D&D 5E Zooming In On Monsters of the Multiverse [UPDATED!]

Earlier, WotC announced Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse, a new D&D compilation of monster material from previous products updated to a new format. These screen grabs are as good as I could get them. They're not terribly clear, but you can make more out than in the original images.

The screenshots show the original entry in Volo's Guide to Monsters next to the new entry in Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse.

"The Future of D&D" (New Core Books in 2024!)

The online D&D Celebration event, which has been running all weekend, comes to a close with The Future of D&D, a panel featuring WotC's Ray Winninger, Liz Schuh, Chris Perkins, and Jeremy Crawford, hosted by Elle Osili-Wood. D&D is exploring the multiverse Revisiting classic settings. 1st of...

www.enworld.org

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UPDATE -- a cleaned up version of the War Priest has appeared on imgur.

 

[darjr]

Woot!

 

[TarionzCousin]

Seeing "Bard" in a monster book is giving me 4E Gnome "I'm a monster!" vibes.

 

[duneguy]

I like the new format, from what I can see from squinting. Reducing the number of spell options by removing trap options is a good idea. Looking at the bard, I like how they replaced Shatter with a somewhat similar non-spell combat ability (Cacophany) that you don't have to look up in the PHB.

Edit: Similarly, war priest's number of spells is way down, and it has a completely decent multiattack that allows you to run a simple combat without looking up spells.

 

[Morrus]

I like how they replaced Shatter with

I totally read that as "Shatner".

 

[pukunui]

Seeing "Bard" in a monster book is giving me 4E Gnome "I'm a monster!" vibes.

The bard NPC first appeared in the NPC section at the back of Volo's Guide to Monsters.

 

[pukunui]

I like the new format, from what I can see from squinting. Reducing the number of spell options by removing trap options is a good idea. Looking at the bard, I like how they replaced Shatter with a somewhat similar non-spell combat ability (Cacophany) that you don't have to look up in the PHB.

Edit: Similarly, war priest's number of spells is way down, and it has a completely decent multiattack that allows you to run a simple combat without looking up spells.

Yeah, Jeremy went into a little more depth about the changes when referencing the war priest. He talks about how they wanted to make it clearer what combat-oriented abilities these NPCs have that contribute to their CR instead of leaving them buried in the Spellcasting trait.

So the war priest now has a Holy Fire action, and its weapon deals extra radiant damage, and it's got a healing bonus action.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, Jeremy went into a little more depth about the changes when referencing the war priest. He talks about how they wanted to make it clearer what combat-oriented abilities these NPCs have that contribute to their CR instead of leaving them buried in the Spellcasting trait.

So the war priest now has a Holy Fire action, and its weapon deals extra radiant damage, and it's got a healing bonus action.

Are these new features, or the combat-oriented spells rendered as monster attacks and traits?

 

[pukunui]

Are these new features, or the combat-oriented spells rendered as monster attacks and traits?

Yes? It's too hard to read the fine print. But Jeremy did talk about how the Spellcasting action would focus more on utility spells. It sounds like combat-oriented stuff will all be fully-spelled out actions/bonus actions.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

This is great. I've been doing this on my own ever since Matt Colville talked about the approach in his action oriented monsters video.