D&D 5E (2024) Man I hate the organization of the 2024 Monster Manual

[Yaarel]

I've gone back to using the 3E Outsider to handle anything that isn't elemental, fiend or directly celestial. That covers ethereal, astral, slaad from limbo, modrons from Nirvana, etc. Subtypes can be used to differientiate what plane they are from. So, for example a Blue Slaad would be Outsider (Limbo, Slaad), while a Modron would be Outsider (Mechanus, Modron). Great Old Ones get to be Outsider (Far Realm).

Yeah, the "Astral" creature type is the same thing as the "Outsider" as a creature type. Within the Astral, Celestial and Fiend are Astral subsets that specialize in ethical concepts. Even Aberration is part of it, albeit a kind of "Anti-Astral", like unconscious versus conscious. The Astral is the realm of ideas that form reality.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of Astral domains within the Astral Sea "islands" that are "concepts" within the Astral mindscape, but not necessarily ethical concepts.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

I use my 14 MM and my cards together. I use the book to look for the monster(s) I want to use, then get the cards to use on my game. The cards are stored in binders organized by CR and then alphabetical for each CR. It does require knowing 2 things about a monster to locate the card CR and name, but I haven't found a way to organize the cards that is both easy to find a monster I know i want and to browse for a monster to fit a situation without using both resources.

I have tried organizing the cards several ways to try not to use the book, but for me this works well for my use case. However, I can flip through the cards in a certain CR and look at the monsters available.

I know digital tools like DDB make this easy, but I am done paying for things I will never own, and can be changed at anytime without notice.

I do find it interesting that the monster cards have the book and page number on the cards, but the spell cards do not.

 

[evilbob]

100% agree. It's quite a pain

 

[Bae'zel]

I actually prefer the current organization. I simply can't be bothered to remember whether an Incubus is a Devil or Demon. Or that Goblins are now Fey. But I'm definitely in the minority here: to each their own.

I just wish they included the page numbers in the additional indices (eg, grouped by type, CR etc.). That would have been nice.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

I just wish they included the page numbers in the additional indices (eg, grouped by type, CR etc.). That would have been nice.

This 100%, if they had done this the book would be so much better!

 

[Tonguez]

I actually prefer the current organization. I simply can't be bothered to remember whether an Incubus is a Devil or Demon. Or that Goblins are now Fey. But I'm definitely in the minority here: to each their own.

I just wish they included the page numbers in the additional indices (eg, grouped by type, CR etc.). That would have been nice.

problem with that is it presumes I know what an Incubus is - especially as they have changed them from the historic sex offender

if I'm a DM who wants a "dream demon" then where do I look?

 

[Yaarel]

if I'm a DM who wants a "dream demon" then where do I look?

Where the Fiend "creature type" is the criterion for a list monsters, probably it should mix the various tags, Devil, Demon, and Yugoloth, together in the same list without suborganization. So, the "Dream Demon" would be alphabetic under "D" within the Fiend list. "Succubus" would be under "S" in alphabetic order. "Incubus" would be under "I". (In 5e, the Incubus and Succubus can shapeshift into each other, gaining different stats, as noted in their respective stats.) "Hell Hound" would be under "H". "Imp" would be under "I".

I prefer "Abishai Red" to be under "A". But as long as all the Fiends are sensibly in a single perusable list, the "Red Abishai" being under "R" is tolerable.

The intro to the Fiend list itself would describe what a "Fiend" is, where it populates according to various settings, plus mention prominent lore such Blood War traditions of Planescape, and so on.

 

[Zaukrie]

This reminds me of something I've always wanted in a digital book that's intended for reference.

It should be possible to have multiple organization schemes you can flip between. There's obviously a use case for putting them by type, alphabetically, by CR and even something like by environment. Feels like a failure to really take advantage of the format that you can't easily do so.

Would require multiple editing efforts, layout, art, etc. That's not cheap or easy. Sure would be nice though.

 

[Zaukrie]

I actually prefer the current organization. I simply can't be bothered to remember whether an Incubus is a Devil or Demon. Or that Goblins are now Fey. But I'm definitely in the minority here: to each their own.

I just wish they included the page numbers in the additional indices (eg, grouped by type, CR etc.). That would have been nice.

Not including the page numbers is really bad design.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Not including the page numbers is really bad design.

I think the lack of page numbers in the index\reference portions of the book is a large part of the "it feels like the physical book was an after thought" views\complaints.