The 2025 Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual is going to significantly weaken the well-known spell Hold Person – along with Charm Person, Dominate Person, and any other magic that only targets humanoids.
If you’ve been watching Wizards of the Coast’s videos on the upcoming release, you’d be forgiven for thinking there are no humanoids at all in this DnD book. A bunch of different creatures that were previously known as humanoids have been reclassified, and can no longer be made the target of sinister spells like Hold Person 5e.
Most recently, the video on fey revealed that all goblinoids, including goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears, have been rebranded as fey. Designer Jeremy Crawford says the writers took pains to “amp up the feyness of the goblinoids”.
“We wanted to make sure they didn’t just feel like regular people but in goblinoid suits,” he adds.
Before this, we found out that kobolds have been reclassified as DnD dragons, gith are now aberrations, and werewolves, kenku, and harpies are all monstrosities.
According to Crawford, the effect this will have on spells like Hold Person was considered by the designers, as all three of the new core books were designed alongside one another.
“We knew that with the new Monster Manual there are some monsters that used to be targetable by the spell, which the spell just wouldn’t work on anymore,” adding that this was a feature, not a bug.
The impact of this should be that magic-using DnD classes need to change up their tactics, and not always fall back on their tried and tested ‘pet spells’. Crawfords says that, similarly, not every damage type or condition will be effective against every type of monster, suggesting that DnD damage types and resistances could be more important in the upcoming manual.
However, the designer reassures fans of Hold Person that there are still “tons of humanoids” in the Monster Manual, and plenty of targets for these spells.
Online, we’ve seen many DnD fans wondering why monsters need to have a single creature type – instead of multiple tags which would allow, for instance, a goblin to be both a fey and a humanoid. But, for better or for worse, that’s not how 5e works, and the updated ruleset is not about to change that.
For more great reads, check out our extensive guide to all the DnD classes. And if you’re still wondering if it’s worth picking up the new rulebooks, check out our 2024 Player’s Handbook review and 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide review.
Source: Wargamer
