We also see how the proficiency bonus adds up for monsters. We’re given descriptions of how things like alignment, hit points, and armor class work. This is our first real glimpse into the design of 5e monsters. Next we’re given descriptions of the traits and stat blocks of the monsters. If this is a sneak preview for the upcoming Dungeon Master’s Guide, we may be in for a real treat. They’re a wonderful bonus to a book we’d only expect to be filled with monsters.
The Monster Manual begins with a nice description of this book’s place in the world, how to use the monsters within it in our games, and how the design team define monsters. Still, it’s hard not to flip through this book and say “wow weretigers!” This book feels like it has everything. I would have loved to see some of the demon princes and devil lords in here instead of four variants of brass, bronze, and copper dragons. Unfortunately there are no unique monsters in the book other than the Tarrasque which, at CR 30, appears to be more of a dare than a real monster. There are fifteen pages on metallic dragons, an amount I would consider excessive for good-aligned creatures, and five pages alone on beholders not even including the awesome zombie beholder hidden away in the zombie section. It even includes oddities like modrons, yochlols, and flumphs (at least Alphastream’s happy). It has all of the standard monsters you’d expect and a few you would have expected to be released in future books like the githyanki, death knights, and demilichs. The selection of monsters originates from monster books throughout all editions. In the back is a section on miscellaneous creatures (a bit confusing since many of the creatures in this section feel like monsters to me) and a most-welcome section on non-player characters. The book begins with a few pages on design and ecology before jumping right into the monsters themselves. This includes over forty different dragons across the four age categories and ten colors. The Monster Manual has 352 pages with nearly 450 individual monster stat blocks. Those are the first words that went through my head when I opened this book. It was with that experience and background that I lifted the mighty 5th Edition Monster Manual and gazed into the horrors within. Throughout my level 1 to 30 D&D 4th Edition campaign, I watched the best and worst monsters designed for 4e crash against the sharp rocks of 4e’s powerhouse PCs. I’ve had the pleasure of designing the elemental princes Yan-C-Bin and Olhydra and the opportunity to design the most powerful officially published D&D 4th edition monster of all time, the elemental prince Cryonax. I’ve been lucky enough to write a dozen or so articles and adventures for Wizards of the Coast focused on dragons, demons, and creatures of the outer planes. I’ve seen them collapse into bowls of useless jelly. Since the release of the 4th Edition of D&D, I’ve obsessed over Dungeons & Dragons monsters. With a fantastic design, writing that inspires the imagination, and mechanics that make monsters fun to run and fun to fight, the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Monster Manual may very well be the best monster book ever written. If this book doesn’t give us the right challenges to put in front of our PCs at all levels of play, the entire game can quickly fall apart. For us dungeon masters there is no book more important and more heavily used than the Monster Manual. Without good monsters, the best abilities in the Player’s Handbook are meaningless. While we’ve applied great attention to the new Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player’s Handbook, it falls to the Monster Manual to fill in the other half of the D&D equation.