The new D&D 5th Edition game plays much quicker than the previous editions so this doesn’t slow down the action at all, especially if you suddenly need to get hold of a creature you didn’t prepare for. Not only this, but there’s a really handy alphabetical index at the back so you can get to your chosen beastie in seconds. The monsters are laid out in alphabetical order from the get-go, so there’s no sections of creature types and if you want it, you can just page-flip for it without having to go to a certain section beforehand. It’s not that much of a chore to get through, either, as it’s just six pages of text and is easy to understand. Old hands with manuals will pretty much know what to expect from this book and will no doubt dive in with a cruel smile, but newcomers will find this introduction very helpful. It talks about monsters, where they dwell, which ones to use and when, the different types of adversary and how things like alignment, armour class, skills and special traits work, and anything else pertinent to the stat block including actions and equipment. The introduction is short and sweet and gives you everything you need to get stuck in with just a few pages of pointers and advice on how to use the book and what all the statistics mean. The book gets to the meat of the manual pretty much straight away. I’m fully aware that this is personal preference and doesn’t really make an impact on the contents of the manual, but – and I hate to use the phrase – where books like this are concerned beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, and the cover doesn’t really strike me as an inspirational choice. Once again, as I did with the Player’s Handbook, I’m looking to the interior illustrations and I find a cracking picture of a dragon on the first glossy page that would have looked great. The front cover illustration of a somewhat anti-social Beholder is a great piece of art and quite dynamic but, once again, I don’t think it’s the best image to help sell a book like this. This hardback book uses the same cover layout of the other books – which, and I hate to say it, I’m not a fan of – but it’s the interior where it shines. Thankfully, the D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual ticks all those boxes for me. I like my lists of beasties to be concise, easy to use, adaptable to the campaign I’m running and illustrated. Yes, monster manuals take a lot of work out of the Dungeon Master’s design process and games are lot better off with them involved. It’s good if you’ve got something planned, great if you need a quick off-the-cuff monster to have a bit of a fight with, and excellent when the monsters slot neatly into the campaign and you don’t have to do too much work on their stats or abilities. I like the fact that you can have, at your fingertips, everything you need to challenge players with some pretty nifty encounters.
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