Pyramid Review
d20 Menace Manual
Published by Wizards of the Coast
Designed by J.D. Wiker, Eric Cagle, Matthew Sernett, Christopher Perkins
Art & Graphics by Robert Raper, Cynthia Fliege, Dave Johnson, Kalman Andrasofszky, Jason Alexander, Joachim Barrum, Ted Beargeon, Langdon Foss, Frazer Irving, Karl Kerschl, Chester Lawrence, Kagan McLeod, Raven Mimura, Mikael Noguchi, Dean Ormston, Jake Parker, Zak Plucinski, Scott Schomburg, Joel Thomas, Jonathon Wayshak, Sam Wood, Rob Lazzaretti, & Dennis Kauth
224-page full-color hardcover; $34.95
It seems to have taken Wizards of the Coast a while to get around to a volume devoted to encounters for d20 Modern. There have been books on developing the settings for that game, but the d20 Menace Manual may fill some voids by adding some faces and creatures to it.
Not that this is merely a Modern Monster Manual with another alliterative title. It's split into three sections: creatures, characters, and factions. Actually, it's four sections if you include the introduction, which is mostly a "how to use this book" piece, or five if you include the last page and its CR rankings for the different beasts.
The creatures section describes -- what else? -- creatures. Most of these are just animals, real or imagined, that might attack or meaningfully interact with the player characters. Real ones include fairly straightforward choices, such as chimpanzees, hippopotami, or monitor lizards. Most of the fanciful ones are new, but some are culled from other Wizards . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: February 6, 2004
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