Monster Vault: Essential Dungeons and Dragons Kit by Wizards of the Coast

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1. Marko Babbitt Verified Buyer – 9 October 2024

   Ok, here we go. I’m an old school D&D gamer, from basic to 2nd edition. I introduced my sons the it and they loved it. I then discovered 3rd edition and 4th edition.
   Hmmmm coming from an ol’ point of view there are some things that I like and others that I don’t, but this item, the monster thingy book is really great!! The book is, I’m not a fan of the little round tiles, or tokens, I prefer the figures, but the book itself is worth it!!
   

2. Saz73 Verified Buyer – 24 November 2024

   My son was very pleased with this and I was impressed by the quality and content – you do get value for money, loads of interesting information and so on.
   

3. James Leivers Verified Buyer – 16 February 2025

   These monsters are what the MM1 should have been. They clarified and fixed all sorts of stuff they were trying to accomplish with the original monsters. I’d say that half are the same monsters from MM1 with same name and level (but fixed and improved); half are new variants of the monsters that already exist. There are monsters from level 1 to level 27. The highest is a Balor. Take for example the Bulette, if you fought one from MM1 you were like “These are great big pile of suck” as soon as the fighter locked one down, it could never get away. It was never clear if it could burrow away from a fighter whose opportunity attack stops all movement. The fight turned into a static, hack fest. Now they spell out that each movement of the Bulette, even burrowing, does not provoke opportunity attacks. It’s meant to be going all over the place, bursting forth from the ground to take monstrous land-shark bites out of nice tasty halflings! Almost every skirmisher in the book is given direct guaranteed ways to move around without provoking opp attacks. They almost all have shift speeds or movement that specifically says “this does not provoke opp attacks”. Stick and Move wasn’t there before with all the skirmishers. They fixed it! Monsters that heal themselves is just not a fun mechanic. Take for example the Orc. They all used to come with a semi-confusing power that was an attack, usable only when bloodied, that if they hit would heal 1/4 of the HP. Often, it went unused, as Orcs did not spend that long in a bloody state, or they missed, and healing themselves was just weird. Now, in Monster Vault they got rid of that power, and just let all Orcs get one free standard action before they die. That seems more like what was intended, it ensures the Orcs get that last dying blow. It shows their ferocity, eliminates the HP book-keeping, and allows each of them to show the poor pathetic players what it means to be an “Orc”! (stole it away from the Minotaur though) They fixed single-use encounter powers. Take the simple change to the Human Bandit. I used to hate Human Bandits as a DM. They got an encounter power that dazed, but if it missed, it’s gone, bandit sucked! Now they ensured that if the bandit misses, it retains the power until it is used at least once. Perfect fix, as one of my pet peeves was a monster who never got to use its “defining” power. A lot of the monsters that have defining powers, get ways to recharge it or they let the encounter power have a suitable effect on a miss. This ensures that power will at least be showcased in the battle. They fixed the unfun boring monsters that dragged out combat. Take for example the Hezrou, a demon, that Weakens with its aura when bloodied. All that did was make the fight drag out foreveeeerrrrr. Now Hezrous do damage with their aura, an excellent fix! Dracolichs are no longer stun,stun,stun, they dominate instead. No stuns for Owlbears or Vrocks anymore. Wraiths have a completely different mechanic, they don’t regenerate anymore, they don’t weaken players, they turn invisible when hit. Lots of soldiers have “Effects” on their attacks, so they mark even if they miss. The “phalanx” movement of hobgoblins is way cleaner and straightforward, no dm planning needed, they can move together at the command of one of them. Set-up attacks got easier for the monsters. For example: A mind flayer automatically grabs a dazed or stunned creature. It still has to roll an attack to eat the brain, but one step got easier. The mind flayer used to have to daze a player, wait a round, grab the player, wait a round, then attempt to bore into the brain (this essentially meant it rarely, if ever, happened). With zombies; in the Red Box they made all zombies that drop to 0HP, stand up unless they get hit again while on the ground. I initially thought that was awesome, but it can really eat up standard actions and cause a drag. In Monster Vault they make the DM roll a d20, and if 15 or higher comes up, the zombie stays at 1HP. Much better, they figured that out quickly. That is an Encounter power so they can’t stay up forever. The solos… cue dramatic music The only solos in the book are dragons, hydras, beholders, and purple worms. No updated Orcus 🙁 They gave solos ways to ignore stuns, dazes, or be able to use immediate actions even when dazed/stunned. All the dragons get to go twice per round. At the end of each turn they end all stun and daze effects. So at most, they lose one half a turn. Makes them all more effective. The stun-lock is dead. The Red Dragon is ultra simple. It focuses on one target, it can chomp down on a wizard grabbing him, and then when the fighter comes to try to save him the Red Dragon goes “Ha, I don’t think so, take my huge tail to the face!” Wham! knocked to the ground! “I’m eatin’ here!” The Green Dragon and Blue Dragon are flying all over the place, they can take to the air every single round as part of their attack actions, again: “this movement does not provoke opportunity attacks”. No defender lock down for them. Hydra is completely different, it can take free actions even if stunned or dominated and every creature that ends its turn within reach gets two bites each as a free action. Guaranteed pain for everyone. The tokens: you get 10 cardboard pages of them! With these tokens, you get every monster you need. I’ve seen first time DMs just trying to start out use coins, chess pieces, scrounging up anything to put on the battlemat. It’s the second biggest hurdle to DMing. This is the seal-the-deal value of the box. Buying this lets anyone be a DM for $30. This, plus a battlemat is everything you would ever need to play D&D for the rest of your life. The tokens can easily be substituted for other monsters. The kicker: throw in a 4th level adventure! That requires a whole separate review. They also include a poster map of “Evermelt” Lastly, each monster gets LOTS of fascinating ecology, history, and flavor. There is a ton. You could sit down by the fire and read this book cover to cover and love it. It’s probably the best thing about the book. I doubt they’ll put all this ecology into the online tools, so it’s another good reason to buy the book. My favorites are the Carrion Crawler Scuttler, Doppelganger Infiltrator, and the Black Dragon.

   

4. M. Eastman Verified Buyer – 25 February 2025

   My hubby and I bought these because it was the same price as the regular Monster Manual. These things are amazing! The artwork is really nice and they are much cheaper than minis. The only things we found that could be improved on are some size adjusters to make medium monsters large but that’s not a big deal really. Many people we spoke to about these were disappointed that there were no gargantuan tokens, but really, how many of those do you need? This will give you enough tokens for the majority of sessions so it’s really nice. Here’s hoping they put more of these out in the near future!

   

5. Michael Aikman Verified Buyer – 5 March 2025

   Total ripoff! This item sold at a decent price then became hard to get and sellers jacked the price to unreasonable amount. And when I did get it, it was a used book and all the tokens were missing.
   

6. Matthew D. Hayward Verified Buyer – 23 April 2025

   A satisfyingly heavy box, it contains about half a dozen sheets of high quality monster tokens, a monster vault book, an adventure for 4th level players and a dungeon sheet to play the adventure on.

   The monster vault is good because it contains revised numbers that have been updated since the Monster Manual: A 4th Edition Core Rulebook (D&d Core Rulebook) (Dungeons & Dragons) was released. It also has detailed descriptions of the backgrounds for each type of monster.

   For commonly used monsters such as skeletons and kobolds, there are multiple tokens. Larger monsters have bigger tokens.
   

7. rrpearcy Verified Buyer – 24 April 2025

   This book is filled with a lot of great and classic creatures to use in my games. The new size of the Essentials books is most welcome and I like that they give you tokens of each monster to use during sessions. There is also an adventure that can be run.

   I would like to see some more descriptions and artwork. Especially when there are multiple types of a particular creature. I would like to know more about what separates each type from the others. But it is quite useful nonetheless.
   

8. Mario Daidone Verified Buyer – 26 April 2025

   Il Monster Vault è il necessario per ogni DM, contiene più di 400 token di mostri del Manuale dei Mostri I; anche se è della 4.0 è utilizzabile per qualsiasi versione. Attenzione soltanto alla scatola che è molto fragile, difatti a me si è già strappata ai lati di giuntura. Per il resto per soli 30€ ne è valsa la pena.