Picking spells is sometimes tricky. You have the default “adventuring” spells that are designed around combat and kicking ass with a couple utility spells just in case. And maybe the exploration spell choices or wandering around the city layout. However, you only have so many spells and want to be prepared for battle at any time. Which can prove disastrous on a boat or airship depending on the combat magic your character knows.
On March 16th, Wizards of the Coast released a collection of 17 adventures that run from levels 1 to 16. (If they had one fewer adventure, that would have been some lovely symmetry.) Each level between 1st to 16th receives one adventure, except for fourth, which receives two adventures.
Candlekeep Mysteries is an adventure anthology. Unlike past collections of modules, these are all new adventures rather than reprints from earlier editions of the game. Each adventure is a short one-shot that begins in the famous library of Candlekeep in the Forgotten Realms, made extra famous as the starting point of the classic 2nd Edition video game Baldur’s Gate.
Like most recent RPG hardcovers, there is a regular cover and a collector’s edition cover that is exclusive to game stores. This time, the deluxe variant isn’t a soft-touch cover but gilded and slightly embossed, resembling a classical mystery novel.
What It Is
Image Copyright WotC
Candlekeep Mysteries is a 224-page hardcover book collecting seventeen short adventures. Adventures range in length from as few as nine pages to as many as fourteen pages. Each adventure is relatively short, potentially only filling a single four-hour session, making this a book of one-shots; while you could play each adventure in order and turn this into a campaign, you would likely need to supplement it with additional adventures between each published tale. Each adventure shares its name with the title of a book, which acts as the hook or initiating event for the adventure. As mentioned, each of these books is assumed to be found in the library of Candlekeep.
At the start of the book there is also an 11-page description of the library of Candlekeep, the premier source of books in the Forgotten Realms. This includes the names of several NPCs who could be encountered inside along with a brief description of their duties (while also leaving their gender, ethnicity, and background open for the Dungeon Master to customize). At the end of the book is a single-sided poster map of Candlekeep.
The adventure also includes twenty-odd new monsters, including classics like the grippli (my preferred frog person) and the nereid. Monsters from sources other than the Monster Manual are reprinted. Many of these monsters are NPCs and there are a number of new variant monsters in the book, such as a lightning golem, which is basically a flesh golem that punches electricity. Stat blocks are included in each adventure where they’re encountered rather than being collected at the end in an appendix.
The Good
The book begins with a reminder to be a sensitive Dungeon Master. Likely a disclaimer we can expect at the start of all new adventures. It’s always a good idea to check with your players to find out what their comfort zone is and what kind of adventures they enjoy playing. Which extends to elements they find boring but also what they find hinders their fun (or even makes them uncomfortable).
Candlekeep features more prominently in this adventure than past compilation’s framing devices, such as the Yawning Portal tavern from 2017’s compilation. This is lovely, as I’ve been hard on past product’s framing devices for being relevant in name only. Here, each adventure starts with a book found in the library, and a few have added hooks for what the party could be doing in the library prior. While the vast majority of these adventures are only loosely tied to said book—being is little more than the adventure hook that could be replaced by a travelling bard or a location encountered on the road—at least three adventures are actually set in Candlekeep while a couple others are set nearby and assumed to start in the fortress-library. Thankfully for those not playing in the Forgotten Realms, Candlekeep isn’t mandatory: most adventures set with the keep’s walls are only loosely connected and could be moved to other locations with minimal effort. Only one (Kandlekeep Dekonstruction) is heavily focused on Candlekeep, and even that could work just as well in the city of Sharn or Greyhawk.
Image Copyright WotC
Speaking of which, the book even suggests other libraries that could replace Candlekeep, mentioning examples in Exandria, Eberron, and Greyhawk. (But curiously not Ravenloft, an odd omission given it’s the next hardcover book. I guess the libraries of Il Aluk or Port-a-Lucine don’t rate.)
The book features a recolouring of elves. There’s a very copper sun elf, a blue moon elf, and a wood with green hair. I like that they’re trying to give each elf subtype a more distinct look, while also making ashen drow less unusual as the only non-white elves. (Having the typically evil drow be “paler” than sun and moon elves feels like a good move.) Ten years ago this might have been seen as copying World of Warcraft with its red-pink Blood Elves and blue-purple Night Elves. But, eh. Elves that look completely human are overrated.
There’s quite a few interesting adventures in the book. And a surprising amount of demiplanes and pocket planes.
A Deep and Creeping Darkness was the first adventure that really jumped out at me. While the non-standard use of traditionally evil monsters in Mazfronth’s Mighty Digressions was engaging, I simply enjoyed the effective use of evil fey and creepy atmosphere of A Deep and Creeping Darkness. It caught my attention and made me start to take this book more seriously.
I’m also fond of the Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme, with its unique take on a book and a creepy omnipresent threat that can’t be defeated through stabbing. And kudos to this adventure for not only listing the objects that could be used to end the threat, but providing multiple options. While an adventure set in Candlekeep, this could easily be moved to almost any location, either other libraries or just a generic tower in a city. The fact it focuses on being quarantined and locked-up is extra amusing; I’m uncertain if this was intended or coincidental, but given the long lead time official D&D books have, I expect this was planned and/or written in 2019 or early 2020, before the lockdowns really hit North America.
Another adventure that makes creative use of the “books as adventure hooks” theme was Book of Cylinders, which stretches the definition of “book” in a neat way. This is one of the many not-mystery adventures, but at least the party is investigating the cause of a village ceasing trade.
Lore of Lurue had a neat take of pulling people into the narrative in a literal sense, which elevates an otherwise unremarkable adventure. It might be a nice choice to run for younger or new players, where you don’t want to penalize people too much for dying. And I just appreciate that the author of this adventure decided to make the shared theme of books more than just an adventure hook, and have the plot of the book itself be the adventure.
I prefer serious adventures. My players are perfectly able to be silly on their own, so I seldom feel the need to make anything purposely goofy. And I tend to gravitate to darker, horror tales anyway. But there’s just something joyful about the absurdity of Kandlekeep Dekonstruction, and its reproducing clockworks, mad gnomes, flying towers, and repeated use of farmyard terminology. And just the possible conclusion where, if you fail, the hapless antagonists escape into outer space until they run out of food and descend into cannibalism. The adventure knows it’s light, escapist fare and just embraces its own ridiculousness.
Image Copyright WotC
I enjoy the cursed book aspect of The Scrivener’sTale as a hook, along with the time limit it subtly places on the adventure. It’s unfortunate that the PCs might not be aware exactly how long they have, as a harder limit might really prompt them to action. But some uncertainty is a good thing. This adventure really makes use of locations in the Forgotten Realms; while trickier to move, I appreciate it being set in actual canonical places rather than just generic locales. The final adventure in the book, Xanthoria, is just a pretty bog standard dungeon delve. The initial investigation elements almost feel reluctantly tacked-on. And it’s almost the opposite of The Scrivener’sTale and Alkazaar’s Appendix as it doesn’t even try to locate itself in a specific location in the Realms. Just “a forest.” But after defeating the final monster, the adventure offers up a final unexpected twist regarding their enemy’s immortality. Honestly, this adventure will live or die based on the DM and the player’s ability to roleplay and interact at the table. With a good willing and able to break out their acting chops, this adventure will be deeply entertaining.
The Bad
Not all the adventures are really investigations. Many are closer to site-based adventures where you’re just meant to kill everything in sight, and the final encounter reveals some hidden truth. It’s an investigation by way of Scooby Doo, where you catch the monster and then find out what was behind the problems.
While I was impressed by some of the adventures, others fall prey to the traditional problems of investigation adventures. The Book of Inner Alchemy jumped out to me in this regard, with a couple instances of narrative leaps. You can investigate an assault and deduce they were killed by people hiding in the Cloak Wood. Despite none of the evidence or related bullet points leading to the Cloak Wood. And once the PCs reac said 2,500 square mile wood, they’re just meant to wander in and encounter the bandit-monks. The PCs aren’t investigating so much as stumbling in the direction of the plot, and being carried by the narrative to the next encounter.
A few investigations could have also used a little more DM guidance. For example, The Price of Beauty is a neat freeform investigation that you could drop in the path of any adventurers on the road and the players have to realize that something isn’t right. But the DM isn’t given much guidance, they just have to know the adventure and respond to the character’s actions. It’d be a little too easy for the adventurers to pop in, murder the nereid and medusa, then wander off while missing the real threat. (This adventure is actually rather interesting, and a moderately skilled DM could easily make it a memorable investigation. It just needed a dash more guidance.)
Image Copyright WotC
It’s useful at the table to have the stat blocks of monsters in the text rather than at an appendix at the end. But this comes at the expense of making it more difficult to find said monsters when not running that module. There’s no handy list of stat blocks or index of creatures. If you want a cloud giant ghost or lichen lich for a homebrew adventure, be prepared to flip. And because the new monsters are scattered throughout the book, it’s not apparent how many few creatures are actually featured until you count; when I finished the book I only recalled seeing four or five new foes and it wasn’t until I went back to count that the number of new stat blocks jumped out.
Apart from the map of Candlekeep and one in-world handout, all the maps are simple monochromatic line art. A few have the extra hand-drawn detail of Dyson Logos, while some seem like clipart assembled in a graphic design program like Illustrator or Corel Draw (or a free Open Office variant). These maps aren’t bad… but they also don’t look like art you’d find in an expensive product by the hobby’s market leader, instead resembling budget art produced by a small publisher. Ostensibly, these maps are easier for DMs to draw at the table, but you can choose to ignore added detail as a DM. And these simple maps are especially jarring in the Age of COVID when online play is the norm: these maps would look odd when compared to people’s bright and detailed tokens and character art.
Speaking of maps, only part of the Candlekeep poster is reprinted in the book, with half the keep not shown. I have literally no idea what the rest of Candlekeep looks like because there’s no way I’m removing my map from its perforated position at the back of my fancy collector’s edition.
Master sages of Candlekeep have fireball memorized, despite being unable to cast it inside the fortress-library, due to its wards against fire. And it’s not just one spell on their list, but one of the few spells fully written out in their stat block for ease of use.
New to this book, monsters stat blocks are now omitting alignment. Apparently this is the new default. I understand the reasoning for this with mortal humanoids, but fey creatures, undead, and constructs are different (to say nothing of fiends and angelic beings). As a DM it’s useful to know what the baseline alignment is at a glance, to know how to portray a creature. Especially when dealing with mooks and not named villains, as the former might only have the briefest of motivations.
I’d really prefer simply modifying alignment with an adverb, like “usually” or “often.” So a nereid is “commonly chaotic neutral” and the lichen lich is “typically neutral evil.” It just makes it easier as a DM, so you know if you need to explain why this is a good ____ opposed to explaining why this is an evil ____, or just skip the motivation altogether. When roleplaying fey literally created out of fear and spawned by the torture of living creatures, I’d prefer to quickly know if they’re disorganized and chaotic, organized and coordinated lawful beings, or self-centered neutral beings.
The Ugly
The Book of the Raven adventure is just a mess. It’s less an adventure and more a series of things duct taped together. There’s the adventure hook book, which details lore on the Vistani. How is this relevant to the adventure, you ask? It’s not. Because the adventure is about a treasure map found in the book. Which sounds cool: following the locations and deciphering clues and identifying the correct landmarks. But all that is a single two-paragraph mini-section where you’re told to flesh out the journey. Most of the adventure is spent describing the Chalet found at the end of the map, even though the secret society of wereravens residing there (who are devoted to keeping evil magic items from bad people) can tell adventurers there’s no treasure inside. Oh, and the map was placed in the book by the founder, because a secret society dedicated to hoarding evil treasure totally wants to direct treasure hunters to their hidden base of operations. Then, at the end, the adventures can cross over into the Shadowfell and encounter a mausoleum where the treasure surely must be hidden. And there they find… an uncommon magic item that makes people better at mounted combat. So… the real treasure was the lycanthrope you contracted along the way?
I could write a whole blog post on how Book of the Raven is a poorly written adventure and you shouldn’t design adventures like this.
I might be more forgiving if this was a first time contributor to D&D—this is something like fifteen contributors’ first D&D product—but this adventure was written by Chris Perkins, a long time D&D designer whose sole job is managing and working on adventures.
Image Copyright WotC
While I praised the elves being re-hued, it feels inconsistently done. In addition to the azure moon elf, there’s a blue wood elf in another adventure. It almost feels like it was a last minute change that they didn’t fully plan out before implementing. Or that elves are now like tieflings and can just be any colour.
Similarly, the book deliberately doesn’t list the gender of NPCs in stat blocks, with the intent that DMs can make them whatever they want. However, as almost all the NPCs use gendered pronouns they still have a gender, it’s just less obvious. All this does it draw less attention to the couple NPCs who use they/them pronouns, making it harder to spot this vital representation. It’s a little like omitting ethnicity and having all the NPCs have yellow skin—like Lego minifigures or Simpson characters—it doesn’t erase assumed ethnicity and just removes the ability of visible people of colour to identify characters like themselves. I’d prefer if they just mention pronouns with the NPC write-up. I.e. Neutral evil elf, he/him or Chaotic good human, they/them.
The magical gloves at the end of The Book of Inner Alchemy adventure strike me as possibly the most broken magic item I’ve ever seen. Even for a Legendary item. They make you Constitution 20 and add 2d10 force damage to each unarmed strike. That’s all good, but you can also regain hit points equal to the force damage an unlimited number of times per day or gain advantage if you’re maximum health. Holy crap that is good. Especially for a monk that might throw four fists a round, potentially gaining 6d10 extra damage and healing an average of 22 hit points each turn. And even more on a crit.
The Awesome
That alternative cover….oh man. I’m over the idea that every book needs an alternate cover; it was fun for a while, but now that it’s just become mandatory and expected, it feels less special and fun. But this cover is just lovely. The binding on this version also seems better. To get technical, the alternate cover is case bound (with several sewn folios glued to the spine) rather than the perfect binding of most 5th Edition D&D books.
-edit: I checked the Standard Edition at a couple FLGS here, and all were also featured sturdier case bound spines. I appears WotC has finally listened to feedback and improved the binding of their books.-
One of the adventures is set entirely in a Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion, and features a map of said mansion. This is super handy to have for anyone who uses said spell but doesn’t want to make their own floor plan.
Image Copyright WotC
I love the meenlock adventure. This is exactly the type of small investigative monster hunt I would personally write and like to run. I’ve never really paid attention to meenlocks before, but this adventure not only utilizes them to good effect, but sells them to be as a monster. If you’re looking for a quick Ravenloft one-shot in two or three months, you could do a heck of a lot worse than this tale.
Chris Perkins’ adventure includes a brief section of lore on the Vistani. This continues the “rehabilitation” of the Vistani, moving them away from the negative stereotypes that plagued Curse of Strahd and will likely be emphasised in van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. While largely superfluous to this adventure, I like how the Vistani were handled here and are presented as found throughout the Shadowfell in addition to just Ravenloft. It’s a nice bit of additive canon. And once could easily justify Vistani in Ravenloft being slightly different than free Vistani not trapped by the Dark Powers.
As mentioned, the grippli see their return to the game. I’m sad there’s no rules for them being a player race/ lineage, but nice to have a classic monster back. They were in the Monstrous Manual where I got my start with the game, so they’re my preferred non-evil frog race (and the grung feel like cheap knock-offs).
Fan favourite, chwingas return. This time, the tiny fey/elementals are in desert form.
There are thirteen modrons working in the library. The idea of free willed beings of pure law rummaging around through the library acting as pages amuses me greatly.
An exceptional guest at Candlekeep is the ogre, Little One, who has a headband of intellect and thus an Intelligence of 19 (and an alignment of chaotic good). I’m uncertain how I feel about the idea ogres only being evil because they’re, well, stupid. Especially because at Int 8 they’re within the range of human intelligence (Forrest Gump would be a 7 or 8). But I’m probably overthinking things and should just roll with the idea of a genius ogre.
Final Thoughts
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t particularly interested in this book. A bunch of short adventures by untested rookie authors attempting to do mysteries, which are among the hardest genre of adventures to write. But that limited edition cover… that was a thing of beauty that needed to be owned. Regardless, my expectations for the contents were not high.
Very early on I was quickly impressed by the imagination and tone of the adventures. And while not every adventure is a winner, there are some excellent adventures that I will seriously consider running in the future.
Image Copyright WotC
Final Thoughts
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t particularly interested in this book. A bunch of short adventures by untested rookie authors attempting to do mysteries, which are among the hardest genre of adventures to write. But that limited edition cover… that was a thing of beauty that needed to be owned. Regardless, my expectations for the contents were not high.
Very early on I was quickly impressed by the imagination and tone of the adventures. The extra effort that comes with being an untested rookie that doesn’t want to throw away their shot. In fact, many of the best adventures in this book were far superior to the efforts by the established authors with dozens of credits to their name. And while not every adventure is a winner, there are some excellent adventures that I will seriously consider running in the future. And even many of the weaker adventures can be easily run and turned into memorable game sessions by a competent Dungeon Master.
Furthermore, what makes an engaging adventure is very much based on what excites a particular DM. While I like the dark creepiness of A Deep and Creeping Darkness I know other DMs might enjoy the subverted expectations of Mazfronth’s Mighty Digressions or The Price of Beauty, the Indiana Jones style delving of Alkazaar’s Appendix, or the old school dungeon crawl of The Canopic Being. This might even be a decent book for rookie DMs who are experienced with the game but have never run before. The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces or Book of Cylinders would both be decent for someone’s first published adventure.
The usefulness of this product isn’t as immediately obvious as a full campaign spanning 1st level to 10th or 15th level. But it’s the kind of product that is useful to have, for those times when you have an impromptu game, want to test out a new mechanical option, just need a break from the regular campaign, or had the week from hell and just did not have time to prepare. And unlike past compilations, the adventures in this book are short enough to only fill a single session, rather than derailing the campaign for two or three nights.
Shameless Plugs
If you liked this article, you can support me and encourage future reviews. My disposable income, which is necessary to buy RPG products, is entirely dependent on my sales. Seriously. After returning to work after being unemployed for 4 months (in part due to Covid-19) I’ve found myself quarantined after a potential exposure and unable to work for another fortnight. My finances and ability to pay for books to review is dependant on sales.
I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website, including Who’s Doomed, a book of 5e stat blocks of darklords for the Ravenloft campaign setting, which is a huge passion product. And if it sells well, I’ll add additional darklords to the product. And it’s newly released companion Allies Against the Night, which takes classic Ravenloft heroes and makes them into sidekicks.
Additionally, the revision of my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding is on DriveThurRPG, available for purchase as a PDF or Print on Demand! (And now in colour!) The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, but all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded to almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.
Plus, I have T-shirts available for sale over on TeePublic! The art of which can also be put on cloth masks.
A surprising three years after the last D&D rules expansion, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Wizards of the Coast has finally released the next player-facing book for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. As the similar name implies, the contents are much the same, with new subclasses and spells along with several pages of… other.
Image Copyright WotC
Like past books with new player options, the content in this book was previewed in Unearthed Arcana over the past year, with classes revealed & reviewed, tested and tweaked. Some of the ideas made it in and some of the classes were rejected for one reason or another. This means the player content in this book has been reviewed and playtested, which is something that can’t be said for much of the player content in past versions of D&D (other roleplaying games).
What It Is
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is a relatively svelte book. Only 192-pages. The same length as Xanathar’s but two-thirds the size of the Player’s Handbook while being comparable in cover price. Unsurprising, it is a full colour hardover book, with an alternate cover that can be found in local game stores. (Or non-local game stores that have an online presence.)
(Like all modern D&D books, this is not saddle stitched, and the book may need to be gently broken in to ensure its longevity.)
The book has new and newish subclasses for every class in the game, including the artificer, which has been entirely reprinted. There are four artificer subclasses (one new), two subclasses for the barbarian, two for the bard (one reprinted), three clerical domains (one reprint), three druid circles (one reprinted), two fighter archetypes with some new manuevers and fighting styles, two monk subclasses, two paladin oaths (one reprinted), two ranger conclaves, two rogue subclasses, a couple sorcerer bloodlines, two warlock pacts, and two wizard specializations (one new). Phew.
Also in the book are group patrons (semi-reprinted from Eberron: Rising from the Last War); a handful of spells; 45-plus magical items, with many being potent artifacts; sidekick rules for the Dungeon Master, semi-reprinted from the Essentials Kit; supernatural terrain and hazards; and ending with 20 pages of puzzles.
The class section of the book also includes some alternate features, granting players the ability to swap out cantrips or slightly customize their class by swapping in an alternate feature. In a few places, these are designed as subtle balance tweaks to “correct” issues (such as the ranger) without entirely redesigning the class.
The Good
Image Copyright WotC
As mentioned, the classes and content here is well balanced and well thought out. Because the D&D team has been relatively stable and one of the creators of the edition is still working on the game, the people who wrote this book are very well versed in the subtleties of the design and why things are written the way they are.
As mentioned, the book contains a stealth rebalancing for some classes and new small powers. Some seem less necessary–like the barbarian gaining more skills and a movement power or the rogue feature to grant themselves advantage—but others do fill in gaps that have emerged, such as the 2nd-level bard inspiration variant that works with a caster-heavy party or the druid ability to finally get a pet. The ranger alternate rules have been especially requested, giving first level rangers an actual combat feature while providing a fairly substantial alternative for the beastmaster ranger’s pets. There’s even an attempt to give something for the monk’s Way of the Four Elements, but this isn’t as successful.
The book begins with common rule reminders. Handy clear and simple clarifications for oft forgotten or subtle rules. It’s nice to have these, even if this page was also in Guide to Everything—you don’t know what rules expansion will be someone’s first.
There’s also rules for customizing races, letting you swap around some proficiencies, such as replacing proficiency with medium armour or battle axes with longbow and rapier proficiency. This allows you to play a character like a high elf that wasn’t raised among elves and doesn’t know how to use a bow, but was adopted by orcs and knows how to swing a greataxe like a champ. I’m not the biggest fan of the absolute freedom offered by these pages (for reasons I’ll get to in the next section) but I am aware not everyone feels comfortable with the idea of physical and cultural bonuses being baked into races. And because some people are uncomfortable with it, I applaud WotC for listening and including this section. And for people like me who have issues, I’m thankful the preceding spread that reminds DMs that everything in the book is optional and I can just ignore that.
The fifteen feats here are decent enough. Many are a way to build a hybrid character without multiclassing. They’re very workable. And Skill Expert will be very useful for a lot of character concepts.
I enjoyed the idea of sidekicks in the Essentials Kit, which allowed me to play some one-on-one games with my 10-year-old son. I was happy these were being reprinted here and it’s great that they were expanded out to full 20-level classes. Sadly, they didn’t reprint the generic statblocks, but the concept was expanded to include any monster that is CR 1/2 or lower. Which is simply brilliant, as it not only allows humanoid creatures like the scout, thug, or cultist to be used but also a war horse or mastiff. Or even a blink dog. I expect whole books to flood the Dungeon Master’s Guild with CR 1/2 pets, like young faerie dragons, juvenile owl bears, and hatchling couatls.
With nineteen pages of new magic items, this is the biggest loot drop of 5th Edition to date. Some time ago I had predicted the next rules expansion would expand the gear in the game, as new magic items have been rare and treasure is a pretty vital reward. When Cauldron of Everything was announced, I just didn’t expect the magic expansion to be this book. And I certainly didn’t expect a half-dozen new artifacts.
The patron rules are… fine. They’re fine. They offer some decent advice and quite a few roleplaying hooks. This section is largely common sense and advice rather than concrete rules. If you were already thinking about what it would be like having the PCs working for the king or thieves’ guild, this probably won’t give you many new ideas. I rather expected more, especially after hearing about the perk system and seeing what was done with reputation in Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. I anticipated perks to have more heft than just “you are protected from the law” and “your patron covers your expenses). This would have been a neat way of adding some minor new options and benefits for characters, because it doesn’t imbalance the party as every member would have the same perk.
I quite like several of the subclasses in this book. The armourer is a nice, simple addition to the artificer, and an idea I’m surprised I didn’t consider. (And I worked hard to think of new artificer ideas when working on my DMsGuild artificer book). The Path of the Beast for the Barbarian is just cool. Multiclassing dips aside, I haven’t played a barbarian before, but this moves the class to the top of my “to play” list. And I’m very pleased with how the Phantom rogue subclass evolved. The Soulknife is also a nice update to this classic concept, first being seen in 3rd Edition. And it could be easily house-ruled into something non-psionic by swapping the psychic damage for necrotic and naming it the “shadowblade”. (Shadeblade? Gloomblade?) And I adore the take on the Genie patron for the warlock. I’ve done my own take on this in the past, but this is really interesting and I love how it makes use of the genie’s vessel.
The Bad
While not my biggest complaint, let’s get to the pet peeve I teased earlier. Customizing ability scores. Glad they did it. Not entirely happy that it’s so unrestricted and not swapping a physical ability score boost for another physical, or choosing to swap one, or mandating +2/ +1. Mostly because of elements like the mountain dwarf who gets a +2/+2, because their second boost is to Strength—which benefits martial classes—but they also get medium armour proficiency, which is redundant for paladins and fighters. The double twos keep them desirable for that trope. But if you can freely swap the Strength bonus to +2 Cha or +2 Int then the mountain dwarf becomes a fantastic spellcaster. The ability score bonuses were designed to encourage tropes and playing to type but making them unbounded encourages min-maxing and actually limits the potential choices of races to the few origins deemed “most optimal.”
This is mostly a complaint for my table and likely Adventurer’s League. Where the optional rule won’t be used to tell creative stories and make interesting characters with fascinating backstories but instead be used to see how many bonuses can be accrued.
Image Copyright WotC and stolen from IGN
The fighter section has a page-and-a-half of Battlemaster Builds. Suggested designs for characters using that subclass. I’m not sure who this is designed for, as making an archer or duelist with the fighter wasn’t particularly hard already.
The book has almost twenty-pages of puzzles including handouts. It’s nice to have some quick puzzles handy, but it’s unfortunate they’re in a book that is generally player facing and will be referenced by the players at the table. I wouldn’t use these puzzles for anything but inspiration. The difficulty listed in the puzzles also feels exceptionally arbitrary; the very first puzzle is listed as “easy” despite being functionally equivalent to the last puzzle, which is “hard.” And this is despite the latter puzzle being more overt in its solution.
Testing the options with Unearthed Arcana is inarguably a good thing for the quality of the book. The best ideas (read: the most popular ideas) get published and the stuff that is problematic is left out. However, as class content is “previewed” everyone has favourite classes that didn’t make the cut. I was excited for the College of Spirits bard as a tarokka bard sounded awesome and Ravenloft A.F. And I’m sure someone was excited for the wizard arcane tradition of onomancy/ truenaming.
The clerical Love domain didn’t make it in either. Neither the original version or the revised “Unity Domain.” For anyone unfamiliar with the internet drama regarding this subclass, people became upset on Twitter over the presentation of the Love domain (because people are alway getting upset on Twitter; it’s basically a platform design to enrage you or let you rage), with the complaint being how the subclass focused on enchantment, and forcing someone to like you isn’t love. Not an unfair criticism but, Twitter being Twitter, people came down HARD on the authors, quickly becoming abusively critical. The document was quickly pulled, reworked, and re-released with the aforementioned Unity domain. But the damage was done and unlike other rejected subclasses, the document isn’t available online. Because of moral outrage, a D&D subclass was effectively censored. Which is a big trigger for me as I value the freedom of information. And, y’know, like options for D&D games, and the concept of an enchantment focused clerical domain (a lust domain if you will) is a nice narrative gap and fits many gods in classical mythology (like Aphrodite, Freyr, Ishtar) and D&D deities like Sune.
This book introduces a few psionic classes. The fighter has the psi warrior, the rogue has the soulknife, and the sorcerer has the aberrant mind bloodline. I’ve been a longtime fan of psonics since 2nd Edition, so I’m a little sad they didn’t manage to get a full psionicst class done for this book. Including one later will unfortunately mean having psionic options spread out over multiple books.
There are always some less impressive subclasses. There’s always got to be a last pick. The Rune Knight is so-so. Because of the design, by the time you hit the subclass’ cap you’ve chosen five of the possible six runes. For 10th and 15th level you’re just picking between the options you already chose not to take last time, which is somewhat unsatisfying. Neither ranger subclass really seems great compared to the interesting ones in Guide to Everything.
The Ugly
I hate the name.
This book was always going to be “Proper Noun’s Noun of Pronoun”. Elminster’s Volume of Stuff. Warduke’s Collection of Trophies. Because that’s how they’re naming things this time round. But “Cauldron” is a weird choice and repeating “of Everything” makes it easy to confuse with Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, which I often shortened to “Guide to Everything” so I don’t have to remember how to spell “Xanathar.” I’m going to continually see people confused while referencing “Guide to Everything” and “Cauldron of Everything.” And I expect some kid over Christmas is going to ask his parents for “the new D&D book… the Everything one” and get the wrong book.
Like Guide to Everything, the titular character—the witch Tasha—makes comments throughout the book. This worked well in Guide to Monsters and Tomb of Foes but Xanathar was more annoying than insightful and frequently anachronistic. Tasha is somehow worse. Her little 1-3 sentence blurbs feel less like commentary (“insights, guidance, threats and critiques” like her introduction suggests) and more forced meta-jokes. It reads far less like an ancient witch offering thoughts on a subclass or option and more like someone trying to compose witty PR tweets or make amusing captions for a brochure. And unlike the small sidebars in past products, which seemed designed to fill negative space and flesh out pages, Tasha’s Tweets came before every subclass and section, leaving more gaps at the bottom of pages, while also making the little comments more forced. Mandated distillations of humour. When reading some I could just picture the D&D team brainstorming them at a meeting.
The book features a LOT of reprinted content, including subclasses published earlier this year! Eight of the thirty new subclasses—a full quarter of the class options—are reprints. This also includes the entire artificer class and all three subclasses published in Eberron: Rising From the Last War.
This unfortunately makes the Magic the Gathering D&D books (Ravnica and Theros) trap purchases for people who just want the new crunchy rules options. And anyone who bought those books for the rules options to add to their game rather than the setting material (raises hand) completely wasted their money. It’s definitely going to make me reconsider purchasing future MtG settings when I know I can just wait and get that content elsewhere.
Now, in fairness, this does mean those class options are now easier to make available in Adventurer’s League. Which will be nice for the small minority of players running in organized play games.But that’s probably a very small minority of players.
Ditto the artificer. While I appreciate having the full class here (even if it means I’ve purchased it three times, including Wayfarer’s Guide to Eberron) they could have chosen to only reprint one or two artificer subclasses, so people who owned the Eberron book would have something exclusive to that tome.
The Awesome
The picture of Tasha on page 82. That is just amazing. And while discussing art, I know it’s just a throw-away Easter Egg, but I loved seeing Azalin Rex in the Patrons chapter. And there’s a Planescape reference as well.
Image Copyright WotC
There’s a table listing all the new spells on page 105, and it very concisely says what school they are, their level, and if they require concentration. This is pretty handy. (Curiously, there’s also a column saying if they can be cast as a ritual and for all of them it’s “no”, so that feels somewhat redundant.)
Included in the new spells are a handful of new monster conjuring spells that make it much simpler to be a summoner. While I like being able to summon specific creatures as an option, these are much more useful in play and don’t require the player to slowly flip through the Monster Manual to find an appropriate fey or elemental (especially when the creature by type table is in the DMG).
Baba Yaga’s mortar & pestle!
They removed the attunement requirement from the prosthetic limb magical item (and this is also the case for the next print run of Eberron, already being in its errata). This was a complaint of many as it made receiving a prosthetic detrimental as you could use fewer magic items. (As I mentioned this in my review of the book.) Nice to see that WotC agrees.
Similarly, the armourer artificer lets you have magical armour that functions like a lost limb. Contrary to a recent webcomic, I do like the idea of enabling people to play adventurers with disabilities. The armourer artificer is awesome (even if it is a tad too Iron Man, if that’s possible).
I like that you can take the psi warrior fighter subclass, beg your DM for a flame tongue, and play a Jedi in D&D.
The collection of supernatural terrains is nicely done. And I quite like how they handled the activation, offering suggestions rather than hard rules but situations that are likely to happen but not be too regular. There are some good ideas in here, and it’s easy to read through this section for inspiration or a neat magical feature to place in a location.
Included in the terrain section is a funky page on mimic colonies. This isn’t just noteworthy for the juvenile mimic statblock (conveniently <CR 1/2, so… sidekick!) or the lair actions, but the absolutely bonkers art at the top of page 167. I’m just sad we didn’t also get a stat block for a Large or even a Huge mimic.
While I’m not wowed by the puzzles I think it is worth noting how this book really focused on aspects of the game other than combat. There’s patrons, which drive the actual story and offer great roleplaying hooks. There’s the encounter terrain that feeds into the exploration pillar and makes overland travel or just being in a strange place more interesting. And there are the puzzles, which encourage the players to be challenged with something other than tactics and strategy. This is great to see and probably should be encouraged. Because it’s too easy to make a book like this and only focus on combat encounters or have “puzzles” reduced to the characters making a quick Intelligence check.
Final Thoughts
For a book people have been expecting for three years, it feels like I should have more to say about Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. That my review should be somehow even longer. But it just doesn’t feel like there’s much here. Yes, there’s a newish class and thirty subclasses but there’s only 22 options we haven’t seen—fewer both in total and number of new options than Guide to Everything (and a matching number of feats). That’s a book I described by saying “with so little official content released this small smattering of appetisers feels like a feast.” A statement that also applies to Cauldron of Everything.
What’s here is generally good. There’s not any outright bad options or weak pages. And it certainly doesn’t have the endless tables of Guide to Everything. But I also didn’t finish reading and have five or six new characters I was burning to play. I had one. And I still wish we’d see a lot more optional and variant rules for Dungeon Masters. Advice on Session Zeroes are all well and good, but that’s information you could find on a dozen blogs or YouTube advice channels and all over Reddit. Rules on mass combat, other methods of gaining experience, variant crit & fumbling rules and the like will have a much larger audience in an official book.
But if everyone who gets this book ends up with one beloved character and plays that character for six or even eighteen months, then that’s pretty good for a gaming book. And unlike past editions, every subclass here will probably see play at a few tables. There’s no options that will never see use and only exist to fill pages.
Shameless Plugs
If you liked this article, you can support me and encourage future reviews. My disposable income, which is necessary to buy RPG products, is entirely dependent on my sales. Seriously. After returning to work after being unemployed for 4 months (in part due to Covid-19) I’ve found myself quarantined after a potential exposure and unable to work for another fortnight. My finances and ability to pay for books to review is dependant on sales.
I have a number of PDF products on the DMs Guild website, including Who’s Doomed, a book of 5e stat blocks of darklords for the Ravenloft campaign setting, which is a huge passion product. And if it sells well, I’ll add additional darklords to the product. And it’s newly released companion Allies Against the Night, which takes classic Ravenloft heroes and makes them into sidekicks.
Additionally, the revision of my book, Jester David’s How-To Guide to Fantasy Worldbuilding is on DriveThurRPG, available for purchase as a PDF or Print on Demand! (And now in colour!) The book is a compilation of my worldbuilding blog series, but all the entries have been updated, edited, and expanded to almost two-hundred pages of advice on making your own fantasy world.
Plus, I have T-shirts available for sale over on TeePublic! The art of which can also be put on cloth masks.
