D&D 5E New Monster Manual Cover

From IGN, the cover of the 2025 Monster Manual!

@Morrus

 

[Uta-napishti]

What is the alternative to “pose-ish”? Like, I understand the complaint when the image is just of characters facing towards the frame, standing in a ready stance without context for why they’re there or what they’re looking at. But this isn’t that. There’s a full scene here, with monsters in-frame that the heroes are facing off against. Do people really want them to be in less dynamic body positions? I feel like that would look very strange.

The 2014 books, for all of their detractors do not have "posed" covers at all. They are all action scenes with a tight focus on a monster or a character right in the thick of it. No one is standing on the top of something looking cool, waiting for something to happen.

 

[Uta-napishti]

The 2014 books, for all of their detractors do not have "posed" covers at all. They are all action scenes with a tight focus on a monster or a character right in the thick of it. No one is standing on the top of something looking cool, waiting for something to happen.

PHB - A caster and a fighter trade blows with a fire giant
DMG - a lich animates a wight(?)
MM - Dwarf and Rogue flee a Beholder

No standing around AT ALL
2014 DMG and PHB are also Tyler Jacobson, so it's not the artist...

 

[TiQuinn]

This is my favorite of the new covers so far.

 

[Charlaquin]

The 2014 books, for all of their detractors do not have "posed" covers at all. They are all action scenes with a tight focus on a monster or a character right in the thick of it. No one is standing on the top of something looking cool, waiting for something to happen.

Sure, but neither are the characters in this piece standing around looking cool, waiting for something to happen. One of them is casting a spell and the other is squaring off against the monsters below them.

Again, I understand the “generic action pose” complaint regarding the other two covers, but this one distinctly shows the characters interacting with the environment and the other creatures in it. What would the alternative be in this scene?

 

[Hatmatter]

Always good to know that, the moment I get excited about a cover, I can go into the discussion to have all that excitement washed away. Glad to know this community is one where all my excitement can get trashed, so I don't have to worry about enjoying anything.

I mean, we literally have a hero staring directly at a monster, swords drawn to jump down into the fray.... and people are saying it is pointless posing with no one looking at anything, just like the last art and the art before that and the art before that and the art before that...

I like the art. Wish I could have looked at it without immediately trying to figure out how people would attempt to trash it, so I could get my hopes up about an actually discussion about how cool it was.

Be of good cheer Chaosmancer my friend...it is excellent art!

ENWorld is filled with some eccentric folks. We are celebrating fifty years of Dungeons & Dragons, and there are multiple threads with intelligent people arguing about how many classes there should be...for a fifty year old game. Others make one sentence posts about the art like "It sucks, now I'm not gonna buy the books."

I think the three new core books, both regular edition and deluxe edition, have terrific covers. The game is in great hands -- as I have said in multiple posts -- and I think we have every reason to expect that the game is continually getting more and more refined (i.e. better). No doubt some will disagree, but I am thankful to have been along for the ride during my own past fifty years.

 

[Superchunk77]

Are you sure that's not cause you are looking at the low quality version. Cause it's not blurry at all too me.

Also the mage is facing the beholder it's beside her, Minsc is focused on the enemies below.

It's the brush stroke style that makes it fuzzy or blurry looking. The mage's position is very unclear, it almost looks like she's beside and in front of the beholder at the same time. Plus how is she casting spells while within the monster's anti-magic cone? Minsc's sight line isn't looking at the enemies below, it's too high. It's just weird looking, like the artist painted the figures all separately and pasted them together at the very end.

 

[Superchunk77]

not so sure about that...

View attachment 366261

Looks good to me!

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Plus how is she casting spells while within the monster's anti-magic cone?

By not being in the anti-magic cone.

 

[TiQuinn]

Plus how is she casting spells while within the monster's anti-magic cone?

Big time “This movie sucks because everyone knows Druids can’t shape change into owlbears” energy.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

It's the brush stroke style that makes it fuzzy or blurry looking. The mage's position is very unclear, it almost looks like she's beside and in front of the beholder at the same time. Plus how is she casting spells while within the monster's anti-magic cone? Minsc's sight line isn't looking at the enemies below, it's too high. It's just weird looking, like the artist painted the figures all separately and pasted them together at the very end.

Upon closer look, none of the beholder's eyes are actually pointed at Vajra, not even the central eye, which seems to be looking over and past the heroes, in the direction of the mimic. She's literally almost under the beholder, within 5 feet, if her light means anything. The cone could be just missing her staff because she just activated it on her turn, and the beholder hasn't targeted her yet.

Technically, the Beholder chooses at the start of its turn where the Cone is directed. Maybe it plans to let her waste a spell slot or staff charge, then negate the effect once she has its full attention? Who knows? But it is a great piece of art, and there can be all kinds of reasons why the scene works. I like using my imagination to dream up stories to justify cool art.

That said, the Blackstaff is only a Legendary item, not an Artifact, so it should be able to be affected by the Antimagic Cone (which works like Antimagic Field).