D&D Beyond has confirmed that users will no longer be able to purchase two Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks next week. Next week, Wizards of the Coast will release Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, a rulebook that contains updated character races and creature statblocks from previous D&D rulebooks. The rulebook not only provides newer players with a single rulebook that contains most of the character races found outside of the Player’s Handbook, it also gave Dungeons & Dragons designers to make tweaks to various statblocks and rules to address balance issues and recurring problems discovered after release.
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Much of the content fromย Monsters of the Multiverse were originally printed in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, two previously published rulebooks released in 2016 and 2018 respectively. Earlier this week, the digital toolset D&D Beyond confirmed that it would delist both Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes after Monsters of the Multiverse went on sale on May 16th. Both books will remain on the marketplace through May 17th and then will be removed. Users who previously bought one or both of the books will still have access to those books’ content, including the older versions of the character rules and creature statblocks. However, after May 17th, D&D Beyond users will only have the option of purchasing Monsters of the Multiverseย on the website. More details about the transition to Monsters of the Multiverse can be found on a D&D Beyond FAQ page.
One major concern about the delisting is access to the chapters of lores contained in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. Both books contained dozens of pages of lore about the D&D multiverse that don’t appear in Monsters of the Multiverse. The lore includes everything from full chapters on the Blood War or the behavior of beholders to helpful tables that Dungeon Masters can use when preparing a unique kind of hag or mind flayer. And while D&D Beyond players are much more likely to use the monster statblocks from Monsters of the Multiverse than read through a chapter about the relationship between githyanki and githzerai, the lore is certainly useful as both inspiration and as research material for building a D&D campaign.ย
D&D Beyond has not said whether the various expanded lore chapters will be available to D&D Beyond players moving forward, or if they’ll be delisted and essentially removed from access by new players moving forward. Of course, D&D players can still read the lore in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes by purchasing physical copies of the books, which will still be available even after Monsters of the Multiverse is released next week.ย
