Hags – I was curious about this one because hags are always really interesting when they show up in other monster entries. They’re tightly tied to the mythos of the fiends in a way that suggests they’re an ancient race, sort of a fiendish equivalent to the titans. This is not quite the story that their own entry tells, and while that irks me somewhat, it is offset by what the entry does.

Like the ghost, the hag is very clearly written for a scenario, and by scenario I really mean horror movie. Though the hags themselves are not terribly potent (CR 3 for the green hag, 5 for the night hag and 2 for the sea hag) they are very clearly not written as stand up fights. Their abilities are rife with illusions and disappearing tricks, and as a group (there are rules for covens) they have access to fairly substantial magical firepower, but their motives will drive a lot of indirect nastiness. They’re not going to seek out adventurers, adventurers will have to find them. And doing so won’t be pleasant.

Half Dragon – This is a template, and it basically adds immunity and breath weapon appropriate to the dragon type, as well as some minor abilities. It’s a pure mechanics, and there are two interesting tidbits to it.

First, while the sample creature is a humanoid, there’s an explicit note that the breath weapon is more potent if the base creature is larger. That makes sense (especially with the 5e logic of simply making large creatures more dangerous rather than using fiddly size rules) but also suggests some really lovely/terrible combinations. I admit I am totally struck by the idea of a half dragon aboleth as the ultimate monstrosity.

Second, the impact of adding the template on the challenge rating of the target is not documented. The example given increases a veteran (CR 3) to CR 5, which would suggest that it’s +2 to CR, but they also improved his armor and gave him more hit points, neither of which are elements granted by the template. In short, I am not entirely sure what’s going on, mechanically, and I hope the DMG will eventually shed some light on this.

Harpy – Brief note: this is probably the most naked image of a woman in the book, and it looks tragic, not skeevy. This was a nice turn and utterly appropriate, as the harpy lore is entirely mythic, full of tragedy and love and curses upon the gods. I’m not sure it has much in the way of play hooks, but it’s got a good feel, so I’m ok with that, especially since it leaves plenty of space for how to actually run a harpy encounter, including it’s charming song (which is potent, but provides lots of opportunities to get out of)

Hell Hound – The lore is basically “Evil. And fiery” so not a lot to work with that. Their tactics are self-explanatory in their statblock – pack tactics + Immunity to fire + fiery breath suggests a very unpleasant dogpile.

Helmed Horror – I always feel bad for these dudes, since they come across like low rent death knights. It’s a cooler looking, slightly smarter suit of animated armor who can fly. It’s nasty, has lots of resistances, has a tactical note that it explicitly takes advantage of its ability to fly. However, all of this, combined with magical resistance , immunity to 3 spells of the creator’s choosing and a complete lack of ranged abilities mean that basically this is a monster designed to melee the wizard.

This is not as much of a jerk move as in previous editions, but it’s still pretty harsh. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, but it’s important to know what you’re working with.

Hippogriff – I take back everything I said about the griffon – the hippogriff is even more boring. Horse + eagle. Done.

Hobgoblins – Another humanoid race. Historically, Hobgoblins have been “the lawful ones” which mostly means they boss around other races and are somewhat militaristic about it. This entry pretty much doubles down on that – one nice bit of color reveals that every member of hobgoblin society has a military rank – and it mostly works. It very clearly lays them out as organized adversaries willing to use other monsters as disposable shock troops, and their specific combat ability (substantial extra damage to all members of a pile-on when ganging up on someone) means they’re pretty nasty in a scrap.

However, they really skirt the monstrous line. The issue of evil humanoid races is one which can potentially be very complicated, and part of the implicit agreement of making them monsters is that they will be framed in such a way that if we really want to remove that complexity, we can. This is done by, well, making them, well, monstrous. The problem is that the hobgoblins really press the limits of that. They’re super warlike, but they’re also clearly very thoughtful about it, and have an entire culture predicated on it. I read this entry and I want them to be a nation in my world, not the occupants of my dungeons.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing – it suits my tastes – but if a player is looking for uncomplicated baddies, the hobgoblins may be a mismatch.

Homunculous – Look, there’s very little of real interest to the Homunculus itself. Flight, Negligible stats, a bite that causes sleep. that’s about it. What really matters is that this little dude is telepathically bonded to its creator, offering many of the benefits of a familiar and more. However, since there’s no information on how these little things are made, for the moment, this is purely the domain of NPCs.

Hook Horror – This would be the most preposterous of monsters if I did not fondly recall the toy of the same name. Mechanically uninteresting, visually weird, these seem to largely exist to be on hand for after the party gets bored with owlbears. But they get the nostalgia pass.

Hydra – This is always a hard monster to handle. In 3e,  they had too few hit points, which were then divided among the heads, making each head super fragile. This approach skips that in two ways. First, because hydras are huge, they start with a substantial number of hit points. Second, the hit point value for chopping off a head is a flat 25+ HP in a single attack. Should you do so without using fire, then the next round it grows 2 new heads for each one lost, healing 10HP per new head. This means you can grind a Hydra down, but it’s not going to be easy.

Even better, the rules feel nicely multiheaded. It gets one attack per head, plus one reaction (for an opportunity attack) per head. One head is always awake, and the multiplicity of heads give it advantage against effects that would frighten, charm, blind etc. – things that having multiple heads seems like it would help with.

Add in a nicely epic backstory – When Tiamat defeated the god Lernaea and tore her apart, where each drop of blood fell, a Hydra was born. Mythic. Appropriately named. The sort of thing that makes each hydra feel like a significant challenge without it being necessarily unique. Plus, it’s easy to use that story to justify curious one-offs. A half-red-dragon hydra would be an impressive terror, as the addition of fire resistance to the mix would be a dangerous touch.

Intellect Devourers – This is another tactical monster – there’s some backstory, but it’s basically “Illithid are creepy, and these are their little brain buddies”. Really, the heart of this monster is in its stat block, where it will attempt to blast your brain and, if successful, will teleport into your skull, devour your mind, and pilot your body like a meat suit.

While only CR 2, these are one of the nastiest creatures I’ve seen, as they have one of the only one-shot-takedown-and-you’re-probably-dead abilities. There used to be a lot of these (think Harpies and Dryads) but the game has gotten much more liberal in how often you get to make saves against these things. Not so for the intellect devourer. It’s got a 10″ range psychic attack. Int save DC 12 or you take some damage. More critically, if you fail that save, roll 3d6 – if that equals or exceeds your intelligence, your intelligence drops to 0. Enjoy drooling on the floor.

One shot take out not bad enough? Well, now that you’re drooling, it initiates an intelligence contest with you. When it wins, it hops into your skull.  That’s basically game over for you unless your buddies beat you like a piñata, or cast the right spells fast enough.

Bottom line, this is a scary monster. Like, maybe crossing the threshold of the implicit GM/Player understanding scary. Some tables will be fine with that. For others, this is one of those monsters that will probably be made more scary by it attacking NPCs, or otherwise used very cautiously. But figure out which way your GM leans before deciding to use intelligence as your dump stat.

Invisible Stalker – Not a lot of depth to this one, but that doesn’t keep it form being scary. and invisible flier with multiattack is going to be really dangerous against any group that isn’t ready for it. What’s more, it’s explicitly got someone behind the scenes, calling the shots.

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As I conclude the I’s, I admit to my disappointment in the absence of Ixitxachitl for utterly irrational reasons. Intelligent manta rays with evil magic is just the sort of gonzo thing I have been enjoying in this edition.

Galeb Duhr – This is another creature I have an unreasonable fondness for, since i remember getting a deck of monster cards when I was quite young. It included this guy, and I had no idea what it was. For the unfamiliar, it’s basically a walking boulder who can animate other rocks to fight. It’s a straightforward bruiser with the ability to call allies and a fun charge attack, but the lore suggests that it also makes for an interesting NPC – they’re neutral by nature, but are often guardians of things. There’s an interesting tidbit to them in that they’re elementals, but their native plane is the Prime Material. Curious implications there.

Gargoyle – A classic, including resistance to non-magical (or non adamantine) weapons, makes for a nasty low level (cr 2) threat that scales up as minions. The main color is kind of dull – they look like statues and are evil. Not exactly news. That said, there’s a nice sidebar about how they’re created on the elemental plane of earth as evil mockeries of (and weapons against) the Aarakocra, which is the nice start of something.

Genies -Dao, Djinni, Efreet and Marid – they’re not quite the classic 4, since originally it was just Djinn and Efreet, but the Dao and Marid filled in the rest of the elements well. These are the intelligent, powerful elementals, so I was super curious what their lore had to say.

They’re rare and haughty, which comes from “the knowledge that few creatures except gods and other genies can challenge their power”. This seems pretty bold for what are CR 11 creatures, but maybe they meant collectively. Genies are apparently created when the soul of a sentient creature melds with the appropriate elemental plane. This is rare and, importantly, leaves no trace of the original soul, so that’s another weird bit.

Genies are all slavers, which makes sense for the Dao and Efreet, but seems odd for the chaotic good djinn and even the chaotic neutral marids. Ah, and apparently there are noble genies, who I presume are tougher than CR 11, so that’s something.

The individual entries give some RP tips (apparently the Djinn are very nice slavers) but nothing exciting until you get to the Marid who not only sound delightfully self-aggrandizing, but who also have a picture that desperately makes me wish Diterlizzi had come back for it.

Ghost – This one intrigued me because the ghost is almost archetypical as a creature that I want to know how to run more than I care about specific stats. This entry did not let me down, starting with the key fact that ghosts can be any alignment and are looking to resolve unfinished business, not just running around being evilly undead. The abilities allow ghosts to be terrifying and to possess people, as well as to go ethereal. All in all, this was pretty much what I wanted (An I imagine a legendary ghost would have rather more “haunting” effects)

Ghouls – Nice bit of lore tying them to Orcus and explaining why elves are immune to their paralyzing touch. Probably just as well that ghasts are presented here too as souped up ghouls rather than a separate thing. These are a classic (they’re in one of the first examples of play I ever read) and they seem done right.

Giants – This is another lore chunk, explicitly calling out that giants are almost but not quite as old as dragons, and (as noted in the Behir entry) they warred in the past. Giants apparently have a rigid pecking order both across and within types (and the greatest hill giant is still less than the least Fire giant).

Each giant type gets a fair amount of copy, and it’s well used. It gives plenty of context to work each type (cloud, Fire, Frost, Stone, Hill and Storm) into the world. Each has a fun hook – Cloud Giants are made to be villains. Fire Giants are disciplined brutes. Frost Giants are wild brutes, too good to craft. Hill Giants are stupid bullies. Storm Giants are distant prophet kings.

Stone Giants are possibly my favorite. They’re seers and dreamers. To them, the world outside is, effectively, a dream, and they behave in accordance with this. Just a fun piece of color.

Stat wise, they run the gamut from CR 5 (Hill) to 13 (Storm), almost as if they’re perfectly designed to match middle tier progressions heroes.

Gibbering Mouther – Seriously yuck. I mean, the thing is gross and unpleasant, with a gibbering that can make you mad, but is also just makes the terrain around it doughy as it warps and infects reality. CR 2 is lower than I would have expected, but I guess it’s not particularly tough or strong, it’s just profoundly unpleasant.

So, well done.

Gith – Another fun one whose lore I was looking forward to, I found it interesting that they opted to make it one entry. It totally makes sense, and I like it a lot, since it really underscores that the Githyanki and Githzerai are divided by culture, not biology. The joined history is tidily summarized.

The Githyanki are detailed first, and there’s some nice attention to detail. That they raid worlds throughout the multiverse is nice and vivid, but practical notes like the fact that they always leave enough to rebuild (so they can reaide later) makes it feel much more dynamic and organic. The inclusion of the silver swords is a welcome touch. There’s also a nice note about their outposts in the material plane where they raise their young (because nothing ages in the Astral plane).

The Githzerai lore is nothing new to old nerds, but it provides a nice excuse to elaborate a little on the nature of limbo (the outer plane of roiling chaos that the githzerai exercise their will upon) Unfortunately, it’s a bit static – the image of the fortress-monasteries in the wilds of the chaos is a vivid one, but there’s not much reason to seek them out, though this is slightly addressed by the note that sometimes a githzerai will start a monastery on the prime material plane to spread their teachings. Githzerai parties hunting illithid are also a potential point of overlap.

Two stat blocks for each – a Githyanki warrior and knight, and a Githzerai Monk and Zerth. They have innate spellcasting noted as psionics. The Githyanki knight has a silver sword which, on a crit, can sever the silver cord, as it should.

Gnolls – I was curious about this one. D&D has a lot of evil humanoids, mostly out of tradition and to provide variety in the occupants of 20 by 20 rooms. Given that, how do you make them stand out? 4e addressed this by giving each race a tactical gimmick that made their fights feel different. 5e can’t lean on that, so in this brave new world, can you make gnolls interesting? Well, kind of.

In an interesting turn, apparently yeenoghu created them in his image, rather than the other way around. But the upshot of this is that they’re basically crazed, mad and evil all the time. They are basically the Reavers from Firefly.  As I think about it, they’d be kind of cooler if it were framed that way in the text, and form this point on, that is probably how I’ll use them.

The real saving grace is the Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu, the most badass of gnolls, blessed by Yeenoghu. In addition to being tough (CR 4) they have abilities which can drastically increase the local gnoll population, making them a load bearing boss of sorts. That’s a good hook, one I can work with.

Gnome, Deep (Svirfneblin) – So, I get why the Dueregar got skipped over as race option – the enlarge ability is a bit potent – but these guys are pretty much by the numbers – a little bit of cultural lore, a little bit of spellcasting, poisoned weapons, that’s about it. I suspect the only reason they were left out of the PHB was space (and to keep the dueregar from feeling bad). It does occur to me that the fact that almost every underdark race uses poison meshes curiously with the Dwarven ability to shrug off poison.  Filing that away.

Goblins – Technically, I could ask the same questions about goblins that I do about gnolls, but I consider goblins essential, so I don’t. The lore is what you would expect – they’re goblins – but there’s a very nice touch about the Goblins dreading the prospect of being called up by their god in death. Stat block is pretty simple (their gimmick is the ability to disenage) but that’s pretty much what you would expect.

Golems – Golems are in interesting challenge as an entry – because they’re constructed, they have a certain amount of plot value for their creation in addition to their combat value. The creation part gets kind of short shrift since it’s punted to the Manual of Golems in the DMG. That leaves the actual fighty bits, and they’re pretty darn solid for that. Flesh golems weigh in at CR 5, Clay at 9, stone at 10 and Iron at 16. All of them rare resistant to non-magic weapons have a host of immunities. They’re a great example of why I like the new resistance rules – it makes the creatures tough as heck, but it totally doesn’t jam up players. [1]

Edit: they’re actually an example of assumptions biting me in the ass. I’m so used to seeing resistance in that spot on the statblock that it didn’t register that it actually said immunity.  So I like the resistance rules very much, but golems are NOT an example of it. They are, in fact, terrifying and will totally jam up a party without magic. 

 

Gorgon – This is a purely tactical beast. CR 5, petrifying breath, charge attack, thick armor. Nothing hugely interesting, but functional.

Grell – Floating brains with beaks and paralyzing tentacles. They’re ambushers, and thankfully they back they up with an actual stealth score and enough intelligence to make them tactical fighters.

Grick – These guys are nasty. They’re CR 2, but they have damage resistance to non-magic weapons as well as stealth and multiattack. There’s one in Phandelver, and that made me pretty nervous. The grick alpha is nastier (CR 7) but at that point its resistances are a bit less potent (because the party is likely armed to deal with it).

Griffon – Really, the most interesting thing about the Griffon’s entry is how invested they are in eating horses. Nothing wrong with it. Just kind of there.

Grimlock – Possibly an even less necessary humanoid than the gnoll, their main gimmick is their ability to operate in complete darkness. They’re made a bit more interesting by their lore (former cannibal cultists, worshiping Illithids) but the net result is basically to give Mind Flayer’s creepy minions. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Whew. That was a lot more Gs than I expected.

Survived the long weekend, back into the MM.

Elementals – I’ve had elementals on the brain for setting reasons, so I was curious how they played out in this It’s good that I’m pre-excited, because the writeup isn’t great. There’s some generally useful information but the actual entries are more physical descriptions than play utility.

The stat blocks are a little more interesting. They come in at a solid CR 5 with flavorful abilities reflecting their elemental nature, enough to make them clearly fun to bring to a fight. They also seem like a nice illustration of the way the CR system links into setting design – at CR 5, these things are a real danger to a village, but not a setting level threat.

Elves: Drow 4 pages, half color, half stat blocks. Evil evil evil. The single most interesting bit is a throwaway line about non-drow visitors conducting business outside the walls of drow cities, since none are allowed to enter. For a brief moment, there’s a suggestion of something else at work here other than monster smashing, but it’s quickly set aside in favor of magic items (that poot out in sunlight) and spellcraft.

The rest of the description is functional – their internal politics are rife with intrigue, they’re matriarchal, they like poison and part of their loyalty to Lolth comes from the fact that she sometimes shows up to enforce it.

All in all, this feels like a waste of pages. If you actually like the drow, you’re going to be largely dependent on external material (previous editions, fiction etc) to actually bring them to life. If you’re not already a drow fan, they come across like generic bad guys with a bit of interesting color.

That said, the stat blocks are not bad. NPC drow start at CR 1/4, which is consistent with them being a playable race, and they scale reasonably. That is a bit of a relief.

I will fully cop that the drow annoy me, but that does not mean this entry had to be so dull. I would have preferred it be perhaps less complete and more play focused. As it stands, it feels like a placeholder. And, once again, I blame Drizzt. The baseline elements of the drow – exiled elves, evil goddess close at hand, poison, intrigue and underground empires[1] – could easily be crafted into something amazing and interesting if they were not locked into place by popularity.

Empyrean – Basically, this is a 15 foot tall Hercules. I mean, sure, you can look at it through other filters – there are lots of other demigods out there – but as presented, it’s basically a huge, strong as hell semi-god. At CR 23, these guys are physical powerhouses by only middling on the magic side, which basically frames them as either plot devices or apex villains.

They’re a little dull, but it’s also very clearly the kind of “monster” where every one of them has a name and personality, so a bit of blank slate might be forgivable.

That said, there are a lot of curious implications too their stat block. First, there are some interesting cosmological implication of the fact that they are categorized as “Titans” (and, in fact, i think this is intended to be the equivalent of the MMI ’Titan" entry). It is not an interpretation of Titan I have seen before – spawn of the gods rather than their precursors. Not sure it’s a change I like.

It’s also easy to get distracted by their 30 strength and constitution and fait to notice that ALL their stats are in the 20’s. I had an initial thought that one of these might make great muscle for an arch-villain, but the reality is that with a 21 Int, 22 Wis and 27 charisma, one of these is fully capable of being a mastermind.

All in all, this is an interesting addition to the GM’s aresenal.

Ettercap – Ok, the jump from CR 23 to CR 2 is a little jarring. But this is another one of the really good, rich entries. The critter itself – a humanoid spider with poison and web attacks – is an interesting combatant, enriched by useful color text. We get some guidelines on tactics, but more usefully, we get sense of what it’s like when ettercap move into an area, as well as who’s likely to come looking for help.

This is another creature (like the blights) which feels like it would benefit from something akin to the regional effects of legendary lairs, even though they’re not legendary. It’s implicit in the color, and that’s probably enough, but it feels like an opportunity squandered.

Ettin – I know I keep zeroing in on the CR as an indicator of where the monster fits in the world, but it keeps being interestingly informative, especially for brutes like the Ettin (CR4) . Again, feels right. Not a low level big bad, but a serious fight.

The Ettin entry is neither good nor bad. There’s enough color about names and reproduction to give some hooks, but also nothing that makes me think “Oh, yeah, I want to use one of these guys!”. It’s more “I need something tougher than a bugbear chief…”

Faerie Dragon – They’re cute, magical tricksters and at this point you may already be delighted or enraged, depending upon how such things have played out at your own table. I admit to a small anti-trickster bias. My experiences have skewed towards “The GM thinks he’s being clever but is being a jerk” so I approach this critter very carefully.

With that in mind, the entry is fairly innocuous. This is not a creature you’re going to fight too often (since mostly it will just get away) but there are a few nice touches, including age and spellcasting power reflected by color. This seems like a very small thing, but I look at it as a flag that lets me, as a GM, play these things with a little more range.

Flameskull – It’s a skull. And it’s ON FIRE!!!

The rest of the description is basically just a justification for why you can have a flaming skull hanging around. Blah blah bah, eternally abound undead, blah blah. And please don’t take this as critical – it’s a flaming skull. That’s awesome. I fully support some heavy backfllling to justify such a thing.

Flumph – Intelligent psionic floating jellyfish of the underdark who want to be your friend. It is hard to imagine any way that it wouldn’t be fun to play one of these as the DM.

However, I admit I snorted at the clinical terminology for one of there elements: “Prone Deficiency”, which is to say, they do poorly when flipped over. Just delightful. Someone very clearly had fun with this entry.

Fomorian – I’m always thrown because I expect these guys to be Formians (Lawful Neutral ant dudes) but, no, these are the misshapen giants. Their lore is actually pretty fun, formerly beautiful and grand dwellers among the elves, they tried to conquer the world and were defeated and cursed to forms that reflected their inner ugliness, and now thy have retreated into the Underdark in caverns that mix horror and beauty.

I like it. it’s punchy. My sole concern is the stat block. They get a great evil eye attack (including a flesh-warping curse) but are otherwise lacking in magic, which seems like a missing piece.

Fungi Gas spores, shrieker and violet fungi – basically the classics. The gas spore is a floating bubble that looks like a beholder and explodes if you attack it. Setting aside the utility of that reproduction strategy (since most things avoid beholders rather than poke them) they’ve added a nice touch that if you survive the blast, you might pick up a little bit of a beholder’s memory.

Shriekers are well known as mushroom alarm systems. The smart change is that they seem more like normal fungus now, rather than being obviously HUGE. In fact, they are indistinguishable[2] from normal fungus until they start yelling.

Violet fungi are similarly undetectable, but rather than shriek, they lash out with tentacles. Like shriekers, they are more like a trap than a creature.

Darkmantle – The very least of the D’s, you can tell it’s slightly embarrassed to be here, and hopes you won’t notice that you just read the much cooler and tougher Cloaker a few pages back. It looks like a stalactite and falls on head and tries to eat it.

Death Knight – opposite the Darkmantle, this entry has virtually no lore, just a few rules notes and the story of Lord Soth. Not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, Soth is pretty darn iconic. On the other, I kind of want a little ringwraith action.

However they fit in the setting, they’re pretty terrifying. CR 17, magic resistance, great stats and powerful spellcasting (plus, of course, immortal until redeemed, an idea I have a hard time really getting behind). And, of course, they look awesome.

Demilich gets two pages, a non-trivial amount of which is dedicated to Acererak, which I can’t argue with. Where Soth is a great example of an idea that preceded him, Acererak is basically the reason this category exists.

Appropriately, the Demilich is terrifying, with brutal legendary actions, lair actions and Lair traits. With nothing but these moves, you could easily construct some sort of horrific tomb. But I want to call out one ability in particular: Legendary Resistance. It’s a little ability, usable 3 times per day, that lets the Demilich turn a failed saving throw into a success.

This may seem small at first glance, but this is actually pretty huge. This is basically a wrench in the works for any “surefire” plan. I know, as a player, I have set up the occasional guaranteed win scenario if we can just get a particular effect off (like a hold, a knockdown or whatever). Those seem harder in 5e (fewer “save or die” effects) but players are clever, and this is a nice insurance policy to guarantee that you’re not going to get an easy win.

Demons 12 pages long, with the monster entries not beginning until 4 pages in. A good breakdown on how they work, cosmologically speaking, as well as entries on the major Demon Lords before moving into the demons themselves.

So, I loved the demon section of the original MM, and I am totally steeped in Planescape lore, so I absolutely looked at this through those two lenses. The lack of statblocks for the Demon Lords is, while understandable, a little sad. Those statblocks were pretty awesome. The actual Demon Lords listed are exactly who they should be – the MM1 classics (Baphoment, Demogorgon, Jubilex, Orcus and Yeenoghu) along with the other big two – Graz’zt and Lloth.[1]

The demons themselves are typed from 1 to 6, though some types have more than demon. For example, Barlgura, Shadow Demons and Vrocks are all Type I, Balor & Goristo are both Type VI and so on. This is a nice compromise between the classic numbering as the fact that it stopped working as soon as the MM2 was published. I’m particularly happy to see the Shadow Demon make the initial cut.

The Demons themselves range from CR 1/8 (manes) to 19 (Balor) so they’re pretty useful for the duration of a campaign. It includes rules on some classic ideas, like taking Quasit’s as familiars, Demonic amulets containing their essences, bound demons and demonic possession and demons summoning more demons during a fight.

Speaking as a player who is totally happy to refer to them as Tanar’ri, I’m pretty happy with the handling of demons.

Devils The Baatezu, the opposite side of the coin. Rigid, structured and tyrannical, they get similar page count and presentation to demons. One oddity is that there are fewer archdevils than abyssal lords because the 9 hells has only, well, 9 layers, where the abyss is infinite. But those 9 archdevils are pretty badass, and it’s kind of a shame that we don’t get blurbs for them. What we do get is a very neat table of the 9 hells listing the layer, it’s name, it’s archduke/duchess and (most interestingly) it’s previous rulers. Lots of familiar names on this like, but Tiamat’s presence on the “previous rulers” of Avernus list intrigues me, and I’m curious if the Dragon entry is going to give me any more information on this.

In fact, without the archdevils in the mix, the color is all pretty flat. The demon entries are largely descriptions of creatures we’re about to see awesome pictures of, with only the shallowest of details. The rules are fine – Imp familiars, devils summoning devils and such, but this entry seems more promise than delivery.

This disappointment may be part of why the art seems uneven. Some entries are fantastic, like Bone Devils and Eriynes, and none are bad, but some are almost generically devilish.

Dinosaurs This section is disappointingly unillustrated, with 6 dinosaurs and 2 (small) pictures all jammed onto two pages. This section is largely going to be of interest to druids, since I think these may be the most powerful beasts in the book, with the T. Rex weighing in at CR 8.

Displacer Beast Back to looking a bit more panthery, this has got a pretty cool image, well integrated into the layout. The rules for displacement are nicely straightforward (disadvantage on attacks, disrupted when someone lands a real hit). They’ve got a bit of unseelie history to explain their blink dog antagonism (blink dogs appear in the beast appendix).

Doppelganger Sneaky, shapeshifting humanoids, I’m always curious to see how tough these things are (CR 3, which seems higher than I remember from the ones in the starter set adventures). No real surprises here, though there’s a reference to Changelings as Doppelganger children who eventually rejoin their kin. That sounds like it has weird implications for the playable race, but I’m willing to wait and see.

Dracolich Oh ho, so this is the first template we’ve seen. This is a template applied to a ancient or adult dragons. Type changes to Undead, they get resistance to necrotic, immunity to poison, a number of condition immunities and magic resistance. Otherwise it still has the powers and capabilities it had (including breath weapon, which is an interesting departure).

One curious note in the lore is that the process of becoming a dracolich requires an aide – someone to complete the ritual for the dragon. Putting a pin in that for plot purposes.

Shadow Dragon This is another template for a dragon that has spent too much time in the Shadowfell and has become infused by it. This is a more mechanically signifigant change than dracolich as the dragon becomes a living shadow, changes its damage type and also gets a new breath weapon (as well as senstivity to sunlight)

Dragons This is the big one. 17 and a half pages on the chromatic dragons alone. Some of this is going to be stat blocks at various ages (Wyrmling, Young, Adult and ancient) but I am really curious to see if they vividly distinguish between the dragons beyond terrain and breath weapons.

We open with some generalizations (including the data point that Tiamat is a lesser god, opposite Bahamut, and resentful of Asmodeus) which are all reasonably on point. Greedy, Egotistical and dangerous. Good enough. Also a sidebar that covers draconic spellcasting (since it’s not in the actual stat blocks before we move on to the Black Dragon.

It’s age CRs are 2, 7, 14 and 21 respectively, which seems to suggest an intent to align draconic age groups with the tiers of play. They pick up Legendary actions as an adult which continue into their ancient age.

The black dragon lore is ok – live in swamps, lots of description of what they look like (redundant with the art), some tactics, and notes that Lizard men and kobolds serve it. There’s a note that its presence can spawn shambling mounds, which is neat, but feels more like a regional effect.

The Lair actions and regional effects are a little more colorful, but I admit to wondering how they interact with age. It seems like the effects should be more pronounced for an ancient dragon than for a wyrmling, but that entry doesn’t seem to reflect that.

This pattern repeats for the other colors. Each entry is ok, but feels padded for the amount of information it conveys, with the Lair proving the most interesting part of the entry. This is a vague criticism of the “it could be better” variety, but the reality is that there is definitely enough information to use each of these dragons in fun and interesting ways.

Dragons, Metallic Ok, so beign good and shapeshifting are interesting, but this really caught my curiosity with “Good dragons can recognize humanoid bloodlines by smell” which is really a lovely touch for millenia-old creatures. We also get a little more information on Bahamut, including confirmation of his status as a lesser god.

The Metallic dragon entries are actually shorter than the Chromatic ones, but that works out to their favor, since it forced the writers to get right to the cool parts. Combined with the fact that they’re not necessarily framed as antagonists, the metallic dragons are largely more interesting, with more playable hooks. Even their preferences for loot are more fun.

The Lair actions remain interesting, but the regional effects are particularly colorful because unlike effects we’ve seen to date, these are largely beneficial. They are ways in which the dragon makes a place better. I admit, that’s pretty cool. And some (like the silver dragon’s ability to shape clouds like stone) suggest great play opportunitities.

Dragon Turtle – Not a lot of depth to these guys, but they’re big, scary and dangerous, and smart and motivated enough to be used in a variety of ways.

Drider – Not sure what to say about these. Their story hasn’t changed (failed the Spider Queen, were horribly transformed as a result) then went off to sulk. Not bad for creepy cannon fodder, but like a lot of Drow stuff, it feels like a little thought could have made them richer.

Dryad – Right off the bad, this intrigued me with the proposition that some dryads are fae who get bound to trees as punishment for loving a mortal. They’ve got a lot of interesting powers, but very little offensive capability. Even their charm is no longer the career ender it once was. There are only a few tweaks on the concept, but they’re the kind that make me want to use a Dryad in a game.

Duergar – Eventually I expect we’ll get PC racial options for these guys, but in the meantime, these deep dwarves are lawful evil slave-keepers (with a nod to illithid in their history) who can grow or turn invisible. Their enlarge effect is pretty nasty, doubling damage dice (substantially upgrading on the spell of the same name). Like the drow, they are subject to the ongoing influence of evil gods and demons, which I suppose is a tacit acknowledgment that having them be evil “just because” is pretty flat. That’s kind of fine as a plot point, but it’s weird as a racial characteristic (rather than, say, a national one)

Anyway, that’s it for the D’s. Damn.

Further progress through the Monster Manual.

Basilisk – This one’s a pretty generic entry but funny in that the color really boils down to “yeah, you can use these guys anywhere, don’t sweat it.” While that’s not inspiring, full points for practicality. Rules for petrification are nasty, but it does take 2 saves rather than one, which is nice (especially because at CR 3, the heroes fightiing it are unlikely to have Greater Restoration on hand). Very nice touch that they take bites off statues and their guts return it to flesh for digesting (which is why their digestive juices are useful in potions of stone to flesh, and why in turn the GM may have a nice plot solution to petrified characters).

Behir – I admit, I never really noticed Behir’s until 4e where they were pretty scary non-dragons. They’ve got lightning breath and a swallow attack which is interesting. Swallowed characters are blinded and restrained, which is less nasty than it sounds, since their penalties largely overlap, and neither penalty would keep you from continuing to attack (with disadvantage) from within the creature, but the 6d6 acid damage you’re taking every round, that is probably a losing proposition if you don’t have help.

The lore is a little flat – Behir were created by giants to fight dragons, so they avoid and fight dragons. That’s fine, but I wish a few more words had been put into the implications of that and less into listing various inaccessible terrains a Behir can occupy.

Beholder – this is a big entry. Page and a half on the critters in general, then three big entries for the Beholder, the Death Tyrant (sort of a Beholder Lich) and the Spectator (a lesser beholder). As monsters they are, of course, quite terrifying. The eye rays attacks are random, and thank goodness for that, because otherwise it would be pretty much be non stop charm and disintegrate [1]all the time.

For folks who have watched the various versions of Beholder art throughout the editions may appreciate the nod which says that individual beholder appearances can vary greatly, so that every editions’ beholder art is still valid. In fact, this data point feeds strongly into the beholder’s superiority/inferiority complex (though it may make life harder for Spelljammer fans, since these beholders don’t play nicely together.

There are some wonderful notes about Beholder lairs that boil down to this: They can fly and have a disintegration ray, so they pretty much carve their lairs into whatever the hell they want, and what they usually want are lots of vertical shafts, because why would you make life easier for inferior walkers?

Unsurprisingly, Beholder’s get legendary actions, which lets them get in even MORE eye blasts. So, yeah, have fun with that.

That said, the beholder lair actions and regional effects are awesome. In the lair, eyes can just appear in walls and take a shot at you, or grow grasping tentacles. Creatures within a mile of the lair feel like they’re being watched and generally weird stuff happens. For the Death Tyrant, it’s even creepier – if you know about the Tyrant and sleep near it, it may eyeblast you through your dreams. Just nasty.

Blights – Evil plant things. This actually feels like a very unsatisfying entry. I seem to recall the lore around these things calls back to a 3e adventure (they’re sourced in a tree tainted with Vampiric blood) and the idea is that when one of these trees sprouts in a forest, it spreads its corrupting influence and animate the blights – unpleasant animated plants of a variety of sizes.

In theory, this is pretty cool, since it basically turns a forest into a low level dungeon, but in practice, it’s missing key information about the tree itself. This is disappointing because, as presented, a Gulthias Tree would be a fantastic creature to hang some regional and lair effects off of, but as is, it’s just a big blank.

Bugbears – If you’ve played any of the adventure in the starter set, you know that Bugbears are pretty nasty. There’s a little bit of cultural information about them which largely frames them as adjuncts to goblin and hobgoblin culture. And that’s fine – I don’t need a lot of depth in by Bugbears, because they largely hit stuff very hard.

Bulette – LAND SHARK!!!! Ok, honestly, the lore is not hugely exciting on this one, and if anything, I actually miss the 4e focus on “stuff that can happen in a fight” with this guy, because Bulette’s are kind of awesome to fight, but I can never say anything too unpleasant about Bulette’s.

Bullywugs – I have always suspected that it was the D&D cartoon which moved these guys from C listers to B listers, and this version is pretty much in keeping with that. They’re swamp dwellers who are giant jerks (in interesting ways) and who leverage their ability to speak to amphibians to stay aware of everything in their domain.

Bullywugs aren’t hugely exciting in their own right (and they no longer have the aura of corruption that I recall from 4e) but they are welll constructed. This entry pretty much gives you all you need to lay out how the bulk of a swamp adventure would go, starting with outlying creatures and patrols all the way into diplomacy and negotiation in the village. That’s a really well constructed entry.

Cambion The art on the Cambion does kind of emphasize the whole “Like tieflings, but more metal”, which is probably appropriate for a half-human/half-fiend. This entry is actually a lot less interesting that I’d hope – there’s a passing reference to Graz’zt as a parent of many cambions, but otherwise it’s a lot of emphasis on “They’re bad! Really, they’re bad!”. I get that may be necessary to deter some players from trying to play one, but it’s kind of a waste for a monster who is really well designed to be a low-level master villain.

Carrion Crawler Classic monster with a nasty ass picture. Lore is mostly behavioral, which is fine, though there’s some weirdness. There’s a whole chunk about how crawlers will patient follow from a distance for hours, waiting for an opportunity. Which is cool, but in the absence of a stealth skill may well be a less than great strategy.

Notably, the crawler only gets one tentacle attack per round, which is (as I recall) substantially less dangerous than past versions who could get a lot of attacks.

Centaur – The image is pretty badass, but I admit my first thought was “That looks like a World of Warcraft centaur!” and I’m not sure what I think of that. There’s some cultural lore here (they’re largely nomadic, and those that aren’t are largely those who couldn’t keep up) but I admit it’s not super exciting.

Chimera – Lore attributes their origin to Demogorgon, which is why they’re just evil evil evil (as it emphasizes). Combat-wise, these are interesting because they get lots of attacks, but lore-wise it’s a miss. Emphasizing the creatures conflicted nature would be interesting if they had any ability to communicate or if there were any way for that to come up in play.

Chuul – In the first major callback in the book, Chull are unpleasant looking servitors of the ancient Aboleth empire. They’re fairly nasty in an encounter, but much more interesting in the contexts they can be found in. Since they’re immortal and loyal, they serve a similar role to constructs and undead, endlessly guarding places and things that mattered in times long forgotten. If you encounter a Chuul, it is almost certainly part of a larger story.

CloakerThis is one of those really very D&D monsters. Looks like a leather cloak when dormant, looks like a fangy flying manta ray when it’s trying to eat your face. And it’s nasty – this is a CR 8 monster. it has a moan that causes fear, it can generate mirror images of itself, and it latches onto enemies to eat them (and transfer damage to them).

Basically, it makes no goddamned sense at all. But it’s wonderfully, D&D.

Cockatrice – This may be the shortest entry in the book (though the art is great). Basically, these things would be largely harmless ugly chickens if they didn’t a) have a poisonous bite that will turn the target to stone and b) mindlessly attack anything presenting even the smallest threat. They’re not terribly tough (but with 27 hit points, they aren’t getting one-shotted) so I fully expect them to be more fun as an almost environmental hazard than true stand-up fights.

Couatl – Lawful good feathered serpents, pretty powerful and useful plot-wise for the fact that most have been given some manner of divine task, possibly generation ago. Interesting and fun and at CR 4, they are a good way to introduce an epic feel at lower levels,

Crawling Claw – And undead hand that crawls around and tries to kill people. It is CR 0 – with 2 hit points and negligible damage, this is not a monster that is going to do well in a stand up fight. In fact, it has no stealth skill either, so basically, it exists for purely plot reasons. And the plot reasons are fun – it’s full of vivid stuff like the fact that one made from a living murdered hand will re-attach – but it’s largely useful as a plot driver.

Cyclops– at CR 6, these make good intermediate muscle since they don’t do much but hit hard. And that’s just as well – their entry is pretty dull and is mostly full of reasons to not give much of a crap about cyclops unless some bigger bad is using them as minion.

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Yeah, not ready to get to the D’s quite yet.

Looking over these monster entries remind me a bit of the Monstrous Compendium entries from 2e, where there was a lot of lore surrounding every creature. However, the problem with those entries is that they could end up feeling like lore for lore’s sake, rather than something immediately applicable to play. Subsequent editions have improved that focus, so that when the reigns are loosened a bit to bring back in the lore, it seems a lot more productive. It also probably helps that while these entries are all in even page multiples (which is super nice for reading) they are of variable length, so there’s no necessity to pad.

Also, while I’ll talk more about the art in general once I’m done, I have to say that it’s gorgeous and there’s a lot of it. There are only a handful of places in the book where you won’t find at least one great, colorful image on the pages you’ve opened to, and in many cases, you’ll see multiple pictures.  It’s really good looking.

Aarakocra – I will always have a soft spot in my my heart for these bird men thanks to the Dragon article about using them as a playable race. The idea of dive bombing with javelins more than made up for the whole “claustrophobia – can’t go in dungeons” thing, and one of my favorite made-but-unused characters was an Aarakocra crewman on a pirate ship.

Nostalgia aside, this is a short entry – a single page without a lot of bells and whistles – but it offers a solid view into the nature of these entries. The stat block is pretty much by the numbers (no save bonuses at all) though there are a few interesting nuances. Their flight speed is 50, which is pretty darn fast, and their only listed language is Auran, so if they’re encountered, there will probably be a named translator. They’re CR 1/4, so they’re really “Normal people” in a very strange sort of way. They’re tactically flexible, with ranged and melee attacks, and combined with their superior mobility this suggests that while they’re no great challenge in a stand up fight (low AC, ok hit points), they could still be a dangerous adversary. 5e doesn’t have 4e’s ‘skirmisher’ category, but that’s definitely what these guys are. [1]

There’s also a sidebar about their ability to summon Air elementals which underscores that tactical assessment. If outgunned, they have every reason to withdraw and call allies.

The actual background ties them closely to the elemental plane of air, and puts forward that the places they select to live in the prime are places close to that home plane, an if they’re away from there, then they’re scouting for forces of elemental evil. That’s cool, and they could leave it there, but in the span of a few words, they scatter the entry with seeds.

See, the Aarakocra serve the Wind Dukes of Aaqa, who are members of an elemental race called vaati who, apparently, once ruled a multiversal empire, and warred with The Queen of Chaos, and they killer her greatest general (Mishka the Wolf Spider) by stabbing him with the Rod of Law, which broke into 7 pieces and scattered across the multiverse, and the Aarakora seek it to this day as The Rod of Seven Part.

Take a minute to look at that paragraph. It’s kind of amazing. First and foremost, this is full of nods for the lore geeks. For me, The Rod of Seven Parts was one of the artifacts in 1e D&D, the ones where they had blanks for powers that the DM was expected to fill in for their campaign , but for the truly hardcore, it’s the thing from Eldritch Wizardry. The rod has also appeared in adventures and novels, and I suspect at least some of this lore is in line with that.

But that’s unimportant. Nods to lore are great, but look at it in a purely functional way. In the span of a paragraph or so in the entry of a not-very-important monster, we’ve vastly expanded our game universe. We now know there are wind dukes, that they’re a mysterious race and used to have an empire, that there was (maybe still is) a Queen of Chaos who doesn’t like such things, and we find out about the Rod. That is a lot of stuff. Hell, I could put the book down right away, take just those seeds, and run a pretty good campaign. And that’s just the first monster.

That said, I do have to complain about the art. It’s a great picture, but to me, aarakocra will always be these guys here.

And these guys don’t have arms separate from their wings.

 

 

Aboleth – Just as the Aarakocra ave shown us what can be done with a simple monster entry, the Aboleth gives us a good example of what “boss” monsters can look like, as they have legendary and lair actions.

If you don’t recall, Aboleths are large oozy tentacled fish-things which use telepathy and mind control to build up a collection of minions, and who have unpleasant disease attacks that do things like make you oozy too. They are as unpleasant as they sound.

Aboleths are always a weird critter (in several senses of the word) because their alphabetical positioning gives them great prominence, but they’re pretty much perpetual b-listers. I admit, I always steer clear of them because I don’t like using mind control against my PCs, especially since Aboleth mind control is largely open ended and their disease attacks are just brutal.

But the flipside is that their lore is awesome. As a species, they predate the gods, and pretty much ruled little private kingdoms around their respective puddles. The ascension of the gods drove them into the depths, and they still resent it, because they’re basically immortal and possessed of perfect recall. Again, this is just dripping with plot hooks. On some level, I am less drawn to using one as a boss monster than I am to using them as NPCs or an evil conspiracy once players are in the low teens.

Mechanically, the legendary actions are ok but hardly exciting. Make a perception check, make a tail attack or drain some hit points from a thrall. Enough to jazz up the fight.

But where it gets interesting is that this gets us a chance to see lair effects, and they seem much more interesting. As lair actions, the Aboleth can create illusions (something which dovetails well with their ability to see a target’s greatest desire), cause water to surge out an try to drown passersby or use water as a conduit for psychic attacks. These are all very cool and vivid, and in 4e terms, these are wonderful signature elements for the fight scene with the Aboleth. Players will learn to stay away from the water while the Aboleth and minions will try to force them into it (or they may already be in it, since the Aboleth is aquatic, after all).

But even more cool are the regional effects. When an Aboleth sets up camp, things within a mile radius get slimy, the water goes bad, and the Aboleth can send projections of itself forth via the water. Just as the legendary action frame out how the fight will go, these give a great frame to how the adventure will go. The signals of the Aboleth’s presence are plot hooks in and of themselves, so they can provide motivation, but they also color the adventure.

I am going to be curious how people receive these lair effects. In a strictly mechanical sense, they’re arbitrary, and they very much indicate that monsters operate by different rules than characters (something which may be hard for the 3e perspective to swallow). But adventure-wise, they basically give leeway to do the kinds of stuff that adventures have always done (make walls slimy!) without needing to come up with some sort of tortured explanation. I have to say, I really dig them and can’t wait to see more.

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Ok, if I do that deep a dive on every monster, this review will never end, so they’re going to get a little more terse from here on out, now that I’ve talked about HOW this stuff is presented in addition to the actual presentation.

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Angels provide our first example of a multiple creature – one description, then three monster entries (Deva, Planetar and Solars). The lore here is ok, but excepting an aside on fallen angels, it’s largely a straightforward job descriptions. They run the gamut of power, CR 10, 16 and 21 respectively. At CR 21, Planetars Solars are one of the more potent creatures in the book, and have an AC of 21, so they’re pretty clearly serious about that.

Animated Objects are fun. If you want more generic animated object, the spell has guidelines (which I regret could not be reprinted here, presumably for space reasons) so this entry focuses on the classics – animated armor, flying swords and rugs of smothering.

Notably, their construct nature only explicitly means they don’t need air, food, drink or sleep. The other benefits of constructs are called out in the individual stat blocks, largely under condition and damage immunities. These are consistent enough that they could have made them blanket rules, but they’d probably have just had to put that information in the stat block anyway, so I think I’m liking this approach.

Ankheg is a classic I’m happy to see. CR 2, hunters of livestock, slow burrowers with an ok AC (which become crappy if you can flip them over), solid damage and acid spray? What’s not to love. They’re basically perfectly designed to make for a fun but challenging low level encounter between dungeon runs, possibly to help ingratiate the heroes with the townsfolk.

That said, it’s not an exciting entry. Like the Aarakocra entry, this is a single page monster, but it is much less rich in content (though the art is far less striking). It has some information that might be useful in an actual encounter, but even that is a little thin.

Azer on the other hand, are Aarakocra-comparable in their richness (and entry size). Flaming headed dwarves, sure, but they have a whole history outlined that tells us about the City of Brass and suggests a cold war between the Efreet and the Azer. More, we get just enough information about Azer reproduction and capabilities as smiths to suggest numerous plot hook. I admit, Azer have largely been an afterthought for me in past games, but now I absolutely want them to have a role in my Planescape game.

And that’s it for the A’s. Tomorrow we’ hopefully reach the D’s,  the biggest block in the book.

At Gencon, WOTC had some advanced copies of the Monster Manual, and they were kind enough to provide me with one.  I won’t be sharing any images or anything from it (which is a shame, because the art is amazing) but I may have a few words to say about it.

 

Before anything else, I’m going to get my one big complaint about the Monster Manual out of the way so I can get on to the enthusiasm.

It is annoying that there is no table of monsters by Challenge Rating (CR). When I actually sat down to use it in play, I quickly discovered that I had no real way to go “I want to put together a challenge for a party of 3rd level characters. What are my options?”.

This is frustrating. And just as people have already done with the spells-by-class, sometime after release an enterprising soul will no doubt  put this information into a google spreadsheet, but it is not a good thing when we are driven to data entry. I sincerely hope that when this book hits the market and WOTC puts up electronic support docs (which they have been really great about so far) this might be on their list.

There’s a smaller annoyance that the encounter construction rules are held off for the DMG, but that is more a matter of impatience than a real problem. it does suggest that the DMG is going to be more than just the book of hacks[1], but given that it’s also going to have the rules for magic items, I guess that’s no surprise.

The exterior of this book is designed in the same fashion as the PHB, including the lovely mix of gloss and matte finish on the back that makes the PHB so pleasant to pick up. The fire/banner on the spine is thankfully the same size as the PHB, despite the MM being a thicker book (352 pages, vs the PHB’s 316), but this is accomplished by leaving a bit of space to the sides of the image (some of which is necessary, and would probably not merit mention if I were not already looking).

The cover illustration is less painted than the PHB, but it has a clear sense of action and (surprisingly for a monster book) has characters placed more prominently, albeit running from a quite terrifying looking beholder.

Like the PHB, the range of colors of this piece is rather limited, but where the PHB was lots of red, this is lots of blue-grey. It struck me that if this was intentional, it’s a good trick to differentiate the three core books at a glance. Is it red? PHB. Grey-blue? Monster manual. So, of course, I went online to check out the preview images for the DMG and I guess it looks kind of purplish? Different, I guess, but probably not different enough to suggest the intent that I was looking for.

The trade dress and presentation is identical to the PHB, so I won’t go over that territory again. That said, the interior once again contains the full image used on the cover, which reveals something that maybe I don’t get, lacking any real training in the arts. There seems to be a point that draws the eye, which is basically the lightning strike in the middle of the piece. Looked at as a whole, that is the first thing you see, not the Beholder. Once put on the book, the cover centers on the beholder, and that works, but from that perspective, the lightning (which is close to the spine) distracts more than anything else. It also means we have a situation similar to the PHB where the image on the back cover is something interesting rendered dull by having no color contrast with anything around it.

But lest that sound too picky, let me restate: The Beholder on the cover looks scary as all heck. If it’s not going to be a dragon[2], then the Beholder is probably the second best choice.

The non-monster content in this book is pretty brief. Title, Credits, Contents, 8 pages of rules and 2 pages of (delightfully illustrated) index. And since most of the rules revolve around how to read a stat block, that seems just about right.

It actually opens with a nicely evocative introduction and explanation of the book which includes an acknowledgment that capturing the history and nature of the game is a “warts and all” kind of process. That may sound critical, but it actually warms my heart, because the simple reality is that monster books are weird, and full of crazy stuff that sometimes makes no sense, and that’s part of the fun[3].

The section on how to use this book is straightforward enough, but the small bit on “what is a monster” is a nice up front acknowledgment that not everything in these pages is necessarily monstrous, but that they are providing stats for things which potentially can be fought or killed. There might be a bit of an implicit comment in there, but they seem decently straightfaced about it.

The next section is roughly a page about where monsters dwell. It’s nice because while it starts with dungeons and the Underdark, it also includes wilderness, towns & cities, underwater and even the outer planes, offering a handful of colorful examples of dangerous places. This is evocative, and one could absolutely mine it for ideas, but I think it serves a rather different purpose.

4e was very focused on the return to the dungeon, and was at its best when an environment could be represented by a bounded, gridded surface. It was not monomaniacal in this focus – there was still lots of other fun stuff – but it spoke to what the game was good at. This description is basically planting a little bit of a flag in the ground and saying “Dungeons are important, sure, but it’s about the broader sense of wonder. This game might be more about the fact that the dungeon is in the skull of a dead god than the specifics of a particular encounter.[4]

After this we get into the actual stat block information, opening with size. I admit it’s pretty weird that a game which has otherwise moved away from grids describes size in terms of squares. It would be funny if it weren’t actually kind of a pain, because it’s not actually informative in some contexts. Setting aside the fact that it makes horses (and centaurs) square, it means I don’t have a context for how big something oddly shaped like, say, a carrion crawler really is. I guess they did this in the PHB too, but I cared less at the time since I wasn’t trying to actually imagine the monsters just then.

There’s a nice sidebar here about modifying creatures that suggests that we’ll be seeing variants and templates in this book. This intrigues me. Variants are straightforward enough, but templates are a whole other thing – are they talking 3e style templates, where I could turn a kobold into a killing machine by making him vampiric, fiery and arcane? Or something else? I am not sure what to hope for – the old templates were neat, but they totally went weird places, and not always in a good way. We shall see.

Types are general monster categories (Beasts, Constructs, Dragons and so on) and while they have short descriptions, in practice these are keywords to hang other mechanics off of. Clerics and turn undead. Druids can transform into beasts. These categories also can have tags, which are effectively subcategories, so goblin might be a tag on humanoid. These just extend the keyword functionality, so that your dagger of goblin-slaying knows what to slay.

Alignment in the stat blocks is explicitly called out as the default, with the DM free to tweak it as needed. This is nice, and goes hand in hand with the fact that some alignment entries may reflect tendencies (or no tendency at all) rather than just assigning a value. This isn’t something that makes a big difference from scene to scene, but it explicitly opens a door into a more nuanced playspace for players who want less clear cut alignment in their opposition.

Armor Class is what it sounds like, but I admit this is the one thing I skipped ahead on, and checked if the game put its money where its mouth is regarding AC, and it seems it did. The Tarrasque has a 30 and a few powerful extraplanar beings have low 20s, but by and large, ACs remain under 20. So, clearly, there is something to this whole bounded accuracy thing.

Hit points are similarly straightforward, save for one fun gimmick – hit die now correlates directly to size. Tiny creatures roll d4, gargantuan ones d20. I admit, I dig this a lot – a large number of rules to reflect the nuance of size have been stripped out of the game (and rightly so) but this rule provides a simple way to reflect the potency of big creatures (and the relative fragility of pixies and the like) without a lot of extra bookkeeping. Very nice.

Speed is as expected, with notes on other modes of movement (flight, burrowing and so on). No maneuverability classes for flyers, and that’s just as well. I did not need that particular throwback.

Creatures have stats, as they did in 3e, and it’s definitely a convenience (since it allows easy inference of values for ad hocrolls), but this also reveals something very interesting and telling about stats – they seem bounded in a manner similar to armor. That is, the highest stats I’ve seen are 30s, and those are for things like the strength of the Kraken or Tarrasque (Storm Giants are a 29). Scores over 20 are more common for strength than they are for AC, but that feels right, since it’s largely things like the Elephant having a 22 strength. That should be superhuman, but importantly, it’s not vastly superhuman. Bears have a 19 strength, for example – your fighter may literally end up stronger than a bear.

I love this for the simple reason that this actually supports the idea that stats other than 18s might matter. In a universe where a bear has a 19 strength, starting with a 15 or 16 feels a lot less crappy than it does in one where you know your only path to success as a fighter revolves around finding a girdle of giant strength.

The saving throw section is interesting because, as described, it’s not about the bonus but is rather about any modifiers the creature may have. What it says is that in the absence of any information, monster saves are always Stat + Proficiency. This is a little nasty, since it means monsters are better at saves than characters (who only get proficiency for a couple saves).

In fact, it was nasty enough that I looked ahead at the monster entries, and I admit to some confusion. Some monsters list some of their saves, and when they do , they’re in keeping with that rule (stat + Prof), but what’s weird is that they don’t list all of their saves in those situations, and I have no idea what that means.

For a quick illustration, look at the Beholder, whose save entry is “Int +8, Wis +7, Cha +8”. Those numbers are correct for stat+prof, but I don’t know why the others aren’t mentioned. Is it implicitly supposed to not be getting proficiency with the ones not listed? That seems at odds with this paragraph (and the fact that many monsters list no saves, as this describes), so I’m definitely confused.

EDIT: I misunderstood something in my read of the saving throws section. Good clarification is in the comments. 

Speaking of proficiency bonuses, yes, monsters use them too, and they use the same table as characters, albeit extended up to level 30 (interesting, that). This is relevant for saves, skills (yes, monsters have skills) and attacks, but I appreciate it most as a multitool. When in doubt, if a monster is doing something appropriate to its monster-ness, it’s good to have a general bonus to apply.

Monster senses are what one might expect. Blindsight, darkvision, tremorsense and truesight. If anything, the list seems short. Languages are also self-explanatory, though there’s a nice note about telepathy here.

Challenge Rating was the part I was most curious to see, but it turns out it works almost like it previously did. The baseline is similar – 4 characters of level X compares to CR X – but the difference seems to be resources. Where previously it seemed to say that an equivalent CR encounter should burn about 20% of your resources, 5e seems to suggest it’s a bit tougher than that, with the yardstick being “not deadly”.

To me, at least, that suggests the cost may be rather more than 20%. It’s also consistent with my general sense of CRs being more potent at lower levels, as well as my sense that it’s not quite so precise a game of resource management anymore.

Also, if there’s an underlying math to the XP reward by CR, I admit it eludes me. But more is better, and that’s what counts.

Now we start getting into the special stuff. Spellcasting and powers, distinguishing innate spellcasting from actual magic use, which largely follows the casting rules that players use. There’s a fascinating little note about psionics – it’s just a tag on other spellcasting abilities with no mechanical impact (except removing the need for material components) but I know many of us are curious what’s behind that door.

We also get the basics of attacks, including multiattacks and ammunition. There’s a very interesting distinction made between a “creature” and a “target” which is apparently relevant for some attacks, but I’ll have to see the critters to really get that one (though I assume it’s related to property damage).

There are also sraightforward rules for powers limited by X/day or Recharge X (roll as d6 at star of cycle, if you roll X, power recharges). I admit, I’m curious if any monsters have exclusive recharge values (so death ray recharges on a 3–4, flame blast on a 5–6) but I guess I’ll have to see.

There are also some notes about equipment, but I breezed by them because the next section looks really interesting. It’s about Legendary creatures, and it looks to describe legendary actions and lair actions. These had been obliquely mentioned in the PHB (largely as things you could not replicate with spells), so I was super curious.

Legendary actions are, apparently, a limited set of actions that a legendary creature can take outside of their normal turn, explicitly after another character has taken a turn. This seemed interesting, but hard to envision, so I looked at a few legendary critters to get a sense of it. A dragon, for example might have three legendary actions – make a perception check, attack with his tail and buffet with his wings. He takes his action during the fight, then Mindy the Mighty whacks the dragon with his sword. At the end of Mindy’s turn, the Dragon might opt to buffet Mark, knocking him away. Next, Sam the Swift plants a few arrows in the creature. At the end of her turn, the Dragon can take another legendary action – it can make a tail attack or take a perception check, but it can’t do another wing buffet until it’s taken another turn

Obviously, this is very powerful. Any kind of extra action can substantially impact a fight, so at first glance, this seems very whoah. But the trick is in the timing. This is not – in total – many more actions than creatures like ancient dragons got in past editions, but previously they were all front loaded, so the dragon’s turn was just a big explosion of dice rolling which was lethal, but sometimes cumbersome. Spreading these things out throughout the fight keeps the dragon dangerous, but prevents that moment of “ok, it’s the dragon’s turn, I’m going to get drinks”. And as a bonus, by spreading it out throughout the fight, it makes the initiative order still feel dynamic because even if it’s a party up against a single enemy, the action remains in motion.

All in all? Great tech. And flexible. For all that it’s applied to huge creatures, there’s nothing to keep it from being used at lower levels to reflect interesting and dangerous adversaries, especially if the legendary actions aren’t attacks. This is tech I really look forward to seeing deployed in interesting ways.

And speaking of tech, I am even more intrigued by the legendary’s creature’s lair, which has two elements: Lair Actions and Regional Effects.

As described, they sound quite dry. On initiative count 20, the legendary creature can use some magical feature of its lair, presumably to do something cool. Hard to say exactly what those look like from this description, but I’m flashing back to Vesicant (one of my favorite Dungeon adventures) and thinking about how it might apply, and the prospect intrigues.

Regional effects seem to be a mechanization of something that was already part of the color of some creatures – when a Green Dragon sets up camp, its corrupts the forest, etc. Again, hard to see what’s exciting about them from this description, but I’m curious to see some examples.

And, I should not (to look ahead a bit) having seen examples of lair actions and regional effects, all I can say is HOLY CRAP, AWESOME. But for that, we need to actually get to the monsters, and that is something for tomorrow.

Now, all that said, it’s worth noting what’s missing from these rules – standard elements. There is no page of rules for comon effects like regeneration or specific flavors of damage resistance, no default skills for particular creature types, not even default rules for types (like undead being immune to charm or sleep).

If you’re used to the 3e manner of creating monsters, this seems unintuitive and wasteful. Standardizing monster abilities allows you to streamline monster creation and balance by just cranking out templates, and without that standardization, each monster needs to have everything written in from scratch. That’s a lot more work.

However, one could make the case that the downside of the template model is that it can be a little bit dull – the value of consistency makes it hard to make a monster that deviates from the norm. If monsters are built as one-offs, then you need to make each one interesting, and while that’s more work, it can produce unexpected results (hopefully, in a good way).

Which approach is better is largely a matter of taste, but the absence of standardization is a really interesting decision and an explicit step away from 3e and, arguably, an explicit step towards the 2e model (one could argue that it’s in the direction of 4e, but 4e had its own flavors of standardization).

Still getting my head around the implications of this, but this is something that I’m going to keep in my back pocket as I read through the monsters and look at recurring patterns to see just how standard or non-standard this really is.

We ended up using last nights’ Dungeon World Slot to run D&D. We thought we were going to be down more people than we were, and there was a lot of 5e curiosity, so we decided to make some characters ant take a swing at it. We had more folks show up than planned, so it got a little bit crazy, but we worked through fast and dirty chargen for 6 characters, and bumped them to 3rd level because there was some interest in seeing how the characters played once they were into their subclass.

Table was: Human Cleric of Knowledge, Half elf Bard, Tiefling Draconic Sorcerer, Dwarf Paladin of Vengeance, Dwarf rogue thief and a half orc monk. A few things have slipped my memory since we were juggling a lot. I opted to run them through the Thundertree portions of Lost Mine of Phandelven, so spoilers ahead.

Chargen was educational. Rolling up characteristics is fun for one shots, but it’s very much a shotgun approach, and rarely tells much of a story. I admit that when the time comes to run a real campaign, we’re going to take a bit more time on chargen (or do some of it offline) so backgrounds and details are not just pulled from thin air.

it also revealed that for all that this is streamlined, there can still be a lot to write down and keep track of (a good argument for starting at level 1). If they’re reasonably priced, I will almost certainly buy the spell decks when they come out to spare myself a lot of photocopying. It also pretty much guarantees I’ll be redoing the character sheets playbook style, for my own ease of use.

So, Thundertree is an abandoned town with zombies, twig blights, giant spiders, cultists and a green dragon. When I read the adventure, it seemed like it was WAY too nasty, since a group might be as low as 2nd level when they encountered it. But we had a larger-than-normal group at 3rd, so it seemed like maybe this was about right.

It was not.

Part of it was that the group was a little bit haphazard in their approach to the town, so there were a few early attacks (by blights and spiders) while they were separated. The spiders, in particular, were quite nasty. They would have dropped our monk in the first round if he hadn’t used the half-orc death denial ability to stay standing. They cut a deal with the druid to get rid of the dragon, talked with the cultists and agreed to join them to talk to the dragon, but the cultists then tried to feed them to him.

The dragon was a nasty fight for a couple reasons,some fair, some not. It did not get surprise (because they were ready for betrayal) but it dominated the initiative roll by virtue of everyone else sucking very hard. That meant it got to open with a breath weapon attack before the party could spread out. That caught 4 characters. I ended up rolling the damage dice because if I took the average (42) that would have been enough to insta-kill the sorcerer, which seemed douchey. They got lucky and I rolled a 39, so they Sorcerer and Monk were merely dropped, but the Paladin and Rogue stayed standing (barely), largely by virtue of it being a poision attack and them being dwarves. Much of the rest of the round involved getting the injured ones back on their feet and scrambling away. The monk engaged got in some hits, but not many, and all three of the Sorcerer’s Scorching Rays failed to hit.

It looked bad, and the second round could have gone very badly indeed, because the dragon successfully recharged his breath weapon, and two of the characters (the cleric and paladin) were tied up recovering their downed allies. Thankfully, the bard had thrown a Tasha’s hideous laughter on the leader of the chanting cultists, so the dragon used its breath weapon on them, feeling disrespected. That bought the party the round they needed.

Because THIS round (thanks to the Cleric’s bless), the paladin got off a smite, the Monk got off a successful trip, the rogue got off a sneak attack, and the sorcerer hit with all 3 rays. All told, they did over 60 damage in one round, and at 68, the thing turns tail and runs, so with the small amount of damage it had on it, it made a break for it (and got away clean).

Hard fought success, absolutely, but also educational. I think they could have done much better if they’d had time to plan, and if they had been the ones initiating the conflict, it would have been less frantic. But if it had gone one round longer, it would have turned ugly again, as the breath weapon had recharged again (though a claw-claw-bite could also probably have taken out a target or two as well). If it had not been inclined to run away, I think the party would have lost, since they’d largely burned their whammies. But it might have been close, depending on breath weapon luck. Design-wise, I think my biggest concern is that possibility for a one-hit-instakill on the sorcerer. That could have been a real funkiller.

But here’s the key – we started a little after 7:30, did chargen from scratch for 6 players, 3 of whom had not even seen 5e yet, and had 3 fights, 2 social encounters, some exploration and plenty of scenery chewing. We wrapped up by 11:00. That’s a little slower than dungeon world (especially on the chargen) but it’s a good clip for D&D. Everyone is pretty gung ho for more D&D, enough that the question of when DW is going to wrap up has been floated. That’s a good sign.

If it’s not clear by now, I was very happy with the 5e PHB. I’ve played one session so far, and I want to play more. It is only great restraint that keep some from just going on a mad chargen kick.

But if you want the deeper dive, here it all is.

• Before Opening the PHB
• Players Handbook compared to Hoard of the Dragon Queens
• Cracking open the Book (includes Barbarian)
• Bards & Clerics
• The Druid
• Fighter, Monk & Paladin
• Ranger & Rogue
• Sorcerer, Warlock & Wizard
• The Rest of Chargen
• Rules Stuff
• Magic
• Appendix & Layout

And if you really want to dive deeper: Reviews of Starter Set and Basic Rules

The appendices of the PHB are pretty straightforward, but useful. The section on conditions is nice – I liked that method of standardizing conditions in 4e very much, so it’s good to see it get use. It is also one of the only places in the ebook to use line art, but it does so to wonderful effect. These pages have some of my favorite art in the game, and they sand out nicely in contrast with the rest of the art.

The Gods of the Multiverse section is primarily there to give clerics some choices, and I support that, but it also does a few interesting things.

• It suggests that other domains – at the very least, death – will be in the DMG
• By including the ‘real world’ pantheons, they gave some tools to GMs looking to build their own campaign worlds. It’s not a LOT of support, but the absence of anything but setting gods would have felt a little flat.
• Dragonlance gets a place of prominence along with the big three settings, and I’d be very surprised if that is not deeply meaningful. Absence of Mina from the list of Dragonlance gods may also suggest a rollback (which would rock)
• One very interesting and notable absence: The Raven Queen. And, in fact, Nerull is back among the Greyhawk gods as the god of death (Nerull being the god whose mantle she stole). On one hand, this is a shame, as this was one of the few pieces of really vibrant color in 4e, but on the other hand, it’s cool to consider that it might actually happen, perhaps in a mega-adventure akin to the Planescape classic Dead Gods[1]

I am not sure what I think about the Planes of Existence section. I am a die hard Planescape fan, and I genuinely can’t tell if the overall configuration has changed or if it’s the same and it was just explained poorly. I’m sympathetic – the idea that the inner and outer planes don’t actually overlap is a bit of a brain bender, and I think that’s still the case, but the big diagram makes me nervous. That said, the explicit mention of Sigil and the Gate Towns is pretty welcome to my eyes.

Appendix D gives us low level monsters, a lot of which are a useful reference fro the druid’s shapeshifting abilities. They look neat, but largely very basic, and don’t offer a lot of insight into challenge construction, or what a given CR actually means.

Appendix E, Inspirational reading, may be my favorite thing in the book. As someone who was absolutely swept away by the list in the original books, this is a welcome sight, and nicely updated for the modern day. It’s actually a wonderful mix of past an present, and knowing it’s there makes me smile.

The index is competent, though the font is tiny. I get the needs of space, but reading it makes me feel old. That’s followed by some character sheet blanks for copying, and that’s the book.

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Now that I’ve reached the end, let me talk a little bit about the book itself. I talked a lot about the exterior, and the interior deserves similar treatment.

• Layout-wise the book feels closest to a 3e book to me, albeit with 4e influences in terms of the style, color and presentation of art. This is a great choice. As much as I like calling back to older editions in the design, I don’t want to go that far back in the layout.
• As I noted with the cover, there’s a tendency towards painted art, which I really like the feel of. Contrast the spellcasting on page 205 (illustrator-y) with page 206 (a painting). This is no sleight to Wayne Reynold’s style. It’s fantastic, but it has become synonymous with Pathfinder, so it’s good that D&D looks different.
• I don’t have the keen eye for fonts that some do. These look like the 4e fonts (myriad and minion, maybe?) and if they’re not, they’re close.
• The page numbers are kind of light, as is the footer text tellign you what chapter you’re in. Mild annoyance.
• The lower right hand corner of the pages is color coded to distinguish the four sections (chargen, rules, magic and appendix) and it bleeds to the page edge, so you can easily flip to a section. This would be awesome, but the light footer makes the next step in navigation awkward.
• A subtle touch – table background colors vary based on the section you’re in.
• There are some very nice touches slipped in, like each class having a unique icon.
• Every layout person who I’ve shown the book to has wanted to see their indesign files. Their attention to detail in the layout suggests they either have some super ninja tricks, or they took a lot of time on it. Either way, it’s just very well done.
• I am amused that it ends with a badger.
• The diversity in the art is pretty impressive, but importantly, it’s also awesome. The non-white-dude illustrations are also really great illustrations, and that’s super important.
• There are a handful of art pieces that fall flat (one of the elves has a freaky-ass face) but the majority range from good to great, with a handful of wow.
• The raciest picture in the book is probably the druid on page 67. That’s good to see.