D&D 5E D&D Beyond: Monsters of the Multiverse Will Not Replace Existing Monsters

D&D Beyond has said that Monsters of the Multiverse will not replace existing monsters already purchased by users.

While they have indicated that existing content will not be overwritten, they were unable to share any details on how the new monster stat blocks will be implemented - suggestions might include duplicate entries, or some kind of toggle. This also includes racial traits, which won't replace old material -- the contents of the book will be treated as new content.

While DDB is taking it's lead from WotC on what to do, apparently WotC asked them to take charge of communicating this all to users.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That's less clumsy, but non-counterspellable spells (subtle, psionic) are also a thing in 5e...

Yes. That is right. But probably counterspell is the offender here.
Maybe we should fall back to 3e, that you can counterspell with the same other spell but maybe allow it to just be a reaction. Or counterspell being a class abilitiy with some kind of recharge mechanism.

Actually, I think 10 years, none of us used counterspell neither as PC nor as NPC, probably because we think that spell is kinda cheesy.
Now that I think about it, we might have used it 2 or 3 times againstt higher level spellcasters, where you at least have to make a check to actually counter the spell.

 

[Azzy]

Nor the Arcana Domain.

So, we have Path of the Battlerager, Path of the Totem Warrior additions, Purple Dragon Knight/Banneret, Oath of the Crown, Way of the Long Death, The Undying patron, Arcane Domain, plus Ghostwise Halflings, Half-elf variants, and Tiefling variants that haven't been reprinted elsewhere.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So, we have Path of the Battlerager, Path of the Totem Warrior additions, Purple Dragon Knight/Banneret, Oath of the Crown, Way of the Long Death, The Undying patron, Arcane Domain, plus Ghostwise Halflings, Half-elf variants, and Tiefling variants that haven't been reprinted elsewhere.

The Undying has been remade as the Undead though, so no point in reprinting it. Ghostwise Halflings, Half-elf variants, and Tiefling variants will probably be unnecessary when those lineages are done.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I appreciate your thoughts, and I agree that there are many examples of previous similar incidents and that this is not the first time.

However two things bother me, and they are mostly "feelings";

A, they have said they are changing them for meta reason (re-balance etc).

B. I never minded the special creatures or npcs having abilities, but I think deliberately changing an "actual" spell from a spellcaster like to a special ability is starting to be the norm, when it should be the rarity.

IMHO.





(edited...I hit enter by accident)

I understand that we can't argue feelings. But, well... I also think that we can agree that if the designers believe it is better for balance, then there is little point in arguing about that. This is also the first time I've heard that argument. So, it feels strange if that is a major concern of some people that it hasn't come up til now.

And on them being rare instead of more normal. Well, that is entirely a feeling. We can't exactly put a scale on how common or uncommon something like this should be.

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I wasn‘t a fan of a lot of those things either (and make changes in my own usage). But, as I mentioned in my previous thread, while there had been isolated examples of this sort of thing that had gradually krept in, now they are doing a complete conversion. I could look at the hobgoblin devastator and decide either to eliminate that ability, or treat it as essentially a racial feat (that a hobgoblin PC could theoretically also pick). But now the statblocks are entirely built that way, and I essentially have to recreate them, just using the official ones as inspiration.

How can you not just

A) Reverse the changes, since many of the statblocks being updated already exist
B) Just replace the abilities with spellcasting. Nothing needs to be recreated, the entire complaint has been that these were just spells before, from spellcasters. You know those factors, so it isn't hard to just replace them back.

It’s feel, but it‘s also function. I could work with a few isolated issues. But I already spend a lot of time working on my worlds and campaigns, and I don‘t have the time or energy to redesign 80% of the new statblocks that come out. By this change they have made a large percentage of their future products unusable to me. I bought Wild Beyond the Witchlight before I realized what they were doing (Candlekeep Mysteries and Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft had already started on it, but I hadn‘t fully digested either (bought them in a DnD Beyond mega bundle)), and I like the adventure so much that I will spend the effort to redesign the few NPCs and revise the few new monsters in it. But that‘s a one-off for an adventure with very few NPCs and monsters to work with. Future sourcebooks and adventures are going to be full of those unusable designs, and the core books are going to switch to that design in 2024.

So it is a matter of degree, but it is that point were degree increases so much that it makes a jump to a matter of type also. Experimentation turns into an entirely new design paradigm.

Nothing about your world-building needs to change? I've never consulted the War Priest NPC statblock before my worldbuilding, nothing in these needs your world-building to change.

That we have a new design paradigm shouldn't really be a factor. I mean... you don't even need to buy the new books. So I'm not really seeing how this is troublesome.

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Yes. That is right. But probably counterspell is the offender here.
Maybe we should fall back to 3e, that you can counterspell with the same other spell but maybe allow it to just be a reaction. Or counterspell being a class abilitiy with some kind of recharge mechanism.

Actually, I think 10 years, none of us used counterspell neither as PC nor as NPC, probably because we think that spell is kinda cheesy.
Now that I think about it, we might have used it 2 or 3 times againstt higher level spellcasters, where you at least have to make a check to actually counter the spell.

This is one thing that I've been thinking about as I'm reading these complaints. A lot of people have been acting like not being able to counterspell is a major change in tactics. But... we haven't been using counterspell in my games. Pretty much at all.

I mean, you can't counterspell just about any ability of an abomination, or many abilities of fiends. Can't Counterspell invisible opponents. Or action-based teleports. The majority of enemy tactics encountered in my tables can't be counterspelled, so these not being counterspelled... doesn't bother me. We don't use it anyways.

 

[HammerMan]

No, it doesn't.

Your behavior is disrespectful, and rude. If you continue to behave in this way toward me, there will be no further discussion between us.

That is not remotely what I said. It is both obnoxious, and disrespectful, to pull the juvenile "ah so you agree with this thing that is clearly the opposite of your point" attempted gotcha BS.

alll of this is a total misrepresentation of what I have siad, at no point have I tried a 'gotcha' and there is nothing childish about trying to find common ground.

I know written text doesn't convay feelings. I know you don't have my calm voice, only what you bring to the discussion. Please try to reread what I have said assuming I am just trying to talk to you in a calm and fun manner about a game.

New options don't make a new edition. They're just new options. They aren't remotely incompatible.

it depends. a new monster or a new subclass or a new feat are all new options that (normally) don't make new editions.
rewriting the rules on race and monsters at least pushes toward a new edition.

There is absolutely no issue using them with the PHB options. No effort whatsoever is required to do so. They are not distinct from the new options in every single supplement for 5e that has come out already.

except the part where they have rebuilt 2 major parts of the game already with signs that they are at least rebuiulding 1 more... again is it a new edition, is it a .5 edition is it errata... is it somewhere between all three? this is something that can be discussed. Is it 'not in any way shape or form any one of them' is just shutting down the conversation.

If by "a bit of work" you mean fully converting whole classes between editions wherein the underlying math isn't even the same,

wizards of HP in 2e, and spell slots with 'different options' (aka variant spells) the only parts that need to be reworked are non weapon prof (that really don't since they are rolling for success or failure anyway) AC/tohit that you can just reverse AC (8=12 0=20) simple enough (heck I would argue adding a chart to a 2e character is less obnoxious then most house/varriant rules in that edition) and saving throws... but that is the only one that would require any work (and through the editions saving throws are the biggest difference) I know this becuse I did it earlier in 5e

I had a concept like Galactus (not world eater, but survivor of a previus version of the universe) show up. It was pretty much a 15th level 2e wizard. he had like no HP compaired and his spells were all 100% taken from 2e. The PCs didn't notice until I said "ping, thats one off my stone skin" like I used to in 2e

then it is extremely strange that you're complaining about the absolute lack of any effort whatsoever required to use a PHB Battlemaster who is a MMoTM Bugbear, Tasha's Ranger who is a PHB Wood Elf, and a Tasha's Bladesinger Harengon, in the same party. Literally nothing at all needs to change, no translation is required, they all work within exactly the same general rules, use the same resource frameworks, the same underlying math, and all the words in the rulestext in the books they come from mean the same things.

again, like my example above I CAN make the changes you suggest work... but that doesn't mean we just assume all editions are just minor tweeks to each other.
I notice you kept it all as PCs that are diffrent races, no PC has a variant. I also notice you didn't mention the main thrust of the thread... understanding how monsters and PC interact.
lets make a hypathetical player. Albert. Albert has been watching in the last two games he has played as NPCs have counterspelled lots of PC spells, and even one where the other player who was a wizard took and used counterspell.

Albert looks at the subclass that when you counterspell something you get a small boon (if I have to I will look it up but off top of my head I think it is warmage even thought I feel abjurer would make more sense). He has built in his mind how cool it would be.

Albert goes to his local gaming store and sees two ads for games, both starting at 3rd level one tuesday nights one thursday nights. Albert does not have tons of free time but he can arrange for 1 free night per week most of the time.

Albert looks and both have the same basic rules "PHB races, any publish subclass no artificers please no power gaming and we like to RP, defualt array starting equipment"

so he draws up his character as a 1st level fighter 2nd level wizard (warmage) with the soldier background and as a mountain dwarf but swapping the +2 to str for +2 Int.

now we split Albert into 2 Albert A and Albert B

Albert A joins tuesday and Albert B joins thursday... but unknown to him tuesday is useing the basic 5e monster rules and thursday is not only useing the new ones, but isof thebelife that (and many of these threads are) you can not counterspell the new attack spell features. Now both play very similar until 6th level (when both albert A and B hit 5th level wizard and get counterspell)

in my experence jumping from 3rd to 6th level takes 10-15 games... we are going to go with 14 since RP in general gets less xp and both said they are RP heavy.

so now Albert A and Albert B are super jazzed. They can't wait to try out counter spell and both run into a spell caster... but A uses counter spell (and based on level and roll works or doesn't) and B runs into one that has it built into the stat line... and as such is not counterspellable. this CHANGES the entire nature of this game and concept.

You are effectively calling SCAG, Volo's, Xanathar's, MToF, and Tasha's, each a new edition, not to mention the collected errata and reprinted PHB that takes said errata into account.

no I literally am not.

Duergar and Shadar-kai explicitly count as their parent race in both the original writeup and the optional variant writeup.

did you read the part about getting the defualt dwarf/elf traits?

There is absolutely no room for confusion on that. There is no "are we using these rules or these rules", here, outside of your own invented hypothetical. Your character has the traits listed in the writeups for the options you chose during character creation. It's very simple.

it gets more confused the more varriation you add... and race is already 1/3 of the PCs build (Class and Race being 1/3 each and feat/background/skill making up the last 1/3)

So is literally any errata. By the logic you've presented, there are already about a dozen edition changes within 5e already. Hell, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide presented variant Tieflings. All of a sudden you don't just know if a Tiefling character has +2 Charisma, or what spells they have, without asking if they used SCAG to make the character, and if so which variant options they used. Is SCAG a new edition?

again adding isn't changing. this isn't adding it is changing.

No, it isn't. It is literally not that, at all. There isn't a different set of rules, there are new variant stat blocks.

variants of every monster, variants of so far most (but we assume by 6/5.5/anniversary edition will be all)... once you have changed every monster and every race (and again we KNOW they are at least considering class) what is that if not approching a new edition?

This is not actually a new type of thing within this edition of the game. This is like arguing that if players had disliked the stat block format in the MM, and they changed how they formatted monsters in Volo's, folks then claimed that Volo's was a new edition of the game. It's patently absurd.

this isn't format. there are full fledged changing. this isn't "we moved saves from under attributes to under attack/damage" this is we reformulated what is and isn't a spell

 

[HammerMan]

For people worried about the "new spell-like abilities" causing so much confusion. I have an honest question.

Have you had this problem with the Death Knight's Hellfire Orb? It is a magical ball of fire that has a range of 120 ft, explodes into a 20 ft radius for a dex save, and does 10d6 fire and 10d6 necrotic damage. It is almost a fireball, but it isn't a spell that the players have access to. And, since it isn't explicitly a spell, it has the same "issue" as these new abilities.

Or the Drow Priestess's Summon Demons.

Or the Cloaker's Phantasms that are almost Mirror Image

Or the Darkmantle's Darkness Aura that is almost the Darkness spell

Or the Ice Devil's Wall of Ice.

The multiple invisiblity casting creatures like Imps and Pixies. The multiple charming creatures, like Vampires and Succubi,

Clay Golem Haste? Stone Golem Slow? Treant Animate Trees?

There are A LOT of abilities that are clearly magical, clearly a lot like spells, and that aren't technically spells in the Monster Manual. So, how is this different? How does this present a new, unique, issue?

I think (maybe wrong) that the treant and haste one work as spells so they are a bit off... but the ones I have seen the most (invisability and hellfire orb) have always been not counterspellable. in the form of the death knight this ALWAYS was pretty clear it was not a fireball.

 

[HammerMan]

Obviously players need to know what the player options are, but that is going to depend on the setting, and something I would establish in session zero. So no change there.

except the fact that again this is already a change (something that needs to be spelled out at session 0) and we have 2 years until the new PHB comes out... how much more CAN they stack before you call it an edition change?

But players knowing monsters stats?! That's something I would consider cheating, part of the fun of the game is the players figuring out what the monsters can do, and hence how to beet them (and I have been DMing since 1st edition).

wow... I can't consider it cheating or else I couldn't play with other DMs at my table... and I couldn't play at other DMs tables.

I prefer to think players are in my game because they like the way I DM, not because they like the ruleset I use.

22 years ago I would have agreed. back then I was running and playing 2e. one subset of friends called there games 3e (they used combat and tactics, skills and powers and a thirsd X and X I never remeber) then I switch to 3e from wotc and lost a few players who didn't want to "play magic the gathering lite rp game"

the funn part is 7-8years later we (the group that did go 3/3.5) had grown to so huge a group we physically had trouble all being in the same game (almost 30 of us at max) and we all got sick of 3e D&D... so most of us had been moving on to whole other systems (not D20 at all) but the few of us that would still have a hold out D&D game every 2 weeks where useing SO many optiona; and house rules just to make us able to play...

then came 4e, and the biggest split. It didn't happen right away. To start some of us tried 4e while others stayd at 'other systems' but no one stayed at 3e. Then pizao started the pathfinder push and some wanted the group to go 4e and some wanted to go PF... arguments made even just talking about games hard. the group splintered some (me) went to 4e some went to PF, and some left TTRPG entirely over the split.

so as much as I would like to think that it is me as a pereson/DM... I know from personal experence that the same player that would jump at me running 5e, would never want to play WoD, and another wouldn't want to play 5e at all.

 

[HammerMan]

I agree that none of the changes are huge by themselves. What they are doing, however, is making many, many small changes to a lot of game elements, and reprinting whole books to highlight these changes. How many can you make before it seems like a new edition, or at least a 3.0 to 3.5 situation? I know why they didn't, but I would have preferred them to have marketed this as 5.5 or 6e. It would have been cleaner. They could have included that modern values setting i think they should make.

yeah my biggest fear isn't "This is a new edition by everything but name" (although that would be annoying) it is "We want to push right up to the line to make as many changes as we can without lableing it a new edition"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

except the fact that again this is already a change (something that needs to be spelled out at session 0)

Player options had always to be stated in session zero, even back in 1982 when I started. Are evil PCs allowed? Can I play as an X from Dragon/White Dwarf? etc. There has never been ONE TRUE RULZE for D&D.

wow... I can't consider it cheating or else I couldn't play with other DMs at my table... and I couldn't play at other DMs tables.

That sounds like your personal problem. It makes no sense to me. If I play with another DM I expect them to interpret the rules their way. If I think someone at the table is too familiar with the monster stats I change the monster stats so they don't know exactly what they are facing.

 

[HammerMan]

Player options had always to be stated in session zero, even back in 1982 when I started. Are evil PCs allowed? Can I play as an X from Dragon/White Dwarf? etc. There has never been ONE TRUE RULZE for D&D.

right, and over the years I have had MANY house rules... the more variant/diffrent rules I have found is the closer to a new edition.

That sounds like your personal problem. It makes no sense to me. If I play with another DM I expect them to do the rules their way.

so how do you run games with a player on one night, and play in there game another? You both not only have full access to the MM (I mean everyone does) but you activly read and look at stats for your own games.