D&D 5E Fizban Is In The Wild -- With the Table of Contents!

Some people have received their copies of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, and have posted photos (including the table of contents!) online!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Reminds me of this line from my favorite Discworld novel (Thud!), which I happened to be rereading last night:

"It's one of the lesser-known failings of the vampire. No one knows why ... However clever they are, they can't resist thinking that no one will recognize their name if they spell it backwards."

Yeah, this doesn't really work for Lord Strahd von Zarovich. Drol Dharts nov Chivoraz? That just sounds like nonsense. Alucard is way better sounding.

 

[pukunui]

My big issue with changing the Draconic Pantheon into Great Wyrms, beyond not liking poorly explained retcons, is that folks that want to play a Cleric of their favorite Dragon God that isn't Bahumut or Tiamat get screwed, maybe. The Dragon Blessed, which are basically Dragon worshipping clerics which don't have Dragon themed abilities beyond speaking Draconic and gaining their magic from Dragons instead of Gods btw.

The previews of this book have planted a seed in my mind for a campaign setting based around dragons as gods (or at least god-like beings). A world where dragons are front and center. Chris Perkins' old 4e Iomandra setting could be one way to do it. Or maybe WotC could actually publish a full Abeir setting instead of just the bits that got swapped with parts of Toril in 4e.

Or something new.

So like maybe Bahamut and Tiamat are the only real gods, and all the other "gods" in the pantheon are the greatwyrms - and maybe there's only one of each kind. And maybe dragonborn are the main humanoid species instead of humans.

 

[Faolyn]

My big issue with changing the Draconic Pantheon into Great Wyrms, beyond not liking poorly explained retcons, is that folks that want to play a Cleric of their favorite Dragon God that isn't Bahumut or Tiamat get screwed, maybe. The Dragon Blessed, which are basically Dragon worshipping clerics which don't have Dragon themed abilities beyond speaking Draconic and gaining their magic from Dragons instead of Gods btw.

The weirdest part of this, I think, is that Great Wyrms sound like they should be at least on par with Archfiends, Archfey, and GOOs--but they didn't create a dragon warlock.

 

[Maxperson]

Reminds me of this line from my favorite Discworld novel (Thud!), which I happened to be rereading last night:

"It's one of the lesser-known failings of the vampire. No one knows why ... However clever they are, they can't resist thinking that no one will recognize their name if they spell it backwards."

So many great lines like that one. I can't pick a favorite.

 

[Maxperson]

Reminds me of this line from my favorite Discworld novel (Thud!), which I happened to be rereading last night:

"It's one of the lesser-known failings of the vampire. No one knows why ... However clever they are, they can't resist thinking that no one will recognize their name if they spell it backwards."

So many great lines like that one. I can't pick a favorite.

 

[dave2008]

That is not true. If the preexisting lore is only known by 10% of the D&D population, how relevant is it really?

For many people there is no preexisting lore. I have not played with a lot of people in my 30 yrs of gaming, but not a single one of them (other than me) cared about the prexisting lore of D&D.

One thing that would have been cool for Moonstone Dragons would have been a variant of the Change Shape ability, but for Fey instead of humanoids and Beasts.

Yes, that would have been a good idea. If I ever stat up moon dragons I will do something like that.

Surely you can admit Bahumut's none damage breath weapon is cool, a healing/raise dead breath is really neat, but I would add the optional spellcasting trait from the MM to both Aspects and Great Wyrms.

Yes it is. But there was so much room to do more. If they had used some of the lessons they learned from MToF, Theros, and other books since the MM, they could have made much more interesting monsters IMO. I am tempted to do yet another version of Tiamat!

To be fair an Aspect of Tiamat isn't actually the main Tiamat,that is the nearly unkillable version, this is more like a an Avatar.

I know that, but IMO the went backward instead for forward from the Rise of Tiamat version.

My personal suggestion to use the Spellcasting trait from the MM to give Tiamat and Bahumut at will Wish spell.

There is a whole host of traits they should have to make them more interesting IMO. They just don't. I do wish spellcasting was one of them. Not really interested in at will Wish though. That is just a cop-out IMO.

I agree with you on Elder Brain Dragons, they are the Mindflayer pinnacle that Mindflayers needed.

My big issue with changing the Draconic Pantheon into Great Wyrms, beyond not liking poorly explained retcons, is that folks that want to play a Cleric of their favorite Dragon God that isn't Bahumut or Tiamat get screwed, maybe. The Dragon Blessed, which are basically Dragon worshipping clerics which don't have Dragon themed abilities beyond speaking Draconic and gaining their magic from Dragons instead of Gods btw.

Like Dragon Blessed really should have had a better explanation as to how Dragons can now grant Divine magic spells.

That has no effect IMO game or RAW. Cleric don't get their magic granted by gods in 5e, IIRC. As far as I am concerned a cleric can worship a dragon god that is really a Great Wyrm and casts any cleric spell. I am pretty sure that is RAW as well. In fact, I believe the author even talked about that in one of the interviews posted in this thread.

I just find it's some cool ideas, but really poor integration with older lore makes it unusable, worse in some ways then 4e even.

I loved 4e's lore, so maybe that is what I am really enjoying this (from what I have seen). If I want a continuation of 1e, or 2e, or 3e lore - I just use that lore. This book doesn't make any of it more less usable to me, it is just more options. That is why I like that is different. I don't need the old lore again, I've already got that.

I do have my quirks of course. For instance, I hate the Asmo is treated like god/lesser god in more recent lore, yet Demo is still a CR 26 chump. Demo was, from the beginning, the most powerful fiend and that is the way it should stay!

 

[pukunui]

I agree that the art for the deep dragon is hideous ... however, it does at least make it look like something you might expect to find in the Underdark. Unlike, say, most everything else that's down there ...

 

[pukunui]

Watching Fry's pagethrough video from upthread. The "Dragon Characters" section looks like it's just advice for DMs on RPing / customizing NPC dragons, NOT rules for dragon PCs. (Like the similar stuff for giants in Volo's.) @Parmandur

 

[Erdric Dragin]

That is not true. If the preexisting lore is only known by 10% of the D&D population, how relevant is it really?

For many people there is no preexisting lore. I have not played with a lot of people in my 30 yrs of gaming, but not a single one of them (other than me) cared about the prexisting lore of D&D.

A 5e setting is self contained. What the setting is, is in the 5e books. If you want to research older lore to add or modify it, great! But that is not this editions responsibility.

CONSISTENCY is extremely relevant actually. When a medium remains inconsistent, it's just a chaotic mess of nonsense. It's why we have Edition Wars, because of the lack of consistency.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

No one said anything about killable. The question was who would win. If you are forced to discorporate, the other party wins. The fact is with 1074 total HP vs 615 HP the mythic version would win. Remember they are both immune to each other's breath weapons, so it really all comes down to attacks.

Now that I think about that, I don't think the Aspect has the magical weapons trait (quite the oversight), so technically I think the OG version is basically immune to all attacks from the Aspect! So I was wrong and the OG version would win on a technicality (and win big)! The Aspect really is a hot mess, if they had just given the OG version mythic actions it would have been much better than what we got. That being said, my own version is better than either of them!

There is who will win the battle, then there is who will win the war.