Cleaving through kobolds with the improved Rage powers of the Barbarian felt excellent when I tried one of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide's new mini adventures, particularly when Dungeons & Dragons game director Jeremy Crawford is your Dungeon Master. While my party and I relished our overpowered characters as Crawford cheerfully described how we eviscerated these kobolds, he then told us about the horrific Arch Hag, who could give Baldur's Gate 3's Auntie Ethel a tough time, and the unstoppable Blob of Annihilation – both titanic creatures of ridiculous power arriving with the 2025 Monster Manual.
The updated bestiary, which packs over 500 monsters, is the last revamped core Dungeons & Dragons books and it's releasing in February, 2025. While it’s crammed with expanded lore and rebalanced stats, I’m mostly interested in the handful of behemoths that will truly test a party’s might – and after playing an adventure with Crawford in the DM's chair, I got to ask him and D&D principal designer James Wyatt about what facing the monstrosities of the Forgotten Realms will be like with this refreshed book.
