To aid us in this quest for new fun adventures, the folks at Wizard of the Coast have released the Monster Manuel III. Like its predecessors, Monster Manuel and Monster Manuel II, this is a large collection of creatures for the Game Master to populate his world with. Although many of the creatures in this volume are from specific game worlds, they can still be used in almost any setting. Following the established challenge Rating system of the 3rd Ed D&D rules, every creature contained in this book has the CR listed with its stats. Yet, unlike many other RPG game supplements, this volume contains a wide variety of creatures for use so that characters of any level can be readily challenged with new foes. In many game systems, new creature releases have also meant that the characters had to be massively more powerful than the norm in order to be able to survive an encounter with the new critter. Wizards of the Coast took this major flaw into account and has a sampling of challenges from 0.5 all the way up to 20. Naturally, the average creature in this book is a CR11 or less. After all, there are very few ultra powerful creatures in any game world.

I hate to keep having to refer back to the previous volumes, but it is a necessary evil in this case. The format remains the same for describing each monster. There is nothing truly new in the stats and if there were, it would disrupt the ability to play the game on a whole. Let's just leave it as everything you need to know to properly play each creature is listed in its stats writeup. An interesting thing about this book is that it takes many of the lesser monsters from previous releases and beefs them up. There are a great number of new undead things to struggle against, creatures that appear to be the same old thing as what the character encountered in his earlier adventures but with new resistances and powers to through a kink into the fight. Stuff like that. I have to applaud this type of thinking.

There are also a good deal of new creatures that are based on real history, like dinosaurs that have never been given stats before in this game. There are also a number of quasi dragons included, although there aren't any new true dragons this time around. Constructs, giants and even trolls have new faces and sub species to entertain or harass your player group. One of the few issues I have with the book is that it is heavily geared towards non-standard D&D settings. Granted, any creature from any setting can appear in your game, but some of these creatures from Forgotten Realms and Eberron are very difficult encounters for a group that is fixed in the standard world of the game system. The powers and abilities of these beings can make things very hard on players and might have to be toned down a little to be successfully employed.

The end of the book contains a very detailed glossary of terms to help the Game Master quickly find detailed descriptions of the special attacks or abilities. Even though most of the terms are found in other books, it is always a good thing to have a self contained volume. After all, anytime a book hasn't got everything you need to use it within its own covers means that you might have to buy the volume(s) that do contain the missing information or worse yet, guess at what it is talking about.

I really enjoy the make up of this book. It gives me tons of new things to use in my games while at the same time allowing me to continue starting new games if I want without having to feel cheated out of being able to use it. I think any Game Master will find this to be an asset to his bookcase and the players will enjoy the wider variety of encounters that this volumes allows.