I'm pleasantly surprised at some tweaks. As a dungeon master I was often forgtting about resistance to nonmagical weapons (especially at higher levels) - and it's been removed from many statblocks.
also restricting regeneration to trolls and slaad (where it is ingrained)
simplifying attacks - e.g. multiple claw attacks to "rend" is good.
art is hit and miss - most monsters really great but some less impressive.
I love the greater use of bonus actions. Disagree with Mike Mearls' regret on bonus actions and glad he brought them in!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Monsters I made or adapted from other sources for use here.
I absolutely hate the strict alpha-by-name organizing, as well as mixing NPCs in with monsters. In the case of monsters like demons, devils, giants, and dragons, it makes a LOT of sense to have them all under the umbrella term rather than scattered around the book. When a DM is looking for a monster, they're often looking for a type of monster - and it's really helpful to have them gathered together for easy comparison.
I absolutely hate the strict alpha-by-name organizing, as well as mixing NPCs in with monsters. In the case of monsters like demons, devils, giants, and dragons, it makes a LOT of sense to have them all under the umbrella term rather than scattered around the book. When a DM is looking for a monster, they're often looking for a type of monster - and it's really helpful to have them gathered together for easy comparison.
I agree. Personally i think they should have sorted by group, BUT had an index where you could look up by name that pointed to the group it's in. Oh wait, they have one...so they could have.
For a new player or a young and curious person, it is important to be able to get lost in the "dragon" section of the book. If you don't know that there is a "silver" dragon, then you will never find it with this type of organization. Did you guys know that there is an Orange dragon now in the book? No you didn't, so you would have never found it! (btw, I just checked and there isn't one, I'm just making that up as an example). Look at all the types of giants! Nope, you are lucky if you find hill giant, and then you would have no idea that there is a Stone Giant or Cloud Giant as well. It's impossible for new gamers and a pain in the backside for an experienced one.
There is a link at the very beginning of this topic that says "New Dragons!" I wouldn't even know where to start looking. So, I have to watch a video about them to know they are in there?
This is the worst idea for a Bestiary/ Monster Manual I have ever heard of. If I could stand in the middle of the gentlemen who thought about this ('cause you know they did) and decided to do it, I would cast SHAME! Horrible, terrible, honestly idiotic idea.
The art is fantastic. The stat blocks are amazing. I normally buy a version of this book for home and two for my club at the school I teach at. I'm not buying another one until they reorganize it. It actually ruins the book.
WARNING! Send a message. This needs to be fixed in the first reprint.
Did you guys know that there is an Orange dragon now in the book? No you didn't, so you would have never found it! (btw, I just checked and there isn't one, I'm just making that up as an example).
To be fair, there's a section at the back in the Monsters by Group called "Dragons" that tells you where all the dragons are. But they should have flipped this and made that an index of what section each type by name is in.
Yeah, I just found that. It's better in the online version with the links. In the book, there is no page reference, so you have to take that knowledge and go to the contents/ index at the beginning of the book, then flip to the page.
Just picture that with young or inexperienced gamers. Bleh.
Hey y'all! Normally today I would be like "hey here's what videos are coming this week!" and then you'd see a YouTube premiere for one of said videos to fuel the anticipation.
As you can also see, none of that has happened yet. I'm sure you must be wondering what that means.
I'LL TELL YOU WHAT IT MEANS: there's no video tomorrow. BUT! That does not mean that there won't be videos this week. There will definitely be videos this week.
And I'll tell you what they are tomorrow. I promise.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her) You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On| CM Hat Off Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5]. Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Hey y'all! Normally today I would be like "hey here's what videos are coming this week!" and then you'd see a YouTube premiere for one of said videos to fuel the anticipation.
As you can also see, none of that has happened yet. I'm sure you must be wondering what that means.
I'LL TELL YOU WHAT IT MEANS: there's no video tomorrow. BUT! That does not mean that there won't be videos this week. There will definitely be videos this week.
And I'll tell you what they are tomorrow. I promise.
Yeah, I just found that. It's better in the online version with the links. In the book, there is no page reference, so you have to take that knowledge and go to the contents/ index at the beginning of the book, then flip to the page.
Just picture that with young or inexperienced gamers. Bleh.
Conversely, a purely alphabetical organisation is better for inexperienced DMs if running published campaigns. If they come across a Hezrou, then they can flick through to the H’s, without needing to go hunting through various tables to find that they need to turn to D for Demon.
Also, the grouping in the 2014 MM wasn’t entirely logical: why are there groupings of the different types of Fiends, but Undead are scattered throughout the book?
Pre-computers, the traditional way of handling this is either an index, or "see ..." entries in the text. In general, though, the primary use of a monster manual is as a reference, and in that case you want the primary sort key to be the most commonly encountered form. To give an example of the Hezrou
If adventures list the monster as Hezrou, you would sort it under Hezrou
If adventures list the monster as Demon(Hezrou), you would sort it under Demon
If adventures list the monster as Hezrou Demon, DMs would likely not be immediately sure where to look first (which is undesirable). Note that this is a problem for things like Red Dragon.
Grouping by 'likely to be found together' should be done in an index or separate section, because many creatures will fit in more than one category.
Yeah, I just found that. It's better in the online version with the links. In the book, there is no page reference, so you have to take that knowledge and go to the contents/ index at the beginning of the book, then flip to the page.
Just picture that with young or inexperienced gamers. Bleh.
Conversely, a purely alphabetical organisation is better for inexperienced DMs if running published campaigns. If they come across a Hezrou, then they can flick through to the H’s, without needing to go hunting through various tables to find that they need to turn to D for Demon.
Also, the grouping in the 2014 MM wasn’t entirely logical: why are there groupings of the different types of Fiends, but Undead are scattered throughout the book?
This is exactly what I think too, it's all well and good everyone here with decades of experience saying everything should be grouped by crature type but if you've only ever heard of a Gelatinous Cube but have no idea it's a type of ooze then you'd never be able to find it if everything was grouped by type. I usually only run prewritten adventures and I gave up using the 2014 Monster Manual in favour of just searching on DDB because I could never find anything when it was referenced in the adventure
on a side bit, the printed came in the mail a few days ago. one corner a little damaged. lucky it was packaged in a book cardboard packaging and not like Amazon with just a white plastic packaging. plus, Sunday the APP on the phone shows i own the digital and wants me to download it, but of course it errors with "retry downloading" since im not a subscriber...
its interesting take on monsters and the 2024 game etc. i actually thought the PHB 2024 flowed very super well, expect the half donkeying the subclasses. still very disappointed with that. is there any plans to bring the missing subclasses back since the spell types are still in the book?
Yeah, I just found that. It's better in the online version with the links. In the book, there is no page reference, so you have to take that knowledge and go to the contents/ index at the beginning of the book, then flip to the page.
Just picture that with young or inexperienced gamers. Bleh.
Conversely, a purely alphabetical organisation is better for inexperienced DMs if running published campaigns. If they come across a Hezrou, then they can flick through to the H’s, without needing to go hunting through various tables to find that they need to turn to D for Demon.
Also, the grouping in the 2014 MM wasn’t entirely logical: why are there groupings of the different types of Fiends, but Undead are scattered throughout the book?
This is exactly what I think too, it's all well and good everyone here with decades of experience saying everything should be grouped by crature type but if you've only ever heard of a Gelatinous Cube but have no idea it's a type of ooze then you'd never be able to find it if everything was grouped by type. I usually only run prewritten adventures and I gave up using the 2014 Monster Manual in favour of just searching on DDB because I could never find anything when it was referenced in the adventure
I recently had to look through the 2014 MM to compare creature abilities. Not only have I not looked through that book in a while for several reasons, it was just easier for me to go straight to the index because I really didn't remember how things were organized.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her) You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On| CM Hat Off Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5]. Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Hey y'all! Normally today I would be like "hey here's what videos are coming this week!" and then you'd see a YouTube premiere for one of said videos to fuel the anticipation.
As you can also see, none of that has happened yet. I'm sure you must be wondering what that means.
I'LL TELL YOU WHAT IT MEANS: there's no video tomorrow. BUT! That does not mean that there won't be videos this week. There will definitely be videos this week.
And I'll tell you what they are tomorrow. I promise.
This is exactly what I think too, it's all well and good everyone here with decades of experience saying everything should be grouped by crature type but if you've only ever heard of a Gelatinous Cube but have no idea it's a type of ooze then you'd never be able to find it if everything was grouped by type.
Yeah, the 'ooze' category is horrible. If you were indexing, it would be reasonable to sort gray ooze under ooze, because the name actually contains ooze, 'gray' is clearly a qualifier, and people might expect things like 'yellow ooze' to exist, but black pudding would be under 'pudding', ochre jelly would be under 'jelly', and gelatinous cube would probably be left under 'gelatinous' (sure, you might think there's a category of cubes of different materials such as 'iron cube', but you also might think there's a category of gelatinous creatures such as 'gelatinous sphere' and 'gelatinous tetrahedron').
In more a more general sense, for creatures with a single word name, natural sorting is by name. For creatures with a multiple word name, natural sorting is by the most distinctive word in the name. This means groups like 'demons' are atrocious (10 of 11 do not even have "demon" in their name), groups like 'golem' are far more reasonable (if I tell my PCs "there's a golem in the cave", they'll have some idea of what I'm talking about. If I tell them "there's a clay in the cave", not so much), and 2024 sorting all giant animals under 'giant' (while sorting actual giants under their type) is an antipattern. However, indexing is an art and a complicated subject.
I mean... the easy way to reference something in an adventure would just be to put the source and page number after it. E.g.:
"Hezrou (MM24, p. 234)
Then the book could group monsters by type for ease of comparison and reading, with an index at the back alphabetically for ease of referencing specific monsters without having to know their type.
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D&D StaffFirst post has been updated with today's video!
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
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Gosh, it looks great. Dozens of comments on here each day. The excitement is palpable.
I'm pleasantly surprised at some tweaks. As a dungeon master I was often forgtting about resistance to nonmagical weapons (especially at higher levels) - and it's been removed from many statblocks.
also restricting regeneration to trolls and slaad (where it is ingrained)
simplifying attacks - e.g. multiple claw attacks to "rend" is good.
art is hit and miss - most monsters really great but some less impressive.
I love the greater use of bonus actions. Disagree with Mike Mearls' regret on bonus actions and glad he brought them in!
Monsters I made or adapted from other sources for use here.
For the print version:
I absolutely hate the strict alpha-by-name organizing, as well as mixing NPCs in with monsters. In the case of monsters like demons, devils, giants, and dragons, it makes a LOT of sense to have them all under the umbrella term rather than scattered around the book. When a DM is looking for a monster, they're often looking for a type of monster - and it's really helpful to have them gathered together for easy comparison.
I agree. Personally i think they should have sorted by group, BUT had an index where you could look up by name that pointed to the group it's in. Oh wait, they have one...so they could have.
I have preordered the monster manual and have the other 2024 rulebooks.
Gulpmissile Day on Feb. 15 every year. (Now with Gulp in the world of lurkers.)
Praise Mulop!
Bill Cipher Cult
This why I came here.
For a new player or a young and curious person, it is important to be able to get lost in the "dragon" section of the book. If you don't know that there is a "silver" dragon, then you will never find it with this type of organization. Did you guys know that there is an Orange dragon now in the book? No you didn't, so you would have never found it! (btw, I just checked and there isn't one, I'm just making that up as an example). Look at all the types of giants! Nope, you are lucky if you find hill giant, and then you would have no idea that there is a Stone Giant or Cloud Giant as well. It's impossible for new gamers and a pain in the backside for an experienced one.
There is a link at the very beginning of this topic that says "New Dragons!" I wouldn't even know where to start looking. So, I have to watch a video about them to know they are in there?
This is the worst idea for a Bestiary/ Monster Manual I have ever heard of. If I could stand in the middle of the gentlemen who thought about this ('cause you know they did) and decided to do it, I would cast SHAME! Horrible, terrible, honestly idiotic idea.
The art is fantastic. The stat blocks are amazing. I normally buy a version of this book for home and two for my club at the school I teach at. I'm not buying another one until they reorganize it. It actually ruins the book.
WARNING! Send a message. This needs to be fixed in the first reprint.
DMSHIDE
Just found "Monsters by Creature Type" on page 379. That is helpful, if you know it is there.
And then I found that they called the Contents an Index and then didn't organize it like any other index in anything ever:
Dragon, Blue young adult
Dragon, Blue ancient
Dragon, Black etc.
My goodness!
DMSHIDE
To be fair, there's a section at the back in the Monsters by Group called "Dragons" that tells you where all the dragons are. But they should have flipped this and made that an index of what section each type by name is in.
Yeah, I just found that. It's better in the online version with the links. In the book, there is no page reference, so you have to take that knowledge and go to the contents/ index at the beginning of the book, then flip to the page.
Just picture that with young or inexperienced gamers. Bleh.
DMSHIDE
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D&D StaffHey y'all! Normally today I would be like "hey here's what videos are coming this week!" and then you'd see a YouTube premiere for one of said videos to fuel the anticipation.
As you can also see, none of that has happened yet. I'm sure you must be wondering what that means.
I'LL TELL YOU WHAT IT MEANS: there's no video tomorrow. BUT! That does not mean that there won't be videos this week. There will definitely be videos this week.
And I'll tell you what they are tomorrow. I promise.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On | CM Hat Off
Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5].
Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Useful Links: Site Rules & Guidelines | D&D Educator Resources | Change Your Nickname | Submit a Support Ticket
Sounds exciting! Can't wait! Gimme gimme! ;)
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Conversely, a purely alphabetical organisation is better for inexperienced DMs if running published campaigns. If they come across a Hezrou, then they can flick through to the H’s, without needing to go hunting through various tables to find that they need to turn to D for Demon.
Also, the grouping in the 2014 MM wasn’t entirely logical: why are there groupings of the different types of Fiends, but Undead are scattered throughout the book?
Pre-computers, the traditional way of handling this is either an index, or "see ..." entries in the text. In general, though, the primary use of a monster manual is as a reference, and in that case you want the primary sort key to be the most commonly encountered form. To give an example of the Hezrou
Grouping by 'likely to be found together' should be done in an index or separate section, because many creatures will fit in more than one category.
This is exactly what I think too, it's all well and good everyone here with decades of experience saying everything should be grouped by crature type but if you've only ever heard of a Gelatinous Cube but have no idea it's a type of ooze then you'd never be able to find it if everything was grouped by type. I usually only run prewritten adventures and I gave up using the 2014 Monster Manual in favour of just searching on DDB because I could never find anything when it was referenced in the adventure
on a side bit, the printed came in the mail a few days ago. one corner a little damaged. lucky it was packaged in a book cardboard packaging and not like Amazon with just a white plastic packaging. plus, Sunday the APP on the phone shows i own the digital and wants me to download it, but of course it errors with "retry downloading" since im not a subscriber...
its interesting take on monsters and the 2024 game etc. i actually thought the PHB 2024 flowed very super well, expect the half donkeying the subclasses. still very disappointed with that. is there any plans to bring the missing subclasses back since the spell types are still in the book?
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D&D StaffI recently had to look through the 2014 MM to compare creature abilities. Not only have I not looked through that book in a while for several reasons, it was just easier for me to go straight to the index because I really didn't remember how things were organized.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On | CM Hat Off
Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5].
Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Useful Links: Site Rules & Guidelines | D&D Educator Resources | Change Your Nickname | Submit a Support Ticket
Waiting with breath bated… 😊
Yeah, the 'ooze' category is horrible. If you were indexing, it would be reasonable to sort gray ooze under ooze, because the name actually contains ooze, 'gray' is clearly a qualifier, and people might expect things like 'yellow ooze' to exist, but black pudding would be under 'pudding', ochre jelly would be under 'jelly', and gelatinous cube would probably be left under 'gelatinous' (sure, you might think there's a category of cubes of different materials such as 'iron cube', but you also might think there's a category of gelatinous creatures such as 'gelatinous sphere' and 'gelatinous tetrahedron').
In more a more general sense, for creatures with a single word name, natural sorting is by name. For creatures with a multiple word name, natural sorting is by the most distinctive word in the name. This means groups like 'demons' are atrocious (10 of 11 do not even have "demon" in their name), groups like 'golem' are far more reasonable (if I tell my PCs "there's a golem in the cave", they'll have some idea of what I'm talking about. If I tell them "there's a clay in the cave", not so much), and 2024 sorting all giant animals under 'giant' (while sorting actual giants under their type) is an antipattern. However, indexing is an art and a complicated subject.
I mean... the easy way to reference something in an adventure would just be to put the source and page number after it. E.g.:
"Hezrou (MM24, p. 234)
Then the book could group monsters by type for ease of comparison and reading, with an index at the back alphabetically for ease of referencing specific monsters without having to know their type.