Dungeons & Dragons announces new reference cards for spells, magic items, and monsters

Wizards of the Coast plans to release 8 boxes of reference cards for Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E later this summer. The new D&D Reference Cards will contain references for magic spells, magic items, and monsters. Spell decks for Level 0 (Cantrips) through Level 5 will be released, with each deck containing two levels' worth of spells. The magic item reference decks will be split between common and uncommon items and rare and very rare items. The monsters will be split into three different categories - "Animals and NPCs", "Mystical and Menacing", and "Fearsome and Ferocious". The spell decks will cost $19.99 and the other decks will retail for $24.99. The decks will be released on August 18th.

D&D reference cards aren't unusual - Gale Force 9 released a series of popular reference cards for 5E a while ago. However, these are the first released specifically by Dungeons & Dragons, and each card also uses official artwork pulled presumably from the new 5.5E core rulebooks.

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

I know what my niece is now getting for her birthday.

 

[GMMichael]

I love that these are coming out again, but I'm not sure I like how they're organized. I much prefer they be categorized by class or type (arcane, divine, primal).

Me: yes! D&D seems awesome! I can't wait to plan out my cleric from levels 1 through 20, because I know he's gonna be awesome!
WotC: right on! We're here for you!
Me: And there are spell cards too!? Woohoo! Can I order cleric spell cards?
WotC: yeah! And everyone else's spells, too!
Me: . . . That's great! I just need the cleric cards, though.
WotC: and you can get them! That'll be $100, please.
Me: but . . . I just want to put out the, I don't know, five spells that I'll just want to use that day. That's $100?
WotC: oh, have we got a deal for you! What level is your cleric?
Me: He's level one.
WotC: that'll be $20, please!
Me: that's . . . Half of a PHB.
WotC: we know! Completely human-created! We promise!
Me: but I . . . Nevermind. I'll find a Tales of the Valiant GM. Sorry, Steve.

 

[MockingBird]

Yeah I like the class specific decks better. But, I can see why they went this direction seeing how several classes use the same spells. It is nice to to be able to buy a wizard deck and have levels 1-20 already in said deck. But, once again, if you play different classes you'll have all the spells already.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I suspect WotC will be happy to sell you class specific subsets later on, once they've got this first style of decks out.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

This is much better than class decks, but I would have preferred Arcane, Divine, & Primal.

 

[Thierry-Advent]

Me: yes! D&D seems awesome! I can't wait to plan out my cleric from levels 1 through 20, because I know he's gonna be awesome!
WotC: right on! We're here for you!
Me: And there are spell cards too!? Woohoo! Can I order cleric spell cards?
WotC: yeah! And everyone else's spells, too!
Me: . . . That's great! I just need the cleric cards, though.
WotC: and you can get them! That'll be $100, please.
Me: but . . . I just want to put out the, I don't know, five spells that I'll just want to use that day. That's $100?
WotC: oh, have we got a deal for you! What level is your cleric?
Me: He's level one.
WotC: that'll be $20, please!
Me: that's . . . Half of a PHB.
WotC: we know! Completely human-created! We promise!
Me: but I . . . Nevermind. I'll find a Tales of the Valiant GM. Sorry, Steve.

I mean, you can buy the sets, as a group of players, and split the cards among yourselves, per class. Just like you do when you buy pineapple pizza during a session. Split the cost.

 

[Denito]

Nice! I was beginning to worry that they were not going to produce these again, now that the new books haven been out for quite a while (but I also don‘t know how many years after the release of 5.0 galeforce nine published their cards).

Now I can finally continue hoping again for a localization print run into the other translated 5.5 languages so that I can get my spell cards in German for better immersion during gameplay

 

[LaTia J]

I can see that the magic items appear to be generic in a sense. It is an 'enspelled weapon' not a 'enspelled long sword'.

There is also blank ones.

@LaTia J , is there any indication if you can use wet erase markers on the cards?

I don’t know! If they’re similar to the GF9 ones then you should be able to, but that’s a good question that I will ask about.

 

[AlViking]

I'm um'ing and ah'ing over the monster cards. I'm not sure if it will make things easier of harder. Generally the more individual pieces stacked in front of me, makes it harder. But so does continual flipping between pages in multiple book. I could it reducing the number of big books in front of me. Also, I could layout the relevant monsters and spells together in front of me. One thing I hate is having to find monster's spells in the middle of combat.

I used to make my own - I use DDB now - and I just kept them in a recipe card holder I got somewhere. It's not fancy but does have alphabet tabs so it's easy to find anything.

 

[AlViking]

It makes sense to me that they don't divide up the spells - a lot of spells are shared and different subclasses and domains give access to spells not normally on the divine or arcane list. Unless you only play one caster ever and only if you pick the correct option you're going to need many of them anyway.