Few people outside Wizards of the Coast know as much about D&D monsters as Keith Ammann. He created The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, a blog full of combat advice in 2016, and its popularity spawned an entire series of books. Now a full-time author and ENNIE winner, Ammann has released a remaster of a book that borrowed its title from that original blog.
The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Remonstered updates Ammann’s original advice for the 5.5e rules revision. It released in the US on October 6, with a UK launch planned later down the line. This update seemed like the perfect opportunity to pick Ammann’s brain on the differences between the two editions, and how this has changed his approach to monstering.
I recommend reading The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, if you haven’t already. The original book was a big help in my early days of Dungeon Mastering. Understanding the why behind each monster action made me a better planner, but it also gave me a stronger framework for improv decisions.
Its core design philosophy remains the same in the Remonstered edition. Ammann tells me his approach could be called simulationist, but “what I do is not necessarily optimization”.
“It’s important to me to create a game world that feels like it could really exist, where everything has implications”, he explains. “There are a lot of monsters where I think the optimal strategy is not the most appropriate strategy, because the monster might not be smart or wise enough to employ the optimal tactic.”
“I want it to be as true to its own nature as possible, as expressed by the rules, because the rules are the natural laws of the universe”, he adds. “It’s all in the service of the story. How does this monster behave in the world to maximize its chances of getting what it wants – and surviving?” “To me, the mechanical stuff is a way of roleplaying monsters.“
Ammann’s philosophy hasn’t changed much in the past decade, but D&D’s certainly has. Ammann summarizes 5.5e’s approach as more sensible, but less story-driven.
“Part of a move in the game, not just in monster design, is away from beginning with narrative and then figuring out how you’re going to model that mechanically”, he says. “It’s a move towards starting with a mechanic you want to implement and then figuring out how you justify it narratively.”
Case in point: changes to damage types. Monsters no longer deal magical and non-magical attacks; if D&D wants to communicate this, it now has the same monster deal force, necrotic, radiant, psychic, or so on. Ammann argues this makes less logical sense in-universe. “It’s not that a monster is hitting you with magical force; it’s hitting you with a big claw, and you are magically unable to withstand the damage.”
“The same goes for monsters now never being resistant to bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage from normal weapons”, he adds. “It told a good story – only a magic weapon can pierce this creature’s hide.” “The trouble was, if nobody brought a magic weapon, the battle would take twice as long.” “Instead, they got rid of that and simply increased the hit points”, he says. “From a gameplay point of view, it’s probably beneficial, but it takes away a bit from the narrative.”
For Ammann, the most egregious example actually belongs to a D&D class. “One that drives me up the wall is a Barbarian class feature called Primal Knowledge”, he says.
“While your Rage is active, you can make Stealth checks with Strength. A screaming hunk of meat is not more stealthy than a non-screaming hunk of meat!” “I’m sure they introduced Primal Knowledge to satisfy Barbarian players who want to do more as a class”, he says, “but Rage – the name means something, right? The original feature is a way of telling a story.” “Now, the mechanic has moved front-and-center, and now we have to twist the narrative to explain what we mean.”
This move away from narrative has been further emphasized by cuts to lore text in rulebooks. Ammann relied on this flavor text to shape his advice for running monsters, so it meant several changes in the Remonstered edition. However, he recognizes D&D “had a difficult needle to thread”. “They clearly wanted to include more art, which meant less room for text”, he says. “They also wanted to be less prescriptive about how DMs should run certain monsters.”
“In my opinion, they went a little bit too far toward the other extreme”, he adds, “because what you have now is flavor text so short that someone new might not have the first idea about how the monster should be played”. “It now depends more heavily on DMs having cultural exposure to D&D monsters.”
“But on the flip side, one of the problems with the old way is that DMs might not have felt comfortable deviating from what’s in the book”, he continues. “It’s a balancing act, and nobody’s going to get it perfect every time.”
It’d be wrong to paint Ammann as a 5.5e naysayer, despite these critiques. There are many changes to monsters he argues in favor of. For example, “I think the change in how legendary actions are handled is a significant improvement”.
“Instead of having some that cost two or three legendary actions – which is hard to track but also hard to talk about – you now have legendary actions that can only be used once between the monster’s turns.” “It’s much more sensible, and it’s much easier to remember if you’ve used it already.”
Whether a change is good or ill, Ammann’s monster advice must adapt to reflect it. Some monsters are virtually untouched, while others have had more significant makeovers. There’s also plenty of brand-new monsters to advise on.
One familiar face with a new do is the Lich, whose spell list changed significantly for the 2025 Monster Manual. “The spell I recommended leading with in the original Monsters Know What They’re Doing, the 2025 Lich doesn’t even have – there’s no Cloudkill in the new stat block”, Ammann says. “Now I have to completely rethink how a Lich is going to begin a combat encounter – there are many examples like this.”
“In some cases, the changes had effects that might not seem significant for everyone, but were very significant for me”, he tells me. “For example, Kenku are no longer humanoids – they’re monstrosities.” “To me, that change in creature type comes with a change in what they’re driven by.”
“As humanoids, they might be a little tribal, a little clan-ish – they’re interested in protecting their society”, he explains. “But as monstrosities – particularly monstrosities with an attachment to the Shadowfell which was not there before – you now have something less concerned with social relations and more concerned with food and territory.” “That link to the Shadowfell also means they’re going to be more brutal and nihilistic.”
There is one change all monsters have been subject to in Remonstered: tip boxes. “I wanted to make sure readers were getting something that’d make it worthwhile for them to go and pick up the book, even if they have the original already,” Ammann says.
“There are four kinds of tips”, he explains. “There’s Modifications you might make to the monster to bring it more in line with what I believe its nature to be. There’s ‘We Make a Good Team’, which is other creatures you can pair these monsters with.”
“There’s Prepare the Ground, which are recommendations for favorable terrain the monster can take advantage of in tactical and cinematic ways, and there’s Shenanigans, which are funny stunts and loopholes I’ve found in stat blocks you can take advantage of for humor or shock value.” I’m personally pretty keen to see what Shenangigans are on the table.
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Source: Wargamer
