D&D 5E Monsters of the Multiverse Releases a Day Early

Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse is now available to buy, a day earlier than scheduled. While it releases most places tomorrow, you can grab it from D&D Beyond today.

Monsters of the Multiverse | Dungeons & Dragons

Discover a multiverse of lore with over 250 monsters, combined and updated from Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.

dnd.wizards.com

 

[Parmandur]

Also - there's the question of what we can expect in the future for 5e for monster books. It seems that VGtM and MToF are seen by WotC as experiments that ended up being something of a mixed bag - the format seems popular, but the actual lore became quickly outdated in some cases, and they were both seen as thematically very unfocused when they were published (even MToF's theme of "warring foes" kind of fell flat when they purposely included gnomes and halflings and specifically said they didn't have foes). FToD seems to have been created in response to this, especially with its much tighter theming and focus on one particular group of creatures. Should we assume we'll see FToD-style books for, say, undead or aberrations? Will creature types from the first two books be revisited with updated lore - will we see, say, an "extraplanar creatures" book with fiends in it (as well as celestials and others)? And will we see more compilations like MotM, for those who just want the stats?

Well, I thinknwe may see more Setting books, which kind of stole the flavor-plus-monsters role, by and large. Most of them have big bestisries, and now Spelljammer will have it's own small monster book...

 

[Parmandur]

Are you referring to the Spelljammer MC or are they releasing another standalone MC before 2024?

I am referring to that, yes, note thst it is called Monsterous Compendium Volume 1, and they did say when they released it that they had plans to pit out more along those lines.

 

[Blue]

Yeah, the primary audience was people who didn't have Xanathar's, Tasha's, Volo's, or Mordenkainen's yet, to give them an easy entry point. Lots of new art, too.

I disagree. I have all of those books, and have passed up other books while finding this one worthwhile to purchase.

This is a collection of all of the races with updates, among other things. Much like XGtE and Tasha's are collections of the subclasses (also among other things). It is a great companion for character building so I don't have to carrying around a bunch of book -- and that bunch aren't even correct anymore because there's new versions so I'd have to errata them up.

Plus the monsters have been updated and are easier to run. Still out on "better" to run, time will tell. But the session I ran earlier tonight used the MP:MM stat blocks for Warlock of the Fiend, Oinoloth, and Canoloth as opposed to the original versions.

 

[Parmandur]

I disagree. I have all of those books, and have passed up other books while finding this one worthwhile to purchase.

This is a collection of all of the races with updates, among other things. Much like XGtE and Tasha's are collections of the subclasses (also among other things). It is a great companion for character building so I don't have to carrying around a bunch of book -- and that bunch aren't even correct anymore because there's new versions so I'd have to errata them up.

Plus the monsters have been updated and are easier to run. Still out on "better" to run, time will tell. But the session I ran earlier tonight used the MP:MM stat blocks for Warlock of the Fiend, Oinoloth, and Canoloth as opposed to the original versions.

I didn't say it's not worthwhile: just got it from my FLGS, myself. But the primary audience was the Rules Expansion gift set, which was primarily.a deal for people who did have those 4 books yet.

 

[R_J_K75]

it is called Monsterous Compendium Volume 1, and they did say when they released it that they had plans to pit out more along those lines.

I didnt catch either

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I was mainly critiquing the use of the 'Disneyfying' angle. Duergar can be a lot of different things. It does sound out of context with the duergar monster entries. How much lore is included in MP:MotM? (not just duergar but overall)

This book is a more setting agnostic version of Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. I'm pretty sure they included non-standard art of a Duergar in the player options section of the book in order to give an example of what a Duergar player character from a non-typical 5e setting could look like. Because, you know, the D&D multiverse is diverse and can include a world where Duergar aren't evil.

. . . I think it's pretty stupid to call representing a more diverse array of versions of D&D races "Disneyfying" the game. If "Disneyfying" means "not every setting is identical to the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk" . . . that's a pretty stupid and useless complaint of the product, isn't it?

 

[John R Davis]

I made no mention of it not being FR GH etc

The disneyfying bit is likely the fact you can be a twee little duergar as a PC. Or Fairy. Or rabbit-person

I'm clearly not a great fan of anthropomorphic PC races.

And you called me stupid twice. It's 2022 so I will take offence

 

[JEB]

Should we assume we'll see FToD-style books for, say, undead or aberrations? Will creature types from the first two books be revisited with updated lore - will we see, say, an "extraplanar creatures" book with fiends in it (as well as celestials and others)?

Possibly, since Fizban's did seem to be received pretty well. But I wouldn't expect them until after the 2024 core rulebooks are released. The next two years look to be heavier with settings, based on what we know, presumably to give them a lot of options to market along with the even-more-multiverse-centric updated rules.

Going off of @Parmandur's comments, we could also see almost-type-themed sets of monsters packaged with appropriate settings - a Planescape setting book would be an obvious excuse for more planar monsters, for example. We also have two brand-new settings on the way in 2023, so who knows what monster themes might go with those...

And will we see more compilations like MotM, for those who just want the stats?

I could see a book that compiles and updates all the monsters from 2014-2020 adventures for the new paradigm, but they might also just release updated versions of those adventures instead.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Are you referring to the Spelljammer MC or are they releasing another standalone MC before 2024?

It’s Volume 1 they intend to do many.

 

[NaturalZero]

The disneyfying bit is likely the fact you can be a twee little duergar as a PC. Or Fairy. Or rabbit-person

I guess if you literally just started playing DnD and never saw any of 4e or 3e, maybe this would almost, almost make sense. I remember Savage Species coming out over 20 years ago and letting people play furries and fairies, as well as anything else in the MM. This whole trendy to decry "Disneyfication" on this board comes off as an effortless way to have a vacuous criticism without any perspective at as to the game's history.