Next D&D Book Announced January 12th 2021 and Releasing March 16th 2021

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It occurred to me today that the place where the dragon-themed subclasses would really fit would be in a new Draconomicon.  and also I think we're probably about due for a new monster book anyway.

 

If it lacks DRAGONRAGE Barbarians, I'm flipping the table and dismissing the Draconomicon as Dunderdunce's Draconic Ditherings

 It wouldn't have subclasses because it would be a monster book like Volo's or Mordenkainenen's.

 The Draconomicons typically weren’t just monster books. It was a book that pertained to all manner of dragon themed content.  They had new dragon themed characters classes, new lore content for dragons in general, new spells, new magic items, new dragon and draconic creatures, sections on dragon religion, cults, and organizations, new PC  race or subrace options, more options to build unique dragon encounters, and a lot of fluff pertaining to how one could use dragons in various ways in a campaign. 

They could make a dragon book with only monster, but it wouldn’t really be a true Draconomicon then.

Quote from Third_Sundering >>

I would love more fey options in 5e. The fey with the highest CR are the Eladrin from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, with a CR of 10. We seriously need higher level options for fey monsters, like Archfey and other powerful faerie folk that can be used to fight against the party. 

 We need more options for several creature types. More Dragons, more Fey, more Celestials, More Oozes, more Plants, honestly more everything. 

What would be even better than big monster books would be a truly robust and useful set of tools for creating one's own monsters.    Rather than a Monster Manual, make a Monster Workshop, and build some of the classic D&D critters in said workshop with said rules as a guideline.

Everybody knows by now that Wizards doesn't even remotely follow its own bare-bones, over-basic monster creation rules for building monsters - they just play it loose and go with their guts because they have the game and system experience to do it that way.  But forcing themselves to put together a real, systematic approach for building monsters and then showing players how to use it would empower players so much more than simply another bag of prepackaged monster treats for people to use once, then get bored with.  It's one of the oldest saws out there - give a man a fish, he eats for a day.  Teach a man to make his own CR 8 Dire Barracuda, he can feast on his party for the rest of his life.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

What would be even better than big monster books would be a truly robust and useful set of tools for creating one's own monsters.    Rather than a Monster Manual, make a Monster Workshop, and build some of the classic D&D critters in said workshop with said rules as a guideline.

Everybody knows by now that Wizards doesn't even remotely follow its own bare-bones, over-basic monster creation rules for building monsters - they just play it loose and go with their guts because they have the game and system experience to do it that way.  But forcing themselves to put together a real, systematic approach for building monsters and then showing players how to use it would empower players so much more than simply another bag of prepackaged monster treats for people to use once, then get bored with.  It's one of the oldest saws out there - give a man a fish, he eats for a day.  Teach a man to make his own CR 8 Dire Barracuda, he can feast on his party for the rest of his life.

 If they're robust enough, they could be used to recalculate a few of the more egregiously miscast (CR-wise) monsters in the MM and other books, but in fairness it's hard to draft a guideline for monsters with some of the funkier abilities - intellect devourers, rust monsters etc. - and the same would be true for homebrew monsters with creative qualities. Sometimes gut trumps ratio. And the way a DM uses a monster and the context they surround it with can easily swing an effective CR by 2-3 in either direction anyway.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

What would be even better than big monster books would be a truly robust and useful set of tools for creating one's own monsters.    Rather than a Monster Manual, make a Monster Workshop, and build some of the classic D&D critters in said workshop with said rules as a guideline.

 Trying to rebuild standard critters under a critter generator will always discover that the point budgets don't add up. This is not to say that a critter generator wouldn't have uses (I've considered a random demon generator), and it's possible to build '+X CR' templates, which would be super useful for tweaking monsters, but having GMed systems that use a build system for enemies, it's a lot of work and you usually wind up wanting a bunch of pregens anyway.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

What would be even better than big monster books would be a truly robust and useful set of tools for creating one's own monsters.    Rather than a Monster Manual, make a Monster Workshop, and build some of the classic D&D critters in said workshop with said rules as a guideline.

Everybody knows by now that Wizards doesn't even remotely follow its own bare-bones, over-basic monster creation rules for building monsters - they just play it loose and go with their guts because they have the game and system experience to do it that way.  But forcing themselves to put together a real, systematic approach for building monsters and then showing players how to use it would empower players so much more than simply another bag of prepackaged monster treats for people to use once, then get bored with.  It's one of the oldest saws out there - give a man a fish, he eats for a day.  Teach a man to make his own CR 8 Dire Barracuda, he can feast on his party for the rest of his life.

 My ideal scenario would be a book series of about 12 volumes for each monster type (a couple being combined like Beasts and Plants, and adding Oozes to either Monstrosities or Aberrations) that act similar to a Draconomicon (adding various different creature type themed content for both players and DMs) with the last chapter of each book being dedicated to creating your own monsters of that type and having various options and advice for doing so. 

A pipe dream really but yeah.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

What would be even better than big monster books would be a truly robust and useful set of tools for creating one's own monsters.    Rather than a Monster Manual, make a Monster Workshop, and build some of the classic D&D critters in said workshop with said rules as a guideline.

 Trying to rebuild standard critters under a critter generator will always discover that the point budgets don't add up. This is not to say that a critter generator wouldn't have uses (I've considered a random demon generator), and it's possible to build '+X CR' templates, which would be super useful for tweaking monsters, but having GMed systems that use a build system for enemies, it's a lot of work and you usually wind up wanting a bunch of pregens anyway.

 
Lists of pregens are always useful, but right now we're in the opposite end of things - we've got nothing but pregens and the weakest, loosest, sloppiest "Ehhhhhh...this is maybe about right" lame-ass generator system one could do.  The monster generation rules in the DMG are so weak as to be almost nonexistent, and trying to assign or even judge a CR is worse than useless.  Hell, the idea of Challenge Rating itself is badly flawed - it's only there because Wizards needed something to force-feed people who're so bad at judging encounters that they need a spreadsheet of potential rektness before they can figure something out.

There's always gonna be at least some degree of fudging things and accounting for a specific group at a specific table, but man.  The DMG generation rules are so weak that even as a fairly inexperienced DM I ignored them almost completely when creating critters.  Just used the tables to tweak HP formulas here and there and then just assigned whatever CR the table told me to.

Something more rigorous, and a means of at least estimating what certain, more common critter powers do to threat level would be nice.

A book about encounters and monsters that actually makes sense?

Okay maybe a bit too far, but perhaps making tiers for monsters so there's a version of low level such as skeletons as is and lycanthropes with resistance and not immunity to normal weapons maybe going to medium to high level to explain skeletons have resistance to most normal weapons except bludgeoning?

As far as monsters go, my biggest issue with 5e monsters is that they're super boring. I don't need the giant pile of effects 3e was prone to, but giving each monster one or two special tricks would add a lot of flavor.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

As far as monsters go, my biggest issue with 5e monsters is that they're super boring. I don't need the giant pile of effects 3e was prone to, but giving each monster one or two special tricks would add a lot of flavor.

 Agreed. In case you haven’t seen it, this might be useful to you as it is for many of us:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y_zl8WWaSyI

(I knew before I clicked on that link that it was going to be Colville's video on round-specific monster actions, Sposta)

More monster guidelines would be great, but I doubt WotC will ever give us anything like that. It would require them to say that they did something incorrectly, which they have done only a few times in the past 7ish years (Ranger, Beast Master, and a few more). 

I do think that a Draconomicon or Someone's Guide/Manual to/of Dragons is the most likely option for the Dragon Subclasses UA. It doesn't have to be exactly like Volo's or Mordenkainen's. Heck, Mordenkainen's was very different from Volo's, so there's already a precedent for the Monster books using different formats from each other. (Volo's had a ton of races and no subraces for existing races, while Mordenkainen's had one new race and quite a few new subraces for existing races.)

We don't need a ton of races for dragon-options, as we already have Dragonborn and Kobolds (Lizardfolk can work, too). Sure, we could get a few tweaks and additional options, like Gem Dragonborn and Exandria's Dragonborn subraces, but those are just minor options that won't really fulfill the "player options" that normally come along with a Monster book. If they put some Dragon subraces, that would fill the void of player options without having to create a bunch of new races or subraces that are dragon-themed. 

I’m going to take that as evidence that you expect me to give excellent advice, Third.

Quote from IamSposta >>

I’m going to take that as evidence that you expect me to give excellent advice, Third.

Yes. And also that you're a hardcore Colville fan. (Not judging, I like his stuff a lot, too.)

Guilty.

And Peter Lee, who apparently does dungeon tiles. It's unlikely, but maybe an adventure? A feywild adventure would be great.

An adventure this early in the year is extremely unlikely, unless it's an adventure compilation book (like Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Tales from the Yawning Portal). 

I think that the May release would be more likely to have an adventure compilation, though, as Ghosts of Saltmarsh was released in May and Tales from the Yawning Portal was released in April. However, they could easily break this "pattern" and have it released in March. 

(Rodney Thompson shares his name with my father. Definitely not the same dude, though.)

These are my theories. Please correct any mistakes.

By authors:

Book Type: Adventure, Campaign Setting

Subject: Fey, Athas

By what people seem to want:

Book Type: Campaign Setting, Monster book

Subject: Dragons, Athas, Krynn, Ravenloft

By Wizard's patterns:

Book Type: Adventure Compilation, Monsters(Overdue)

By UA:

Book Type: Monsters, campaign setting(By limited amount of new UA)

Subject: Dragons, Ravenloft

Tales from the Yawning Portal came out in April of 2017 and Ghosts of Saltmarsh came out in May of 2019 (two years apart, so if they do this again, the next adventure compilation is coming out this year). 

Volo's Guide to Monsters came out in November of 2016 and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes came out at the end of May in 2018 (two years apart).

We're overdue for another Monster book, which is one of the reasons why I think we'll get a Dragon themed monster book this year. Volo's Guide to Monsters even said that Dragons would be covered in a later monster book, so since Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes didn't cover them, I think this next book will at least focus mostly on draconic monsters and player options (especially with the Dragon Subclasses UA that just came out). 

Quote from Third_Sundering >>

Tales from the Yawning Portal came out in April of 2017 and Ghosts of Saltmarsh came out in May of 2019 (two years apart, so if they do this again, the next adventure compilation is coming out this year). 

Volo's Guide to Monsters came out in November of 2016 and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes came out at the end of May in 2018 (two years apart).

We're overdue for another Monster book, which is one of the reasons why I think we'll get a Dragon themed monster book this year. Volo's Guide to Monsters even said that Dragons would be covered in a later monster book, so since Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes didn't cover them, I think this next book will at least focus mostly on draconic monsters and player options (especially with the Dragon Subclasses UA that just came out). 

 Thank you.

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Quote from Damian_Magecraft >>

given the (still) pending lawsuit with Hickman &Weiss I wouldnt hold my breath for a DL book.
But, a Spelljammer may be likely (especially given the popularity of Starfinder)

 

The suit is not still pending.  It was dismissed without prejudice per plaintiff's request last month.

https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2020/12/dd-dragonlance-lawsuit-against-wotc-dismissed-is-krynn-in-the-cards.html

Following up on the press of the case Weiss on twitter confirms her parties dropped the suit and encourages DL fans to stay tuned for exciting announcement in a few weeks.  That could be the new book announcement or it could be something else but there should be some DL news shortly.

Again, not fanboying, I'm not excited about a DL treatment in 5e in stead of an established world that's actually "different" (Planescape, Jammer, Dark Sun) from traditional Tolkien DNA; but the likelihood is there.  

Some folks who don't follow litigation cling to the "without prejudice".  At this stage in litigation a dismissal with prejudice would basically be the Court saying "Never stink up my court with this issue again."  Without at this timing in a civil case's life cycle basically means something has happened between the parties that means they want this case to go away.  Can it be refiled?  Sure, but that would take time.

If it is Dragonlance, I'm sort of dreading these forums for the next few months based on how the possibility dominated this thread and the form that dominion took.

 I was unaware of the dismissal...
That is good news.