D&D 5E Yawning Portal monsters?

[Prakriti]

Wonder what they'll do with the encounter description of this one. [Nereid]

Yeah, I don't expect it to show up. In fact, I expect a lot of these monsters to just become the nearest MM equivalent. That would be the path of least resistance. For example,

Hunter Shark = Reef Shark
Subterranean Lizard = Giant Lizard with 60' darkvision
Werejaguar = Weretiger or Jackalwere
Mandrill = Ape
etc.

 

[Prakriti]

Prakriti's list makes me happy, although I think a few things like the astral deva and the Hyenodon have been absorbed into existing critters (deva and the giant hyena).

You're probably right about the Astral Deva. Now that I compare the stats, they're almost identical to the Deva in the MM. So Astral Deva probably isn't a variant so much as a playtest version of the Deva.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Sparkdog on r/DnD posted this list:


https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/5mcos3/potential_new_monster_stats_from_tales_from_the/

Against the Giants (1st Edition AD&D) - High-level adventure

Snow Leopard
White Pudding
Ogre Magi
Pyrohydra
Titan (celestial)
Spotted Lion
Fire Lizard
Giants: There are a metric ****load of Giants in this adventure. Young Giants, Giantesses, Giant guards, Giant housekeepers, all of them of varying types (Frost, Cloud, Fire, etc.). Whereas Volo's Guide gave us Giant variants of the "ultimate bad***" variety, there's a possibility we might be getting some more run-of-the-mill mid-level giant variants here.
Drow: there are also a large number of Drow in this adventure, perhaps enough to get a couple new variants

Dead in Thay (D&D Next playtest) - Mid-level adventure

There are already usable 5e stat blocks for all the enemies in Dead in Thay. But, being part of the playtest, they weren't balanced for the final 5e rules, so there will probably be some tweaks. Also note that the entirety of Dead in Thay will not appear in Tales from the Yawning Portal, just the huge dungeon that takes up the large portion of the adventure. A handful of the enemies listed here might be from the small opening portion of the adventure and not appear in the new book.

Air Grue - small elemental
Astral Deva – medium celestial
Choker – small aberration
Darkenbeast – medium monstrosity
Deathlock wight – medium undead
Dread warrior – medium undead
Earth grue - small elemental
Elder black pudding – gargantuan ooze
Fire grue - small elemental
Predatory fish – medium beast
Water grue - small elemental
White maw – gargantuan undead ooze

Forge of Fury (3e) - Low-level adventure

Animated Arming Dummy
Animated Rug
Animated Table
Large Skeleton
Subterranean Lizard

Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (1st ed AD&D) - Mid-level adventure

Mandrill
Killer Frog
Margay
Huge Spider
Puma
Giant Crayfish
Giant Hermit Crab
Giant Slug
Nereid (fey-like water elemental)
Werejaguar
Polyp (large tentacled plant)
Carnivorous Plant
Amphisbaena (giant two-headed snake)
Centaur Mummy
Hyenodon (giant hyena)

Sunless Citadel (3e) – Low-level adventure

Dire Rat
Thoqqua – medium elemental

Tomb of Horrors (1st ed AD&D) - High-level adventure

Oh, you thought there would be fun new monsters to kill in here? Sorry, no. The Tomb of Horrors contains only DESPAIR.

White Plume Mountain (1st ed AD&D) – Mid-level adventure

Kelpie – fey-like aquatic plant
Giant crab – probably of the "huge" variety
Sea lion - no not sea lion, sea LION

If some of these lists look a bit short, don't worry. There are plenty of other monsters running around - we just already have their 5e stat blocks.

Except Tomb of Horrors. Tomb of Horrors will just kill you itself, no monsters needed.

I also might have left off a couple choice entries on purpose, because they would be too good to spoil.

And its also a mathematical impossibility that I didn't miss at least one or two enemies from Against the Giants. There's no index and 1st edition modules are hard to parse, to say the least.

Some of these, like the ogre mage, are already updated, as was pointed out to him in the responses.

But... if we get all that, that would be a bestiary at least 1/3 to 1/2 the size we got in VGtM. Honestly, I can't see the monster section in the book being less than 20 pages (which, given 30 pages for each of the seven dungeons, comes out to near the page count for the book), which, if this is the case, will definitely ease any questions I have on purchasing it!

Monsters I find notable:

Elemental grues and thoqqua - it would be very nice to have them updated, as they are good lower-level elemental encounters.
White pudding and elder black pudding - we definitely need more oozes, and these two would definitely fit the bill.
Pyrohydra - I was a bit saddened when we didn't see these in the MM as a hydra variant. But, of course, limited space... Hopefully we'll see their cousins the cryohydra as well...
Kelpie and Nereid - More fey, and water-based ones at that. The nereid may need some modernizing however.
Giant and drow variants - always nice to have those, although, as I said, it may make some of my own work on giant variants obsolete.


Looking at this, some of what was in and not in VGtM make a bit more sense. You have to wonder if Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was going to be in this collection at some early planning stages, but was later dropped; but since the froghemoth and vegepygmies were already updated, they decided to put them in VGtM instead. And it might explain why the giant variants in VGtM are a bit esoteric, if they planned to have more conventional giant elites updated in TftYP....

 

[I'm A Banana]

Wonder what they'll do with the encounter description of this one. It's cheesetastic and more than a little rapey.

Were I in their shoes, I might just give it a high CHA and call it a day. 3e's version dodges the rapey undertones by basically saying a neried can fill someone's lungs with water by touching them, which, sure - preserves the "kiss of death" without mandating that it be a kiss of death or noting that there's exquisite pleasure on a success (eugh). That's a fine idea to loot.

The shawl bit is a little weirder...

The nereid protects its shawl at all costs, for it contains the nereids essence;if it is destroyed, the nereid dissolves into formless water. Possession of a nereids shawl gives a character control over the creature, which will accept commands to avoid damage to the shawl. Stories tell of forlorn nereids who follow the ships of a powerful foes who have stolen their shawls. A nereid will lie and attempt anything short of violent action to regain its soul-shawl

...basically turning it into a kind of perverted "I stole your clothes now you have to do what I say while naked" bit... That bit, 3e kept mostly intact. Probably because magical bits of clothing are kind of fey-ish. Binding a faerie to your service by stealing their clothing sounds totally Old World Mythic. But, stealing a girl's clothing so that she'll have to do whatever you say (wink nudge wink) is like...idiot bro logic.

 

[bleezy]

Yeah, AD&D was pretty strange. About half the MM was monsters you were supposed to f***. There were so many subtle variations on the nymph that I couldn't imagine any DM would actually need them all. It is surprising that not a single variant of the "sexy fey/elemental" got updated to 5e, but its certainly understandable that they would want to sell more books to wealthy adults and fewer to poor, horny teenagers.

 

[designbot]

Yeah, I don't expect it to show up. In fact, I expect a lot of these monsters to just become the nearest MM equivalent. That would be the path of least resistance. For example,

Hunter Shark = Reef Shark

Nitpick, but Hunter Sharks are in the 5e Monster Manual.

 

[koga305]

Same with the kelpie.

Yeah, I ran White Plume Mountain recently and ran into that bit. It was weird and awkward, particularly because all my players for that game were women. Definitely a module written with the assumption of a mostly male playerbase.

 

[Parmandur]

[MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] also stated that they would be dealing with stated NPCs in the 3E adventures; Dueregar Wizard was an example.

 

[Parmandur]

Sparkdog on r/DnD posted this list:


https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/5mcos3/potential_new_monster_stats_from_tales_from_the/





Some of these, like the ogre mage, are already updated, as was pointed out to him in the responses.

But... if we get all that, that would be a bestiary at least 1/3 to 1/2 the size we got in VGtM. Honestly, I can't see the monster section in the book being less than 20 pages (which, given 30 pages for each of the seven dungeons, comes out to near the page count for the book), which, if this is the case, will definitely ease any questions I have on purchasing it!

Monsters I find notable:

Elemental grues and thoqqua - it would be very nice to have them updated, as they are good lower-level elemental encounters.
White pudding and elder black pudding - we definitely need more oozes, and these two would definitely fit the bill.
Pyrohydra - I was a bit saddened when we didn't see these in the MM as a hydra variant. But, of course, limited space... Hopefully we'll see their cousins the cryohydra as well...
Kelpie and Nereid - More fey, and water-based ones at that. The nereid may need some modernizing however.
Giant and drow variants - always nice to have those, although, as I said, it may make some of my own work on giant variants obsolete.


Looking at this, some of what was in and not in VGtM make a bit more sense. You have to wonder if Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was going to be in this collection at some early planning stages, but was later dropped; but since the froghemoth and vegepygmies were already updated, they decided to put them in VGtM instead. And it might explain why the giant variants in VGtM are a bit esoteric, if they planned to have more conventional giant elites updated in TftYP....

Good thoughts here, particularly giant variants and Barriat Peaks being possibly considered.



Does anybody know how big the "Doom Vault" from Thay is? The other six adventures come to 196 pages, per DMsGuild, while the total book size is 248 pages, leaving 56 pages for Dead in Thay and extra material...

 

[Prakriti]

Does anybody know how big the "Doom Vault" from Thay is? The other six adventures come to 196 pages, per DMsGuild, while the total book size is 248 pages, leaving 56 pages for Dead in Thay and extra material...

The Doomvault is a 107-room dungeon. It takes up pages 18-68 in Dead in Thay, so it's about 50 pages long.

Also, the page counts of the old modules are unreliable. They don't correspond to modern publishing standards. The text was always jam-packed onto every page, leaving very little white space. For example, the original Castle Ravenloft only took up about 17 pages, but in Curse of Strahd, it takes up about 40. That's a huge difference.

I'm not sure how Tales can only be 248 pages. Seems odd.