Monsters of the Multiverse updated the Bugbear, and I think WotC gave us more than they intended. Yes, they get Fey Ancestry now. Neat, and maybe an unexpected change to the race’s lore. Yes, Sneaky is now back to fixed proficiency in Stealth, and also bugbears can squeeze into small places. Neat, but not massively impactful.
But Surprise Attack is really problematic now. Previously it only worked on surprised enemies and only once per combat. It was fun at low levels, but it was hard to use and it stopped being effective as the 2d6 damage stops being significant. The updated bugbear no longer requires enemies to be surprised, just that they haven’t acted yet, so instead of needing to surprise enemies (which is often beyond an individual players’ control) and then roll well on initiative, now you just need to roll well on initiative.
Oh, and Surprise Attack is also no longer limited to once per combat.
Just in case it’s not clear what that means: The Bugbear’s signature trait (no, it’s not Long-Limbed) now turns the Bugbear’s first turn into a terrifying burst of damage. I’ve spelled out some specific combos and builds in the handbook, and honestly the damage output is terrifying. The Bugbear may be among the most powerful races in the game now.
Just a couple notes I would leave on your Bugbear handbook.
1. Assassins only auto-crit if the enemy is surprised. If they merely haven’t acted yet, the Assassin only gets advantage. This mistake appears to have affected more than just the Rogue assessments as Assassin multiclassing was brought up more than once.
2. Clerics are ranked low for the MoMM Bugbear, but you may want to note that the Light domain still gets Scorching Ray. Wildfire Druid has it as well. As full casters, it essentially matches those subclasses with Wizard.
Thanks for the feedback! I’ve made improvements.
I made a post on Reddit and linked it.
One of the things I wanted to point out is that it works great with bugbear paladins for more burst damage, fighters hitting multiple creatures, hunter rangers ability volley, barbarian’s extra crit damage, warlocks eldritch blast, and more!
Think of the new bugbear with volley( hunter ranger’s lvl 11 ability) , sharpshooter feat, alert feat, and gift of the chromatic dragon, and then few lvls in arcane archer to tack on bursting arrow to the volley attack, horde breaker,piercer feat. Then throw on haste with from 5 lvls of divine soul sorcerer , and action surge from fighter. That’s volley 3x in first round. You could also finish all those still twitching with a bonus attack of upcasted spiritual weapon, or quickened spell fireball.