Monster Vault: An Essential Dungeons & Dragons Kit (4th Edition D&D) [Game]

Rodney Thompson (Author), Matthew Sernett (Author), Logan Bonner (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 16, 2010 | Series: 4th Edition D&D

Iconic Dungeons & Dragons® monsters that are easy to run and fun to fight.

This essential product for Dungeon Masters collects the most iconic monsters of the Dungeons & Dragons world in one handy box and presents all-new variants, including new spins on such beloved monsters as dragons, orcs, and vampires. The monsters described herein are designed to be easy for Dungeon Masters to use and fun for players to fight. In addition to combat statistics, each monster entry comes with story information to help DMs incorporate the monsters into their adventures and campaigns.
 
In addition to a comprehensive collection of iconic Dungeons & Dragons monsters, this box contains die-cut tokens for the monsters that appear within, as well as a 32-page adventure that showcases several of the monsters. Dungeon Masters can easily incorporate the adventure into their ongoing campaigns.
 
Game components:
 
• 160-page book of monsters
• 32-page adventure
• 10 sheets of die-cut monster tokens

Product Details

• Game: 192 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast; Brdgm edition (November 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786956313
• ISBN-13: 978-0786956319
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 2.1 x 11.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Gaming

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

150 of 152 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Much Needed Improvements November 16, 2010

By James Leivers

Format:Game

These monsters are what the MM1 should have been. They clarified and fixed all sorts of stuff they were trying to accomplish with the original monsters. I'd say that half are the same monsters from MM1 with same name and level (but fixed and improved); half are new variants of the monsters that already exist. There are monsters from level 1 to level 27. The highest is a Balor.

Take for example the Bulette, if you fought one from MM1 you were like "These are great big pile of suck" as soon as the fighter locked one down, it could never get away. It was never clear if it could burrow away from a fighter whose opportunity attack stops all movement. The fight turned into a static, hack fest. Now they spell out that each movement of the Bulette, even burrowing, does not provoke opportunity attacks. It's meant to be going all over the place, bursting forth from the ground to take monstrous land-shark bites out of nice tasty halflings!

Almost every skirmisher in the book is given direct guaranteed ways to move around without provoking opp attacks. They almost all have shift speeds or movement that specifically says "this does not provoke opp attacks". Stick and Move wasn't there before with all the skirmishers. They fixed it!

Monsters that heal themselves is just not a fun mechanic. Take for example the Orc. They all used to come with a semi-confusing power that was an attack, usable only when bloodied, that if they hit would heal 1/4 of the HP. Often, it went unused, as Orcs did not spend that long in a bloody state, or they missed, and healing themselves was just weird. Now, in Monster Vault they got rid of that power, and just let all Orcs get one free standard action before they die. That seems more like what was intended, it ensures the Orcs get that last dying blow. It shows their ferocity, eliminates the HP book-keeping, and allows each of them to show the poor pathetic players what it means to be an "Orc"! (stole it away from the Minotaur though)

They fixed single-use encounter powers. Take the simple change to the Human Bandit. I used to hate Human Bandits as a DM. They got an encounter power that dazed, but if it missed, it's gone, bandit sucked! Now they ensured that if the bandit misses, it retains the power until it is used at least once. Perfect fix, as one of my pet peeves was a monster who never got to use its "defining" power. A lot of the monsters that have defining powers, get ways to recharge it or they let the encounter power have a suitable effect on a miss. This ensures that power will at least be showcased in the battle.

They fixed the unfun boring monsters that dragged out combat. Take for example the Hezrou, a demon, that Weakens with its aura when bloodied. All that did was make the fight drag out foreveeeerrrrr. Now Hezrous do damage with their aura, an excellent fix! Dracolichs are no longer stun,stun,stun, they dominate instead.

No stuns for Owlbears or Vrocks anymore.

Wraiths have a completely different mechanic, they don't regenerate anymore, they don't weaken players, they turn invisible when hit.

Lots of soldiers have "Effects" on their attacks, so they mark even if they miss. The "phalanx" movement of hobgoblins is way cleaner and straightforward, no dm planning needed, they can move together at the command of one of them.

Set-up attacks got easier for the monsters. For example: A mind flayer automatically grabs a dazed or stunned creature. It still has to roll an attack to eat the brain, but one step got easier. The mind flayer used to have to daze a player, wait a round, grab the player, wait a round, then attempt to bore into the brain (this essentially meant it rarely, if ever, happened).

With zombies; in the Red Box they made all zombies that drop to 0HP, stand up unless they get hit again while on the ground. I initially thought that was awesome, but it can really eat up standard actions and cause a drag. In Monster Vault they make the DM roll a d20, and if 15 or higher comes up, the zombie stays at 1HP. Much better, they figured that out quickly. That is an Encounter power so they can't stay up forever.

The solos... cue dramatic music
The only solos in the book are dragons, hydras, beholders, and purple worms. No updated Orcus :(

They gave solos ways to ignore stuns, dazes, or be able to use immediate actions even when dazed/stunned. All the dragons get to go twice per round. At the end of each turn they end all stun and daze effects. So at most, they lose one half a turn. Makes them all more effective. The stun-lock is dead.

The Red Dragon is ultra simple. It focuses on one target, it can chomp down on a wizard grabbing him, and then when the fighter comes to try to save him the Red Dragon goes "Ha, I don't think so, take my huge tail to the face!" Wham! knocked to the ground! "I'm eatin' here!"

The Green Dragon and Blue Dragon are flying all over the place, they can take to the air every single round as part of their attack actions, again: "this movement does not provoke opportunity attacks". No defender lock down for them.

Hydra is completely different, it can take free actions even if stunned or dominated and every creature that ends its turn within reach gets two bites each as a free action. Guaranteed pain for everyone.

The tokens: you get 10 cardboard pages of them! With these tokens, you get every monster you need. I've seen first time DMs just trying to start out use coins, chess pieces, scrounging up anything to put on the battlemat. It's the second biggest hurdle to DMing. This is the seal-the-deal value of the box. Buying this lets anyone be a DM for $30. This, plus a battlemat is everything you would ever need to play D&D for the rest of your life. The tokens can easily be substituted for other monsters.

The kicker: throw in a 4th level adventure! That requires a whole separate review. They also include a poster map of "Evermelt"

Lastly, each monster gets LOTS of fascinating ecology, history, and flavor. There is a ton. You could sit down by the fire and read this book cover to cover and love it. It's probably the best thing about the book. I doubt they'll put all this ecology into the online tools, so it's another good reason to buy the book.

My favorites are the Carrion Crawler Scuttler, Doppelganger Infiltrator, and the Black Dragon.

83 of 88 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Roll Call! November 19, 2010

By Ursus Somnolicus

Format:Game

I love the Monster Vault! The only drawback of the tokens is that they are not labeled. The identity of many of the images is obvious, but others can be a bit ambiguous, especially when they only show the critter's head. So, for the good of the order, here's an inventory. Note that generic minions and swarms are simply black tokens with the appropriate word written on them. The "ring" is a donut in which you can place a large token to convert it into a huge one. "AI" stands for an alternate image for the same type of monster. OK, ready? Here we go!

Sheet #1
Large: Angel of Battle, Angel of Vengeance, Basilisk, Beholder, Black Dragon (young), Black Pudding.
Small / Medium: Abyssal Eviscerator (really!), Air Elemental (lesser) (2), Ambush Drake (2), Angel of Valor (veteran) (2), Angel of Protection, Babau, Beholder Gauth, Bloodseeker Drake, Bugbear (3), Bulette (young) (2), Cave Spider (4), Chain Devil, Crocodile (2), Death Knight, Deathjump Spider, Doppleganger (2), Dragonborn Mercenary, Dragonborn Soldier, minion (4).

Sheet #2
Large: Blue Dragon (young), Bulette, Carrion Crawler, Cyclops (4!), Hydra.
Small / Medium: Dretch Lackey (4) (not a typo!), Drow (female) (2), Drow (make) (2), Dryad (4), Duergar (4), Dwarf (female) (2), Dwarf (male) (2), Earth Archon (2), Eladrin (female) (2), Eladrin (male) (2).

Sheet #3
Huge: Balor (YOU...CANNOT...PASS!), Red Dragon (elder), ring.
Large: Bear, Demonic Savage Minotaur (sigh), Dire Wolf (2), Displacer Beast (2), Dracolich.
Small / Medium: Elf (female) (2), Elf (male) (2), Fire Archon (2), Fire Elemental (lesser) (2), Ghoul (4), Githyanki (4), Green Slime.

Sheet #4
Large: Doomspinner Spider, Drider, Efreet, Ettin, Fire Giant (male) (2).
Small / Medium: Gargoyle (2), Gnoll (3), Gnoll AI (2), Gnome (female), Gnome (male), Goblin (8), Goblin AI (4), Guard Drake (2), Hag (icky!), Halfling (female), Halfling (male), Hobgoblin (3), Human Duelist (2), Human Town Guard (2), Human Transmuter, Water Archon.

Sheet #5
Large: Fire Giant (female) (2), Flesh Golem, Frost Giant (2), Frost Giant Marauder, Gelatinous Cube, Ghost Troll Render (not a punk band).
Small / Medium: Human Bandit (4), Hyena (2), Imp, Ice Archon (2), Kobold (4), Kobold AI (4), Lich, Lizardman (poisonscale) (4), Lizardman (greenscale) (2), Medusa, Medusa Bodyguard.

Sheet #6
Huge: Blue Dragon (elder), White Dragon (elder), ring.
Large: Green Dragon (young), Hezrou, Hill Giant (female) (2), Hill Giant (male) (2), Horse, Iron Golem.
Small / Medium: Mummy (2), Mind Flayer, Orc (8), Orc AI (4), Orc Storm Shaman, Pseudodragon.

Sheet #7
Large: Ice Devil, Lizardman (blackscale) (2), Manticore, Marilith, Ochre Jelly, Otyugh, Owlbear.
Small / Medium: Rakshasa (2), Rust Monster (2), Shark, Skeleton (8), Skeleton AI (2), Snake (4), Spider Swarm, Stirge (4), swarm (3).

Sheet #8
Huge: Black Dragon (elder), Green Dragon (elder), ring.
Large: Ogre (4), Pit Fiend, Rage Drake, Stone Golem.
Small / Medium: Succubus (She's not bad, she's just drawn that way.), Tiefling (female) (2), Tiefling (male) (2), Troglodyte (4), Troglodyte AI (2), Water Elemental (lesser) (2), Wererat (2), Werewolf (2).

Sheet #9
Huge: Earth Titan, Fire Titan, ring.
Large: Red Dragon (young), Roper, Treant (2), Troll (2), Snake (Crushgrip Constrictor).
Small / Medium: Wolf (3), Wraith (4), Vampire, Vampire AI, Vampire Spawn (8).

Sheet #10
Huge: Purple Worm (!), Frost Titan, ring.
Large: Rocktempest Gargoyle, Umber Hulk, Vrock, White Dragon (young), Yuan-Ti Abomination, Zombie (hulking) (2).
Small / Medium: Dire Rat (2), Yuan-Ti (2), Yuan-Ti AI (2), Zombie (3), Zombie Shambler (8).

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Much improved, but a bit sparse January 26, 2011

By Michael S. Prinke

Format:Game

Ladies and gentlemen, the new Monster Manual 1. Really, that's all the Monster Vault actually is. It covers monsters from the original 4e Monster Manual with added or different variations on monsters, updated rules, and best of all, updated formatting, giving the statistics blocks an awful lot more space and taking the time to organize the actions available to monsters in an intuitive fashion with distinct headers to cover the different action types (Standard Actions, Minor Actions, Triggered Actions, etc). Flavor text is organized by key facts about the monsters stated in succinct boldface followed by a few paragraphs of detail and elaboration.

The format is much nicer in this book than it is in the Monster Manual 1, and the "fact sheets" actually offer a wealth of information that I think surpasses that available in previous editions' Monster Manuals. The revised monsters, meanwhile, offer a slight bit more variety, one or two more or different monster types, and offer better-organized and significantly changed versions of their former MM1 incarnations, with extraneous attacks and actions cut out and revised math.

EXAMPLE:
The Yuan-Ti Malison Sharp-Eye is in both books, has a scimitar in both, and is described as Level 13 artillery in both. The scimitar in the MM1 is +16 vs. AC and deals d8+4 damage. Not terribly threatening for a level 5 monster, let alone a level 13. The scimitar attack in the Monster Vault, on the other hand, is +18 vs. AC and hits for 3d8+4 damage. Now that's a bit more like it.

It all comes together to make a much more substantial version of the first book in a more compact, portable package, which is surprising. The book is soft-cover, but it's well-put-together, with a slightly heavier, glossier cover than the covers for the other Essentials books.

To sweeten the deal, Wizards put this thing together as a kind of kit. There's the book, yeah, but the real sweet spot is the massive set of tokens this comes with--at least one heavy card stock token of each different monster in the book, if not multiple for monsters that tend to come in small hordes. Even if you aren't into 4th edition I don't think I need to tell anybody how valuable having a comprehensive set of monster tokens like this can be. Every kind of basic monster in D&D is available here, and in numbers significant enough to make a big difference.

Also, there's an adventure--Cairn of the Winter King--for 4th level players. It's okay. Pretty run-of-the-mill as adventures go--players get to a town, find out it's oppressed by a frost giant, delve into his dungeon to fight him--I've seen better or more interesting pre-published adventures, but for a beginners' quickie adventure thrown in with a good book and a huge set of tokens I'm not going to complain--both this and its maps are just gravy as far as I'm concerned, and to its credit it does take the players to an interesting and unusual place.

So. Why only 4 stars instead of 5?

Well, the book's very substantial, but not as substantial as it could be. It has all the most important monsters in the MM1, but not the more extreme ones like Orcus and his cultists. I never used them, I never INTENDED to use them, and honestly I'm not sure they have any place in this book--which I'm glad Wizards kept relatively neutral--but it seems like a bit of an inconvenience to those who would have used them that they don't benefit from the same updated rules and formatting as the other monsters that did make it into this book. MM1-exclusive "epic mobs" aside, some more standard monsters are also strangely absent--like the Slaad, and it's those instances that bother me more.

Also, anything larger than Huge size (three squares/inches in diameter) is omitted from this book due to the constraints of the token sheet; you'll see no Gargantuan or Colossal monsters in here--and that means no Tarrasque or other Abominations and no Ancient dragons. It's better than nothing, for certain, and it'd be pretty absurd to print a giant plate-sized token for any of these monsters--let alone lay one down on a battle mat--but it's tough to take a dragon seriously when it ain't at least gargantuan. Finally, when I heard about this book I sort of expected a compilation of monsters from all three books rather than just a re-do of the MM1--thus I held off from getting the MM2 and 3. Wishful thinking, I know, especially knowing that the Essentials books tend to be smaller and lighter and geared towards, well, the essentials, but I hoped Wizards would recognize the usefulness of such a compilation in the face of the hassle of swapping between three books of monsters.

To conclude: This is an excellent product, a great answer to the MM1's shortcomings, and I hope to see more like this out of 4e in the future. It's well worth the $30 price tag in stores, and MORE than worth the $20 if you get it here just by virtue of the variety of tokens you get. Given Wizards' miniatures cost $22 to a box of six which may or may not be useful? I'd call this a classy move on Wizards' part. My one complaint--the one that keeps it from getting a perfect score--is that although it has a lot more depth and quality to the content of its monsters it did sacrifice a bit of variety, and as a DM I always want to see more options and not less.