Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse is arriving on May 16 and with it comes over 30 playable races! These races have been collected from across the multiverse—from the Feywild's harengon to Theros' satyr—and have been tweaked to make them setting-agnostic.
In this article, we're going to examine a few of the all-time greats when it comes to monstrous races: the goblin, hobgoblin, and kobold. We'll discuss what's changed for these races since their original appearance in Volo's Guide to Monsters and show how to build characters around them.
Ability score Increases and Languages
Newer Dungeons & Dragons races don't come with set ability score increases. Instead, players will get to choose one of the following options at character creation:
- Increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1
- Increase three different scores by 1
Instead of preset language proficiencies, you'll learn Common and one other language of your choice (with your DM's approval).
Goblin
To enable more diversified goblin characters, the updates in Monsters of the Multiverse present goblins in a more positive light than previous sources. As made apparent by adding the Fey Ancestry trait, Monsters of the Multiverse focuses on how goblins originated in the Feywild and were later conquered by the god Maglubiyet when they crossed into the Material Plane.
Goblin Traits
In Monsters of the Multiverse, goblins retain all of the traits from their previous version, with slight tweaks. They are still Small creatures that are exceptionally good at hiding, escaping danger, and taking down foes that are larger than them. Their trademark ability, Fury of the Small, is slightly changed to deal damage equal to your proficiency modifier and can be used a number of times equal to your proficiency modifier per long rest. They are also granted the Fey Ancestry trait, which provides them advantage on saving throws made to avoid and end the charmed condition.
The most significant change comes from the ability to choose your ability score array, rather than having to work with a set +2 Dexterity, +1 Constitution. While this previous array was incredible for stealthy rogues, Charisma-focused bards or Intelligence-focused wizards would overlook the goblin as a viable race. Now, you could easily make a Strength-focused goblin Battle Master who wears heavy armor for defense and can use their Nimble Escape to move around the battlefield while using Fury of the Small to pump up damage.
Hobgoblin
Hobgoblins receive quite the glow-up from their grim depiction in Volo's Guide to Monsters. In Monsters of the Multiverse, hobgoblins are described as charismatic leaders who form deep bonds with their comrades. Like the treatment goblins received, Monsters of the Multiverse focuses on the hobgoblin's origins in the Feywild and ties that into their new racial features.
Hobgoblin Traits
In exchange for their martial weapon and light armor proficiencies, hobgoblins now receive an interesting racial feature called Fey Gift in Monsters of the Multiverse. It allows them to take the Help action as a bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. Starting at 3rd level, when you take the Help action in this way, you also benefit in other ways:
- You and the creature you help gain temporary hit points.
- You and the creature you help temporarily increase your walking speeds.
- When the creature you help hits a target with an attack roll, that target gets disadvantage on the next attack roll it makes within the next minute.
Being able to take the Help action as a bonus action is already a strong ability because it grants a party member advantage on their next attack or ability check. Getting to also debuff an enemy or gain some temporary hit points make this an even more stellar resource in combat.
Previously, hobgoblins came with a set +2 Constitution, +1 Intelligence array, which provided a solid base for a tank wizard when combined with the race's light armor proficiency. The addition of the Fey Gift feature from Monsters of the Multiverse opens up the door for new builds. Combine Fey Gift with the Fortune from the Many trait—a reskinned Saving Face feature from the hobgoblin's previous appearance—and you have a solid support-focused martial class that works excellently with other martial party members. But while Fey Gift makes good use of an empty bonus action slot, builds that already have a use for their bonus action, like bards, rogues, and two-weapon fighters, might want to look elsewhere in order to maximize their action economy.
Kobold
The kobolds of Volo's Guide to Monsters is the only race to receive two ability score increases instead of the typical three. They also have Sunlight Sensitivity, which can be a challenging setback in campaigns that tend to spend more time above ground than not. In Monsters of the Multiverse, the kobold's racial traits offer a more level playing field plus abilities from their draconic ancestors.
Kobold Traits
The new version of the kobold introduces the Draconic Cry feature, which replaces the previous version's Pact Tactics. This new feature functions fairly similar in that it is a reliable source of advantage on attacks. However, it is an expendable resource, costing a bonus action and only being usable a number of times equal to your proficiency modifier per long rest. In exchange, Draconic Cry also offers allies advantage on their attacks and doesn't require an ally to be within 5 feet of you to activate it.
In place of the Grovel, Cower, and Beg racial trait, kobolds are given a new feature called Kobold Legacy. This new trait allows you to choose between a skill proficiency in Arcana, Investigation, Medicine, Sleight of Hand, or Survival, getting advantage on saving throws against the frightened condition, or a sorcerer cantrip.
Like Pack Tactics, the Draconic Cry racial trait lends itself to a martial build as it can give you advantage on attacks against enemies within melee range. This can be an excellent way to ensure you can reliably sneak attack as a rogue or when you just need to land that smite as a paladin. These martial builds will be able to make good use of either the advantage against being frightened or the sorcerer cantrip granted through Kobold Legacy. The frightened condition can be a tough one to overcome for builds lacking proficiency in Wisdom saves, and the sorcerer cantrip could be a great way to snag green-flame blade or booming blade.
A Multiverse Worth of Options Awaits
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse allows players to choose from over 30 races, each of which can be viable in any number of new and exciting builds. Players will have to be careful, however. The book also contains over 250 monster stat blocks that Dungeon Masters will undoubtedly use to put your new characters to the test!
Mike Bernier (@arcane_eye) is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his girlfriend, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
The Tasha's ASIs being the default instead of just a thing listed as an option is annoying. I like knowing what the race is usually good at and geared towards so I can figure out how to play into or away from it as needed. Like, even using Tasha's optional rules knowing the default ASIs helps in determining what you'd want to dump our not for role play purposes. Sure you could get that beefy 18 into Int now as an orc but you'd probably not think it'd fit for the beefy orc to now have Str be the dump stat like most wizards. There's also the powergaming issues being enabled, even unintentionally. There's certain races where part of the balance for powerful general features was pidgeonholing them to certain classes with their ASIs and the likes of the Mountain Dwarf who gets two +2 bonuses which can now be put anywhere. It also sort of takes away from some of the older races where the default variability was seen as a selling point.
It's also annoying that they are making radical changes to certain races in both ability to lore instead of just making new races or subraces for them. Hobgoblins especially from what I'm seeing, Martial ability and personal pride were basically the defining point of the race but then reflavored everything as jolly cooperation. The feats look interesting and could be a fun character but it's so far removed from what the Hobgoblin was it makes you wonder why they went that route instead of just making a new goblin variant or a subrace for Hobs, or went the Ravnica route and called the new version Hobgoblins of Whereeversville.
Remember that adventurers are an exception to the norm to begin with. If you want all your half orcs to be strong and tanky in your world - do it. These rules make it EASIER to play against type. Just because a player character can now have more freedom, doesn't mean that you have to change the orcs/goblins/kobolds/whatever in the world you play in.
The aim is to be more setting agnostic. Many people here said they want to use the old racial bonuses because (and I'm paraphrasing).. 'That's just how orc's are supposed to be!". But also people are upset because the old racial "suggestions" wont be there, and you'll have to go looking them up somewhere? Really? 'Cause If you believe that strongly that that's how orcs or kobolds are "supposed to be" in your world, then it should be pretty darn easy to guess which of their stats should be increased.
Not everyone is playing with just older players, some people play with new players. And there's a lot of new players who don't know what to lean into or what the DM will want to lean into for the races. There's also people who like to get a good idea of what races normally lean into so they can decide what to play into or against, even if they choose to relocate the ASIs it's nice info to know when deciding what to make your dump stat if any. There's also the players who like the idea of playing against the typical ASIs as well, the GMs who like to use them for quick PC generation, Games where they just don't allow the Tasha Variant, and people who use them to help figure out the normal strengths and weaknesses typically associated with the race and what role it's features were designed to fill. The optional rule for ASI variability still exists, it's something they could have just posted in the book and left both camps happy, but they removed the option to chose if you want to follow the tasha standard. And let's not forget that after the new book launches they are DISCONTINUING the books that contain the old information so unless the person buy them in the next 2 days they don't have access to the older versions of the races anymore, this is for all intents and purposes a replacement, not just additional options.
There are so many races who have +2 STR and +1 CON though. Using standard ASIs to determine a race's distinctness has failed.
Personally, I would enjoy races' physical attributes being flavoured like goliaths with Powerful Build. It makes sense both lore-wise and mechanically, even if you dump STR, because they're part giant. They're going to be able to carry more than other folk with the same STR score, because they have more mass behind them by virtue of being head and shoulders taller than most other races.
You can keep standard ASIs without "keeping" keeping them by roleplaying them as racial stereotypes (tactfully). Maybe there are people who, by default, assume that orcbloods are big and bulky, and that orcbloods who aren't are some other person using a poor disguise.
That ASI spread is just the Orc variants, Goliath, and Minotaur. If you increase that to strength and con being the only option you can add leonin who has +2 con and +1 strength and maybe Triton who has Strength, Con, and Charisma. Otherwise you have other options in subrace or floating score.
And it's not just the ASI's that suffer from the new design philosophy or making everything as customizable as possible, the lore also suffers. There were three races introduced after Tasha's, and all 3 of them basically just had 2-3 paragraphs to serve as their description. No more explanations on their customs or societies, what the life of the average member entails, or the history of their accomplishments just "This is thing, Thing speaks these languages sometimes but you can choose not to, I guess they are from this place and normally look like this but you can change that, We'd give you some common names but we'd just tell you to ignore those anyway so we'll skip that part, here have the features it's the only thing you probably care about."
I agree. This feels like a panic response to recent criticisms rather than new options to help players play what they want. WOTC could have easily added in a side tab with some default ASIs based on race, but instead they are making the optional rules from Tasha's mandatory, which makes the PHB and older books feel outdated and useless (especially if you like the race-based ASIs).
I say this as a progressive person (politically-speaking), but I don't like when companies drastically alter things retroactively. I think that Wizards would have received a much more positive response to these changes if they were included in 5.5E. I would love to see these changes for a "new" edition, because it is just that: a new edition. However, changing a game is already out that people have spent lots of money on is, at best, a misguided attempt to right some wrongs, and at worst, a cash grab. I just don't see the harm in including a side bar with assigned ASIs. You want to make customizable ability score increases the default? Awesome! I just don't like that they are forcing these rules on players moving forward. They could have easily made everyone happy, which makes this seem like a response to criticism rather than a genuine attempt to make races more adaptable to different classes.
Additionally, the removal of lore from Volo's and other sources is a travesty. I paid for a book with RP lore in it, and then they removed it without any sort of way to access that lore again. This flies in the face of everything the DMs Guild stands for (the whole point is to represent "problematic" material because otherwise we will forget and repeat it). But rather than add a small bit of errata that states "this book is Volo's opinion and centers on the lore of Forgotten Realms" they had to remove it.
I cant believe they only mentioned the negative aspects of kobolds from volo's and completely ignored pack tactics in that introduction. Come on, there's no need to pretend the new version is better when both are good!
I don't think "grim" really describes hobgoblins at all; hobgoblins are presently "martial", and have been since at least 3rd edition, in Red Hand of Doom. The idea that they're just nice fey creatures who want to help others with gifts is… off-putting. That said, I think their new abilities, while in some ways worse than the version in Volo's, can be flavored (or de-flavored, by removing the fey component) into an even more clear, archetypal depiction of a battlefield commander. And that's great! I slightly wish it was retooled to match Mastermind Rogue's "Master of Tactics" ability, or at least give us 2x Proficiency bonus uses, but the mechanics are cool.
I'm not totally nuts about some of the mechanical changes to goblins, but the lore stuff is an improvement. Changing Kobolds' Pack Tactics to "an expendable resource" means they'll never get picked at an optimization table, but to be honest, I didn't have any strong desire to play as one previously, and the flavor of Draconic Legacy is pretty cool.
Seems like a pretty good analysis of things. I have zero problem with the whole racial ASI situation, unlike others here, but the lack of lore and lack of RP flavor in recent releases makes it seem like WOTC is walking on eggshells to avoid seeming "problematic" about racial issues.
I feel like a lot of things could work out better if they just abandoned the moniker of "race" entirely, and used another term like "species," because that's what these creatures are, entirely different species, who we shouldn't necessarily expect to be anything remotely human-like, whether in regards to biology, psychology, or sociology.
In exploring Eberron, the Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Bugbear all get somekind of resistance to charm and/or frightened condition. It's just explained as conditioning, rather than a fey history.
I personally like to use a compromise between the new ASI improvements and the classic racial ASI improvements: players may choose one of the two or more ASIs they get from their race and change that to an ability score of their choice. I find it allows variation in race/class builds while also justifying my usual adjustments to NPC ability scores
On the other hand one of the things I can do with the lore change is I can make orcs more properly Tolkienesque, which hobgoblins had previously filled with their brutal legion aesthetic. I've always preferred brutal Tolkien orcs to cartoony green Blizzard orcs, and this optional lore change can help me fulfill that desire.
I totally agree. Part of my disappointment is not with WOTC, but with the fans who are demonizing them. 5E did a lot of work to minimize or utterly remove female oversexualization, male power fantasies, and add many POC to the front covers as well as interior art. For instance, people are calling D&D racist, which is laughable considering the default picture for humans in the PHB is a woman of color. Also, the entire point of humans is that they are versatile. Making every other species the same is watering down everything that makes D&D special. D&D is beloved because it has a better system, people like it because the developers put effort into the lore and background.
I think another issue is that bigots and horrible people are coming out of the woodwork, acting as if all of the people like me are "on their side". This is simply wrong. Those people want D&D to remain a white/CIS fantasy and I want to maintain the uniqueness of species and monsters. We are not the same.
I'd of liked an idea of default ASI mostly for use modifying NPC's: player character are inherently special, yes, but having a stand default list for quickly dropping where needed is useful. Just have to make a best guess, I suppose.
Note, I'm not opposed to the change, but a suggestion of what's typical has it uses, both for what I wrote above and for, say, designing a character that lived a typical life among their people until they caught a case of Adventure.
I’m really glad that races are now non-stereotypical
If they want to water down the things that made each race unique, that's fine IF they have a good reason. As an overreaction, it's horrible. I don't want humans and everything else to have the complete same options when I'm creating a character. Sure, each creature has special abilities that make it unique. You don't choose those. When you choose a kobold, you're doing it for a flavor reason. You can choose a kobold for that reason with their stat adjustments as they were. What's wrong with that expectation of what kobolds are? I don't consider it stereotyping if it's in the definition of the creature. You get +2 to one stat and +1 to another. Because you're a kobold, they're picked for you. That's the point.
And I certainly see no reason for drow not to be evil. We've got plenty of other evil monsters that are still evil, and they haven't been changed. What's next, flower-power beholders? Demons aren't evil, they're just misunderstood? This is a real incentive to keep my older hard copies and not buy any new ones.
This is true, and I sometimes do prefer the old copies, and I play a Szarkai (albino) drow like they are “stereotypically shown according to some people, but we have too many people against it to keep it that way. Kadh 200 is technically right that they are sort of ruining the lore.
Are elves fixed to always being Good? There's no such thing as an evil elf? If this isn't true, why can there not be non-evil drow?
Anyway, I take a straightforward approach that even Wizard seems to want to avoid: consider WHY they are evil. Even real, normal humans can get pretty damn evil when given the motivations and social conditions. So for drow, their default society is a violent, oppressive murdercratic death-cult pwoered by slavery and ruled by a psychotic goddess that can literally speak to each and every one of them in their own head, if she feels like, who WANTS them to evil little monsters. So under those conditions, yes, they are evil.
Beholders? They're aberrations that don't think like humans. Even then, some pieces going back years have had beholders that aren't inherently 'evil', but their psychology makes them, at best, rather nasty tyrants who save their worst nature for other beholders. Demons? Literally made of evil. But, if there maybe be a chance that demons can eat enough souls that they start to pick up a real Self, well, that seems like a campaign hook to me. Or even, demons are 'misunderstood', but there's still no way for them to cohabit with real world since they're basically viruses, seeking to convent more worlds into suitable habits, but that might be pushing them towards the Far Realms in nature.
Instead of giving us something new, WotC did balance changes to try and make all races seem fair and threw lore concept out the window. Still waiting for Canine and Rodent base races since we have a lot of other animal races to pick from, only fair.
So if they are fey can’t you just cast banishment on them and be done with them?