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D&D 5E Discussion

deuxhero

Arcane
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Jul 30, 2007
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Flowery Land
They now all basically read creature is "Typically [Alignment Here]" as a compromise.
But that's not new. We've had things like "usually Neutral Evil" long ago. In fact, I don't feel like checking, but I feel like creatures like orcs had "usually Chaotic Evil", not "always Chaotic Evil" in their statblocks.
Personally, I feel like this is a step back in more ways than one. I want to see alignments gone, and if it takes a manufactured racism nontroversy to do it, so be it, I do not give a shit.

3.5 Orc is "Often Chaotic Evil", in contrast to dragons and outsiders who are "Always _____".

PF gives no descriptors to alignment, in large part because it saves a lot of space to change a dedicated line into two characters (CE) in an existing line (the creature's type). Alignment is described as such in the first Bestiary
While a monster’s size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.
(Basically just a mild "this is the norm, but it can differ in your campaign")

I went and checked 4E, even though it doesn't have normal alignment. It only has one character on each monster's entry, but MM1 still describes alignment as
A monster’s alignment is not rigid, and exceptions can exist to the general rule. Chapter 2 of the Player’s Handbook contains detailed information on the various alignments.

The thing about SJWs wanting to be the "first" at things and carving out very narrow "firsts" to avoid dealing with all the meritorious people who came before them and rightfully can claim "first" still stands.
 

Larianshill

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Joined
Feb 16, 2021
Messages
1,719
What a twist. It wasn't Dragonlance after all.

Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman, the husband and wife team behind the original Dragonlance and Ravenloft settings, have announced a new and ambitious project. Called Skyraiders of Abarax, it’s described as a “5E-compatible experience” that will be “discovered through magical books.” The project will appear on Kickstarter this fall.

The Hickmans have been developing adventures for D&D since the 1970s. Their homebrew Ravenloft adventure would eventually give birth to Strahd von Zarovich, one of the franchise’s most iconic villains. Later, with the help of Margaret Weiss, they would flesh out the world of Krynn — both in the Dragonlance Chronicles novels, and in a series of popular adventure modules published by TSR.

Not much is known about Skyraiders of Abarax at this time, other than the hints that Tracy Hickman has been dropping on social media. Art shows flying ships, nautical dress, a humanoid panther, and flying dragons. Things kicked off on July 19 with a fragment of a poem, which carried over into an additional posts on Sept. 1. We’ve included all the lines in sequence, along with some additional language from Instagram. The same poem is also available once you sign up for a newsletter.

This year has seen a number of high-profile, third-party settings that use the rules of 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons as their foundation. Also known as the System Reference Document (SRD), publisher Wizards of the Coast offers those rules as an open-source toolset that can be used to create new products. It’s the same framework that underpins the Ouroboros: Coils of the Serpent setting, from former Blizzard executives Chris Metzen and Mike Gilmartin, and the upcoming book Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, from the team at Critical Role.

It’s important to note that Tracy Hickman hasn’t been resting on his laurels since the 1990s. He’s been heavily involved in worldbuilding and narrative design for The Void, an untethered, room-scale virtual reality system pioneered by his son, Curtis Hickman. More than just a headset, The Void was marketed as a genre-bending transmedia experiment orchestrated by Tracy Hickman with unique technical elements designed by Curtis Hickman, who is also a professional magician.

It’s notable then that the landing page for Skyraiders makes mention of a “unique ‘Living Tome System,’” but provides no explanation of what that could be. The first newsletter also implies a partnership with Joe Bourrie, a senior designer at The Void, and Kim Bourrie, a veteran designer who previously worked for Electronic Arts.

Polygon has reached out to Tracy Hickman for more information.


https://www.polygon.com/22667176/dungeons-dragons-skyraiders-of-abarax-dragonlance-announcement
 

Larianshill

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Feb 16, 2021
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Don't see anything wrong with it, and I understand the reasons. Tracy and Laura, if you've missed the drama, were engaged in a fierce shitstorm with Wizards of the Coast, over WotC not being satisfied with Dragonlance, and wanting to implement changes. After that, I'd create a new setting too, unofficially and entirely without corporate rats sticking their noses where they don't belong.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
The new adventure book The Wild Beyond the Witchlight sounds pretty meh

Some highlights from that review
  • While it still lacks the narrative clarity of Descent Into Avernus or Curse of Strahd, it doesn’t have the strange narrative leaps that trip up Frostmaiden.
  • The attempt to make the adventure truly violence free is admirable and, for the most part, successful. It turns most of the fights into puzzles and mysteries, but you can bargain, beg, or cajole your way out of everything. D&D is, famously, not built to handle anything but combat and yeah, you should definitely try out one of the many other games that de-emphasize the violence.
  • Chattering frog heads, crashing air balloons, talking oil cans, and the love story between a flower and a bee all play parts in the journey.
  • Ellywick Tumblestrum (who “appeared” on D&D Live to announce the adventure) is explicitly referred to as a Planeswalker in the book, further connecting Magic the Gathering to D&D in the multiverse.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
So 2024 we're getting a 5.5e or 6e apparently.

It's being billed as a evolution and not a new edition and promises backwards comparability.

Meh
 

deuxhero

Arcane
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Jul 30, 2007
Messages
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Location
Flowery Land
Source?

Even ignoring how up its own ass WotC is, I can't see anything backwards compatible with 5E being good. The basic math is so broken the system requires fundamental changes to not be almost entirely luck based (1d20=10.5, plus or minus up to 9.5, while starting modifiers are +5 and the absolute max bonus possible without GM fiat magic gear is +11).
 

Larianshill

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Feb 16, 2021
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I'm cautiously optimistic. 5e can really be improved with some changes, as long as they're the right changes. I don't have faith that WotC will have the wisdom to make them, and the willingness to slaughter some sacred cows that need slaughtering.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
Oh wow 5.5 gets worse

STAT BLOCK REFINEMENTS
Over the past year or so, we’ve been refining the D&D stat block to make it easier to use and to improve how DM-controlled creatures function in play. The following sections describe the main changes we’ve made. You can find these changes in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, as well as in Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos, and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.



CREATURE TYPE
Creature types are now always capitalized. We’ve made this change so that it’s easier to tell in our rules when we’re talking about a monster of a certain type (a Giant, for example), rather than using a word in its normal sense (“She was a giant in the bard community”).

We’ve also gotten strict about which monsters get the Humanoid creature type. This type is now reserved for creatures who are humanlike in their moral and cultural range. As we update older books, we’ll reassign some Humanoids to other creature types. When Monsters of the Multiverse is released, you’ll see that some former Humanoids are now Monstrosities, Fey, and other types.

ALIGNMENT
Alignment had a time out in the stat blocks of Candlekeep Mysteries and Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. We omitted alignment in those books as a temporary measure, giving us time to determine how to handle alignment going forward. Now that we’ve done that work, alignment returns in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight and appears in all our other upcoming books as well.

So why did alignment get a time out? For a while, there’d been some confusion in the community about alignment’s role in D&D. In the rules of the Player’s Handbook, you choose your character’s alignment, and in the rules of the Monster Manual, the DM determines a monster’s alignment. No matter what alignment is chosen, a creature’s alignment describes that creature’s moral outlook; alignment doesn’t determine the creature’s behavior. Alignment is essentially a roleplaying aid.

Both books are clear about the player and the DM having the final say on alignment, but both books also plant a seed of doubt. The Player’s Handbook suggests alignments for various folk in the D&D multiverse, and the stat blocks in the Monster Manual include alignments without reminding the DM that those alignments are merely suggestions.

To eliminate that seed of doubt while preserving alignment’s function as a roleplaying tool, we’ve made the following changes:

  • Only named individuals, such as Mister Witch and Mister Light, have a definite alignment.
  • Generic Humanoids bear the words “Any Alignment,” reminding the DM that such people have vast moral range.
  • Magical creatures that have a strong moral inclination (angels, demons, devils, undead, and the like) have an alignment preceded by the word “Typically.” For example, a demon’s stat block says “Typically Chaotic Evil,” since it is typical for a D&D demon to be chaotic evil. That one word—“typically”—reminds the DM that the alignment is a narrative suggestion; it isn’t an existential absolute. The holy can fall, and the fiendish can rise. Members of certain organizations—charitable knighthoods or diabolical cults, for example—also sometimes get the “Typically” treatment.
  • Creatures, such as most Beasts and Oozes, that are incapable of moral discernment continue to lack an alignment and therefore bear the term “Unaligned.”
TAGS
Occasionally a creature has a tag—Elf, Goblinoid, Titan, or the like—that identifies an important detail that doesn’t appear elsewhere in the stat block. We’ve begun introducing new tags, which some rules now reference, allowing us to create fresh ways for creatures to interact with the game’s system. For example, some creatures now include a tag that is the name of a spellcasting class, such as Cleric, Druid, or Wizard, and Monsters of the Multiverse includes a rule that says such a tag means the creature counts as a member of the named class for the purpose of magic item attunement.

PROFICIENCY BONUS
Many of the numbers in a stat block include the creature’s proficiency bonus. Because of that fact, a creature’s proficiency bonus now appears in the stat block. The number sits to the right of the creature’s challenge rating.

BONUS ACTIONS
If a creature has any bonus actions, those actions now appear in a section called “Bonus Actions” in the stat block. That section goes after the “Actions” section, and if a monster has a “Reactions” section, the “Bonus Actions” section goes between “Actions” and “Reactions.”

This new section makes it easier for a DM to spot bonus actions when running a creature, which previously hid among a creature’s traits near the top of the stat block.

SPELLCASTING
Since 2014, spellcasting creatures have tended to have the Spellcasting trait, the Innate Spellcasting Trait, or both. Starting in 2021, we have merged those two traits into an action called Spellcasting. That action now appears in the “Actions” section of a stat block, and it has a few important qualities:

  • The Spellcasting action doesn’t use spell slots. A creature can cast the action’s spells a certain number of times per day.
  • The only spells that appear in the Spellcasting action are ones that take an action to cast. If a spell requires a bonus action, a reaction, or a minute or more to cast, that spell must appear elsewhere in the stat block. This change ensures that bonus actions and reactions—such as misty step and shield—aren’t hiding out in a list of spells.
  • We’re more selective about which spells appear in a stat block, focusing on spells that have noncombat utility. A magic-using monster’s most potent firepower is now usually represented by a special magical action, rather than relying on spells.
NEW CHARACTER RACES

The new character races in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight—the fairy and the harengon—both appeared in Unearthed Arcana, and they now appear in their final form in that book. The races have several characteristics that you’ll see not only in the book, but also in the character races in our other upcoming books. These characteristics are explored below.

CREATURE TYPE
In the past, a character race was presumed to have the Humanoid creature type. In the new races, the character’s creature type is specified. For example, the fairy has the Fey creature type.

Creature types don’t have rules themselves, but some rules in the game affect creatures of certain types in different ways. For example, the cure wounds spell doesn’t work on a Construct or an Undead.

ABILITY SCORE INCREASES
New character races don’t have the Ability Score Increase trait that Player’s Handbook races have. The new races instead rely on a special character-creation rule that allows a character to increase one ability score by 2 and another score by 1 or to increase three different ability scores by 1. The lack of the Ability Score Increase trait helps make your choice of race and your choice of class independent from each other, broadening the types of characters we’re likely to see at the game table.

If you’re having trouble deciding which scores to increase, we recommend consulting your class’s “Quick Build” section. For example, the bard’s “Quick Build” section recommends you increase your character’s Charisma and Dexterity.

AGE
New character races lack an Age trait. We instead now provide the following text about a character’s life span: “The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries.”

ALIGNMENT
Previously, the text of a character race suggested an alignment for your character. Newer races contain no such alignment suggestions, since a character’s alignment is entirely under the purview of the player.

SIZE
Some new races, including the harengon, let you choose whether your character starts Medium or Small, reflecting the fact that some races contain an especially broad range of builds. You’ll see this choice in other races in the future.

Also, rather than suggesting height and weight in a race, we provide the following text: “Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.”

LANGUAGES
The new races lack traits that are purely cultural, so they don’t include a Languages trait. Instead, new characters start knowing Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for your character.

dnd_sa_harengon.png

RABBIT HOP QUESTIONS
When a harengon uses Rabbit Hop, does the trait’s jump expend movement? The Rabbit Hop trait lets a harengon jump as a bonus action, and that jump doesn’t consume any of the harengon’s normal movement. That fact is why the trait has a limited number of uses between long rests. If you compare the wording of Rabbit Hop to the wording of the long and high jump rules in the Player’s Handbook, you’ll see that those rules explicitly expend movement, whereas Rabbit Hop doesn’t.

Is Rabbit Hop a high jump or a long jump? The jump of Rabbit Hop is neither a high jump nor a long jump. If it were either, its text would say so.

Does the jump spell benefit Rabbit Hop? Yes, the jump spell can affect the jump distance of Rabbit Hop. If you cast that spell on a harengon, enjoy the magnificent leaps!

Are you required to jump the full distance of Rabbit Hop? You don’t have to jump the full distance of Rabbit Hop when you use it. We will clarify that intent in future printings of the Rabbit Hop trait.

Specifically these two bits:

"The typical life span of a player character in the D&D multiverse is about a century, assuming the character doesn’t meet a violent end on an adventure. Members of some races, such as dwarves and elves, can live for centuries.”

“Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world. If you’d like to determine your character’s height or weight randomly, consult the Random Height and Weight table in the Player’s Handbook, and choose the row in the table that best represents the build you imagine for your character.”

So pretty much on top of the remove for racial ASIs they're dropping average height and lifespans going forward other than a vague mention that dwarves and elves life longer.

Pretty much everyone now is just a human with a extra ability or two.

Whose ready to have adventures with tall halflings.:lol:

Like yeah most people will fix it on the fly or go back to older books for the details but wotc is just getting lazier and lazier. 3rd party books will be the only salvation going forward.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
I don't know, at this point wouldn't it be simpler to have only humans as playable race and you pick a background for that extra ability/stat modification?
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,325
Location
Flowery Land
I don't know, at this point wouldn't it be simpler to have only humans as playable race and you pick a background for that extra ability/stat modification?

I suspect they only don't do that because race is too ingrained to the brand, same with alignment. It would be better than the shit Hasbro is pulling though.
 

Larianshill

Arbiter
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Feb 16, 2021
Messages
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They're unable to distinguish Fantasy's misuse of "race" (actually meaning species) with real world "race".
Yeah, sure, maybe, if we were still talking about racial alignments. But now we're talking about lifespans and heights. You're telling me that height is not one of the most important features of a dwarf, or a halfling?
 
Joined
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Codex Year of the Donut
Using "species" would make sjws even more outraged, why do you think they use retarded terms like "ancestry"?
If you don't think an orc and a gnome are equally capable of being a barbarian, you are simply a bigot.
 

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