I have a few queries regarding the choices made for how monsters are classified in 5e.
Aberrations, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, humanoids, oozes, plants, and undead are fairly straight forward and logical, but....
1) Why isn't there a Magical Beast type? Is a unicorn not a classic magical beast? Wouldn't creatures of mythology be better represented in a magical beast category such as griffons, hippogriffs, manticores, harpies, chimera, sphinx, pegasi, and unicorns to name a few? I'm pleased, however, to see the Monstrous humanoid category gone and the Beast category reserved for real world animals (and those similar enough), giant animals and dinosaurs. I also like how the humanoid category covers the basic races and well as the intelligent bipedal baddies.
2) When did succubi declare independence? They seem to swap teams like free agents (demon to devil to fiends for hire? ) Btw, the table for demons by classic type (I to VI) was an incredibly cool nod to games of yore. 
3) Why was the Blink Dog relegated to the miscellaneous list? Was it originally forgotten, then added later? Is seems out of place and deserving of it's own regular entry.
4) Were the fey notably under-represented or did they have their fair share of entries/coverage?
5) Was there enough fan-love for modrons to justify 3 pages ? or would a monster by CR table and a monster by type/classification table been a better use of space? Was this a nod to Keep on the Borderlands ?
To be clear, these are very nit-picky questions as I'm extremely pleased (probably 95 percent so) with our newest Monster Manual. It has excellent coverage of all the classic monsters that deserve entry into the premeire MM edition for 5e and I also agree with the vast majority of choices made for which to leave out. I'd love to hear your take on my queries and your opinions.
1) Magical beast has been split between beast and monstrosity plus a few other reclassifications as befits the creature. Unicorns in 5e are celestial beings (and legendary with lairs at that). This actually fits the lore of a Unicorn as being a being of pure goodness with strong magical ties to the world around them. Some mythical beasts aren't really special so are now in with beasts (winter wolves and such). Those with fae ties are often marked Fey now, those (like the unicorn) with ties to the upper outer planes are celestial while those that have ties to the lower outer planes are fiends. The ones with no real other categorization are considered monstrosities (which fits many of the classical Greek monsters like kraken, medusa, manticore).
2) In 5e they did. They started as demons but with 4e they didn't fit the lore for demons (random chaotic beastial destructive forces) so were moved to devils which fit a bit closer to their lore. They realized though that the lore didn't really mesh with the LE strict heirarchy so were made free agents that worked for whichever faction (or themselves) they felt like. This is probably the truest to lore of them (I also like that they've clarified that they are gendershifters and not two distinct genders/creatures).
3) I think they felt the blink dog wasn't needing a full entry as they're basically just a Fey dog with a limited teleport ability and no more special than a giant spider, phase spider, or worg.
4) I think we got a good base for them, and some feywild creatures aren't listed as Fey since they fit a different category better (Fomorians, will-o-wisp, etc.) Plus they realize the Feywild cosmology isn't always going to be used so too many Fey may not work for all campaigns.
5) Modrons are the only real LN outsider/outer planar creature so were brought back so that the LN planes aren't empty I also really like the slightly more organic look to them and they only show the first five types (leaving out Primus just as they left out Demon Lords and Archdevils). It also gave counterpoint to the Slaadi. My understanding was there was also a playtest adventure about "March of the Modron" so they were used recently and with a 5e set of stats so were included. I suspect they're another "cult favorite" (and one of mine) along with the Flumph, Intellect Devourer, Rust Monster, and Roper (among others). I was actually pleased they included Faerie Dragon and a few others that I didn't think were "popular" enough to be included.
Also with the exception of a few magical items and a couple class features the type classifications don't mean much (ranger favored enemy and druid wildshape restrictions are the only class features that come to mind as being relevant to monster types). Of course as with anything in D&D the monsters could be reflavored to belong in a different classification at DM discretion. Magical Beast doesn't really have any place in the 5e mechanics and I think was renamed to monstrosity as that fits what is in the type a bit more than "magical beast" which implies a 1-3 INT creature with magical powers (winter wolf, death dog, blink dog, etc.) so wouldn't include many of the mythological beasts that have near-human or above average INT. It's also more intuitive to make a ranger sublcass of "monster hunter" and have their favored enemy be monstrosities than "magical beasts" (which also opens the door for a rules lawyer to say a druid can wildshape into those forms since beast is in the type name).
Maruts are another lawful outsider, one that I quite like and would like to see brought back. Otherwise I think Grazel pretty well covered your questions.
I was kind of surprised that there wasn't a marut/inevitable entry, but I figure a Manual of the Planes will show up sooner or later, if nothing else so there are more celestials for conjure celestial and fey for conjure fey.
I was sad, also, at no Maruts, because I LOVE their concept. But! Modrons will do for now. Swarms of clockwork minions, it is, instead of beings who try to ensure order in the multi-verse.
Also, Monstrosity is kinda "meh" to me. It's not bad or good. Just lumps "Magical Beast" and "No, these aren't PC races" together (Centaur and Minotaur). Which is okay, but still seems silly. Maybe they didn't want to reuse "Beast" for disambiguation, but why the inclusion of what are basically Humanoids? Is it because they're "savage" humanoids...?
Thank you for your fantastic response Grazel and for taking time to satify my curiosities.
By understanding the rationale behind the changes, I'm in complete agreement. Since Monstrosities are a much larger "catch all" grouping now, it's nice to see certain creatures delegated to the celestial, fiend, and fey categories where applicable and the succubi/incubi reasoning is sound as well, in keeping with the distinctions between demons and devils.
Out of curiosity, are there any categorical decisions you would have done differently?
I have very few queries left so I might as well share the last of them.
1) Why is a centaur not considered fey like the satyr? (or have I watched to much Hercules cartoon when I was younger)
2) Did they do away with the term "outsider" in favor of celestial, fiend, elemental etc.. as the term was to vague? or was it because it better complemented the reintroduction of the Great Wheel Cosmology?
3) I'm hard pressed to find any classic / nostalgic / popular monsters from previous editions missing from the 5e monster manual. Did they add 32 pages to make it absolutely all-inclusive?
4) Are there any other entries that were edition specific ie: newly returned from 1e or 2e ?
Or specific to 4e? eg: the Deva
That's the last of my questions. Comments, responses most welcome. I have an even greater appreciation for just how much work went into this book now.
Is there a category for creatures from the Shadowfell/Plane of Shadow? They aren't Celestials, and they aren't Fiends, and they aren't Fey.
Arithezoo wrote:
Angel7 wrote:
I have been converting the Rilmani (N exemplar race in The Outlands), in 3rd Ed they are Outsiders, but not sure what they would be in 5th Ed.
Humanoid doesn't cut it (and some are Large), maybe Celestial/Fiend (as in both at once)?
Brock_Landers wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
Mechagamera wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
Sadly, Feys and Celestials have an entire spell dedicated to summoning them. Lack of options is perhaps an intention, but still a bummer :-\
Timborama wrote:
From a spell point of view, I can understand why they chose to classify monsters under just one type (going with the type most appropriate). It certainly fits the 5e design philosophy, similar to how weapons are distilled down to their most common damage type. For this part of the MM design process, it was probably the most difficult (or most debated) as to which monsters to classify as humanoids and which ones to classify as monstrosities, but I think they did a great job overall.
I like where they seemed to have drawn the line too.
"Okay.... now that the humanoid try outs are over, all you classic bipedal fuglies are in. Let's see... goblins, hobgoblins,bugbears, gnolls, orcs, drow, duergar, kobolds, lizardfolk, bullywugs, kua-toa, sahuagin, troglodytes. Wait !! NOT you Yuan-ti.. half you guys don't even have legs. sorry..
Grazel - great breakdown on the monster types.
From RAW, I'm guessing that the 5th level Dominate Person works on humanoids specifically, while the 8th level Dominate Monster works on everyone as it states "creature" in the spell description. Wouldn't that include monstrosities AND humanoids. Actually it may imply all creature types, depending on what the term "creature" includes.......
To me, this doesn't mean that it's harder to dominate a monstrosity than a humanoid, just that the spell isn't as quickly or readily available. Monstrosities do not all have better Wisdom scores than humanoids of course.
Angel7 wrote: