D&D General Initial Thoughts on the Two 2025 Forgotten Realms books

[Selvarin]

I'm gathering my notes together for a talk with Morrus tomorrow and for a segment on my Lazy RPG Talk Show digging into the two new Forgotten Realms books. I thought i'd share my notes, get your thoughts, and answer any questions.

Should You Buy Them?

Instead of asking if one should buy the books or not, we should ask what our own criteria is to decide if we should buy those books based on those criteria.

• Are you a fan of the Realms and its lore? If not, these probably aren't the books for you.
• Would you run a campaign in the FR soon in one of the five regions? If not, you can wait until you are unless you're a huge Realms fan.
• Do you want the in-store special edition covers? Now's the time.
• Do you want these as permanent artifacts in your rpg library? They do feel like the kind of book we could pick up and read 20 years from now.
• Do you and your players use D&D Beyond in the Realms? Get the Adventurers guide on DDB or get your players to buy it and buy the two physical books for yourself.

Alternatively, pick up the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Sourcebook (more later).

Observations

• The Heroes of Faerun covers a ton about the FR. It’s more of a campaign sourcebook than I expected for a player-focused book.
• I’m still studying the mini adventures but I think I dig the style. They give me enough to riff a session.
• The Icewind Dale section is different enough from Rime of the Frostmaiden but I still feel like another new (old?) region would have been better.
• There’s a lot of the Sword Coast here. If you’re tired of the Sword Coast, these books may not be for you.
• The Dalelands is a typical European style fantasy setting of small towns and heroes with a big elven ruin nearby. I'd love to run a campaign here. It's a huge meaty section.
• The two books reference each other. They’re really one big book.
• The heroes guide is probably useful on D&D Beyond but I wouldn’t get the adventure guide there. Pick up the physical copy of both for referencing.
• There's lots of use of renown and bastions.
• Factions focus on character factions, even for "bad guy" factions, but there's enough lore here to help GMs build them out as villains. Lots of other smaller factions described. Big meaty section.

Page Count per Section

Heroes Book

• Character Options, 32 pages
• Guide to the Realms, 48 pages
• Gods of Faerun, 33 pages
• Whole Realms Catalog, 7 pages
• Magic, 11 pages
• Factions, 39 pages
• Total Lore Pages: roughly 120 pages.

Adventure Book

• Running the Realms, 6 pages
• Adventures, 32 pages
• Dalelands, 45 pages
• Icewind Dale, 38 pages
• Calimshan, 32 pages
• Moonshae, 29 pages
• Baldur's Gate, 35 pages
• Lost Library of Lethchauntos adventure, 15 pages
• magic items, 5 pages
• monsters, 38 pages

These Books are Expensive

• $50 for Heroes (192 pages)
• $60 for Adventures (288 pages)
• $110 for the two books
• If you're running a campaign with D&D Beyond, Mike's recommendation is Heroes physical + DDB and Adventures physical for $150...
• Total rough word count of the two books is about 221k words.

Comparing it to the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms book

• The 3rd edition Forgotten Realms book was roughly 300k words (79k words more)
• The 3rd edition FR book cost $39.95 in 2001 – about $73 in 2025 dollars.

Thus...

• 3e Campaign Setting: $0.24 per 1,000 words (inflation-adjusted)
• Adventures + Heroes of Faerun, 2025: $0.50 per 1,000 words

About twice the price!

The art is way bigger in these books than the 3e FR campaign sourcebook, but it's still pretty expensive.

The 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Sourcebook is the gold standard:

• $16 on DTRPG
• About $35 for a used copy

You Should Get the 3rd Edition FR Campaign Guide if...

• The price of the new books is too high.
• You want to play in the 1372 DR (pre Spellplague)
• You're not playing 5th edition D&D but still want to play in the Realms

You Should Get the New Books if ...

• The price isn't an issue for you.
• You plan to run a campaign in one or more of the five focus regions.
• You want to play in the most recent timeline.
• You dig all the new art.
• You want a ton of short adventure outlines.
• You really want the new character options and monsters.

I got both books. Still reading through the DM Expansion....

As far as the Player Expansion, overall it's decent. The section about the gods is interesting--doesn't list rank or alignment, per se. And they don't list 'gender' either, though traditionally many gods are seen as one or the other (even if it may not matter to some). Perhaps in previous editions PCs may have felt more motivated to choose specific gods based on morals/ethics, now the waters are a bit muddier for lack of a better term. From a character perspective there are more grays than absolutes.

Only reason I felt like getting the books was, well, Realms. And the Bladesinger revision. The main regions listed in HoF/PE were well done. The Realms feels a bit smaller than it used to, in the very beginning, but that's to be expected after decades of products. Won't pull out the map, will find something else to lay out.

 

[GreyLord]

As a DM, I'm not really eager to use the sub-classes and I'm not sure the player facing material is worth it. I'm mostly in it for the lore of the realms in 5e. I would think that this would mean I should really only need the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and leave off the Heroes of the Forgotten Realms.

However, as I have not seen the inside of the books, what say ye?

Is there any lore that is covered more in depth in the Heroes (players side) book that is not covered in the Adventures (DMs side) book?

 

[Zaukrie]

The adventure book is truly great. So much actually usable content.

The player book largely suffers from the way subclasses are used in 5e. Just meh. Outside the subclasses, there a lot of good stuff. But I'm just not in love with a lot of it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

As a DM, I'm not really eager to use the sub-classes and I'm not sure the player facing material is worth it. I'm mostly in it for the lore of the realms in 5e. I would think that this would mean I should really only need the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and leave off the Heroes of the Forgotten Realms.

However, as I have not seen the inside of the books, what say ye?

Is there any lore that is covered more in depth in the Heroes (players side) book that is not covered in the Adventures (DMs side) book?

I think that you would be fine with just the Adventures book. There's some solid "how (this place) looks to your chatacter" stuff in the Heroes book, plus Gods (useful for DMing a cleric player) and Factions (which includes a lot of the political landscape), but how useful that is depends on your playstyle (and your extant knowledge).