C&C Classic Monsters Problems

Well, first off, it looks as if there will be a delay in the physical product getting into the hands of those eager to get it. With the PDF being released to those who pre-ordered it, it quickly became apparent that there was a series of problems with the text and specifically how things tied in with the OGL. As it stands, many of the monsters should have different names than what they currently have (you can see a the list in Part 1 of the review). This is simply to address the issue that the majority of these creatures are not in the original SRD provided by WOTC. Others were sourced from 'The Tome of Horrors' from Necromancer Games. As it stands, the OGL nor the text can be considered in its final form. Fortunately, this was caught by a fellow Crusader and TLG (Steve) has been aware of the issue and writes:

Many of these monsters had name changes that didn't get put in the book...on a quick glance it looks like some of the original text got put in the book. What a jumbled mess.

Looks like Todd has some cross referencing to do and we have to find the original text!

Thank you most kindly for catching this before it goes to full print (I have the proofs in front of me right now). I had set this book aside and out of my mind...won't be doing that again.

Well, it looks like (at the very least) the list of names will be changing though, in essence, those are the critters you'll be seeing in the new book. As far as the name changes go, it won't be the first time that TLG does this. In the original 'Monsters & Treasures' book, they had a creature that was largely inspired by the Carrion Crawler, a monster with is deemed as Product Identity by WOTC. They have a similar creature which is named a 'Flesh Crawler'.

Now, with this in mind, I will go ahead and review the product anyway... Read the next entry for Part 2 of the review!

M