Value for money in 5e - thoughts after Fizban's

[Waazraath]

My main gripe is how little contents there is in the book, especially for players (3 subraces, 2 subclasses, 3 lousy feats, a handful of spells though I don't really need those anyway), also when I compare it to older edition books. This deserves a thread of its own but the short version: fine that they don't publish too many books and want to playtest more thoroughly, but at least make them books with a lot of letters, pages, and content by all means.

Quoting myself from the Fizban's thread. To make the point more elaborate, I compared Fizban's with 3.5's Draconomicon. Some stats:

- Draconomicon has 288 pages, Fizban's 224
- Number of letters per page: not gonna bother to c/p text from pdf's (if I could find those) to Word and do a word count, but eyeballing it I'd say "draconomicon has a helluvalot more"
- feats for players: Draconomicon 22 + a number of feats meant for dragons which could also be taken by players with the right prereqs, Fizban's 3 (three!!!)
- Prestige classes/subclasses: draconomicon 9 (+ additional cleric domains), fizban's 2.
- Spells: Draconomicon too many to count, dozens and dozens, Fizban's: 7

Etc. etc. I mean, Fizban's is on the one hand exactly the kind of book I've been waiting for, I asked also on this forum for more books a la draconomicon, fiendish codex I and II, libris mortis etc. And I respect the slower publishing pace. But why ALSO cut back on content per book? I don't think this is really recent, I skipped 4e but what I remember from the books was that already those had bigger letters, less text, less pages. But how hard can it be to publish 1 draconic subclass for each 5e class, to publish a few pages of feats for those interested in a draconic creature, have some alternative class features to replace existing options?

I mean, conceptually it's easy to begin with. It's just about creating options:
- similar to those dragons have (frightful presence, breath weapon, elemental damage, elemental resistances, claw/bite/tail damage etc.)
- effective for combating dragons (and other foes of course, like defenses to fear, breath weapons and elemental damage, extra damage to large and bigger creatures, advantage against flying opponents, skill bonusses applicable to draconic enemies, etc.)
- summoning/turing into/riding on dragons

And all of those are worked out in (at the very least) 3 different dragon themed books in 3.5 (and dunno how many others in other editions). Just go through them and pick the best. Hell, give me a few nights with the lads of my regular gaming group, and I'm pretty sure I 'd have a decent subclass for each 5e class, and give me 2 weeks on this (or any other decent) forum to discuss it with a dedicated community and I'd even have them balanced in a decent way.

Again, it's an ok book, I don't mind having bought it, but at the same time I can't really understand WotC doesn't offer better value for money, since they were quite capable of doing so in the past.

It aint that hard, so why o why?

[Joe the Rat]

In terms of options, slower is better. I would like more character options, but there doesn't need to be a metric ton. Also consider that you have both core and prestige adding in, much of which can be condensed out as archetypes or feats. I would have liked a few more archetypes (a Dracolexi-inspired Bard would have been interesting).

On the DM side, monster feats and build lineups are not necessary design requirements. Between that and simpler stat blocks, you recover a bit of space.

On WPP - yeah, never using 8-point font again is a solid design decision. But we also need to look at how much page space is eaten by art. There I think you have text-information loss - but what is gained?

[ad_hoc]

The 3.5 Draconomicon was released in 2003, almost 20 years ago, for a retail price of $40.

Fizban's has an msrp of $50. Only $10 more 20 years later. With the rise of online stores we also don't pay retail anymore. Fizban's is $30 on Amazon.com right now. $10 less than the Draconomicon was.

All of the 5e books (with maybe the exception of SCAG) cost much less than they should.

WotC must make up for this with volume.

[Waterdeep Merch]

As much as I'd like more material, I also recognize that it's not necessarily a good desire. Every single time character options get printed, people complain. Not a little, either- we all complain about it a lot. Not even the PHB was immune. And as much as I like the playtests, even those get tons of backlash.

They haven't mentioned numbers anywhere I've read, but I've heard the D&D team for 5e was kept small. Likely a response to fading sales in the latter years of 4e, around when Essentials hit; reduce your overhead so that any poor sales in the future don't effect your bottom line too badly. If a book doesn't sell great but barely anyone was getting paid for anyway, oh well.

Some time earlier this year they had that report where they mentioned greatly increasing the D&D team, I believe it was part of those press releases leading up to Witchlight/Dark Alliance. From a business perspective, this is probably from sales of D&D convincing the higher ups at Hasbro that there's money to be made in ramping up production again, and they're becoming confident in the brand once more. We can expect many more releases in the future, once all the new employees are up to speed.

...But is that necessarily a good thing? The ramping up is purely a business decision from Hasbro, not borne of any particular care for how the game is played and enjoyed. Sure, we might start seeing books that dedicate space to new subclasses and feats that everyone can use, but having it forced in there is likely to make it all feel a lot more soulless and cash-grabby, because it's precisely those things. They can end up with remarkable employees that can turn out amazing and flavorful material on anything, and I have no doubt that these are the people they would like to hire if they can find them. But this is still a secondary consideration, and that fact has me a bit worried about it.

This could be a second wind, or it could spell the end of 5e. And if the latter happens, the team working on D&D is likely to remain small for the foreseeable future to recoup the costs and keep it profitable. Time will tell which way it goes.

[Ortho]

Of the various prestige classes and feats and spells in the Draconomicon - how many of those were actually worth taking?

In 5e, everything published past Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide has been pretty darn good in terms of the quality of the content. I don't think you can say that about any other other edition.

And yeah, I'll echo everyone else and say that I'm pretty satisfied with the current rate of content. I prefer quality over quantity.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm totally happy with the pace of player-facing content. In fact, I'd wish they'd publish less content. Specifically spells and races. We need a moratorium on new spells for about...a decade. There are plenty and to spare, and that's where a large chunk of the power creep comes from. Plus, they all end up on the wizard list and wizards need to be nerfed, not buffed. And there are too many races as it is. I'd be fine with setting-specific ones (spells and races and feats and classes), with the understanding that they are really setting specific, preferably replacing PHB/VGtM/etc ones.

[Psyren]

I got it during the Black Friday sale so I got my money's worth :smallbiggrin:

The advice for RPing dragons is pretty useful.

[Waazraath]

Mhhh, some thoughts on your replies:

- the economic arguments make sense - it is almost 20 years later indeed, and D&D had a period of dissapointing sales;
- as for less races and spells, and preferably having setting specific ones replace regular ones: all in favor;
- As for quality, I rate the Draconomicon really high. Of course, I didn't use all spells and feats, 3.x was so bloated it would take 100's of years to play all options. But I used quite a lot of feats (as DM and as a player). The meta breath feats definitely saw a lot of use (also in builds on boards like these), but e.g. the ability to gain a frightful presence as a player character was nice in fear based builds, and the Initiate of the Dracononic Mysteries monk prestige class was a solid way to redeem the 3.x monk. The art was (over all) great, the maps of lairs and tips on how to run dragons were very solid. Then again, Fizban's has those two, so I'm mainly dissapointed in the player options I guess.
- I understand the slower release schedule, and am fine with that - I just would like to have a bit more contents per book (and no doubling content with the next '... of everything') - and concent that enables new concepts. A character whose main damage source is a breath weapon for example - 3.x had at least 2 classes whose main feature it was. 3.x had too much, but also had quite a lot of concepts which 5e fails to replicate.

[neonchameleon]

Quoting myself from the Fizban's thread. To make the point more elaborate, I compared Fizban's with 3.5's Draconomicon. Some stats:

- Draconomicon has 288 pages, Fizban's 224
- Number of letters per page: not gonna bother to c/p text from pdf's (if I could find those) to Word and do a word count, but eyeballing it I'd say "draconomicon has a helluvalot more"
- feats for players: Draconomicon 22 + a number of feats meant for dragons which could also be taken by players with the right prereqs, Fizban's 3 (three!!!)
- Prestige classes/subclasses: draconomicon 9 (+ additional cleric domains), fizban's 2.
- Spells: Draconomicon too many to count, dozens and dozens, Fizban's: 7

The disagreement I have here is that what you're listing is costs. A feat that no one ever considers using has active negative value. A feat that's an active trap also has negative value. And, for example, I expect the Drakewarden to see more play than all the prestige classes in the 3.5 Draconomicon combined.

Let's look at those feats

Clever Wrestling - a circumstance bonus to escape grapples from large monsters. Situational - pass
Close Quarters Fighting - get an AoO against grab attempts from people with improved grab. Incredibly situational. Pass
Cunning Sidestep - requires Clever Wrestling and gives a bonus against large or larger opponents bull rushing you. Pass
Deft Strike - requires sneak attack and 10 ranks in spot. Give up your action to make your next attack ignoring armour. Very situational
Dragon Cohort - Leadership was normally banned. This is better. And probably banned
Dragon Familiar. Does what it says on the tin. Should be redundant with Improved Familiar.
Dragon Hunter. Yay! +2 defensively vs some dragony stuff. Pass
Dragon Hunter Bravery. Requires Dragon Hunter. Aura bonuses vs Frightful Presence. Pass
Dragon Hunter Defense. Requires Dragon Hunter. Gain evasion vs breath weapons of dragons and a bonus vs dragon spells. Pass
Dragon Steed. Gain a CR 4 mount (this does not scale). Pass
Dragon Wild Shape - requires Wis 19, and no bigger than a medium dragon. (That's medium for a human not average for a dragon). Possibly
Dragonfoe. The complement to Dragon Hunter - +2s when attacking a dragon not defending against it. Pass
Dragonbane. Requires Dragonfoe and you get to make a single attack as a full round action vs dragons for +2d6 damage. Hard pass
Dragondoom: Requries Dragonbane and BAB +10. More damage on a crit vs dragons. Pass.
Dragoncrafter: Let's create a need for a new crafting feat. This makes the game worse
Dragonfriend: Bonus on diplomacy with dragons and ride checks for dragons. Only 1 point more on diplomacy than Skill Focus, which applies to everyone. Hard pass
Dragonsong. +2 on verbal or spoken perform checks and +2DC on saving throws. Possible for a bardic music stacker - but unwanted as a feat
Dragonthrall: Dragonfriend for evil dragons. Bonus to bluff not diplomacy, but penalty to save vs dragons. Hard pass for same reasons
Frightful Presence. Your attacks gain a fear effect. The first actual good feat I've seen
Overhead Thrust: Requires power attack and close quarters fighting (bleh) to gain an AoO vs attacks designed to batter you from overhead. Pass
Sense Weakness: Requires Combat Expertise and Weapon Focus. Ignore up to 5 points of DR with focus weapon. OK, so this one's pretty balanced


So that's a grand total of threee decent if situational feats there (Frightful Presence, Sense Weakness, and Dragonsong) and a couple of cute ones (the Draconic Wild Shape and Draconic Familliar). Out of 22. Most of the rest are traps that would barely be worth it if you were fighting dragons in literally half your fights.

Meanwhile there are three feats in Fizban's.
Chromatic dragons give you effectively a third level spell variant 1/day (elemental weapon; shorter duration but non-concentration) and a first level spell (resist elements) a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus. Not terrible
Metallic dragons give you cure wounds 1/day and add it to your spells and a variant shield a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus.
Gem dragons give you a floating stat boost and a first level spell variant (Hellish Rebuke) a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus.

Are these three top tier feats? No. But they do add meaningful options. The Gift of the Metallic Dragon opens up character options by allowing wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks to get the Cure Wounds spell from any subclass; this is simultaneously not OP and is character defining. The Gem Dragon is the one I expect to be the most common; it's a floating +1 to a stat feat with a nice rider effect. And I can't even call the chromatic dragon one bad. It's two decent situational abilities that are memorable and fit the concept.

The prestige class is similar - I mean both the prestige classes in Fizban's are going to see play, especially the ranger one. By contrast the Draconomicon prestige classes (which aren't one per class) are crawling with classes that only gain spellcasting every other level, and the monk one is like a normal monk but worse.


But why ALSO cut back on content per book?

Because they want some quality control?


But how hard can it be to publish 1 draconic subclass for each 5e class

As long as you have no quality control, pretty easy. If you actually care ... 3.5 didn't publish a prestige class for each PHB class, and there was just about no quality control there.


to publish a few pages of feats for those interested in a draconic creature,

If you don't care about quality control because you think people will buy anything, sure.


have some alternative class features to replace existing options?

If you're willing to burn your game for a bit of extra cash, sure. Forcing people to know all the interactions between all the books is not cool and not in line with 5e's philosophy.


I mean, conceptually it's easy to begin with. It's just about creating options:

Options that aren't playtested and are a complete mess. And even if they weren't they still weigh down the game.


It aint that hard, so why o why?

Because 5e has quality control and has made the deliberate decision that they don't want to bury people in poorly designed crap - or even well designed crap that buries the game under too many options so makes itself highly unapproachable for newbies. Which is why 5e is still going strong after more than seven years, making an absolute mint on its core rulebooks. 3.0 was replaced in three years and 3.5 in 5. 2e also collapsed under its own weight. 5e meanwhile has a very relaxed pace of producing new player side options.

[AdAstra]

It doesn't hurt that 5e characters aren't going to be taking nearly so many feats as those from 3.5, 0-5 or so feats at most. Usually having substantially more effect than one typical 3.5 feat. Something like feat chains would be incredibly clunky.

I kinda wish characters got more feats to play around and customize with as they leveled (though keeping that number small also definitely makes things easier), but in the absence of that I can see little reason for tons of new feats in every new book.

[Unoriginal]

$40 in 2003 is about $60 in today's money.

So the Fizban's is cheaper too.

[Waterdeep Merch]

$40 in 2003 is about $60 in today's money.

So the Fizban's is cheaper too.

Almost exactly correct, at $60.13 according to the calculators I checked.

I don't think the old Draconomicon was a bad deal at all, but I'm betting that premium had something to do with all of those extra options. They had to be written, (hopefully) playtested, and approved by someone. An increase in playable material in 5e might lead to an equivalent raise in book price as well. There's costs besides the physical printing that need to be accounted for.

[Easy e]

I think most time a splat book is added, it is a net bad thing for a game.... typically. The more you add, the more niche you have to get.

That said, I completely understand WHY a game continues to come out with and publish material.

[Waazraath]

*snip* on feats

I'm with you for a large part: your assessment of the feats is over all fair. Two 'buts' though. First is a bit nitpicky, that you undervalue a few of them: Dragon Wild Shape is not 'cute' but extremely powerful, cause 3.x had so many critters that there also were very powerful high CR medium dragons (at least one in MM3 iirc); dragon steed is nice for early mid levels, given that you could trade feats for others when you leveled; leadership was not commonly banned ime, but ymmv - if its not dragon cohort is just plain good; and the book implies that you can have campaign centered around dragons in which your judgements is a bit harsh.

The second 'but' is more important: there was an entire section of feats that you don't mention. The dragon feats, for which quite a number you didn't need to be a dragon. Especially the metabreath feats were both powerful and extremely useful for Dragon Shaman's (PHB2) and Dragonfire Adepts (Dragon Magic). Clinging, lingering, maximize, quicken breath: all obvious choices.

One last thing about feats in general: in 5e you had lots, at least 7, but some races and lots of classes gave bonus feats, so a feat was less of an investment. In 5e, you normally only get 5, 6 or 7 with respectively rogue and fighter, and maybe one extra for race, but they also compete with ability score increases! So 5e feats really need to be convincing for a player to take them, really adding something specific, enabling a concept, be very good. The tresshold for what a good feat is is higher in 5e imo.


*snip* on quality control

While I could follow you on the previous issue, here I beg to differ. Yeah, 3.x had loads of stuff, including overpowered stuff, and lots of trash. But it had so abundantly much that you still had much more good choices, and good possible concepts. 5e has much less, and arguments can be made for this, but specifically around 'quality control' I'm not that convinced. 5e still has trash. To stick with feats, I never saw (nor probably will see Weapon master, Squat Nimbleness, Linguist, Durable, Dwarf fortitude or Charger, to name a few. We also have subclasses like the Purple Dragon Knight, Alchemist and Path of the Storm Herald. While on the other hand we do have wish/simulacrum, and designers who rule that bonusses stack on each magic missle fired.

I'm not impressed with quality control. It's better than 3.x, but an important reason why there seems to be less trash and less overpowered stuff is that there is 'less stuff' in general.


So when I go back to comparing Fizban's with my Draconomicon, I grant you that there is many stuff in the Draco which I'll never use, even if I'd go back to 3.5 again. But there is plenty I won't use in Fizban's. And ignoring the DM stuff I did with the Draco (cause I might do that with Fizban's later as well, using new monsters and using the dragon lairs and stuff): as a player I used lots of feats in builds, seen plenty of feats at my tables, saw subclasses like Dragonslayer in countless builds on boards like these as a first level dip (for the gold standard gish it was perfect with +1 bab and casting at lvl 1), have a Initiate of the draconic mysteries build lying on top of my 'to play' list if I ever get back, etc. Again, ymmv but I think you underestimate how much it was used, and as of now I just don't see Fizban's doing that.

All in all, I'm more convinced with the notion that 40 dollar from 2003 is 60 dollar now, due to inflation, as a reason that more than this is simply not possible economically.

[Witty Username]

5e doesn't really do options heavy books in the same way 3.5 did.
5e really only has a couple of books in that direction, Xanathar's and Tasha's. Both of which are not big in comparison to a 3.5 book like say complete mage.