Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition Monster Manual Review

Sometimes, life gets in the way of gaming, or in reviewing games as well. Alas, we are back without further delay in an in-depth review of the Dungeons and Dragons Fifth edition Monster Manual!

Find here your Carnivorous Compendium, Nefarious Novel, Vicious Volume,
Lascivious Lexicon, Despicable Dictionary, or Bestiary Bible! 

Having only a few days initially to thumb through some pages here and there was alright and all, but it was a bit of a tease for myself. And I'd be doing a disservice to myself, everything within the text, and everyone else by cranking out a "review" after only spending a few short distracted hours with the book. After taking some time to really dive in, and even compare a few monsters between v3.5 and 5e hopefully here's a review worth everyone's time.

Behold Indeed!

Inside we find everything, literally EVERYTHING one could hope to ever encounter on an adventure. From Angels to Zombies; to Bugbears, and Basilisk, and Beholders; Chuul and Chimera; any demon you could conjure from your worst nightmares and more. This is but a tiny sampling of what is contained within; from the classic mythological creatures to recently concoctions, you name it, and I'm sure it or it's equivalent can be found in this very book.

A beaut to behold up close... at least in print.
If you see one IRL, it's probably better from a distance.

From cover to cover this book is, simply put, spectacular. Wizards has done it again and not disappointed the masses. It's very clear that they spent a lot of time in the design of not just the new fifth edition, but in the look and feel of these new books. The 5e Monster Manual is no exception to this at all. With only a mere 54/352 pages having no artwork on them whatsoever, it is easy to see what I mean here; and for tabletop RPG books an artwork page ratio of 6.5:1 is nothing short of impressive, and I literally couldn't be more pleased with this part. Don't believe me? The v3.5 Monster Manual has an astounding 136 pages without artwork out of 319, that's over one-third of the book without any art! And to top it off, the artwork in the 5e book ranges from 2x2 inch line sketches to full-page, full-color splash pages of artwork; while the best the v3.5 book has are barely one-third of the page at the largest. But why is this important, right? Well it's simple when you get down to it; roleplaying is a game of improvisation and imagination, but even the most creative mind will seek reference for what it cannot see. By providing newcomers and seasoned adventurers alike with an image for nearly every single creature, race, fauna, and inanimate that could be encountered within the world of D&D, it is now very easy to become immersed in that game. Another great feat of this terrifying tome is that literally every single entrant has flavor text, including backstory, for one to utilize in their own story building. Which, once again, only ensures that this edition stays focused on story and world building, as opposed to the stats-heavy bound-to-the-rules previous editions. And these are both VERY good things!

"You want terrask me a question!?"
Get outta here with the puns!

Lets take a look at a few different creatures we might stumble upon. "You open the door, and the torchlights ignite to reveal a GOBLIN."
In the 5e MM, goblins get a little boost from their v3.5 counter parts; 7HP (2d6) as compared to 5HP (1d8), and attacking with either scimitars (+4, 5ft, 5(1d6+2)) instead of morningstar (maces) (+2, n/a, 2(1d6)) or shortbow (ranged +4, 80/320ft, 5 (1d6+2) piercing) to javelin (ranged +3, 30ft, (1d4) piercing). But that's just one of the li'l buggers, imagine if this were a whole band of them with a couple bosses/sergeants and it gets complicated quickly!

"Here, food, you'll need this."
Not quite our goblin, but who cares?!

Or without further adieu, the biggun, the ANCIENT RED DRAGON!
Comparing once again 5e to v3.5 we see the "always chaotic evil" ancient red stripped down a bit but with more HP, 546 (28d20+252) compared to the 527 (34d12+306) ancient in v3.5, and with less AC (22 v 39). STR: 30 v 39, DEX: 10 for both, CON: 29 for both, INT: 18 as apposed to its old 24, WIS: 15 v 25 (ouch!), and CHA: 23 v 24. So in a nutshell we have a dumber, slower, weaker (except in terms of HP) ancient red, but still no less magnificent in terms of stats. Maybe everyone in the Beta wanted to slay dragons and had too hard of a time in previous editions, or maybe Wizards just wanted to make the attempt on a dragon marginally achievable. Who knows?

And then there was fire, there was DEATH!

Heading into the month of October we can look forward to the release of the next piece to the Tyranny of Dragons storyline, with The Rise of Tiamat on the 21st. So be sure to head on back here to New Geek Protocol to catch a review of that within the week of it hitting the shelves. In the meantime, tune in next week where I'll be going over the basic necessities every would-be RPG-er needs to play D&D, as well as a few more posts from yours-truly in the days to come! And be sure to comment below with how your campaigns are going, what's exciting you with the latest edition, and what you're hoping to or looking forward to seeing!

Until then; role true, brave and weary travelers!

=Opaque=