The core rulebooks show where Wizards of the Coast wants to take Dungeons & Dragons in the future, and the Monster Manual, the final companion book to the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide, proves how these three books combine to create a more streamlined experience for players and Dungeon Masters, despite your experience level with the game.
The 2024 Monster Manual is more than 380 pages long, has more than 500 monsters (85 of them brand new), several ready-made creatures to pop into your campaign, and is set to replace the 2014 option, but is it worth the investment?
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Dungeons & Dragon’s New Monster Manual Appeals To Players, Not Just DMs
Dungeons & Dragons’ refreshed Monster Manual isn’t only for DMs.
The Artwork Truly Makes A Difference
After paging through this massive book, the first thing you’ll notice is the art. While it might seem superfluous, the art sometimes tells more of the story than the text can. Though there is no lore glossary similar to what the Dungeon Master’s Guide has, the art itself can provide enough of a story to help a DM quickly get a feel for the monster, its story and habitat and more.
Speaking of which, the artwork shows monsters in their habitat, living and breathing in the world, and providing new ideas when selecting the monsters for your campaign. The Incubus, for example, has imagery of a male and female version, showing that you can use either in your games now, whereas before the guide would show you a stat block that leads you to their succubus forms.
Quality Of Life Adjustments
Speaking of selecting monsters, one of the biggest quality-of-life changes is how you can find them. Monsters are now in alphabetical order based on their actual name, not their types. Finally, they’re organized in a way that makes sense, allowing players who may not know that a specific monster is an Ooze to find it under its name instead of the Ooze section.
There’s still a section separating monsters by creature type and CR (challenge rating), so you can find them however you need.
The static initiative in the stat block has been redone, so you won’t need to roll initiative for a ton of enemies at once. There are more ready-made creatures for DMs to use (including more options for NPCs) for when you need to quickly grab one while playing one in the middle of a session. There is an entire appendix of monsters classified by habitat, so you can easily pop Desert monsters or Underdark monsters into a session without worry.
Even smaller adjustments that help make sense of the world are welcome. For example, where an angel might have been wielding a greatsword in the past, leaving you to wonder where it obtained one (did it come down and buy this from a shop?), it now wields light itself in combat, fixing the narrative hiccups caused by the old versions of creatures. The Kenku, known for being from the Shadowfell, now have a dagger with shadow magic. The flavor has amped up narratively, and the mechanics have followed.
Everything needed is in the stat block, ensuring you won’t miss necessary information when glancing quickly. Previously, certain aspects, such as the increased Challenge Rating of a Beholder in its lair, were not included and could easily be missed.
You’ll also notice several creatures have name changes, the goal of which is two-fold. First, to better reflect what creatures do, but also to fix any uncomfortable naming conventions. A great example is the Yuan-ti Pureblood. Not only does the term ‘Pureblood’ have uncomfortable connotations, but it also doesn’t detail what the monster does at all, so at a glance, it’s not doing much to help streamline the process. The renaming of it to Yuan-ti Infiltrator not only removes the questionable term but quickly explains this is a sneaky style creature that reflects what it does.
Even the Lizardfolk Shaman becoming the Lizardfolk Geomancer shows how the new naming conventions reflect the changes for certain creatures while steering clear of cultural issues that may pop up.
Jeremy Crawford, the lead designer of the Monster Manual, explained that the entire book was worked on in collaboration with several cultural consultants to help ensure that unwelcome, awkward references to specific cultures could be tweaked.
There are also tables for several monsters within the Monster Manual that you can roll on for story ideas when attempting to implement them into your campaign. From orders for an Iron Golem, to the treats a Pseudodragon desires, to the temptations of a succubus, streamlining the addition of monsters has never been easier. This is the best part of the Dungeon Masters guide, as these additions prove that Wizards is truly attempting to make the process easier for DMs.
New Threats And Better Balancing
Gone are the days of relying on the same few high-level monsters for end-level campaigns. There are three brand-new legendary monsters with increased scale and new mechanics that will have lifelong players gaping at the possibilities. Without spoiling them, imagine the possibilities of what the Blob of Annihilation can do. This CR 23 creature has a nice kit that’ll intimidate any party, with artwork showing the scale of the danger it poses. The artwork itself is an image of the blob, with the skull of a dead god inside as it rushes over the roofs of buildings that are several stories tall.
Aside from high-level play, you’ll also see lower CR versions of monsters. The CR 23 Empyrean is a great example, as now the book includes the Empyrean Iota, a CR 1 version of this high level creature, allowing for DMs to use the barely seen monsters that are usually too high level to ever feature in the average campaign.
The balancing has also been adjusted. If you’re anything like my table, the easy low CR options were just too easy, providing pushover content that players would rush through without ever having to use all their cool subclass and class options. The medium challenge-rated monsters are now the easy version, and everything has been scaled up. This is great to ensure the power that players get with the 2024 Player’s Handbook has some checks and balances with the monsters the DM can throw their way. This helps give players a chance to test out all their toys and be challenged instead of just providing more pushover content.
Is The New Monster Manual Worth It?
This is the big question. Of the three core rulebooks, it’s to me, the least necessary to have. Homebrewing monsters or adjusting stats of those from the 2014 version is already easy enough to do, and most DMs will be used to having to adjust options by now after years of the old book. There are no fundamental adjustments players need to make, making this entry feel less integral to gameplay.
However, the ease of use can prove to be exactly what DMs were missing when creating adventures. The continued effort to make things easier is definitely worth consideration, and the adjustment to monster levels, addition of narrative and mechanic adjustments to easily drop monsters into any situation, and the assistance provided to DMs to do so feel like it’s worth the effort.
Combine this with the synergy of all three companion books from their 2024 releases, and you’ll see all the Easter Eggs from the artwork, and character quotes to more that pass through all three core rulebooks. These trio of books were built as one giant book, and it shows, making it feel like there’s a bit of each book within each other. The Monster Manual does lean a lot on what was shown in the other two books, from rule interactions to spell effects and more. While it’s not integral to any game, you’ll definitely be missing out on those connections and, at the least, more than 85 new monsters.
Dungeons & Dragons
- Original Release Date
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1974
- Player Count
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2+
- Age Recommendation
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12+ (though younger can play and enjoy)
- Length per Game
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From 60 minutes to hours on end.
- Franchise Name
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Dungeons & Dragons
- Publishing Co
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Wizards of the Coast
- Brand
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Dungeons & Dragons