Planegea Review - Third Party 5E

[Sparky McDibben]

Atlas Games, those schmucks, dropped Planegea for Fifth Edition today. For those of you who missed the Kickstarter campaign, Planegea is all about high-fantasy prehistoric adventuring. Stonepunk, if you will.

Now, I've got the 'rona, and I'm already doing a review of Adventures in Rokugan here. So my plan is to alternate reviewing chapters between the two works until they're finished.

You might ask, what would drive someone to try doing two reviews, chapter-by-chapter, while sick? Well, there are two reasons:

1. I love you guys, in a totally Platonic, non-prison movie kind of way
2. If Planegea were any cooler, we'd have to measure it in degrees friggin' Kelvin.

So, this is my review of Planegea, released by Atlas Games. I purchased the PDF for $19.99 US through the Atlas Games online store. The book clocks in at 378 pages long, which comes to about 5 cents per page.

The book opens with a delightful preface by the author, covering the birth of the world, and an explicit Call to Adventure by the Star-Shaman (the author-insert we hear throughout the book, similar to Xanathar and Tasha). These are both great, well-written and evocative.

Chapter One covers a Welcome to Planegea. As one might expect, it's a very high-level overview of the premise. The base tenets are:

• Unfamiliar Everything - Nothing is what you'd expect
• A World of Bone & Fire - This is primal fantasy RP, and it covers all the bases you'd find in 5E
• The Clanfire is Sacred - Big honkin' fires are important and ritually significant (if you miss this point, don't worry; they mention it about a dozen more times)
• Every Place Has Its God - This is a world of divine spirits (genius loci, if I understand correctly), and they are hungry (they can also eat each other! GOD FIGHT!)
• The Black Taboos - No writing, money, wheels, or numbers after nine. Enforced by the Hounds of the Blind Heavens.

This is a good high-level preview. It gives you information and immediately engages you with more questions. For example, what the heck are the Hounds of the Blind Heaven? Can the Hounds see? Why is the Blind Heaven blind? Is it populated by a bunch of angels with really acute hearing? Like an army of angelic Daredevil clones? Man, that Matt Murdock is gonna be pissed.

The Black Taboos are the only thing I have a quibble with, because they seem like an unnecessarily heavy-handed way to keep the setting prehistoric. Personally, I don't know that I would enforce that, but that's just my table. They get some grace on this one, since it keeps players from leap-frogging the tech level forward.

The rest of the book is split between Player Content (clanfires, character creation, races, backgrounds, classes, equipment, and spells) and DM Content (Stone Age adventures, locations, factions / threats, treasures, and friends & foes).

Next time, we'll look at the primordial wilderness in the Clanfire chapter!

[Sparky McDibben]

So, before we dive into this section, I want to make a quick point. I'm not going to be going into everything in these chapters, just the stuff I find really interesting. The primary reason for that is that this book is packed with concepts, and most of them are quite unique. I'm sorry if I miss the thing you find really cool, but feel free to call it out in the thread!

Alright, here we go into Clanfires and Wilderness!

This chapter is basically a more thorough grounding into what makes this setting "primal fantasy." What expectations are changed, and how? How does that alter play?

The chapter opens (as do all the chapters) with a short piece of microfiction. I really like these - I still remember old-school White Wolf splatbooks, when they'd do a similar approach and how it made the world feel very alive. Anyway, after that, we have the three themes of Planegea:

• Kinetic Action
• Primordial Horror
• Mystic Awe

I like it when RPGs have the cojones to spell out what they're trying to achieve - makes it far easier to assess if they've succeeded or not! Now, just listed like that, those three themes probably seem kind of rote, or flat. There's a lot of effort made in the book to invest these themes with weight and significance, and to bring them to the fore. They get woven in and out of the book with clear intent.

Afterwards, we get a lookup table. On the left is the Standard 5E Trope / Item / Character, and on the right is the Planegea equivalent. What they're basically doing here is reinforcing the "if it exists in 5E, it can exist in Planegea" mantra. Most of the substitutions are commonsense (Castle => Cave System, for example), and a few are inspired (Airship => Tamed Flying Behemoth). There are a couple of duds (Tomb or Crypt => Catacombs).

Finally, we get a list of ways to invoke the five senses (amazing!), and ways to include all six ability scores.

After this we get to quick snippets of clan life. These folks are hunter-gatherers, and they're not simple - the book makes a point of showing how layered and complex these societies can be. In other words, don't worry about making the cavemen into people, you can just make people. There's a whole bit on migration patterns, how you survive winters, etc., and portals to Nod (the Dreaming). It also drops hints of things we'll see later. For example, one of the reasons people stay hunter-gatherers is because "farming rouses the ire of the roving forests."

Great. They have plant-stampedes here, y'all.

It also takes a brief moment to explain arcane and divine magic and where those forces come from, and how mortals who use those powers recklessly are treated by other mortals. For example, druids are called "god-leeches" because they steal divine power from gods and give it to the earth. That pisses off gods and attracts the Hounds of the Blind Heavens.

We also see how to work in group castings. So-called clan magic requires a fire, 9+ participants including a shaman (cleric), and increases the spell slots available to the shaman and the ritual participants. The participants dance, sing, drum, etc., but must be constantly moving for hours. Again, this is that "kinetic action" theme in motion, as well as a way of grounding a trope into the game. The cost is that afterwards, all participants take a level of exhaustion, and the shaman takes two. These can also be used to create a clan weapon (a magic weapon, bonus based on the tier of the shaman who created it). Only one clan weapon can exist at a time.

We get a short section on status, which is a good addition to track status among factions. This section includes a delightful bit on deed-names, like Lion-Tamer or Troll-Burier. That really fires my imagination; can you imagine a showdown with the PCs where they don't immediately merc the bad guy because the PCs aren't done bragging yet?

We're told you can tame and train animals, but not how (or what interesting choices arise from that).

There's a fair bit of clan rituals, include namings, feasts, funereal rites, etc, and then we hit the Wilderness section.

I really liked this section, and it has a lot of really good information. I was hoping for more about how to build your own clan, and how these various activities can drive interesting choices in play. As is, this is great information for players, but it left me hungry for more. I hope we'll see additional detail in the DM's section.

So, onto the Wilderness!

This is still the same chapter, but these are quite thematically different sections. It opens with a quick rundown of the core activities of Planegea adventurers (like "Read the World," and "Find Safety," implying that just finding a place to sleep is an adventure), and then transitions to explaining the weirdness of Planegea.

Planegea is a world on the move - everything here is dynamic and changeable. The text references whole clans being moved while they slept due to fault lines expanding (free narrative teleports? Sounds interesting!).

Throughout this section there are various references where the text gives suggestions for ability checks that could be useful in the Wilderness. To their credit, they really try to cast a wide net here, and I love the fact that they put this in the player's section. The players probably won't remember, but these ideas are so useful for DMs trying to run any kind of low-procedure exploration scenes.

Continuing their theme of dropping humdingers, Planegea lets us know that 1) There's a different star being the sun every day (determined by the stars jousting), and 2) new moons are occasionally hurled from a massive volcano into the sky. That escalated quickly*. We also find out that no one can measure distance (which would make mapping hard), and landmarks like to move (which would make mapping impossible), and that there are roving forests who will wipe out whole clans over this "fire" business.

The next section deals with Wilderness Survival, split into sections on Hunting, Gathering, and Travel. First, I want to call out the sidebar on pg 26, "Getting Lost." The sidebar gives an optional rule for getting lost (when fleeing a creature, you can zigzag and lose it automatically, but also get lost automatically). It also describes being lost as a sacred state, wherein the various powers of Planegea can reveal things to you. This encourages players to get lost in the world (in both senses of the phrase) and I AM HERE FOR IT. If I wind up running this bad boy, I'm going to have a d20 list of "Things That Happen While Lost." This is awesome and I love it.

The section on Travel breaks down what ability checks might be useful during travel - useful but not inspiring.

The Gathering section has some basic information on what you might be looking for, but it also describes inedible items. One of these is "Eat Nothing Made of Many. Do not eat a creature with more than nine eyes or nine appendages - including arms, feet, antlers," etc. I think that's some great flavor text, but the chart at the bottom of the page lists off consequences for eating inedible items, which means players have an interesting choice to make! "OK guys, we're out of food, and all we've got is this beholder corpse. We could eat it, but we're probably going to be sick. But we won't be starving. Any suggestions?"

Great stuff!

It's unfortunately undermined by the starting paragraph on pg 29 ("Hunger is a Constant") which says you ignore starvation unless special circumstances apply. Guys, you're killing me here. Oh, we're now in the Hunting section, by the way.

We also get a great section on different kinds of prey potentially giving some bonuses if you can bring them down (although examples would have been nice), and then how you can go about harvesting different components from prey you bag. The section suggests the DM can run a skill challenge for very difficult harvests. It would have been great to see some guidance on running skill challenges, since they aren't part of 5E core design.

My feelings here are a little mixed. On the one hand, all of this sounds freaking awesome. A volcano creating new moons? Stars jousting? Encouraging the players to get lost? Sign me up! On the other hand, a lot of this explicitly devalues exploration (how do you make a map if all the landmarks are moving around?). I'm hopeful this will get resolved in the DMs section.

I would have also liked to see stronger procedural support for running hunts, exploring areas, etc., but that's a white whale that everybody's been trying to harpoon since Outdoor Survival, so I'm going to extend some grace there.

Again, I like what they've got going on here, but I'm left wanting so much more than what's on the page. Hopefully that gets resolved in the DMs section.

Next up, we'll get started making some prehistoric characters!

*Edit - I do not apologize for this joke.

[Sparky McDibben]

Alright, honored elders, talking squirrels, and Chad, we are gathered here today to go over a brief but important chapter in Planegea: Making Prehistoric Characters.

The chapter again begins with some funny microfiction and then continues on with A Prehistoric Life. This section is full of prompts, questions, and random tables to help you create a character who fits into the primordial world. These cover everything from "Where and how were you born?" to "What are you afraid of?" They're far-ranging but not exhaustive. Each of them has the potential to give a character a great twist or turn, and is delightful in helping people round out a character they might like to play. I especially like the random tables, and my only real complaint here is that there aren't more of them.

In this chapter we also get 1d100 Trinkets and Planegea variant rules. The variant rules are really interesting!

First up are two variants that anyone can use. Anyone can take 10 minutes while the stars are out, tell the story of a constellation, and make a Performance check. If you pass, your listeners can get +1d4 to a check for one ability score sometime in the next 24 hours. You can only benefit from one of these at a time.

Anyone can also watch the stars for information. Since in Planegea, stars are inveterate gossips, watching the stars can yield interesting information. You can make an Arcana check for news, rumors, and secrets. It also calls out that the information received may not be truthful.

My only problem with these is that they don't list the DC, presumably to give DMs more flexibility. Either way, it's a creative way around the lack of a tavern in the setting, and very useful in how it can be deployed by anyone. You can also reskin this; perhaps instead of an Arcana check, you could use a Survival or Perception check to "listen to the wind" and see what's coming.

However, you also get an additional class feature variant for your specific class!

Martial characters get Weapon Shatter, which lets them destroy a magical weapon (and a permanent magical weapon, no temporary enchantments) for an automatic critical hit. This is situational; my only problem here is players forgetting this is possible.

Arcane casters also get Raw Magic, which lets them trade exhaustion to cast a spell they know or have prepared. If you cast a spell from levels 1 - 5, you gain one level of exhaustion per level of the spell cast. At spell level 6, you gain 5 levels of exhaustion and fall unconscious. At spell level 7, you gain 5 levels of exhaustion, fall unconscious and suffer 1 failed death save. Spell level 8 is identical to level 7, except it inflicts 2 failed death saves. You can also do this to cast a spell of level 9...but doing so kills you.

This is an amazing feature, and lets arcane casters really play up the obsessive, self-abnegating lunatics we see in fiction but rarely get to play in a game. It's one of those options that will kind of sit back in people's minds, too, if the DM keeps offering it as an option - "I know you really want to cast fire storm. Remember you can trade exhaustion for that."

Divine casters get Blood Magic, which lets you trade damage for a few effects. You roll Hit Dice equal to the level of the spell you want to cast and take that as damage (no resistances, immunities, etc.). As a result, gain one of the following:

• Gain advantage on your next spell attack or check
• Impose disadvantage on the next creature you target with a spell effect
• Your next spell is upcast by 1 level without using a higher level spell slot

These could all be very clutch for a divine caster, especially the upcasting. The only problem is that the cost comes from the resource pool most PCs are scared of playing with (hit points), which might dampen enthusiasm somewhat. Still, these are flavorful and fun options and they help to bring the setting to life.

[BeholderEyeDr]

Following this with interest. Planegea is something I loved when I first discovered it, but as I followed it I grew increasingly skeptical, disillusioned, and frustrated. My strong impression was that while the setting itself was striking and brilliant, anything close to mechanical was extremely amateurish---not helped by a playtesting process that was either opaque or nonexistent. At the end of the day, I couldn't bring myself to back or buy it. I'm interested to see if any of your review changes my mind!

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

The Black Taboos are the only thing I have a quibble with, because they seem like an unnecessarily heavy-handed way to keep the setting prehistoric. Personally, I don't know that I would enforce that, but that's just my table. They get some grace on this one, since it keeps players from leap-frogging the tech level forward.

I guess my main question thus far is how does book handle players breaking the taboos? Is it rocks fall, your character dies or more manageable, like a series of levels appropriate combat encounters that culminate in a fight with the blind heavens?

How does the book handle violation of the spirt of the taboo, but not the letter? Like I'm pretty sure a fractional reserve banking system isn't stone age, but you can accomplish without breaking any rules as long as you use negative numbers (so tracking debts instead of assests), sea shells, and cave paintings instead of writing

[Sparky McDibben]

I'm interested to see if any of your review changes my mind!

Thanks! Let me know if there's anything that you'd like me to focus on during the review, too.

I guess my main question thus far is how does book handle players breaking the taboos? Is it rocks fall, your character dies or more manageable, like a series of levels appropriate combat encounters that culminate in a fight with the blind heavens?

How does the book handle violation of the spirt of the taboo, but not the letter? Like I'm pretty sure a fractional reserve banking system isn't stone age, but you can accomplish without breaking any rules as long as you use negative numbers (so tracking debts instead of assests), sea shells, and cave paintings instead of writing

So, I haven't seen this addressed in the book. My guess? It doesn't. There are no stats for the Hounds, because that would imply you can kill the Hounds. I'll make sure to keep an eye out for it, but my guess is that how to handle breaking the Taboos is up to the DMs. As we'll see, some classes stretch those Taboos by simply existing (wizards, for example).

What I would do is probably implement a catastrophe die system. I'd probably start with a big die, like a d20. Everytime the PCs are doing something that messes with the Taboos, one of them would roll the die. Each time it comes up a 1, the die gets one step smaller (d20 => d12, for example). Rolling a 1 on a d4 means that the Hounds are released and the PCs have a sudden new problem to deal with.

Now, lets pick up with Kinships! They're races from the PHB, and how they fit into Planegea, plus four new races. The book explicitly tells us that no group turns away help, so all races are found in all places.

• Dwarves - The dwarves in Planegea have only recently been unearthed from the rock, and as such carry outcroppings of stone on their skin, giving them an almost elemental look.
• Elves - Elves are outcasts from Nod, the realm of Dreams and Nightmares, and are effectively incarnate dream-people. They're brilliant, intuitive, and blue. Yep, blue elves. Still look pretty cool.
• Halflings - Halflings in Planegea are flipping ninjas, called "quietkin" for their ability to stalk and kill bigger prey before ever being detected.
• Humans - Humans are regular humans, but they get a variant racial ability called Beast Tamer that gives them proficiency and expertise in Animal Handling.
• Dragonborn - Loud, boastful, kind of obnoxious. Good to see frat kids in Planegea.
• Godmarked - These are tieflings, and they come about because a god touched someone in Planegea. Remember that gods are tied to physical locations in Planegea, so just being in the wrong place at the wrong time can change your whole species.
• Gnomes - Gnomes are pretty much 5E gnomes, but the rock gnomes get a couple of variant options. They can add double proficiency to their Intelligence checks related to magic, for example, and some suggested reskins for their tinker toys.
• Half-Elves - Half-elves are functionally the same, but get an option replacement for Skill Versatility called Blood Dancer, that lets them switch between their elf, human, and half-elf forms.
• Orcs - These guys are mechanically half-orcs from the PHB, but in Planegea are just regular orcs. Say that three times fast.

There's not a lot to chew on here; most of these are pretty sensible ways to develop the PHB races for a setting like this. Next up are the four Planegean races!

• Dreas - Tree people! Your type is Plant, your age varies throughout the year (no mechanical impact, just cool RP), 30' move speed, darkvision, and you only need 1 hour of sunlight to survive (plus water). You gain a few druid spells (druidcraft, speak with plants, and charm person), as well as tree stride once per long rest.
• Half-Ooze - This one squicked me out, y'all. Ew. You're a person that's been hollowed out by an ooze and turned into this weird metamorphosed half-ooze. You get +2 / +1 abilities, a 30' move speed, and you have to eat every day or gain a level of exhaustion. You can also go all Mr. Fantastic on people and stretch your arms or slide through cracks. There are three subraces depending on the kind of ooze who spawned you, and each affects your resistances, etc.
• Saurians - Dinosaur people! You get +2 / +1 abilities, a 30' move speed, and some minor spells (sense whispers, bless and augury). There are four subraces, depending on the kind of dino you come from. These are Leatherwing (pteranodon, 45' fly speed and you can carry up to Medium creatures with no penalty), Hammertail (ankylosaurus, +1 AC and you have a tail that's a natural weapon), Sharpfang (all the other dinos, your claws are natural weapons, and when you dash, your move speed goes up by 10'), and Webfoot (you have darkvision, only need to breathe every 4 hours, have a 30' swim speed, and you can trumpet really loud).
• Starlings - Forget the birds, y'all, these are literal star-people that have fallen to earth. Naturally, most of them really want to get back up there. You have a 30' move speed, you constantly glow to a 5'-20' radius, you have proficiency and expertise in Performance, if you can see the stars at night, you can watch them for 8 hours and get a full long rest while remaining alert and conscious. You can also phase in and out of the material world, and blind people by glowing really brightly for a minute.

The Planegean races are interesting. I have a couple problems, one of which is that no actual ability score adjustments are listed for Starling (though they also list a suggested +2 to Charisma and +1 to Dexterity as a variant). My second problem is that the saurians and the dragonborn are a little too close, thematically speaking. I'd probably just use one or the other. However, the dreas and the starlings are instant favorites in my book - how often are you going to get to play a plant person outside of the Margreve? Or a fallen star? D@mn, that's dope as hell!

In general, everything here is thematic, relevant, and just neat. There are great random tables that are evocative of the setting and help you really plug your character into this friggin' weird world. Love that stuff!

The next chapter to review is going to be Classes, including four new subclasses. I may take a closer look at these, so stay tuned!

[Speely]

Ooooh I LOVE Raw Magic and Blood Magic a lot. Kinda wish Martials got something a little more like one of those in regard to cost. A magic weapon is a much rarer resource than HD or Exhaustion levels. Still, cool stuff.

Thanks for doing this! I had no idea this existed. Great write-up, as usual.

[Sparky McDibben]

Ooooh I LOVE Raw Magic and Blood Magic a lot. Kinda wish Martials got something a little more like one of those in regard to cost. A magic weapon is a much rarer resource than HD or Exhaustion levels. Still, cool stuff.

Thanks for doing this! I had no idea this existed. Great write-up, as usual.

I hear you about martials being left out. I actually wondered if a monk using Ki-Empowered Strikes could use that feature and wind up breaking their hand to inflict an auto-crit. That'd be pretty dope. Still, martials are a pretty diverse group, and I wonder if playtest feedback signaled that casters needed more options to survive in this setting.

Also, thanks!

Next up, we're into classes. Every class in the SRD has a place in Planegea, but it's got an interesting twist on it. I'm going to cover the regular class descriptions first, and then we'll get into the four new subclasses offered herein.

Each class gets a short half-page walkthrough of that class' place in Planegea. For some (like the Barbarian and the Fighter) that place is functionally the same as in core 5E. For others (especially the druid and wizard) that place is very different. No real mechanics are involved here; it's all worldbuilding and RP. Some classes are known by alternate names in Planegea, so for example, wizards are called spellskins.

The classes:

Monks are called ascetics in Planegea, and practice self-denial as an extreme form of self-discipline. They're typically honored as mystics, and the text points out that these vows aren't in force for life - some ascetics only practice self-denial as penance, or until they've completed some task.

I'm sure you all saw this coming, but Barbarians are doing just fine in Planegea, with no real adjustments made to fit them in.

Bards are called chanters, and are honored as judges, living libraries, and entertainers. Those who work the will of the shaman and don't screw with people's heads are honored; those who don't get kicked out or fed to a T-Rex. Bards also have a potentially larger faction they can belong to called the Worldsingers (details in the Factions & Threats chapter).

Druids are very different. They steal power from gods and give it to nature. Since most of the clans think nature is doing just fine, and they'd really like to keep that power for themselves, druids are generally hunted down immediately. Shamans (clerics) and druids do not get along. Man, tough break for the druid mains. You'll want to really think through any move to add a druid to your party.

Fighters are mostly unchanged and hella basic.

Paladins are called guardians in Planegea, and mostly act as protectors of their clan, wielding the clan's magic weapon (crafted by the shaman) and defeating their enemies. Some guardians, though, may swear oaths to nature itself (aligning themselves more with the druids) or run off on vision-quests for powerful magic. Good pulp-action concepts here.

Rangers are about halfway between druids and "normal folk" in Planegea. Their magic is also stolen from gods, but since it's lower-level, most gods look at this with more tolerance. Some gods send their cults after rangers to collect payment, or kill them as a nuisance.

Rogues are called scavengers in Planegea, and are less "daring swashbucklers" and more "furtive desperados." They're tied to the Rat King, a faction detailed later in the book, and must leave some portion of their loot as a tithe. Failing to do so usually results in murder attempts.

Clerics are called shamans, and they're probably one of the most important archetypes in the book. They're less about divine forgiveness and more about guiding a clan through brutal tribulations in a land that is trying to eat them. That responsibility, if taken seriously, yields some serious social cachet, and most shamans are co-equal with clan chiefs.

Sorcerers are an asset in any clan, since someone who's born with access to magic is a major force multiplier for a group of hunter-gatherers. They also get a variant class feature - the ability to cast material components as if they had an arcane focus, as long as they have a free hand. This doesn't replace Subtle Spell, but it does make it harder to mess with sorcerers by stealing their stuff.

Wizards are called spellskins, because they tattoo the shorthand version of their spells on themselves, using what the book assures is Very Definitely Not Writing. "Rather, they are a symbolic set of shapes..." Hmmm...you mean, shapes that stand in for meaning and sound? What strange magic is this? However, because writing is Taboo, wizards are constantly risking the Hounds of the Blind Heaven coming after them, and so many clans keep them at arm's length. "Planegea is littered with empty caves and canyons with unfinished paintings where a spellskin crossed the line and brought the Hounds upon themselves."

Warlocks are people who got roped into being an intermediary between something that wasn't a god and the clan. This puts them outside the "normal people" range, and they're frequently treated as not quite trustworthy.

Alright, so those are the classes. For the most part, they're the right amount of weird to inspire a D&D character, so I'm good with 'em. However, there are also four new subclasses in the book. They are:

• The Way of Self-Abnegation Monk
• The Path of the Farstriker Barbarian
• The Dream Sorcerer
• The Dark Forest Warlock

Spoiler: Way of Self-Abnegation Monk

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The Way of Self-Abnegation is a much more melee-focused monk, perhaps just as much as the Way of the Open Hand. It's designed around reducing damage and hitting back. It's 3rd level features let you have a version of Deflect Missiles that works in melee, letting you spend a reaction to reduce the damage from a melee weapon attack. If the damage drops to zero, you can spend a ki point and hit back.

At higher levels, you can gain B/P/S resistance whenever you use the Dodge action, intercept attacks meant for others, and their 17th level feature lets you take the Dodge action whenever you use your bonus action to make an unarmed strike.

This monk seems like it would be a strong contender for a solid melee combatant and a limited tank. There's nothing that jumps out at me as poor design, no resources to track except ki, and the whole thing seems simple. This is a pretty well-designed subclass, for my money.

Spoiler: Path of the Farstriker Barbarian

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Path of the Farstriker Barbarian is a ranged barbarian. They specialize in the yeet. At third level, any melee weapon you hold gets treated as if it has the Thrown property (range 20 / 60). Bonus Rage damage and Brutal Critical apply to thrown weapon attacks as well. Also at 3rd level, you can hurl creatures up to 30 feet. These can be allies or enemies, though unwilling creatures get a saving throw. Moreover, if you chuck a friend, they can use their reaction to make an attack right after they land.

At 6th level, after making a thrown weapon attack, you can Dash as a bonus action, and at 10th level, your thrown weapons return to your hand. Finally, at 14th level, you can push groups of people away from you with the force of your throw.

OK, this subclass is just hands down kicking the berserker in the pants. I know all barbarian subclasses do that to some extent, but damn. You can chuck your allies and give them an extra attack? Throw any melee weapon? Oh man, I'm dying to play one of these.

Spoiler: The Dream Sorcerer

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The Dream Sorcerer is well-timed, since I just finished Sandman, and it looks very interesting. The spell list includes buff and control spells, with the only real damage-dealer being dissonant whispers. Other standouts include polymorph, modify memory, heroism, hypnotic pattern, and oh yeah... dream.

At first level, you get a little 1d8 table of small benefits, and told you can see your friends' dreams. After every long rest, you can choose a number of creatures up to your Charisma modifier, and roll on the 1d8 table to give them some benefit. Later levels see you referring to this 1d8 table more often, with more options as to which benefit you give whom. You can also cast dream 1x/long rest for free at 6th level, and at 14th level you get a free 30' teleport at will.

The 18th level capstone is the ability to cast simulacrum without using a spell slot. The simulacrum is composed of the essence of your dreams (which I would interpret as voiding the material components), lasts for one hour, and can be any appearance you wish...

Oh no. Oh no. They gave sorcerers the ability to create an illusion waifu. Ugh.

Anyway, the simulacrum doesn't have spells higher than 5th level, and cannot simulacrum-ate itself.

All in all, this is fiddly design. The benefits from the dreams you give your companions are highly situational, easy to forget about, and random. I'm honestly not sure how the 30' teleport fits in with the "Master of Dreams"-vibe this thing is trying to put off. I'm not a big fan of this subclass.

Spoiler: The Dark Forest Warlock

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Finally, we have the Dark Forest warlock. I guess in a world where the trees can chase you down, having someone to talk to them is probably a good idea. The bonus spell list is entirely druid themed, with no real surprises or missed opportunities. The Warlock gets two 1st-level features: Moss Mark and Reclaim. Moss Mark lets you mark someone after you hit them with a spell. For the next minute (10 rounds), you can use a bonus action to cause moss to bloom (which causes 1d6 necrotic damage to both the marked creature and anyone in 10 feet of it on a failed Dex save). You can use this PBx/short or long rest.

Reclaim lets you magically plant and accelerate the growth of trees into the bodies of the people you kill, and then bind the tree to you. You can bind up to PB number of trees at any one time. You can speak telepathically with a bound tree, and see through it as though standing in its space from anywhere on the Material Plane, which makes trees invaluable as spies.

At 6th level, your AC can never be less than 16 and you have advantage on saves and checks against certain conditions. At 10th level, those who take damage from your Moss Mark are also ensnared by it, reducing their movement speed to 0 for a turn. And at 14th level, you can call up a forest to kick someone's @ss.

We also get some Eldritch Invocations. One of them turns you into a Plant and lets you photosynthesize. Another one gives thorn whip the Agonizing Blast treatment. Another one lets you use polymorph to turn people into plants as well as beasts, and the last one gives you a variant of hellish rebuke that restrains people.

This subclass is an interesting take on the material, although I'm not sure why we have barkskin on the spell list if we have a feature that replaces barkskin. I also love the Eldritch Invocations, especially Eldritch Lash (the one that upgrades thorn whip by letting you add your Charisma modifier to damage).

Overall, this chapter is well-written and evocative, and continues their promise that "Nothing is Familiar." Next time, we're going through Backgrounds!

[NRSASD]

I just got my copy of Planegea and I am thoroughly impressed. Following the review with interest, so please, lead on!

[BeholderEyeDr]

The races and subclasses were really where they lost me. I found the races okay at best, with the saurians a particular disappointment (and a prehistoric setting without a good dino race is a tragedy). They didn't capture the "playing a dinosaur" fantasy I wanted, and I found the inter-subrace balance wanting. But the subclasses for me were a huge letdown: they ranged from bad (sorcerer and warlock) to problematic (farstriker). The monk is probably the best of the bunch, but I'd argue it suffers from being both boring and too powerful (at-will ward blows is just a crazy amount of damage prevention in a class that really doesn't have much to do with its reaction). Given the lack of playtest and the lack of opportunity for constructive feedback, I shouldn't be surprised that the mechanical options didn't end up being better, but it's still disappointing, especially given how amazing the setting itself is.

[Sparky McDibben]

I just got my copy of Planegea and I am thoroughly impressed. Following the review with interest, so please, lead on!

Thanks!

The races and subclasses were really where they lost me. I found the races okay at best, with the saurians a particular disappointment (and a prehistoric setting without a good dino race is a tragedy). They didn't capture the "playing a dinosaur" fantasy I wanted, and I found the inter-subrace balance wanting. But the subclasses for me were a huge letdown: they ranged from bad (sorcerer and warlock) to problematic (farstriker). The monk is probably the best of the bunch, but I'd argue it suffers from being both boring and too powerful (at-will ward blows is just a crazy amount of damage prevention in a class that really doesn't have much to do with its reaction).

I'm sorry to hear that! Can I ask what was the "playing a dinosaur" fantasy you had? I personally liked all the subclasses except the sorcerer, but I can understand where a reasonable person might differ in opinion.

Alright folks, we're going to be covering the Backgrounds chapter for Planegea.

Now, I figured that they were going to do a few backgrounds, just enough to round out any niches left by the PHB. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to this chapter. Someone at Atlas Games is clearly keeping the coke pile stocked, because those mad lads put in 20 solid backgrounds that cover both political affiliations and key roles in the game.

The backgrounds that cover political affiliations are the ones labeled "Ape Clan," "Edgegatherer," or "Free Citizen." These are factions in the game world. Each of these backgrounds convey a sense of that faction (for example, the Ape Clan regularly travel the portals to the Land of Dreams, and so you get a contact among the elves of the Dreaming), as well as equipment lists that are very evocative of the setting (the Edgegatherer one has a belt pouch with a small pocket hidden in the bottom).

The other kind of backgrounds in Planegea can be roughly described as "jobs." It's not a perfect description, but these include things like "Apprentice," "Crafter," and "Captive." Now, these are the ones that draw inspiration from the PHB backgrounds, but even there the dev team puts in work to make the backgrounds new and fresh. For example, the background feature for "Captive" is that you overheard a secret from your captors. Now, that's essentially the Hermit's feature from the PHB, except instead of being a world-shaking discovery that mucks up your worldbuilding, it's a big flashing sign that says "INSERT ADVENTURE HOOK HERE. MUST BE THIS TALL TO RIDE." There are several that line up with PHB backgrounds, but that the developers have given a unique spin or twist on.

The only background that leaves me scratching my head is Caretaker. The background feature is (and I am not making this up) "Good With Children." It's...basically what it says on the tin. You get along well with kids. Now, I have a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old, and I'm torn between "This should be a superpower" and "This doesn't belong in this book." The background gives you proficiency with Medicine and Insight, along with cook's utensils and mender's tools. Again, I'm not sure what to think about this one - how many games is this going to come up in? Are there random groups of children roaming the woods like the Lost Boys? What the heck is going on here?

Well, that'll about do it for me tonight, y'all. I'll catch you on the flip side, where we'll talk Equipment!

[BeholderEyeDr]

Can I ask what was the "playing a dinosaur" fantasy you had?

It's a tough criticism to make precisely, because when evaluating homebrew, it's important to evaluate what was created on its own merits, rather than compare it to the version that I would have made, since we might have different design goals altogether. "I don't feel like this captures what I want playing a dino-PC to feel like" is a much more subjective statement than "the AC bonus of hammertails is much better than what sharpfangs and webfoots get" (acknowledging that this too is subjective). And maybe I am in the minority here, and the majority does think this does capture the fantasy of playing a dino-PC! It's pretty clear at this point that I'm not the target audience for these writers (at least when it comes to game design), so no harm done.

But since you asked: For me, I want to feel like I'm playing an heir to these mighty creatures that walked the earth in ages past. Even in a prehistoric setting, I would argue that's still the feel that needs to be achieved from the player's POV. I want to feel powerful, mighty, and primal. And from my perspective, I don't get that from planegea's saurians, which are mystics with fairly useless natural weapons and other minor features that will rarely matter in play (the exceptions being the previously-mentioned +1 AC of hammertails and leatherwings, which, while I find them problematic, at least offer some interesting gameplay that can be quite impactful and is very true to the fantasy of playing a pterosaur).

And again, this is a subjective thing: the planegea writers are allowed to define saurians how they want, and execute that vision how they want. But for me, both the intentions and execution are lacking (independently of each other), and that's a consistent occurrence throughout the book's mechanical content (at least all the content I've been able to see through previews, reviews, screenshots, etc.).

[Sparky McDibben]

But since you asked: For me, I want to feel like I'm playing an heir to these mighty creatures that walked the earth in ages past. Even in a prehistoric setting, I would argue that's still the feel that needs to be achieved from the player's POV. I want to feel powerful, mighty, and primal. And from my perspective, I don't get that from planegea's saurians, which are mystics with fairly useless natural weapons and other minor features that will rarely matter in play (the exceptions being the previously-mentioned +1 AC of hammertails and leatherwings, which, while I find them problematic, at least offer some interesting gameplay that can be quite impactful and is very true to the fantasy of playing a pterosaur).

Yeah, I think I get what you're saying, and that's a valid complaint, no doubt about it. I think that's a hard sell for a racial option, because racial options don't really translate to effective combat power. Most of that comes from your class options. However, there's definitely some design space there that they could have played with. I'd love something that lets you use your natural weapons more effectively - a Natural Weapon Fighter subclass, lets say. Although another option you could use for that feeling is a Gloomstalker Ranger / Swashbuckler Rogue multiclass - hit 'em from the shadows and make sure they stay down. Very velociraptor.

Alright folks, moving on, we have a DOUBLE FEATUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURE!!!!

The Equipment chapter is only four pages long, and the Spells chapter is only nine pages long, so I'm combining the two like TTRPG VOLTRON!

The Equipment section is one of my favorites in the player-facing material because it really helps sell me the "primal fantasy" angle. the first page covers how people think about their gear - including a list of names organized by source (so if your weapon was named for its description or its history, for example), and a reminder that things have stories in Planegea.

However, the best part of the chapter is the Barter table. See, since nobody's minting coins, the boys and girls over at Atlas Games had to get creative about how you could pay for things. So they've included a large table of what stuff is worth about 1 gp. Fun entries include:

• 25 dry sticks or fishhooks
• 5 meals
• 1 rare skin or set of bones
• 1/4 very rare skin or set of bones
• 1 "coin sized" portion of salt

Hilariously, this means you can pay for plate armor in food, but you'll have to feed the blacksmith for six years and ten months.

The next page goes over converting 5E armors and weapons to a Planegean feel (so chainmail becomes bonemail, for example). It also has some optional rules on making Planegean armor and weapons less effective if you want to, but the designers also tell you they left the combat effectiveness alone because everybody's fighting with crap weapons and crap armor, so it all evens out. Personally, I find this eminently reasonable.

The next page is our table of weapons and armor. These are all reskins from the PHB, with a couple of exceptions, including a d10 martial thrown weapon called a hammerstone (apparently "Big-Ass Rock" was considered unprofessional), a boomerang, and the bolas (a damaging net with a longer range). I applaud them for only doing a handful of weapons; all of these entries are distinct, cover the weapons that anyone actually uses in a game of 5E, and communicate the feel of the setting.

Next up, we have conversion tables between base 5E adventuring gear (magnifying glasses and spyglasses are common magic items now), and tables for converting 5E metals into Planegea crafting substances. We also see some discussion of what these crafting substances are, like "divine ivory" which are god-bones.

Finally, we get some new tools and a sidebar on crafting stuff (which can be boiled down to "the DM can call for a skill challenge"). I appreciate them noting that crafting can take time. Gear up scenes are now more than just a quick run to the magic shop; you've got to go hunt down a smilodon to get the right materials to craft that spear.

Overall, this is one of my favorite chapters. Quick, punchy, to the point, and yet still evocative of the setting. I can't wait to arm my players with antlerclaws and atlatls! I love it!

Next up, we have spells. There are 28 new spells added here, covering everything from cantrips to 9th-level spells. We also get some awesome worldbuilding elements here. For example, there's a table on the first page that tells you which school of magic which species created. So conjuration magic originated with genies, for example. That's awesome, because if my PCs want to go exploring for new magic, they'd need to go track down a genie (avoid getting taken prisoner), and then bargain for the knowledge of the spell. This is great!

The next page details changes to common spells (like heat metal) to let them be effective in Planegea. They also come up with a clever (if mildly gross) workaround for gp costs in spell components. You can sub out gp cost for "spilled with hp of blood" on a 1:1 basis. So if your spell requires a pearl worth 50 gp, for example, what you need is a pearl that's been covered in 50 hp worth of spilled blood. This can be from 50 1 hp creatures, one 50 hp creature, or any combination.

And after that, we get into the actual spells.

Here are my top 5, along with a brief listing of what the spell does, and why I think it's cool:

Bolt of Ush - 8th level conjuration spell that lets you teleport (as the teleport spell), but when you arrive, anyone you land on takes 10d8 lighting damage that can also start fires. This is great! What a fantastic way for a bad guy to make an entrance!

Deflect Magic - A 5th level abjuration spell, castable as a reaction if you succeed on your saving throw against a spell only targeting you. If the spell was 5th level or lower, it does not affect you, but does affect the person who cast it. If the spell is 6th level or higher, you have to make a spellcasting ability check (DC equal to 10 + the level of the spell) to affect it. Want to make your PCs really sit up and pay attention? Let them get hit by their own charm person. Or disintegrate.

Dreams of Kho - This one's weird, so stay with me. It's a 6th level ritual spell that summons a phantom forest. In that forest is a big celestial ape. The ape can get you anything you want, so long as it thinks it is being fairly paid. If you pay well, the ape might get you more stuff. If you're cheap, it will get mad and attack you and your companions for 8d10 radiant damage. I love this because it's such a great way for the PCs to start crap. Like, if they ask for a mammoth, I'm definitely giving them the mammoth from another Clan's most recent hunt.

Heart of Urhosh - A 6th level necromancy spell, castable as a reaction when you or a creature you can see drop to 0 hp. Instead, the target drops to 1 hp, and until the end of their next turn, nothing can drop them lower than 1 hp. In addition, effects that deal instant death do not work on the target for that time. This is a great "Screw you guys, I'm going out in style!" move to flex on your players

Mage Skis - A 2nd level ritual spell that conjures up magical skis. I have to admit, this spell makes me smile. It's so dumb, but it 100% belongs here and I can see players getting use out of it.

I really like most of the spells in this section; there aren't any that are absolute stinkers, and the ones that do something familiar do so in an unfamiliar way. That's hard to do (see my review of Adventures in Rokugan), and I appreciate the effort.

Man, it's getting to be evening here, and I have got a bellyful of warm soup, so we'll go ahead and stop here for the night. Next time, we'll start in on the DM tools with the "Stone Age Adventuring" chapter. Thanks!

[BeholderEyeDr]

Yeah, I think I get what you're saying, and that's a valid complaint, no doubt about it. I think that's a hard sell for a racial option, because racial options don't really translate to effective combat power. Most of that comes from your class options. However, there's definitely some design space there that they could have played with.

This is not really about the actual Planegea book anymore so it's the last thing I'll say about this specific topic, but: I disagree! "Feeling powerful" doesn't have to mean "combat effectiveness." I think we've seen several great example of races that are able to effectively deliver a particular fantasy, often while providing interesting gameplay, and often in fairly build-agnostic ways. The dhampir immediately comes to mind as a creepy, wall-climbing pseudo-vampire that feeds on the living for strength and sustenance. Do you build your whole character off of its bite weapon? No, but it definitely delivers on the fantasy while being useful and build-agnostic enough that probably every character is going to use it a few times each day. Maybe the sharpfang bite attack can make its victim bleed until the wound is staunched some number of times per day; maybe the hammertail's tail can be used to deliver a ground pound that knocks creatures prone; maybe the webfoot's trumpet can temporarily disorient nearby creatures with its volume. For other features that help deliver the fantasy (or at least my fantasy) of being a powerful, cunning, and dangerous dino-PC, maybe sharpfangs have extra speed their first turn of combat, or maybe hammertails are resistant to being pushed or knocked prone. I think there's a lot of room to play here, and I'm sad that it wasn't taken advantage of---this is one area where I think any kind of playtest or public development process would have helped. In any rate, this is not really relevant to the actual book that now exists in the world, so I'm going to shut up now and let you get back to your excellent review. =)

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

However, the best part of the chapter is the Barter table. See, since nobody's minting coins, the boys and girls over at Atlas Games had to get creative about how you could pay for things. So they've included a large table of what stuff is worth about 1 gp. Fun entries include:

• 25 dry sticks or fishhooks
• 5 meals
• 1 rare skin or set of bones
• 1/4 very rare skin or set of bones
• 1 "coin sized" portion of salt

How in the blind heaven's is 25 sticks a standardized unit of exchange in a society that doesn't have numbers larger than 9?

I could accept 27 sticks as that is just 3 sets of 9, giving the setting a base 9 number system would be kinda fun.

Officially I have to give the black taboos 0 out of 9 stars

[NRSASD]

You left out my favorite spell, tilt! Target 8 willing creatures and cause gravity to affect them at a 90 degree angle for 8 hours. My new favorite overland travel spell, with a hefty dose of terror and a slight risk of explosive, chunky-salsa death!

As the nittiest of picks, I must say I’m slightly miffed that the sidebar explains how any spell over 5th level may be invented by your character, and that all spells aren’t named after people, but then gives a bunch of 5th level+ spells that are named.

[Sparky McDibben]

How in the blind heaven's is 25 sticks a standardized unit of exchange in a society that doesn't have numbers larger than 9?

I could accept 27 sticks as that is just 3 sets of 9, giving the setting a base 9 number system would be kinda fun.

Officially I have to give the black taboos 0 out of 9 stars

Haha! That's a great catch. My guess is that 25 = "a bunch" or a bundle of sticks. Ditto the fishhooks. And I'm not super-happy about the Black Taboos, but I can understand why they are there.

You left out my favorite spell, tilt! Target 8 willing creatures and cause gravity to affect them at a 90 degree angle for 8 hours. My new favorite overland travel spell, with a hefty dose of terror and a slight risk of explosive, chunky-salsa death!

As the nittiest of picks, I must say I’m slightly miffed that the sidebar explains how any spell over 5th level may be invented by your character, and that all spells aren’t named after people, but then gives a bunch of 5th level+ spells that are named.

Tilt is amazing - set it up 200' from a wall, and you've got an easy 20d6 of falling damage. And I take your point, but those spells are named after gods. They're indicative of the setting; my understanding is that if you create heal, you should absolutely call that "Ka-Ren's Eminent Healing" or something.

Alright, friends, neighbors, and friendly neighbors, we're back today with Chapter 9: Stone Age Adventures. This is the first DM-facing chapter, and probably my favorite of the entire book.

However, we begin with a nitpick. The microfiction that prefaces this chapter opens with a child bugging his grandma if any of the stories she told him were true. He asks: "And the Hounds of the Blind Heaven - you never even explained what they were, you just said their name and moved on!"

This is getting close to having a stormtrooper say, "Gee, we all have really great aim until we have to put on our helmets." It's something we the audience are aware of, but calling it out tends to shatter the suspension of disbelief.

It's also kind of annoying.

But, moving on! The first section in this chapter is all about the themes of Planegea, and how to use them at the table. The themes, for those of you who didn't take notes, are kinetic action, primordial horror, and mystic awe. Kinetic action is mostly focused around combat, with a couple of decent ideas for folding this into the world. Mystic awe is probably the most useful in terms of advice for realizing it at the table. Sadly, primordial horror is mostly a discussion of safety tools. Well, two out of three ain't bad.

This section is immediately followed by Wilderness Tools. We get a decent discussion of how to realize the implications from chapter 1, as well as new uses for existing 5E skills.

After that, though, we get the Wilderness Dice Drop Generator. This leverages a random table (that you come up with), and a fistful of dice to generate an entire pointcrawl through a given wilderness. I've used this twice now, and it takes me about 30 minutes to build what is essentially a one-page dungeon that's actually a wilderness. The upper useful limit I've found for keeping everything on one page is about 13 dice, so if your hands are smaller than ol' Sparky's, just roll a second or third set! :) I really love DM tools (because they're never in the official content), so this is absolute gold to me. Also, because you're generating the random tables that build the wilderness, it's easier to keep a tight theme. Moreover, that random table is only a d10, so it can have between 3 - 10 entries on it and you're good to go.

Absolute A material, well done.

The next thing, though, is friggin' brilliant. Planegea takes the concept of the 5-room dungeon and applies it to overland travel to create a "Journey Dungeon." This is simple, elegant, and looks easy as hell. The tables are evocative but mechanically vague, so you could use these to create journeys for levels 1 - 20. Again, solid A material.

After that, we get into the Clan tools. So, remember way back in that first chapter when I was all like, "Man, I wish they gave you tools to generate your own Clan; I hope we see more in the DM's tools"? Well, Atlas Games is apparently run by psychics who could read my mind into the future! Or, y'know, they're just really good at their jobs.

It's probably the second one, but I can dream.

The Clan tools section gives you easy tools to generate your own Clan, including your own clan encampment, using a similar but simpler die drop system to the Wilderness Dice Drop. I've used these, and the tools given generate questions that lead to adventure almost effortlessly. We also get more information about the rhythms of clan life, and dousing raids! Dousing raids are when someone tries to douse your clanfire, and are basically a death threat against a whole clan.

We also get some good information around clan travel, including an excellent breakdown of preparations, planning, the actual travel itself, rest, etc. These are all written with an eye toward building adventures out of them, but I would have appreciated some discussion of how these create interesting choices for the players, and for the clan.

Finally in Clan tools, we get a discussion of how a PC can mechanically trap and tame wild animals. This is well done from an implementation standard, but again, the crucial question of "What interesting choices do the PCs need to make" is left relatively unanswered.

All 'round, I'd probably give the Clan tools a solid B. Plenty to run with, but the real next-level design is left elided.

After those two sections, we get Adventure Environments. Each one has a few random tables to help spice up a good tropey adventure location. For example, the first one is "Aberrant Vaults" which gives you some inputs on what the vault is doing there, what state it's in, why it Is Not For The Eyes of Men, etc. There are about a 2 page spread for each environment, and 7 environments. These are all really nice done, and combine both the Planegean flavor with evocative descriptors to bring home a concept for the DM. These don't help you map anything or suggest monsters to use; those are your job. But they do really help to solidify a concept, or to put a fresh twist on an old map.

Finally, the last section is called "At Your Table," and it's a bit of a hodgepodge. The first page deals with introducing Planegea (they have a few different suggestions), and the second one is full of villainous schemes to thwart, or suggested campaign hooks / frames for kicking off your next Planegean campaign. After that, we get a discussion of "What happens if you remove the Black Taboos?" Note there was no discussion of how you enforce the Black Taboos; they just skipped right to, "Look, we get this is heavy-handed and here's what changes if you remove it."

That's nice (it saves me time), but also does not speak highly to the designers' confidence in their world.

Finally, there's a one-page overview of the Giant Empires, which covers a lot of ground.

And that closes out the chapter! For me, one of the acid tests of a DM-facing section is, "How much of this can I steal and use elsewhere?" And honestly, Planegea delivers in spades here. Seriously, dump-trucks full of spades; it's like someone forgot to shuffle a canasta deck. I can use something from each section of this chapter (usually more than one something). This bad boy's going on the digital shelf right next to Adventures in Middle Earth.

That'll about do it for me, folks. Next time, we'll go over the next chapter (the Primal World - a gazetteer) and see what useful bits we can wring out.

Thanks again!

[NRSASD]

Tilt is amazing - set it up 200' from a wall, and you've got an easy 20d6 of falling damage. And I take your point, but those spells are named after gods. They're indicative of the setting; my understanding is that if you create heal, you should absolutely call that "Ka-Ren's Eminent Healing" or something.

The funny, weird thing that I love about Tilt is how hard it is to use offensively directly. It has a 10-minute casting time and affects only willing targets (no limit on weight!) but lasts for 8 hours. You want to climb a sheer mountain like strolling down the sidewalk? Tilt. You want to plunge screaming towards your destination, traveling at terminal velocity only to shift the gravitational pull at the last second to slow down? Tilt. Want to pair it with animal friendship and bombard settlements with foolishly trusting mammoths? Tilt.
The possibilities are vast, which is exactly how I like it!

Regarding the name thing, yeah, I was mostly being flippant, but it was still amusing right after that sidebar.

I’ll have to try out these DM tools! They seemed unnecessarily complex but since you liked them, now I’m curious.

I loved their thematic dungeon zones and the descriptions. Just enough material to get the brain working without tying any of it down. And I do appreciate the firm moral stance they take on slavery, although I’m not sure the designers follow through with that in the faction section.

Regarding the unseeing puppers, I too wish they were less overtly a plot device, but I get it. If you stat it the party will kill it… but isn’t that kinda the point?

[JackPhoenix]

How in the blind heaven's is 25 sticks a standardized unit of exchange in a society that doesn't have numbers larger than 9?

I could accept 27 sticks as that is just 3 sets of 9, giving the setting a base 9 number system would be kinda fun.

Officially I have to give the black taboos 0 out of 9 stars

What I find weird about the existence of the base 9 system is that people presumably still have 10 fingers.

[Sparky McDibben]

I’ll have to try out these DM tools! They seemed unnecessarily complex but since you liked them, now I’m curious.

They look more complicated than they actually are. Like I said, it took me about 30 minutes to create a 1 page dungeon from scratch. I really like using these just because I suffer from Blank Page Syndrome bad, but I think they'll still work for more narrativist DMs. You'd just want to keep the theme tight when you're creating your random table.

What I find weird about the existence of the base 9 system is that people presumably still have 10 fingers.

I mean, the saurian art depicts them as having between three and four fingers on a hand, so imagine how much fun those poor schmucks have with math.

Alright fam (I have no idea what a fam is, but the kids all say it, so it must be OK), we're moving on to Chapter 10: the Primal World! This is a gazetteer of the world of Planegea. Now, I'm going to do the thing my ex-wife says I never do, and be honest: I am bored to tears by gazetteers. Inevitably, they wind up being something to the effect of, "This stuff's here, I dunno, make something useful out of it."

That sad misfortune is also present here. Each region of the world gets a short, quarter-page treatment that covers what creatures, loot and lore are present, and then a few punchy paragraphs detailing what this place is. There are a few places where this treatment gets more interesting, such as the Venom Abyss, a huge dark jungle that surrounds Blood Mountain. There, we get separate treatments for the vertical regions of the Abyss (the Canopy, the Below, the Unfalls) which is pretty interesting - it's the first time I've seen designers consider verticality on a regional level before.

There are plenty of cool ideas here: A savannah that whispers at you till you go nuts. A prairie where only dire beasts can graze! Stonehenge but floating in mid-air!

But once the cool factor has worn off, it's like, "OK, how do I turn this into an adventure? What interesting choices arise from this location? How might it affect the course of play?" And the book has very few answers to those questions. If I adjust for my own dislike of gazetteers, I'd rate this as a decent B.

The next chapter is Factions and Threats. I think it was smart to separate the factions from the geography (it makes the factions easier to reference), but just be aware that most of these factions are strongly rooted in the places of Planegea.

There are 13 factions, ranging from morally neutral Great Clans (Ape, Bear, Lion) to the unambiguously good Worldsingers. There's a nice table on p 183 that lists out the major factions, their shared philosophy, and key NPCs. Each faction (including sub-factions) gets several pages devoted to helping you run the faction. What do they value? Why? What key characteristics unite members of a faction? How do they dress? What do they do all day? And so on.

In addition, we get thumbnail sketches of key NPCs, descriptions of important ceremonies, the faction's views on magic, and sample quests they might recruit the PCs to undertake. These are all pretty well done, and do a great job of giving you ways to oppose the players without starting a fight. One example would be the Free Citadel, which is apparently in love with a giant ball game called uxu. Easy enough to imagine the Free Citizens challenging the PCs to resolve some dispute over scarce resources with a simple ball game, which then puts the ball in the PCs court (so to speak) if they lose. Do they honor their agreement? What happens if they do not?

This part of the chapter I am an unambiguous fan of - rather than, "Here's some stuff, build an adventure," the book gives me something I don't have to do much work to flesh out. And the work that I do has manifold returns, making it pretty high-value prep.

Next up are threats. There are 13 of them, with another nice table on p 184 that lists out the threats, key NPCs, and creature types. So if you're looking for dragons, you use the Brood. If you're looking for aberrations, you could use the Craven of the Kraken Coast, or the Crawling Awful. Each threat gets several pages detailing what the threat is and what it wants. From there, the book doesn't really have a set formula. The Brood entry, for example, lists off several agents of each chromatic dragon, while the Craven of the Kraken Coast devotes page space to how aboleths try to capture kraken to serve their will. However, at the end of each threat, there's a d4 table per tier (so 16 total hooks) of potential adventures that threat may instigate.

There are a refreshing variety of threats, too, including threats that can double as patrons, threats that grow over time, threats that challenge the party from different pillars of the game, etc.

Finally, we actually get some discussion of the Hounds. That discussion is limited to reskinning other monsters, making them less of a monster and more of an effect, or just removing them entirely. Man, is it just me, or do they spend a lot of time telling you it's OK to ignore the Hounds? Do y'all need a hug or something? Either way, this was the lowest-possible fruit on the Hound-tree, and I am forced to conclude that they just really don't want you to enforce the Black Taboos very strictly. I'm OK with that - let your world grow over time.

My overall thoughts on Factions & Threats are that these are well done. Not super-inspiring, but they don't really need to be. There's enough inspiration here to keep you gaming for years without letting things get stale. There's also probably too much information on each faction / threat, but I'll take that over not having enough.

I'd probably call this out as a B+ or an A-, depending on the day, my mood, and whether or not I had recently done battle with rabid squirrels.

The next chapter is called "Treasures," and I expect it will be quite a fun read. We've got that one, and then the last chapter (Gods & Monsters) to do before we're done with the core book. I've also acquired a copy of the intro adventure, Lair of the Night Thing, so we'll go over that last.

Thanks, y'all!

[BeholderEyeDr]

Finally, we actually get some discussion of the Hounds. That discussion is limited to reskinning other monsters, making them less of a monster and more of an effect, or just removing them entirely. Man, is it just me, or do they spend a lot of time telling you it's OK to ignore the Hounds? Do y'all need a hug or something? Either way, this was the lowest-possible fruit on the Hound-tree, and I am forced to conclude that they just really don't want you to enforce the Black Taboos very strictly. I'm OK with that - let your world grow over time.

I think the treatment of the hounds ends up being really interesting, and I think there's a real argument that they end up doing more harm than good. They were originally introduced to just provide an in-setting reason for why the setting is, and stays prehistoric. Which is fundamentally about player buy-in: we're playing Planegea because we want to tell Planegea stories, not "and then I invented calculus" stories. But when you introduce them, they kind of end up being the BBEG by default, as well as creating all sorts of weird debates that the DM is forced to settle: "does this break a taboo, what even really is money, etc." When players see a wall, they're going to want to destroy that wall!

I wonder if it's an idea that worked better when Planegea was a brief homebrew setting doc, and has become less useful/more problematic when it moved to a fully detailed setting book. Maybe the answer should have just been presenting a blurb at the beginning explaining the sorts of stories Planegea is intended to allow or not allow, with the disclaimer that you can do whatever the heck you want at your table. That way they don't have to introduce this oppressive, omnipotent in-setting force and then spend the entire book backtracking. You could even have just presented the taboos as "assumptions of prehistoric adventures" and left them as narrative assumptions/guidance, rather than these in-setting laws with in-setting justifications/consequences (that are undercut at every turn).

On the other hand, I really liked the factions/threats presentations (based on previews, though it sounds like they didn't change much), and thought that format was a great tool for DMs to use for inspiration and adventure building.

Excited to hear your take on monsters when you get there, because from what I've seen, some of them are a doozy.

As always, thanks for your thoughtful and excellent review!

[Sparky McDibben]

As always, thanks for your thoughtful and excellent review!

Thanks, Doc!

Ladies and gentlemen, I realized that there has been a terrible crime committed in the writing of this book: There is no Clan Wolf. Unfortunately, I had to issue batchall to Atlas Games Studios to satisfy the honor of Kerensky. They've invited me to a picnic on this "Tukayyid" place. Sounds nice.

Anywho, now that my fandom has been satisfied, I can continue with my review. The next chapter in Planegea deals with Treasures, and (interestingly) opens with a section on scars.

See, one of the benefits of a) having no concept of property rights and b) no unit of liquid exchange is that people will occasionally just give you stuff. Whether that's to curry favor, to give thanks, or to just help out someone who looks like they'd be interested in a job is up to the DM. Scars and Names are how people know you matter. Your character can have several names, like "Troll-Master" or "Poison-Toothed." Some names can apply to the whole party: "Heart-Rippers," "Flood-Bringers," etc. Each Name you get gives you some threshold in ps (which is Planegea's gp equivalent) of stuff that you don't need to pay for anymore.

Scars have a similar function and have a whole set of random tables for creating them. Dope as hell!

Next up is a section on the value of harvested monster parts. Surprisingly, the resale value is very little, but the value of each individual part is actually quite high...to the right person. Bones and scales can be used by armorers, furs by artisans, eyes / ears / hearts by various spellcasters, and blood by shamans. This seems to be encouragement for the party to barter or trade amongst various contacts (thereby bringing them into conflict or alliance with the factions).

We also get about half a page on the origins of magic items in Planegea specifically (usually, "a god did it" but there's enough here to keep it interesting). After that, the book discusses how to convert certain items from base 5E to Planegea. Basically, books become chants, which you can learn from shamans, ancestors, or gods. Scrolls become talismans, which are basically fetishes with a spell bound inside. I like these - simple and effective!

And after all that, we get into the magic item descriptions. First up are the Masks. These are a new kind of wondrous item in Planegea, with 18 different kinds. All of them require attunement, have 5 max charges, and when you use the last charge, there is a 5% chance the mask is destroyed. The masks do all kinds of stuff; the Mask of the Bat gives you blindsight until the end of your next turn, while the Mask of the Dragon gives you a breath weapon (fire, 16d6 damage, Dex save DC 17 halves). And there's plenty of middle ground, too.

I really like these; it's another example of Planegea taking a Stone Age fantasy trope (the spirit mask of a shaman) and hard-coding it into the setting. I'd have preferred some of these to make clan magic more effective, or allow clan magic to make more than one magic weapon, etc., but luckily the designers gave us guidelines for creating our own masks!

Is this...is this what support for a game line feels like? God, it's been so long...

Next we get into the rest of the magic items.

My initial problem here is that there is not a list of the total magic items or a table letting me know which treasure table they can get included into for caches. Both would have been extremely useful.

However, we must carry on in the face of adversity! Some of the standouts here are two (two!) godd@mned mech suits. The Apparatus of the Hawk is a plane. No kidding, it's a full-on plane. Why is this not in core 5E, where it belongs, Crawford??? The Apparatus of the Mammoth is basically an AT-AT, as far as I can tell, with no blasters. Friggin' cool, man!

We also get what is, in my opinion, the most interesting cursed item in 5E right now: the Asp of Perfection. It's basically a gold armband. While you wear it, anything you roll that isn't a 1 is treated as a natural 20. What time is it? Auto-crit o'clock. However, if you get a 1 (on any d20 roll!), you immediately drop to 0 hp, fail two death saves, and have disadvantage on your next death save (which does not benefit from being treated as a natural 20). It's also cursed, so you need a divine caster to remove it. Give this to the gambling addict at your table, and have fun!

There's also some duds, like the Direstaff, which can double in size to create a quarterstaff with Reach! That sounds really cool, until you find out that attacks with it in its...erm, engorged? state have disadvantage. So... yeah. Probably not worth the d!ck jokes on that one.

Still, some of these are really cool, like the Embracing Net that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage as a bonus action when it has someone entangled in it. If someone cuts their way out of it, it weaves itself back together by the next dawn.

One theme that runs through this section is that the developers are really trying to make the current "bad" weapons in D&D viable. So there's the Lightning Branch (a club that deals an extra 1d6 lightning damage), the Krakenhunt Trident (it can duplicate itself), and the Aspecter's Flute (a magical blowgun that shoots batface venom (don't worry, we'll get to the batfaces)).

But you also get a few near-artifact level creations. Duru's Cudgel, for example, is a +3 greatclub that deals an extra 4d6 necrotic damage (from roots and seeds bursting through the skin of the people you hit with it). Furthermore, the people you hit with it start turning into trees using similar mechanics to the medusa's gaze (which sounds like an excellent way to burn through legendary resistances).

There's also the whip of Bosa, which is...well, "unique" is the nicest way I can put it. If you hit a creature, you can make a second attack against a target within 30 feet of it. If that one hits, you can make another attack against a creature within 30 feet of the second creature. And on, and on, and on it goes. You can't attack a creature more than once per turn, and if you miss, the streak stops. Maybe I'm being too negative, but if you send a player with this up against a trash mob, their turn is going to last half the session.

At any rate, that's all from me tonight, folks. I'm going to go watch everyone lose their d@mn minds over this new UA for D&Done.

Thanks, and we'll pick up next time with Gods & Monsters!

[animorte]

I just now happened upon this and the last ten minutes have been a thrill to read. I'll provide some feedback comments whenever I get the time to read through more of it. Much appreciated.

[NRSASD]

Ooooo very nice! I really like a lot of those magic items; that asp of perfection looks wicked cool!

Regarding yesterday’s post, a few thoughts.
1. Love the faction support, especially how it states up front what you can expect for each threat in terms of themes, treasures, and hostiles. I really appreciate how it differentiates each faction’s battle plans too.
2. They have freaking Deepthought from Hitchhiker’s guide as a villain! Freaking hilarious.
3. Definitely disappointed that the “most good” coded of the three Great Clans (Bear) practices slavery. I know it’s intended to be their “dark secret, everyone’s morally grey OoooOooOOoo!” but I think it’s pretty sloppy. The devs spent a page calling out slavery as morally reprehensible and unambiguously wrong, but then they turn around and stuff it in the Bear Clan to make them equivalent to the steal-everything Apes and the psycho-stoic Lions. If I were DMing I’d just excise it, but it seems ripe for less talented DMs to say “oh their slavery is fine cause reasons. It’s not like they’re giants!”

[Spriteless]

Thank you for reviewing something you like here. Your energy is infectious, and I didn't realize how much I needed cheering up.

[Sparky McDibben]

Ooooo very nice! I really like a lot of those magic items; that asp of perfection looks wicked cool!

Regarding yesterday’s post, a few thoughts.
1. Love the faction support, especially how it states up front what you can expect for each threat in terms of themes, treasures, and hostiles. I really appreciate how it differentiates each faction’s battle plans too.
2. They have freaking Deepthought from Hitchhiker’s guide as a villain! Freaking hilarious.
3. Definitely disappointed that the “most good” coded of the three Great Clans (Bear) practices slavery. I know it’s intended to be their “dark secret, everyone’s morally grey OoooOooOOoo!” but I think it’s pretty sloppy. The devs spent a page calling out slavery as morally reprehensible and unambiguously wrong, but then they turn around and stuff it in the Bear Clan to make them equivalent to the steal-everything Apes and the psycho-stoic Lions. If I were DMing I’d just excise it, but it seems ripe for less talented DMs to say “oh their slavery is fine cause reasons. It’s not like they’re giants!”

Yeah, I'd just get rid of slavery in the Brother Clans. Moral ambiguity is overrated sometimes. Sometimes you just need someone the PCs can look at and go, "Aha! A faction that won't screw us over and that we can unreservedly work with!"

I just now happened upon this and the last ten minutes have been a thrill to read. I'll provide some feedback comments whenever I get the time to read through more of it. Much appreciated.

Thank you for reviewing something you like here. Your energy is infectious, and I didn't realize how much I needed cheering up.

Thanks, y'all! I wasn't sure how many people were actually reading this, but it's a nice way to synthesize my thoughts. I appreciate the feedback!

Alright, so now we get into Gods & Monsters. This is actually the longest chapter of the book, and it is packed with stuff. So let's DIG INTO IT!!!!!!

Sorry, I may have had a coffee recently, and that makes ol' Sparky just a TOUCH ENERGIZED!!!!! I'm coming in hot tonight!

Anyhow, the chapter opens with a quick set of monster templates. You remember templates from 3.5e? Well the dev team is bringing it back, like vinyl records and ironic facial hair! The basic idea is that each template grants any monster set of thematic characteristics. So for instance, the Armored template gives the monster a +2 to AC along with disadvantage to all Dex checks (including Initiative).

There are like 19 of these and quite a few of them are nuts. You can give a creature multiple heads, a sail (like Spinosaurus Aegypticus; it gives the creature advantage to all attack rolls and ability checks as long as it is in direct sunlight), a slime coating, the list just keeps going. So you could create a multi-headed purple worm, or a fungal basilisk, or an undead tarrasque. They give other samples in the book, too.

Honestly, this section is worth picking up the whole PDF for, in my opinion. The templates are relatively easy to hold in your head or jot down on a monster statblock, and open up all kinds of new and interesting options for creatures. Well done, you magnificent bas+ards. Well done!

After that, we get into some mildly fraught territory. The next section is all about gods. See, since in Planegea you can literally run into a god anywhere, the devs figured they did need to come up with a way to stat these things up. But how do you stat up a Platonic ideal? Well, the dev team took a Tony Montana-sized dose of cocaine, threw on some thrash metal and bellowed, "WHAT IF WE ALSO HELPED DM'S CREATE MEANINGFUL HIGH-LEVEL ENCOUNTERS THAT WERE DYNAMIC AND EVOLVED THROUGHOUT A COMBAT? OH SH!T, THE INTERN'S HEART JUST EXPLODED!"*

So, gods. Gods in Planegea work a little bit like mythic monsters in Theros, but waaaay extra. In its regular form, a god is a very powerful monster with some divine spells, regional and lair effects, and minions. When it hits 0 hp, it switches to a totally different statblock with the same CR but very different traits. So let's break this down using Glelh the Unblinking. Glelh is CR 23, with 300 hp, AC 21, magic resistance, three legendary resistances, and can do on average 74 points of damage with his basic attacks (+15 to hit), one of which also grapples. He's also got a rechargeable killing frenzy that lets him make six attacks in a round, and a spell list that includes gate, foresight, firestorm, divine word, and regenerate. He can also reset his cooldowns for any per-day use of magic spells twice per day. So if a spell is listed as 1x/day, he can cast it up to three times. Oh, and did I mention his beholder-like gaze attacks? He has six of them.

Now, if you're thinking, "Gee, that's pretty tough. What happens when he hits zero hp?" well, hold onto your britches. He instead drops to 1 hp, gains 150 temp hp, and switches to his Spiritual Form. His Spiritual Form also includes a 40' fly speed, blinds anyone in a 10' radius, causes 4d6 radiant damage to anyone who hits him in melee, and gains some fun new toys. He can make two melee attacks per round and one special attack. The melee attacks have the same +15 to hit but deal 32 fire or radiant damage each. His special attack is either a souped-up fireball (DC 21 to avoid, 12d6 radiant damage, blinded on a failed save) or an escalating series of special roars. The first one auto-triggers when he goes into Spiritual Form, and if you fail your DC 21 Wisdom save, you're incapacitated until the end of Glelh's next turn.

The last roar kills anything with less than 100 hp left, and deals 10d10 force damage to anyone who has more.

God. DAMN. Now that's a friggin' boss monster right there, y'all. Even better, the devs gave us full stat write-ups for all of the Planegea named gods (including their Spiritual Forms, lair and regional effects, and their most likely servitors) and a full procedure for how to create your own, especially for gods who are in the lower CR range.

Friggin' hell, how cool is that? A+ work there, Atlas Games team. That coke money was well-spent!

And that's all before we even get into the actual bestiary! We get 67 new statblocks in this product, covering a wide range of CRs. Of those 67, 21 are dinosaurs. My only real complaint with the dinos was that they used in-universe names for the creatures with their actual names in parentheses. This is great from an immersion standpoint, but if I'm trying to find velociraptors on the fly, I'm going to look for "velociraptors," not the "swiftclaw."

Now, let's break down the velociraptor statblock. They're CR 1, so your PCs can fight these things from the jump. They have 22 hp, AC 15, 40' move speed, three attacks per round (+7 to hit) dealing an average of 22 points of damage each turn. Moreover, they can dogpile. If a raptor hits you with both claw attacks, it basically jumps on you. This reduces your speed by 15 feet, but the raptor can only make bite attacks with advantage. Multiple raptors can dogpile on a single target; when the raptors speed reduction drops your speed to zero, you are knocked prone.

They also have pack tactics, a +8 Dex save, advantage on Perception and Stealth checks, and they can Disengage as a bonus action.

These things should stay very relevant into Tier 3, if you play them right. Even better, if you ignore the INT score of 4 and let them learn, you can probably justify giving the raptors Evasion as they learn to dodge fireballs. Or, have your bad guys train up some raptors to hunt the PCs, and boost the raptors' armor and damage by giving them barding and extra claw attachments (like they do in rooster-fighting).

Hell. YEAH. One of the things I look for in a monster is "What other ideas does this thing give me?" This book delivers so much in that regard.

Other dinos include the giganotosaurus, the ankylosaurus (it's not all carnivores), the elasmosaurus, and a ton more.

Outside of the dinos, we've got a bunch of primeval fauna, such as the dire sloth (which 100% makes me laugh), the giant armadillo, terror birds (upgunned axebeaks with the personalities of a pissed-off rottweiler on meth), and the simbakubwa (gluttonous super-lion).

And then there's the bugs. Now, look, I'm from Texas. Everything's big here. But when I see "dire locust" on the page, my first thought is FUC|<ING NO! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what the hell, Atlas Games devs? However, a lot of these are excellent monster hunts, and despite how squicked out I am, they definitely fill a niche.

Finally, there are a couple of intelligent new monsters. The first one, the Keledhros, are a civilization in the Venom Abyss. They're basically shapechangers who steal abilities from captives, then use their victims as slave labor to construct jungle ziggurats (because of course they're ziggurats - why not jungle torii? Jungle steles? Jungle gates?). These guys seem set up for "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" type horror. Very nice.

The other group are the triceraturs. Tricerataurs are basically anthropomorphized triceratops-people, and they're all crazy and trying honor a dead god to stop it being mad at them. I have two thoughts: one, the statblock is an upgraded minotaur. Second, the art definitely looks like it wants to know me better. Hard pass.

Finally, we get some new celestials called visitants. These guys can be summoned by any god as its servitors. They're all celestials, and really round out the ones from the base Monster Manual. Like there's one, the glimmer (CR 0), that can heal someone for 1 hp and then die. That's all it does, but I love it, because it constantly makes the area smell nice, and I think we can all agree that more D&D adventures need sentient smellgoods.

After those, we get some new NPCs, including an ancestor spirit, a hunter (both are 1/4 CR), a sorcerer (CR 3, with metamagic options in the statblock - yes!), a lead hunter (who can Hide as a reaction, which is awesome), a regular shaman (heavily reskinned priest from the MM), and the high shaman (which is more akin to the mage from the MM).

All of these statblocks, the monsters and the NPCs, are either amazing, or easier to run at the table than the base creatures. Pretty much everything in here is high-value, especially the monster templates and the gods. Just really great work here. I think the gods may be overtuned for some tables, but hot damn will they be a memorable fight!

After Gods & Monsters, we finish off the book with two appendices. One is a name generator, just two d100 tables with beginnings and endings. Nice and simple. Appendix B is the inspiration list, and it includes some stuff you'd expect, and some stuff you might not. For example, Roland Emmerich's 10,000 BC is on here, but so is the Flintstones. Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Super-Rapists Cave Bear is literally right above the Croods. Road to El Dorado is listed twice, but maybe they really like that film? There's also Mad Max: Fury Road, Moana, and Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Alright, next time we'll pick up with the intro adventure for Planegea: the Lair of the Night Thing!!!

Farewell, and watch out for the mammoths!

*That is 100% how this design process started; you cannot convince me otherwise.

[smrvl]

Hi, it’s David Somerville, author of Planegea—I just wanted to say thanks so much for taking the time for each installment of this thoughtful review! I’ve been reading each post as it comes out and super appreciate your enjoyment of the material and all your fair critiques! It’s just awesome to get to see someone digging into every chapter and sharing their excitement. So thanks! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on “Night Thing,” and appreciate what you’re doing here!

[BeholderEyeDr]

Now, let's break down the velociraptor statblock. They're CR 1, so your PCs can fight these things from the jump. They have 22 hp, AC 15, 40' move speed, three attacks per round (+7 to hit) dealing an average of 22 points of damage each turn. Moreover, they can dogpile. If a raptor hits you with both claw attacks, it basically jumps on you. This reduces your speed by 15 feet, but the raptor can only make bite attacks with advantage. Multiple raptors can dogpile on a single target; when the raptors speed reduction drops your speed to zero, you are knocked prone.

They also have pack tactics, a +8 Dex save, advantage on Perception and Stealth checks, and they can Disengage as a bonus action.

These things should stay very relevant into Tier 3, if you play them right. Even better, if you ignore the INT score of 4 and let them learn, you can probably justify giving the raptors Evasion as they learn to dodge fireballs. Or, have your bad guys train up some raptors to hunt the PCs, and boost the raptors' armor and damage by giving them barding and extra claw attachments (like they do in rooster-fighting).

I'm glad you mentioned swiftclaws specifically, because they're a TPK waiting to happen. With three attacks, +7 to hit, dealing 8 damage average per attack, even just one of these this could knock out multiple low-level PCs in a turn, especially if it gets the drop on the party (which is very likely with a +5 initiative and +9 stealth with permanent advantage). They have ways of locking down characters, and multiple ways of getting advantage on attacks. Put these things in a group, and everyone better be ready to roll new characters. Which isn't a problem by itself--tough monsters are fun!--except that they say these things are CR 1. If you actually use a CR calculator, they should be around CR 4, with an offensive CR of 7 and a defensive CR of 1. So some poor DM is going to see "CR 1" raptors, think "sweet, I can throw some raptors at my level 3 party, that should make for a fun medium-difficulty encounter!" and then watch in horror as the group is absolutely destroyed. Not to beat a dead horse, but any kind of preview or playtest process would have caught things like this. This kind of needless design error makes me completely skeptical of anything in this chapter, cool ideas or not.

[smrvl]

Also, hey BeholderEyeDr, great to see you on here!!

Thanks for this input! Since this is my first published 5E project, I really want to learn how to lead the team better for next time—and I agree, more feedback and playtesting always benefits game material.

[NRSASD]

Hey David! Thanks for building Planegea, it’s an excellent example of what a well done source book should look like. I definitely have some quibbles with it, but that’s all they are; quibbles. It’s the first book in a long time to get me really excited to build and run new things, the moons and stars in particular are just inspired! It also has some components I can just lift and run with right off the bat, which is a first for 5E.

Thank you for sharing your vision, and good hunting!