>make the perfect monster manual >lock it in an expensive

>>46473233
http://drivethrurpg.com/product/158946/Dungeons--Dragons-Essentials-Monster-Vault-4e

MM3 was the perfect monster manual for 4e.

>>46473365
Didn't Monster Vault rewrite a lot of pre-MM3 creatures with the new math?

Ugh, don't make me think about it.
I bought this at my LGS a couple months ago. The box was open with a couple of tokens missing cause the owner used it to run events in the shop, but he se the price at 20 € so I got it.
Then at home I discovered it was supposed to have also a poster map and an adventure. I only have the monster book and 90% of the tokens.
My fault for not checking beforehand, but still, fuck that motherfucker. Last time I spend a cent in his store.

>>46473233
>tfw you got it for 50% RRP when they started releasing 5e stuff

>>46473233
I'm still mad they killed 4e right after they got the math right. They still had plenty of time to make at least a couple more monster books before 5e, fucking bastards.

>>46473622

I'm sad we never got a 4.5e or 5e that actually was based on the learned lessons from 4e mechanically. 5e as it is...not exactly on the same track.

>>46473397
That is correct.

>>46473648
>I'm sad we never got a 4.5e or 5e that actually was based on the learned lessons from 4e mechanically. 5e as it is...not exactly on the same track.
I feel you, from a personal standpoint, but the market was clamouring for more OGL 3.X games, and so naturally that's what 5e gave us.

>>46474004
>I feel you, from a personal standpoint, but the market was clamouring for more OGL 3.X games, and so naturally that's what 5e gave us.

No it wasn't? "The market" went in very different directions, the only standing OGL 3.X game is Pathfinder that, while successful, rests on a fanbase that was there from the beginning (and if you take a look at the general, you'll see how the quality of that is declining) and 5e is not really a 3.5 game any more than it is a 4e one.
Don't fall for the edition wars memes.

>>46474004

I'm not so sure there.

But yeah, none of the 'Kinda 4e-ish' games quite feel right. The lack of an OGL makes it tricky to see a 'Reskinned 4e' getting off the ground.

>>46474135
>this one image board represents the entirety of the fanbase
Really?

>>46475945
>>this one image board represents the entirety of the fanbase
Really. How many d20 games, besides Pathfinder, are still coming out to any meaningful success? And how many pathfinder supplements have had any sort of relevance in the last, say, 2 years, after 5e came out?
Don't delude yourself. 3.x is dead and Pathfinder is but a mockery kept in motion by a dwindling fanbase.

>>46473989
>>46473397
specifically a lot of MM standbys. owlbears, orcs, kobolds. Chromatic dragons for fucks sake. MM3 figured it out but Monster Vault is what 4e needed for MM1.

>>46478696
Are you aware that a lot of the book are straight reprints from MM1 with HPs slightly tweaked?

>>46478696
>Green dragons became skirmishers
Why the fuck

>>46479058
They're sly and live in forests. Doesn't seem surprising.

>>46478859
were you aware that HP was one of the biggest problems with MM1?

>>46474135
4th edition is basically the reason wizards lost so many customers to Paizo. It's pretty clear that it's not what the large majority of players wanted, even if it's beloved of brand fanboys who want tactical dungeon sim.

If you attended any of the conventions after pathfinder came out, they were always a huge presence while D&D basically vanished from them out of shame.

>>46478609
Pathfinder exists because people didn't want 4th edition, they wanted more 3.x.

It's retarded to call something "dead" when the demand for it is basically what allowed paizo to become relevant and kicked D&D off the hill for a long time.

>>46479348
I am, but seriously, the extent to which the math was redone is often overstated. I'm not saying that MV wasn't an improvement, but for the most part is not a revolutionary change (I know, I actually spent quite some time with the two books open face to face).
Now, MV2 OTOH is the closest thing we got to a PoLand setting book, and so is way cooler.

>>46479666
Spoken like a true Paizo drone. It's not like 4e didn't sell like hotcakes when it came out. Historical revisionism at its finest.

>>46479690
Pathfinder is now what, 5 years old? and have you seen where it's headed? That it came out is one thing, but nowadays it's on life support. And in case you didn't notice, 4e is not the current edition of D&D anymore.

>>46479752
>but for the most part is not a revolutionary change
I dunno, giving monsters autosaves to really pesky shit did a lot to prevent solos from becoming standing xp pinatas

>>46479752
Not saying it was revolutionary, but if I had MV, MM2, and MM3 and my MM1 was lost in a fire I wouldn't miss it.

also the MV2 was nice, but I'm on the fence. the point of the PoL settig was that it wasn't really a setting, just a bunch of things you can put in your own campaign or ideas to spin off of, and I really liked that premise the most. the more it got fleshed out the less freedom was inherent to it.

>>46478859
>>46479348
>>46479752
Actually no. The only major changes to monster hit points were solos, which were cut 20%. What MM3/MV did was increase damage across the board. The intent was that you would able to use less and lower level monsters and still threaten the party, allowing combats to run faster.

>>46479058
Using 4E's monster system, a single monster can have different roles and thus completely different stats depending on context. Dragons could be skirmishers if they're doing flyby attacks, soldiers if one on the front lines is protecting archers, artillery if they're taking pot shots with their breath weapon, or brutes if they're acting as chained dogs for some scarier monster. Or they could be solo monsters (and the idea that solos had roles was always dumb).

This really pisses some people off, because they think stats should be an intrinsic context-free thing (they'd probably phrase it as "a dragon is a dragon" though).

One of the things 4E could have done better was acknowledging this and providing multiple role variants of the same monster. I think they knew they needed to do this but their corporate overlords thought it would be more profitable to spread all the takes across different books. So you never got a coherent set, with all the executive meddling.