new creatures in the 2025 Monster Manual, but the additions I’m most excited for aren’t actually monsters at all. I’m certainly looking forward to the general expansion, and the third-party supplements I use most often when DMing are creature compendiums. Even so, the various deficiencies of the 2014 Monster Manual don’t render it inadequate as a general bestiary, and I wouldn’t have any trouble filling up a dungeon with monsters that originate exclusively from its pages.
My long-running campaign spends a lot of its time outside of traditional dungeons, though, and that’s where the 2014 Monster Manual can start to really struggle. While it features enough human foes and NPCs to cover the basics, there are only so many times that I can re-flavor a basic bandit, cultist, or pick from among a handful of more powerful figures before I feel the need to do more of my own tinkering. The 2025 Monster Manual is promising to address this, and it happens to be emphasizing the options I want the most – pirates.
Pirates Are Perfect For D&D, But The Options Aren’t
Putting Pirates In My Campaign Took Some Work
It might just be my long-time bias toward scurvy dogs speaking, but pirates are, in my estimation, some of the best NPCs to introduce into a D&D campaign. They’re certainly not right for every scenario – I would be a bit taken aback if a crew showed up in the middle of Strahd’s castle – but in a story with the appropriate setting and tone, they can be absolutely thrilling.
Dungeons & Dragons' Best Character Builds For Pirate Campaigns
Players looking to build a pirate in Dungeons & Dragons should be careful to choose a class and race with meaningful advantages in a nautical setting.
It took me a while to actually drop pirates into my long-running campaign, mostly because it spent a very long time inland. Once the party hit the coast, I pulled the trigger. Their introduction tied into the overarching plot arc, with a consortium that calls themselves the Sea Princes attempting a hostile takeover of a town as a last line of defense against an oncoming, world-shaping threat that’s rising from the south. To my delight, the pirates proved a hit, and the party quickly compromised a few morals and fell in line with one captain for the long haul.
Narratively, this is all a ton of fun in D&D, and Ghosts of Saltmarsh is a useful resource to plunder for inspiration. Mechanically, the options aren’t really there. Filling out pirate crews with NPCs capable of being interesting allies or foes in combat is a struggle, as fifth edition material so far has provided very limited options. I’ve often myself dragging my feet on stat blocks if they don’t seem absolutely imperative, mostly because anything good will take some work.
D&D’s 2025 Monster Manual Is All-In On Pirates
New Pirate Variants Could Address My Complaints
I’m not sure yet what the full scope of the 2025 Monster Manual’s plan to address this problem will be, but based on what we know so far, the approach sounds promising. In a digital press briefing that I recently attended on behalf of Screen Rant, lead designer Jeremy Crawford promised “an entire new set of scallywags” that includes “base-level” pirates, captains, and irals. In Crawford’s words, it’s a lineup that could effectively “crew an entire pirate navy,” which is exactly what I want to hear.
D&D's 2025 Monster Manual Won't Include One Feature Missing From The 2024 DMG
There's a lot that's new in the 2025 Monster Manual, but one feature that the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide skipped isn't returning here.
Flavor text is also something I value heavily, and the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide offered a lot more in that area than the Player’s Handbook did. The Monster Manual sounds like it’s taking something closer to the Dungeon Master’s Guide’s approach. Crawford used pirates as an example of entries accompanied by “little flavorful elements,” with a mention of an aside that provides some guidance for creating pirate flags for a crew.
D&D Isn’t The Only Option For Pirate TTRPG Adventures
Pirate Borg Is The Perfect Alternative, But Not For Every Campaign
Pirates are far from the main focus of D&D, and even with these additions, it’s easy to suggest the idea of simply turning to a different system for seafaring adventurers. I absolutely that pursuit, especially thanks to the existence of Pirate Borg, an excellent fork of the grimdark TTRPG Mork Borg that takes things to the fantastical Dark Caribbean setting. If you’re running a campaign that centers around pirate adventures, Pirate Borg may very well be your best bet, especially if a darker flavor and a much less heroic take on mechanics sound appealing.
Pirate Borg has products and features that are compatible with D&D 5e, which is worth looking into as a third-party supplement for those who don’t want to fully commit to its own set of rules in the Mork Borg framework.
All the same, a campaign doesn’t have to be about pirates to involve them, and using something like Pirate Borg for a heroic fantasy story that happens to run into pirates at some point or another would be a terrible idea. A lot of D&D’s enduring appeal comes from its catch-all nature, which can most fantasy adventures of widely varying natures without too much trouble. Ideally, it should be the perfect system to run a game where pirates just might happen to show up, and the 2025 Monster Manual could make it better at that.
The 2025 Monster Manual Could Bring D&D’s Rules Revisions Home
Pirates Could Provide The Edge Over Stiff Competition
D&D’s 2024 and 2025 rules revisions exist in an unusual zone, remixing and updating the framework of the game as established in 2014 without moving to a new edition or even adopting a 3.5e-style moniker. For me, the main determiner of the overhaul’s success depends on what I find myself wanting to sit down with when DMing. So far, the new books are winning. The 2024 Player’s Handbook quickly became my default, and although I don’t always have a Dungeon Master’s Guide right at hand, it’s always the 2024 one when I do.
D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide Review: The Best Book For DMs Yet?
Dungeons & Dragons' release of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide is a noticeable improvement from the 2014 book, and makes it easier than ever to DM.
The 2025 Monster Manual has stiffer competition. If I have all the space in the world, I’m likely to keep multiple bestiaries on me, and if I slim down to one, I sometimes opt for a third-party book. For the 2025 Monster Manual to become my new default, it has to beat all of those, not just its 2014 predecessor. If I can open it up and fill out a pirate ship the moment before a Dungeons & Dragons session starts, however, it might just make the cut.
- Franchise
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Original Release Date
- 1974
- Publisher
- TSR Inc., Wizards of the Coast
- Designer
- E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson
- Player Count
- 2-7 Players
