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The Game Master's Book of Legendary Dragons: Epic new dragons, dragon-kin and monsters, plus dragon cults, classes, combat and magic for 5th Edition RPG adventures
Experience the wonder and terror of dragons as they were meant to be!
- New and expanded edition of Legendary Dragons from the award-winning fantasy art studio Jetpack7
- Includes more than two dozen world-shattering dragons, including 6 new dragons exclusive to this edition
- Dragon cults, dragon riders, aerial combat, magic items and much more
- Completely reedited and redesigned, plus 3 exciting one-shots adventures!
Game Masters and players alike are familiar with dragons and the threat they present in the world’s most popular tabletop roleplaying game. They’ve become so well-known, however, that some might say the magic has worn off them a bit. Even with the benefit of high-profile gaming supplements, they've become generic monsters, making the dragons in “Dungeons & Dragons” a shadow of their former imposing selves.
In The Game Master’s Book of Legendary Dragons , readers will find more than two dozen truly epic beasts, each of which comes with a complete backstory, a history, motivations, lair actions, legendary combat actions and more. These creatures are designed to be a worthy focus to any campaign, whether as a mind-blowing BBEG for an unforgettable, high-level climax, or as a motivating force that runs in the background of a lower level adventure.
Game Masters will also find new dragon-kin, drakes, kobolds and dragon races, plus new dragon-related organizations, skills, classes and magic, including dragon riders, dragon hunters, enhanced spells, aerial combat and airship options, dragon cults, magic items and more.
The Game Master's Book of Legendary Dragons will provide endless ideas for Game Masters and countless hours of epic-level fun for adventurers willing to test their mettle against the baddest beasts the game has to offer.
- New and expanded edition of Legendary Dragons from the award-winning fantasy art studio Jetpack7
- Includes more than two dozen world-shattering dragons, including 6 new dragons exclusive to this edition
- Dragon cults, dragon riders, aerial combat, magic items and much more
- Completely reedited and redesigned, plus 3 exciting one-shots adventures!
Game Masters and players alike are familiar with dragons and the threat they present in the world’s most popular tabletop roleplaying game. They’ve become so well-known, however, that some might say the magic has worn off them a bit. Even with the benefit of high-profile gaming supplements, they've become generic monsters, making the dragons in “Dungeons & Dragons” a shadow of their former imposing selves.
In The Game Master’s Book of Legendary Dragons , readers will find more than two dozen truly epic beasts, each of which comes with a complete backstory, a history, motivations, lair actions, legendary combat actions and more. These creatures are designed to be a worthy focus to any campaign, whether as a mind-blowing BBEG for an unforgettable, high-level climax, or as a motivating force that runs in the background of a lower level adventure.
Game Masters will also find new dragon-kin, drakes, kobolds and dragon races, plus new dragon-related organizations, skills, classes and magic, including dragon riders, dragon hunters, enhanced spells, aerial combat and airship options, dragon cults, magic items and more.
The Game Master's Book of Legendary Dragons will provide endless ideas for Game Masters and countless hours of epic-level fun for adventurers willing to test their mettle against the baddest beasts the game has to offer.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published October 11, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 29, 2024
Disfruté mucho estos dragones y los añadidos. Creo que algunas cosas pueden ser muy valiosas para algunas campañas. Los dragones son nivel dios, supongo, deben estar un poco difíciles para personajes nuevos o bajos de nivel.
Glitz me gustó especialmente.
Glitz me gustó especialmente.
January 9, 2024
Ugh.
Just...ugh.
I didn't think anyone was making worse Dungeons and Dragons supplements than Wizards of the Coast was managing to do, with garbage like Spelljammer and Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. This has proven me wrong.
Now, to be fair, the concept and presentation is not bad. But the editing is so awful that it's obviously the weakest link. Sarah Hubrich, Aaron Hubrich, and James Floyd Kelly are the credited editors, and one or more of them is woefully unqualified at their job. Just the proofreading alone was awful, with typos galore and obvious errors.
But the overall editing is horrid, with cramming and sudden font size changes to make things fit on a single page, as well as oddly placed sidebars in a few places. To top this off, blatantly obvious and necessary information is left out in numerous entries. Several monsters have abilities that are not explained, or whose usage is untenable in the game. For instance, one monster's lair actions are incredibly specific. Lair actions, if you are unfamiliar with the terminology, are actions that cost the creature nothing and can be used an unlimited amount of times within their lair. However, this creature's lair actions are rather...specific and reactionary. One is to cast the silence spell -- which affects itself, and prevents many of its spells. Another is...to open or close and lock a door. Whee. But the final one that makes no sense, and breaks the game, she can dispel one area of magical darkness. Which, by the rules of 5e...means if the players don't cast any darkness, or no other magical darkness exists, the lair actions just stop. No more lair actions. Yes, this is simple to fix...but it is a simple fix that the editor should have caught.
The worst example, the one that made me just give up on the editors completely, was the magic item, the Dragon Staff. This item can deliver a burst of elemental energy, a draconic breath weapon, of acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. Each has a different area and saving throw. But there's one thing missing. One crucial thing. Noplace does the item mention the amount of damage the item does. You can make a saving throw for half damage -- of damage that is not mentioned anywhere in the description.
There were a few redeeming features (none, sadly, related to the editing). Two of the three adventures were well laid out and organized (the final one, meant for Tier 4 play (level 17-20) is just a poorly designed fighting slog based entirely on how much damage the party can do in a turn, screwing over completely anyone based on control or support). There is a lot of good art, although most of it uses very dark palettes making this seem more appropriate for the Shadowfell or Ravenloft. And the various ideas for using airships are much better handled than Spelljammer did, and took only six pages!
But these are few and far between. And there's some pointless things in this book. A remake of the dragonborn race...made complicated and with a lot of randomness thrown in (which could be good or bad, because it could go either way). Monsters that are simply abilities from other creatures thrown onto dragons, a class that is a remake of the drakewarden. I was incredibly disappointed. This book was a huge waste of money.
Just...ugh.
I didn't think anyone was making worse Dungeons and Dragons supplements than Wizards of the Coast was managing to do, with garbage like Spelljammer and Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. This has proven me wrong.
Now, to be fair, the concept and presentation is not bad. But the editing is so awful that it's obviously the weakest link. Sarah Hubrich, Aaron Hubrich, and James Floyd Kelly are the credited editors, and one or more of them is woefully unqualified at their job. Just the proofreading alone was awful, with typos galore and obvious errors.
But the overall editing is horrid, with cramming and sudden font size changes to make things fit on a single page, as well as oddly placed sidebars in a few places. To top this off, blatantly obvious and necessary information is left out in numerous entries. Several monsters have abilities that are not explained, or whose usage is untenable in the game. For instance, one monster's lair actions are incredibly specific. Lair actions, if you are unfamiliar with the terminology, are actions that cost the creature nothing and can be used an unlimited amount of times within their lair. However, this creature's lair actions are rather...specific and reactionary. One is to cast the silence spell -- which affects itself, and prevents many of its spells. Another is...to open or close and lock a door. Whee. But the final one that makes no sense, and breaks the game, she can dispel one area of magical darkness. Which, by the rules of 5e...means if the players don't cast any darkness, or no other magical darkness exists, the lair actions just stop. No more lair actions. Yes, this is simple to fix...but it is a simple fix that the editor should have caught.
The worst example, the one that made me just give up on the editors completely, was the magic item, the Dragon Staff. This item can deliver a burst of elemental energy, a draconic breath weapon, of acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison. Each has a different area and saving throw. But there's one thing missing. One crucial thing. Noplace does the item mention the amount of damage the item does. You can make a saving throw for half damage -- of damage that is not mentioned anywhere in the description.
There were a few redeeming features (none, sadly, related to the editing). Two of the three adventures were well laid out and organized (the final one, meant for Tier 4 play (level 17-20) is just a poorly designed fighting slog based entirely on how much damage the party can do in a turn, screwing over completely anyone based on control or support). There is a lot of good art, although most of it uses very dark palettes making this seem more appropriate for the Shadowfell or Ravenloft. And the various ideas for using airships are much better handled than Spelljammer did, and took only six pages!
But these are few and far between. And there's some pointless things in this book. A remake of the dragonborn race...made complicated and with a lot of randomness thrown in (which could be good or bad, because it could go either way). Monsters that are simply abilities from other creatures thrown onto dragons, a class that is a remake of the drakewarden. I was incredibly disappointed. This book was a huge waste of money.
February 23, 2023
No one else has reviewed this book, so here's my unasked opinion:
This book is everything Fizban's Treaury of Dragons should have been. It's a love letter to the old Draconomicons, packed with specific lore and unnecessary details that are so dang delicious.
In this book, you get:
110 pages of unique legendary dragons. There's 26 dragons, 20 of which are pulled from JetPack7's Legendary Dragons pdf.
18 pages of player options, including a new class (dragon rider) and a new race (draken)
16 pages of new dragon-related creatures. There's 8 new creatures in total, and 5 cultists.
14 pages of lore, including a table of spell-enhancements using draconic items and a table of dragon salvage
12 pages of rules, including 6 pages on airships/aerial combat and 8 pages on new magic items
48 pages of adventures. There's 3 adventures in total, one for levels 3-6, one for levels 8-12, and one for levels 17-20. Each adventure includes maps, GM notes, and NPC stat blocks.
The stars of the show are the legendary dragons (hence the name of the book). Each dragon has a page of lore, a page of GM advice on how to run them, a page of art, and a statblock.
It's all very specific, i.e. it's very easy to drag and drop it into a homebrew world without having to fill in details. There's few charts of ambiguous ideas like those that fill Fizban's Treasury.
Everything is written with plot hooks in mind. Even the neutral dragons have ambitions and desires, things that can be used by the gamemaster to entice the players to engage them.
In short, this book is an excellent addition to any dragon-and-D&D-5e fan's collection.
This book is everything Fizban's Treaury of Dragons should have been. It's a love letter to the old Draconomicons, packed with specific lore and unnecessary details that are so dang delicious.
In this book, you get:
110 pages of unique legendary dragons. There's 26 dragons, 20 of which are pulled from JetPack7's Legendary Dragons pdf.
18 pages of player options, including a new class (dragon rider) and a new race (draken)
16 pages of new dragon-related creatures. There's 8 new creatures in total, and 5 cultists.
14 pages of lore, including a table of spell-enhancements using draconic items and a table of dragon salvage
12 pages of rules, including 6 pages on airships/aerial combat and 8 pages on new magic items
48 pages of adventures. There's 3 adventures in total, one for levels 3-6, one for levels 8-12, and one for levels 17-20. Each adventure includes maps, GM notes, and NPC stat blocks.
The stars of the show are the legendary dragons (hence the name of the book). Each dragon has a page of lore, a page of GM advice on how to run them, a page of art, and a statblock.
It's all very specific, i.e. it's very easy to drag and drop it into a homebrew world without having to fill in details. There's few charts of ambiguous ideas like those that fill Fizban's Treasury.
Everything is written with plot hooks in mind. Even the neutral dragons have ambitions and desires, things that can be used by the gamemaster to entice the players to engage them.
In short, this book is an excellent addition to any dragon-and-D&D-5e fan's collection.
Read
February 7, 2024How? Library had it.
What? A collection of 26 sample dragons, some dragon-related stuff (aerial combat, dragon-like monsters), and some sample adventures.
Yeah, so? Not for me. All the non-dragon stuff just doesn't work for me, like: the dragon monsters lean on the silly or uninteresting, like the puggon (a dragon pug mix), or the dragonant, or the displacer dragon, which is just a lizard-like displacer beast), etc.
Many of the sample dragons are mythic to the point of not really being dragons, like "it's the dragon spirit of death" (it's an undead dragon who feasts on battlefields, which strikes me as fun folk tale, but not really a story engine for an adventure) or "it's the dragon spirit of balance".
But there's a few fun ideas here that I think could form the basis for an adventure or interesting relationships with the NPCs (there's the undead-dragon-in-stasis who is being used as an engine by a cult whose leader only pretends to worship the dragon, but is really interested in draining it for her own power; there's the dragon who likes to brew beer, and so has started a little commercial empire in a city; there's the dragon who hates draconic but not dragon things, e.g., dragonborn, and is trying to kill them all; there's the dragon who doesn't know what it's like to be a dragon -- it's actually the offspring of a wyvern and an ogre mage, wth? -- so keeps kidnapping people to learn more about dragons).
What? A collection of 26 sample dragons, some dragon-related stuff (aerial combat, dragon-like monsters), and some sample adventures.
Yeah, so? Not for me. All the non-dragon stuff just doesn't work for me, like: the dragon monsters lean on the silly or uninteresting, like the puggon (a dragon pug mix), or the dragonant, or the displacer dragon, which is just a lizard-like displacer beast), etc.
Many of the sample dragons are mythic to the point of not really being dragons, like "it's the dragon spirit of death" (it's an undead dragon who feasts on battlefields, which strikes me as fun folk tale, but not really a story engine for an adventure) or "it's the dragon spirit of balance".
But there's a few fun ideas here that I think could form the basis for an adventure or interesting relationships with the NPCs (there's the undead-dragon-in-stasis who is being used as an engine by a cult whose leader only pretends to worship the dragon, but is really interested in draining it for her own power; there's the dragon who likes to brew beer, and so has started a little commercial empire in a city; there's the dragon who hates draconic but not dragon things, e.g., dragonborn, and is trying to kill them all; there's the dragon who doesn't know what it's like to be a dragon -- it's actually the offspring of a wyvern and an ogre mage, wth? -- so keeps kidnapping people to learn more about dragons).
October 17, 2023
This was in my opinion, one of the best 5e third party books. Not only is there gorgeous art for every dragon in this book, but we also get a fun new class and a new player species with a plethora of character choices for it. On top of that you also get a few one shots that you can run for players as well. I love this specific group of books because you really get your monies worth in every one of the Game Master additions. Pick it up, enjoy the art, read each dragon's lore and above all, have fun with this love letter for ttrpg dragon enthusiasts.
January 8, 2024
Wish this had more tables for rolling on wrt to making *new* dragons, but there was a bunch of fun things in here that are good for inspiration, and I like the ideas of many of the legendary dragons that are listed in the first half of the book.
September 13, 2023
If you’re looking for some incredible dragons to drop into your game, this book is 100% for you.
January 13, 2025
It's a fun book with lots of dragons that you can use in your adventures or use as an idea to make your own dragon.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews