For my money, Monster Manual III (2004) is the best of the 3E Monster Manuals, despite it being a super uneven and somewhat frustrating collection. At least it is uneven and frustrating in a fun way?
At this point, the lion’s share of classic monsters from previous editions had been covered, leaving room in this book for a whole lot of weirdness. Like the Shrieking Terror, a hybrid of the vargouille and the hydra which WTF. There are a ton of variant monsters in this book – like, when you need some skulls crushed, now you have stats for the Skullcrusher Ogre. In MMIII, variants are novel and pretty inspiring – I got a lot of mileage creating interesting encounter groups thanks to this book – but, well, more on that tomorrow.
The art has a really good energy, too. Everything pops. The weird consistency through drab coloring thing from the last book is out the window here. Just about everything has an intriguing visual design (see the golem made out of magic items, or the cadaver collector). Even if the given stats didn’t do it for me, the visuals were so strong I could easily whip up my own custom monster that would suit my purposes (gloom golem? Naw, that dude obviously has a black hole for a head). That is the work of some mighty fine art.
Wayne Reynolds has a lot of really nice work here. I think Wayne is The Artist of 3E. I loved him at the time, but my enthusiasm has since cooled, for reasons I find hard to express. I will never take away his ability to properly deal with the weird reversed hands of the Rakshasa, though. A+.
This book also marks the introduction of Eberron’s creatures, as well as notes for most monsters about their ecologies relative to that campaign setting as well as the Forgotten Realms. Which I am sure was invaluable to someone.
