D&D 5E Fizban's Treasury Dragons Ranked By Challenge Rating

WotC has been sending out previews of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, due out next month, to folks on Twitter. Amongst those are art pieces and other items.

By Challenge Rating the dragons in the book are:

• Ancient crystal (19)
• Ancient topaz (20)
• Ancient emerald (21)
• Ancient moonstone (21)
• Ancient sapphire (22)
• Elder brain dragon (22)
• Ancient amethyst (23)
• Ancient dragon turtle (24)
• Gem greatwyrm (26)
• Chromatic greatwyrm (27)
• Metallic greatwyrm (28)
• Apects of Bahamut and Tiamat (30)

Interestingly, it appears that the great wyrm category is divided into three -- gem, chromatic, metallic -- rather than by each dragon type.

There's also an alphabetical list of all 20 dragon types in the book:

• Amethyst
• Black
• Blue
• Brass
• Bronze
• Copper
• Crystal
• Deep
• Dragon turtle
• Emerald
• Faerie
• Gold
• Green
• Moonstone
• Red
• Sapphire
• Shadow
• Silver
• Topaz
• White

 

[Mind of tempest]

I cant think of any of it that was particularly bland to my taste, and its purpose was to create a coherent cosmology that allowed for all of D&D while not catering entirely to the needs of adventurers. I like innovation, but with lore it should add and not replace.

true it was an improvement but if we take you idea we get stuck in the 2e bloat problem of endless new setting just so we have new ground to work with which might tank the IP again.

what bits are so utterly loveable to you anyway some of the high lights please as all I can see is so stuff to use to bulk things up or cool monsters to add back in and would like to see your point better?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Not liking changes to a beloved property does not equal gatekeeping. I'm getting pretty sick and tired of that false parallel.

@see literally said "WotC should not pay any attention to your opinions" to me. That's gatekeeping. I'm pretty sick and tired of gatekeeping by older players and their apologists.

 

[see]

Coolness should override tradition. . . . You and other older players don't own D&D and definitely don't get to gatekeep what exists in the game.

WotC shouldn't care in the slightest about either coolness or tradition; they should care about selling games.

"[M]ishandling relations with your fanbase", which is explicitly what you said you don't care about, is the royal road to commercial failure for any media property.

WotC accordingly should ignore you, not because people like me own D&D or get to gatekeep it, but because you have explicitly and directly said you want them to ignore their business interests.

That doesn't make your opinions any less valid as opinions. There's no reason you should value WotC's commercial success above you getting a product you want. But WotC would be utterly foolish to listen to you.

 

[Scribe]

Lets just all agree to move on from 4e Tieflings and we can all be friends.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

WotC shouldn't care in the slightest about either coolness or tradition; they should care about selling games.

"[M]ishandling relations with your fanbase", which is explicitly what you said you don't care about, is the royal road to commercial failure for any media property.

WotC accordingly should ignore you, not because people like me own D&D or get to gatekeep it, but because you have explicitly and directly said you want them to ignore their business interests.

That doesn't make your opinions any less valid as opinions. There's no reason you should value WotC's commercial success above you getting a product you want. But WotC would be utterly foolish to listen to you.

Uh, no. That's a strawman. I said that WotC shouldn't care about mishandling relations with the existing fanbase on the basis of the "mishandling" being the replacing of old lore with cool lore. You said that they shouldn't do that, because apparently you think tradition overrides cool new lore.

Tradition doesn't make something inherently better or more profitable than new content.

BTW, WotC has gotten a new fanbase with 5e, which is much younger than the one that was around for 4e. They don't need to be as careful about offending/turning away the older fanbase as they did before, because the vast majority of players are newer and aren't going to care if something traditional was replaced with something new.

There's no reason WotC should care more about tradition anymore than they do about coolness. D&D 5e is profitable enough now that it doesn't matter in the same way that it did in the 4e era.

 

[see]

Uh, no. That's a strawman.

No, it isn't. Reacting to what you literally said is not a strawman. Inventing for myself what I thought you meant and arguing with, now that would be a strawman.

You said that they shouldn't do that, because apparently you think tradition overrides cool new lore.

For example, what you did right there, that's a strawman argument. Instead of reacting to my argument, you're inventing a fantasy of what I you think I think and responding to that. How about you try responding to what I say instead of some tradition-over-all caricature that only lives in your head?

BTW, WotC has gotten a new fanbase with 5e, which is much younger than the one that was around for 4e. They don't need to be as careful about offending/turning away the older fanbase as they did before, because the vast majority of players are newer and aren't going to care if something traditional was replaced with something new.

Granting that proposition, it wouldn't change the reality that at the time the 5e Monster Manual was being written, 5e was not yet so profitable, and therefore the right commercial decision when the 5e Monster Manual was written was to go with the traditional faerie dragon, rather than replace it with a direct parallel to the shadow dragon.

 

[Scribe]

I said that WotC shouldn't care about mishandling relations with the existing fanbase on the basis of the "mishandling" being the replacing of old lore with cool lore.

Who determines what is cool? The fanbase (edited) may be new, the fanbase may be younger.

That fanbase however, showed up for a version of D&D that made pains to appear 'traditional' in many many ways.

4e's flaw, was in not separating itself from FR.

That's all 5.5 or 6e needs to do.

Make a new setting, the D&D default.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

No, it isn't. Reacting to what you literally said is not a strawman. Inventing for myself what I thought you meant and arguing with, now that would be a strawman.

And you did that. You said that I was saying that WotC doesn't/shouldn't care about profits. That isn't what I was saying, and thus was a strawman. You said, "4th edition D&D was a master class in mishandling relations with an existing fanbase", and I replied with "And I honestly don't care one single bit about that. 4e did a lot of really cool and interesting stuff lorewise. Just because older fans didn't like it doesn't mean that it was bad. The Dawn War is f**king awesome."

That is quite literally not the same as "D&D should turn away it's fanbase and ignore its business interests", like you said I said. Thus, your strawman.

For example, what you did right there, that's a strawman argument. Instead of reacting to my argument, you're inventing a fantasy of what I you think I think and responding to that. How about you try responding to what I say instead of some tradition-over-all caricature that only lives in your head?

How is that not what you're saying? I said "WotC shouldn't care about that, 4e's lore was cool", and then you said "and WotC should ignore your opinions". My opinion was that WotC should focus on making cool lore instead of worrying about turning away the older fanbase. That's literally the same argument as "tradition should overrule making new, cool lore".

Granting that proposition, it wouldn't change the reality that at the time the 5e Monster Manual was being written, 5e was not yet so profitable, and therefore the right commercial decision when the 5e Monster Manual was written was to go with the traditional faerie dragon, rather than replace it with a direct parallel to the shadow dragon.

Which, though true, doesn't matter now with a Dragon book coming out. They can change the lore for faerie dragons midway through an edition. It's not unprecedented. Drow lore is changing, for example. They have the fanbase now, and are capable of abandoning sacred cows for the purpose of improving D&D without tradition-sticklers getting in the way now.

And that wasn't even the point. You're the one that brought up 4e. My point was that cool lore no longer has to be restrained by older players, as the fanbase is much younger now than it was when 5e began.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Who determines what is cool?

I guess WotC does. However, "new" and "cool" are often synonyms, as long as the lore is executed correctly. (And though coolness is normally subjective, I do believe that somethings are just objectively cool, like a war between Giants and Dragons or a war between Primordials and Gods. It's like art, it's largely subjective, but there is such a thing as good and bad art.)

The fanbase (edited) may be new, the fanbase may be younger.

That fanbase however, showed up for a version of D&D that made pains to appear 'traditional' in many many ways.

I'm not sure that's true. They showed up to an edition of D&D that went back to its roots at the beginning, but Critical Role, Acquisitions Incorporated, M:tG settings, and similar examples are making it fairly evident that that point isn't as important to D&D 5e as it was the beginning of the edition.

Traditional at the start of 5e is why it succeeded, the new fans being brought in by D&D livestreams, the simple mechanics, and internet stories/discussions about it is why it's continuing to succeed.

4e's flaw, was in not separating itself from FR.

That's all 5.5 or 6e needs to do.

Make a new setting, the D&D default.

I agree. The core setting shouldn't be the FR. It's too big and convoluted for the base game. D&D 5e is the most simple and straightforward edition of D&D, and that paid off and WotC knows that it will work when the next edition comes out, but having a simple, new setting to be the default world (if there is one) in D&D 5.5e/6e will also pay off.

 

[Scribe]

Traditional at the start of 5e is why it succeeded, the new fans being brought in by D&D livestreams, the simple mechanics, and internet stories/discussions about it is why it's continuing to succeed.

I can agree with that, but we dont need to retcon things for that to remain true.

I agree. The core setting shouldn't be the FR. It's too big and convoluted for the base game. D&D 5e is the most simple and straightforward edition of D&D, and that paid off and WotC knows that it will work when the next edition comes out, but having a simple, new setting to be the default world (if there is one) in D&D 5.5e/6e will also pay off.

Yes. I hope this gets pushed enough that Wizards picks up on it eventually and just runs with it. A new setting which better aligns to whatever direction they wish to go, while allowing other settings to exist as distinct, can only be a help imo.