Monster Manual II (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying Supplement) (Hardcover)

by Ed Bonny (Author), Skip Williams (Author), Jeff Grubb (Author), Rich Redman (Author), Steve Winter (Author) "This book contains entries for more than 250 creatures, both hostile and benign, for use in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS adventures..." (more)
Key Phrases: yak folk, tauric creature, single swallowed creature exits, Hit Dice, Challenge Rating, None Alignment (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Even Greater Threats Await!

As heroes grow in power, they seek out more formidable adversaries. Whether sinister or seductive, ferocious or foul, the creatures lurking within these pages will challenge the most experienced characters of any campaign.

This supplement for the D&D game unleashes a horde of monsters to confront characters at all levels of play, including several with Challenge Ratings of 21 or higher. Inside are old favorites such as the death knight and the gem dragons, as well as all-new creatures such as the bronze serpent, the effigy, and the fiendwurm. Along with updated and expanded monster creation rules, Monster Manual II provides an inexhaustible source of ways to keep even the toughest heroes fighting and running for their lives.

To use this supplement, a Dungeon Master also needs the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide. A player needs only the Player's Handbook.


About the Author
Jeff Grubb is an award-winning game designer whose recent credits include the D&D accessory Manual of the Planes and the three Ice Age Cycle novels, set in the Magic: The Gathering (r) world. He lives in Washington State.

Rich Redman has written the Dark-Matter (tm) Arms & Equipment Guide and the D&D guidebook Defenders of the Faith. He lives in Washington State.

Steve Winter has worked on numerous products as editor, designer, developer, and manager. He lives in Washington State.

Ed Bonny has had many articles published in Dragon (r) magazine, including his well-received AD&D (r) Planescape (r) and Skills & Powers articles. He lives in New Jersey.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast; illustrated edition edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786928735
• ISBN-13: 978-0786928736
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,959 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars And here you thought you'd fought everything under the sun.., September 18, 2002

By	Brad Smith (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At long last, the second Monster Manual has appeared, to give DMs and players more opponents and allies for their D&D3 games. As stated in the pre-release material, it definitely focuses on the higher end of the CR scale...the highest CR is 28, if I recall correctly.

In this rather nice-looking book, you'll find many, many new and gently used monsters...all the way from the ash rat (a perpetually smokey rat who causes fires) to the phoenix (which, literally, cannot be killed if it has an action), and beyond. One entry I appreciated was the linnorms; in real life, a cryptozoological lizard from Scandinavia, but in D&D3, the most downright unpleasant types of dragons you'll run into...greedy, selfish, and downright meaner than the chromatics, though, thankfully, they don't age. Wizards has shown an interesting predilection for worms of late...first the Worm That Walks template from Epic-Level, and now the fiendwurm (the demonically-infused earthworm with a gate to Hell in its gut) and the psurlons, a race of intelligent earthworms.

Also included are some monsters who've appeared before. Most of the giants were in AD&D2, as was the banshee. In fact, it appears a great number of these are from the old out-of-print Dark Sun setting. There are a few monsters that have appeared in other 3e media...like the Legendary animals, first appearing in Masters of the wild, and the catoblepas, which just appeared in Dragon in September's issue (and is, itself, an update from earlier editions). The celestials (all two of them) appeared in Planescape, as did, undoubtedly, a number of the demons and devils as well.

Finally, to round out the specific creatures, they include new templates...such as the dreaded death knight (undead warrior), the tauric (two creatures together...like a centaur), the chimeric (a creature with additional goat and dragon heads), the spellstitched (magically-enhanced undead), the warbeast (a martially-trained animal), the creature of legend (so it's not a minotaur, but *the* Minotaur), and, finally, the half-golem.

On the whole, it's a very useful book. Lots of new creatures give the DM and the players added variety in their encounters. I especially like the kelvezu, an assassin demon. I wouldn't mind more ally-like creatures...more celestials would be welcome for cohorting and for GPA or GPB spells. However, my real concern is that a fair number of creatures have already appeared in print in 3e, and I'm vaguely unhappy about having to pay for them again. Of course, that's a minor concern, and it's still a book I'd recommend the DM purchase.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars By the Numbers..., March 18, 2004

By A Customer

*Monster Manual 2* has 224 pages, 262 creatures, and 9 templates.

Its CR values: mean ~8.5, mode 5, median 8, low 1/4, high 28.

CR values of *MM1 3E* for comparison: mean ~5.4, mode 3, median 5, low 1/10, high 26.

It retials for $29.95, which is an average of $0.13 per page.

Overall, this text rounds out the D&D ecosystem fairly well, and its CR values are closer to the *Fiend Folio* than to *MM1*. The introduction features advancement rules and ability explanations that are superior to those found in *MM1 3E*. Unlike the *Fiend Folio*, there is no obvious focus in this collection; however, it is definitely not a book for games that attempt to develop humanoid cultures and conflicts--indeed, there are no "humanoid" types in the text at all, besides one template (there are, of course, a dozen "monstrous humanoid" types, and several outsiders that are essentially extraplanar monstrous humanoids).

Other developments include a good smattering of terrain-based creatures--more desert and swamp inhabitants (fans of the old Dark Sun setting will be pleased to see the return of the "braxat," the "dune stalker," the "sun giant," the "nightmare beast," the "thri-kreen," and the "rampager.") Also, a higher percentage of Colossal creatures and of Aquatic ones than in *MM1*.

The templates are generally good--standouts include the "Death Knight," the "Half-Golem," and the "Tauric" creature (a centaur-thing made of various humanoid and animal bits--very nice). The "Spellstitched" template is decent, though it conjures images of fireball-tossing skeletors from *Diablo*.

Noteworthy creatures--

1) Constructs--lot of good ones here: the "automatons," the "chain golem," the "clockwork horrors," the "juggurnaut," the "nimblewright," the "rogue eidolon," and the "runic guardian" are all first-rate. The "raggamoffyns" are an especially nice touch. and the golems proper are superb.

2) Undead--the best undead in the game are in this text: the "banshee," the "bone naga," the "corpse gatherer," the "crimson death," the "deathbringer," the "effigy," the "famine spirit," the "gravecrawler," the "jahi," the "ragewind," and the "spawn of kyuss"--that's the whole list, and they're all first rate--some tough CR, too.

3) Dragons--4 items here, all very very cool: the "gem dragons," the "fell drakes," the "linnorms," and the uber-badass "hellfire wyrm." These entries are probably worth the cover price by themselves.

4) Outsiders--plenty to go around:

--the "bladelings," to fill out Acheron's poltics a bit more

--2 more Celestials, both of the "guardinal" type, low CR

--8 more Demons (4 Tanar'ri), some with low CR

--3 more Devils (all Ba'atezu)

--3 more yugoloths (higher CR generally than those in *MotP* or *FF*)

--tons of "elemental" types (yeah, technically not "outsiders," but, hell, they are, really)

--and others, such as: 2 basic planetouched types ("zenythri" and "chaond"), much needed; the "rukarazyll," a bizarre aberration-thing; a few ethereal-things; and the "vaporighu," a brute from Gehenna.

5) some decent oozes (the "flesh jelly" rules), fey, plants (myconids! but the "orcwort" is good too), and so on.

6) a bizarre ape-fetish here. We have the "blood ape" (CR 6), the "cloaked ape" (CR 2), the "gambol" (CR 5), the "julajimus" (CR 12), and the "legendary ape" (CR 7). Why all the friggin' monkey-things? Don't we already have the "ape" proper, the "dire ape," and the "girallon" in *MM1*?

Ultimately, this is an all-around useful text, provided one wants to develop a game that is less humanoid-laden.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, could have been great, October 24, 2002

By A Customer

I was pleasantly surprised by this book.
Pluses:
- Nice cover, good presentation.
- They really tried to include a picture of every monster, and (for the most part) the pictures actually matched up with the monster's description, remedying a big failure of MM1. The art is mostly good, with some really nice pieces (Chain Golem and Gem Dragons spring to mind) and only a few stinkers (breathstealer)
- The ability descriptions are much improved over the first MM. In my mind, that's a reason to have it around alone. Example: the description of Swallow Whole makes it clear exactly when a monster can swallow a hapless PC, something multiple readings of the MM1 ability description failed to do for me.
- Descriptions are more complete. Every PC-able monster has ECL listed; all monsters with Grapple-related abilites have Grapple bonuses precalculated, etc.
- I like constructs, and there's lots of them in here.
- There are some NASTY critters in here - if you GM a high-level campaign, I'd say this book would be a must-have. Don't worry, there's plenty of low-CR critters too.

Minuses:
- Every second monster seemed to have Improved Grab and grapple-related abilites. I mean sure, it's a nice mechanic, but did they really need to give it to so many creatures?
- I guess I'm OK with the reprints of the Legendary Animals from Masters of the Wild, but did they have to reprint the Bogun?
- I would have liked some more inventive templates. The book has Big Critter (Gargantuan), Level Boss Critter (Monster of Legend), Centaur Critter (Tauric), and Multiheaded Critter (Chimeric) - all straightforward stuff most GMs could do for themselves. The Death Knight is about the only one I'd use.