One of the reasons Dungeons & Dragons has done so well over the past few years is because the game has been in the right place at the right time. It released an accessible easy to learn edition just as nostalgia for the game fueled by Stranger Things ignited the curiosity of viewers and long dormant players.
It broke down the barriers of online play through services like D&D Beyond and Roll20 just as a worldwide pandemic forced everyone to learn how to live, work and play in a virtual space.
This year, as Spider-Man: No Way Home’s blockbuster success installs the idea of multiple universes into mainstream pop culture, D&D releases a book that shows players and Dungeon Masters that there’s no one way to build a character or a monster.
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse offers new player options, new monster write-ups and a look at how these essential elements of the game will be handled going forward.
Multiple worlds is nothing new for Dungeons & Dragons fans. The classic 1987 book Manual of the Planes opened up the cosmology of the setting and encouraged players to hop between Elemental Planes and other worlds.
Each of these worlds has their own slightly different versions of peoples and creatures. This upcoming book sets the stage for the reintroduction of two classic settings coming out this year.
Over 30 player race options
These options have been collected from several books released for the line such as Volo’s Guide To Monsters, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes and The Wild Beyond The Witchlight. It also includes choices not yet officially in print, such as the tortle from The Tortle Package which was originally a PDF only charity release.
These race options run the gamut from playful to monstrous. They’ve all been revised with player feedback from their original versions. They also all feature floating attributes bonuses to allow a wider variety of character options and no more specific alignments.
Many players felt that playing a character class that featured an attribute outside of the one that got a fixed bonus from their race made the game more difficult to play. These practices also made many players uncomfortable with stereotyping characters.
Over 250 monsters
The D&D design studio also included many of the monsters available only in other books such as adventures and setting books. There are no new monsters in this book, though for someone that doesn’t have every Fifth Edition book these designs are new to them. There are also variants for some of the more common monsters. This book means Dungeon Masters won’t be using the same cultist writeup over and over again.
These monsters benefit not just from a redesign but also coming from later in the design cycle when the team had a better grasp of elements like balance and resistance. The stat blocks are built with easy use at the table in mind.
Instead of listing various spells, for example, spell like abities most likely to be used are dropped directly in the block. Monsters don’t have to worry about spell slots and long rests, so they are more likely to open with powerful moves.
The Multiverse Always Comes Sooner Or Later
The standalone release of Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse drops on May 17th. But fans who can’t wait, or ones who need to catch up on their D&D books can get Xanathar’s Guide To Everything, Tasha’s Cauldron Of Everything and Monsters of The Multiverse on January 25th by purchasing the Rules Expansion Gift Set.
This collection of three books and a Dungeon Master Screen was originally intended as a holiday release but fell victim to the supply chain woes and delays plaguing every industry at the moment. It is available in a foil cover release and an alt-art version that can only be purchased at hobby stores.
Read full story on Forbes