Try Monster Manual!

[Tolero]

UPDATE: 8/7/12 - The Monster Manual Prologue has been temporarily disabled due to a technical issue. Thanks for your patience!

Begin your mastery of Dungeons & Dragons creatures with the upcoming Monster Manual! Each Monster Manual volume features entries on monster types from elves and warforged to wraiths and kobolds. But don’t wait for Update 15 to check out this new feature! The Prologue volume, featuring five dungeon inhabitants, is available starting today! Monster Manual can be accessed using the menu button in the lower left of the screen, or using Ctrl-M. Come give it a try, and look for more news and announcements once our full line of Monster Manual volumes are available.

Monster Manual Prologue is available free to all players. In Update 15, Premium players will be able to access Volume One and purchase other volumes in the DDO Store. All volumes of the Monster Manual are free for VIPs!

[legendlore]

sounds great Will you continue to use the lovely artwork from the 3.5 source books (as in the beta) for the other volumes as well? Or where those just placeholders?

I really liked the nostalgic old school art, reminded me of the days when I could play pnp d&d more frequently

[thwart]

You just made my son very happy ... he can't wait for the monster manual!

[madmaxhunter]

IIRC, there was supposed to be some kind of exp (akin to slayers) with the Manual, is that still the case? And, will the preview grant exp?

Edit: Oh, and sweet! My breath has been abated for a while now.

[Asmodeus451]

Sweet!

[nivarch]

IIRC, there was supposed to be some kind of exp (akin to slayers) with the Manual, is that still the case? And, will the preview grant exp?

Edit: Oh, and sweet! My breath has been abated for a while now.

There are some Xp rewards.

Quick spoilers of how it works.
There are 3 categories of stuff to unlock by killing monsters:
- Character deeds
- Account deeds
- Mastery reward

For sahuagin (dunno if it's different for others) character deeds are :
- Kill 100 sahuagin. Reward 300XP
- Kill 500 sahuagin. Reward 1200Xp
- Kill 24 types of sahuagin. Reward 1800XP (note I had 8 types from a quick run of EN fathom)
- Kill 1000. Reward 1500XP
- Kill 2000. Reward 2000XP
- Kill 3500. Reward 3000XP

For sahuagin (dunno if it's different for others) account deeds are :
- Kill 200 Sahuagin. Reward: reveal more lore about sahuagin.
- Kill 12 different types of sahuagin. Reward: reveal more stats about sahuagin.
- Kill 1000 Sahuagin. Reward: Sahuagin art
- Kill 36 different types of sahuagin. Reward: reveal more stats about sahuagin.
- Kill 2000 Sahuagin. Reward: reveal more lore about sahuagin.

Mastery reward is:
- Complete 5 account and 5 character deeds. Reward: See sahuagin HP when you select them.



EDIT: Deeds are different for other races.
For humans for example:
- personal deeds go up to 6250 kills and 125 types (both for 3k xp each. So not much, but it's free xp...)
- accound deeds go up 3500 kills and 100 types
- mastery reward is still 5 of each.

[Untitled]

I can't wait to get home and check this out!

[AZgreentea]

There are some Xp rewards.

Quick spoilers of how it works.
There are 3 categories of stuff to unlock by killing monsters:
- Character deeds
- Account deeds
- Mastery reward

For sahuagin (dunno if it's different for others) character deeds are :
- Kill 100 sahuagin. Reward 300XP
- Kill 500 sahuagin. Reward 1200Xp
- Kill 24 types of sahuagin. Reward 1800XP (note I had 8 types from a quick run of EN fathom)
- Kill 1000. Reward 1500XP
- Kill 2000. Reward 2000XP
- Kill 3500. Reward 3000XP

For sahuagin (dunno if it's different for others) account deeds are :
- Kill 200 Sahuagin. Reward: reveal more lore about sahuagin.
- Kill 12 different types of sahuagin. Reward: reveal more stats about sahuagin.
- Kill 1000 Sahuagin. Reward: Sahuagin art
- Kill 36 different types of sahuagin. Reward: reveal more stats about sahuagin.
- Kill 2000 Sahuagin. Reward: reveal more lore about sahuagin.

Mastery reward is:
- Complete 5 account and 5 character deeds. Reward: See sahuagin HP when you select them.



EDIT: Deeds are different for other races.
For humans for example:
- personal deeds go up to 6250 kills and 125 types (both for 3k xp each. So not much, but it's free xp...)
- accound deeds go up 3500 kills and 100 types
- mastery reward is still 5 of each.

Hmmm. I was worried that as a Premium player I wouldn't be able to find a reason to buy this, but now it sounds interesting. Its all going to depend on how they bundle it and how much they cost. My guess would be like an "undead monster manual" "Devil MM" ect.

[nivarch]

Hmmm. I was worried that as a Premium player I wouldn't be able to find a reason to buy this, but now it sounds interesting. Its all going to depend on how they bundle it and how much they cost. My guess would be like an "undead monster manual" "Devil MM" ect.

We need to see how many of those come out too. During a life it may end up being a small xp bump while just running the same quests you normally would. Not sure I'd buy it for xp tho.

Also the UI is great, very smooth to use, no slowdown, with potential for some very nice artworks.
This may change when we have 200 monster categories but for now, it's really well designed.

[Coldin]

Any word on how many volumes there will be, and how much they may cost?

[Tolero]

Any word on how many volumes there will be, and how much they may cost?

We're going to start off with:

Prologue (free to everybody)
Volume One (free to VIP/Premium)
Volume Two (free to VIP)

I will check with the Quartermasters to see if they have specific pricing info ready to share yet for those who will be buying a book or two

[nivarch]

We're going to start off with:

Prologue (free to everybody)
Volume One (free to VIP/Premium)
Volume Two (free to VIP)

I will check with the Quartermasters to see if they have specific pricing info ready to share yet for those who will be buying a book or two

nice!

Any information on what critters each will contain?
My assumption is:
- Volume one would be harbor. So kobolds, troglodytes, hobgoblins, iron defenders, oozes, scorpions maybe
- Volume two would be marketplace. So wraiths, zombies (catacombs), spiders, warforged maybe

[Asmodeus451]

hhmmmmmmm. just logged in to try this out, and its a bit buggy as far as i can see


Primary example: went into Quickfoot Hideout and the Quickfoot gang members are not counting towards Human kills (despite obviously being human)

[Coldin]

Looks like there's a new Spider Companion if you happen to complete all the account spider deeds.

[zarthak]

isthere oher companians?? please say theres a horned devil companian!!!!!!

[Rubix]

If you TR, will "what you have learned" carry over to your next life? Just asking because I have not yet TR'ed any of my 20+'s, and was waiting for the MM (and possibly the new enhancement system) to roll out first.

On a side note: if someone can point me to a good link for TR guidance post xpack, that would be great.

[Cyr]

Any new figurines of wonderous power (aka unlimited monster gold seal hirelings)?

[Dawnsfire]

I just got the first character slayer tier for Sahuagin. I got 300xp but I noticed no bonus for my xp pot or the Voice. Is that WAI?

[Roland_D'Arabel]

So far from what I see this looks pretty good. A few suggestions though:

It would be nice to have more varying achievements other than slayer counts and monster sub-species counts. What about achievements like trip or stunning, or vorpaling, finger of deathing. I'm sure as a community a lot of suggestions could be made that go beyond simply killing.

I really really wish Turbine could get away from using creature companions as rewards for things. Some of the player base like these things, but for me, I have zero interest and tying achievement awards to companions is no reward at all in my opinion. Again, I am sure the community could make many suggestions for better rewards... what about giving players an option... you can choose a creature companion or...?? Nothing overpowered and something appropriate to the monster type killed. Maybe a +1 weapon damage to that species of monster or a +1 skill to balance for the spider achievement.

[madmaxhunter]

*snip*

Thank you for the write-up. +1 for giving us some juicy details.