D&D 5E Let’s Read Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.

[Remathilis]

I don't think you can say 3.x was more streamlined than 2E. Yes it got rid of THAC0 and applied a roll high core mechanic, but it made the game significantly and fundamentally more complex.

Remember that a new edition is a reaction to what the old edition was towards the ends of its life, not the beginning. 2e by 1998 was incredibly complex, contradictory, and unwieldy to run. This was partially due to the wildly different power levels of various settings, the lack of uniform design ideals from source-to-source, and a lot of reinvention of the wheel. 3e's biggest gift to D&D was standardization and codification of 2e's various contradictory rulesets for classes, spells, kits, proficiencies, combat abilities, etc. Perhaps it was a little too codified, but it was a reaction to how chaotic simple things like what spheres of magic a cleric got could vary depending on what supplement your DM decided to go with.

 

[Faolyn]

Over-simplification is the new motto of WotC. So glad they put out a good game before this happened.

Yeah, I definitely think that MPMM went too far in the other direction. Some of the changes are fine, but some of them, like the spells-to-powers aren't. The way they do spells for monsters in LU is great, and I wish WotC had done it the same way. Even if they just had added "4th level spell" to the end of the ability just so it could be countered, and/or changed counterspell so it could affect spell-like abilities as well.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I prefer the spells becoming powers. I hated all the cool stuff being counter spelled.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

The way things are now, counter spell will be good against support stuff, but won’t shut off all of a monsters coolest tricks.

 

[Leatherhead]

Hobgoblin Devastator (VGtM)​

I suppose it’s time to talk about Goblinoids. The Goblinoids in this book are mostly divorced from their Maglubliet worshiping ways, and are instead presented as fey creatures doing fey warfare for the fey folk (or simply as humanoids with Fey Ancestry, in the case of the player races). This is kind of a deep cut, and returning them to their pre-D&D depictions. Which means their lore was changed twice-over. Gnolls simply had their creature type changed. Drow had their alternate cultures and religions shown off. And the Deurgar had a semi-new society created for them. Goblinoids are doing basically all three takes at the same time. My best guess for the reason behind this: They are getting Goblinoids ready ahead of time for one of the brand new campaign settings that is supposedly coming up soon. One that is likely going to feature the Feywild.

The Hobgoblin Devastator is a mage better suited for the battlefield than the library. And by better suited I mean perfectly suited. Their entire purpose is to act as a magical artillery upon the enemy armies, and use their magical IFF powers to prevent their allies from being burned in the crossfire.

While the Devastator is CR4, and has a fancy Multiattack with the Devastating Bolt power (for ranged damage and knocking targets prone). They are almost never going to use Multiattack, instead using their spellcasting action and their Army Arcana power to lob Fireballs and Lightning Bolts indiscriminately for the brief period of time that they will function once PCs figure out who is casting all the spells. Doesn’t even matter if the Fireball is 5’ away from their own face, the Devastator is still casting it, because they can make themselves and all their allies immune to the spells that they cast as they cast them. It's amazing how effective that power is. Furthermore, the Devastator has access to nice spells like Fly (which will never be cast on themselves, because that is just asking to have the concentration knocked from you), and Fog Cloud (which really puts a crimp on enemy archers).

In the changeover, the Devastator lost access to a bunch of spells, like nearly every spellcaster. Most notably Ice Storm and Thunderwave. They also lost the Arcane Advantage power, which boosted their spell attacks when an ally was next to the target. In return, they received a Multiattack, their Quarterstaff had its damage buffed, and they got the Devastating Bolt power. Which actually deals quite a bit of single target DPR, it’s just that Fireball is almost always going to be a superior option in combat due to the AoE aspect. Their creature type was also changed into Fey (Goblinoid).

 

[Micah Sweet]

The way things are now, counter spell will be good against support stuff, but won’t shut off all of a monsters coolest tricks.

At the cost of it no longer making sense. Better to remove Counterspell altogether than to break the fiction like that.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

At the cost of it no longer making sense. Better to remove Counterspell altogether than to break the fiction like that.

If it breaks your fiction, then remove it. It doesn’t for all of us. Fiction is subjective after all.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

At the cost of it no longer making sense. Better to remove Counterspell altogether than to break the fiction like that.

Naah. It's easy to make it work, just say those abilities come out too fast to be counterspelled.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Naah. It's easy to make it work, just say those abilities come out too fast to be counterspelled.

Yeah, or what with all the counterspelling (apparently) going on, a technique was developed to obfuscate spell-attacks to make them not quite work like known spells. This trick has been shared far and wide (but not with pesky adventurers!)

 

[kapars]

If I had to guess, because they're big, expensive war machines intended for the Blood War and/or other military ventures where things like "subtlety" are no longer a concern. Also, it's a matter of short-term gain vs. long-term gain.

Burn down a village with a Hellfire Engine and you get that village, once, plus the immediate attention of your enemies and anyone/everyone in the region not particularly keen on being rolled over by your Hellfire Engine.

Quietly corrupt a few key nobles and start a few cults in a kingdom, and over the course of generations you could gain a significant percentage of that kingdom without actually destroying it in the process, meaning it will continue to pay off many times over into the future, and can serve as a staging ground for similar operations in neighboring regions.

This reminds me of the points system in the TV series The Good Place.