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With its third and final core book complete, Dungeons & Dragons has built a solid foundation for the next decade of tabletop gameplay.

When the Dungeons & Dragons team released the 2024 updates to the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide, it immediately became clear the focus was on making it easier than ever to get started playing this beloved game for the first time. Both books are inviting and well organized, while still offering plenty of fun new options for more experienced players to enjoy.
With the new Monster Manual available soon to complete the core book releases, the D&D team also wanted to make the book bigger, with greater challenges for more advanced players.
I’ve had a copy of this book for a little over a week, and it has already noticeably changed my next couple of games.
Old-school fans of D&D will know the Monster Manual was the original supplemental material. It was the first book published after the original rules and contained hundreds of creatures with unique descriptions and stats to quickly include in your game. Just about every fantasy writer and video game designer I have ever met has owned and loved a copy of this book and the inspiration it lends to every kind of storytelling.
With every update, it gets bigger, with improvements or changes to how these creatures are played. The 2024 release follows the same trend, but what sets this version apart is its organization and new classifications of monsters. And some incredible new artwork.
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Most of what you will find in this new Monster Manual are essentially quality-of-life updates. The entire book is now organized alphabetically instead of grouping everything by type, which means as long as you know the name of the creature you’re looking for, it’s much easier to open the book and flip to the right section. This may not be the most intuitive change for someone who is using this book for the first time, if, for example, you’re looking for all of the dragons in the book to see which is the best for your story. Once you’re in the middle of a game and you need to quickly look something up, however, the difference in organization is deeply appreciated.
In a related organization move, everything you need to know about a monster can be found on the page with that monster. Lair actions, legendary actions and related “extra” features that used to be kept on separate tables in the back of the book are gone, favoring unique and creature-specific features over more general actions. This not only reduces the total work needed to put a big creature on the table for combat, but it also makes adapting to a party’s choices take way less time. Neither of these changes are what I would consider big changes, but as a resource book, this 2024 version is just plain easier to use, and for a book most DMs are going to use every session, it’s a welcome set of adjustments.
The Dungeons & Dragons dev team added an incredible 85 new monsters to this manual and adjusted the way quite a few others function. And while I’ve only had the chance to play two one-shots with these new books so far, I’ve read the book cover to cover and haven’t found anything I wouldn’t consider an improvement in the way I would set up a game. Most of the changes are oriented towards giving more options for players in earlier levels of gameplay, as well as fully leveled-up players looking for greater diversity. One of my favorite examples is the Vampire Familiar, which is now adjusted to be a great deal creepier and allows for a more interesting fight sequence, but is still a great lower-level option for new players.
For more experienced players, this 2024 Monster Manual introduces a collection of what the D&D team calls apex predators in their respective creature types. What does an apex predator slime look like? It’s called a Blob of Annihilation, and it has the skull of an expired deity still digesting within its now massive form. What does an apex predator undead look like? It’s called a Haunting Revenant, and it’s basically an entire building possessed by a powerful spirit. These aren’t meant to surpass some of the more infamous big bads like the dinosaur-like Tarrasque — which has also been given some new abilities to make it more difficult to fight — but it does create some fun variety for those who have been playing for a while.
All of this comes together to be a Monster Manual that doesn’t feel overly different the first time you thumb through it, but after a deeper read will immediately have DMs planning out loads of fun encounters for their players. And as the final core book is updated to modern gameplay styles, it sets the D&D team free to focus on updating the rest of the world these books are set in. Across 2025, Wizards of the Coast has committed to releasing a new book on the Artificer class and its home realm of Eberron, a new anthology series featuring a unique story for all 10 classes of dragons for the first time ever, and a total overhaul of Forgotten Realms. Expect more details on each to appear in the Unearthed Arcana section of D&D Beyond throughout the year.
You can find the 2024 Monster Manual on D&D Beyond as an early access release for Master Tier subscribers starting Feb. 4, Hero Tier subscribers starting Feb. 11, and a global release on Feb. 18.