Product Description

If you seek to stem this tide of chaos at its source, follow my lead--I set out for the dreaded Abyss on the morrow.
--Lord Amgar the Bold, Paladin of Bahamut

The planes have always been a place of great mystery and danger in the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game, and the new array of planes debuting in 4th Edition continue that grand tradition. Home to gods and devils, demons and genies, fey and titans, these strange dimensions offer unlimited adventure opportunities for Dungeon Masters and their players.

This useful travel guide also comes in handy for players seeking to battle demons, devils, elementals, and other iconic D&D monsters native to the planes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40593 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-16
• Released on: 2008-12-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Customer Reviews

Inspiring, but I wish there were more.
Manual of the Planes discusses the other planes of the Dungeons & Dragons world -- the areas of reality beyond the mortal world. Its goal is to allow for adventures set among these other realms -- primarily, the Shadowfell, the Feywild, the Elemental Chaos, and the Astral Sea. It mainly succeeds.

The first chapter of the book, Exploring the Planes, deals mainly with traveling to the planes and the characteristics of the planes. It includes a description of the basic cosmology of the D&D world, some advice for creating alternate cosmologies if you should desire to, and some notes about Sigil, the City of Doors, a location which can be used as a center for planar adventures (among other things).

Those who've played Planescape in earlier editions will recognize Sigil, and it's only one of many references to previous editions of the game. Veterans will notice new treatments of such things as the City of Brass, the Isle of Dread, the Demonweb, the Blood War, and spelljammers. Newer players need not worry; the book sets these elements adequately within 4e, so that no previous experience with them is necessary.

The next four chapters deal with the major planes suitable for adventuring: The Feywild, domain of faerie and preternatural wilderness; the Shadowfell, decayed echo of the mortal world shrouded in gloom; the Elemental Chaos, home to such locations as the City of Brass and the Abyss; and the Astral Sea, in which the domains of the great powers float like islands. Each of these chapters has four sections: traveling to the plane, exploring the plane, sample inhabitants of the plane, and sample locations within the plane.

The writeups about the inhabitants and locations are fairly brief. They're sufficient to give the flavor of the place, and hopefully to inspire a GM to flesh them out and adapt them to his game. They are not, however, fully detailed writeups that are able to simply be dropped right into the game. The book leaves much of the design work to the individual GM. Some people might consider this a weak point; I consider it a strength, because it fits my preferred style.

Chapters six and seven introduce more mechanics. Six is a collection of monsters from the planes for the GM to employ -- a little over a dozen of them, of which half are demons or devils. These are useful as adversaries, but there's nothing outstanding here. Still, nice to have.

Chapter seven is for players -- new paragon paths, rituals, and magic items. Here, too, there's not much that makes me pause and double-take, but nothing that leaps out at me as broken, either. It should serve its purpose well enough.

Overall, I'd say the usefulness of this book will depend on the GM using it -- and it is a book for GMs, with little that's of interest to players.

I think that it's the sort of book that will inspire me, even if I use relatively little of its content as-printed in my game. On the other hand, I wish that there was more: more about the Far Realms, more about some of those locations, more about the anomalous realms like the Plane of Mirrors and the Plane of Dreams. It's probably unfair to expect a 160-page book to cover all of those planes in depth, especially when I'd probably end up cheerfully ignoring most of that depth anyway and using my own creations, personally. Even so, it just feels too brief at times.

I like it, though. I like it a lot. This is a product that makes good use of the history of the game and its lore, without becoming a slave to it. It puts new twists on old friends like the Isle of Dread and the City of Doors, and it fits things like spelljammers into 4e without also bringing along the annoying parts like helm-related bookkeeping, phlogiston, and gravity wells. I've been satisfied with supplements that have done much less.

Planescape, how I miss you.
So, back in the day before the death of AD&D 2nd edition and Wizards of the Coast swallowing up the faltering TSR, there was Planescape. One of the best campaign settings ever created for D&D. Planescape took place in the realms of Deities, Demigods, Devils, and Demons. What made the world different was the unique feel of planar culture, the hodge podge of settings (allowing you to play almost anything imaginable), and the focus on factional beliefs. Planescape had too many things that were wonderful about it to list here, and somewhere in cyberspace there is a site dedicated to keeping this setting alive and thriving. Go to [...] and you'll enjoy even new 4e rules for Planescape. Now all of that said, Manual of the Planes is NOT Planescape. Rules heavy, story light, the Manual of the Planes has info on various planar locations, rules for planar encounters, and even various hazards that can be found there. What the book doesn't have is heart. I feel no connection to this book, and in my own games have only used it for the various incidental rules that are only mildy more useful than something I could make up myself. This book is useful for 4e players wanting to explore the planes, but don't look for depth here, just rules.

Very well done
I recently finished my first pass through this book. Typically when I purchase a D&D resource I read through and pay close attention to the things I already expect and read anything interesting sounding that I come across. I ended up reading quite a bit in this book in the first pass, probably 85%.

Since 4th Edition was released I've been worried about game flavor in the books and the fact that in the 3 core rulebooks its seems to be mostly missing. Now that I've begun to read the further expansion books I realize that this was likely a design decision rather than a mistake. The Manual of the Planes is a very well organized and presented book and the writing is interesting. Each major plane has its own section and most of the things you need to know about are presented. Places like Sigil and the City of Brass are first class citizens of this book, and they are presented as bonafide destinations where parties may stay a bit and adventure.

Going in to this book I was worried that the D&D I knew and loved was falling away. After this book and the adventures they've released my worry has been replaced by excitement and interest. I find that I can't wait for the next adventure and I pre-ordered Open Grave.

If you've been worried about 4th Edition just pick up the adventures or this book. Well heck, get both. They'll remind you what it was you loved about D&D and make you think maybe 4th Edition will be just fine.