Dungeons & Dragons players don’t need to wait two weeks to find monsters and spells from Tyranny of Dragons.
Dungeons and Dragons‘ Fifth Edition is finally making its way to players, and by and large the response has been positive. The only real downside is that there’s still a wait for additional content; we’ve got another two weeks before the Player’s Handbook and first adventure launches, and then another month for the latest Monster Manual. Thankfully, Wizards has released a Horde of the Dragon Queen supplement for the unbeatable price of free, unveiling monsters, items, and spells in advance of the usual release dates.
The supplement is broken down into three sections featuring content from upcoming books. The first contains magical items from the Dungeons Master’s Guide like healing potions and the new Bag of Holding, each of which can easily be dropped into a game. Next up are are all the enemy NPCs referenced in Horde of the Dragon Queen, ranging from human assassins and bandits all the way to vampires, griffons, and (of course) dragons. The supplement closes with Horde of the Dragon Queen spells that weren’t included in the Basic Rules, which should prove useful to players and DMs alike.
Not only does is this supplement a convenient reference for anyone running Tyranny of Dragons, it gives us a taste of rules from future books. Legendary Monster mechanics are listed for dragons and vampires, giving them bonus resistances and the ability to use special actions at the end of another creatures turn. Additional legendary monsters will likely be detailed in the upcoming Monster Manual.
What’s most impressive to me however, is that when combined with the Basic Rules, there’s more enough to run a full adventure without spending a penny. For a highly anticipated relaunch, I doubt many will complain about that.
Source: Wizards of the Coast
