Originally announced and funded via Kickstarter last October, Path of the Planebreaker is the latest foray into the fifth edition of the rulebook for dungeons by Monte Cook Games. Veteran this time D&D Designers Bruce R. Cordell, Sean K. Reynolds and Mr. Cook himself treat players and game masters to the wonders of traversing different planes of existence where time and reality can warp and lead to unexpected outcomes. Divided into seven parts and just under 250 pages, twenty different planar locations join the titular Planebreaker itself to provide material you can use to start a new campaign or add these extradimensional spaces to an ongoing campaign as a nice paradigm shift. And solid Fifth Edition rules frameworks are of course embedded in the places featured here. These work well with the core of D&Dand it feels like a very natural adjustment to how many are likely to play the game.
As one of the architects behind the third edition of dungeons, Cook is no stranger to classic D20 fantasy or planar adventure. He was the author of 1996’s Planar-themed Planeswalker Handbook to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragonsas well as many other additions to the puzzling Planescape setting (the D&D publisher The announced Wizards of the Coast returns his recent presentation). cook lstarted 2012 his own company with the popular science fantasy futurescape of Countingand Monte Cook Games has made a name for itself with stunning titles such as The unusual, invisible sunand a bunch of excellent shots and source material for his own Series of RPG Rules, the Cypher system.
Fans of the company’s games may have been skeptical of MCG releasing another fifth edition book. But if this entry is anything, the team has the right minds for the system and should certainly consider creating more for it. And I say that as a Cypher System fan.
The company has already jumped into its fifth edition, with a series of books to help with the translation Counting to D&D‘s d20 formula and the return of Ptolosa home environment that served as a testing environment for the third edition of the classic role-playing game. Path of the Planebreaker It’s also expected to get Cypher System treatment sometime next year for those of you who like to multiply by three.
This is MCG’s best 5e book to date. Although it’s much leaner in its narrative offerings than the colossal remake of Ptolos When it was released in 2021, I found it embedded 5e’s mechanics into its prose far better than previous MCG offerings Arcana of the Elders and Under the monolith. It’s an addition that’s slightly more valuable to a dungeon master than a player, and it’s more of a source of settings and locations, adventure hooks and characters than a collection of stat blocks and player mechanics.
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The differences between MCG’s Cypher System and the fifth edition of dungeons reflect the differences between free jazz and classical music. One favors improvisation with genre-soaked concepts that don’t always have a clear expectation or outcome, while the other has stricter rules and steps to follow, with more expectations of tradition. However, the beauty of a tabletop roleplaying game is that these are not strict definitions, and you run on the hardware of the human mind. There are always ways to give a rule-free system more structure and to release more rigid framework conditions where it makes sense. That said, MCG chose to bring Path of the Planebreaker to gamers in the form of fifth edition first. So how does it stack up?
There are some areas in this book that I think could have had a bit more rulebook given the system this version is aimed at. If you’re looking to expand what’s in here over the course of a long campaign, you might reach for a few more monsters than what’s on offer here. I would also like to having seen more NPC stat blocks. This book goes well with the three main books of D&D, The Player’s Guide, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manualbut you could also just get by with the 5e SRD, or system reference document if required. This is definitely an addition to other core rules for Fifth Edition, and a strong one at that.
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While perhaps outside the scope of the product MCG wanted to create, I found the fiction, centered around the comet-sized Planebreaker that ruptures through various planar realms and leaves a walkable path for players and NPCs to follow, to be intriguing enough to have an even larger scope, maybe a little closer to the size of the company Ptolos. However, the collection of unique spells, items, and exploits really help bill this as a worthwhile 5e book. Also, the fact that it features subclasses as opposed to new classes makes it feel like it’s best suited to an existing campaign where players have already progressed down various class-based progression paths.
But for a book where the premise is geared toward offering new locations and settings to an existing campaign, it’s excellent. Solid 5e rules are sharply integrated into the presentation. Bold fonts are used to indicate answers to critical questions 5e players are likely to ask. That’s where Path of the Planebreaker
in the dungeons, players will likely interact with the world through their systems. Arcana and Perception roll requests, casting recognize magic or other spells, and acts and functions are likely to take place before free narrative description aiming at rhetorical style rather than mechanical substance. and Path of the Planebreakeras a setting book, gets that. The fiction here is really great, but this book stands out for having a remarkably helpful supplement that puts the answers to what happens when players cast a spell to gain more information, or roll arcana checks, right in inserting the prose himself.
Each of the 20 meatier, planar locations in Part Two of the book gives DMs what they need to tell players who are pestering them with knowledge tests. You won’t be caught flat-footed while running the game. And if you’re keen on getting more rhetorical and narrative in your style, these helpful DCs will give you the foundation you need when dice are brought to the table. The end of each planar location also contains player-based adventure hooks to consider.
Part Three has more than two dozen additional aircraft, although these do not have the pages of detail that the showcase aircraft in the previous section have. Don’t fret, although these are mostly narrative frameworks to help you envision possible worlds, you’ll also find some suggested default 5e rules when it seems most necessary to fall back on them.
In total, Path of the Planebreaker asks to find its way into ongoing 5e campaigns that want to tear down the walls of the world and offer new horizons with wonderful intrigue and well-laid maps for dungeon crawls that can be completed in maybe two sessions of a game. New options can help players enhance existing characters with details you won’t get anywhere else. This book is excellent for theming and supporting a solid, planar campaign arc that will have a lasting impact on the saga of your heroes and villains.
