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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

These look to be a further iterated on version of what's in Heroes of the Borderlands, which was already pretty great, IMO.

 

[Azzy]

So I bought a lot of the class spell cards from 5.0. The GF9 cards, I believe. What am I supposed to do with them now?

If you're staying with 5.0, keep 'em. If you're not, and if they're in good condition, sell them on eBay or the like. I'm sure someone sticking with 5.0 would love them.

 

[...m...]

...someone might; gale force 9 lost me when they didn't publish any updates after xanathar's guide to everything, but given the errors of omission in their earlier cards, there wasn't much love lost...

 

[Vexorg]

Its a great idea, but they really should have increased the price a bit and included high level spells and legendary items.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Its a great idea, but they really should have increased the price a bit and included high level spells and legendary items.

Raising the price for content that most people won't use probably means lower overall volume of sales. I'm sure someone at WotC has a spreadsheet that figured out the breakpoint to use.

If these sell, I'm sure the higher level stuff will come separately, for those that need it and the hardcore collectors.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

So... What are the odds these are an attempt to compete with Daggerheart?
I know DH didn't invent this concept. but given it's decent success, it wouldn't surprise me if WotC followed there lead here and with the Heroes box set.

 

[AlViking]

SO much for the "D&D is being forced to become a digital live-service only game" that YouTube and social media grifters insisted already happened.

Don't worry, this is somehow proof that it's going to be a digital live-service only game! This is just a last gasp scam to milk people for all they're worth before we're all forced online. You just have to read between the lines.

 

[AlViking]

So... What are the odds these are an attempt to compete with Daggerheart?
I know DH didn't invent this concept. but given it's decent success, it wouldn't surprise me if WotC followed there lead here and with the Heroes box set.

They've made cards before, it's nothing new.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Then don’t buy them - they are not a requirement

By almost any measure D&D is an inexpensive hobby if you want it to be

I wasn't planning on it. Mainly, I'm venting. Sorry about that.

My problem is that I'm a bit of a collector/completionist.

...i'm not running 5.24, but these look to be much nicer than the gale force 9 cards and include verbose descriptions as well...

Ack, it's the pretties.... EEP!


I will say, I've tried using cards in Daggerheart, and I find them helpful. But quite honestly, if you have a DDB account, you can just print out the spells individually for reference. And if you've got any talent, you can copy/paste them to a Word doc and make a "spellbook" of sorts.

 

[GarrettKP]

So... What are the odds these are an attempt to compete with Daggerheart?
I know DH didn't invent this concept. but given it's decent success, it wouldn't surprise me if WotC followed there lead here and with the Heroes box set.

D&D is still far ahead of Daggerheart. It isn’t competing with DH. Not really. And cards are something D&D has done for years, well before DH.