D&D 5E Considering Bigby's Big Book of Giants: How much use did you get out of Fizban's Big Book of Dragons?

[Parmandur]

4e started off with a very cool Astral Sea Gods and angels, Elemental Chaos Primordials and elementals dichotomy and the Dawn War between the two factions.

Primal stuff was a later addition in the PH2, coming in as spirits of the natural world protecting against both Elemental and Astral war teams and powering the primal wilderness class druids and barbarians and shamans and such.

It works but its a little bit of a third wheel in the cosmology, particularly after you have the whole Shard of Evil, Tharizdun, Asmodeus, demons thing as an existing complication on the Cosmology duality from the beginning.

Yeah, feels tacked on...and that was after I had moved on from 4E, so I guess my confusion is natural enough. Should have tied it to Primordials.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I liked the lore for the 4E Primal power source myself. IIRC one of the later books posited that the primal spirits may have been elementals that decided they liked being part of the mortal world and wanted to defend it as is instead of letting it be destroyed by the primordials or ruled by the gods. The Primal Ban also gave a reason for why gods weren't just showing up whenever they wanted.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I liked the lore for the 4E Primal power source myself. IIRC one of the later books posited that the primal spirits may have been elementals that decided they liked being part of the mortal world and wanted to defend it as is instead of letting it be destroyed by the primordials or ruled by the gods. The Primal Ban also gave a reason for why gods weren't just showing up whenever they wanted.

it would at least explain why druids and clerics are different.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

it would at least explain why druids and clerics are different.

IIRC the 4E lore stated at one point that Druids and other Primal classes predated the Divine classes, with the gods being too fixated on fighting the primordials in the Elemental Chaos and Astral Sea at first.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If there is a sourcebook about feys and the Feywild, then they should tell us more things about the "domains of delight" for its mini-setting "Witchlight". I mean if they are going to work in a sourcebook about the feys, then they should worry about to be coherent with the lore of the future "Witchlight" setting.

A new "Fiendish Codex" is possible, but the current WotC isn't too interested into monsters with a high changelling ratings. The infernal planes were designed for high-level PCs.

A sourcebook about werebeasts or constructs might be published but it would be something like the Van Richten's Guide of monsters for Ravenloft.

A sourcebook about ghosts, and only ghosts, not other types of undead? Yes, something like a remake of "Ghostwalk", then it would be a mixture of mini-setting and theme monster manual.

 

[pogre]

I'm pretty sure those are both books' names. No, I'm not double-checking.

So, I got the digital version of Fizban's, partly for a player who's running a Dragonborn in one of my games, but partly because I had a lot of good memories of the 3E Draconomicon, which is one of the all-time great D&D books. Completely gorgeous, tons of lore about every aspect of dragons, a ton of player-facing content and so many great monsters.

Fizban's, let's say, did not measure up for me. It's fine, don't get me wrong, but boy, it does not measure up. It is a C/C+ book when I was hoping to see another A+ book.

But maybe that's just me. I have one major dragon in my main campaign, and while I will be throwing in every trick in the book when the PCs finally fight her, beyond that, there's not much draconic content I can see using after that.

Considering that Bigby's is likely to be very similar in structure to Fizban's, am I alone in this? Did you get a lot of value out of Fizban's? If so, what did you do with it? If you're excited about Bigby's, tell me why.

I received Fizban's as a gift from a player - I was not planning on buying it. Honestly, it has seen a ton of use - particularly in my high level campaign.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

A new "Fiendish Codex" is possible, but the current WotC isn't too interested into monsters with a high changelling ratings. The infernal planes were designed for high-level PCs.

Honestly, I disagree. Treating the planes as playgrounds only available to high-level characters is one of the misconceptions that Planescape was designed to combat.

Yes, there are very dangerous creatures on the planes, but there are also people who manage to live there full time. All it takes is a shift in perspective. People look at Baator, for example, and imagine breaking into the palace of one of the Lords of Nine and slaying an archdevil, but you don't need to be level 15+ to make a stop in a trade district in the city of Dis that specifically caters to mortal visitors from elsewhere on the planes to purchase some rare MacGuffin to help you on your quest. As long as you know the rules you need to play by and are willing to play by them, there's no reason players couldn't spend an entire campaign in the depths of the Abyss successfully.

A DM can devise a way for the players to pay a visit deep into "enemy territory" without needing it to be a matter of carving your way through everything between you and your goal then getting back out alive.

Consequently, I see no reason a "Fiendish Codex" type book couldn't work perfectly well for all level ranges.

 

[Voadam]

As long as you know the rules you need to play by and are willing to play by them, there's no reason players couldn't spend an entire campaign in the depths of the Abyss successfully.

I can see that for the Nine Hells, but the Abyss I don't really see as a place, outside of exceptional circumstances, being accommodating to mortal humanoid populations.

 

[Stormonu]

I can see that for the Nine Hells, but the Abyss I don't really see as a place, outside of exceptional circumstances, being accommodating to mortal humanoid populations.

There's places in the Abyss that are "no worse" than a Gamma World/Dark Sun sort of post-apocalyptic realm - a "Hell on Earth" sort of place.

Some places of the Abyss are exceptionally deceptive - fair outwardly in appearance, but fiendish underneath. If you've seen Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, their trip to "Hell" could very well have been an Abyss Realm (Hence, why their album covers were lying), I mean, they did fall into an Abyss....

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I can see that for the Nine Hells, but the Abyss I don't really see as a place, outside of exceptional circumstances, being accommodating to mortal humanoid populations.

Probably not going to have much luck in the Gaping Maw or Thanatos (unless you're a Dustman), but Azzagrat and Shendilavri are pretty cosmopolitan...