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I will order again from this business I choose this company for gaming books over their competitors because they didn't charge me seperate shipping for each item I ordered, but allowed entire order to be shipped together during ordering.
The artwork was nice and there were a ew new monsters, but nothing of use for placing the monster in a dungeon or anywhere else in a game unless I was using the miniatures and maps. I was greatly disappointed to see that the 4th edition format was now lockstep mapbased wargaming. If this is the direction the game is going WOTC would be bettter to let the game die and focus on the Star Wars RPG. I had drifted from Dungeons & Dragons for a few years and recently felt like coming back to the game. I purchased the Monster Manual and Monster Manual 2 thinking that it would give me a few ideas for new adventures and such.
If you ever looked at the info on this book it claims to have 500+ monsters in it, this is both a lie and not a lie.It is a lie: if you think of different monster meaning "skull lord and orc"It is not a lie: if you think of each monster in it as different like "orc raider and orc bezerker are 2 different monsters" That statement was made meaning the latter.One thing upon opening it to the CR section is that you will realize that if you compare it to the 3.5 monster manual that the 4th edition book has 8 monsters to fight for brand-new heroes while the 3.5 monster manual had over 2 dozen.
Classic old school monsters revisted are: imp, elemental, succubus, chimera, beholder, cyclops, death knight, demon, devil, dracolich, dragon, drider, dwarf, elf, gargoyle, ghoul, giant, gnome, goblin, gorgon, griffon, hydra, kobald, zombie, vampire, umber hulk, unicorn, minotaur, mummy, nightmar, ogre, orc, phoenix, medusa, skeleton, triant and troll. Monsters listed here I see in real life, and i mean like almost daily basis are: spider, rat, scorpion, snake, bear, wolf, beetle, boar, crodile, ghost, dwarf, hound, human and hyena. Most of the real life monsters and some fantasy ones are encountered in Oblivion. Well first of all there's old school Orcus on the front cover. he and Tarrasque make up the most powerful monsters here, in excess of 1,000 hit points.
Mages/wizards can now cast spells whenever they please (only being able to cast magic missile once per day/rest cycle is a real bummer to a little girl who wants to play a magic casting bad-arse as her character)., and all of the powers quickly and easily divided up into "at will," "once per encounter," and, "daily" powers. I will be hanging on to my 3E and 3.5E books, but those will be used for campaigns for D&D veterans. You know what is great about the 4E rules for D&D. They simplified and streamlined a lot of the nit-picky stuff (which, granted, some people love), and made it easier to just jump into the game.What this means is that I can start an impromptu game with my little sisters, and actually keep and HOLD their attention all the way through an entire gaming session of about 2 hours. I am switching over entirely to 4E for all new games I will be running hereafter. What they DIDN'T like, was dying (or being knocked unconscious), limited spell use, confusing power rules, and almost no low level party members being able to to HEAL.With 4E, EVERYONE can heal with the new "healing surge" abilities. Either because nobody was playing a cleric, or there weren't enough healing potions to go around.
I am fairly certain you will enjoy running a game for those people using 4E rules. But, if you are like me, and are trying to get new people into D&D, give 4E a try.
They have always liked the game, and the fun of the dice rolls, etc. Most little girls do not want to sit down and do homework to "play."I am a 3E and 3.5E rule set owning DM, and I am here to say that 4E is not for everyone.
They made it easy, and fun, for NEW PLAYERS to get into the game. Given the almost unlimited choices available in 3E and 3.5E, they would get confused, overwhelmed, and stop wanting to play.
;-)Enjoy. That is AMAZING.
I don't know about anyone else, but my parties generally ALWAYS suffered from healing problems in their lower levels.
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