What is D&D: World of Warcraft and What to Expect?

Everything included in the first official crossover IP for D&D 5.5e.

At a glance

Contents	D&D: World of Warcraft
Classes	13 (re-skins rather than new classes)
Subclasses	9
Species	16
Backgrounds	0
Factions	23
Specialisations	40+
Feats	0
Spells	60+
Magic iems	25+
Monsters	50+
Dungeon boss stat blocks	30
Bastion facilities	0
Dungeons	7
Edition	5.5e
Pages	256
Publisher	Wizards of the Coast

---

When is D&D: World of Warcraft releasing?

D&D: World of Warcraft releases on 17th November 2026. D&D Beyond subscribers can get early access to the book if they purchase a digital copy. Master tier accounts will get access from the 3rd November and hero accounts from the 10th November.

What’s in D&D: World of Warcraft?

13 class re-skins

While there’s are a lot of similar fantasy tropes between the 2 universes, classes between D&D and World of Warcraft don’t completely align. For example, death knights exist in D&D only as monsters, not as playable characters. There’s also no shaman class in D&D.

Instead, the existing classes have been re-skinned for use in a World of Warcraft setting. For example, if you want to play a death knight, you’ll need to play as a paladin and take the new oath of the ebon blade subclass which also grants changes to the core paladin class.

Some re-skins are a bit more simple, for example, a druid seems to use the base druid class and advises which subclasses to take depending on how you want to specialise. In many instances, this means using an existing subclass like the circle of stars or circle of the moon. In other instances, you can take a new subclass or have suggested certain spells and other options that fit the fantasy of these World of Warcraft specialisations.

There are some concerns over this approach. Most particularly with shamans being re-skins of barbarians (who typically lack any kind of spellcasting). It will be interesting to see how they handle that one and whether it functions well.

The WoW class re-skins are:

• Death knight
• Demon hunter
• Druid
• Evokers
• Hunter
• Mage
• Monk
• Paladin
• Priest
• Rogue
• Shaman
• Warlock
• Warrior

9 subclasses

A lot of the expansion books we’ve had for D&D 2024 have tended to include mostly revised subclasses with 1 or 2 brand new options. With the need to fill gaps in WoW builds, we get 6 new subclasses and 3 revised versions from the 2014 rules. These are:

• Path of the elements barbarian (new)
• Path of the spiritual guardian barbarian
• Discipline domain cleric (new)
• Shadow domain cleric (new)
• Warrior of mystic brews monk
• Oath of the ebon blade paladin (new)
• Oath of the holy paladin (new)
• Demon hunter ranger (new)
• Swashbuckler rogue

40+ specializations

Specializations in World of Warcraft define the abilities and roles of a character. In the D&D crossover, this seems to be used to help make an appropriate build based on options in the Player’s Handbook and D&D: World of Warcraft.

I don’t think specializations grant any new mechanics. Instead, they advise what character options to take for a particular build to make it true to the WoW setting. This will often involve recommending certain subclasses, but might also include recommendations on spells, feats and other features too.

16 species

To accommodate all the additional species in WoW, there are a bunch of new species to use (11 of them) with 5 returning species. It’s not clear how much the returning species will change from the usual variants, but I suspect we’ll see some variant mechanics for things like Blood Elves on top of the relevant lore:

• Dracthyr (new)
• Draenei (new)
• Dwarf
• Earthen (new)
• Elf
• Forsaken (new)
• Goblin
• Haranir (new)
• Human
• Mechagnome (new)
• Orc
• Pandaren (new)
• Tauren (new)
• Troll (new)
• Vulpera (new)
• Worgen (new)

60+ spells

We know very little about the brand new spells other than that there will be a lot of them (more than any other 5.5e expansion). It seems that these are likely to fill in gaps in WoW spellcasting.

25+ magic items including mounts

We don’t know much about these yet, but we know there will be some different types of mounts and companion creatures available. This includes mechanical mounts like the mechano hog or the flying machine and creature mounts like a gryphon or raptor.

7 iconic dungeons

Some of the most iconic dungeons in WoW have been reimagined for D&D. They include epic boss fights and the obvious dungeon crawling. These dungeons are:

• Deadmines (lv1-4): An abandoned goblin mine turned into a bandit’s hideout.
• Shadowfang Keep (lv1-4): A gothic castle ruled by a mad archmage and overrun with were-creatures and undead.
• Black Fathom Keep (lv5-10): An underwater temple of the night elves now corrupted by a cult to the old gods.
• Scarlet Monastery (lv5-15): Headquarters of a fanatical group of inquisitors with a mission to eradicate all afflicted with undeath.
• Dire Maul (lv11-16): Ruins of an ancient elven city that is now inhabited by ghosts, a demonic prison and ogres.
• Azjol Nerub (lv17-20): Arctic Underdark lair of undead spider creatures.
• Onyxia’s Lair (lv17-20): Lair of a black dragon.

30 Dungeon bosses

We’re also getting a pretty massive 30 dungeon boss stat blocks. With 7 dungeons included, we can perhaps expect bosses like the Crypt Lord Anub’arak from Azjol Nerub or the mad archmage Arugal from Shadowfang Keep to make an appearance, though we’ve not had confirmation of what dungeon bosses will appear.

50+ monsters

We do however, know what monsters have been included as images of the bestiary contents have been shared online. These include:

• CR 1: Fel Imp, Murloc Forager, Voidwalker
• CR 2: Shadowstalker Satyr
• CR 3: Murloc Oracle, Voidcaller
• CR 4: Felguard, Felsworn Satyr, Furbolg Totemic
• CR 5: Felhound, Furbolg Ursa, Naga Myrmidon
• CR 6: Green Dragonflight Whelp
• CR 7: Blue Dragonflight Whelp, Naga Sea Witch, Quilboar Thornweaver
• CR 8: Red Dragonflight Whelp
• CR 9: Black Dragonflight Whelp, Naga Siren
• CR 10: Bronze Dragonflight Whelp
• CR 11: Doomguard, Moonkin, Nerubian Warrior
• CR 12: Abomination, Green Dragonflight Drake, Infernal
• CR 13: Blue Dragonflight Drake, Nerubian Crypt Fiend
• CR 14: Ancient of War, Nerubian Venomancer
• CR 15: N’raqi Faceless One, Red Dragonflight Drake
• CR 16: Black Dragonflight Drake, Shingrra
• CR 17: Bronze Dragonflight Drake
• CR 19: Green Dragonflight Dragon
• CR 20: Anduin Wrynn, Blue Dragonflight Dragon, Pit Lord
• CR 21: Alleria Windrunner, N’raqi Faceless General, Red Dragonflight Dragon
• CR 22: Black Dragonflight Dragon, Jaina Proud Thrall
• CR 23: Bronze Dragonflight Dragon, Ragnaros, nas Windrunner
• CR 24: Illidan Stormrage
• CR 24: Lich King Arthas

I suspect we’ll still see a lot of creatures simply using stat blocks from the Monster Manual, but this is still a fairly sizeable bestiary considering what else is included in the book.

Professions is a brand new downtime mechanic

We’ll be getting a more fleshed out resource gathering and crafting set of mechanics. This will let you use downtime to gather resources, craft items and coordinate your efforts as a team.

23 factions

These cover both the alliance and the horde as well as a few other factions as well. They’ll allow players to build reputation with certain groups and develop allegiances. These factions include:

Alliance subfactions

• Darnassus
• Exodar
• Gilneas
• Gnomeregan
• Ironforge
• Obsidian Warders
• Stormwind
• Tushui

Horde subfactions

• Bilgewater Cartel
• Dark Talons
• Darkspear Tribe
• Huojin
• Orgrimmar
• Silvermoon City
• Thunder Bluff
• Undercity

Other factions

• Argent Dawn
• Cenarion Circle
• Earthen Ring
• Explorers’ League and Reliquary
• Kirin Tor
• Steamwheedle Cartel
• Valdrakken Accord

---

It feels like D&D: World of Warcraft is absolutely crammed with content based on what’s included. Whether that content is any good is yet to be seen, but I’m hopeful that Wizards of the Coast will want to be making a big splash with their crossover content to build for future IP collaborations.

Will you be picking up D&D: World of Warcraft? Let me know in the comments below.

More on World of Warcraft