In the new Dungeons & Dragons Monster Handbook, Bigger is Better

Last year Dungeons and Dragons celebrated its 50th anniversary with last overhaul of its ruleset—not a brand new edition, as was the tradition in the past, but a reworking and refreshing of its fifth, a testament to how far in scope and popularity the TTRPG has grown and established itself since 5E began ten years prior. Both updated Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide have acted by example: offering more ideas and scenarios to explain the rules to experienced and new players and DMs alike. The Monster Manual by nature there must be a different tact to fit into this philosophy: after all, it is a very large list of creatures big and smallwithout threat and the end of the world. So to do so, he throws down the proverbial gauntlet and shows you more and more ways to throw enemies at your party.

And when the Monster Manual says more, this means more. “We looked at 2014 Monster Manual and were like, ‘people have been clamoring for so much, we have so many more ideas,'” Wes Schneider, principal game designer at D&D and joint leadership of the new Monster Manualtold the press at a recent conference discussing the new book. “We know a lot more about this game and how we want to develop it – how can we improve the gameplay?”

Schneider and his colleague lead Guidance, D&DPrinciple rules designer Jeremy Crawford had a simple idea: bigger. “One of the biggest goals for this new one Monster Manual is simply more: more of what everyone wants from their monsters and their threats to them D&D games,” Schneider continued. “To that end, you’re going to see 85 new monsters in this book—they’re going to be new creatures, they’re going to be things you’ve never seen before, but they’re also going to be amazing looks at some of your favorite monsters that give you more flexibility, more play, more opportunities to use them.

This means, for example, that Owlbear is no longer simple simple owl Among the 300 pages of creatures in it, Monster Manual will include variants such as Owlbears from the Feywild, primal Owlbears, or owlbears inspired by eldritch spells. And some of these bears are much, much nastier than others. “Something that in 2014 Monster Manual there’s a bit of a shortage of just big threats to play at a high level,” Schneider continued. “That won’t be a problem with 2025 Monster Manual. You’ll see more high-level threats, big monsters, creatures to complete campaigns, for epic level play.”

As re-launches Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide before him Monster Manual‘s refresh brought with it a chance to reorganize and restructure the way its bestiary unloads information for any given player. The new book will be divided into four distinct categories: an introductory section offering advice on how to incorporate a particular monster into your campaign; the aforementioned 300 page dictionary of creatures and stat blocks to use with them (using the new format from Player’s Handbook); and two applications, one of the common animals you can expect to exist anywhere D&D‘s multiverse, and another groups monsters into sample groups to encourage DMs to connect different monsters in a game through logical connections by type or elemental affinity. And just like in the previous books, this information has been restructured compared to the 2014 edition to present information more cleanly and logically to players (no more finding the Gelatin Cube, a creature whose name begins with the letter “G” under “O” for “sludge”).

Not only will the new Monster Manual offers more variations on classic opponent archetypes for more challenging combat applications, it will also offer tips and ideas on how to adapt them to create storytelling opportunities within your campaign. “These monsters aren’t for ‘here’s the erudition, here’s the only way to play gargoyle, that’s what they have what to do with this creature,” Schneider said. “Each monster is a whole set of adventures – we want to really make these springboards for your adventures, for telling your stories, for doing different things. There are little idea generator tables throughout the book…each one is an adventure idea that DMs can take and build into whatever they want or inspire.’

But for all the flavor and variety on display, sometimes you just need a group of increasingly powerful characters to have increasingly powerful creatures to defeat and take their stuff. The new one Monster Manual not only will it include more varieties of challenging opponents to put into campaigns – either through more challenge rating blocks or simply by having more varieties of generic creature archetypes, from skeletons to cultists, that push players out of their comfort zone and to new tactical approaches – will also include new a group of high-level threats that represent the deadliest specimens of all D&D monster line. They will form a major part of Monster Manualthe desire to expand the capacity and variety of what it can offer DMs to throw at stronger groups, from revenants capable of haunting an entire building, not just a corpse, to oozing blobs seething with the magical energies of gods skull floating around their stupid mass.

“In 2014 Monster Manualwe had ancient dragons (to represent all dragons), we had Tarrasque for monsters — we had a few other epic monsters for some of the other creature types. But while we were building this new bestiary, we looked at some of the creature types that lacked ultimate threat—primarily Tarask friends and enemies,” Crawford explained. All of these new “peak threats,” as Crawford calls them, will come with a set of special mechanics that set them apart as dangerous threats (one example given was the Elemental Cataclysm, a giant creature that can cause random environmental disasters during battle ), as well as sets of legendary actions they can use to push their threat even further. But in line with the new Monster ManualThe more-is-more approach and updates to the broader core rulebook to streamline information, their fearsome stat blocks won’t be as intimidating to the DM as the creatures themselves are to the poor group they’re thrown against.

“In the past, DMs had to look up the costs of how much each legendary action cost to use each game round – they no longer have to do that,” explained Crawford. “The DM just knows that this monster has a certain number of legendary actions to use each round, and can then choose from the list…the selection process will be easier, and we also ensure that no matter what combination of actions you choose, this creature will remain at its challenge rating and be terrifying to your player characters.

The more things change, the more some stay the same though. For all new large and small creatures, the previous Tarrasque irritant will remain the largest D&D bad in the new Monster Manualwith the highest challenge rating… but to do that, he had to rise to the occasion. “We wanted to keep the Tarrasque’s place as the pinnacle threat of the entire book, but to make that a reality and not just something communicated by a CR number, the new Tarrasque is more terrifying than any version of the Tarrasque in the game’s history,” he teased Crawford.

“If anyone has ever faced a group of players who tried to just attack one from long range and thought ‘oh, this thing can’t do anything to us,’ just meet the new Tarrasque.” He blows up buildings at a great distance, disables teleportation around him and much more. A battle against the Tarrasque (will be) where not only the player characters are in danger, but also the entire environment around this titanic creature.”

At least you have some time to prepare. The updated one Monster Manual will receive a phased release in February 2025—with early access for D&D Beyond Basic level subscribers and selected physical stores from February 4th, Beyond hero level subscribers on February 11th and beyond from February 18th.

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