As a disclaimer before we begin: I really like the new Monster Manual. I think the entire 2024(/2025) core rulebooks are a great evolution and improvement to D&D as we've known it for the past decade. I think that this book will be a great resource for the game moving forward, and most crucially, makes some of D&D's most iconic monsters live up to their promises in a way that the 2014 versions didn't always achieve.
But let's get into gripes:
What Makes a Humanoid?
This is a mix, to be clear: the Monster Manual notably excises the entries for Drow, Orcs, Duergar, and Deep Gnomes. The idea is that, in place of these old stat blocks, you should just use the generic "any humanoid" NPC stat blocks found across the book. I think this is mostly fine - even if you want traditional Orcish raiders or sinister Drow abductors, you can mostly manage this with Berserkers, Warriors, Scouts, Spies, etc. A DM might need to alter them slightly, like giving Duergar NPCs their invisibility and enlarge features, and I don't think we need to rule out the idea of any species-specific stat blocks in the future.
However, the flip-side of this is that, to preserve the many humanoid stat blocks that aren't quite as "core" playable species, we've seen a massive number of changes to creature type for former humanoid creatures. Some of these I'm actually fine with - Goblins and their kin being Fey makes total sense, and indeed, Fey has traditionally been the next-most common creature type for playable species. And I think it's fine that Gnolls are fiends now (though I expected them to be monstrosities).
I think the real controversy here is among the creatures now considered Elementals. Aarakocra and Merfolk were, to be fair, tied to the elemental planes of their respective elements, but I've always interpreted them as being fairly straightforward fleshy beings. The shocker here was making Lizardfolk into elements tied to the plane of Earth. This feels utterly out of left field and bizarre. I don't even know that I think of Lizardfolk as being associated with Earth more than, say, Water.
This really raises a question, though: so many of these creatures were made playable species in various sourcebooks, all revised and collected in Monsters of the Multiverse. Should we be treating player characters who are Lizardfolk or Aarakocra as elementals now? I don't think that would break the game, but it would be a change.
Furthermore, there are plenty of playable species that feel equally if not more tied to other creature types. I could imagine a world in which Goliaths are Giants, Dragonborn are Dragons, Aasimar are Celestials, Tieflings are Fiends, etc.
Now, to be fair, often the "playable" humanoid version of a creature is distinguished from the main version, like how we have playable Tritons rather than Merfolk (and who, notably, have legs instead of fish tails). But this is pretty inconsistent.
Monster-Building Guidance:
This is maybe more of a DMG complaint, but there was some hope we'd find this in the Monster Manual. As a long-playing DM, perhaps no section of the 2014 DMG do I love more than the "Creating a Monster" section of the DM's Toolbox. I've made some very fun creatures using the giant "Quick Monster Attributes" table. The table is flawed, though - like the fact that it caps out AC at 19 (utterly absurd to think a CR 30 monster would only have an AC of 19) and so I was hoping we'd get a tuned-up, updated version of that table.
No such thing.
And this is frustrating, because I think the game would really benefit if they walked us through how the creatures of the new Monster Manual are built to match their Challenge Rating, and how we might achieve similar results. Very few people have had the chance to actually run these monsters yet, and while on paper (or on digital screens at least) I can tell you that I think the new Lich is going to feel a lot scarier than the old one, or I can imagine a really dynamic fight with, say, a Vampire Umbral Lord, actually figuring out how to build a creature of similar threat is going to require some significant reverse-engineering, when WotC could have simply just given us the guidance needed.
The cynic in me feels like this is some high-level corporate decision to encourage customers to buy whatever new monster books they come out with, but in terms of actual player experience, I guarantee you that any creative DM is going to come up with a monster concept that is not covered in any book WotC will ever come up with. And that's the fun of this game.
Overzealous Alphabetizing:
This is a matter of debate, of course. The 2014 Monster Manual has a funny issue, which is that the "D" section is enormous. That's thanks to the fact that it covers Devils, Demons, and Dragons (and Drow, for that matter). Dragons alone account for 40 different stat blocks (not counting Dragon Turtles).
And yet, I think it's more useful to group these up.
I think the dragons are ok to be split up - Green Dragons, Brass Dragons, those can go under G and B (though, funnily enough, "B" winds up now being pretty loaded thanks to the existence of Blue, Black, Brass, and Bronze dragons).
But for Demons and Devils, I think they should have kept them together. I'm a huge nerd who absorbs this kind of information easily, but I can imagine a ton of DMs who might be trying to populate some encounter involving fiendish cultists trying to open a gateway to the Abyss who might not see "Herzrou" or "Goristro" and recognize that these are both demons. And it will make it even tricker for people not yet tuned in to the whole Blood War rivalry to recognize that a Glabrezu would not make much sense as the minion of a Pit Fiend. (The one saving grace here is that most devils at least are referred to as "*X*-Devil," like Bearded Devils or Ice Devils.)
Thin Lore:
Again, I'm of two minds here. Lore entries for monsters have generally been cut shorter. This does, of course, mean more room for more creatures. But this also actually ties into the previous gripe - by separating out, for example, Demons from one another, or Giants, we no longer have lore sections dedicated to the groups as a whole. There's no mention of the Ordning or the way that the various giants relate to one another. And there's nothing about the overall MOs of Devils or Demons.
Taking the Silver out of Lycanthropes:
This one really hurts.
So, a change that I think is welcome is that the requirement to have magical weapons to hurt powerful monsters is basically gone. There are still monsters with resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage, but it's far rarer (there's also no instances I can think of where a creature has full immunity to all three - some oozes might be immune to bludgeoning).
Now, there was always an issue with things like Devils taking full damage from silvered weapons, or Adamantine weapons overcoming a Golem's immunities. The problem was no one ever actually cared about that, because it was easy enough to get a +1 sword and just ignore all those specificities.
This is, then, what made me love the Loup-Garou from Van Richten's - rather than having immunity to damage from nonmagical, non-silvered weapons, they instead regenerated HP if not hit by a silvered weapon. This actually makes them far deadlier, as even if you have a party full of spellcasters who could do full damage to a werewolf without changing their strategy at all, a silvered weapon is truly required to kill a Loup-Garou (or the Chill Touch cantrip).
So, how do they address this classic weakness to silver among were-creatures?
They don't. It's just not a thing.
This actually leaves were-creatures with only one real distinguishing feature, which is their ability to infect you with their lycanthropic curse. And sure, that's scary (and I actually like the way the curse works now, where it only transforms you if you drop to 0 hp, so you can have a tense period where a character is infected and the rest of the party needs to ensure that the character doesn't go down) but I think one of the really classic dangers of the werewolf as a monster is it's near-unkillability. (Also, spoilers for my own homebrew setting, but there's a massive empire whose entire royal family is actually werewolves, a secret that they closely guard, but which also makes them very hard to assassinate).
So yeah, I'd been hoping that we'd see all lycanthropes get this Loup-Garou-style silver feature. Instead, silvered weapons (now considered common magic items) just deal an extra die of damage when they crit a creature that is shape-shifted. Which... I mean, how often is that going to come up?
The Categories that Weren't Expanded:
I love that we got new Vampires, new Skeletons, and additional stat blocks for a lot of those one-off monsters.
Still, there are a few that I think could have afforded some additional variants.
For example, while there are of course other elementals (like the aforementioned transformed-into-elementals creatures,) it seems like a no-brainer to make higher-CR versions of the four basic elementals. CR 5 is a decent spot if you're only going to have one, as it can be a tough menace on its own to tier 1 or lower tier 2 players, but remain a relevant monster as a part of a group for players at higher levels (up to maybe early tier 3). But I feel like a Huge-sized, maybe CR 10-14 elemental of each of the four types would be a great addition, and kind of bridge the gap between those and the "elder elementals" found in Monsters of the Multiverse. (Fun fact, while the art for the Elemental Cataclysm looks a little draconic in nature, apparently the intent was for it to be a Phoenix, Zaratan, Elder Tempest, and Leviathan all rolled into one, with each head representing those. I don't know that it got it across fully, but conceptually cool).
Still No Gargantuan or Legendary Fiends
This is maybe silly. And in fairness, legendary fiends are typically specific characters. And also to be fair, some high-level fiends, like Balors and Pit Fiends, do have legendary resistance, just not legendary actions.
But I also feel like it's strange that there aren't any truly massive fiends.
So there you have it: my primary gripes with the new Monster Manual. I haven't had a chance to actually run any of these creatures, so I'll have to see how they actually feel. Again, I suspect that monsters will feel deadlier, but the proof is in the playing.
I have been pumping out a huge number of posts about various monsters, and while I think I've hit most of the ones I'm most excited about, I expect there will be more to come.
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