The must-buy companion to the original 5e Monster Manual.
Value for money. Monster Manual Expanded I comes with 334 pages and is priced at $19.99. For your money you get 487 stat blocks, which edges out the original 5e Monster Manual, albeit in a PDF format. I won't comment on the cost of the Print on Demand version as that does not appear to be in the hands of the publisher. It may be a little pricey compared to other offerings but this does represent great value for money. 4.5 stars.
Presentation & Artwork. The artwork used is mostly functional stock art, but it's certainly not bad by any means. Stat blocks are spread around one or two per page and most pages give you art directly related to the stat blocks. Art used has been carefully chosen to cover most, if not all, of the monster variants provided. Even at this level there are some nice pieces, including the Wights and the really cool back cover, reused on the Golems intro page, which is clearly a homage to the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. 3 stars.
Content. Monster Manual Expanded I gives you at least one new variation for each of the original 5e Monster Manual's monsters. Some monsters provided are actually new ones in their own right, such as the Immolith and the Baernoloth. In addition you get several new miscellaneous creatures and nonplayer characters. Standouts for me include the Gibbering Horror and the Shaitan Angels. The star of the show for me has to be the Enormous Mimic, which I've used in my own campaign to great effect already. It would be nice to see some more original monsters, but this absolutely hits the bullseye in terms of the brief and will certainly provide any DM with plenty of variety saving countless hours of game prep. 4.5 stars.
CR Range. The monsters range from CR1/8 through to CR30, with the 80th percentile of the monsters (399, or 81.9%) lying at CR11 or lower. Tier 1 gets 180 (37%) of the monsters, Tier 2 gets 201 (41.3%), Tier 3 has 73 (15%), and Tier 4 gets 33 (6.8%) of the total. It would be good to see more Tier 3 and especially Tier 4 entries for established, or higher-level, campaigns. 2 stars.
- CR Table
- CR 1/8, No of monsters: 1, Percentage: 0.2
- CR 1/4, No of monsters: 8, Percentage: 1.6
- CR 1/2, No of monsters: 17, Percentage: 3.5
- CR 1, No of monsters: 31, Percentage: 6.4
- CR 2, No of monsters: 44, Percentage: 9
- CR 3, No of monsters: 38, Percentage: 7.8
- CR 4, No of monsters: 41, Percentage: 8.4
- CR 5, No of monsters: 47, Percentage: 9.7
- CR 6, No of monsters: 31, Percentage: 6.4
- CR 7, No of monsters: 36, Percentage: 7.4
- CR 8, No of monsters: 30, Percentage: 6.2
- CR 9, No of monsters: 31, Percentage: 6.4
- CR 10, No of monsters: 26, Percentage: 5.3
- CR 11, No of monsters: 18, Percentage: 3.7
- CR 12, No of monsters: 13, Percentage: 2.7
- CR 13, No of monsters: 18, Percentage: 3.7
- CR 14, No of monsters: 5, Percentage: 1
- CR 15, No of monsters: 11, Percentage: 2.3
- CR 16, No of monsters: 8, Percentage: 1.6
- CR 17, No of monsters: 6, Percentage: 1.2
- CR 18, No of monsters: 7, Percentage: 1.4
- CR 19, No of monsters: 6, Percentage: 1.2
- CR 20, No of monsters: 7, Percentage: 1.4
- CR 21, No of monsters: 5, Percentage: 1
- CR 22, No of monsters: 1, Percentage: 0.2
- CR 30, No of monsters: 1, Percentage: 0.2
- Total 487
Overall. I'm bumping this up to a 4 star review, as it comes in at 3.5 stars. This a great companion to the original 5e Monster Manual, and easily stands by itself as a really decent book.
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