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

[Remathilis]

Have they posted any versions of the lycanthropes? I'm curious how they will handle weapon immunity with them, especially considering the changes to the likes of the stone golem.

Nothing official, but they moved them to regeneration that was negated by silver in Van Richten, so they might do something like that.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Nothing official, but they moved them to regeneration that was negated by silver in Van Richten, so they might do something like that.

On one hand I like that. On the other hand, if you have those mechanics, damage dealt, even with silvered weapons heals. Just not immediately. This rather feels like troll regeneration.

I'd probably like damage tresholds or damage reduction like heavy armor mastery.

 

[dave2008]

On one hand I like that. On the other hand, if you have those mechanics, damage dealt, even with silvered weapons heals. Just not immediately. This rather feels like troll regeneration.

I'd probably like damage tresholds or damage reduction like heavy armor mastery.

It is more on theme with the modern idea of werewolves though. Modern media often, if not always, has werewolves having incredible regenerative abilities. It started at least with the 1981 film The Howling (if not before) and has only grown in popularity from there. Pretty much any genre fiction I see these days has them having super regenerative abilities.

 

[Micah Sweet]

On one hand I like that. On the other hand, if you have those mechanics, damage dealt, even with silvered weapons heals. Just not immediately. This rather feels like troll regeneration.

I'd probably like damage tresholds or damage reduction like heavy armor mastery.

Still don't know why those fell out of fashion. It seems like a more logical model for how that sort of thing is depicted in the fiction. I still get irritated that resistance means you always take some damage, no matter how small the source. Damage thresholds and DR would fix that.

 

[Remathilis]

Still don't know why those fell out of fashion. It seems like a more logical model for how that sort of thing is depicted in the fiction. I still get irritated that resistance means you always take some damage, no matter how small the source. Damage thresholds and DR would fix that.

Nine times out of ten, the players just sought the bypass mechanic anyway, hence the golf bag of swords issue.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nine times out of ten, the players just sought the bypass mechanic anyway, hence the golf bag of swords issue.

It doesn't matter if there's a way around it. There are always ways to make getting that bypass more difficult if you want. The point is having the restriction because it makes more logical sense in-setting than not having it. That's my opinion, anyway.

 

[Oofta]

It is more on theme with the modern idea of werewolves though. Modern media often, if not always, has werewolves having incredible regenerative abilities. It started at least with the 1981 film The Howling (if not before) and has only grown in popularity from there. Pretty much any genre fiction I see these days has them having super regenerative abilities.

Resistance to damage other than silver goes back to at least the 19th century. Total immunity to anything but silver hasn't been consistently represented though. In many cases it just takes a lot more firepower to kill them if not using silver as in An American Werewolf in London.

 

[the Jester]

So, are we losing things, or are they being repackaged?

Some of A, some of B.

 

[Faolyn]

The changing of official lore means next to nothing for any campaign. If there is a lore change that a gaming group doesn't like, they already have their established lore that they can and should stick with. Your campaign history is what you want it to be. It does not affect any table outside of the unreasonable expectation that lore never changes.

The old books with older lore are still available if desired, like on DM's Guild if you don't already have your own copies.

For example, my D&D campaign setting does not have Slaad. Like at all. An epic PC was able to erase them out of existence (which was pretty awesome). Changes in slaad lore do not mean they appear in my campaign.

Another example, "Gruumsh" isn't a thing in my world. My world has 2 types of orcs, even before the 2024 rules changed them. One are the pig-faced monstrous orcs, and the other are the "hotter" orcs, that the 2024 book better represents. They each have their own origin (transplanar in nature), but use the same stats. They differ in culture and society.

Both yes and no.

I mean, it's a hearty yes because tables make their own lore... or, at least, many do. There's a lot of tables that only use official lore and/or only run modules or whatever, in large part because they don't have the time, energy, or imagination to make their own, or somehow think that anything official is somehow superior to their own measly attempts at worldbuilding.

But it's also a bit of a no because, as I mentioned, every subsequent book will reflect the official lore. That makes it harder to disentangle the lore from the lore. As an example, I had to do a lot of rewriting to make Curse of Strahd fit with my preferred interpretation of Barovia because it added a bunch of really weird things I wasn't fond of (a walled town that ate mostly wolf meat, a town that had weekly you-will-have-fun-citizen festivals, the stupid, jokey epitaphs in the crypt) and removed things I liked (the Red Vargo Trading company, the occult shops of Vallaki, the entire town of Immol, everything I liked about Inajira). So, to keep the to the older lore, I had to do a lot of work, and in the end it felt like a mess. All in all, I would have been better off making my own adventure, but I've given up my dreams of having epic campaigns and realized my strengths lay in a more episodic style of play.

So this goes beyond replacing any slaadi in an adventure with some other monster. I like quite a bit of the new Ravenloft lore from VRGtR, and if I were to start up a new Ravenloft game I'd use it primarily. But if WotC were to put out a new sourcebook or adventure, it would be completely useless to someone who only wants the older lore.

 

[dave2008]

Resistance to damage other than silver goes back to at least the 19th century. Total immunity to anything but silver hasn't been consistently represented though. In many cases it just takes a lot more firepower to kill them if not using silver as in An American Werewolf in London.

And that tracks with the new mechanic (both regeneration and sensitivity to silver):

Regeneration. The loup garou regains 10 hit points at the start of each of its turns. If the loup garou takes damage from a silver weapon, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the loup garou’s next turn. The loup garou dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate.