Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse is a new Dungeons & Dragons book that features revised versions of monsters that appeared in books like Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, and it actually makes DMing easier. These monsters have received a number of changes in D&D‘s Monsters of the Multiverse. The stat blocks of many creatures have also been reworked to make them easier to use.
In the ideal world, every DM would be able to perfectly craft their campaign with love and care, taking time to balance out every encounter and prepare suitable countermeasures for player actions, in order to make combat as exciting and engaging as possible. In the real world, people have responsibilities that take them away from D&D. there are people who purchase pre-made campaigns and use them for their games, rather than creating homebrew adventures. As such, there are DMs who rely on existing materials for things like monsters and traps. Campaigns like Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden have been designed for D&D DMs who are on a tight schedule, so that they can be run with minimal prep time, with everything broken into easily digestible sections.
D&D players and DMs are only human and it can be hard to keep track of everything going on during a battle. It’s especially difficult for DMs in situations where there are lots of different creatures on the field. This is especially true in situations where DMs haven’t had the chance to fully prep the adventure. Monsters of the Multiverse is a new D&D book that has changed some of the existing monsters to make them easier to run. The book is currently available as part of D&D‘s Rules Expansion Gift Set and will receive a standalone release on May 17.
D&D’s Monster Stat Blocks Have Been Changed & Are Now Easier
The monster stat blocks have been revised across the board, especially for the creatures that debuted in the early days of Volo’s Guide to Monsters. The new stat blocks now prioritize defensive and passive abilities first, with actions/reactions following afterward. The biggest change to how stat blocks work involves spellcasting. In older books, monsters could have two separate blocks for spells, with one focused on innate spells and another block in a separate spellcasting tier. These have now been combined into a single Spellcasting trait, rather than broken into two trees. The other change is that spells now have a finite number of uses each (except for cantrips, which are unlimited), rather than having several slots per level to spend across a selection. This makes it easier for DMs to keep track of what spells the monster has available at any one time, rather than needing to waste time deciding how to use their slots.
These changes have been gradually making their way into other D&D products, as well as retroactively added to old ones through errata. The changed D&D monsters in Storm King’s Thunder now have revised spellcasting slots, in order to make them easier to run. The creatures in the Monster Manual will likely receive a similar revision in the future, once the 5.5e Dungeons & Dragons version of the Monster Manual launches in 2024.
