Is it just me or the new Monster Manual 2024 is missing important informations which drops the potential and the CR of some monsters. Demons for instance, in the 2014 edition has a whole section about Demons page 50 to 54 in which a lot is explained as to how to play them. According to the 2024 edition, Balor, Balgura, Glabrezu, Marilith, Nalfeshnee and Yochol no longer have the capacity to summon lesser Demon as the information has been left out. Is that a big Oops?
No, what the summoning rules mostly did was make any fight super swingy, because that summon ranged from "monster wasted its action" to "this fight more than doubled in difficulty". If you want the monsters to summon other monsters, you can still do it, it's just that you designed the encounter to work that way so it always does the same thing, and you balanced the encounter knowing what the summon would do.
You aren't wrong. frankly the layout of the new Monster Manual is outrageously bad. They've made the mistake to listen to youtubers and influencers who are so braindead they've never learnt that an index is a feature not a bug. Turning to the back of a book to look through an alphabetical list of contents is literally part and parcel of how to use a book and almost always has been.
Removing 'how to run' these creatures is largely I think down to their publishing strategy. More often that not in their published adventures, WotC will let you know how to play the monster or enemy. So, the assumption I think would have been that you don't need to publish the information twice. Similarly though, GMs like myself who make their own worlds or customise content often ignore that kind of stuff anyway. For example, I've often said to players that I use HP range for monsters, and I ignore WotC alignment and behaviours instead giving the monsters my own behaviours and alignments. Part of this is so that I don't have players reading through the MM and claiming 'that's not how that monster acts'. The other part is that it gives me more flexibility in worldbuilding.
A look through a lot of GM advice all seems to back this stuff up. It's about taking the stat block and altering it or reskinning it. That seems to be advice that they listened to in designing the MM.
The upside - there's absolutely no harm in stealing the lore from previous Monster Manuals, or monster books from the likes of Kobold Press.
Is it just me or the new Monster Manual 2024 is missing important informations which drops the potential and the CR of some monsters. Demons for instance, in the 2014 edition has a whole section about Demons page 50 to 54 in which a lot is explained as to how to play them. According to the 2024 edition, Balor, Balgura, Glabrezu, Marilith, Nalfeshnee and Yochol no longer have the capacity to summon lesser Demon as the information has been left out. Is that a big Oops?
No, what the summoning rules mostly did was make any fight super swingy, because that summon ranged from "monster wasted its action" to "this fight more than doubled in difficulty". If you want the monsters to summon other monsters, you can still do it, it's just that you designed the encounter to work that way so it always does the same thing, and you balanced the encounter knowing what the summon would do.
Yes but removing the mention of that capacity will create friction with new players and dms. And literally remove knowledge base. Just sucks.
They were rules that it's a bad idea to actually use.
You aren't wrong. frankly the layout of the new Monster Manual is outrageously bad. They've made the mistake to listen to youtubers and influencers who are so braindead they've never learnt that an index is a feature not a bug. Turning to the back of a book to look through an alphabetical list of contents is literally part and parcel of how to use a book and almost always has been.
Removing 'how to run' these creatures is largely I think down to their publishing strategy. More often that not in their published adventures, WotC will let you know how to play the monster or enemy. So, the assumption I think would have been that you don't need to publish the information twice. Similarly though, GMs like myself who make their own worlds or customise content often ignore that kind of stuff anyway. For example, I've often said to players that I use HP range for monsters, and I ignore WotC alignment and behaviours instead giving the monsters my own behaviours and alignments. Part of this is so that I don't have players reading through the MM and claiming 'that's not how that monster acts'. The other part is that it gives me more flexibility in worldbuilding.
A look through a lot of GM advice all seems to back this stuff up. It's about taking the stat block and altering it or reskinning it. That seems to be advice that they listened to in designing the MM.
The upside - there's absolutely no harm in stealing the lore from previous Monster Manuals, or monster books from the likes of Kobold Press.
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