D&D 5E Let’s Read Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.

[Alby87]

The thing is not the "change" of the lore, but the act of loosing the old one without a choice. VGM and MTF will go out of print really soon, if they aren't already. So new player's and DM will lose the possibility to choice what kind of Duergar Construct they want in their story or world. Can understand streaming the statblocks. I can also "belive" they want to generalize the lore to the "multiverse", but I'm worried about the really good lore was con the first 5 chapters of the two old books, and also these changes in the bestiary.

Maybe WotC will release a D&D Beyond only supplement to reintegrate this lore for "mature" and "consentient" audience?

 

[J-H]

Duergar Constructs (MToF)​

So, I need to elaborate a bit here. When we are talking about Duergar Constructs, we are not talking about Constructs built by the Duergar so much as we are talking about Duergar who have been turned into Constructs. In MToF, this was presented as some kind of Body-Horror punishment. In this book, they treat it more like an Iron Man suit. Which when worn grants fabulous powers and somehow changes their creature type from Humanoid (Dwarf) to Construct (Dwarf). This process is reversible (to an extent) with a short rest.

Duergar Hammerer

The Hammerer is a siege monster, allowing them to bash down walls and dig tunnels with relative ease. If you follow the DMGs object damage suggestions, it should take an average of two rounds for the Hammerer to smash a hole in a castle wall. Which leaves them digging a large sized tunnel in significantly less time.

The Hammerer has a melee reprisal attack, but despite being CR 2, is helpless against any kind of ranged attacks thanks to an abysmal 20’ movement speed. Which means its best use is digging a tunnel or breaching a wall to lead the attack. This will shift the encounter goal to being “Can you stop the hammerer before it breaches” instead of the traditional kill everything and then loot it.

In the changeover, the Hammerer had its Engine of Pain Reaction overhauled: No longer can you target the dwarf inside the machine, and it can follow up any melee attack with a single Hammer strike.

Duergar Screamer

Much like the Hammerer, the Screamer is a kind of digging machine that was reworked for war. Unlike the Hammerer, the Screamer isn’t a siege monster (honestly, that should have been a change) and instead attacks with a Drill and by using their AoE scream attack.

In combat, the Screamer is also helpless against ranged attacks due to being slow. However their Sonic Scream power can be used to knock melee enemies prone, which makes for a nice opening gambit after a wall has been breached. Or as a nice failsafe to prevent the PCs from reaching the Hammerer who is going to breach the wall.

The Screamer had the same changes to their Engine of Pain reaction that the Hammerer did, only they attack with a Drill instead of a Hammer.

The Hammerer and Screamer sound like adaptations of the two Automaton types from 3.5e's Monster Manual II.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

In essence, yes. But I wouldn't have thought of the encased-in-armor-as-punishment angle, so to me the original ToF write-up was a cool idea I wouldn't have produced myself. I don't want to lose cool ideas like that.

Ah. That's where we differ. I would totally have done that myself.

 

[Leatherhead]

To make it clear, the book does say that some Duergar are forced to live in the constructs by tyrants, and others volunteer for the augmentation. So while becoming a construct is no longer explicitly a punishment, it can still be forced upon someone if you need that story beat for anything.

 

[Faolyn]

In essence, yes. But I wouldn't have thought of the encased-in-armor-as-punishment angle, so to me the original ToF write-up was a cool idea I wouldn't have produced myself. I don't want to lose cool ideas like that.

I guess you're not as much into body horror as I am, then...

 

[JEB]

To make it clear, the book does say that some Duergar are forced to live in the constructs by tyrants, and others volunteer for the augmentation. So while becoming a construct is no longer explicitly a punishment, it can still be forced upon someone if you need that story beat for anything.

OK, much better. Adding options is good, taking them away is not.

 

[Leatherhead]

Dybbuk (MTof)

The Dybbuk is a demon, but you would be forgiven for not knowing that, seeing as how they like to ride around in a corpse and do the kind of stuff you would see in a schlocky horror movie. In their “natural” form, a Dybbuk looks kind of like a jellyfish.

Being demons, the Dybbuks are somewhat unpredictable in their behavior. But almost always default to some form of terrorizing the living via their meat-puppet. The more the demon knows about the corpse and their living victims the better, as it will allow them to do more depraved acts.

This being D&D, it’s possible that the deceased being might have something to say about a demon defiling their body and using it to terrorize the place. A ghost or similar apparition could be the one who gives the quest to stop the Dybbuk, or they might end up being a Red Herring if a third party hires your adventuring group to go slay an “Undead” creature.

For maximum dramatic effect, make sure the combat encounter starts with the Dybbuk already possessing a corpse. The Dybbuk also has the spell Phantasmal Force, which is a great way to set up an encounter, which can deal a bit of damage and eat up one of the party's actions for an extended amount of time thanks to the Temporary HPs granted by possessing a corpse.

The Demon will use a bonus action to twist the corpse in unnatural ways, causing a fear effect in any humanoid or beast that sees the display. Then it follow up by attacking with a tentacle. When the Dybbuk loses its temp HP, its ejected from the body, which allows the PCs a window to kill it. After being removed from the puppet, it will try to possess another corpse in range. The PCs can prevent this by mutilating any bodies in the area, which may be a moral conundrum. Should the demon sense an impending loss, it will Dimension Door away as fast as possible, making the creature very hard to stop unless it can be done quickly.

In the Changeover, the Dybbuk lost the ability to access its corpse puppets stats and memories, which normalizes the encounter at the cost of some nice flavor. Personally, I would try to retain the memories at least, for the horror factor. They also lost the mostly redundant Fear spell.

 

[JEB]

In the Changeover, the Dybbuk lost the ability to access its corpse puppets stats and memories, which normalizes the encounter at the cost of some nice flavor. Personally, I would try to retain the memories at least, for the horror factor.

Maybe they did that to justify the Dybbuk not having access to memorized spells, but I feel like they could have specified "memories other than spellcasting".

 

[Weiley31]

I agree, if I felt it were lost. But we're free to darken things up for groups that are okay with it, because...



This is probably true. It's also easier (and smarter from a business perspective) to make official darker versions in specific adventures (or worlds) and keep things fairly generically neutral in the core.

If anything, these kinds of changes leave 3PP (and WotC themselves, if they choose) free to make clearly branded darker content without the worry of controversy.

In essence, yes. But I wouldn't have thought of the encased-in-armor-as-punishment angle, so to me the original ToF write-up was a cool idea I wouldn't have produced myself. I don't want to lose cool ideas like that.

The thing is not the "change" of the lore, but the act of loosing the old one without a choice. VGM and MTF will go out of print really soon, if they aren't already. So new player's and DM will lose the possibility to choice what kind of Duergar Construct they want in their story or world. Can understand streaming the statblocks. I can also "belive" they want to generalize the lore to the "multiverse", but I'm worried about the really good lore was con the first 5 chapters of the two old books, and also these changes in the bestiary.

Maybe WotC will release a D&D Beyond only supplement to reintegrate this lore for "mature" and "consentient" audience?

Well I don't have to worry about losing out on anything since I already had a non-errata copy of Mord's Tome of Foes before getting the alt-cover Rules Expansion Gift set so I can have my dark and eat it too.


Wait...........how does one eat the Dark?

 

[Faolyn]

Well I don't have to worry about losing out on anything since I already had a non-errata copy of Mord's Tome of Foes before getting the alt-cover Rules Expansion Gift set so I can have my dark and eat it too.


Wait...........how does one eat the Dark?