1e MM2 or Fiend Folio

[Thondor]

I found a copy of both for almost the same price (1$ difference) and am planning to pick up one at least.

So which do you prefer?

Which monsters book do you use more often? (if you have both)

Do they have noticeably different flavours?

Any particular beasties stand out in either one?

 

[jdrakeh]

I prefer the Fiend Folio, no contest. It has some poorly conceived monsters in it, but it also has far more unique monsters in it than MM2 (IMO, of course). The FF is the source of such iconic D&D monsters as the Son of Kyuss, the Githyanki, Githzerai, and the various Slaadi. There are some really awesome monsters in there.

 

[the Jester]

Fiend Folio FTW!

It's one of my favorite monster books to this day, despite having over-inked art. But there are a ton of awesome monsters in it, some of which have become classics and some of which haven't. It includes the slaadi, the githyanki and githzerai, flail snail, gibberlings, aaracockra, Drow, the Elemental Princes of Evil, the retriever, etc. etc.

The MM2 is good too, but it has a certain number of "meh" monsters in it (pseudo undead, pedipalps, valley elves, etc). The losers in the FF are just damn weird (protein polymorph? tirapheg? WTF??), but their weirdness makes 'em cooler.

Plus, the FF has oodles of great encounter charts in the back- the kind of encounter charts that d&d has never seen since. Damn fine, those charts.

And it has the most gruesome monster ever (the penanggallan (sp?)).

Go with the Fiend Folio.

 

[Voadam]

I like them both but I like Fiend Folio a little better.

MMII has neat devils, demons, daemons, and modrons as well as aboleth, grugach elves, verbeeg giants and others.

Fiend Folio has the elemental princes, slaad, drow, oriental dragons and lots of fun oddball individuals (Lolth! Iron Cobra! Hook Horror! Githyanki! Flumph!!!).

I really like the art in both.

The descriptions are unfortunately brief/limited in both.

FF came mostly from creature submissions to a magazine while MMII is more derived from 1e modules.

The Fiend Folio is a little more bizarre/wahoo and I give it a little edge in fun factor.

 

[Crothian]

For utility I would say MM. It has all the classic D&D monsters that getused all the time. For coolness Fiend Folio!

 

[the Jester]

For utility I would say MM. It has all the classic D&D monsters that getused all the time. For coolness Fiend Folio!

Yeah, but the debate is between the FF and the MM2.

 

[Crothian]

My bad, I missed the 2. In that case FF all the way!!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Another vote for the FF. Easily.

 

[jaerdaph]

Fiend Folio, hands down, for the win!

 

[The Shaman]

Fiend Folio, no contest.

Of course, I like my fantasy to be seriously weird.