D&D 5E MM table of contents and stat block index

[Stormonu]

No green slime?

5E is dead to me!

Seriously however, there's some interesting choices in there. For'ex - quippers; salt water piranha! Also, notice dinosaurs go by their "real-world" name, instead of as behemoths and drakes.

I am glad to see several nautical creatures, but apparently tritons, ixitxachitl and locathah didn't make the cut.

And almost no dangerous plants like stranglevines, tri-flower fronds, hangman's tree or such. We've got twig blights and treants, but not much more.

However, I am put out that there is no catoblepas or leucrotta in the book.

In the end though, it looks like it hits all the proper high notes and leaves plenty of room for a MM2 without feeling like anything earth-shatteringly important was left out.

 

[Li Shenron]

Great selection!! Almost every iconic monster is there.

I further appreciate that they didn't go overboard with "novel" monsters, and give precedence to traditional ones in the first MM.

Look at the page counts...

Beholders, 5 pages
Demons, 16 pages
Devils, 13 pages
Dragons, 33 pages (plus Shadow Dragons and Dracolich)
Genies, 6 pages
Giants, 8 pages
Lycanthropes, 6 pages

sure there's going to be quite a range for each of them!

No green slime?

And almost no dangerous plants like stranglevines, tri-flower fronds, hangman's tree or such.

These have always been very useful to me as a DM, but since they work more like traps, I still have hopes they'll be in the DMG!

Dire wolf is the only dire anything?

Some of the dire animals are basically now giant animals (badgers, weasels, bat, rat, boar, elk...), but oddly the wolf stayed dire, and there are no giant/dire tigers and lions.

What's up with the Succubus being listed on its own and not grouped with demons?

Wasn't it mentioned in an online article that Succubus are now "free agents", neither demons nor devils?

 

[Tormyr]

I looked under Giant and Miniature in the index, and no Space Hamsters.

In all seriousness, I was a little surprised there were basically no dire, fiendish or monstrous creatures. I have not gotten my PHB yet, so I will have to figure out then as to what to do about converted 3.5 adventures that had summoned monsters from the bad guys. Although I think there might be a shortage of summoning spells.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

That looks like an upside-down Flumph in the table of contents.

 

[Ravenheart87]

Yay for giant frogs and toads! But no girallons, houris, winged apes, sumatran rat monkeys? Oh well, I will have to the dirty work myself it seems.

Dire wolf is the only dire anything?

Sad (non-dire) panda.

There was a vote during playtest whether people want to use the generic dire name for huge prehistoric animal, or more realistic and unique names. The the latter won, instead of dire bear, dire wolf and dire tiger you have now cave bear, dire wolf, saber-toothed tiger, and probalby there are some more I didn't notice. IIRC the same vote decided about how to handle dinosaurs.

 

[Ravenheart87]

No green slime?

Probably a hazard in DMG.

And almost no dangerous plants like stranglevines, tri-flower fronds, hangman's tree or such. We've got twig blights and treants, but not much more.

Awakened shrub, awakened tree, vine blights, shrieker, violet fungus, shamblig mound are on the list too.

However, I am put out that there is no catoblepas or leucrotta in the book.

Thankfully there is one in the Wizard's Amulet module.

 

[Archmagus]

Can anyone who owns the Monster Manual confirm if any of the humanoid races included have options to allow them to be used as Player Characters? I have runs a Githzerai (Gith) as a character going back to 2nd edition, and would love to know if they present an option to play as one in the MM.

Thanks!

 

[Alessandro Guarita]

Few templates
No fiend/celestial half-fiend/half-celestial?
Lich isn't a template anymore?

 

[occam]

Dire wolf is the only dire anything?

Sad (non-dire) panda.

Those are mostly giant animals now. The dire wolf was a real thing; there were never dire bears, dire apes, dire wolverines, dire camels, dire penguins, etc. 3e misapplied the term by using it generically for any extra-large, mean animal. I'm glad they've undone that.

Here's my nitpick: "Dragon, Shadow" vs. "Faerie Dragon". Huh?

 

[Roger]

"Dragon, Shadow" vs. "Faerie Dragon". Huh?

Shadow Dragon appears to be a template, so I think the idea is you might run up against a Shadow Adult Red Dragon, or something.

I'm personally not terribly happy about keeping around both fairy dragons and pseudodragons, but maybe that won't be such a big deal once I actually see them.