D&D (2024) Monster Manual 2025: Is Multiattack order prescriptive now?

Charlaquin said:

2024 D&D has a lot of odd inconsistencies in these sorts of formatting things.

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dave2008 said:

I think it may be suggesting an order. The paralyzing of the tentacles gives advantage on the bite attack. So you would normally want to do the attacks in that order. However, the language of multiattack is not requiring an order as written.

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dave2008 said:

I think it may be suggesting an order. The paralyzing of the tentacles gives advantage on the bite attack. So you would normally want to do the attacks in that order. However, the language of multiattack is not requiring an order as written.

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pukunui said:

You can say that again! I’d say it’s introduced almost as many new oddities and some real head scratchers as it has genuine rule improvements.

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dave2008 said:

It is never wise to look at one instance and assume it is a standard. That being said, the language does not suggest a prescribed order. As others have noted, if the order was established it should say: "...Paralyzing Tentacles and then makes..." It doesn't say that. However, it could be a hint on a suggested order. The bite attack will benefit from the paralyzing effect of the tentacles.

Let's look at some more monsters then.

The marilith doesn't seem to suggest an order either.
Multiattack. The marilith makes six Pact Blade attacks and uses Constrict.

Similarily, the black dragon doesn't prescribe the order or even if a rend can be replaced with spellcasting.
Multiattack. The dragon makes three Rend attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Spellcasting to cast Melf’s Acid Arrow (level 4 version).

The Sphinx of Valor looks the same as the marilith and the carrion crawler. No established order.
Multiattack. The sphinx makes two Claw attacks and uses Roar.

I think it is safe to say the change is only to simply the language, not to prescribe and order of actions.

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Charlaquin said:

It’s interesting that Carrion Crawler’s multiattack breaks the general trend of alphabetical order for attacks and attacks, then abilities. But, I see no reason to assume it indicates that multiattack order is prescriptive. 2024 D&D has a lot of odd inconsistencies in these sorts of formatting things. Don’t try to figure out the logic behind what gets Capitalized and what doesn’t - that way lies madness.

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Keith Ammann said:

I don't think this is safe to say at all. Take a look at the roper:

Multiattack. The roper makes two Tentacle attacks, uses Reel, and makes two Bite attacks.

Not only are the actions not listed in alphabetical order, the attack actions are divided up, with one before the Reel action and one after. There's no reason whatsoever to put them in this order except to indicate sequence.

Keep in mind, in 5E14, Multiattack was always written the same way: all attacks, in alphabetical order, followed by all other abilities, in alphabetical order. (If a substitution was allowed, it came at the end.) This is something else.

We need an official statement.

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Keith Ammann said:

Well, that one's easy: If it's capitalized in the index, capitalize it. If it's not, don't.

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dave2008 said:

Well no. Here is the Roper from the 2014 MM:
Multiattack. The roper makes four attacks with its tendrils, uses Reel, and makes one attack with its bite.

That is almost exactly the same as the 2014 version other than attack names and number of attacks. In fact, in both cases, I think the Roper is the exception that proves the rule. The Roper specifically calls out an order, the other monsters do not. The general rule is there is no defined order. That is how the general/common language of multiattack works, and you have proved it beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt with your Roper example. No official statement needed.

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The listing of actions in a Multiattack isn't necesarily an indication of what order a monster must take them in, but the roper’s is phrased in an unusually specific way: “The roper makes four attacks with its tendrils, uses Reel, and makes one attack with its bite,” which is neither alphabetical order nor the order in which these actions appear in the stat block. The roper’s Tendril attack doesn’t do any damage, whereas its Bite does, so normally I’d suggest that a creature like the roper would keep making Tendril attacks until one hit, then Reel in that target, then Bite it, then finally use any Tendril attacks it has left, keeping those targets it hit restrained at a distance (so as not to pull melee fighters into melee range). But based on the phrasing of the roper’s Multiattack, I think the designers intended all the Tendril attacks to be made first and all restrained targets to be Reeled in. The only variable is who gets attacked. (172)

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