The Dungeon Master’s Guide provides some guidelines on making custom monsters, however, one cannot easily cook up brand new monsters on a regular basis. The Player’s Handbook only features a handful of monsters that are relevant to certain classes and similar things. To where does one turn to fill up the menu that is their adventure? The Monster Manual. Within its pages, the Monster Manual details creatures and people that populate the game world, placed where ever the DM sees fit. However, how does it stack up against the other two books? Does it have the flavor, crunch, and portions?

To start, the monster categories are all alphabetical and each monster species gets about half a page of broad descriptions. So if one were to simply skim through the book, they would find dragons among other monsters that begin with “d” and could read up on what they do, what makes them different, what they like, and what makes them mad enough to eat your adventurers without even a word. Dragons come in many varieties, but to hone in on the most well known, would be the evil chromatic dragons. After a page or two of lore that covers dragons in general, namely listing their love of gold and magnificent power (among a few other things one would expect to find), each individual species of dragon gets their own page of lore. For example, white dragons are on the bottom of the power scale, but even then they are on the lower end of human intelligence and their youngest are the size of a pony. They breath ice (rather than fire) prefer diamonds, and enjoy arctic regions where they freeze their prey to be eaten later like an ice pop. They also enjoy hunting and might let some creatures live long enough to be hunted. Green dragons, on the other hand, are far more intelligent (even outsmarting most people) and in the exact middle of the draconic power scale. They breath poison, prefer heavily forested areas (especially with water, but not quite a swamp), and consider creatures of great skill to be a treasure. A town might have a prodigious musician playing music one day and the next he’s taken off by a green dragon to play music until he’s more convenient as a snack than a musician. Green dragons are also master manipulators, deceiving humanoids and urging them to do things on a continental scale. That isn’t everything about either dragon and there’s still three other evil dragons that haven’t been covered. Now, not every creature gets as much information, but each creature gets that much detail: habits, likes, dislikes, general disposition. All of it compels people to remember these monsters long after they’ve been slain and simply oozes with flavor!

The lore is deliciously decisive, but how much crunch is there? When a battle breaks out, say tense negotiations with goblins falls apart or they’ve sprung the fifteenth kobold trap, what can these monsters do other than just trade blows with the heroes? That is dependent upon the monster. Goblins can move about more freely, kobolds get extra benefits for ganging up on a creature, a mimic will look like an ordinary object before attacking, zombies survive attacks that should finish them off, etc. Most monsters get one real gimmick, which is sufficient to make them feel more distinct and necessary to make things run smoothly at the table, only this leaves most monsters feeling pretty boring once they do their one thing. Ultimately, this is a minor detraction and the monsters still function very admirably.

It’s full of flavor, it’s fairly crunchy, but just how much are you getting here? What are the portions? The Monster Manual cannot be given justice in its breadth of monsters. It includes the aforementioned goblins, kobolds, and dragons, but angelic beings, fiendish forces, dinosaur, werewolves, vampires, mummies, sphinxes, hydras, and things most people couldn’t make up even if they tried. This isn’t an all you can eat buffet, this is basically a small grocery store’s worth of creatures. As it should be, as The Monster Manual is meant to supply adventures for forever. One would have a full plate easily from this selection.

The flavor is astounding, the crunch is a bit gentle, and the portions are as plentiful as it gets! The Monster Manual is absolutely worthy of being on your bookshelf, even if you don’t play D&D 5th Edition, or even if you don’t play tabletop games in general. It’s a fun read all by itself and that’s pure flavor and huge portions. It is a high recommendation, A-. Go buy this book.

-The Clark Side