Dungeons & Dragons: Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse: 1

Product Information

I don’t own the book (and don’t plan too any time soon, I don’t have so much disposable income to justify it) but I have had a quick look at some of the stat blocks for comparison.

As with language, acknowledging that a concept such as alignment is dependent on personal history and not biology is a respectable move, plus, it alligns with the changing mindsets held at modern tables, that our characters tend to be more grey than a nine-point chart can categorise.

I gave copies to the two others in our group who share in the Dungeon Mastering, and both of them came back the next time grinning rather slyly. Anyway, the other thing I find disappointing about the change in Spellcasting is that warlocks’ spells are always cast at their base levels, never boosted. I do not think it’s a bad book, but I am strongly against merging most of spells of a creature that is meant to be master at magic into 1 to 3 generic actions (very offputting in Strixhaven for me). Since I do happen to be pushing a book of tactical recommendations based on the stat blocks as they appear in Volo’s and Mordenkainen’s, I’m sure readers are wondering (a) what I think of the changes in Multiverse and (b) whether my tactical recommendations hold up after the changes. Firstly, is the Deep Rothe, which like the standard Rothe was first mentioned in Volo’s, but unlike the original, it now receives an official stat block, joining its cattle counterparts; the Aurochs, Ox, and Stench Kow.

OK, there was a fifth, the meenlock, whose Strength was raised by 1—which had no effect on its Strength modifier. On the other hand, having advantage from one source nullifies any advantage you might receive from some other source. This lore content is absent from Multiverse, I assume because it’s not multiversal enough, which is a terrible shame; it should be available somewhere. At the same time, it allows traditionalists to just keep doing it the way they’ve been doing it by using the legacy rules for character creation first published in the Player’s Handbook in 2014. Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse is a compendium of creatures from all across 5th Edition.

Honestly, outside of character creation, I’m not even sure most players will notice the differences. Since it’s release in 2014, 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons has seen the arrival of 32 different Sourcebooks, from official gameplay guides to pre-written campaigns. Includes over 250 monsters—updates to the monsters include making spellcasters easier for Dungeon Masters to run, giving many monsters more damage and resilience, and improving the organization of the stat blocks themselves. So if it is not a failure of reading comprehension, then it is willful misinterpretation and ignoring what it written right there in the product description. To expand even further, it’s not even as though Imprisonment is a spell that players are in danger of being hit by; it’s got a full minute of casting time, with material components, meaning even a concealed creature with Subtle Spellcasting will reveal both their position and the fact that they are casting a spell the second they begin.

They will explain their origin as Fae creatures, how they were conquered by Maglubiyet, and how they were turned into a force of evil in multiple places across the multiverse. Like previous releases, this boxed set is also available in a collector’s edition with alternate cover art.

With the rise of beloved Actual Play Shows and Podcasts such as Critical Role, Dimension 20, and The Adventure Zone, many tables have shifted away from the strict canon of worlds like the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, realising the broad potential in building an original world. Keen senses of all sorts are a thing of the past; monsters that used to possess them now have double proficiency in Perception.

Suggested moral alignments for certain species have also been removed for Monsters of the Multiverse.However, this will not be the case with Monsters of the Multiverse, especially as some of the changes made in the book are considered unpopular with a segment of fans. Or, on the flip side, if you are a player and only need to know one race out of a book, you can pay to unlock just that information. In the past, all a monster had to do was have a set of combat options that, if the DM chose that right set, the monster was that challenge rating. Creature Abilities are now more effectively organised into Actions and Bonus Actions with distinctive titles for quicker identification in the heat of battle. During a press briefing last week, Crawford noted that lots of attention has been paid to how player character (PC) races are being presented in the book.