Monster Manual 2024 Preview — An upgrade for the bad guys

Wizards of the Coast’s next book for the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 updated rules is the Monster Manual 2024. GamingTrend had a chance to hear from the co-leads for the 2024 Monster Manual, Jeremy Crawford, the Game Director for D&D and Wes Schneider, Principal Game Designer for D&D, about what we can expect to see in the new book. As the last release of the 2024 edition of the three core rulebooks, preceded by the Player’s Handbook in September 2024 and the Dungeon Master’s Guide in November 2024, the new Monster Manual will be available in February 2025. This book will be available in two different covers: the standard cover, with art by Tyler Jacobson, will feature a menagerie of iconic monsters surrounding an adventuring party; and a non-standard cover, with art by Olena Richards, that will feature a portrait of a Mind Flayer.

Announced as the biggest Monster Manual ever with hundreds of monsters stuffed inside, this book is intended to provide players with more and improved content than its predecessor. With an eye towards giving everybody what they want out of the monsters they can use in their D&D games, the designers added new monsters and updated old ones. The new monsters come in the form of brand new entries, like the Blob of Annihilation, and new takes on some favorite monsters like the Primeval Owlbear (a little more on both of those later). Adding new variations to existing monsters is intended to give new versatility and more game play opportunities for familiar monsters. There are more monsters for every tier of play including more threats for high-level play than were in the 2014 Monster Manual – more monsters for epic tier play at the ends of campaigns.

The book opens to a table of contents that includes an alphabetical index of the monsters. The table of contents is followed by four sections: an overview, the monster list, and two appendices. The book overview focuses on how to use the book and the monsters in your game. The overview provides an explanation of the monster stat blocks and how to use them. After the overview there are over three-hundred pages of monsters listed alphabetically by name with most monsters having dedicated art. Appendix A lists normal animals from around the D&D multiverse as well as fantastical versions of the same, like giant versions of apes and eagles. And finally, appendix B is a collection of monster lists grouping the monsters by creature type, habitat, challenge rating, etc.

All the monsters in the 2014 manual remain in the 2024 version, although some have been changed in some ways (including name changes). There are more than eighty-five new monsters added to the book, some of which were inspired by creatures from earlier editions. There are new variants on existing monsters, from new azers, merfolk, giants, dragons, bulettes, owlbears, and others. As an example of an update to a monster, the option for high challenge rating dragons to be able to cast spells has been removed and the spell casting is now built into the dragon’s stat block.

The 2014 Monster Manual has a few creatures that represent the apex of their creature type, such as ancient dragons for dragons and the terrasque for monstrosities. For 2024, they’ve expanded that list to include new monsters that represent the apex of other creature types. The elemental cataclysm is the new apex creature for elementals. Shown in the artwork as a gigantic dragon-like monster with four heads composed of the four elements, this high challenge rating monster causes different environmental disasters to occur while the PCs are fighting it.

Some of the new monsters you can expect to find in this edition are:

Primeval owlbear – A higher tier monster from the Feywild, enabling higher level encounters with owlbears.

Blob of annihilation – The apex monster for oozes is a massive blob with the skull of a dead god floating in it that can engulf a whole city. These blobs can pull those they consume into a different plane and if someone is still inside it when it dies, they can be sucked into the Astral Sea.

Haunting revenant – Revenants are tough, revenge-focused, reanimated corpses that continually return from defeat until they exact their revenge. This edition introduces a variety of revenants beyond just a standard corpse. There is a spirit that animates an entire group of creatures, and a spirit that haunts an entire location, such as a house.

Animal lord – Returned to the game from the first edition, these represent the challenge rating 20 apex threat for animals.

New types of creatures include bulette pups and merfolk wavebenders. Creatures that were suggestions in 2014 monster entries, now have their own stat blocks such as the mindflayer arcanist and the poltergeist.

The terrasque is still the highest challenge rating creature, but even it has been upgraded with long range attacks and the ability to shut down teleportation around it.

There are more NPC-type characters. One example is a set of pirates that give you everything you need for single pirate threats, or to crew an entire pirate navy at multiple challenge ratings (base-level pirates, pirate captains, and pirate admirals) for play at multiple tiers.

In the 2014 manual, there were stat blocks at the back of the book for NPCs like guards and cultists. In the 2024 manual, all NPC characters are listed throughout the book in alphabetical order. In the cultist entry, there will be updates and more. In addition to the base cultist, there are the cultist fanatic and hierophant, then you have a number that swear themselves to other powers in the D&D multiverse such as aberrant and elemental cultists.

Updates to dragon stat blocks aside from the aforementioned adult and ancient dragons now have spell casting, there are additional changes. Legendary lair action descriptions have been moved into the dragon’s stat block. They are still limited to the dragon being in the lair to use them, but you don’t have to look under the lair section to find them. To differentiate between types of dragons, the fear effect no longer applies to all dragons. For instance, gold dragons no longer frighten creatures, instead they temporarily banish them. There will also be changes to the refresh rates on metallic dragons breath weapons. Damaging breath weapons stay the same, but many of the non-damaging breath weapons are no longer on a recharge.

Apex creatures all now feature an updated approach to legendary actions. Previously, legendary actions had a cost for use in each round of play, but now the DM has been provided with a certain number of legendary actions for a monster to use each round. DMs now just select legendary actions from the list – no matter which combination of legendary actions the DM selects the monster will stay within its challenge rating.

The word “typically” has been dropped from alignments, so that archetypal alignments now just say the alignment with no “typically” in front. For many humanoid creatures alignment is now neutral.

Finally, there have been changes to the stat blocks, some of which can be seen in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. Under the name of each monster is a short descriptive line that summarizes the creature to give an idea of what it is. For example, under the name of the gelatinous cube it says “Dungeon-Scouring Block of Ooze”. Treasure types link back to the types listed in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, which simplifies treasure allocation for DMs. There are now included tables of idea generators, for instance, the gelatinous cube has a table to randomly determine what might be floating in a cube, and the pirate entry includes a random pirate flag generating table.

The new format makes it easier for a DM to quickly look up a monster’s ability modifiers, saves, traits, and bonus actions. Monster’s initiative modifiers are at the top right of their section along with a static initiative number that a DM can use as the monster’s initiative instead of rolling.

The 2024 Monster Manual will be available for early access in Wizards Play Network stores and on D&D Beyond beginning on February 4 for Master Tier subscribers and February 11 for Hero Tier subscribers. The book will be released globally on February 18, 2025.

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