D&D 5E March's D&D Book To Be Announced On January 9th

A mysterious entry has appeared on Amazon! With a product title of "Dungeons & Dragons March Release Book (Title announced January 9th)" and a release date of March 17th, 2020, this $49.95 hardcover release will be revealed in under a week!

The description reads "Your first look at the next D&D title comes on January 9th! Keep an eye on wherever you get your D&D news for a preview of the book."

Could there be a clue in the dice being released on the same day? Laeral Silverhand's Explorer's Kit is described as "Dice and miscellany for the world's greatest roleplaying game" for $29.99. We'll find out on Thursday!

Who's Laeral Silverhand? She's a prolific creator of magic items from Waterdeep, and one of the most powerful wizards in the Forgotten Realms. She's one of the Seven Sisters, introduced in 1987's Forgotten Realms boxed set, although Laeral herself wasn't described in that product. Ed Greenwood'sThe Seven Sisters supplement fully detailed them in 1995. Laeral and Khlben 'Blackstaff' Arunsun led a group called the Moonstars. In 5th edition, she appears in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

 

[Fenris-77]

What book they end up in doesn't change the historical precedent for the playtest to publish cycle.

 

[gyor]

What book they end up in doesn't change the historical precedent for the playtest to publish cycle.

XGTE subclasses weren't the only UA material to end up in a book, I don't believe their was a huge gap between the Gith/Eladarin/Shadar Kai playtest and MTOFs being released, but I'll double check.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think there's probably a solid connection between amount and type of UA and the playtest cycle. Races are trivial compared to subclass material in the extent to which they need to be playtested. If we looked at a big enough sample size though I'd be we could tease out the pattern, for sure.

 

[GarrettKP]

Who says it's going to be XGTE 2 that these subclasses are going to be used in? It's just as likely they will be used in a very different sort of book.

I don't think it is likely at all. The only other book with a sizeable subclass dump was SCAG, which was poorly received. Where as Xanathar's is still the best selling non-core book they have released. It is much more likely they follow that model than throwing a smaller selection of options in a different type of book.

WotC has found a formula that works, and that formula includes 5 types of books: Large Adventures (Curse of Strahd, Descent Into Avernus), smaller modular Adventure Anthologies (Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh), Monster+Lore expansions (Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes), Setting books (Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica and Eberron Rising from the Last War), and expansive Subclass+Alternate rules book (Xanathar's Guide to Everything).

Xanathar's released 3 years after the core books. And it has been 3 years since Xanathar's. The timeline matches up.

On top of all that evidence, Kate Welch talked about her 2020 project and her work with Marisha Ray and Deborah Ann Wolf back in the fall. And the latest Dragon+ issue calls out her new project in the "coming next issue" section. Meaning this book is likely her project and Crawford usually heads big rules expansions since he is the lead rules designer. Meaning this upcoming book is unlikely to be a major rules expansion.

If I were to hazard a guess at what this is, I would assume either an Adventure Anthology or Monster expansion book, and I am leaning Monster Expansion. Volos dropped in 2016, 2 years after the Core set. Mordenkainen's dropped in 2018, 2 years after Volo's. Meaning this year is a perfect slot for a new Monster expansion.

D&D in 2020 is looking to me like: Monster Expansion in March, Adventure in September, Xanathar's style rules expansion in November, and maybe a Setting book thrown in somewhere.

And since I am already in the habit of making predictions in this long post, I will take it further and say the March book will be a Monster Expansion based on planar foes but will differ from Mordenkainen's in that its lore chapters will talk about various planes of existence, instead of relationships in the multiverse. (total guess, but call it a hunch.)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Who says it's going to be XGTE 2 that these subclasses are going to be used in? It's just as likely they will be used in a very different sort of book.

There is no other type of book they could be used in.

The only other way I could see such a large bunch of subclasses being realised is as "online only" content, and I don't think that very likely.

And March does seem too soon. Given the amount of work they clearly still needed I would say June for X2.

 

[gyor]

I don't think it is likely at all. The only other book with a sizeable subclass dump was SCAG, which was poorly received. Where as Xanathar's is still the best selling non-core book they have released. It is much more likely they follow that model than throwing a smaller selection of options in a different type of book.

WotC has found a formula that works, and that formula includes 5 types of books: Large Adventures (Curse of Strahd, Descent Into Avernus), smaller modular Adventure Anthologies (Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh), Monster+Lore expansions (Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes), Setting books (Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica and Eberron Rising from the Last War), and expansive Subclass+Alternate rules book (Xanathar's Guide to Everything).

Xanathar's released 3 years after the core books. And it has been 3 years since Xanathar's. The timeline matches up.

On top of all that evidence, Kate Welch talked about her 2020 project and her work with Marisha Ray and Deborah Ann Wolf back in the fall. And the latest Dragon+ issue calls out her new project in the "coming next issue" section. Meaning this book is likely her project and Crawford usually heads big rules expansions since he is the lead rules designer. Meaning this upcoming book is unlikely to be a major rules expansion.

If I were to hazard a guess at what this is, I would assume either an Adventure Anthology or Monster expansion book, and I am leaning Monster Expansion. Volos dropped in 2016, 2 years after the Core set. Mordenkainen's dropped in 2018, 2 years after Volo's. Meaning this year is a perfect slot for a new Monster expansion.

D&D in 2020 is looking to me like: Monster Expansion in March, Adventure in September, Xanathar's style rules expansion in November, and maybe a Setting book thrown in somewhere.

And since I am already in the habit of making predictions in this long post, I will take it further and say the March book will be a Monster Expansion based on planar foes but will differ from Mordenkainen's in that its lore chapters will talk about various planes of existence, instead of relationships in the multiverse. (total guess, but call it a hunch.)

The SCAG was not poorly recieved, it had two flaws, it should have been bigger, and if should have playtested the subclasses first, but otherwise it was the best book of 5e, the most fun to read, most flavour. And it sould very well.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think it is likely at all. The only other book with a sizeable subclass dump was SCAG, which was poorly received. Where as Xanathar's is still the best selling non-core book they have released. It is much more likely they follow that model than throwing a smaller selection of options in a different type of book.

WotC has found a formula that works, and that formula includes 5 types of books: Large Adventures (Curse of Strahd, Descent Into Avernus), smaller modular Adventure Anthologies (Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh), Monster+Lore expansions (Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes), Setting books (Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica and Eberron Rising from the Last War), and expansive Subclass+Alternate rules book (Xanathar's Guide to Everything).

Xanathar's released 3 years after the core books. And it has been 3 years since Xanathar's. The timeline matches up.

On top of all that evidence, Kate Welch talked about her 2020 project and her work with Marisha Ray and Deborah Ann Wolf back in the fall. And the latest Dragon+ issue calls out her new project in the "coming next issue" section. Meaning this book is likely her project and Crawford usually heads big rules expansions since he is the lead rules designer. Meaning this upcoming book is unlikely to be a major rules expansion.

If I were to hazard a guess at what this is, I would assume either an Adventure Anthology or Monster expansion book, and I am leaning Monster Expansion. Volos dropped in 2016, 2 years after the Core set. Mordenkainen's dropped in 2018, 2 years after Volo's. Meaning this year is a perfect slot for a new Monster expansion.

D&D in 2020 is looking to me like: Monster Expansion in March, Adventure in September, Xanathar's style rules expansion in November, and maybe a Setting book thrown in somewhere.

And since I am already in the habit of making predictions in this long post, I will take it further and say the March book will be a Monster Expansion based on planar foes but will differ from Mordenkainen's in that its lore chapters will talk about various planes of existence, instead of relationships in the multiverse. (total guess, but call it a hunch.)

Both the Eberron and Ravnica Setting books had more player material, by word count, than they tested in this latest round (which came out to less than half the player content of Rising from the Last War). SCAG was a well received financial success which keeps selling after nearly five years on the market (selling better than the entire PF2 line, currently today).

A Setting book remains a plausible candidate for this material.

 

[Parmandur]

There is no other type of book they could be used in.

The only other way I could see such a large bunch of subclasses being realised is as "online only" content, and I don't think that very likely.

And March does seem too soon. Given the amount of work they clearly still needed I would say June for X2.

Yeah, the timing doesn't work, particularly the way Crawford talked about the state of the material on the Dragon+ show.

Nothing we have seen so far wouldn't fit in a big Setting book like Rising from the Last War: throw in a parcel of Race options, and the page and word count still falls far short of the Eberron material.

 

[gyor]

Yeah, the timing doesn't work, particularly the way Crawford talked about the state of the material on the Dragon+ show.

Nothing we have seen so far wouldn't fit in a big Setting book like Rising from the Last War: throw in a parcel of Race options, and the page and word count still falls far short of the Eberron material.

I haven't had a chance to watch the lastest Dragon+ episode yet as its not on YouTube yet, so I can't comment on it.

 

[Parmandur]

I haven't had a chance to watch the lastest Dragon+ episode yet as its not on YouTube yet, so I can't comment on it.

Suffice it to say, it didn't seem that the material is being ramped up for March.

Do note, historically, that Race options have had a quick turnaround from UA, but Class options have not.