D&D 5E March's D&D Book To Be Announced On January 9th

A mysterious entry has appeared on Amazon! With a product title of "Dungeons & Dragons March Release Book (Title announced January 9th)" and a release date of March 17th, 2020, this $49.95 hardcover release will be revealed in under a week!

The description reads "Your first look at the next D&D title comes on January 9th! Keep an eye on wherever you get your D&D news for a preview of the book."

Could there be a clue in the dice being released on the same day? Laeral Silverhand's Explorer's Kit is described as "Dice and miscellany for the world's greatest roleplaying game" for $29.99. We'll find out on Thursday!

Who's Laeral Silverhand? She's a prolific creator of magic items from Waterdeep, and one of the most powerful wizards in the Forgotten Realms. She's one of the Seven Sisters, introduced in 1987's Forgotten Realms boxed set, although Laeral herself wasn't described in that product. Ed Greenwood'sThe Seven Sisters supplement fully detailed them in 1995. Laeral and Khlben 'Blackstaff' Arunsun led a group called the Moonstars. In 5th edition, she appears in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

 

[Parmandur]

For what you get with this product its insanely over priced. Paper map, 20 cheap cards, and a handful of okay plastic dice.

$40 Canadian. I have both the SCAG and the WD: DH so everything but the dice is redundant and you can get nicer dice for cheaper.

You are probably not the target audience.

 

[gyor]

You are probably not the target audience.

True, I'm not a sucker.

 

[TheSword]

I will be controversial and say a campaign setting full of plot hooks and descriptions of locations is not helpful at that point. The various wiki’s have more information on the realms and it’s inhabitants than any hardback can fit in.

I like to see campaigns set in a new locations that can reveal more about that location whilst giving me useful encounters, fleshed out NPCs and maps that I can use at the table. Whether that’s the sword coast or not.

I am surprised that there hasn’t been a magic supplement, spells, items and artifacts. Xanathars came close but that was a small part of the book. Almost every setting I can think of had a magic specific supplement come out relatively early on.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's not going to be a campaign setting book. At least not in the way people think of as campaign setting books.

What it might be is a series of short adventures, each of them located in a different location in the Realms, and each of them getting a couple pages of additional documentation about said location. The same way that Storm King's Thunder gave us "updates" of all the various towns and cities in The North (in addition to the large AP)... this one will probably do the same kind of thing, only for the nations in which the adventures appear.

So we'll probably get a Lantan adventure, plus a couple pages of info about Lantan (recent history, an NPC or two, maybe a Background connected to it.) Then we'll get a Cormyr adventure and the same thing. And maybe a Thay adventure plus stuff. Maybe one in the Dalelands, and The Shaar, and the Anauroch, and the Moonshae.

And of course a high-level adventure in Turmish. Because everybody needs to know what happened over the last 150 years in Turmish.

 

[dave2008]

Meh. When they just list it "miscellany"... I have a hard time thinking that anyone is really concerned about how long those extra things will be useful. They're cute, sure. Nice to have. But if you don't even tell me exactly what they are, they aren't a main selling point.

Yes, but with regard to the "evergreen" quote, those are the only thing that apply.

 

[Parmandur]

True, I'm not a sucker.

I was going for "DM with new players that have just played the Starter Set," but I'm sure there are some products WotC could put out of questionable value that you would be a "sucker" for (reprints of what is in various FR wikis with an "update" for example).

 

[dave2008]

True, I'm not a sucker.

What you are missing is that 5e is constantly bringing in new players. I would guess they are the target. Not suckers, just new.

 

[Umbran]

Yes, but with regard to the "evergreen" quote, those are the only thing that apply.

I am merely musing that it is a bit silly as concerns go.

 

[Parmandur]

What you are missing is that 5e is constantly bringing in new players. I would guess they are the target. Not suckers, just new.

If a newish group just finished the Starter Set and/or Essentials Set, or even Dragon Heist, then this might tie nicely into a Tier II tour of the Sword Coast...with a specific patron given, even.

 

[Parmandur]

I am merely musing that it is a bit silly as concerns go.

Well, Tito is responding directly to our half-cocked chatter, so the concerns are going to be a bit silly.