Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Nuances and Considerations for the Monsters of the Multiverse Changes

 Monsters of the Multiverse, originally packaged with the Rules Expansion Box Set (which includes Xanathar's and Tasha's) is now available for individual purchase. The book is basically a revision and consolidation of the playable races and monster stat blocks from Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, along with a few races brought in from campaign setting books.

Some of the changes simply bring the races in line with new design philosophies - both in de-coupling ability score bonuses from race as well as presenting more nuanced race identities that are not bound to any particular moral alignment.

Monsters in the book have also been given revisions, the intent to make them more easily run in combat by DMs (particularly spellcasters) and also to bring the monsters better in line with their challenge ratings - many monsters have gotten more damage per round or have more hit points.

There are two broad changes that I've seen pointed out that will certainly make these monsters harder, and in ways that might seem to nerf certain player options.

First, let's address spellcasting.

Spellcasting NPC and monster stat blocks have been changed to give them a simpler means of dealing damage. Rather than having a whole array of spell slots and spells prepared or known that they can cast, most of these blocks primarily use a certain repeatable ability, often as a sort of multiattack spell attack.

As an example, the Archdruid, rather than simply having a lot of classic druid spells prepared and spell slots up to 9th level with which to cast them, now gets three attacks with either the "Wildfire" spell attack or a Staff weapon attack, and the option to cast one of their spells in place of an attack. Wildfire does 26 fire damage to a target it hits and blinds them for a round, and the staff does its normal bludgeoning but also adds 21 poison damage. These attacks are thus going to be the archdruid's main source of damage rather than spending spell slots on things like firestorm, sunbeam, or wall of fire.

From a DM's perspective, this is very appealing - these attacks do enough damage to make this CR 12 NPC feel like a real threat (or powerful ally for the party) but you won't have to keep a running tally of how many spell slots you've spent and whether to upcast something while you're running several other monsters at the same time.

Where I think this skews things, though, is on the player side.

First off, the obvious issue is Counterspell. While Wildfire and similar abilities are Spell Attacks, I don't believe this counts as "casting a spell." If the party Wizard has picked up counterspell as a major means of helping to protect the party, that spell just got a lot less powerful. Now, I'll concede that that might be intentional - counterspell can be a very frustrating spell, especially if you're running some spellcaster big bad and every turn they basically can't do anything because the party is countering everything. A lich ought to feel really scary and not someone who can get punked by a nearby sorcerer who's always keeping their reaction ready.

However, the odder consequence is how this shifts the power of AC versus saving throws. If (as our example) the Archdruid is using Wildfire in place of Firestorm or Sunbeam, this suddenly makes heavily-armored players a lot stronger. My poor 7-dexterity paladin is going to repeatedly get fried by Firestorm (good thing she has aura of protection!) but if she gets full plate (which, if we ever continue that campaign and get back from the Amber Temple, she should have the gold to buy it) she's going to be in much more decent shape.

Not everything has been made into an attack, mind you, but it does look like most spellcasters really have leaned that way. My Eldritch Knight, who can cast Shield to put his AC at 27, would be even more of a terror.

Another odd consequence of this plays into a subtle change with a lot of playable races - many "magic resistance" traits now specifically only apply to spells, rather than "spells and other magical effects." Your Yuan-Ti Pureblood, now simply a Yuan-Ti (which... yeah, that's probably for the best) now only gets advantage on saves against spells. Thus, if hit by an NPC Bard's "Cacophony" ability, they would not have advantage, even though the ability is identical to the spell Thunderwave, against which they would have advantage.

There are some of these caster stat blocks that do still use damaging spells, but typically their "spellcasting" action is focused more on utility.

The upshot of all of this is that I, as a DM, feel way more comfortable putting spellcasters into combat encounters I design. But it does change the landscape a bit, and takes some of the tools player characters use to defend against spellcasters away.

The other change of note is something of a nerf to non-Bear Totem Barbarians.

Many powerful monsters, rather than having weapons that do magical slashing, bludgeoning, or piercing damage, a lot of them instead simply do force damage.

As an example, a Green Abishai's Claw attack did slashing damage in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but with a trait that explains that the weapon attacks are magical (in case the Abishai is attacking some other creature or maybe your party has Stoneskin or something up). Now, however, the attack does Force damage. This means that the whole magic/non-magic distinction is irrelevant, but it also means that your Barbarian won't be able to tank that damage as effectively - it'll be going fully through.

I recently ran a boss that used Zuggtmoy's stat block, using the new one, and the Barbarian was taking full damage on all those pseudopod hits (well, not fully full because the party had a Heroes' Feast, so the poison damage was ignored).

Ironically, this makes the Brooch of Shielding a very powerful item at high levels.

I'm very curious to see how these philosophical shifts will be reflected moving forward - and indeed, if we'll see some iteration on them. We're still two years away from the updated core books, and who knows what new nuances might be introduced in those? Perhaps all Barbarian rages will give the Bear Totem effect, and this damage type change won't mean much. We'll have to wait and see.

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