D&D 5E Planescape, Bigby, Phandelver and the Deck of Many Things: Covers & Details Revealed!

The covers of the upcoming D&D books — including Planescape, Glory of the Giants, and the Deck of Many Things have been revealed.

• August 15th -- Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants ($59.95)
• August 15th -- The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons ($39.95)
• September 19th -- Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk ($59.95)
• October 16th -- Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse ($TBA)
• November 14th -- Book of Many Things ($TBA)

Coming August 15th with two variants. Lore about giants, 76 stat blocks, feats, and a giant subclass.

3 hardcovers in a boxed set-- 96 page guide to Sigil, 64-page bestiary, and 96-page adventure, along with a poster map and DM screen. Coming October 16th.

224-page adventure for levels 1-12, poster map, 16 new monsters. Coming September 19th.

66 illustrated cards, 192-page book with lore, character options, magic items, and monsters, 80-page card reference guide, all in a slipcase. Coming November 14th.​

These Are Dungeons & Dragons' New Products For 2023

New books for the fantasy role-playing game include Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, and a look at the legendary Deck of Many Things.

themessenger.com

 

[Maxperson]

I don’t agree. Just Sigil and Outlands are needed. Cause the other planes got detailed in the DMG

No they didn't. They got some information given in the DMG, but they are far, FAR from detailed. The Planescape setting also gives the other planes from the setting perspective, not some bland, neutral DMG perspective. The DMG fails to be what is needed for a planescape setting. Hell, if it did they wouldn't need to make a Planescape setting. They could have just made Sigil. After all, the Outlands are also "detailed" in the DMG setting, so according to you that could also be excluded from the new "setting," right? Heck, Sigil is also "detailed" in the DMG, so we didn't need anything more!

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I want a full gazetteer for the Great Wheel as much as anyone (honestly, probably more than most), but Sigil is the core of Planescape in a way that other setting-defining cites (Sharn, Waterdeep, Greyhawk) are not.

I can set an Eberron game in Karrnath, or Xen'drik, or Riedra and it's still an Eberron game, just as I could set an FR game far from the Sword Coast and it still be Forgotten Realms.

By comparison, while a planar game set entirely in Dis or travelling among the branches of Yggdrasil would still be planar, that wouldn't necessarily make it Planescape unless I went out of my way to work in Planescape themes and assumptions. Descent into Avernus isn't a Planescape adventure just because a large chunk of it is set in Baator instead of Faerun.

It is far more important that they make sure they get Sigil right in a product bringing Planescape into 5e than it is covering the entire Great Wheel cosmology, particularly given the page space limitations. I'd rather get a solid book covering Sigil and the Outlands than a mediocre book trying to cram the entire Great Wheel into 96 pages that also needs to cover character options and serve as a city-guide for Sigil.

Especially since a focusing on Sigil and the Outlands here doesn't render the possibility of getting a proper Manual of the Planes at some point down the road redundant, which trying to cover the entire Great Wheel would.

Yes, this. I think @Maxperson is wrong on this one.

 

[Maxperson]

I want a full gazetteer for the Great Wheel as much as anyone (honestly, probably more than most), but Sigil is the core of Planescape in a way that other setting-defining cites (Sharn, Waterdeep, Greyhawk) are not.

I can set an Eberron game in Karrnath, or Xen'drik, or Riedra and it's still an Eberron game, just as I could set an FR game far from the Sword Coast and it still be Forgotten Realms.

By comparison, while a planar game set entirely in Dis or travelling among the branches of Yggdrasil would still be planar, that wouldn't necessarily make it Planescape unless I went out of my way to work in Planescape themes and assumptions. Descent into Avernus isn't a Planescape adventure just because a large chunk of it is set in Baator instead of Faerun.

It is far more important that they make sure they get Sigil right in a product bringing Planescape into 5e than it is covering the entire Great Wheel cosmology, particularly given the page space limitations. I'd rather get a solid book covering Sigil and the Outlands than a mediocre book trying to cram the entire Great Wheel into 96 pages that also needs to cover character options and serve as a city-guide for Sigil.

Especially since a focusing on Sigil and the Outlands here doesn't render the possibility of getting a proper Manual of the Planes at some point down the road redundant, which trying to cover the entire Great Wheel would.

I agree that Sigil is key, which is also why it needs an entire separate book. I seriously doubt they are going to be putting in enough into the new setting. Likely it will be like the Rock of Bral and only be several pages in length naming some locations, but providing next to nothing about those locations.

 

[BovineofWar]

By comparison, while a planar game set entirely in Dis or travelling among the branches of Yggdrasil would still be planar, that wouldn't necessarily make it Planescape unless I went out of my way to work in Planescape themes and assumptions. Descent into Avernus isn't a Planescape adventure just because a large chunk of it is set in Baator instead of Faerun.

As a counter point, neither Tales from the Infinite Portal nor the Great Modron March have much of anything to do with Sigil, besides as a place to hear a rumour or talk with a quest giver. More than half of Dead Gods takes place outside of Sigil as well. I'm not familiar with the other adventures, but the whole raisin d'etre of Planescape is to find excuses to dump adventurers in far off whacky planes.

I'm not trying to argue that Sigil is unimportant. The importance of Sigil is it provides a detailed place that seeping with all the underlying philosophical issues and conflicts, often made physical. In my mind, it's not really a Planescape campaign without working in the Planescape themes and assumptions to begin with!

 

[Parmandur]

No they didn't. They got some information given in the DMG, but they are far, FAR from detailed. The Planescape setting also gives the other planes from the setting perspective, not some bland, neutral DMG perspective. The DMG fails to be what is needed for a planescape setting. Hell, if it did they wouldn't need to make a Planescape setting. They could have just made Sigil. After all, the Outlands are also "detailed" in the DMG setting, so according to you that could also be excluded from the new "setting," right? Heck, Sigil is also "detailed" in the DMG, so we didn't need anything more!

Developing the Outer Planes beyond what we see in the DMG, MM, and Monaters of the Multiverse is probavly mostly the work of the Bestiary book.

 

[Parmandur]

As a counter point, neither Tales from the Infinite Portal nor the Great Modron March have much of anything to do with Sigil, besides as a place to hear a rumour or talk with a quest giver. More than half of Dead Gods takes place outside of Sigil as well. I'm not familiar with the other adventures, but the whole raisin d'etre of Planescape is to find excuses to dump adventurers in far off whacky planes.

I'm not trying to argue that Sigil is unimportant. The importance of Sigil is it provides a detailed place that seeping with all the underlying philosophical issues and conflicts, often made physical. In my mind, it's not really a Planescape campaign without working in the Planescape themes and assumptions to begin with!

That's what makes the development of the Outlands and the Gatetowns important: those can provide more info on how to connect Adventinto the weird far off Planes.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I agree that Sigil is key, which is also why it needs an entire separate book. I seriously doubt they are going to be putting in enough into the new setting. Likely it will be like the Rock of Bral and only be several pages in length naming some locations, but providing next to nothing about those locations.

They have half again as many pages as the Spelljammer equivalent book to work with, and don't have page after page of ship statblocks and schematics eating up their page space.

The portion of the 2e Planescape Campaign Setting - Sigil and Beyond booklet covering Sigil was only about 25-30 pages (just the city, not the Factions).
The portion of the 2e Planescape Campaign Setting - Sigil and Beyond booklet covering the Outlands was about 35 pages.
The 2e Player's Primer to the Outlands was itself only a 32 page book.
The 4e DMG2's section covering Sigil was only about 35 pages or so, with around 15 or so dedicated to a short sample adventure.

They could dedicate one-third of the book (32 pages) each to covering Sigil and the Outlands and be more or less on par with previous material covering those subjects, and still have 32 pages left over to cover character options and the Factions. That seems like a pretty reasonable way to allocate the page space they have to work with and still cover the material they need to cover.

By contrast, the portion of the 3e Manual of the Planes covering the Outer Planes is ~65-70 pages by itself, and if we add in the Inner and Transitive Planes it's closer to ~110 pages - and that's without bringing the Feywild, Shadowfell, and Far Realm into the equation. They'd have to double the existing page space - or worse, trim EVERYTHING down to the bare bones - to even remotely make it fit.

We can always want more - as I said previously, I would still very much like to get a proper 5e Manual of the Planes - but with the page space they have to work with on this product, limiting the scope to Sigil and the Outlands seems like the correct decision to me.

 

[Parmandur]

They have half again as many pages as the Spelljammer equivalent book to work with, and don't have page after page of ship statblocks and schematics eating up their page space.

The portion of the 2e Planescape Campaign Setting - Sigil and Beyond booklet covering Sigil was only about 25-30 pages (just the city, not the Factions).
The portion of the 2e Planescape Campaign Setting - Sigil and Beyond booklet covering the Outlands was about 35 pages.
The 2e Player's Primer to the Outlands was itself only a 32 page book.
The 4e DMG2's section covering Sigil was only about 35 pages or so, with around 15 or so dedicated to a short sample adventure.

They could dedicate one-third of the book (32 pages) each to covering Sigil and the Outlands and be more or less on par with previous material covering those subjects, and still have 32 pages left over to cover character options and the Factions. That seems like a pretty reasonable way to allocate the page space they have to work with and still cover the material they need to cover.

By contrast, the portion of the 3e Manual of the Planes covering the Outer Planes ~65-70 pages by itself, and if we add in the Inner and Transitive Planes it's closer to ~110 pages. They'd have to double the existing page space - or worse, trim EVERYTHING down to the bare bones - to even remotely make it fit.

We can always want more - as I said previously, I would still very much like to get a proper 5e Manual of the Planes - but with the page space they have to work with on this product, limiting the scope to Sigil and the Outlands seems like the correct decision to me.

Honestly, I'm curious how much we may see in terms of PC options. We have the "Glitchling" (hopefully renamed a Modron, but we'll see), and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Ardling pop up here, and we may see a bunch of reprints from MotM (or just "use anything from MotM! Go wild!"). No Subclasses seemed to be tested for Planescape, they appear to have been either Giants or Deck of Many Things related, but we should see Background Feats for the Inner and Outer Planes. I expect the book will be more Gazaterr than PC choices, ultimately.

For Spelljammer, the ships really are the Setting, where the action occurs, so the maps and stats for them made sense. Nothing there was bad (except the weird racist stuff), but it could have used some more content about systems.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Honestly, I'm curious how much we may see in terms of PC options. We have the "Glitchling" (hopefully renamed a Modron, but we'll see), and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Ardling pop up here, and we may see a bunch of reprints from MotM (or just "use anything from MotM! Go wild!"). No Subclasses seemed to be tested for Planescape, they appear to have been either Giants or Deck of Many Things related, but we should see Background Feats for the Inner and Outer Planes. I expect the book will be more Gazaterr than PC choices, ultimately.

For Spelljammer, the ships really are the Setting, where the action occurs, so the maps and stats for them made sense. Nothing there was bad (except the weird racist stuff), but it could have used some more content about systems.

Glitchling (i.e. Rogue Modron v2.0), Backgrounds, and Feats are probably the bulk of the player options - maybe an outside chance of Bariaur being snuck in as a kind of variant Centaur (thus not really needing playtesting). Beyond that, probably just a bunch of Faction material.

I'd be surprised to see Ardling come back this soon, since I think their issues seemed a bit more structural in nature - there seems to be a significant split on whether they are meant to be Celestial Planetouched paralleling the updated Tiefling or a unified Animal Person framework replacing Tabaxi, Aarakocra, etc. going forward, and I'm not sure they had the time to parse that out between making the decision to drop them from the '24 PHB revision and finalizing Planescape for print...

 

[Parmandur]

Glitchling (i.e. Rogue Modron v2.0), Backgrounds, and Feats are probably the bulk of the player options - maybe an outside chance of Bariaur being snuck in as a kind of variant Centaur (thus not really needing playtesting). Beyond that, probably just a bunch of Faction material.

I'd be surprised to see Ardling come back this soon, since I think their issues seemed a bit more structural in nature - there seems to be a significant split on whether they are meant to be Celestial Planetouched paralleling the updated Tiefling or a unified Animal Person framework replacing Tabaxi, Aarakocra, etc. going forward, and I'm not sure they had the time to parse that out between making the decision to drop them from the '24 PHB revision and finalizing Planescape for print...

Well, they have through about August for the print turnaround, of they wanted to do further UA (which I doubt), but the second draft seemed to be moving them towards a Planescape-y, Beastlands general anthromorph, rather than a Tiefling opposite. Crawford's remark on the second playtest results was that it was popular, but not PHB popular, along with a promise thst we would see the Ardling again. And the Planescape Sertting seems a likely place.