D&D 5E (2024) Views on 24 MM/SRD monster mechanics now

[Remathilis]

Weirdly, there are some exceptions, like the Empyrean, which does have BPS resistance.

Creatures who had resistance to magic bps (basically bps that could not be overcome with a magic weapon) kept resistance to bps. What's gone is conditional immunity based on magical weapons or (rarely) materials like silver and adamantine. It's all swords or none.

 

[Voadam]

But when it comes to being knocked prone, having the rider apply automatically after a hit just doesn’t feel right to me.

Wolves having trip as their signature ability since 3.0 has always been a bit weird for me. 5e pack tactics is a great fit for the archetypal pack hunter though.

 

[Remathilis]

I absolutely hate what they did to lycanthropes. A vampire taking normal damage from nonmagical weapons I can live with, even though I preferred them having that resistance. But werewolves not even getting regeneration that silver turns off anymore is a travesty in my opinion. That’s the single most recognizable trait of lycanthropes, getting rid of it completely ruins the monster’s feel.

This is my biggest complaint to the removal of conditional resistance. Werewolves lose the classic silver bullet. But again, I think they were aiming to remove silver and adamantine weapons except as magical gear, hence the removal of that and Regen.

Doesn't mean I have to like it

 

[TravDoc42]

I absolutely hate what they did to lycanthropes. A vampire taking normal damage from nonmagical weapons I can live with, even though I preferred them having that resistance. But werewolves not even getting regeneration that silver turns off anymore is a travesty in my opinion. That’s the single most recognizable trait of lycanthropes, getting rid of it completely ruins the monster’s feel.

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft had the Loup Garou, an advanced werewolf that has a regeneration trait that heals it unless it is damaged by silver weapons. I had assumed WoTC would use that trait for the base werewolf, and was a bit flabbergasted that they didn't.

 

[Charlaquin]

Wolves having trip as their signature ability since 3.0 has always been a bit weird for me. 5e pack tactics is a great fit for the archetypal pack hunter though.

Yeah, the knockdown thing on wolves is very weird, and in 5e it’s kinda superfluous with pack tactics anyway. They’re endurance hunters, they don’t tackle their prey to the ground to maul it, the chase it down giving the occasional heel nip until it’s too worn out to keep running and collapses.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is my biggest complaint to the removal of conditional resistance. Werewolves lose the classic silver bullet. But again, I think they were aiming to remove silver and adamantine weapons except as magical gear, hence the removal of that and Regen.

Doesn't mean I have to like it

I’d even be fine with silver being a magical weapon type instead of a vestigial holdover 3e’s special materials rules, and ditto for adamantine. That said, I would still have kept the regeneration. Hell, you could give werewolves regen and not include the clause about it being turned off by silver. Either have it be turned off by fire or acid like troll regeneration, or don’t include any built-in way to turn it off and let the players figure out to use Chill Touch on their own. Then make Silvered Weapon a type of magic weapon with the effect of preventing a creature hit with it from regaining hit points until the start of your next turn.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

An effort was made to give more creatures a distinctive ability of some sort, and (more importantly) to make distinctive abilities bonus actions they take in addition to their normal attacks, to better highlight these features. In 2014 distinctive features often just never came up in the three rounds before the monster went down. Now the statblocks support better highlighting of these things without the DM needing to have as much flare for how to make monsters shine and without luck mattering as much.

However, while I like monster monsters working different than player characters to highlight their monstrous distinctivenesses, I despise that the same approach was taken with the humanoid NPC enemies. Sure, not every ability available to an NPC needs to be available to PCs and vice-versa, but they should basically feel like they are playing by the same rules, because those rules are part of the worldbuilding and they inhabit the same world. 5e was already bad about this and 5.24 has made it radically worse. Yes it was hard to run an NPC with a long spell list, but that just means a newbie DM should avoid it and for an intermediary DM it was a learning experience. The solution should have been some notes on DM strategy, not dumbing down NPCs to have abilities that don't even vaguely line up with what player characters can do.

By making NPC stat blocks that don't fit the implied ludonarrative lore of how spells and abilities work for PCs WotC has basically made me want to stat out all my important NPCs as PCs, sucking up large amounts of time. Similar things can be said for their refusal to just have a stat block for "Orc raider" or the like.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Broadly speaking? Terrible. Not that there aren't exceptions, and I admit hit points specifically seem to be more appropriately matched with PC damage output than 2014 HP. But the monsters remain boring and simplistic -- except those that cast spells, in which case they are still a PITA because they won't just embed spell stats into the stat block.

A5E MM remains a much better monster book, and the ToV MM is at least a little better, too.

I get that some people really want the simple monster stat blocks, but I find it frustrating and boring. Make good monsters. they are the heart of the game.

Interesting, Is this from a

Yeah, that is often the case, but not always. And since it’s worked into the stats instead of called out as specific features, it just ends up looking like loose design instead of unique traits.

i miss them as a signifier too,

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I’d even be fine with silver being a magical weapon type instead of a vestigial holdover 3e’s special materials rules, and ditto for adamantine. That said, I would still have kept the regeneration. Hell, you could give werewolves regen and not include the clause about it being turned off by silver. Either have it be turned off by fire or acid like troll regeneration, or don’t include any built-in way to turn it off and let the players figure out to use Chill Touch on their own. Then make Silvered Weapon a type of magic weapon with the effect of preventing a creature hit with it from regaining hit points until the start of your next turn.

Silver weapons are a thing in the DMG same with Adamantine.
Silvered Weapons deal extra damage on crits to creatures that have shapeshifted.

 

[Reynard]

Wolves having trip as their signature ability since 3.0 has always been a bit weird for me. 5e pack tactics is a great fit for the archetypal pack hunter though.

Why? Wolves kill you by getting you on the ground.