What’s In Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse?
Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold
Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse is a package produced by Wizards of the Coast starring three books and a DM screen designed to give DMs tools to run campaigns in the Planescape multiversal setting.
The physical content is contained in an open box and comes with four primary components: Sigil and the Outlands, Morte’s Planar Parade, and Turn of Fortune’s Wheel as the three books and a Planescape-specific DM screen.
Each book contains different elements for different aspects of play in the setting, with only Sigil and the Outlands providing any new player content. All three primarily serve to set up the setting and play with portals and wild, wacky worlds outside of the Material Plane.
In total, you’re getting 256 pages of content in the books with a DM screen for the US price of $84.99 before tax. The actual price you pay may vary, with online marketplaces like Amazon selling it at a significantly cheaper price.
What’s In Sigil and the Outlands?
Sigil and the Outlands is split into three sections; Character Options, Sigil, the City of Doors, and the Outlands. It is tied for longest of the three books at 96 pages.
The character options are six feats all stemming from the seventh Scion of the Outer Planes feat provided in the book alongside two backgrounds, Gate Warden and Planar Philosopher that get it for free.
There are two spells in the book aimed at aiding play with portals for sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards: Gate Seal and Warp Sense.
The remainder of the book is dedicated to detailing the world of Planescape with a focus on the magnificent, vibrant circular city of Sigil and the surrounding region called the Outlands and their Gate-Towns connecting to the planes presented in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Factions play a major roll, and there are plenty of adventure ideas pitched, alongside some excellent maps including a double-sided removable map from the back that has a detailed map of Sigil on one side and the sprawling Outlands on the other.
What’s in Morte’s Planar Parade?
Morte’s Planar Parade contains a bunch of new monsters for all tiers of play, rules for adapting any monster to be influenced by the various planes of existence in the form of granting them bonus special plane-related abilities, sample monsters of the outlands influenced by various planes, and five tables of highly varied planar encounters. Its the shortest of the books, coming in at 64 pages.
Notably, there are a lot of new creatures of types under-represented in other books, including the Celestials. Conjure Celestial specifically gets a pretty solid bump in power with the addition of Hound Archons, which are CR 4 and come with an at-will teleport, multiattack, a few spell, and a potent fear in the form of Aura of Menace.
What’s in Turn of Fortune’s Wheel?
Turn of Fortune’s Wheel is an adventure in three parts set in Sigil and the surrounding Outlands. The adventure takes characters from 3rd level to 18th level over fifteen chapters, with milestone experience being used to facilitate progression in place of experience points. It’s tied for the longest book at 96 pages.
SPOILER WARNING: Details about the adventure will be talked about here. If you are anticipate playing in this adventure in the future, stop reading here until the end of this section. You’ve been warned.
DM’s running the adventure take players who have lost their memory on a grand journey to recover them. They’ve already died, and through a multiverse mishap, have found themselves in Sigil and seeking answers. There are some rules for added for glitch characters; characters who discover about their mysterious past as the progress.
There are also character incarnations, rules for creating new incarnations of player characters should they die that reflect if a deviation was made in their past that would lead them to being a completely different person. This mechanic encourages players to take risks, as other iterations of them will form.
What’s On the Planescape DM Screen?
All of the normal tables you’d expect from a DM Screen are present; rules for jumping, heavily/lightly obscured areas, damage related to level, etc. Additionally, six tables from Sigil and the Outlands are present: Gate-Towns of the Outlands, Ascendant Factions of Sigil, Wards of Sigil, Encounters in Sigil, Encounters in the Outlands, and Planar Portals.
The arts depicts the outlands and a gatetown with panorama of various monsters from D&D’s history with the ring city Sigil in the distance floating above its massive rock.
Who is Planescape: Adventures in the Mutliverse For?
This set of three books is clearly and only for established DMs who need to play in the Planescape setting and want an adventure to run in it as well. To get the full experience of the setting, you’re intended to use the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse as well, so you’re expected to have all three prior.
You can run this setting without those additional books, but you’re going to need to do online research into the grand cosmology presented if you want to run a lot of the encounters and understand the basics of the planes showcased.
If you’re a player, this product isn’t for you. The feats offered are mostly lackluster and have a prerequisite that locks you to this setting. There are no new subclasses or species. The spells presented aren’t worth their costs in settings without rampant portals using the basic rules of the world established in Sigil and the Outands.
This isn’t a great jumping-on point for DMing, but can be a solid second or third campaign once you’ve already acquired the base materials suggested above and are eager to shake up your table with wider variance in monsters while stepping deeper into the history of D&D.
What About That Price Tag?
$90 is a lot for a total package that’s 100 pages shorter than the Monster Manual. It makes it so I have a hard time seeing the justification for it if you’re not actively going to use every element of it thoroughly. You basically need to run the adventure and use all the planar encounter options presented in Morte’s Planar Parade alongside encounters with the monsters from it. The fact that a lot of the information requests you seeking content from outside this package, like the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, and Monster Manual, means you also need to already own $90-150 worth of books to get the full experience with this product.
One Book Split Into Three
On top of that, the length is a real issue. In the past, this would have been a single book like Rime of the Frostmaiden or Curse of Strahd. Sigil and the Outlands is barely three chapters, and I say barely because of the pitiful chapter of a handful of mediocre feats and two backgrounds hardly constitutes a chapter on its own. It is apparent that Sigil and the Outlands easily would be the first two chapters of an adventure module, maybe even including the planar monster variants presented in Morte’s Planar Parade, setting up the environment with Turn of Fortune’s Wheel as the following chapters and ending with the fifty or so pages left of monsters as the final chapter or appendix of the book.
Compared to Better Products
You’re not really getting more than a single $50 book. Yes, the factions are sweet, and the setting has a ton of interesting and engaging moving parts. There are dozens of comparable options outside of this though; Ebberon: Rising from the Last War is a single book that is 320 pages of content, and includes a full new class, three subclasses for it, a new Group Patron mechanic, and over a dozen species options. If you want a sweet new setting with ample world-building opportunities, you can pick up that single book, which is nearly 100 pages longer than these three combined, for a third of the price.
Should You Buy This Product?
If you love Planescape, and the price doesn’t bother you, this is flush with cool ideas and unique monsters for the setting with a nifty adventure. If that’s the main metric you care about, this can be a fun product to read through and adventure with.
The price certainly isn’t warranted for the actual content you’re receiving. There are ample resources online that provide similar or the exact same information about the city, and there are dozens of other products for other worlds and settings, even within Wizards of the Coast’s own catalog.
Short answer: no. You probably shouldn’t buy this product. Even at a discounted price, there are other excellent options of other exciting worlds with more robust content for you and your players that will still be cheaper than this.
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