Review copy courtesy of Wizards of the Coast.
Pros
Lots of full colour art. It’s really really good.
Lair maps are included for each type of dragon. They’re quite impressively big, each one being big enough for a mini-adventure.
Very entertaining read on dragons, as well as many interesting details. Life spans, activities, hoard composition, how new dragons occur, and much more. It really is interesting and generally useful stuff. I had a blast reading it, reminding me of going through some of the old books one of my friends had.
Dragons are one of the iconic classic creatures. So as far as types of creatures to write a book about, this is a good choice.
124 (give or take a couple if I miscounted) new stat blocks of creatures and NPCs (most of which are humanoids) with those not mentioned in the first chapter being treated the same way as monsters in the Monster Manual
Could Go Either Way
There is a Forgotten Realms focus, but there is time spent for other settings as well.
New races that are fun...but they are also much better than previous ones. They are variation of dragonborn, and they are better than the old version found in the Player’s Handbook. Humans needs a lot of help now.
There aren’t that many insights from Fizban here. Some previous books had little notes from the character that was mentioned on the cover. If you didn’t like it, then great. You’ll like this one.
Cons
At 224 pages, it's a bit short. Again, I’d like more. 250-300 is a reasonable page count I think, and we’ve seen it before in this edition.
Feel like they missed a chance to do some cool undead creatures based on dragons here. I’d have liked more monsters and again split throughout the level range.
No PDF*
* Denotes nitpicking.
Introduction
It’s even in the name of the system, and technically in the ampersand too. Dragons hold a very important part in Dungeons & Dragons. They are very iconic challenges in medieval fantasy, and naturally that translates to tabletop role-playing games. We got dragons before in the Monster Manual, but only a page or less was really offered describing their majesty, and place in the world. Now we have an entire book to add more detail, more options, and more dragons themselves. What do I think of this book? It was an enjoyable read, but let’s jump into the specifics.
The Internals
First and foremost, this book is focused on monsters. Adventures until now have contained a bit of everything. There were a few new monsters for the adventure, quite a bit of effort on the setting, the adventure itself and sometimes a player option or two (spells, etc.). This book is kind of like that but there is no adventure. Instead we get about 124 new stat blocks and a lot of lore and description of the monsters. Some groups are described more than others (chapter 1 is the majority of the lore and it covers 9 types of creatures).
The Monsters
As would be expected from such a named book, there are dragons here. Every creature is some sort of dragon creature. One big addition is gem dragons, which are the neutral aligned dragons. Perhaps my favourite is the dragon hydra. A multi-headed dragon that regrows heads. I think the emphasis directly on dragons is also one of the weaknesses of this book. I’d have loved to see some more dragon minions, encounters for a dragon riding wizard, that sort of thing. Another missed opportunity is to do a whole bunch of dragon themed undead. My dragon zombie mini is begging for it. Oh fine, I’ll do it myself. We did get a few undead included, but I want even more!
The total number of creatures with stats in this book is 70, taking up 64 pages. It’s a fairly decent number, but I really wish there would’ve been more. The nice part is that there’s quite a few different mechanics, breath weapons, and creatures that are interesting for story reasons. Dragons naturally are a bit more interesting than humanoids as they have breath weapons, flying, and even lair actions. This continues here, though there are some standouts. Some of my motivation for wanting some more undead is that they can provide some very cool encounters for lower level parties. Dragons are often very high Challenge Rating creatures, and the same is true here. It does fall a bit short of being a Monster Manual. There is an attempt to give a bit of everything. Some fluff, some monsters, some maps. And as a result expect quite a few monsters, but it being decidedly less than a majority of the book.
I do wish more was given for the tactics of the creatures included. I don’t mean just attack actions. I mean a rough guideline of how they’d act. Of course, I don’t have to follow them. But an idea or two per monster could go a long way to help inspiring Dungeon Masters when making encounters. If they wanted, they could also go as far as making some encounter groups too. Some variants per dragon would also be nice to see. In particular, these variants would affect combat actions. This way, each dragon has more personality. Of course I can do this myself, but I think it’s useful for new people. But also, it’s good for inspiring me to come up with my own new variants.
New Races
There are 3 new races. One for each kind of dragon here. And these...are quite a bit stronger than the previous dragon born found in the core book. In fact, one is just like that one, but with an extra ability after level 5 to become immune to a particular type of damage. The other main difference is that they can choose one ability to increase by +2, and another to increase by +1...which is better than the feat version of human. So really, humans are not good at all anymore and don’t even provide versatility. We can probably give them an extra feat or something, or +1 to everything or something. But really, I hope something is done to give us a better option for humans.
The other big change here is that they all have a line for their breath weapon. Previously, depending on the type of dragon it could be a line or a cone. I’ll miss this part of it. It was a nice difference. Though, this is also pretty easy to house rule back to the same breath weapons as in the Player’s Handbook.
The Writing
First thing’s first. We’ve had a few different books now with a character's name in the title. In the past these characters would have a few lines of comments in these yellow sheets of papers drawn on the page. Did you like it? I hope not, because it’s not here. This is both a positive and a negative, as I know many people considered this unused space. I did like the personality it added though, especially given the title character. Perhaps it could’ve been done in the introduction to keep the personality, while not wasting too much space? Regardless, it’s something to be aware of.
In terms of content and layout, this book is more in line with Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkeinen’s Tome of Foes. There’s a bit of everything. A small amount of content for players, and a small amount of new monsters. These parts make it part Player’s Handbook, and part Monster Manual. There’s also a fairly big amount of new rules like hoard magic items, Dungeon Master advice, maps for dragon lairs, dragon life cycles, mythology, and the like. This all feels very similar to a Dungeon Master’s Guide, but focused on dragons. So all in all, it tries to have a bit for everyone, but really most largely focused on Dungeon Master.
The writing itself is easy to read, and really enjoyable. I really had a good time just reading it end to end. It flowed well and easily, and the subject matter was interesting. I’ve said before that I like it when some Dungeon Master facing books give options, or make it clear that what’s written isn’t necessarily the way it is 100% of the time. This is especially useful for new Dungeon Masters who have a tendency to try to run things exactly as the books say. Partially due to a lack of confidence, and partially not being familiar enough with the mechanics and math. So I appreciate such things. Dragon life cycle, hoards, relations, and even customizing dragons are mentioned here. Oh, and dragon names. All very handy, and very fun reading.
I think the writing really is the highlight and emphasis in this book. The core meat of this book is the writing about dragons themselves. Their living habits, lairs, and other aspects of their lives. Also, there is an effort to provide tools for coming up for dragon personalities, which differ based on the type of dragon. Think of the personality trait, bond, flaw stuff we’ve seen before. Though there’s a bit given for adventure hooks, and connections too. Also a bit of how they affect the environment around them. Those sorts of flavour and world building questions, and the options that need to be thought of when making an adventure revolving around dragons are what’s being presented here. There is a bit of everything for most people, but I think the writing and world building is the majority of the focus. And of course, it’s dragon focused.
The Art and Book Build Quality
The style of the books hasn’t changed. The binding is the same, the materials are the same. It fits wonderfully together. I will say though, the cover for this one is exquisite. The appearance of the dragons, the posing, I love it all. It’s my favourite cover in a very long time. And that includes the standard edition cover too, which is truly gorgeous.
Defects
Unfortunately, one of my book had some defects. It only appeared in the standard edition though. I’m inclined to think that’s not the cause. Two pages had tears in them, which resulted in them being stuck together. Also, one page had ink that was either misprinted, transferred from another page when closed, or soaked through the page. Whatever the cause, the result is ink discoloration. I could still luckily read the page, but it’s still disappointing to see. If you can, flip through the book before buying. In this current climate though, you may not have the option as you’ll only be able to buy online.
Price
It’s the same price as we’ve come to expect, and your local store may have a deal as well. Besides the MSRP of 49.95 USD. I can’t really say what it is at the time you read this. But of course, better prices are possible with sales as always.
What I felt was Missing
I really would’ve liked to see more minions. Groups of enemies that can be just tossed into a game, small tactic outlines, a few small maps, that sort of thing.
In a similar way, give us some encounters we can just plop in our game involving the dragons. Complete with tactics. In a similar way, more scenarios involving dragons in our campaigns that aren’t combat related. A polymorphed dragon runs a shop, specifically listening for activity about other dragons in town. Those sorts of things.
Also, I’d loved to see just more creatures in general. More dragon themed undead. Constructs shaped like dragons. That sort of thing.
I’m very happy we got maps for the lairs of these majestic beasts. But I’d also like to have some pre-made encounters for them, and even an additional lair per dragon. The additional lair is probably unfeasible. The encounters for the lairs I think would’ve been easier to do, and adding about a page or so per lair wouldn’t be that much to ask.
Summary
Dungeons & Dragons, now with more dragons. Like with previous books it tries to give a bit of everything. New creatures to fight, new races for players (in this case they are also redone races), new magic items, and advice for Dungeon Masters. A new type of dragon is first presented, filling out the neutral alignments. Of all of these elements, the focus is given to the Dungeon Master side of the screen. And a great deal of this is in the form of world building and helping Dungeon Masters fit dragons into their own world. Relations, the way they affect the world, and so on. All of this made for a very enjoyable read. It took me back to my days of reading a D&D book for the first time, and reading of the possible inhabitants I may encounter as a player. The down side of all this is that it’s quite light on things Dungeon Masters could directly. I’d like to have seen more combat encounters, combat groups, tactics, and even more monsters. These sorts of things can inspire new encounters easily through minor changes, but also make it easy for new and old Dungeon Masters alike to drop parts into their campaigns. Overall though, I really liked this one.
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