D&D General Monster Manual vs Volo's vs Multiverse

[JEB]

If you get Monsters of the Multiverse, you don't need Volo's. Multiverse is a combined Volo's Guide to Monsters & Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes - two books in one.

Volo's has more substantive lore for its monsters than MOTM, however. Plus expansion material for core Monster Manual creatures that didn't make it into MOTM. So I'd say it depends on whether or not you mostly want the statblocks for new monsters all in one place, or if lore material also has value.

Also worth considering: Volo's (and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes) are 100% Monster Manual compatible, but MOTM does change its approach to monster design a bit (most notably with spellcasters). (@Leatherhead is doing an excellent rundown of the changes in MOTM here.) Still totally usable together, though.

 

[Blue]

Are you aware that WotC will be producing a revised edition of 5e to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D in 2024? Monsters of the Multiverse is like an experimental testbed / preview of what's to come. It's not just an update to make more money.

They already published in this format back in Witchlight. This isn't experimental, this has already been established.

 

[pukunui]

They already published in this format back in Witchlight. This isn't experimental, this has already been established.

It’s still experimental / a preview insofar as they can and may make changes based on user feedback ahead of the 50th anniversary. (See the reversal of the removal of alignment from statblocks.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you get Monsters of the Multiverse, you don't need Volo's. Multiverse is a combined Volo's Guide to Monsters & Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes - two books in one.

If you get MotM just for the statblocks and the racial write-ups, you don't need Volos. There's a lot of other stuff in there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, if we're touting 3rd party books, I'd highly recommend the Monster Manual Expanded series on the DM's Guild. The first two books are primarily higher/lower level versions of existing monsters; the third has a lot of "new" monsters carried over from 1E/2E/3E that haven't made it to the 5E official books.

Yes, please. 3rd party is the best!

 

[Micah Sweet]

They already published in this format back in Witchlight. This isn't experimental, this has already been established.

So, we're back to update for more money then?

 

[Blue]

So, we're back to update for more money then?

We're at "move it to the new format" without much about the intent. I believe they think it's easier to run, since they put Witchlight into that format without it being "updated reprints" of anything, so the format is independent of that variable.

Also, a bunch of things (especially the early races like the gensai) really needed the update for playability.

 

[Li Shenron]

I've already got the Monster Manual, am I wasting my money of I buy Volo's and/or the Multiverse?

Seems to me that the campaign books come with monster descriptions and such.

Did you notice these 2 books have a bunch of monsters in common? It is probably not the best to buy both. Buy one or the other, and if you want to buy two then buy Volo Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen Tome of Foes instead of Monsters of the Universe (which combines the monsters statblocks of both, but doesn't include the narrative/lore half).

Volo and Mordenkainen have a lot of lore/narrative information on a selected number of creatures which Multiverse doesn't have, take a look at the table of content of each and see if you want this exclusive information. If you don't want it, Multiverse has the stats of both in one book.

If you are still undecided, you can keep using the Monster Manual which covers a lot more famous and useful monsters anyway.