D&D advice

[Meister]

Originally Posted by Ryong

He seems to be annoyed that 1) I won't master the monsters in the books and 2) I will grow attached to them and be angry if they die quickly or some such and then 3) they will not know how to deal with them.

1) Why does that annoy him, specifically?
2) Well, that's sort of a legitimate concern - if he's worried about that it might be a good idea to demonstrate, or flat out promise as a DM, that this isn't something you're going to do.
3) That sounds like bullshit because, as you said, the point isn't for players to demonstrate how well you memorized the Monster Manual. Maybe he just thinks your custom monsters are too tough, though, or that their weak points are too hard to figure out on the fly. In that case I'd recommend allowing appropriate Knowledge or other skill checks to gain clues.