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

 

[MNblockhead]

@maceochaid I see what you are saying. But I really like monsters and enemy spell casters to have powers and spells that are not in the PC spell list. Keeps things interesting. Some magic is innate or given through some power and just isn't learnable to most. I don't see that breaking verisimilitude anymore than wizards, clerics, warlocks, sorcerers, rangers, druids, and bards having their own spell lists and some spells ONLY available to their class.

 

[maceochaid]

@maceochaid I see what you are saying. But I really like monsters and enemy spell casters to have powers and spells that are not in the PC spell list. Keeps things interesting. Some magic is innate or given through some power and just isn't learnable to most. I don't see that breaking verisimilitude anymore than wizards, clerics, warlocks, sorcerers, rangers, druids, and bards having their own spell lists and some spells ONLY available to their class.

I think we agree then, I personally always prize engaging game design over feeling burdened by keeping verisimilitude! (But am not wrongbadfun-ing to people who more enjoy a coherent fantasy world). I will say that keeping the spells the same makes it easier for the players to learn the world around them. But to meet that need I always like to broadcast what is happening the first time a monster uses a feature so they get to be surprising, but then focus on giving my players the chance to strategize. "As you cast invisibility you can feel the Divination wizards pupiless eyes turn to you as a chilling smile curls on his cracked lips."

 

[Stormonu]

This last weekend, I got the chance to physically look through the book. I hadn't been planning to buy it because I already had Mord's & Volo's guide and didn't originally think it'd be worth rebuying for the relatively minor changes. The thumb-through changed my mind though, it looks a lot slicker and is a better reference book than the Ecology of... sort of the two prior books.

Needless to say, I bought it and the two older books are going into storage, giving me an extra book slot on my shelf (which has already been allocated for Spelljammer). I still have the old books on DDB, so I don't feel like I'm losing anything.

Just thought I'd admit this, since I'd been against getting the book originally.

 

[Parmandur]

This last weekend, I got the chance to physically look through the book. I hadn't been planning to buy it because I already had Mord's & Volo's guide and didn't originally think it'd be worth rebuying for the relatively minor changes. The thumb-through changed my mind though, it looks a lot slicker and is a better reference book than the Ecology of... sort of the two prior books.

Needless to say, I bought it and the two older books are going into storage, giving me an extra book slot on my shelf (which has already been allocated for Spelljammer). I still have the old books on DDB, so I don't feel like I'm losing anything.

Just thought I'd admit this, since I'd been against getting the book originally.

Yes, basically the same story from me: I love the new art pieces (love that cover), I like having a compact reference with updated stats for all the Races, and I like it as a better quick Monster reference. I still like some of the Lore stuff from the other books, particularly MToF Blood War stuff or the Elven & Dwarvish metaphysics, but this is a good gamble resource.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Necro'ing this rather than making a new thread and it seems the most "general discussion" of the MotM threads.

I just noticed one spectacularly dumb thing about the MotM approach to races.

For height and weight, they all have this "phew I don't have to actually think about it!" blather:

"Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character."

Sounds fine. Just one problem. Goliaths are called Goliaths because they're bigger than the other ones, and none of the height/weight charts, not even the Dragonborn one are really big and heavy enough for Goliaths!

Also "Little Giant" is just an epic burn disguised as a racial ability. You might as well rename "Kobold Legacy" to "UwU cutey dragin" for Kobolds. It's brutal.

I guess the problem will probably be solved when he get the many unnecessary flavours of Goliaths (who have apparently suddenly become basically Half-Giants) in the Giant book, where they'll probably be more explicit about the height, but I was annoyed and obviously the internet needs to know.

 

[JEB]

Goliaths (who have apparently suddenly become basically Half-Giants)

Goliaths were linked to half-giants back in 4E Dark Sun, FWIW. Though Athas didn't exactly hew to the traditional D&D giant setup...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Goliaths were linked to half-giants back in 4E Dark Sun, FWIW. Though Athas didn't exactly hew to the traditional D&D giant setup...

Yeah they were, but that was pretty cheap and lazy back then too lol. Half-Giants were a really unique and cool race back in the day.

 

[Dire Bare]

Necro'ing this rather than making a new thread and it seems the most "general discussion" of the MotM threads.

I just noticed one spectacularly dumb thing about the MotM approach to races.

For height and weight, they all have this "phew I don't have to actually think about it!" blather:

"Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character."

Sounds fine. Just one problem. Goliaths are called Goliaths because they're bigger than the other ones, and none of the height/weight charts, not even the Dragonborn one are really big and heavy enough for Goliaths!

Also "Little Giant" is just an epic burn disguised as a racial ability. You might as well rename "Kobold Legacy" to "UwU cutey dragin" for Kobolds. It's brutal.

I guess the problem will probably be solved when he get the many unnecessary flavours of Goliaths (who have apparently suddenly become basically Half-Giants) in the Giant book, where they'll probably be more explicit about the height, but I was annoyed and obviously the internet needs to know.

They're already moving away from this practice in the One D&D playtests. Seems you (and I) weren't the only ones annoyed with this approach.

Also not a fan of the new goliaths in the playtests, here's hoping folks will be brutal about them in the just released survey.