Finally my Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) and (Monster Manual) MM arrived. As with the PHB I can't really say to have read them from front to end, but still some things stand out:
- The DMG (as usual) is the least important book of the three core books. What little "hard" information you get from it, you could probably improvise yourself.
- Organisation of the DMG could be better (the magic items for example).
- The MM looks great.
- Again organisation could be better for the MM too.
- I really like the way Monsters are presented now. Many have little (often funny) quotes and a lot has been done to show you how a monster fits into the world. The MM will be quite a treasure chest when your looking for inspiration to write your next adventure.
- What I'm missing in the DMG/MM is some guide to build your own NPC's. Hit dice, abilities, size modifiers to attributes etc. Yes, you have a table from which you can cobble together any combat statistics you want and come up with an CR for it, but for me it would be simpler to have some NPC classes and guidelines to use.
All in all however I'm pretty happy with those books. The DMG is more to complete the collection and fill those last gaps in the rules. No better or worse then DMG's of previous editions in my mind (sorry for comparing).
The MM however has been quite a bit improved in terms of giving you more ideas and making the text entries more interesting to read.
Both books could be better organised. But well... if bad organisation is the biggest flaw of the 5th edition I would say thats quite a praise ! Because all the game mechanics I've seen and used (so far) work really well.
I think the DMG is a masterpiece, second only to the 1e DMG. The MM is great too, perfect complexity of monsters. They learned a lot from 3x and 4e on the monster front.
JadePH0ENIX wrote:
A list of item names sorted by category (weapons, armor, potions, wands etc.) would really help. Maybe even sorted by powerlevel. The DMG is supposed to be a tool for DM's. So if your thinking about letting your group find a magic weapon that fits a group of levels 5-9 you would not have to either memorize all appropriate items from the top of your head (I can't do that) or read the entire chapter of magic items to find those that are suitable (I'd rather spend more time on the adventure itself).
The DMG has oddly enough a list of creatures sorted by CR. Something that in my opinion would have made more sense in the MM.
JadePH0ENIX wrote:
JadePH0ENIX wrote:
No, I wasn't aware of the PDF. That IS useful. Still think it would have been even better if they would have thought to include it in the book in the first place ;)
JadePH0ENIX wrote:
The MM gives me flashbacks to the old AD&D 2nd Edition MM and I'm glad. The DM Guide on the other hand does seem rather bare bones compared to previous editions though.
Also if you want something more interactive you can use the excel spreadsheet in my signature. I created it for many of the things in 5e that come from multiple sources or could be useful to sort in different ways. I do update it every so often as new material comes out. The only source not in the uploaded version currently is the PotA PDF of monsters, spells, and magic items (which are all found in other sources).
It's at a level of interaction you can't do with print and each sorting option could take up many pages and would become obsolete with the next sourcebook to come out that adds new things to the list (or just provides another source for the existing items). Sure WotC could do something like this but they haven't and other than initial creation it's not been hard to keep it updated. If we see a full online compendium like 4e had then it'd cover what I've done (hopefully) but until then I've created this and share it freely. There's no long text descriptions or anything in it that should cause the WotC legal team to have a problem with as it's mostly just names, and a few pieces of data. Monsters have the most as I put in their ability scores, HD, movement speeds, and other details but not enough to actually use them to play.
As a summary it has tables for Classes/sub-classes, Races/sub-races, Feats (now that they're not all in the PHB), Spells, Monsters, and Magical Items. Also any sources that come from a PDF I have a download link in the list of sources that points to the version I used in the document, so I update it when I get an updated version of the source.
I do agree there have been some flaws in all the books about organization but there's been flaws in organization in every edition and even with the flaws I find the D&D books to usually be better laid out than some other RPG books out there (here's looking at you White Wolf).
I think the DMG is a great resource. Yes it's not high crunch but that's not the point of the DMG and never really has been (which is why 4e even tried to move the magic items into the PHB which I thought was a bad move). The DMG is more of an advice and "how to make the game your own" manual for the DM than it is a mechanics source since the game mechanics is something that the entire group should know and therefore was best placed in the PHB rather than mostly in the DMG like in some older editions.
Nist498 wrote:
Slit518 wrote:
JadePH0ENIX wrote:
Heh, I was going to mention those as well! The Sorceror addicted to the vices of the city has me reference that table a lot.
My favorite is the Monster Manual. It seems to focus as much on story as it does stats. Didn't expect that out of a monster book. I really, really like it.
A few pages in the back of my PHB are loose. Glue binding isn't the best for these kinda books. They're heavy and see a lot of use. They prolly should have used stitch binding of some sort (more expensive no doubt).
The halfling art sucks 
but the magic item art is awesome. The organization is okay (could've used class listings in the spell descriptions).
I'm okay with Disney-fied hafllings --really, I am; it could make D&D halflings distinct. The art they chose is just silly, not charming or quaint. Does anyone remember the early preview of the 5e Forgotten Realms halflings? Whatever happened to that art direction?
I love the DMG. Had a blast reading it and found it to be very useful. It did a great job of taking me back to my early D&D days and filled me with wonder when reading through a lot of the descriptions.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote: