The Request For MM 2025 Monsters that do not have a Description, but their 2014+ Legacy counterparts do, please add a Description (Legacy) section to the 2025 listing, thereby bringing that useful content forward on both the website and app.
Note that there is a Description for 2014, but none for 2025. I know why this is (I don't agree, more on that below). The fix is to just bring the content forward.
In the example above, the 2025 Giant Elk listing should have this section added:
Description (Legacy)
The majestic giant elk is rare to the point that its appearance is often taken as a foreshadowing of an important event, such as the birth of a king. Legends tell of gods that take the form of giant elk when visiting the Material Plane. Many cultures therefore believe that to hunt these creatures is to invite divine wrath.
And, low and behold, that actually explains why it is a Celestial now. :-P Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
BACKGROUND: Why this is a MUST
This addresses what is, in my mind, the absolute worst part of Monster Manual 2025: the removal of perfectly valid Descriptions for OVER FIFTY MONSTERS in the strive to save a few pages, or in lieu of a few less new monsters. What a terrible way to celebrate 50 years: let's ditch perfectly valid Lore that helps DM's run these monsters.
<soapbox>Look, I get not wanting to publish a 400+ page book, but frankly, if the community was asked if they would rather have perfectly valid and useful content removed, or pay $10 more, they would have voted resoundingly to pay $10 more. I get that the LGS wouldn't like paying more, but let's face it: print is not your moneymaker here. Digital is. That's the future. So, print decisions should not drive your business decisions going forward, and it shouldn't have in these "books", because it's not about the books: it's about the content platform. Period. If it needed to be a $80 book in order to have the right content on the platform, then so be it. Or, leave a few new monsters out. Two bad decisions were made here, first a bad business one, that then forced a design tradeoff that turned into a bad design decision as well.</soapbox>
But, the good news is this travesty can be fixed in Digital, ie, the content platform. We can have the best of both worlds, without having to look up two Monsters. Today, every time we now see a missing Description in a 2025 Monster (and there are a lot), we have to do do a Search and page load just to see if the legacy version had one. This is not only a UX nightmare and incredibly wasteful of a DM's time, but it results in unnecessary Search and page render load on your servers, which wastes $$$.
Here's the funny thing; that description for Giant Elk, along with a few other similar creatures, doesn't actually appear in the 2014 Monster Manual. If you go digging through some of content found on D&D Beyond, specifically from the 2014 Basic Rules/Core Rulebooks, you'll find mysterious descriptions that don't appear in any book. From what I can tell this is a DDB-ism, a legacy of the very early days of the site when a lot more liberties were taken than you'd see today.
So no, nothing has been removed because those descriptions were never in the book in the first place. Just someone at D&D Beyond back in 2015 or whenever decided to be a bit creative and add some fluff.
Here's the funny thing; that description for Giant Elk, along with a few other similar creatures, doesn't actually appear in the 2014 Monster Manual. If you go digging through some of content found on D&D Beyond, specifically from the 2014 Basic Rules/Core Rulebooks, you'll find mysterious descriptions that don't appear in any book. From what I can tell this is a DDB-ism, a legacy of the very early days of the site when a lot more liberties were taken than you'd see today
Here's the funny thing; that description for Giant Elk, along with a few other similar creatures, doesn't actually appear in the 2014 Monster Manual. If you go digging through some of content found on D&D Beyond, specifically from the 2014 Basic Rules/Core Rulebooks, you'll find mysterious descriptions that don't appear in any book. From what I can tell this is a DDB-ism, a legacy of the very early days of the site when a lot more liberties were taken than you'd see today
Uhhhh... yes, it does. Page 325.
Oh wow, I didn't even know that was there and completely missed it. The more you know
The Request
For MM 2025 Monsters that do not have a Description, but their 2014+ Legacy counterparts do, please add a Description (Legacy) section to the 2025 listing, thereby bringing that useful content forward on both the website and app.
For example, compare the following two links:
2014 Giant Elk: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16882-giant-elk
2025 Giant Elk: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/5195018-giant-elk
Note that there is a Description for 2014, but none for 2025. I know why this is (I don't agree, more on that below). The fix is to just bring the content forward.
In the example above, the 2025 Giant Elk listing should have this section added:
Description (Legacy)
The majestic giant elk is rare to the point that its appearance is often taken as a foreshadowing of an important event, such as the birth of a king. Legends tell of gods that take the form of giant elk when visiting the Material Plane. Many cultures therefore believe that to hunt these creatures is to invite divine wrath.
And, low and behold, that actually explains why it is a Celestial now. :-P Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
BACKGROUND: Why this is a MUST
This addresses what is, in my mind, the absolute worst part of Monster Manual 2025: the removal of perfectly valid Descriptions for OVER FIFTY MONSTERS in the strive to save a few pages, or in lieu of a few less new monsters. What a terrible way to celebrate 50 years: let's ditch perfectly valid Lore that helps DM's run these monsters.
<soapbox>Look, I get not wanting to publish a 400+ page book, but frankly, if the community was asked if they would rather have perfectly valid and useful content removed, or pay $10 more, they would have voted resoundingly to pay $10 more. I get that the LGS wouldn't like paying more, but let's face it: print is not your moneymaker here. Digital is. That's the future. So, print decisions should not drive your business decisions going forward, and it shouldn't have in these "books", because it's not about the books: it's about the content platform. Period. If it needed to be a $80 book in order to have the right content on the platform, then so be it. Or, leave a few new monsters out. Two bad decisions were made here, first a bad business one, that then forced a design tradeoff that turned into a bad design decision as well.</soapbox>
But, the good news is this travesty can be fixed in Digital, ie, the content platform. We can have the best of both worlds, without having to look up two Monsters. Today, every time we now see a missing Description in a 2025 Monster (and there are a lot), we have to do do a Search and page load just to see if the legacy version had one. This is not only a UX nightmare and incredibly wasteful of a DM's time, but it results in unnecessary Search and page render load on your servers, which wastes $$$.
Here's the funny thing; that description for Giant Elk, along with a few other similar creatures, doesn't actually appear in the 2014 Monster Manual. If you go digging through some of content found on D&D Beyond, specifically from the 2014 Basic Rules/Core Rulebooks, you'll find mysterious descriptions that don't appear in any book. From what I can tell this is a DDB-ism, a legacy of the very early days of the site when a lot more liberties were taken than you'd see today.
So no, nothing has been removed because those descriptions were never in the book in the first place. Just someone at D&D Beyond back in 2015 or whenever decided to be a bit creative and add some fluff.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Uhhhh... yes, it does. Page 325.
Outstanding, I didn't even see them sneak in and add it to my print copy!
Jokes aside, that doesn't seem to be right. I'm literally looking at the entry in a non D&D beyond MM
Oh wow, I didn't even know that was there and completely missed it. The more you know
Find my D&D Beyond articles here