D&D (2024) 2025's Ancient Green Dragon Stat Block From The New Monster Manual

The new ancient green dragon from the 2025 Monster Manual was previewed at Gen Con.

​

 

[MNblockhead]

Yes but I hope they changed their mind. I brough up in surveys I was not a fan. I don't care if the D section is large.

There are, unfortunately (to me, based on my preferences), many DMs who want less fluff and more stat blocks. They want the monster manual to focus on being an efficient tool for running games.

For me, a monster manual is more than a tool, it is a book to read, browse, and take inspiration from. And with D&D Beyond, it should be a moot argument. I can easily pull up a stat block in DDB or in a VTT. But not everyone is running games with digital tools and they want to have more stat blocks and less fluff in the printed books. I'm guessing WotC is getting more of this feedback than the feedback you or I give as this seems to be the trend. The fluff will come out in monster-category specific books like Fizban's and the Giants book. Fluffy MMs like the 2014 MM and Volo's seem to be disfavored.

 

[MNblockhead]

My bad; I did not intend to venture too far away from the statblock element.

Change of topic: art is great, as is the serpentine dragon design, but I find that inverted horn that it has on its chin bizarre. Does it serve any purpose? Is it a beard? I don’t recall it in the concept art.

For courtship?

Not sure if the artist was thinking about this, but in real life, reptiles with with horns (both snakes and lizards) are almost always sit and wait predators. Also in real life some species of reptiles will have variety in terms of horns in the same brood. So dragon horns may just be an individual variation, rather than common to all members of the species (up to DM world building).

Having a horn come down from the jaw like that is more likely a tusk (the only animals I can think of with "horns" from the lower parts of their heads are those with exoskeletons, like insects). Or it is neither and just a decorative flesh that becomes rigid when it is threatened. If a tusk, maybe it is used to dig/plow through forest ground cover, which might be important for younger green dragons hunting burrowing animals in the forest.

 

[MNblockhead]

Is that fun?

For how I run green dragons, yes. High level characters have ways to mitigate this and in my games a green dragon is not going to be a random encounter but regional antagonist and part of a long story arc.

 

[dave2008]

I'm a bit torn. When running and prepping games, I prefer to have green dragon under G. Just easier to flip to that page. I don't want to flip to dragon and then further flip through the many dragon pages to the one I want. But when reading through and browsing the book, it is more flavorful to have a section on dragons and have some nice fluffy lore to read about dragons in general. I fear that putting each dragon in alphabetic order in the book based on the type of dragon will mean cutting down on fluff. One thing a learned over the course of the 2014 edition is that most DMs seem to prefer a fluff light approach and getting as many stat blocks as possible into the page count. I fear that the Volos Guide approach is as obsolete as Volos Guide, which bums me out a bit as it was by far my favorite 2014 era D&D book.

I know we have Fizban's Guide and the Giants book. But having a monster book with a good collection of monsters well fleshed out and with sample lairs was a real treat.

Yep, I thought Volo's was great and was hoping it would be followed with many books it a similar format. Unfortunately that was not the case.

 

[MNblockhead]

I am thinking about it. I am still working on getting my "monsters by level" all figured out (real close) as I don't really want to use CR any more. And I need to finish up my Tiamat pdf (64 pages) that will be my last thing to use CR I think

I also feel some of my dragons might be a bit OP. Anyway, probably have something done before the 2025 MM comes out!

Emphasis mine. Please don't let that hold you back. Just put a caveat in the introduction.

I run games for very experienced players. It is difficult to challenge them running D&D 5e and keeping to expectations for challenge ratings etc.

After 10 years of running games for mostly the same group of players, I've gotten much better at tweaking encounters and monster stat blocks, setting up challenging environments, and playing antagonists to their fullest. But I appreciate having others do some of the heavy lifting and am always on the look out for challenging, flavorful, monsters with well thought-out stat blocks. Monsters that are challenging but still "fit" into D&D mechanics with more thought given to making them challenging beyond moar damage and bloated HP.

One reason I've taken a break from D&D is because I find the system requires too much work on my part as a DM to make satisfactory encounters.

 

[dave2008]

For example, if you had a line like:
Immunities: Acid, Blinded, Lightning, Poison, Poisoned, Stunned, Thunder, Unconscious; Bludgeoning, Piercing, Slashing from non-magical, non-silvered attacks

I think it's just hard to read.

I have already been doing this (combing conditions and damages) and I separate the types with ";" you will not that WotC followed the same idea in their 2024 stat block. Ancient Green has:

Immunities Poison; Poisoned

I may be harder to read, but saves a bunch of space, which as a DM I like. I also don't like have to read two lines to find out what my creature is immune too. I prefer them all on one line and happy WotC is following in my footsteps!

Currently, no - you are correct; however, I am thinking of what has been reported in the 2024 printing (there is a Bloodied condition). If a Bloodied condition exists, then it might trigger other events (some feature that turns on when the creature is Bloodied).

The 2024 rules are out now and Bloodied is a thing in 2024, but it is not a condition. Some PC features key off of it, but as of yet I don't think we have seen any monsters that do.

 

[dave2008]

I am aware it is in the passive initiative, but I don't think that is something that will be commonly used on such an important monster as this. Unless, as a DM, everyone rolls initiative while I'm setting up the map, and everyone rolls under a 23.

I think using the passive initiative is a great DM time saver (instead of rolling). However, less so with a solo monster like a dragon

 

[dave2008]

Emphasis mine. Please don't let that hold you back. Just put a caveat in the introduction.

I run games for very experienced players. It is difficult to challenge them running D&D 5e and keeping to expectations for challenge ratings etc.

After 10 years of running games for mostly the same group of players, I've gotten much better at tweaking encounters and monster stat blocks, setting up challenging environments, and playing antagonists to their fullest. But I appreciate having others do some of the heavy lifting and am always on the look out for challenging, flavorful, monsters with well thought-out stat blocks. Monsters that are challenging but still "fit" into D&D mechanics with more thought given to making them challenging beyond moar damage and bloated HP.

One reason I've taken a break from D&D is because I find the system requires too much work on my part as a DM to make satisfactory encounters.

I am working on revising 5e monsters to have levels instead of CR: Monsters by Level These monsters are based on an average PC with magic items etc. So 1 monster of level 5 = 1 level 5 PC, so that it would be a 50/50 between the two.

I plan to switch to using those guidelines when they are done. When I do that, my monsters will definitely be more challenging (and easier to use to I hope).

 

[GreatestHonor]

My impressions of this new stat block.

Positives:
The statblock is much neater. Many of the formatting changes seem to be for the better.
More reactions makes the dragon feel like its reacting to an enemy’s actions more than just sitting there after a hit.

Glad to see spellcasting is now a part of the stat block and not just a variant rule.

EDIT: Almost forgot, the set initiative will be a huge time saver for my table. We’re gonna start using that at our next session.

Negative:
Wish they kept the serif fonts. Kind of dismisses the fantasy feeling for me.

I dont like reactions completely replacing legendary actions. Not to say I’m against creatures with multiple reactions, but I feel that each portrays a different creature.

Sad to see the lack of flavor text in things like the breath weapon, but it ultimately helps keep the stat block tighter.

Neutral:
If they’ve kept lair actions around, i think the lair changes should be written there, not in the main statblock.

 

[TheDungeonMathster]

I have modified my version of the stat block based on previous comments:
It's 47 lines versus 53, and it has hanging indents.