Let's Read: The Dungeons and Dragons 5e Monster Manual!

[Hawkstar]

Delighted to inspire.

I try to keep Goblinoids a cohesive group with some reason to hang out together.

IMC, Hobgoblins are Goblins who grow up... and stay grown up, in a way that is actually slightly mature, unlike Bugbears, who are Goblins that grow up inconsistently and then shrink down again.

Goblins are like adolescent jerks, while Hobgoblins are "too mature" rigid teen jerks who reject any fun they might have had as adolescents. Bugbears are those "big kids" who mature physically but not mentally.

Ettercaps are Goblins who ate too many spiders.

I'd like some kind of evil-Fey and evil-Outsider growth paths for the more exceptional Goblins, and these would tend to be leaders of Goblin / Hobgoblin / Bugbear groups.

I've always used Hobgoblin to mean "Hobbe's Goblins" - they see the squalor and short, brutish lives Bugbears and Goblins live as warnings (and their contempt for those, and ALL races, a justification to enslave them: "It is good to live a slave to the social contract than die in squalor and misery. Better to die for the social contract so others can live. It is best to spread that social contract over the entire world, to lift it from the barbaric cruelty and poverty."

[MinotaurWarrior]

I for one like the racial gods because they tie low and high level content together, and explain why orcs / (hob)goblins / bugbears choose to be monsters. The idea is that if you abandon your monstrosity and become a productive member of society, you will be either be sent to an afterlife separate from that of the rest of your family, or will be on the absolute bottom rung of your family's afterlife. Gramak Gro-Gorruk kills pinkies so he can fight with his father in Grumuush's great army in the sky.

It also adds another dimension to rebellious goblinoids. That half-orc paladin of helm, pictured in the PHB? By signing his soul over to the forces of good, he is directly forsaking, for all eternity, all relations with fully half of his family. He may even have to repeatedly do battle with his mother or father in the afterlife.

[DireSickFish]

I'll throw Bugbears in as leaders of normal Goblin tribes. I'll only use the stealth and ambush power of them if I'm using them as a throwaway encounter for a higher level party. As others have noted it's to unreliable and likely to oneshot a party member for level 1's.

Rarely do I use them with Hobgoblins but that's because I latch onto the militaristic and orderly might of the Hobgoblins.

Bugbears are sturdy enough to act as a good hazard but still intelligent so I can have them lord over the PC's or working with/for higher powers and still have it believable.

[Hawkstar]

I for one like the racial gods because they tie low and high level content together, and explain why orcs / (hob)goblins / bugbears choose to be monsters. The idea is that if you abandon your monstrosity and become a productive member of society, you will be either be sent to an afterlife separate from that of the rest of your family, or will be on the absolute bottom rung of your family's afterlife. Gramak Gro-Gorruk kills pinkies so he can fight with his father in Grumuush's great army in the sky.

I also like this interpretation, with a further twist: The racial gods wholly own their creations - they are not inherently free to choose the fate of their souls. Humans, not having a racial god, cannot really grasp this concept or the significance of the bond - the other races truly owe everything to their creation deity, and it's a debt they honor but cannot repay. Fortunately, the Good Gods generally respect the desires of the souls of their creations (That is truly what the "Free Will" refers to. It's not avoiding 'slavery" - it's avoiding a Leonine Contract.). They might exile/forsake those that turn from them or otherwise don't meet the standards expected of them (Moradin turning away individual dishonorable dwarves, and maybe passive-aggressively first taking all his honorable by apostate dwarves to his halls for a friendly chat, showing them all they'll be missing out on, before sending them to the gods of their choosing. Corellon throwing a hissy fit and excommunicating all Drow everywhere forever, etc.) Most members of the Good created races, however, remain loyal to their god out of a genuine "Thank you for giving me the opportunity and privilege to experience life!". The evil gods, though, ruthlessly reclaim their creations - It doesn't matter how noble and charitable that Reformed Orc was - he's going to Gruumsh when he dies, and the Big Daddy ain't gonna be happy with him. Half-orcs, being half-human, can reject Gruumsh.

All other races probably hold humans in contempt for the entitlement complex members of such a short-lived race seem to have for their lives.

[hiiamtom]

Bugbears make sense as a part of the goblinoid triangle. Hobgoblins are the imposing military might that combine the mind of a human with the cockroach breeding of a goblin (massive armies, masterminds of evil), goblins are essentially rodents that you have to deal with in the world (breeding fast, hard to kill outright, dens are a massive nest of traps and alarms), and bugbears fill in the thuggish creature of the wilderness that only knows how to live off the land and beat up people for short term gain.

It's not a particularly interesting niche, but it's still needed - especially if you consider them as singleton encounters which their designed to be. A good encounter that might drop one player while three end it is an effective way to suddenly change the exploration of a cave into a "what do we do from here?" moment.

[INDYSTAR188]

I'd like some kind of evil-Fey and evil-Outsider growth paths for the more exceptional Goblins, and these would tend to be leaders of Goblin / Hobgoblin / Bugbear groups.

What about Barghest and Cambion (modified)? I think they'd work pretty well!

[MrConsideration]

Bulette

The Bulette's pedigree as a D&D creature is difficult to besmirch. Originally conjured by Gygax from a forgettable, plastic toy-store 'dinosaur', the Bulette has developed an identity all its own: a carnivorous, armoured, burrowing monster - the shark of terra firma. Let's bite the Bulette.

Art
Another artwork with a real sense of dynamism. The Bulette is leaping free from the dirt, vast mouth ready to engulf you. The colour scheme is naturalistic and the armour manages to look both reptilian and oddly shark-like at the same time. I do find the idea of this creature leaping pretty incredulous though. Its an armoured tank - how does it leap 30 feet? It seems much more like a mobile Sarlaac in its hunting tactics to me.

Purpose and Tactics
Three-quarters of the way down the page, in emboldened text, are the words: Wandering Monster. The Monster Manual people were nice enough to make it explicit - the Bulette is, nine times out of ten, a road-bump for the enterprising mid-level party to slaughter on the way to adventures new. Bulettes need no excuse to try and eat your players, even with superior numbers, and can be found in almost any biome where adventurers might be roaming.

In battle, much like the Ankheg, you want the Bulette to ambush and surprise your party. You can take advantage of the Tremorsense and Darkvision to drop a Bulette on unsuspecting adventurers underground or at night to add an element of terror to your players. The Deadly Leap attack allows you to target squishy Wizards and other backliners and knock them out of combat. Although the fluff text claims Bulettes are shunned by all and sundry if you want to use one as a cohort for tougher, more civilised foes, they're great for hitting the casters and disrupting their concentration. They work well on several different kinds of terrain: underground, in the dark, they have advantages of mobility and perception: an interesting encounter might happen in a tunnel network where the burrowing of the Bulettes(s) creates new routes through the dungeon. Alternatively, in a wide open space, a Bulette's leaping could infuriate a spread-out party, especially one responding to some other situation, such as spreading out to track enemies.

Bulette tactics are fairly simple in combat. You leap, you bite, you chew, you give your players a fleeting sense of triumph.

Fluff
They roam and eat. The fluff takes a stab at making Bulettes fit into a wider quest-line or campaign story. They can reemerge as a species after centuries of dormancy, which could fit a narrative in your campaign, but I personally find them fairly uninspiring as recurring villains.

So much of the Bulette fluff is built on that wonderfully mad Gygaxian D&D-logic: like the Beholder, it exists to be a monster and to live or die by the diktats of clattering D20s. Whilst it makes it difficult to insert into campaign worlds that are low-magic or highly realistic (what could you standard Medieval community do against something like a Bulette?) it fits right into the normal kitchen-sink D&D pastiche. There's some wonderfully needless D&D moments in there: Bulettes don't like eating Elves (not at all filling) or Dwarves (too gamey) but are extremely partial to Halflings, so any Bulette you use you want to gobble the hobbit before snarfing the dwarf.

Hooks
A Wizard - that Wizard - want someone to help him to reclaim his breeding grounds. After years of failed experiments (squidox, dogiraffe, wolfmouse) he has finally unleashed a magical monster worthy of his dedication. The only problem is he needs at least two taken alive.

Deserted farmsteads. An eerie quiet. Tunnels that extend for miles. What happened here? Can you players delve into the depths after the monsters that have taken the region?

The Mines of Gamotha have made the city rich. They've tapped into deep seams of silver that seem to descend eternally below the town. But miners are baffled - there are tunnels in the depth no mortal hand has dug. They need adventurers to look into it before whatever's down there starts digging up.


Verdict: A fun, silly-scary one-shot monster, borne of a plastic toy. The execution is decent, but there's not a awful lot to work with for the Bulette as a concept.

[DireSickFish]

I plan on using a Bulette as an objective for a monster hunter to capture. He'll be in town when the PC's are only level 2 or 3 looking for it and other monsters to capture and sell to gladiator arenas back home. So they can sell off other monsters they can manage to capture and transport alive. The Bulette is going to be the grand prize she's after though.

The burrowing is convenient for having them pop in and out of an adventure. If you want it to run away it just burrows and flees. If things are slow one pops out of the ground with little to no explanation.

[Regitnui]

Offhand, I can think of only one environment where you can't just drop a bulette onto your players; the urban metropolis. Even then, you can justify it as an escapee from a zoo or local gladiatorial arena. Stumbling on a 'bulette breeding ground is a great "oh crap" moment for any party, short of the fabled rust monster den.

Though i disagree that the bulette is useless in low-magic campaigns. Like the dragon, it's an excellent way to say that 'the magic's coming back' or that the party has found an area far from civilisation. Yes, the bulette is basically a death blow for a normal medieval village, but that'd make the local lord even more determined to exterminate any in his domain. What's a better excuse for the castle-bound former-adventurer ruler to relive the glory days? Hell, make them the 'ultimate trophy' for the nobility.

[Naanomi]

They also make good 'maybe we can control it?' monster to be caged up (or recently have escaped from) an Orc warlord, a hill giant chief, or an ambitious kobold tribe... Something to be unleashed in a desperate maneuver; or something *players* unleash in their own desperate maneuver

[Nifft]

Offhand, I can think of only one environment where you can't just drop a bulette onto your players; the urban metropolis. Even then, you can justify it as an escapee from a zoo or local gladiatorial arena.

Or you could go with the alligator-in-the-sewers plot, which were a real thing (albeit often exaggerated).

Basically: some idiot brought back a "beak-puppy" from the tropics for his kid. It turns out the little beast was a baby Bulette, which they threw into a cesspit when it stopped being cute, and which has just today finally come of age to smash up through the street.

[TopCheese]

Bulette

I pretty much recreated the movie Tremors with Bulettes, no one caught on till they was going up against the last fight... That friend lives that movie and it took him 10 minutes to stop laughing and wanting to bash his own head with his book.

Good times.

I hate the gygaxian monsters are here to die because they are monsters. Sure basic creatures are needed, but I like to put substance behind mine.

My last Bulettes, outside the tremors game, were a group of Mind Flayers that were deemed so insane they got stuck in those bodies. They mated and made more after being left in the material plane as imprisonment.

[VoxRationis]

I hate the gygaxian monsters are here to die because they are monsters. Sure basic creatures are needed, but I like to put substance behind mine.

How much substance does a constrictor have? A hawk? The simple, animalistic monsters are in my opinion nice because they don't really need all that much to work into a campaign: just a suitable ecosystem. They attack you because they're hungry; you retaliate because you don't want to be eaten. Most creatures are in fact that simple. How many "ancient eldritch beings of incredible cunning and magical power" can you really fit in one setting coherently anyway?

[TopCheese]

How much substance does a constrictor have? A hawk? The simple, animalistic monsters are in my opinion nice because they don't really need all that much to work into a campaign: just a suitable ecosystem. They attack you because they're hungry; you retaliate because you don't want to be eaten. Most creatures are in fact that simple. How many "ancient eldritch beings of incredible cunning and magical power" can you really fit in one setting coherently anyway?

If you read what you quoted again you will see that I typed "Sure basic creatures are needed, but I like to put substance behind mine." so I'm not sure why you are getting so defensive.

Yeah I understand that sometime monsters are monsters but killing monsters, just because they are monsters, is pretty lame.

Like goblins, in 5e they pretty much returned the setting back to "its ok to kill the indiscriminately because they are goblins" instead of going the non-lazy way and giving them personality and treating them as a sentient creature.

Monster XP for the sake of Monster XP is lazy and shouldn't be encouraged as much.

[VoxRationis]

If you read what you quoted again you will see that I typed "Sure basic creatures are needed, but I like to put substance behind mine." so I'm not sure why you are getting so defensive.

Yeah I understand that sometime monsters are monsters but killing monsters, just because they are monsters, is pretty lame.

Like goblins, in 5e they pretty much returned the setting back to "its ok to kill the indiscriminately because they are goblins" instead of going the non-lazy way and giving them personality and treating them as a sentient creature.

Monster XP for the sake of Monster XP is lazy and shouldn't be encouraged as much.

You say you admit that basic monsters are needed, but then you deride them at every turn.

[JoeJ]

A bulette is a very good choice if you want a Jaws-but-on-land adventure. If you look at the feeding area - up to 900 square miles* - hunting it will be a serious challenge, especially given the danger of it ambushing the hunters. And a bulette's territory might well include several important roads, so finding and killing it quickly is a priority or a lot of townspeople may be facing a very hard winter.

Will the party find the bulette, or will it find them? Either way, if it takes any serious damage it's probably not going to stick around to be finished off. It has the mind of a (not extremely bright) animal, and animals aren't usually willing to die for the possibility of a meal. So it's back to trying to track it. And don't forget that monsters can recover hit points by resting just like PCs can.

edit: *900 miles is assuming the MM means a square area 30 miles across. If it's taken as a circular area, which is probably a better interpretation, then the area is a little over 700 square miles. That's still a lot to search.

[Shining Wrath]

Bulettes have lost one of their primary features - that you could craft armor and shields from their massive plates. That feature made it plausible that someone would hire you to kill bulettes that weren't actively terrorizing the nearest village. Someone might even breed them like you would raise cattle solely for their hides (e.g., California before the railroad). Why did the mad wizard crossbreed snapping turtles and armadillos, and infuse demon ichor? Because he wanted to outfit his army with hide armor that gave +5 to AC before conquering all that lay in his path mwahahahahaha et cetera.

Anyway, they are nasty ambush attackers and a perfect thing for a wizard to have inside a sufficiently strong cage with a "open cage in case of pesky mid-level adventurers" sign on it. You can also imagine some way of driving bulettes before you as shock troops for your army. But basically, these are the creatures that pop up from beneath the road and eat the halfling. Nummy!

[Naanomi]

Also don't forget that in an underground attack these transform from 'sharks from the ground' to 'sharks from anywhere'; which can add a new element to them

[TopCheese]

You say you admit that basic monsters are needed, but then you deride them at every turn.

Yup, cause they are over used. Fighting bland and blank monsters might have been cutting edge in 1978 but in 2015 it is a bit outdated. Sure the players may encounter a wild animal or monsters but after a fight or two it will get old.

Why put players through the same stuff they been through a thousand times before when I can put effort into my game and give them a new experience? If I'm going to put basic thoughtless lazy monsters in my game I'll throw them in with more dynamic monsters and then it won't just be "oh you found a monster and you kill it" type bullcrap.

[JoeJ]

Yup, cause they are over used. Fighting bland and blank monsters might have been cutting edge in 1978 but in 2015 it is a bit outdated. Sure the players may encounter a wild animal or monsters but after a fight or two it will get old.

Why put players through the same stuff they been through a thousand times before when I can put effort into my game and give them a new experience? If I'm going to put basic thoughtless lazy monsters in my game I'll throw them in with more dynamic monsters and then it won't just be "oh you found a monster and you kill it" type bullcrap.

It's not the MM entry that makes monsters bland or dynamic. It's how they're used.

[VoxRationis]

Yup, cause they are over used. Fighting bland and blank monsters might have been cutting edge in 1978 but in 2015 it is a bit outdated. Sure the players may encounter a wild animal or monsters but after a fight or two it will get old.

Why put players through the same stuff they been through a thousand times before when I can put effort into my game and give them a new experience? If I'm going to put basic thoughtless lazy monsters in my game I'll throw them in with more dynamic monsters and then it won't just be "oh you found a monster and you kill it" type bullcrap.

You could make the same argument for XP gain, levels, or character generation, which the players have also no doubt gone through countless times. Blind hatred for old things simply based on their age is how we get stuff like Brutalist architecture replacing nice old buildings. It is a fallacy in the extreme to declare something unnecessary or worthy of replacement simply based on the amount of time that has passed since its implementation. "Oh, why are we still breathing oxygen? It's 2015, people, get with the times!"

[Osrogue]

I think bulletes work in certain mariner campaigns. You could have civilizations floating on the water out of fear for the land sharks.

[Nifft]

I think bulletes work in certain mariner campaigns. You could have civilizations floating on the water out of fear for the land sharks.

Also: flying castles.

[SharkForce]

Bulettes have lost one of their primary features - that you could craft armor and shields from their massive plates. That feature made it plausible that someone would hire you to kill bulettes that weren't actively terrorizing the nearest village. Someone might even breed them like you would raise cattle solely for their hides (e.g., California before the railroad). Why did the mad wizard crossbreed snapping turtles and armadillos, and infuse demon ichor? Because he wanted to outfit his army with hide armor that gave +5 to AC before conquering all that lay in his path mwahahahahaha et cetera.

Anyway, they are nasty ambush attackers and a perfect thing for a wizard to have inside a sufficiently strong cage with a "open cage in case of pesky mid-level adventurers" sign on it. You can also imagine some way of driving bulettes before you as shock troops for your army. But basically, these are the creatures that pop up from beneath the road and eat the halfling. Nummy!

pretty sure you're thinking of ankhegs. I don't think bulettes ever made particularly good armour.

[MrConsideration]

Bullywug

Bullywugs are a race of malevolent frogs that want to debase and humiliate you for some reason. Admittedly, it's not an great elevator pitch for a monster - and it occupies several crowded niches. D&D has a surfeit of frog monsters (a crowed neighbourhood of Kua-Toa, Slaads, Frogheemoths and other gonzo nuttiness) and primitive tribal humanoids and swamp-dwelling reptile folk (Lizardmen, trolls...). Any D&D game featuring Bullywugs has to have them edge out a bunch of other scaly possibilities. I understand that Gary Gygax's progeny invented the Bullywugs. As a Teacher and nurturer of young minds, this makes me take an instinctive dislike to Bullywugs as indulgent and a bit naff.

Art
The Bullywug art is an expressionless frog. I think the portly, unemotional look communicates a lot of the ideas in the fluff. Bullywugs are small-minded, grasping. despotic hoarders - the Vicky Pollard of the D&D universe. It's effective art but nothing awe-inspiring - but what can an artist do when your remit is 'a frog person'?

Purpose and Tactics
Bullywugs are a weak, but fairly intelligent humanoid amphibian. Their desires seem fairly simple: the acquisition of treasure and the ritual humiliation of trespassers. Whist these goals are often going to conflict with your players gallivanting around your precious hexographer map and killing all those NPCs you spent hours writing up, there is easily a role for Bullywugs as quest-givers, potential allies or a diplomatic encounter. The idea of roleplaying some grotesquely fat Bullywug big-cheese making demands of adventurers does appeal! The fluff for the their interactions is brilliant, focusing on their enormous insecurity and petty cruelty. Somehow, I find that all more believable than your standard eeeeeeevil Orcs or Goblins - the Bullywug feels like the incarnation of the banality of evil.

Bullywug skills and abilities lead to an ambush in a swamp environment. Their hefty passive perception and stealth mean they'll ideally appear out of the murk and attack your players. In battle, they're fairly unique for low-level monsters in that they can attack twice per turn. Their damage is rubbish though, so the end result isn't much different form a singular attack. Their jumping ability gives you a lot to work with: suspend the combat on stepping-stones over a gushing river, or at the top of a waterfall, or in deep, difficult terrain swamp-muck: anything to allow Bullywugs to skirmish around the battlefield attacking squishy party members, making the combat frenetic and tense. For a more jaded group starting out with level one characters, they're a far more engaging for than goblins or kobolds.

Fluff
I really like their fluff. It establishes them as narcissistic and insecure, and gives a wealth of reasons you might need to interact with Bullywugs. I especially like them as enemies in a campaign with younger children - they only capture, not kill, players and NPCs - and there's a chord of silliness running through them. In my minor experience of playing with kids, they also love the Swallow Whole ability that Giant Frogs are packing and the prospect of killing a frog from inside its digestive tract fills them with glee. They are local bullies, comically inept - the Disney villains of any campaign setting. You could also easily give them leaders with spells and class levels to keep them more of a long-term threat.

Hooks

A petty Bullywug king wants the crown of a local lord to add to his collection. He will allow anyone who claims it for him the pick of his mound of baubles.

A maguffin of considerable importance has disappeared en route through the swamps. How will your players wrangle its return from the Bullywugs?

A lady Bullyuwg tires of the petty murders and endless raids of her people. She desires to see the world, and in particular to find a new place for forward-thinking Bullywugs within it...

Verdict: Somewhere between the sublime and the absurd is a grumpy frog monster with a silly name. In the right game it works well.

[VoxRationis]

Bullywug

Bullywugs are a race of malevolent frogs that want to debase and humiliate you for some reason. Admittedly, it's not an great elevator pitch for a monster - and it occupies several crowded niches. D&D has a surfeit of frog monsters (a crowed neighbourhood of Kua-Toa, Slaads, Frogheemoths and other gonzo nuttiness) and primitive tribal humanoids and swamp-dwelling reptile folk (Lizardmen, trolls...). Any D&D game featuring Bullywugs has to have them edge out a bunch of other scaly possibilities. I understand that Gary Gygax's progeny invented the Bullywugs. As a Teacher and nurturer of young minds, this makes me take an instinctive dislike to Bullywugs as indulgent and a bit naff.

I think the crowding of niches they've got going with Lizardfolk could make for interesting adventure paths and background writing. The traditional dependence of amphibians of any kind on water sources renders bullywugs vulnerable to displacement—the fighting between bullywug tribes, or between bullywugs and lizardfolk, could grow quite cutthroat. That said, it might just make more sense to have one or the other, figuring that one race would eventually win and destroy/outcompete the other.

[Mrglee]

I miss the super silly representation of Bullywugs from 4e. The whole "even the universe hates them and heals you if you crit them" gave them some personality. Now they are just general beast humanoid who out to kill the players.

[Naanomi]

They make good low-level stealth missions... The explicit habit of capturing people makes good 'sneak away after capture' or 'go rescue the kidnapped folks' plot

[Pyon]

Another plot idea! The prince has disappeared with bullywug tracks being the only clue! Can the party save him from the evil (actually innocent) tribe and save him? But what if you accidentally killed the prince who was turned into a bullywug? Oh the horror!

[Shining Wrath]

I haven't used them in 5e, but they do make for a good comic relief low level monster.