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

Product Information

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse will serve as a supplement to the 5th edition Player’s Handbook, greatly expanding the options available to new players beyond the original nine races. I don’t think this criticism is invalid, but I do think it’s somewhat overblown, since the new spell attack actions are mostly just damage-dealing “zaps” without lasting side effects aside from hit point loss. Instead of cluttering the stat block with unnecessary weapons, we get to focus on the abilities quintessential to the creatures.

A creature that previously had Perception +3 and Keen Smell and that now has Perception +5 can potentially gain advantage from some other source and jack that up to an effective +9 or +10. However, the two species, which originate from the magical Feywild dimension, were originally intended to be first featured in Monsters of the Multiverse, with the sourcebook having been ready for printing as early as the middle of 2021, but was delayed due to supply chain issues. As well as scrubbing ability score recommendations that often shoehorn them into specific classes, these are multiversal versions for inclusion on any world. James Grebey, for SyFy Wire, wrote that the updated rules decouple "cultural characteristics from the physical or magical ones" and it "removes setting-specific information about the races, which combined with the more flexible stat alignment should make them easier to slot into any fantasy world [.g., actions becoming bonus actions), and that’s what I’ll be focusing on in upcoming posts as I work my way through those 112 significantly altered monsters. I at least hope there are people out there who like spellcasting changes, so there is at least some justification for WotC not meeting my personal preference. The Player's Handbook, or PHB, includes just 9 total playable races, so this is a hefty chunk of new content. While many Race Traits were previously limited by your character’s Level (such as the Necrotic Shroud of a Fallen Aasimar), many have now been swapped for the character’s Proficiency Bonus instead. What Keith gets is that the monsters are the DM’s characters, and his work has been super helpful in adding logic, flavor, and fun in my quest to slaughter my players’ characters and laugh out the window as they cry in their cars afterward.

Heck, even if you own those books, you could reference this one book for those races instead of bouncing between different sourcebooks. The seminal tabletop role-playing game turns 50 in 2024, and developers are busy building the game’s next version to go on sale during that window.

Aside from these things, there are a handful of minor, clarity-improving language tweaks, making traits and actions easier to read and adjudicate (“up to four of its allies,” for instance, becomes “up to four other creatures,” eliminating the need to think about who is and isn’t an ally). Emphasis in this section is put on concision and approachability with the primary changes being in stat block configuration.