark Sun. Monster Themes are included - many of which include trade-offs, where the monster loses one thing to gain another.
* A bevy of hazards for travel through the Wastes, fighting in the Arena, etc. The latter two sections take up the remaining 20 pages.

Overall, it's impressive as heck - especially for the price.

Naturally, it's not perfect, and for a few minutes, I was downright peeved. I couldn't find my favorite Dark Sun monsters - the Dwarven Banshees, Elf Dune Runners, and Athasian Sloths. Well, the Sloths still aren't here (doh!), but folks looking for those brilliant undead can check the Wight section. No idea why they're there, but they're still very true to the originals.

I also wish that more of the Sorcerer-Kings had had MM3-style tricks to throw off conditions. At high levels, I can see the Dragon of Tyr getting stun-locked, and that just makes me sad. Some of the Sorcerer-Kings have these sorts of tricks and some don't. Also, oddly, some are Solos and some are Elites. Those with a bent towards simulation might get distracted by this, but I think it makes sense - the Elites are just more likely to have fully-capable retinues. And, as one more tiny gripe in the "just to annoy us Dark Sun oldtimers" category, some monster names have been simplified (b'rogh -> brogh, hej-kin -> hejkin), and the plurals have all been normalized.

Overall, I'm thrilled with this purchase. I would have readily paid a few more bucks for this same content. It's a must-have for anyone running Dark Sun...

...but if you're not running Dark Sun, it's likely not be worth it. About a third of the book will be mostly-useless to you, and a lot of the monsters might feel incongruous in Forgotten Realms or the Nentir Vale. You could always reskin the cooler stuff, but you'd likely be better off just using the DDI Monster Builder. Still, for the price, it could be tough to resist.

Well don't expect many surprises, most of the creatures and monsters in this manual have been around since Dark Sun was a second edition setting. Still it is nice to see them in colorful illustrations, although it would have been nice if there were more critters that were well more innovative. Most creatures either come in the savage beast or psionic user flavor. I would have liked more undead.

A nice and unexpected touch was the section with stats on the Dragon kings. So we finally get to see them and they are not even all that powerful when compared to such creatures as the terrasque. But then again I don't think it good to have them actually fight the player characters.

Overall a nice book, if a bit slow, but I guess if this is your first taste of Dark Sun, you will enjoy it more.

The Dark Sun Creature Catalog is well done. It took a while to arrive for us all, but in the end, we got a great hardcover book. I am very pleased with this book. DSCC brings the goods.
For hardcore Dark Sun players from back in the day, this book serves well. Yes, it doesn't have all our favorite's, T'Chowb missing hurts me dearly, but it does give most of the old enemies new life for the 4th edition. I agree that I could have skipped most of the personalities in the end for more templates or more monsters, but some day, you will be thankful that someone else did the work on the Dragon of Tyr and the Sorcerer Kings. The Template, added in Dungeon Master's Guide II, is put to good use here.
Oh, we all want more monsters, I in particular want more Gith, but this book is well written and serious about Dark Sun. If you are a fan of the genre, are looking to become one or are in need of new monsters to challenge your player's, get this book.

I've successfully poured over this slim, compact, but helpful book. I love that it's a hardback, like how it dovetails in with the campaign guide, and especially like how editing mistakes rampant in the Campaign guide are absent or minor here.

Here's why I rated it a 5 out of 5:

1. Stats for every Dragon king and a side of parsley to go with them. From the Dragon of Tyr to Giustenal's undead dragon, the gang are all inside. They have some Paragon and even heroic badguys listed in the back that fill out a rogue's gallery that helps cover a lot of bases and complete what we know about the cities. To be honest, it almost makes part of the Campaign guide, safer for the Players to see and review as part of the bargain.

2. The good, old favorites. I miss the Erdlu's separation from the Crodlu, and would have liked the subtle differences as explained in Dune trader, the 2nd edition book published more than a decade ago, but I got the big ones, most of the medium ones, and almost all of the little ones covered. Between that and some nice little flavor text I'm fine. I'll admit that the picture of the Braxat and a few others(the Kirre is borderline, but at least a new take on the old thoughts) looks like they hired some interns from a middle school, most of the pics do the setting and its unique art style credit. I didn't see anything that truly was the india ink that brom made famous for the setting, but I was pleased.

3. Every single player race was included(shy tieflings) to help fill in for what we have to cover in the differences in Athasian and other cultures. The half-Giant entries especially give 2 paragon and 2 heroic tier monsters well worth the wait.

4. The encounter options section, complete with some that can actually be activated and used by skillful player characters was a master stroke. An invention worth of the name DarkSun.

5. Adhering to the new stat block. Nuff said.

I think this alongside Monster manual 3 are excellent pieces for the DarkSun world. Throw the Campaign guide and skip the marauders module, and you're all set.

This is a great book in the sense that it gives you basic notions of the world for DMs and players. I still missed much and think that it could have had a bit more about the places of interest in the world, instead of the sample adventure, for example.
The recourses for players are great, tho.

The Dark Sun creature catalog is the companion book to the Dark Sun Campaign guide released in late summer 2010. Like all D&D 4th edition campaign settings, the goal was to limit the release to two core books with a companion adventure. In the case of Dark Sun, Wizards of the Coast decided to combine the players guide and the campaign setting into a single volume in order to release a monster supplement for the campaign.

Of all the core campaigns to be released for 4th edition, Dark Sun is arguably the most different from generic D&D and this creature catalog aims at giving dungeon masters a variety of statistics for creatures in the Dark Sun universe, from common beasts of burden to exotic monsters of the desert wastes. The creatures featured here can of course be incorporated into any campaign setting, and the catalog contains many unique monsters that most of your players will never have heard of if they didn't play the original Dark Sun campaign. Those who played the original setting will be pleased to find many familiar beasties here, and you even get statistics for the Dragon Kings. For hard-core Dark Sun fans, the cost of the book is likely justified just to have a chance to see all the cool updates.

However, my personal feeling is that the more interesting monsters are found at the heroic tier, and indeed that is perhaps the tier to which Dark Sun is best suited. There are groups of monsters available for all level ranges, but paragon and epic tiers have fewer options for building well-rounded encounters.

If you're planning on running Dark Sun, you're going to need more than the creatures available in just this book. I would personally recommend picking up the Monster Manual 3 and modifying some of the creatures therein to fit the Dark Sun setting. If you're looking for new monsters to use at a higher level of gameplay, avoid this book.

I'm new to Dark Sun, so I cannot compare it to older editions. I've read every page of it, however, and I thoroughly enjoy the creativity put into the creatures and monsters of Athas. I would estimate a little less than half of the monsters are humanoid; the rest are creatures that really fill out the ecosystem of a world in which animals like horses and cows just don't exist.

I do wish they would release a line of miniatures to represent the creatures in this book, as it's quite difficult to find anything remotely similar to most of them, particularly the beasts. If you use paper markers or the like, you'll be fine, but my group prefers the plastic minis and, while we've never really had enough of them to represent the creatures we face, it was much easier to find similar miniatures for the default setting than for Dark Sun.

I'm taking two stars off for the terrible quality of the printing, however. It looks awesome, but the ink smudges very easily--even with dry fingers. I have to be particularly careful with this book and have accidentally smudged some stats beyond recognition just by holding the book with a finger to save my place while moving miniatures etc.

I was excited to see this line make a return for 4e, but after seeing so many editting errors in this book and the setting guide I was not as excited as I once was. Still it has many great monsters that could make a surprise appearance in any campaign (even Gamma World) and is the better editted of the Dark Sun books.

This is really an awesome book, with outstanding descriptions, whole new content to improve the role playing experience and breath taking ilustrations.

The MMs in 4e have to me, pretty much been disappointing. They've a lot less flavor and history and just general details on the monsters. I hate the fact that there's no size trait. I mean, exactly how tall is a titan compared to a giant?

While I love Dark Sun, this MM isn't the exception. Just a list of more monsters. The sorcerer-king personas in the back of the book are somewhat interesting but needed more info and I noticed higher level than they were in 2e. But then in 2e 20th was the cap level in general so having NPCs that were 20+ level meant a lot.

The biggest disappointment in this book is the Dragon of Tyr. Sure, he's powerful but compared to the 2e version? When the 2e version was printed, the Dragon was the most powerful creature I had ever seen published. I mean a breath weapon of 25d12?! Regeneration of 10hp/rd?! Ridiculous. And, I loved it. Those writers really wanted to emphasize how beyond the scope of players the Dragon was. Now, in 4e he's only a challenge level of 33? Sigh. I personally would have made him just as far reaching as he was in 2e. Should have made him at least CR 38. Oh well. 4e is really the softest version of D&D yet.

So if the other 3 MMs weren't enough for you, buy this one.