D&D (2024) D&D Monster Manual (2025)

[Kobold Avenger]

Yeah, although I’m a fan of Goblinoids having Fey Ancestry, the PC race being humanoid and the monsters being fey is definitely weird to me. Eladrin have the same problem.

I think for player characters, having Fey Ancestry is usually better mechanically than being Fey. Being Fey protects you against Charm Person and maybe a couple of other spells that specifically affect Humanoids, and a lot of monsters are using less spells in the PHB now and more custom abilities. But Fey Ancestry is an advantage to saves against or to end the charmed condition, it works just as well against Charm Person as it does against Charm Monster or some custom monster ability.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Depends on what you mean by ranged brute. If you mean something that is more effective at range than in melee, yes, absolutely- 4e had an entire category of monsters like this: artillery. The best example (which, unfortunately, doesn't have an exact equivalent in 5e) was the arbalaster (there's a clockwork rough equivalent in MMM). But you could have archers of all kinds, rock-throwing giants, flame-hurling cambions, etc.

A few more examples (again, not necessarily from 5e- which just tells me that there may be flaws in the selection of monsters in 5e) would include arrowhawks, some dragons, manticores, the pyrolisk, some spellcasters, corruption corpses, flameskulls, spitting snakes, acid spiders, etc.

I think Giants are an interesting example, because Giants are melee brutes... but are also effective at range.

Flameskulls are effective at range in 5e... but their best ability is still fireball which works in melee, especially since they are immune to fire. Cambions are the same way, equally effective in range or melee. Dragons have always been effective in melee. Manticores did used to have the spine throwing, but I've never heard of them being weak in melee either.

It is actually far more common to see monsters that are effective at both range and melee, rather than only range.

But maybe this is an edition thing. I just, as mentioned, reject the idea that kiting is some out-of-the-box tactic, when it is the most effective tactic against a large percentage if not the majority of all threats in the books.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I haven't read everyone's responses to this, so sorry if this has been gone over already.

While I can see why some people (like you) may not like the change, I think it's pretty cool. It takes them back to their roots as fairy tale monsters. But more importantly, D&D has always had too many humanoids and it never made any sense to me. Like, did you really need hobgoblins and orcs, or goblins and kobolds, or bugbears and ogres? It's just a holdover from the days before people thought to just give monsters more hit dice or class levels. It makes the ecology of the world ridiculous. Especially when you consider that hobgoblins are supposed to be these great (and lawful, therefore organized) conquering warriors and yet how often is that reflected on the map? As fae, they can mostly live in the Faewild until they make raids through a convenient portal to the Prime.

I mean, I can see how it's annoying that they've been changed to fae because then they can't be affected by a lot of spells, but, well, to me, that's an added bonus.

Single biggest gripe about the various humanoid monsters that I have. Seriously, it is so aggravating to be told Hobgoblins have empires, but to have no hobgoblin empires.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What I like is that "burning" is general rule now, so I can just saying burning for any fire damage if I want without having to explain what it does or how to end the effect. I really appreciate that!

Agreed, that is really nice. And then if you want to improve it, you can while still keeping that common core

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm somewhat weirded out that the incubus doesn't get a draining kiss. Are they going to be vastly different forms? Can we have female incubi and male succubi? (I mean, of course we can, but what does the lore say?) Are they trying to avoid the tang of man(-shaped monster)-on-woman sexual assault (while ignoring that it's still assault if a woman-shaped monster does it)?

Yeah, I caught that too. I'm actually not that weirded out by it, because it sort of fits with old myths about the two. Incubus means "the one who lays above" or something like that, and they are tied with old sleep paralysis demons, which fit the dream spell, ability to cause sleep, and the ability to prevent rest. Sucubus was "the one who lays below" and has usually been tied to the more sexual, temptation side of things

Of course, this means I want to have a Concubus statblock too, just for the giggles, but we can't have everything.

 

[Chaosmancer]

it no longer distinguishes between things. If you turn invisible, the dog still had a better chance of finding you due to hearing and smell. Now they are just generally slightly better, but the different senses no longer matter.

But they really never mattered. If the party just stealthed normally without the invisibility spell... people can still use smelling or hearing. The only time it could matter is, if for the sole purpose of getting past a pack of dogs you knew were there, you found a way to remove all your scents and all your sounds from existence, the only way of which I know being the silence spell combined with Pass without a Trace... which is a whole lot of effort and 99% of the time never came up.

Instead, the DM, if they remembered, just always rolled with advantage, and if they succeeded, they would describe it as a sound or smell based check.

This also was not the only thing I referenced, I prefer bite and claw over rend, at a minimum for higher CR monsters. Dragons etc. absolutely should do different things, for a lion I do not care.

And this wasn't something I was discussing. I've had this discussion, and I disagree because by making the melee attack more consistent, they were able to make the statblock more interesting. A dragon isn't interesting because it can hit you with its tail or bite you, it is interesting because poison seeps from its scales in a miasma and it has powerful magics to cloud your mind.

And crocodile can get a bite and a tail attack

 

[Micah Sweet]

What lore are you talking about? Original D&D? BECMI? 1e? 2e? 3.x? 4e? Or 5.0... Because none of these use the same lore.

1e forward to 3.5 used a pretty consistent lore throughline, and OD&D/BX/BECMI were never presented as updated versions of that same game like the above were, and in any case that's a very broad statement. Do you have a specific objection?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then as I have asked you for months now, do you have any evidence that the designers have not made the game they wanted to make? Because you keep stating that if they had just done things in the manner you would have preferred, then they could do that. Meaning you must have some evidence that they didn't get to do that.

But, you don't have that evidence. What you have is the insistence that the game would have been superior if they followed your design, instead of theirs, because your design is the one they really wanted to follow.

I don't care if they make a game I want (I have the games I want), but I do think they should have made a game more different from 2014 than 5.5 turned out to be, and then called it out as a new edition. They could have done whatever they wanted with it. Do you really think that, creatively, 5.5 is the game the WotC designers wanted to make?

Once again, this question is NOT about my personal preference in a game I want to play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, honestly, canon is just a pain in the neck. Even the most carefully curated, exquisitely mapped canon ends up with problems.

And, as I stated earlier, many of these changes are taking us BACK or emphasizing things that were too subtle before. A Shambling Mound dealing lightning damage is a change to the lore... but it makes so much sense and ties in with their abilities so much better than not having that before.

Yeah, making Goblins fey is a change back to older understandings of what they were, and while it makes them immune to charm person... so are giant spiders, wolves, and zombies which are also classic starting enemies.

None of the latter are persons.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Single biggest gripe about the various humanoid monsters that I have. Seriously, it is so aggravating to be told Hobgoblins have empires, but to have no hobgoblin empires.

New settings, or at least expanded setting lore, would fix that issue.