I read the 2025 Monster Manual, here are my opinions
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
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I base my opinion of new Basic Mon Maneuls off how they treat my Fluffy Puppy the Tarasque.
Its a simple brute with lots of HP and some annoying traits... literally so simple a cave man could it.
Thus any flaws of the new write up method will be glaringly plain to see on its page if anywhere.
That being said... Love the new varient being an F'n Freight train of trouble.
All magic that targets including Magic Missle does nothing or Uno Reverses back to caster... Check.
Has a "breath weapon"... Check.
Has a rude amount of AC... Check.
Has a Climb and Swim Speed... Check.
Is the largest size designation... Check
Will die to flyers and acid pits... Check.
Max HP 1500+... Failed; Maxes at less than 1500 and more than 1000; so not as bad as it was.
My Fluffy Puppy even has 6 uses of Legendary resistance.
Love that its almost as good HP as 3.5 and that skill/ability wise its better than 3.5. Unlike Base 5e; I actually see a group of 4 Lv 30's still being challenged by its fight.
Thank God they redacted the Nerf on my baby.
Fave Monster of all.
Because its base is strong thus my own version is knightmarishily worse to deal with. Hint; its sub title is the planet cracker.
Catch on first try, or was there multiple takes?
we’ve unlocked a new XP to level 3 location
we're one step closer to 3d recreating his house so we can run dnd on it as a 'honey I shrunk the kids" type map
we gain enough XP to Level 4
it's all fun and games until the next location is outside your house...
Did XP to re-level 3
Closet dlc
"Take the ability off a gryphon and give it to a gelatinous cube"
Flight. You just gave it flight.
We're all doomed.
Why stop there? Let's give it legendary actions too.
Acid rain but it's just a bunch of tiny gelatinous cubes falling from the sky.
Or do the reverse, make a gelatinous gryphon.
They fly now?
Typical wizard shit
"Creatively, I love being put in a box..." 3:53 is such a great underrated quote. Someone finally put it into words
Having "skip all the prep time" in the Factor ad had me neuron activating, man 😅
Yeah, yeah, yeah! "Prep time wink, wink" me too
Flipping through the monster manual is the fastest onboarding tool D&D has ever had.
What got me into DND was flipping through the spells in the PHB!
No that's literally my first experience with dnd
Opening the back of a phb and reading all the spells
I imagine people feel the same "way" flipping through the monster manual
I still obsess over looking at the magic items section of the 2014 DM's Guide.
6:31 this reminds me of that bit in gravity falls where dipper is trying to get information from the journal to combat a creature he's facing
"'When fighting the gremloblin, use water [next page] only as a last resort because water makes it much stronger.'??? WHO WRITES LIKE THIS???"
16:00 I do like this point here. The idea that humanoids are just any of the species that are available for players to pick as a PC. And that the MM acknowledges that you will need stat blocks for generic NPCs. Now I will just look up throwaway NPCs for a big fight as warriors and then apply some specific species trait atop of that stat block. Remember to like for the algo
The thing is- 2024e isn't consistent AT ALL on this. Plenty of player races have non-humanoid creature types. For example, Elves are humanoids, except when they're fey. Goblins/Hobgoblins are in a similar boat.
@@TheWorldBelowDnD Humanoid less like the category in dnd but rather it's human looking, like it's upright and has similar build to a human.
That's how it was in the last book. In the 2014 one it says that if you are using any of the NPC's and you want to portray any particular race that has unique features, just apply the features to the stat block. This isn't new.
Hearing there are higher tear/leveled versions of some of the basic/common mobs is good to hear, Useful
Just analyzing the new black dragon stat block, it looks so much A: Cooler to run and B: Simpler to run. Rend attacks give the DM freedom to describe the dragon actually using those massive horns (for example, the pounce legendary action could have it do a bull ram through the air). Additionally, the inclusion of Melf's Acid Arrow as like an at-will breath weapon, and making Frightful Presence just be the Fear spell... UGH! I am so geeking out about it!
...you can counterspell a dragon's frightful presence? 😂
@@TheWorldBelowDnDIf you're dumb enough to waste your reaction to counterspell the fear spell, yes.
I really enjoy the way that the new statblocks are layed out. It is SO much easier to actually read all of the information. The monster classification is definitely one of the more enjoyable parts of 4th edition that I am glad that 5e is taking inspiration from.
I think this is the best response to the whole No More Orcs controversy. "Who cares?"
I just started running Dragon of Icespire Peak yesterday, and you fight a LOT of Orcs in that campaign. So, instead of making my players fight the same Orc statblock over and over again, I can use the Humanoid statblocks and add the Orc species features to them. Now my players are fighting Orc Cultists. Orc Bandits. Orc Toughs. All in league with the Anchorites of Talos, who get to be nasty spellcasters in the backline. It adds a lot more variety for me and for my players.
Hey, I'm running DoIP under 2024 rules as well! The 2014 stat blocks do feel lacking under these rules though, especially with a confusion on how to deal with lycanthropes (no more silvered/magical weapon distinction), and the conditions not being the same. I agree with your outlook on this and hope to get the MM so that I can balance the game a little better.
RIGHT???
And the best response to "who cares" is "many people."
EXACTLY! Thank you! Different Orcs! Ever thought of an Orc acrobat? Well it can be a thing now!!!
As a goblin enjoyer, this is basically 90% of what I'd expect as a response to this anyway. Yes, goblins are a lot more of a niche playable character option, but it's not like I wasn't already using NPC stat blocks with Fury of the Small and Nimble Escape bolted onto them already, which could then also be used alongside or separate the pre-existing goblin stat blocks. It's the same thing with swapping weapons or other stuff, it's a simple simple fix!
"i am trapped in this closet" damn, how are you going to break that to your wife?
I really like that the art changes from creature to creature. Really does make it feel like a field guide rather than a factual fact that this is what these creatures look like.
Honestly, I think the whole "Orc" situation is super simple. Everything that would have basically been "low CR humanoid" has been folded into the generic enemy statblocks (Tough, Scout, Assassin etc) To save space for additional monsters.
The 2014 Orcs were basically one extra bandit and cultist statblock that offered very little beyond low-level play.
Plus as much as ppl want to say "Orcs ad Elves are completely different!! Oh so these are all 'people's own so we can't fight them?!!" It's like no, they are MECHANICALLY not different at all beyond 1-2 things, and that's been true since 2014. Why have the same enemy duplicated for every race/species vs easily customizable generic humanoid statblocks.
By that logic, just have one stat block that you can mix and match as much as you please for all monsters.
@@whocares6757 a Dragon is more different to a Gelatinous Cube than a standard Orc archer would be to a standard Elf archer
@@whocares6757he’s talking humanoids, if anything it’s way easier to find a roll it’s meant to play like a berserker, general, etc. we did it all the time with the bandits(unless you described them as what race was in the picture but I doubt that). The trick is you also reference the species traits in the phb, my orc bandits will stay up at 1hp, my dwarf bandits will have tremor sense, my Goliaths.. well they’ll do a bunch of different things , same with teiflings. If anything with stronger general statblock, orcs got a major upgrade both in ability and use at higher levels.
@@monkeyman3194 Don't like how they've turned the different species into different flavors of humans.
The orc situation is asinine to anyone who's played any RPG with modular monsters, like Lancer. "Add orc traits to generic statblock" is the easiest ask.
Totally feel you on the MM being the favorite book. I remember as a kid looking through my dad's old 1E books and the monster manual was the one I always liked looking through the most. It's a ton of fun to just flip through.
12:26 on the terms of passive abilities, I feel like they're much more interesting in video games in which you can program something to loop apply the passive effect every 'round' instead of having to remember to ask your players to, definitely makes more sense to have more active abilities in a game where the entire game is built off of active choices
I love how every compliment for the 2024 books is actually just describing fourth edition d&d that they removed in 2014 and have put back in. The revamped stat blocks, the creature locales and tactics, the overall formatting, the monsters being more 'interesting' and 'active'. Go compare the 4e black dragon from monster manual 1 or monster vault in 4e vs the 2025 black dragons. Along with the diversified stat blocks and a variety of creatures. Like Monster Vault has 5 different Hobgoblins, in addition to its variety of templates you can use.
jacob with all due respect that side part is the most yee yee ass haircut you’ve had on this channel
@jupp8023 You didn't have to do him like that bro 😂
I can get why they might remove the orc stat block to try not to "monsterify" them as being playable characters, but I always thought that the bad reputation of orcs and half-orcs added an interesting element to roleplay and how NPCs would view your character. Especially with orcs being a classic fantasy monster.
Cant wait to see the Gryphlatinous cube in Fallout subzero.
8:28 Gelatinous Cube with Griffin wings. “They fly now.”
Thank you for your non-outrage takes! It’s really appreciated and I hope the YT D&D community continues to grow out of it.
From what I've gathered from the interviews for the difference between playable species and creatures in the MM, they tend to differentiate creature that live in the material plane for a long time and became humanoid, and those that are more on the "outsider type" so Fey-Goblin, Aarakocra Elementals or Gith Abheration etc.
On the one hand, I am a tad salty about that as a cop-out, but on the other hand, yeah, that does make sense and would give the most compatibility options of player vs DM balance side of things, not to mention previous book compatibility.
I don't think there is any way you could argue that goblins have lived in the material plane less than Orcs and Drow. Even if you tried to, the distinction is completely arbitrary.
About Orcs being missing from the MM, firstly the whole "It's 'cuase of LoRd Of ThE rInGs" argument is just dumb. The whole idea that Orcs are supposed to be allegorical stand-ins for black people in LotR is ridiculous. Not just because Tolkien absolutely hated allegory, he also wrote in humans that were explicitly dark skinned. Why have a stand-in for a race of humans when that race is already present in the books? It's nothing more than a modern day internet myth.
I believe it has to do with Orcs being a full-fledged PC race now. Personally, I think it's a mistake. Having Orcs as player characters that were raised in a civilized environment that lets them escape the clutching grasp of Gruumsh and adopt the ways of other peoples, hence the access to other backgrounds and classes than what they had in previous editions, is fine. However, there should still be a section for the various types of Orc that still are under the sway of Gruumsh, and hold to the old ways of tribalism and violence for its own sake. Civilized Orcs can be heroes. Most, however, are still very much monsters, and should be represented as such.
Exactly this
"squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the least lovely Mongol-types".
Seems pretty rooted in racism to me.
Besides, Tolkien himself is not the problem. Not only did he voice discomfort with the racialisation that emerged in LotR, since initially the orcs/goblins were just a scary thing that happened in the Hobbit as opposed to an evil (and thus ugly) race working for deputy satan, he himself was relatively outspoken against bigotry after what he witnessed in the war.
The issue is the concerning large number of people in the hobby that are very upset that racial essentialism that undeniably has real world corollaries has now been removed from the official rules. If you're a fantasy fan from a great deal of marginalised groups, and you might want to escape this rather shitty reality after a long day, it's emotionally draining to have to actively ignore parts of your hobby that remind you of said shitty reality.
There are other issues in the MM, such as the more automatic conditions, such as with mindflayer able to auto stun, wolf's auto prone, with no saves. And lets not forget the Carrion Crawler, which has a funny effectof making you roll a dex save, or be paralyzed, and unable to escape it cause you are paralyzed and auto fail the saving throw
MY LGS had this book out early and I'm very excited to read it now, all the videos they've been making about the creature types makes this book seem really good
Vorinclex was finally added. He gets two turns on his turn, but makes opponents have half of their turn rounded down
Can we get a tour of that room👀 looks sick
I truly enjoy your unconventional shoot locations.
One of my favourites was you lying flat on the floor.
Somehow, I find it comforting. Keep up the good job, and my best wishes to you and your family!
I was running some gricks, in the old monster manual they had 27 hit points and in the new one they had 54, caught me off guard
I love that they double it,like "how we make it better" "just double it"
Helpful description and review, it might have convinced me I need to pick up a copy.
The NPC Template Tome is on the DM's Guild. It has Species Templates that add thematic abilities to an NPC, so your Orc Toughs can feel like Orcs.
The generic species enemy blocks seem like a fine change for how I prefer to run games. I like to mostly use my own lore and do a lot of "this stat block is actually this creature" substitution anyway.
exactly, it makes flavoring your campaign just 1000x times easier, while also giving the initial set of monsters for 5.5 a huge amount of variety.
There's no clearly defined limiting principle on what should be "demonsterfied" so in 20 years Aboleth PCs won't be in the MM
Orcs should be monsterized. If you want to play as an Orc, then you should want to be playing as a monster. If you don't want to be playing as a monster, you should not be playng an orc. Otherwise, why treat dragons as monsters?
This
I think it really depends on your setting. If we take WoW, one the largest sci fi worlds the world has known, Orcs aren't just monsters, they are a race of people. If you want orcs as enemies, thats fine, you can have a large army of monsterous orcs, but we can and should always have a playable orc race, especially with how popular it is.
Because dragons are not humanoid creatures I guess?
@ Yeah, but this isn't Warcraft.
@ That's quadruped racist.
This is by far the most level headed appraisal of the book I have seen so far (and nice and positive too!). Well done, and thank you.
This sounds like the first Monster Manual in *any* system I'd actually enjoy using. I did what is in this book with so, so many monster blocks.
0:46 how many tries did that take
One of the few D&D channels I still watch; I like how you tend to avoid obviously clickbait nonsense. Keep up the great work!
I totally get why they’d drop orc. But it is weird to keep goblinoids, even if they aren’t in the monster manual, because people love goblins. I just hope we get orc variants in the 2024 rules like what we got from Volo’s in a later book.
You can always just use the old one, it didn't go anywhere, it's not a patch in an online video game
Yet another great vid. Thanks for all the cool stuff over the years!
Good luck at the gym jacob!!! I've started working out a couple years ago and it's a general life changer. Being a buff nerd is fun
Never been first before. Love to see the new video!!
I wonder if 4e would do well if it came out now instead of when it did. A lot of the ideas that you’ve shown love for existed back in 4e. Monsters had roles, like brute, minion, etc. Effects were automatic on a hit, because saves were defenses like AC, so if they hit your Con, then of course the poison affects you. There used to be a program that let you drag and drop abilities from one monster to another. Want that kobold leader to be extra scary? Drag a red dragon’s breath onto him, and it’ll scale the attack and damage to the CR of the kobold.
Thanks Jacob. I'm running a 2024 campaign at the moment and currently implementing a lot of the 2024 stat blocks into it and it's working out really well and I haven't laughed as much as I have playing D&D in an age. My players love it and so do I. Honestly good job to WotC for the good job. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as me and my mates are.
I think the general NPC/general humanoids resource is definitely a good thing. I guess I'd prefer if they added a thing for each race to implement in order to make a goblin warrior feel different to an orc warrior.
Using the creative boundary is my favorite. My prep for sessions is minimal because I prep the setting in general to make decisions in game. For sessions, I find the situation the players are in, I figure out the end and the boundaries the end must have. Once I set those, I improv the rest of the session. Pacing changes depending on moments, add a semi random combat when we need to move forward, skip parts I find boring. If the players want to do it, they will tell me, so we go back. Having those beginning and end bounds open the whole rest of the time to just make stuff up, which my players prefer to other methods I've tried.
Figure out the box first, and it all flows from there. Never forget the box. And don't forget you can still go outside if you need. The box can be flipped inside out.
So the thing with the orcs is that you could just give all the playable species individual entries in the Monster Manual (that's how 3rd and previous editions did it, and I think also maybe 4th. Elves and humans and orcs each had their own entry, just like dragons and whatnot), but that would take up more space and you'd have less options for what they could do compared to having various humanoid templates that can be modified as needed.
I can't wait to get my copy and Start using these new statblock, I'm this is a better book at the end, and if you think Orcs are Missing or something else, you can always check the old sources and make your own version of it
You're pregnant again?
The only sad thing about this books (because the 3 are all incredible books) is seeing how an enormous company with lots of money needed 10 years to do some things that others have been doing for quite some time now. It is good to see D&D catching up, but is really sad that this big team with time and money to invest in the game is doing only that: catching up, at most.
But i am glad that it did. The game seems more dynamic and fun now, in its basic state. I just hope the community embraces the new.
The elesh norn mini is so cooool!!!
Also: smash
what mini is that behind her?
We've got a new way to XP to Level 3 now.
See what I did there?
Ok I'll see myself out...
My book just came in today! Ive been flilping through it while watching this 3 year old. Im loving the monster options so far
You mentioned how you don't really read your comments, but seeing all the minis in the background of your video was really cool. I think it would be neat if you did a video where you told a story or two about each one and what it was used for. Maybe if there is footage of it in use on Arcane Arcade you could show that?
A mini video probably wouldn't do super well, but I wanted to pass along the desire to see it in case you read this comment.
I love these changes because when they happen they're like, "holy cow, this is so good," and then you realize how many iterations it's gone through before it was finally like this. But hey, at least it's better late than never
There was more then just Orc, Eye of Gruumsh was in the Monster Manual 2014 and in Volo's guide we had Blade of Ilneval, Claw of Luthic, Hand of Yurtrus, Red Fang of Shargaas, and Nurtured one of Yurtrus. 7 different types of orcs. That sounds pretty diverse to me.
Elesh Norn in the monster manual would be crazy! Imagine the chaos of a world and the phyrexian oil...
I'm the odd Aarakocra and Owlin player! I want to see more of them around, though as a DM I recognize flight speeds can be really problematic to work around (especially with more munchkinny players). The birdfolk are just nice, really.
I'm fine with orcs not being in the monster manual, but now that they've added to the lore in that orcs are nomadic in nature in the new PHB, I'd really like some expansion/updates to the lore surrounding them. I really hope that the Many-Arrows Tribe is one of the factions in the Forgotten Realms guide.
XP to Level 3: Inside the closet
Arcane Arcade: Out of the closet
I pre-ordered the monster manual as well and here are my thoughts on it.
-I do agree with the sentiment that the stat blocks have been simplified for the better.
-I absolutely love the addition of initiative score to stat blocks.
-I'm glad there's more stat blocks for humanoid NPCs like cultists, guards, and bandits.
-The legendary monsters feel stronger. (ie. The lich feels even more powerful, especially with lots of nice AT WILL spells and boosted hp.)
What I don't like is the changes to humanoid monsters like, Sahaugin, gnolls, and goblinoids(goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears). Making them fey and fiends negates so many spells that effect humanoids early levels. Hold person is no longer a cool spell to use on those low level monsters.
Yeah, you could argue that your party could just instead fight some human bandits or something. It's just a bummer 😕
The Carrion Crawler is busted. Paralyzis debuff that requires a Dex save to recover from, but once you're Paralyzed, the new rules say you automatically fail all Dexterity saving throws, so you can't actually save from it once you fail the initial save. Still not fixed in the new errata.
Hahahaha omg I never noticed this.
So if you fail you are paralyzed for 1 minute or until someone can remove the poisoned condition from you. That's insane.
It’s actually a con sage to recover
Print mistake
@@thomasquesada7248 it's on DnD beyond as a Dex Save. So it's not a print error. It's an oversight that I'm sure will be updated at some point on Beyond.
It was a CON save before and should obviously be a CON save now. It's not that big of a deal.
You should be used to BS like this with DnD... The system that doesn't do anything well, but attempts everything. It'll never be the perfect system for anyone, but it can be acceptable for many.
Usually I'm watching one video on my phone and one video on my Roku TV to minimize the chances of hearing my own thoughts but whenever I get i notification from your videos I make sure to watch it on the big screen
I haven't got my copy of the '24 MM yet, but if they had generic humanoid statblocks + racial traits you add to make them different races, that could work. Otherwise, its up to DMs to homebrew specific races with their racial features
10:11 They nerfed the gelatinous cubes health so when I was running the new one against my lvl 3 party I increased its hp from 62 to 84
Your explanation about orcs just doesn't make sense. "They want some things in the player side and some things in the DM side" Then you give an example about a dragon when goblins are literally right there, in both sides. Why do we get to keep goblins as monsters but not orcs? I can of course run anything as an enemy sure, but why did they remove orcs from the book? Why couldn't we get 5 different cool orcs stat blocks like orc warrior, orc shaman and stuff like that?
I don't care about the reason. I don't care about the why. What I care about is something being removed from the book.
They didn't really remove them per se. The orc statblock is still there, it was just renamed to "Tough" and changed slightly to be more neutral.
He is dancing around the actual reason for the removal and the discourse around it in such an odd way
addressing your last point, most humanoids function very similarly, you just add in your racial passives to the generic versions and bam, orc warrior.
Also please understand that this is the first book of 5.5 e, not everything can be in one book, they wanted to make a book that creates a solid baseline for adaptability that gives most people thousands of tools to work with.
The one thing I've heard from the book is the removal of much of the lore of the creatures. I feel like knowing what a creature is like or how it acts can help a DM figure out how they'd use it for their campaign. I also here there's no advice/rules/tips to making your own creatures and that would have been a very useful section to have.
Great information thanks ❤🎉
I'm gonna be THAT guy : who still use the monster manuel for their encounter
8:59 It's all fun and games until a player loots a Pirate Admiral's 4d10 pistol
Would've been cool if at the start of the NPC section they had a few pages with possible modification based on level and race. So if you wanted to make a fight in a dwarfish courtroom, you could quickly eyeball how much HP they'd have or what spells an elfish thieves guild would have.
Cool minis :D
Personally I don’t love the dragon melee attacks being simplified to just rend. I thought the multiple variations added a nice bit of flavour.
Although at the same time it isn’t exactly hard for me to just change the damage type and say it’s a bite or a tail slap. So I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
what i don't like is some of the dragons, like the young white dragon, are actually weaker. Most creatures I've seen got a boost but that one in every way got weaker
Yeah that’s the thing. Just having it be “Rend” condenses the stat block but still allows you to easily make adjustments as the DM if you want.
I don't play much 5e anymore and stopped running it for a couple reasons, but seeing how clean the new statblocks are, descriptions of habitats and treasure for monsters, and that each one has a fun little title is almost drawing me back in. For all the valid complaints about recent DnD releases, them presenting the statblocks in such an informative way, and including good info around the monsters instead of just their raw stats and abilities is worth shouting out.
I've grown an appreciation for bestiaries for the reasons Jacob said at the start. Flipping through a book that's just nothing but monsters and going "Wow, wtf is that" has lead me to cram so many interesting things into my sessions.
The Grim Hollow book is excellent for horror themed monsters, and one of my new favorites Battlezoo Strange and Unusual just has some wildly creative concepts
19:06 JACOB FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PUT YOUR HAND DOWN WHEN PLEDGING OR CONDEMNING ALLEGIANCES
My heart goes out to you….
Alright I’ll see myself out now
The monsters are very reminiscent of 4th edition when it comes to spell abilities. RAW a wizard who turns himself into a lich no longer can use his staff of power because he is no longer a wizard. That means a lich now resembles a mobile armored gun and no longer use his spell book. yet their description says their crave further knowledge perhaps the knowledge they seek is how to become living wizard and stop being a lich. Their was a post of humanoids by the devs that you could give your humanoids a species and a background. But that is something that should be in the book There should be a small chapter on making monsters more complex. So it would feel that they are using the same rules
More XP to get to lvl 3, LFG!!!
I do think the new version of monster spellcasting is better than slots. That said it does feel a little restrictive at times. My favorite way to run monster/npc spellcasting is using the optional spell point rules.
Just a little clarification, monsters of higher CR generally got big HP and damage buffs, while very low CR creatures actually got brought down a peg to avoid accidental TPK's at levels 1-3. Perfect example is the Vine Blight which had its HP and damage reduced (hp from 26 to 19 and damage from 2d6+2 to 1d8+2) because previously at CR 1/2 it could pretty much one shot any level 1 character even without critting.
My biggest problem with the removal of Orcs and Drow and Duergar with the more generic stat blocks is (1) there simply isn't enough generic stat blocks. The book just came out and I think by next week I will have used 1/2 of the generic stat blocks in my campaign already. Between Mercenaries, Barbarians, Thieves, Assassins, etc. I will have used 80% of the generic stats and we are only at level 8. I still have to find a way to make the mercenaries/assassins and Duergar feel unique so my players don't realize they are fighting the same generic creatures for 4 or five levels.
Likely Ill probably just end up using 2014 stats, which I think is bad for a New Monster Manual, if I am already going to have to revert to the old one before it is even officially released.
I can’t wait to unleash the new Carrion Crawler against my party. It’s so strong.
15:27 in regards to the PC species I wish they had generic class stats and had species abilities to manually paste on those class stats.
for the orcs and all other general humanoids meybe it would be cool if they had little table with some specialized abilites per the type/liniage/species thing (still hate species as a word). I think it could be nice just as a hey heres things to slot in to blocks, mix and match.
Yeah you don't need things explain or access to things you had before because as he says it "it's better that way"
Just my 2 cents. They turned orcs into wanderers instead of conquerors. They rewrote orc creator God Grumsh's story, turning him from the vengeful ugly brother of the elf creator god into a hipster God who's just there. They got rid of halfelfs and halforcs because they say half races/species were derogatory. Meanwhile they left other half races in the game, like the assimar and tieflings. They left the half giants in the new version, Goliaths. They rewrote dark elf lore because it was too bdsm with Lolth spider queen dominatrix society. The established lore of the dark elf matriarchal system where male elves were either lower class warriors or pleasure slaves. Wotc went stupid because they wanted to be politically correct. They destroyed their established lore because they want every playable species to have happy beginnings, happy lore, rainbows and candy for everyone. Newsflash, the rewrite of happy orcs and happy dark elves doesn't translate well into old modules, which it's supposed to be backwards compatible according to Jeremy Crawford. If dark elves are now the good guys, how do they tie in with Lolth? Did they rewrite her history too the way the turned orc God Grumsh the conquerer into hipster wander god?
Thank god the monsters are getting buffed. My players have been steamrolling my encounters. We got to the end of LMoP and I had to double the HP of like everything.
my only complaint about everything Ive seen so far is that the green dragon looks like its tail has had all of its bones removed, which is pleasantly surprising cause I was kind of expecting wizards to drop the ball.
Jacob is the kind of guy that starts the video with “guys this video isn’t sponsored” and ends with “I hate hasbro with all my heart”
For the record, before they had alignment say "typically ---". In the 2024 monster manual, instead they have a section at the start of the book that says the alignment is the default suggestion of how to role play the monster and to change it to suit your storytelling needs. I don't think this is a bad solution.
In the end, I have all the editions of DND and I can choose any monster I want anyway I want as long as I’ve got step blocks to work with and if I don’t, I just go to lazy DM‘s forge of foes ‘s and make my own
Not convinced Spencer likes that Factor meal she is eating in the promo 😂
"I love being put in a box"
- Jacob Xptolevelthree
One thing that I haven't seen anyone mention about the higher hp lower ac change is it actually indirectly makes martials better than before when compared to casters, because it makes attacks better while nerfing saving throw spells like fireball or lighting bolt.
Glazing the orcs hard.
I see an AaraKocra as a player more and an orc more as a monster. But anyone can just make any of it whatever they want, so it doesn't matter
I’m glad that there are people that enjoy the new 2024 edition but to me it honestly for lack of better words seems like a more dumbed down version. Of course there are a few class improvements for Monk and Ranger that I will cherry pick but overall it’s just not for me. Art style is absolutely not my taste but the good thing is that if you don’t like it you don’t have to change to new edition. All that said I do get joy seeing people excited about D&D even if it isn’t exactly same as my D&D. Great video as always
I dont like much from the new "edition" with everything being very much dumbed down and infantilized... but this book is actually hella good and FAR and away better than the old one.
Pre ordered it just the other day.