Henadic Theologian
Legend
The Ancient Turtle and Great Wyrms among other pieces are amazing, but the Deep Dragon and some others are not great, but that is the exception not the rule.
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
D&D 5E Fizban's Treasury of Dragons is Up on D&D Beyond!
- Thread starter Levistus's_Leviathan
- Start date
The Ancient Turtle and Great Wyrms among other pieces are amazing, but the Deep Dragon and some others are not great, but that is the exception not the rule.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Henadic Theologian
Legend
BTW the typical alignment for Deep Dragons and Sea Serpents should be reverse based on bluff, Sea Serpents fluff screams typically neutral evil, the Deep Dragon's fluff screams typically neutral.
MonsterEnvy
Legend
I thought the Deep Dragon looked fine for a young one.
Weiley31
Legend
If Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventures has taught me anything, everything, at some point, has a severe allergy to Punches.
Scribe
Legend
Looking over this further on my lunch.
Quick thoughts.
Book Quality - Its a USA printing. A lot of my other ones seem to be China. The paper seems pretty poor/fragile? No tears yet as its brand new, but honestly feels like it wont last if I dont baby it. (Note: My Dragonlance trilogies of Chronicles and Legends, are still in great shape...and its been like 30 years...)
Elegy - I like this a lot. Sets a cool hook for the book.
Fizban Notes - Eh, not as cool/funny as Xanathar, sorry Fizban.
The First World - I like this. I like the suggestion of what it could be, and I like the description of dragons as 'knots' of magic. I think that's later in the book.
Other worlds, as long as it doesnt step on any pre-existing lore, what I have seen so far is good high level overview stuff.
Character Creation - I've complained about this elsewhere already. 1 Page too long.
SubClasses
Monk - I feel Pathfinder did this better, but I'm sure Pathfinder lifted it from a 3.0 prestige class or something anyway...
Ranger - Fine. Now that I look at it, you cant take a Gem Drake pet that does psychic damage. Too bad.
Feats - Only 3? I miss the days of many many many feats.
Spells - A few interesting ones. Stride being discussed elsewhere looks cool.
Items - Cool. Love me a Dragonlance.
Horde Items - I like this. The concept of Dragons as being's of Magic, infusing their Horde and powering up items.
Gifts - Cool, again, I wish 5e did more with stuff like this that wasnt optional but thats a 5e thorn thats starting to annoy me.
Dragons in Play
This is where the book starts to really shine in my opinion (its also where the 'Knot' reference is, page 40 under Death of a Dragon).
Tons of ideas, hooks, references to undead dragons, echos (from the original Elegy conceit of the book) Gods and Religion, tons of good stuff in here to me.
Rules on creating Hordes, closes out that section, then we get to the Lairs section, for each of the 'main' dragon types, and a few extra types (5? looks like it). Probably my favorite section of the book at a glance.
Some monster profiles then wrap things up for various types of 'non-dragon' stuff.
I really like the format, and outside of some systemic complaints my only real issue is I wish the stat blocks for the metallics and chromatics were in here, so it was a one stop shop for Dragons.
Quick thoughts.
Book Quality - Its a USA printing. A lot of my other ones seem to be China. The paper seems pretty poor/fragile? No tears yet as its brand new, but honestly feels like it wont last if I dont baby it. (Note: My Dragonlance trilogies of Chronicles and Legends, are still in great shape...and its been like 30 years...)
Elegy - I like this a lot. Sets a cool hook for the book.
Fizban Notes - Eh, not as cool/funny as Xanathar, sorry Fizban.
The First World - I like this. I like the suggestion of what it could be, and I like the description of dragons as 'knots' of magic. I think that's later in the book.
Other worlds, as long as it doesnt step on any pre-existing lore, what I have seen so far is good high level overview stuff.
Character Creation - I've complained about this elsewhere already. 1 Page too long.
SubClasses
Monk - I feel Pathfinder did this better, but I'm sure Pathfinder lifted it from a 3.0 prestige class or something anyway...
Ranger - Fine. Now that I look at it, you cant take a Gem Drake pet that does psychic damage. Too bad.
Feats - Only 3? I miss the days of many many many feats.
Spells - A few interesting ones. Stride being discussed elsewhere looks cool.
Items - Cool. Love me a Dragonlance.
Horde Items - I like this. The concept of Dragons as being's of Magic, infusing their Horde and powering up items.
Gifts - Cool, again, I wish 5e did more with stuff like this that wasnt optional but thats a 5e thorn thats starting to annoy me.
Dragons in Play
This is where the book starts to really shine in my opinion (its also where the 'Knot' reference is, page 40 under Death of a Dragon).
Tons of ideas, hooks, references to undead dragons, echos (from the original Elegy conceit of the book) Gods and Religion, tons of good stuff in here to me.
Rules on creating Hordes, closes out that section, then we get to the Lairs section, for each of the 'main' dragon types, and a few extra types (5? looks like it). Probably my favorite section of the book at a glance.
Some monster profiles then wrap things up for various types of 'non-dragon' stuff.
I really like the format, and outside of some systemic complaints my only real issue is I wish the stat blocks for the metallics and chromatics were in here, so it was a one stop shop for Dragons.
Azzy
ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ (He/Him)
I don't know. I have mixed opinions on this book.
The Elegy of the First Worls, Dragonsight, and Echoes thing is really neat, but I don't like the fact that so much previous lore gets jettisoned in the process (that was my main beef with 4e). I especially hate what they did to Sardior.
The Character Creation chapter looks cool for the most part. I like the revised Dragonborn, but it's weird that all each of the Dragonborn variations have breath weapons with the same area of effect (Chromatics are a line, Gem and Metallics are cones) regardless of energy type (no cone for Red Cromatics, no line for Bronze Metallics, etc.). The subclasses are neat, but I, too, don't like that the Drakewarden doesn't get to fly on their drake until high levels. Only three feats is pretty sad.
Dragon Magic is a great section. The spells look cool, with Stride being the standout. Magic items, Draconic Gifts, and Hoard Items are neat, with the Hoard Items being the most interesting. WotC shold keep going with the Gifts mechanic (I believe Theros was the first to introduce something like this) in future books.
I have yet to read Dragons in Play in its entirety, but much of it (and the Draconomicon section) seems useful for making a dragons unique and interesting. Kudos. Still don't care for the Gods and Religion section.
Lairs in Hoards... Nice. This is great stuff. Don't know what more to say about it.
Like Dragons in Play, I haven't read all of the Draconomicon, but what I have read adds to Dragons in Play in making a dragon adversary or ally interesting and unique.
The Bestiary is nice, but contains a dearth of monsters compared to Volo's or Mordenkainen's. My biggest issues with the Bestiary are: 1) the Gem Dragons are scattered throughout instead of being grouped together. I hate that with a passion. 2) No Aspect of Sardior. I get why, given the fluff (that I don't like), but it still sucks. Some of the creatures seem rather meh, like the Gem Stalker, Egg Hunter, and a few others, but, overall, there's some nice additions in here. I'm happy to get my Drolems, er... Dragonbone Golems back. Could have had more dragons, though (I'd like to see a revion of the Lung Dragons, as well as the Steel and other lesser true dragons). Also, I'm glad the Mythic monster mechanic made it into this book—very fitting for the Aspects and Great Wyrms.
The Elegy of the First Worls, Dragonsight, and Echoes thing is really neat, but I don't like the fact that so much previous lore gets jettisoned in the process (that was my main beef with 4e). I especially hate what they did to Sardior.
The Character Creation chapter looks cool for the most part. I like the revised Dragonborn, but it's weird that all each of the Dragonborn variations have breath weapons with the same area of effect (Chromatics are a line, Gem and Metallics are cones) regardless of energy type (no cone for Red Cromatics, no line for Bronze Metallics, etc.). The subclasses are neat, but I, too, don't like that the Drakewarden doesn't get to fly on their drake until high levels. Only three feats is pretty sad.
Dragon Magic is a great section. The spells look cool, with Stride being the standout. Magic items, Draconic Gifts, and Hoard Items are neat, with the Hoard Items being the most interesting. WotC shold keep going with the Gifts mechanic (I believe Theros was the first to introduce something like this) in future books.
I have yet to read Dragons in Play in its entirety, but much of it (and the Draconomicon section) seems useful for making a dragons unique and interesting. Kudos. Still don't care for the Gods and Religion section.
Lairs in Hoards... Nice. This is great stuff. Don't know what more to say about it.
Like Dragons in Play, I haven't read all of the Draconomicon, but what I have read adds to Dragons in Play in making a dragon adversary or ally interesting and unique.
The Bestiary is nice, but contains a dearth of monsters compared to Volo's or Mordenkainen's. My biggest issues with the Bestiary are: 1) the Gem Dragons are scattered throughout instead of being grouped together. I hate that with a passion. 2) No Aspect of Sardior. I get why, given the fluff (that I don't like), but it still sucks. Some of the creatures seem rather meh, like the Gem Stalker, Egg Hunter, and a few others, but, overall, there's some nice additions in here. I'm happy to get my Drolems, er... Dragonbone Golems back. Could have had more dragons, though (I'd like to see a revion of the Lung Dragons, as well as the Steel and other lesser true dragons). Also, I'm glad the Mythic monster mechanic made it into this book—very fitting for the Aspects and Great Wyrms.
Scribe
Legend
At a glance, it looks like not much made it in for Sardior, and Obsidian is gone/not mentioned at all it seems.
My 'all things must balance' mind likes the 5/5/5 split for the Dragon types, but yeah Sardior seems to have gotten a rough deal.
EDIT: Some of the pages in my book are also really washed out, or the inking on the letters is just not done well. Pretty grim quality honestly, I'm kind of tilted over that. I keep my books in good shape for decades, and this one just wont last.
Demetrios1453
Legend
I wonder if something happened in the printing or wherever they stored them before shipping? I just picked up my special edition cover version from my FLGS, and they said about half of the shipment had some water damage to some pages. They had put one of the undamaged copies aside for me as a regular customer, so my copy looks just fine (no damage or fading that I see), but it sounds like something happened to some of the copies...
As for Sardior, I agree, they should have put in a stat block if in case the gem dragons manage to re-assemble him, or if the Elegy mythos doesn't apply to your world. Granted, the gem greatwyrm is obviously very close to being a re-born Sardior (the gem greatwyrm basically has Sardior's old force breath weapon), so if for some reason you really need to have him statted up, you can just use it as a base and raise the HP and AC, and add in his old light and/or fire breath weapons.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
