Five Takeaways From the 2025 Monster Manual

The 2025 Monster Manual is the missing puzzle piece for Dungeons & Dragons' recent Fifth Edition revisions, with reworked monsters that hit harder and make combat more exciting at every level. Released in February, the new Monster Manual drives home many of the design choices made in other parts of D&D's core rulebooks. Building off of a decade's worth of lessons about how DMs use statblocks and how players tend to handle combat, the Monster Manual features creatures with streamlined abilities meant to speed up combat without sacrificing the "fun" of fighting in the game. Plus, the book includes a ton of gorgeous new artwork that depicts D&D's iconic monsters at their most threatening. Here are five of my biggest takeaways from the new Monster Manual.

1) Revamped Legendary Actions, With More Power Than Before.

One of the big goals of the new Monster Manual was to redesign monsters to have them punch harder but simultaneously make them easier to run. This design ethos can be seen in many revamped monster statblocks, especially at higher Challenge Ratings. Lair actions are now incorporated into the statblock, with monsters typically gaining access to an additional Legendary Resistance and Legendary Action while in their lair. Additionally, many of the Legendary Actions are much more powerful than their 5E equivalents, with creatures usually gaining more dangerous options.

For instance, all of the dragons have lost their functionally worthless "Detect" action and instead have access to new spellcasting options or more powerful attacks. The Adult Blue Dragon, as an example, can cast Shatter as a Legendary Action or it can cast Invisibility on itself and then move up to half its speed. While not as strong as the dragon's standard actions, the Adult Blue Dragon can now do a lot more over the course of a round then simply deal moderate amounts of damage and soak up hits from opponents.

2) Either Attack Rolls or Saving Throws, Not Both

Another major streamlining within rulesets is that monster attacks with effects are either triggered with a failed saving throw OR a successful attack roll. This should significantly speed up combat by reducing the number of rolls made during a game. As an example, the Bearded Devil's 2014 statblock included a Beard attack that damaged on a successful hit and forced its target to make a Constitution saving throw or be Poisoned. In the 2025 Monster Manual, the Bearded Devil's Beard attack deals damage and automatically inflicts the Poisoned condition on a successful attack.

There's two major consequences to this. The first is that only one dice roll is needed to determine the success or failure of a certain attack or ability. The second is that a creature is more often able to threaten player characters at their intended level. By having a creature's full attack trigger based on a single success instead two successes (or I suppose a success combined with a separate creature's failure), it radically changes the dynamics of many D&D combats.

3) Yes, The Art Is Fantastic

Keeping with another theme of the 2024/2025 Core Rulebooks, the artwork in the new Monster Manual is frankly fantastic. There are a lot of D&D players, myself included, who love to look through the Monster Manual and other bestiaries primarily for the art and lore. Those players should be more than happy with this new book, which contains artwork for every single monster in the book. What's more, much of the artwork shows the monsters in action. The Chasme, for example, looks much more threatening in the 2025 Monster Manual, with art showing the demon hunched over an adventurer with its probiscus covered in blood. Compare that imagery to the 2014 Monster Manual, which just has the chasme standing in profile.

One comment made to me by Jeremy Crawford was that Wizards had found that monsters without art tended to be used less often, so I'm expecting the trend of more art to continue in future books.

4) A Handful of Interesting New Mechanics

While not found widely in the new Monster Manual, there are a handful of new (or at least very uncommon) mechanics. The Empyrean, for instance, has a Sacred Weapon attack that deals damage and Stuns its target. However, the target can choose to bypass the Stunned condition by taking additional damage. Meanwhile, the Arch Hag has multiple abilities that curse their opponent, taking away their ability to use Reactions or spells with verbal components. Additionally, the hag has a bonus action that deals automatic damage to anyone cursed by the witch.

Finding new mechanics in the Monster Manual is rare, but they represent some interesting innovation that hopefully will be incorporated with future statblocks. Not every creature needs stacking abilities, or "pick your poison" choices, but I love these and want to see them more often in the future.

5) Species-Free NPCs

Over the past few weeks, Wizards has revealed several monsters with new creature classification types. Goblins, aarakocra, lizardfolk, kobolds, and kenku are all now classified as non-humanoids. It's interesting that non-humanoid species often have multiple statblocks with unique abilities, but that the humanoid statblocks are meant to include elves, dwarves, orcs, humans, and more. I'm assuming (given that Eberron: Forge of the Artificer is bringing back the Warforged) that D&D won't remove non-humanoid species as playable species, but it feels like there's a deliberate push to make all humanoids interchangeable, at least when it comes to these NPC stats.

It's a shame that Wizards seems to have done away with templates in the new Monster Manual because they'd be useful for transforming a generic guard or scout into a Drow guard or a Dragonborn scout. I don't think these would be hard to homebrew if necessary, but I do feel like this is one of the bigger misses in the Monster Manual. Hopefully, we'll see more specialization in the future, and the Monster Manual opted to focus on monsters instead of highly specific statblocks.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They should have just made the Eberron orc the standard orc. It is like the one time they have ever gotten it right.

The 5E 2024 orc is just a noble savage trope.

They don't have inherent primitivism/aren't in "a state of nature", so they can't really be Noble Savages. The whole heart of that trope is that beings untarnished by civilization are innately morally better than "civilized men".

I'd say they're the old Proud Warrior Race/Honorable Warrior Race, but WotC decided that the Warrior bit was a bit too specific/edgy (I mean, fair enough, I can see it), so they're sorta generic.

And yeah I agree that they should have just taken the Eberron style approach and run with it. Big tough people who are close to nature, love to farm, but fierce in war, and so on. Ironically kind of a good match to be friends with halflings, but this ain't Tolkien so that's fine!

 

[Corinnguard]

They don't have inherent primitivism/aren't in "a state of nature", so they can't really be Noble Savages. The whole heart of that trope is that beings untarnished by civilization are innately morally better than "civilized men".

I'd say they're the old Proud Warrior Race/Honorable Warrior Race, but WotC decided that the Warrior bit was a bit too specific/edgy (I mean, fair enough, I can see it), so they're sorta generic.

And yeah I agree that they should have just taken the Eberron style approach and run with it. Big tough people who are close to nature, love to farm, but fierce in war, and so on. Ironically kind of a good match to be friends with halflings, but this ain't Tolkien so that's fine!

Level Up presents a more interesting take on Orc culture.

The simple name “orc” often has the prejudice of thousands of years of conflict bearing down upon it. Many orcs are shackled to a simplistic portrayal of war and blood, and are used to hearing the title “orc” spat with the same venom as the titles of “demon” or “invader.” Orcs often either live with these accusations, or distance themselves from anyone that would spout them.

Orcs are not inherently evil but tend to follow their impulses and instincts—which often gets them into trouble. They are passionate and tend to pity the comparatively demure, tame emotions of their neighbors. An orc in love burns with unbridled passion, a terrified orc experiences the primordial horror of the end of days, and an enraged orc can see a minor slight as an insult and challenge to their very being. Any and all of these emotions can get them into trouble, but it’s the rage that’s most remembered.

Easily rallied to a cause, many tyrants over the millenia have roused orcs into fearsome war hordes. Once a rallying cry goes out it can keep building momentum and growing in number until dozens of orcish tribes work themselves into a frenzy. A war horde is less of an army and more of a solid wall of passionate orcish anger. Once the object of their rage has been obliterated and their instigator reaps the rewards, most simply lay their weapons down and return home.

Sadly, war hordes are the first and last impression in many minds of what encompasses an orc tribe. Those who venture to orcish homelands are often surprised at the artistic havens they find instead of war camps. Orcish hunters and gatherers provide enough surplus food to support ample leisure time, and most orcs spend the majority of their time pursuing their passions. Orc territory is often filled with countless friendly brawls, gorgeous tapestries and carvings, and orcish chants and throat songs that recount the history of generations.

Depending on what passion has won the day, life within an orc tribe can be carefree or filled with violence. While orcish tribe members are usually orc or half-orcs themselves, most tribes welcome all comers. Whether the tribe spends its time singing chants or demolishing armies, it’s not uncommon to see other humanoids covered in orcish brands right alongside them. However your character was raised, they were moulded and influenced by the orcish tribe around them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They should have just made the Eberron orc the standard orc. It is like the one time they have ever gotten it right.

The 5E 2024 orc is just a noble savage trope.

What exactly makes the Eberron orc special? How are they different from, say, a human?

 

[Corinnguard]

What exactly makes the Eberron orc special?

Well, if the Eberron setting was made using Level Up, Orc characters would get to choose from three distinct Orc cultures. The Ghaash'kala, the Jhorash'tar, and the Shadow Marches orcs.

 

[Reynard]

What exactly makes the Eberron orc special? How are they different from, say, a human?

That is the wrong question, and it belies one of the ongoing issues with D&D races -- humans can have different cultures, but orcs (or elves or dwarves or gnolls) can't. Eberron orcs have a culture steeped in nature and fighting to protect the world for elder evils and demons. They are still mechanically 3.5 orcs, because Eberron was made for 3.5, so they are powerful and less intellectual than humans on average.

Of course, when I say D&D 2024 should just have used Eberron orcs, i only mean that insofar as they should have used any built in lore or extensive cultural description.

I think the PHB should have as little lore in it as possible, because the point should be to let people build their own worlds (or use a published one).
"Orcs are similar in size to humans, though they tend to be more heavily muscled and possess more bestial features. Stereotypes of orcs include warlike, tribal cultures and a penchant for raiding or mercenary lifestyles. But like all stereotypes, these likely incomplete or even wrong."
I would also start the entire race section with a disclaimer that it is up to the players and GM to decide what any particular group, culture or species is like.

 

[Voadam]

What exactly makes the Eberron orc special? How are they different from, say, a human?

Mostly history and cultures and specific focuses.

They are different from standard D&D orcs in their multiple integrated cultures and religions such as druidic (being one of the first races to adopt druidism), khyber cultists and other religions, more civilized tribes of the Shadow Marches who welcomed human refugees into their culture and now have many half-orcs, noble barbarian orcs who keep demon wastes contained, barbarian raiders on the dwarven Mror holds, random more raidery orcs, etc. with a more predominant druidic neutral rather than CE base for the orc population overall and more of a focus on connecting to nature.

Khorvaire (the main continent) humans are more imperial and kingdom based renaissance and pulp post WWI Europe culturally and less tribal or nature based. Religiously they have the Sovereign Host D&D pantheism, Blood of Vol philosophy, and Thranish sort of fantasy Christian church type setup religions. Sarlona humans have the whole psionics predominance and psionic master culture thing going on.

 

[Sacrosanct]

When I first saw the changes to orcs in the MM, and the essential removal of them outside of generic "use this stat block", I saw an opportunity to flesh them out as traditional adversaries with fully fleshed out cultures (HORDE). Here is an example of a couple of them (there are almost a dozen orc and goblin clans):

Classic adversaries deserve to be varied and detailed, in my opinion. The key is to avoid the traditional problematic areas (like dark skinned = inherently evil), so something like this was also needed:

 

[Micah Sweet]

That is the wrong question, and it belies one of the ongoing issues with D&D races -- humans can have different cultures, but orcs (or elves or dwarves or gnolls) can't. Eberron orcs have a culture steeped in nature and fighting to protect the world for elder evils and demons. They are still mechanically 3.5 orcs, because Eberron was made for 3.5, so they are powerful and less intellectual than humans on average.

Of course, when I say D&D 2024 should just have used Eberron orcs, i only mean that insofar as they should have used any built in lore or extensive cultural description.

I think the PHB should have as little lore in it as possible, because the point should be to let people build their own worlds (or use a published one).
"Orcs are similar in size to humans, though they tend to be more heavily muscled and possess more bestial features. Stereotypes of orcs include warlike, tribal cultures and a penchant for raiding or mercenary lifestyles. But like all stereotypes, these likely incomplete or even wrong."
I would also start the entire race section with a disclaimer that it is up to the players and GM to decide what any particular group, culture or species is like.

In Level Up, any heritage/species can be any culture. This is to my mind simply a better way to handle it. It solves the issue entirely IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mostly history and cultures and specific focuses.

They are different from standard D&D orcs in their multiple integrated cultures and religions such as druidic (being one of the first races to adopt druidism), khyber cultists and other religions, more civilized tribes of the Shadow Marches who welcomed human refugees into their culture and now have many half-orcs, noble barbarian orcs who keep demon wastes contained, barbarian raiders on the dwarven Mror holds, random more raidery orcs, etc. with a more predominant druidic neutral rather than CE base for the orc population overall and more of a focus on connecting to nature.

Khorvaire (the main continent) humans are more imperial and kingdom based renaissance and pulp post WWI Europe culturally and less tribal or nature based. Religiously they have the Sovereign Host D&D pantheism, Blood of Vol philosophy, and Thranish sort of fantasy Christian church type setup religions. Sarlona humans have the whole psionics predominance and psionic master culture thing going on.

That's a nice setting choice, but I still think something like Level Up's system would be better for a core book.

 

[Voadam]

That's a nice setting choice, but I still think something like Level Up's system would be better for a core book.

I think a culture and racial/species split as separate mechanics works better as well even for the specific setting. Having common cultural traits for Shadow Marches humans, half-orcs, and orcs fits in with the narrative of the Shadow Marches orcs welcoming in refugees and integrating them.