D&D Monster Manual (2025)

D&D (2024) D&D Monster Manual (2025)

Excited to see the stat blocks for the Vampire nightbringer and arch-hag, for a few reasons! For one, I've always wanted higher level stats for hags and vampires. Hags in particular have been very low CR in 5e.
Also, @AuldDragon 's excellent blog has detailed lore on Kanchelsis the Vampire Lord and Cegilune the Hag Mother from 2e, and I wanna try my hand at using the new stat blocks to represent avatars of those figures!
 

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Despite the clickbait title and thumbnail, this video shows several revised statblocks, comparing 2024 creatures to their 2014 counterparts.

There are some very interesting things going on. Some streamlining, simplification and more unique takes on the creatures.

There will indeed be mixed reactions (it is impossible to please everyone, especially RPG players on forums) but I find this promising:

 

Despite the clickbait title and thumbnail, this video shows several revised statblocks, comparing 2024 creatures to their 2014 counterparts.

There are some very interesting things going on. Some streamlining, simplification and more unique takes on the creatures.

There will indeed be mixed reactions (it is impossible to please everyone, especially RPG players on forums) but I find this promising:


Agreed. I think it will change a lot about how people approach 5e combat, and shake up a great deal of established tactics and expectations.
 

I have mixed reactions to this.

The blink dog: Dislike the removal of keen hearing and smell. This change really seems to me to be one of many that are basically designed for VTT play at the expense of flavor and world building elements.

Moving the teleport to a bonus action, I really like.

The bugbear: I HATE changing goblinoids to Fey. This is a change for no reason that I can see. It is one of the only places where WotC is actually inserting lore, but it's intrusive in that it changes long established lore in a way that has mechanical consequences. Yuck.

Removing Brute and Surprise Attack are changes I don't see the purpose in- the poster of the video theorizes that it's to remove passive, always on abilities, but I don't see the point of this. Adding the Abductor trait is... okay, again, why? What does that have to do with bugbears and their traditional depiction? Feels like another change for the sake of change to me. The weird damage on the hammer is just weird, and seems very arbitrary.

The bullywug: I like moving its ability to jump to a bonus action. I don't like the removal of swamp camouflage; again, loss of flavor for the sake of VTT integration is not something I care for.

Also, I am not a fan of giving them a rapier in place of a spear. That, again, removes traditional flavor in place of a weapon that is, in my opinion, kind of advanced technology for a bullywug.

The mage: Medium or Small is good. Improved hps seems misguided to me; mages should be squishy. Arcane Burst is... God damn do I hate this ability. It removes any tactical advantage from closing in on the mage, is an ability that pcs can't get, and is an example of the overuse of force damage in the new rules.

I'm okay with the changes to the spell list, given the inclusion of Arcane Burst, but I'd rather have the old version of the mage. I think the notion that we wouldn't see Greater Invisibility cast in combat is pretty wild; with no other real concentration options for the mage, it seems like an obvious choice to me for round 1.

I do love that they include Counterspell and Shield in the reactions section; I've been doing that for years.

The sprite went from a "not great in combat" creature to a "gonna hit and gonna hurt" type of creature. I think we need more stat blocks for things that aren't great in combat. I also definitely prefer the old sprite's sleep poison for the sake of tradition.

The worg: Not a fan of the changes. Again, removing the keen senses is... I don't see how it's an improvement.

The change to the bite from maybe proning you to granting advantage on the next attack against you seems weird. I mean, wolves (etc) taking creatures to the ground is a real thing, and I think it's a shame to lose it. Again, there is a subtraction of flavor in favor of simplicity. I don't need that, but I dunno, maybe the majority of dms do.

The warhorse: I'm glad that Trampling Charge moved to the Hooves action; it makes it harder to miss how it works when running it. The reducing of the damage, I like less so, but you know.

The bullywug bog sage is cool, though I do wish it still had the Swamp Camouflage ability.

FInally, he talks about the shambling mound without having access to the new stat block. I like everything he said here except for the addition of lightning damage. On a variant version of the SM? Absolutely, very cool. But for the baseline creature, which hasn't ever had such an ability? Meh.

I guess maybe a big thing for me is that changing stat blocks so much really effects the tactical setup of encounters from older adventures. I fondly remember a bullywug and titanic toad adventure I wrote where the bullywugs' swamp camouflage was a key element in, well, probably at least four encounters. I know you can arbitrarily throw in the equivalent of it with advantage based on the terrain or whatnot, but having it explicitly in the monsters' stat blocks is (I feel) far better.

Anyway, those are my thoughts... I continue to be not really impressed with the overall direction of the new rules, even if they seem mechanically sound.
 


The bugbear: I HATE changing goblinoids to Fey. This is a change for no reason that I can see. It is one of the only places where WotC is actually inserting lore, but it's intrusive in that it changes long established lore in a way that has mechanical consequences. Yuck.
Monsters of the Multiverse definitely showed that Goblinoids are Fey now, PC Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears all got Fey Ancestry as a trait, and the creature types for a bunch of their subtypes in that book is Fey. There's no surprise there.
 

It’s turning them back into what they where pre-Tolkien, and still are in the parts of culture that escaped the influence.
But that doesn't have anything to do with their history in dnd.

Monsters of the Multiverse definitely showed that Goblinoids are Fey now, PC Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears all got Fey Ancestry as a trait, and the creature types for a bunch of their subtypes in that book is Fey. There's no surprise there.
It's not a surprise, but it's still a disappointment. Goblinoids have been quintessential examples of "Humanoids" since before we even had actual creature types, and now they aren't. Not a fan.
 

I have mixed reactions to this.

The blink dog: Dislike the removal of keen hearing and smell. This change really seems to me to be one of many that are basically designed for VTT play at the expense of flavor and world building elements.

Moving the teleport to a bonus action, I really like.

The bugbear: I HATE changing goblinoids to Fey. This is a change for no reason that I can see. It is one of the only places where WotC is actually inserting lore, but it's intrusive in that it changes long established lore in a way that has mechanical consequences. Yuck.

Removing Brute and Surprise Attack are changes I don't see the purpose in- the poster of the video theorizes that it's to remove passive, always on abilities, but I don't see the point of this. Adding the Abductor trait is... okay, again, why? What does that have to do with bugbears and their traditional depiction? Feels like another change for the sake of change to me. The weird damage on the hammer is just weird, and seems very arbitrary.

The bullywug: I like moving its ability to jump to a bonus action. I don't like the removal of swamp camouflage; again, loss of flavor for the sake of VTT integration is not something I care for.

Also, I am not a fan of giving them a rapier in place of a spear. That, again, removes traditional flavor in place of a weapon that is, in my opinion, kind of advanced technology for a bullywug.

The mage: Medium or Small is good. Improved hps seems misguided to me; mages should be squishy. Arcane Burst is... God damn do I hate this ability. It removes any tactical advantage from closing in on the mage, is an ability that pcs can't get, and is an example of the overuse of force damage in the new rules.

I'm okay with the changes to the spell list, given the inclusion of Arcane Burst, but I'd rather have the old version of the mage. I think the notion that we wouldn't see Greater Invisibility cast in combat is pretty wild; with no other real concentration options for the mage, it seems like an obvious choice to me for round 1.

I do love that they include Counterspell and Shield in the reactions section; I've been doing that for years.

The sprite went from a "not great in combat" creature to a "gonna hit and gonna hurt" type of creature. I think we need more stat blocks for things that aren't great in combat. I also definitely prefer the old sprite's sleep poison for the sake of tradition.

The worg: Not a fan of the changes. Again, removing the keen senses is... I don't see how it's an improvement.

The change to the bite from maybe proning you to granting advantage on the next attack against you seems weird. I mean, wolves (etc) taking creatures to the ground is a real thing, and I think it's a shame to lose it. Again, there is a subtraction of flavor in favor of simplicity. I don't need that, but I dunno, maybe the majority of dms do.

The warhorse: I'm glad that Trampling Charge moved to the Hooves action; it makes it harder to miss how it works when running it. The reducing of the damage, I like less so, but you know.

The bullywug bog sage is cool, though I do wish it still had the Swamp Camouflage ability.

FInally, he talks about the shambling mound without having access to the new stat block. I like everything he said here except for the addition of lightning damage. On a variant version of the SM? Absolutely, very cool. But for the baseline creature, which hasn't ever had such an ability? Meh.

I guess maybe a big thing for me is that changing stat blocks so much really effects the tactical setup of encounters from older adventures. I fondly remember a bullywug and titanic toad adventure I wrote where the bullywugs' swamp camouflage was a key element in, well, probably at least four encounters. I know you can arbitrarily throw in the equivalent of it with advantage based on the terrain or whatnot, but having it explicitly in the monsters' stat blocks is (I feel) far better.

Anyway, those are my thoughts... I continue to be not really impressed with the overall direction of the new rules, even if they seem mechanically sound.
I just want to clarify that you need to pause a little bit on the analysis because it may not be comparing apples to apples. The 2014 MM bugbear is listed as a "Bugbear." However, the bugbear in Uni is listed as a "Bugbear Warrior." The video could be comparing apples to oranges. We don't know until the 2025 MM is available.

Traditional WotC uses modifiers (like "warrior" or "chief") to denote a different type of monster with a different statblock. It is possible the bugbear warrior is not meant as a direct replacement for the bugbear. It is interesting that the 2024 Green Dragon preview list it simple as "Ancient Green Dragon." So it is clearly a replacment.

Similarly, the Blink Dog in Uni and the MM share the same name. This seems like a direct replacement. Also, you noted the removal of Keen Hearing and Smell, but you (or perhaps the video) didn't note that it was replaced with expertise in perception (going from a +3 in 2014 to at +5 in 2024). This has been a trend in WotC monster design for the past few years.

All this leads me to believe that the monsters in Uni, while providing insight into the new MM, are not necessarily all same monsters / updates to 2014 monsters.
 

It's not a surprise, but it's still a disappointment. Goblinoids have been quintessential examples of "Humanoids" since before we even had actual creature types, and now they aren't. Not a fan.
That's fair, I guess I am more inclined to that tie into RL folklore more. I welcomed this change. Though what I really want is for monsters to be able to have multiple types.
 

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