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

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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I think the roper's attacks are written to imply an appropriate sequence - and for an opening round turn, it's kind of a necessary sequence. However, if a character has already been grappled by a tentacle and reeled in on a prior turn, there's no reason the roper has to wait to bite them - so I wouldn't consider that order to be binding. Again, that's why I think it's a subtle hint at how the monster likes to behave rather than must behave.
I don't, however, believe an official statement is really necessary. A nice little designer note stating "oh, yeah, that's what we were trying to imply" would be nice because designer notes are nice in general. There's no rule laying out a must do, and in absence of that, GM's preference rules.

Keith Ammann said:

So if they're doing now with other monsters what they did then with the roper, that definitely suggests a new prescriptivism in Multiattack wording.

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My point is that the wording is the same in the 2014 and 2024 Roper. So it suggests nothing more about the rest of the uses of Multiattack in 2024 than it did in 2014. If the wording in 2014 didn't suggest all uses of Multiattack had a defined order, then it doesn't now either.

Look, language has meaning. If they had wanted to use jargon with a slightly different meaning, they would have explained that in the "multiattack" section of the introduction. They did not. They made no mention of there being a prescribed order. That would have been the place to explain it. They did not, so we default to what the construction of the sentence actually means. The common phrasing of multiattack does not require a set order of operations. That is not how the English language phrase of that action works. WotC does not need to issue an official clarification to detail how the English language works.

While I was skimming through a bunch of different multiattack entries, it occurred to me that lots of 2024 monsters get to use their "cool" attacks as part of their multiattack, rather than INSTEAD of their multiattack as they did in 2014. That should make them much more dangerous and fun to run as GM.

Charlaquin said:

But what is capitalized in the index and why is the mystery. There’s almost a discernible logic to it, but there are a bunch of weird exceptions. Also even that isn’t entirely consistent. Especially in the equipment section.

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It's really not a mystery. WOTC doesnt value consistency and tight writing. The gist of 5E is "Look, you're going to run it how you want to run it, so why bother?" Their gravitation towards "naturalistic" writing lets people do what they want and point to vague text justifying it.

Which is kind of fair. I have read virtually none of the 2014/2024 DMG's I own and like maybe half of PHB. From the polling at ENWorld, I'm not alone.

plisnithus8 said:

I feel like if order mattered, it would have said "then" instead of "and."

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This. "And" and "then" mean different things. It says "and".

Jefe Bergenstein said:

It's really not a mystery. WOTC doesnt value consistency and tight writing.

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lol that just isn’t accurate.

Jefe Bergenstein said:

... lets people do what they want and point to vague text justifying it.

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Yes, as our good lord (Tiamat) intended!

Charlaquin said:

lol that just isn’t accurate.

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Sure, tight writing is how you get the current dual wielding rules, which allow dual wielding with a shield. Or how a guy carrying a torch isn't visible through darkness because darkness obscures vision. Or all the other instances, like this very thread, where we're left to divining tea leaves of what they really mean.

The simplest answer is usually the right one. There are a bunch of different people working on different monsters/spells/rules/etc and they write abilities that are close enough to pass whoever is editing at that time, and here we are.

I don't imagine too many believe Conjure Minor Elementals was rigorously playtested. Or haphazardly playtested!

And I mean, it's basically fine. D&D mostly works with loose language because it's a bunch of DM's doing their own thing.

dave2008 said:

Yes, as our good lord (Tiamat) intended!

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