If you have suggestions, feedback or bug reports for the AD&D 2E Monstrous Manual please post them here.
So, with that said if you have questions, suggestions, feedback or bugs. Please post them here.
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If you have suggestions, feedback or bug reports for the AD&D 2E Monstrous Manual please post them here.
So, with that said if you have questions, suggestions, feedback or bugs. Please post them here.
I just glanced at the Reference book, it looks like it lists "monsters" but nothing shows up there, only genral stuff on dragons, elementals, werecreatures and another thing in next section.
Was this oversight or cut due to immense size of the book?
Also, I'd have to go to the basement to check (especially since I never bought the revised book physically - I bought the DMSGuild pdfs though) but I don't recognize any of the art I saw in MM or the one I saw at start of the PHB. Did you guys hire an artist to do them all due to art copyrights? A shame, if so, but one I can live with. I like the idea of it being a true reproduction but hey... :)
EDIT: NOPE, I am an idiot ... ;) I forgot that by the time they got to Monstrous Manual they redid the art of my youth ;) I'd forgotten - I just looked. My bad - too bad we can't ALSO buy the original 1st Edition as well (I'd be buying both!)
The monsters are as NPC records. The documentation that was un-related to the specific creatures (like dragon, lycanthropes and golems general information) is in the reference manual. It's the same style used for the 5E MM so the style I went with to keep within the norms.
Works for me. Just checking. It is redundant and I never page through reference manuals when I have the pdf or physical book
Ogre & Ogre, Merrow both have an Ability called spell Attack #1 that I can't find what it is supposed to do.
Ogre, Ogre Mage is there supposed to be a darkness Ability with the rest of their spells/abilities?
I have a question about monster xp. I've checked several entries (goblin, ogre, etc.) and the base xp is not used, instead the chief (goblin) or leader (ogre) is used instead.
I know making multiple xp entries would be inefficient, but could the base xp be used on the sheet and the chief, leader, or others be added to the details tab so I don't have to have my PDF open when making encounters?
Both of these items are the remaining bits from the bulk importing I did. I've cleaned up the spell/poison/wand/death Attack #1, there shouldn't be anymore of those.
The exp items I walked through the npcs several times and fixed this on almost all of these I thought but it seems the easiest ones I missed. I've corrected this for those you've listed. You are right, unless I specifically had multiple HD types (like I do for the dragons, elementals/etc) it should have the XP of the basic type.
If you notice anymore of these let me know and I'll correct.
Should an ogre be getting 18/00 strength , i was rather surprised when this happensAttachment 27155
also is there a way to be turn off the optional rule of PC's dying at -10 HP?
That's how strong ogres are. They even have an iconic item named for it: Gauntlets of Ogre Power that imparts 18/00 to the wearer.
The other benchmark strength creatures are the giants: Hill (19), Stone (20), Frost (21), Fire (22), Cloud (23), and Storm (24).
While not related to the Monster Manual, being able to houre rule the death threshold more easily would be a nice feature. I always used a house rule where a player could be reduced to -10 + 1/2 their level before dying (with 1/2 their level being a no bleed zone.) The static -10 just doesn't suit the higher level game as well as it does the lower level game.Quote:
also is there a way to be turn off the optional rule of PC's dying at -10 HP?
i appreciate that but the stat block on the MM is a straight 1d10 dnd 2e creatures don't get effected by stats, i don't remember coming across DM's back in the day adding strength damage to monsters
I will add an "Attack/Fist" that is unarmed that does 1-10 w/o strength bonus. The current entry is with a weapon and they get strength bonuses with weapons as do all giants.
If your group chooses to not use the -10 rule you can ignore the chat output. It's only text output and does not actually change any game mechanic. The issue with adding a toggle for every optional rule is then there would be a very large page of those options. JPG has warned me against such things so I am following his advice.
From the MM entry:
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1-10 or by weapon +6
Ogres wielding weapons get a Strength bonus of +2 to hit; leaders have +3, chieftains have +4.
Great work as always Celestian. I was wondering if there was a reason the default initiative modifier for all the monsters was 1. This would not accurately represent initiative by size. I am happy to go back and manually adjust them but was wondering if there was a fix for this incoming before I did.
Is it right that we don't have many devils and demons? Like for Tanar'ri we have only two true, slaads, and imps. No creatures like Vrocks for example. I thought Vrocks were in the updated monster manual but maybe i'm wrong.
If not count me in as someone who will buy more MM content.
All of the demons/devils from the Monstrous Manual are in the FG module.
https://i.imgur.com/ZLyt7NX.png
https://i.imgur.com/IWo0kZu.png
Those are the only ones in the MM (imps/etc also). The other types appeared in various other products. I'm hoping we see the Monstrous Annuals Vol 1-4 someday ;)
Also versions of Vrocks and other demons and devil's are in the OSRIC NPC module
Celestian, where did you get the data for “Type” filter?
I am setting up NPC filters for my project and I was considering adding such tags but in my game’s Monsters book there are no such classification, as it makes sense, I wanted to see if you got it from some 2E official source or if this was back extrapolated from 5E.
I kind of remember them though from before 5E but maybe was my brief foray into 3.5 and not from my dim later 2E memories?
I made them up. Dragons are dragons, humanoids are pretty simple (humanoid). I also have types like "Humanoid, Lizardman, Reptile" so if someone is using a weapon that does bonus damage to reptile or lizardman it'll work. Things that had a clear type got one, those that did not are set to "other". Humanoid, Dragon, Animal, Fish, Insect, Undead, Golem... etc.
Cool, works for me. Actually glad you made them up since there is clearly no such in S&W - so I’ll do the same.
Wondering what difference/challenges I might face using the 2E MM in my 1E game? Are these creatures hot swappable in my 1E game or will I need to tweak them (is there an overall difference across all creatures, or minor difference among a portion of them)? I'd love to buy this book and make my game prep time a simpler affair.
I never played or ran 2e...I clung to the 1e raft as if my life depended upon it heh
Mechanically it's the same pretty much. Dragons, demons/devils and giants are a bit more powerful however. You'll want to review the age category for dragons and reduce them to match what you're wanting. Giants use their strength bonus on damage which 1e didn't do (just flat damage rolls). Demons/devils are a bit more complex. I worked up 1e versions of the type 1-5s for ToEE that are included in that product when it gets released. Same for the dragons present in that. If you'd rather not do it yourself.
There is certainly some more nuanced changes in 2E from 1E but that's the bulk of it.
Quick question, does this product come with tokens for the creatures that have art? I feel like they would be perfect for running isle of dread.
Yes, the tokens are created using the images that each creature had in the MM. There are some that do not (like herd animals/etc) have a specific one but where they exist they were used. The portrait is also included in the description to share with your players for a better view of the entire beast.
Quick question - I just started planning monster entries for my ruleset:
1. How did you determine the "ability stats" for things like Aboleth (pulled one at random from top ;) ) - I see 10s on nearly everything I looked at in MM. Makes sense, you wanted to include the stats to be easier to convert to PC sheets (GREAT concept btw!, especially for bosses) but why wasn't it just 10s - I see you have Int 16, Wis 15 and Con 14 - not challenging the numbers, trying to understand where/how got so I can see if I need to do anything other than straight 9s in my system
2. Have you seen a drawback to having all this data per monster, especially when they do not use the majority of the fields. I have ZERO clue, do the xml tags stay loaded and use up game memory/speed? Space on disc we do not care about even if it was big which it isn't. Before I go all out, if it has downsides I want to know because can start more basic if so.
I'm not sure why I had con/wis set on the Aboleth tho I suspect it had something to do with Psionics. I might have been looking at a later version of the Aboleth for those at one time. Intelligence is listed in the block so really it should just be set to 14 and the others 10. I used 10 as the default. The reason I put ability scores on creatures is because some have them... and you also have ability checks. Like opposing strength checks and the like.
The memory/disk use is really insignificant but copying/creating them takes more time per node. Node creation in FG takes a significant amount of time so when you have a lot of them you'll see a delay while it processes the creation. Moon has said this is because each node is a LUA object but there is really nothing that can be done at this time to change it.
That was why I re-wrote the CT to not frontload all the creation/node replication. Instead it does the minimal amount of node creation until the object is needed.
Thanks Celestian :)
I figured that Int/Wis were somehow related to Psionics use but didn't notice the int setting even. I don’t have access to 2E, only full1E books and 2E Phb/dmg are on my iBooks and I am at work now.
I didn’t remember well 2E enough. I thought the opposed strength checks and other like abil checks came in 3E. Sure, I used to have folks roll under str or decide time to time in 1e but didn’t remember it as a rule.
Right, I recall Moon mention the node thing. So, in that case, I am better off NOT being all nice and hierarchical in my monster xml (less issue for PCs since there are less to load but will revisit to see if overdid anything) if all it does is makes the xml easier to read/hand-edit it is NOT worth it to me to add useless parent nodes if they end up creating lua objects for my vanity.
Knowing this I may also start with the most minimalist O can on abils etc thinking they are not needed in SW (or 1e?) enough for the node cost. I can always add - easier than pruning later.
This is probably not the best thread to discuss this but if it was me I would pick a ruleset that matches the closest target I was after and move from there. There are solutions to work around the node issue. Removing ability scores is not going to make that much difference and it's going to hinder you when you need them. If you want to use text based parsing like 5E does you can have a more flat npc sheet. I found the parsing to be confusing/complex for the user base and why I went the way I did.
I was messing with the Dragonne, and its Roar ability should lower the Strength of affected characters by 50%. However, it is adding 50% to Strength instead.
The effect is written as STR:-[$STR/2], but it worked for me and lowered Strength instead when I put the minus sign inside the brackets STR:[-$STR/2].
Another issue I noticed is that the effect doesn't work (either way) if the Strength score is odd.
You still see the effect in the Effects tab of the combat tracker, but it doesn't apply to the character and it throws a script error.
I couldn't find a way to do floor division...I tried // but it didn't work.
Thanks!
Hi, complete noob so may be missing something.
When I open the MM it says that the monsters can be found in the index. For the life of me I can't find any index.
The only index I can find is when designing a campaign and I click on the NPC tab.
Is this normal?
The Death Dog and the Wild Dog have the same details and the same token. Also, there is no image for the Death Dog. Attachment 39709
There is no art in the MM for the death dog so I used the existing dog image. Each dog has a section in the description, if you scroll down you will see the death dog, war dogs, blink dogs/etc specific details listed.
You'll note their attacks and quick notes reflect their special abilities to that version of the dog.
Thanks!
FYI
On the Spirit Naga, the Details tab as a link for the Dark Naga Image instead f the Spirit Naga.
It also lists two attacks Attack #1 and Bite - I think only the bite should be valid?
Thanks.