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

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You raise an important point though. Since most of this huge fan base WotC is courting are new players, they are likely not familiar with edition shifts and we don't know what their reaction will be.

We don't, yeah, except from the reactions to stuff so far.

If you look at the reddit, it's mostly younger players a lot of whom started with 5E (some 3E or 4E, but usually when they were fairly young with the 3E ones), mostly 20s-30s, and they had extremely positive reactions to all the race stuff, like all of it, in Tashas, and in MoM. That all made complete sense to them and you can see in discussions of MoM it's just taken for granted that that's fine.

But the monsters in MoM? They're mad about them - not because they're "not evil" or something, they don't mind that sort of thing - no they're made because the the monsters are:

A) Being "simplified"

and

B) Being "nerfed"

And that's what their annoyance centers around - stuff being "dumbed down". Which like, to an RPG vet like us, that's not what's happening, we can see that there's a specific goal, this isn't mindless dumbing down, and I suspect we're probably less prone to being annoyed by stuff like monsters having fewer spells.

But these peeps? They mad! Be interesting to see how they'll react to class changes, if they happen. They were very pro-Tashas, generally, so there's that bit of evidence, but major changes may be more or less popular.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

IMO, a lot of unnecessary problems stem from this idea - that D&D has to or should model the real world. Last time I checked, there are no elves and dragons and orcs in the real world (or at least not in historical memory!). If WotC would only clarify and double-down on the idea that D&D is a game of fantasy and imagination, and any connections made to the real world are unintentional and subject to, well, the interpretation of the consumer - and not made by the author or company.

This is not to say that there aren't instances in the past in which stuff slipped in - but the vast majority of them were not dogwhistles, but simply expressions of the time that some today find objectionable, whether reasonably or not (and that, again, is subject to interpretation - there is no fixed, absolute and right way to interpret everything). But part of this objection is based upon the idea that D&D must model the real world, so around and around we go. Endless conflict and accusations.

To be clear, I'm not saying that WotC should go back to "classic D&D" and not, for instance, have a greater range of player options. But I also see nothing wrong with including classic versions of things and emphasizing that each campaign is different, and there's nothing inherently wrong or bad about having an "all-evil" fantasy race in a fantasy world because...well, D&D is not the real world, and evil things are cool in D&D.

I am not saying D&D has to "model the real world".

I'm saying there are people who look at PC character races that represent people of mixed ancestry and see a reflection of themselves and their own lived experiences in them, so maybe "toss out all the 'half-X' options" isn't the approach to take, even if people are more comfortable allowing full-on orcs as PCs now.

I know you're trying to make a broader point, which I don't want to get into right now, but that's all I was trying to say on the matter.

 

[Parmandur]

Well well wellity well well wellening.

Hmmm. That does up the odds of Sigil/Planescape reappearing somewhat, I'd say. Albeit likely with different lore it seems.

Yeah, little references to Planescape and Spelljammer throughout...and this book was released months before Spelljammer was Confirmed. Planescape next year seem probable.

 

[Parmandur]

Heh - that's a funny bit of lore change.

I will, of course, be ignoring it. As every minotaur know, all minotaurs are descended from the minotaur hero-god Asterios, the son of Zeus and the goddess Pasiphae. All stories of them being "demonspawn" were just bits of slander aimed at them by humans, who are still angry that Asterios slaughtered their hero-king Theseus (so much that they won't stop lying about that either).

I mean, it's in there with a light touch. D&D Platonism is still strong in this book, with refeto Orcs tied to gruumsh whether they know it nor not, or Elves to Correlleon...

 

[maceochaid]

Heh - that's a funny bit of lore change.

I will, of course, be ignoring it. As every minotaur know, all minotaurs are descended from the minotaur hero-god Asterios, the son of Zeus and the goddess Pasiphae. All stories of them being "demonspawn" were just bits of slander aimed at them by humans, who are still angry that Asterios slaughtered their hero-king Theseus (so much that they won't stop lying about that either).

It's always bothered me that Minotaurs have labyrinthine recall. It's obviously supposed to point out that the creators of the original DnD minotaurs are very smart little boys who know that the minotaur lived in a labyrinth, but just went to show that they ignored/forgot that it lived in the labyrinth because it COULDN'T find it's way out

 

[Parmandur]

We don't, yeah, except from the reactions to stuff so far.

If you look at the reddit, it's mostly younger players a lot of whom started with 5E (some 3E or 4E, but usually when they were fairly young with the 3E ones), mostly 20s-30s, and they had extremely positive reactions to all the race stuff, like all of it, in Tashas, and in MoM. That all made complete sense to them and you can see in discussions of MoM it's just taken for granted that that's fine.

But the monsters in MoM? They're mad about them - not because they're "not evil" or something, they don't mind that sort of thing - no they're made because the the monsters are:

A) Being "simplified"

and

B) Being "nerfed"

And that's what their annoyance centers around - stuff being "dumbed down". Which like, to an RPG vet like us, that's not what's happening, we can see that there's a specific goal, this isn't mindless dumbing down, and I suspect we're probably less prone to being annoyed by stuff like monsters having fewer spells.

But these peeps? They mad! Be interesting to see how they'll react to class changes, if they happen. They were very pro-Tashas, generally, so there's that bit of evidence, but major changes may be more or less popular.

It's funny, because the Monsters are slightly buffed.

 

[Mercurius]

I am not saying D&D has to "model the real world".

I'm saying there are people who look at PC character races that represent people of mixed ancestry and see a reflection of themselves and their own lived experiences in them, so maybe "toss out all the 'half-X' options" isn't the approach to take, even if people are more comfortable allowing full-on orcs as PCs now.

I know you're trying to make a broader point, which I don't want to get into right now, but that's all I was trying to say on the matter.

OK, fair enough. I was more riffing off of that phrase - not directing my riff to you; my apologies for not making that more clear.

And what you say makes sense - and I agree that half-elves and half-orcs shouldn't be "tossed out." I didn't realize there was talk of that until this thread.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

OK, fair enough. I was more riffing off of that phrase - not directing my riff to you; my apologies for not making that more clear.

And what you say makes sense - and I agree that half-elves and half-orcs shouldn't be "tossed out." I didn't realize there was talk of that until this thread.

No worries. Just seen people assuming things like players only playing half-orcs because full-orcs were limited to NPCs and monsters in the past, so if full orcs can now be PCs, there's no reason for half-orcs to exist as an option anymore, which I think misses at least some of the point.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It's funny, because the Monsters are slightly buffed.

Yeah I kind of assumed that. There was a lot of talking down the fact that many/most spellcaster monsters now have ranged high-damage multiattacks (hello Warlocks!), and I'm like "That sounds like an awful lot of highly-reliable damage to me...". Pretty sure that's more threatening than a bunch of obscure combat/utility spells.

There was even a guy with like a zillion upvotes moaning because caster monsters apparently used to be some of the rare occasions some of the more obscure/crap spells in 5E were actually used. And like, yeah that's true, running a higher-level campaign I often found a caster monsters had some real dubious spells available, but how is that a good thing? The 5E reddit apparently thought it was a very good thing so who am I to disagree lol? It was a disrepectful and terrible nerf to remove these spells and just make the cast able to actually blast away effectively.

Of course I am kind of the "sickos" guy because this is distinctly more 4E-like

 

[Shardstone]

Yeah I kind of assumed that. There was a lot of talking down the fact that many/most spellcaster monsters now have ranged high-damage multiattacks (hello Warlocks!), and I'm like "That sounds like an awful lot of highly-reliable damage to me...". Pretty sure that's more threatening than a bunch of obscure combat/utility spells.

There was even a guy with like a zillion upvotes moaning because caster monsters apparently used to be some of the rare occasions some of the more obscure/crap spells in 5E were actually used. And like, yeah that's true, running a higher-level campaign I often found a caster monsters had some real dubious spells available, but how is that a good thing? The 5E reddit apparently thought it was a very good thing so who am I to disagree lol? It was a disrepectful and terrible nerf to remove these spells and just make the cast able to actually blast away effectively.

Of course I am kind of the "sickos" guy because this is distinctly more 4E-like

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While I pretty much entirely agree, I will say this. I wish every "caster" stat block had alongside its description a listing of flavorful spells the creature could have to cast. I think that is a small amount of effort, but it would take up page space, which is exactly why they didn't do it; the book is very "snug" in how brisk its layout is.