D&D General The Revised Monster Manual was released 1 year ago today! How have you liked facing down and using the new monsters?

[mamba]

The only thing I really dislike is that Dragons, Demons, Devils, Giants...etc, are not lumped alphabetically under that heading. The other week I ran a fight with Hill Giants and Stone Giants, and it was just frustrating to keep swapping back and forth. Had they all been under Giant it would have been better.

yeah, I would not mind them going truly alphabetical, but all they did is establish a new idiosyncratic sequence in which some things are broken up (dragons by color) but others are still lumped together, and everyone now has to get used to this one even though I does not make more sense than the old one - and arguably less

 

[Clint_L]

Caveat: I run the MM through DDB, so while I acknowledge some weird organization choices in the physical edition, which I also own for reading purposes, these aren't a factor in how I use the new MM.

The monsters are significantly improved in most cases. They are tougher, and because their damage is now usually spread among different damage types (e.g. slashing AND lightning damage, etc.) they are more challenging against things like a barbarian's rage (note: this was a de facto nerf to barbarians; they are now clearly the weakest of the four main marrtial classes, IMO - fighters, paladins, monks, and barbarians).

The text descriptions have good flavour without too much lore, letting DMs choose how the creature fits in their setting. For me, this is a very positive change.

There are more flavourful options for a lot of monsters, making the battles more tactical, except...

Spellcasters SUCK. This is a change that began with Monsters of the Multiverse: primary casters now just get a handful of spells instead of full lists, including creatures such as liches and archmages. I HATE this change! It makes them way more predictable in combat. I understand that it makes running them easier for novices, but most DMs know the rules and aren't bothered by having multiple spell options to choose from. Fortunately, DDB makes it easy for me to just use the legacy versions of spellcasters in most cases.

I also dislike that fantasy staples like elves and orcs aren't individually represented. Yes, I know that you can use statblocks like "guard" for any of them, but that takes away a lot of flavour. How hard would it have been to have one or two representatives of those classic archetypes, with a special ability or two to make them distinct? Orc warrior, Elf scout, etc. This is made more strange by the fact that some other classic species are represented this way.

Alignment is still used. I know it's a legacy thing and some folks insist on it, but I strongly dislike it and wish they'd at least stuck with the MotM convention of putting the word "typically" in front of it. And yes, I know this is mentioned in the forward but it still irks me.

 

[Retreater]

You should really try the new monsters, especially if you already have the books. The old ones are badly balanced, finicky and all over the place. A lot of people have cited better results with less effort fielding the revised designs.

The only 5E game I run is a casual, very occasional game (once every 1-2 months). I've been hesitant to implement any of the new 2024 material because:
1) I own enough copies of the 2014 book to share and don't want anyone to feel obligated to purchase new books.
2) I don't want to switch rules on people who already aren't invested in precision in their games.
3) The adventures I run are 2014 and created by 3rd party publishers, including Arcane Library and Planet X Games, who use their own original monsters. It would be more work to convert/replace the creatures.

 

[Stormonu]

I believe that's just those particular goblins in the monster manual. I think they are supposed to represent a primordial or home plane version, but any other goblinoid will just use a regular humanoid statblock like Bandit or Guard. At least as a base template before you change it to be more goblin.

Yeah, that's the reason WotC gave, but I just don't buy it. There was no reason not to have a "typical" goblin/orc/bugbear/lizardfolk/etc. warrior stat block in the book as a humanoid separate from the generic Bandit/Guard and give the various humanoids their own nuanced fighting style like we saw in 4E & 2014. Especially to turn around and do that in Adventures in Faerun with the Drow.

 

[Stormonu]

yeah, I would not mind them going truly alphabetical, but all they did is establish a new idiosyncratic sequence in which some things are broken up (dragons by color) but others are still lumped together, and everyone now has to get used to this one even though I does not make more sense than the old one - and arguably less

They could have gone the other direction, almost like they did in 2014 and do it by creature type - blocking up all the Dragons, all the Fiends, Celestials, etc. in their own section. In the end, it's all just preference and I don't like the half-attempt they did in 2024 any better than the 2014 version of "All Monsters", then "All Beasts", then "All generic human(oid)s"

 

[Weiley31]

I think at the table there is room for the 2024 MM, ToV Monster Vault, and MM Enhanced books.

 

[mamba]

They could have gone the other direction, almost like they did in 2014 and do it by creature type - blocking up all the Dragons, all the Fiends, Celestials, etc. in their own section. In the end, it's all just preference and I don't like the half-attempt they did in 2024 any better than the 2014 version of "All Monsters", then "All Beasts", then "All generic human(oid)s"

I liked the beasts and NPCs in their separate sections, those two are easily enough to identify. The monsters either do as in 2014 or truly alphabetical, but not this new mix of more alphabetical but with weird exceptions

 

[Chaltab]

I think at the table there is room for the 2024 MM, ToV Monster Vault, and MM Enhanced books.

If only there was an easy way to import TOV Monsters into 5E VTTs.

 

[Gorg]

I picked up a copy on EBay for the sake of completeness. I'm a geek for Monster books, so had to have this one- even though I have no intention of switching to the latest "version" of the game.

I found it a mixed bag.

likes:
the layout seems very DM friendly. EZ to find hat you're looking for, and some extras to make building encounters easier.

higher level monsters got some needed buffing.

dislikes:

auto special damage attacks. No save, no way to mitigate the effect, just EFF YOU. No. Not in my game. And I'd walk from any game I played in that did it this way.

Same issue with stat blocks the last MM has: instead of giving us a straitforward way to adjust NPC's to match our parties- like 3e did- we get 3 separate stat blocks. low, med, high. I find that they rarely match up that well.

in the same vein, NPC spellcasters are really weird! I'd prefer a strait up "x level Wizard" for example, because it would be easier to customize their spells, etal. ( it annoys me that EVERY wizard we meet has the exact same spells...) Spell lists seem unusually short, too.

I have been mainly converting older adventures for play with 2014 rules. ( the hardbound 5e premade campaigns just don't fit my style... And I find them a PITA to actually work out of) Simple swaps for the current monsters, spells and items. Should be easy, right? Nope. The above nit picks make them more complicated than necessary.

The lack of core D&D monsters, like Drow, Orcs, and Duergar are a huge turnoff for me. As are a lot of the unnecessary type changes ( was a humanoid, now a fey, for example), and the changing of longstanding lore. (Dryad, I'm looking at YOU!) WHY???


All in all, I will likely not use it much. 2014+ Volo's still works great- as do the 3rd party 5e books, like Creature Codex from Kobold Press. (You want Fey creatures? Good Lord, but did they go all-in on those in the 2 BIG volumes I own, lol)

 

[Gorg]

I did not buy the physical version of the 5e Monster Manual 2024, I bought the digital version for Foundry VTT, so some of the things mentioned I have not experienced.

Overall: Simplifying the monsters overall, but specifically the abilities and writing them down more efficiently is imho the biggest advantage of the new MM. I can now quickly glance at monster and run it right out of the box. Making monsters simpler to run is a huge, huge bonus in my book!

The 'removal' of Lair actions I approve of (disregarding the mostly harmless effects), I found it extremely quirky and the added strength didn't add anything to the CR or the reward, which I found odd. I would expect that this would lead to a lot of D&D sessions being reduced to luring monsters from their lairs and slay them outside before claiming the treasures inside...

The art... I dislike quite a bit of it, and especially dislike the shared scenes in the MM. I do like scenes in general, but I don't if that's the only depiction of the creature in question. In some cases it's difficult to determine quickly what is what and showing players shows them everything in that creature 'family'.

The removal of drow, duergar and orcs in the MM I find particularly egregious, and the replacement stats are really bad, especially for the drow. Some claimed this was due that these creatures were no longer to be viewed as monsters, due to 'racist' perceptions. Imho that kind of reasoning made me facepalm, but OK, I can accept that to a certain degree for other people's sake. But then WotC came out with Adventures in Faerun: You want Drow stats? Here, pay $75 for this book! At this point I'm curious which $75 books in the future will feature the Duergar and Orcs (of course one per $75 book)... Sidenote: drow, duergar and orcs are in almost all settings, FR, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Eberron, Spelljammer, Planescape, Mystera, etc.

What I find annoying in this 5e 2014/2024 is the lack of simple treasure. You're telling me goblins or bandits don't have a few copper pieces on them? Also the changes to things from Humanoid to Fey for example really mess with some adventures, i mostly just ignore such restrictions.

That last paragraph... SO MUCH THIS!!! In fact, the incedibly meagre treasure economy in general. It's one of the reasons I like converting old TSR modules and OSR ones to 2014 for play. They did treasure better.