D&D 5E How will you pick a Monster Manual alternative?

[mamba]

I am counting on people like you doing in-depth head to head comparisons of these books in 2024.

Yes, I assume there will be a thread on that eventually. I guess different people will prefer different things however, there is no one size fits all.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Right, if the monster is a likely "showcase combat" monster meant to be encountered by itself or small group? That makes a lot of sense to draw on 4e design.

Yeah. That's it. There should be very different design between monsters that are essentially NPCs (humanoids, etc) and ones that are more like a force of nature. (And presumably ones in-between).

Couldn't find it on the forum, so I attached a snapshot. It's not without flaws - treat it as proof of concept, rather than finished product.

Yeah, that's much more obvious as to what a Peryton's story actually is (and can be interacted with), while the 5e one (if you ignore the lore and just run the statblock) is basically an evil bird.

It depends. The big picture for me is that ANY one size fits all approach to monsters is missing the boat. Because monsters are incredibly diverse in how they get used.

Yes. I'm on board with that.

Do we need ~3 variants of unicorn or mimic or sphinx stats? No, I don't think so.

Agreed. Definitely should have variants for things that ought to have variants. You've got a great point about nixing any one-size-fits-all approach.

Those types of monsters have unique purposes – quest McGuffin/ally, gotcha, and riddle/puzzle/quest-giver. So their design should focus on making it easy & fun for GM to run those things. I'm not saying nix the stats entirely, btw, just that the focus should be retuned away from hyper combat focus.

Yeah, that sounds good.

Whereas a typical "monstrous humanoid" like a goblin, ogre, kobold, troll? Yeah, definitely, variants makes a lot of sense.

In fact, if you reserve that sort of design for that sort of creature, then you could conceivably design THAT stat block to have a good number of optional abilities.

 

[Clint_L]

The time when WotC has the only Monster Manual-style core monster book is already over and will get less over as time goes on, post SRD going into Creative Commons.

I think this really depends on what they do with DnDBeyond, as it becomes the preferred medium for more and more players. Unless they open it up to 3PP, I don't see the MM getting dethroned any time soon. Quite the opposite - I think it will become harder for 3PP to be more than niche offerings without that digital presence.

Of the currently available options...probably Menagerie is the best I've seen, aside from the MM.

 

[Parmandur]

Fir "just one," the new WotC Monster Manual: I'll be checking out the others, though.

 

[GMMichael]

I'll continue to rely on Old Faithful: the AD&D 2nd ed Monstrous Manual.

 

[Zaukrie]

Good luck using alternate statblocks on a VTT...... People are very adverse to change to standard stuff like statblocks, as the game is complicated enough as it is

 

[overgeeked]

But if you were choosing just one, how would you decide?

My own variation of “MM stats on a business card” from Blog of Holding along with some random charts and tables. Books like “Random Esoteric Creature Generator” and a lifetime of playing RPGs, reading novels, and collecting comics has me set.

 

[overgeeked]

Good luck using alternate statblocks on a VTT...... People are very adverse to change to standard stuff like statblocks, as the game is complicated enough as it is

Use the VTT as a virtual tabletop instead of computer to run the game’s software. You don’t need to inout monster stats in the first place.

 

[Zaukrie]

Use the VTT as a virtual tabletop instead of computer to run the game’s software. You don’t need to inout monster stats in the first place.

Thank you for telling me how to play. I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I mean, I'll be getting the 2024 MM, and I already have MotM and the three MME books from the DM's Guild. As well as Fizban's and (soon) Bigby's and Planescape. And all the miscellaneous monsters from various adventures that aren't otherwise in an official "monster book". That's a huge amount of monsters, probably more than I could reasonably use, right there...