Planescape Best Planescape Book across editions and 3rd party publishers?

[Distracted DM]

I'm not remembering why I avoided it.

Possibly because of the first half-baked three-book release, Spelljammer. Which I'm still salty about.

@paradisebunny it won't be the core of your content, but since someone mentioned Kobold Press' upcoming planes release, I figured I'd mention that Monte Cook did a planes book a while back, Path of the Planebreaker, and EN's Level Up A5E has the Planestrider's Journal. I've found both of them to be very useful in running a Planescape game.. as for core Sigil/Planescape content, I still rely on the old 2e content for the most part.

 

[Alzrius]

If you only get one of the old AD&D 2E Planescape books, get On Hallowed Ground. It's probably D&D's best presentation of what it's like to have multiple different pantheons all having to be neighbors, and it has some great material on how the gods relate to various other groups as well.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

My main reservation about the new WotC Planescape set is that it just doesn't do the planes very well. Which is a strange thing to say about a Planescape product, admittedly. But it really depends what you want out of your Planescape game. WotC 5e planescape is an excellent Sigil resource, and contains some solid stuff about the gate towns in the Outlands, but is very sparse on the actual planes themselves. If you want to run a Sigil game, it's gold. If you want to actually y'know ... go to the planes, it's lacking. You can pick up the Planescape 2e box set and the various planar supplements reasonably cheap from DMsGuild, that's probably your best bet for actual planar info from a Planescape point of view, although it's not going to help you much with 5e-compatible game mechanics.

The 5e DMG covers about the same on many planes as the Original Boxed Set did, so I can understand why they didn't have that in the 5e boxed set. It would be redundant, especially with the 2024 DMG being on the way when they wrote those books, which included things like mentioning Domains of Dread and the Radiant Citadel.

A more detailed book on the Planes is definitely needed, but it's place certainly wouldn't be the 5e Planescape book which definitely needed to focus on Sigil and the Outlands. I'm sure there'll be a Manual of the Planes sometime in the future, even if it'll be more generically D&D.

 

[Weird Dave]

For a more general "planar" guide, I'd like to toss out Codex of the Infinite Planes (which I'm biased since I wrote it!). I went through the Inner Planes, Transitive Planes, Mirror Planes, and Outer Planes with an eye towards developing each as a vibrant setting with features, sites of interest, hooks, and denizens. The full Codex of the Infinite Planes includes additional information about planar pathways (River Oceanus, River Styx, Yggdrasil), random planar traits to create unique demiplanes, and additional notes, but the individual planar codex entries are still out there too.

Codex of the Infinite Planes - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

Codex of the Infinite Planes - Codex of the Infinite Planes Multiverse of Wonder and Adventure! Fully bookmarked 369 page PDF! Color interior art! Crac

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There's a Monsters of the Infinite Planes with new and updated beasties and Heroes of the Infinite Planes for planar-based player options. Both of these (Monsters and Heroes) are based on the 2014 5E rules though I'm in the process of updating them for 2024. Codex is pretty agnostic - rule information is mainly limited to the rules around planar features which should work in 2024 as well as 2014.

Happy plane traveling!

 

[TheSword]

I’ll go out on left field and say Planescape Torment, it’s the most Planescape product ever released for the setting. It’s available on IOS and is very playable. Well worth checking lit.

“What can change the nature of man?”

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm sure there'll be a Manual of the Planes sometime in the future, even if it'll be more generically D&D.

I don't know. I would have expected to see such a thing before 5E Planescape, myself.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Single book: Planewalker's Handbook (2e)

Free option: Planescape Campaign Setting 3e (authorized fan work from www.planewalker.com)

Can't go wrong: Add the original 2e boxed set to either or both

 

[Demetrios1453]

This might be a little off topic, but do people generally think the 5E Planescape set is worth getting? It is in the $50 range now and is one of the few 5E books I don't own and I'm not remembering why I avoided it.

It's fine, just as long as you're OK with it being focused pretty much on just Sigil and the Outlands. Granted, those are the core of Planescape play. It's just not a full Manual of the Planes type release, which, to be fair, it was never meant to be (even though a lot of people had unwarranted expectations that it would be).

 

[Brendan Byrd]

This suggestion is tangental. (Appendix N)
IF your plan to focus on Sigil, and "flavor", this isn't bad as a non-RPG resource.

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