1) Revamped Legendary Actions, With Extra Energy Than Earlier than.
One of many large targets of the brand new Monster Guide was to revamp monsters to have them punch more durable however concurrently make them simpler to run. This design ethos may be seen in lots of revamped monster statblocks, particularly at greater Problem Scores. Lair actions at the moment are integrated into the statblock, with monsters sometimes getting access to an extra Legendary Resistance and Legendary Motion whereas of their lair. Moreover, lots of the Legendary Actions are rather more highly effective than their 5E equivalents, with creatures normally gaining extra harmful choices.
As an illustration, all the dragons have misplaced their functionally nugatory “Detect” motion and as an alternative have entry to new spellcasting choices or extra highly effective assaults. The Grownup Blue Dragon, for instance, can solid Shatter as a Legendary Motion or it could actually solid Invisibility on itself after which transfer as much as half its pace. Whereas not as sturdy because the dragon’s customary actions, the Grownup Blue Dragon can now do much more over the course of a spherical then merely deal average quantities of injury and take in hits from opponents.
2) Both Assault Rolls or Saving Throws, Not Each
One other main streamlining inside rulesets is that monster assaults with results are both triggered with a failed saving throw OR a profitable assault roll. This could considerably pace up fight by lowering the variety of rolls made throughout a recreation. For instance, the Bearded Satan’s 2014 statblock included a Beard assault that broken on a profitable hit and compelled its goal to make a Structure saving throw or be Poisoned. Within the 2025 Monster Guide, the Bearded Satan’s Beard assault offers injury and routinely inflicts the Poisoned situation on a profitable assault.
There’s two main penalties to this. The primary is that just one cube roll is required to find out the success or failure of a sure assault or skill. The second is {that a} creature is extra usually in a position to threaten participant characters at their supposed stage. By having a creature’s full assault set off based mostly on a single success as an alternative two successes (or I suppose a hit mixed with a separate creature’s failure), it radically adjustments the dynamics of many D&D combats.
3) Sure, The Artwork Is Incredible
Retaining with one other theme of the 2024/2025 Core Rulebooks, the art work within the new Monster Guide is frankly incredible. There are a whole lot of D&D gamers, myself included, who like to look by means of the Monster Guide and different bestiaries primarily for the artwork and lore. These gamers ought to be more than pleased with this new e-book, which incorporates art work for each single monster within the e-book. What’s extra, a lot of the art work reveals the monsters in motion. The Chasme, for instance, seems rather more threatening within the 2025 Monster Guide, with artwork displaying the demon hunched over an adventurer with its probiscus lined in blood. Examine that imagery to the 2014 Monster Guide, which simply has the chasme standing in profile.
One remark made to me by Jeremy Crawford was that Wizards had discovered that monsters with out artwork tended for use much less usually, so I am anticipating the pattern of extra artwork to proceed in future books.
4) A Handful of Fascinating New Mechanics
Whereas not discovered extensively within the new Monster Guide, there are a handful of latest (or at the very least very unusual) mechanics. The Empyrean, as an example, has a Sacred Weapon assault that offers injury and Stuns its goal. Nevertheless, the goal can select to bypass the Surprised situation by taking extra injury. In the meantime, the Arch Hag has a number of talents that curse their opponent, taking away their skill to make use of Reactions or spells with verbal parts. Moreover, the hag has a bonus motion that offers automated injury to anybody cursed by the witch.
Discovering new mechanics within the Monster Guide is uncommon, however they symbolize some attention-grabbing innovation that hopefully will probably be integrated with future statblocks. Not each creature wants stacking talents, or “decide your poison” decisions, however I like these and wish to see them extra usually sooner or later.
5) Species-Free NPCs
Over the previous few weeks, Wizards has revealed a number of monsters with new creature classification sorts. Goblins, aarakocra, lizardfolk, kobolds, and kenku are all now categorised as non-humanoids. It is attention-grabbing that non-humanoid species usually have a number of statblocks with distinctive talents, however that the humanoid statblocks are supposed to embody elves, dwarves, orcs, people, and extra. I am assuming (on condition that Eberron: Forge of the Artificer is bringing again the Warforged) that D&D will not take away non-humanoid species as playable species, however it looks like there is a deliberate push to make all humanoids interchangeable, at the very least in relation to these NPC stats.
It is a disgrace that Wizards appears to have carried out away with templates within the new Monster Guide as a result of they’d be helpful for remodeling a generic guard or scout right into a Drow guard or a Dragonborn scout. I do not assume these can be laborious to homebrew if essential, however I do really feel like this is among the larger misses within the Monster Guide. Hopefully, we’ll see extra specialization sooner or later, and the Monster Guide opted to concentrate on monsters as an alternative of extremely particular statblocks.
