Don't worry El Minstro will save the day.
@YetiMoose : Has Adventurer's Handbook been canceled? http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?408983-Has-ADVENTURER-S-HANDBOOK-Been-Cancelled …
@mikemearls : We can't cancel a book we never announced!
@Morrus : Interesting. You guys made ad copy and designed a cover for it, though?
@mikemearls : we do a lot of stuff that may or may not end up as a released product.
@mikemearls : we've played things close to the vest is that it's a huge, open question on what support for the RPG should look like
@mikemearls : for instance, we now know that the high volume release schedule for 3e and 4e turned out to be bad for D&D
Good stuff ahead
What was the Adventurers Handbook cover is now the box art for the new board game.
I think mashing player content and the Adventure is a bad idea. I for one was looking forward to a full book of elemental choices, hopefully including more class paths. But now it seems in order to get one of my favorite races I have to buy a adventure I will never use. And if it's priced at 40 - 50 dollars then it's a major waste of my money. I hope this is not the new trend. I loved the core books bought them each on release, but now I'm worried this is how things will be.
Blazen_the_Red wrote:
Blazen_the_Red wrote:
pukunui wrote:
That's a possibility as well.
1eejit wrote:
I really like releases that mix player content with adventure content. WFRP3e did that, and buying any given WFRPG 3e product was a joy. I hope this is going to be a new trend.
pukunui wrote:
Synjin wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Synjin wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Probably to cater to both the digital and print audiences. Some DMs for example do not allow digital and/or magazine content at their tables, and will only allow options if it is available in a printed product.
Then there are people like me, who prefer printed content over digital, for a variety of reasons - tactile response, sound, smell, or ease of use (I find scrolling through pdfs annoying, and find page flipping faster and more useful, especially when I have multiple books open simultaneously).
PDFs have their place IMO, but like many - they will never completely replace a printed product in my library. I cross-reference too much, and enjoy the sensory stimuli of books too much. I resort to PDFs only when I must, or when pulling out my books is inconvienient.
I would like to do some (fool) suggestions:
The shugenja (elemental priest, without armour... maybe primal power source..or elemental) with the mysteries and game mechanic from Shadowmancer (3.5 Tome of Magic).
The classic four genasies and abysal ones and the ones from Dark Sun.
- The return of the paraelementals and quasielementals, and also the elemental from Ravenloft (Blood, pyre, mist and grave).
- Half-elemental monster template.
- Wood and metal like added ones. In one of my settins there is a religious conflict between eath clerics, metal vs crystal cults.
---
New board game? I hope characters can get XPs to leveling up and coins to buy item for the next quests.
edwin_su wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
bawylie wrote:
pukunui wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Okay, cool. Weird what they're doing, but cool. I'm looking forward to March. 
The thing I'm more concerned about ..... is this sounds like a continuation of The Temple of Elemental Evil story line, and that they have moved it from Greyhawk to Forgotten Realms. This has broken my old gaming heart. I know many of you will say too bad and times change, etc., but to me ..... it just seems the longer WoTC goes on with D&D, the more they are trying to distance themselves from Gygax and the things he created. I find it upsetting that once again, we are having The Realms shoved down our throats, when it was made very clearly by many, MANY, players that we were excited about all the references to campaign settings that we loved and miss so much, (Krynn, Greyhawk, Planescape, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Mystaria.) Furthermore .... to have this new adventure take place ONCE AGAIN on the Sword Coast. Really? Again?
Why couldn't they have set this in Greyhawk?
I understand they are really trying to push that MMO, and since it's coming to the Xbox1 it really needs to be advertised again ..... but come on.
Pretty soon they'll be moving Castle Ravenloft to The Realms.
I'm just so disappointed, I can't even look at my 5th edition books. I can't help but feel like I wasted a ton of money on new books and minis. I guess I got my hopes up too high after reading all those awesome references in the corebooks to all those campaign settings that I missed.
Bummer.
Guest1790093391 wrote:
Yeah this is not the Temple of Elemental Evil.
Though I do hope they annouce later as a suprise a 5e remake of it.
I don't get why everyone is complaining that Princes of the Apocalypse wasn't set in Greyhawk. Do they really want to have the events from the Temple of Elemental Evil happen to that world again? Why can't they just take their original adventure and update it for 5e and run that? Why can't they do a new adventure in the Forgotten Realms that's inspired by the old Greyhawk adventure?
It also sounds like it's not going to be a single temple but four separate ones. They may even be scattered all over the Sword Coast.
As to why the Forgotten Realms again? My guess is it's because of the Neverwinter MMO. Setting the adventures in the Sword Coast region of the Realms makes it easy to do that whole cross-platform support thing they've been talking about.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
bawylie wrote:
The thing is, the Tyranny of Dragons storyline was equally shoehorned into FR. Takhisis (aka Tiamat) trying to take over Krynn (or at least Ansalon) is a central theme of the setting, as is dragon-centric campaigns. This makes us Dragonlance fans worry that we will never see a Dragonlance-themed product on account of them stealing its major themes for the very first campaign season.
Then again, they could always give us a solid Chaos War campaign - one that doesn't follow the Novel exactly, but highlights the perils other characters faced during said war. We could end the campaign with the fight against Chaos himself though easily enough. Although, we have already had one season end with a battle vs. god, and I suspect the second season may follow suit with Tharizdun.
Kalani wrote:
Kalani wrote:
I think this was a good call. I was looking forward to the adventure but not the adventurer's handbook. Something about it just seemed...off. Player options are supposed to be playtested before release, right? I mean, that's kind of 5E's thing. None of this would have been playtested. Plus, it felt kind of niche. Hopefully we get a great adventure out of this. I'm not a huge, huge fan of the original or Monte Cook's 3E sequel, but I understand their place in the game and hope Sasquatch does a great job reintroducing this classic to a new generation of gamers.
THEMNGMNT wrote:
Well, Takhisis has tried at least 3 times to varying degrees of success, and was drawn to Krynn by Raistlin in an alternate timeline.
- Third Dragon War: Physically manifested herself in her 5-headed dragon form. Was defeated by the combined might of Huma Dragonbane and his consort - the Silver Dragon "Heart". Huma impaled Takhisis upon a greater dragonlance, at which point she was banished from Krynn, unable to mainfest.
- Fourth Dragon War (War of the Lance): Attempted to manifest near the conclusion of the War, but was thwarted from entering Krynn by Raistlin's magic, and Tanis' timely interruption.
- Raistlin's Quest: Raistlin fought Takhisis in the Abyss before drawing her to Krynn where she was permanently slain. Upon ascending to godhood, Raistlin then proceeded to systematically battle and slay all of the other gods before destroying Krynn itself. This timeline was averted thanks to Caramon and Tas. Admittedly, Takhisis only entered the world in this timeline as an opportunistic action (thanks to the open portal to the abyss).
- Chaos War: At the conclusion of the Chaos War, Takhisis stole Krynn and physically transported it through the Grey (Ethereal Plane) to another location. This was the first step in her final attempt to conquor the world, a plan that would not be realized for 38 years thereafter (see below).
- War of the Souls: Having successfully relocated Krynn to another point in space, she spends the next 30 odd years recovering from the effort, during which time she feeds herself on the ambient magical energies of the world. She encourages Palin Majere to rediscover the ambient magic of Sorcery (in the form of the Shadow Sorcerer), releasing a lot of trapped energy in the process, after which she directs the trapped souls of the dead to collect the energy to fuel her. Meanwhile, she discovers a sleeping godling in the depths of the world, and sends her to Goldmoon to raise her until she is ready.
After regaining her strength, she calls said godling and imbues her with clerical magic, leading her on a conquest to destroy the ursurping dragons which had claimed Ansalon during her weakness, as well as her most hated enemies. At the conclusion of this continent spanning war, Takhisis physically enters Krynn to claim sole rulership over its physical and spiritual planes.
She is thwarted due to the combined efforts of a time-travelling Tasselhoff, and Raistlin who help lead the gods to Krynn's new location, after which Paladine (Bahamut) sacrifices his godhood in order to make Takhisis mortal. Takhisis physically enters the world and is subsequently slain by Silvanoshei (daughter of Porthios and Alhana Starbreeze, and heir to both Elven thrones) with a broken dragonlance.
pukunui wrote:
Kalani wrote:
Wish they'd drop the 's', my ears keep hearing Princess of the Apocalypse.
Could go either way I s'pose but it's gotta be unintentional 
.
pukunui wrote:
Guest1790093391 wrote:
LuisCarlos17f wrote:
Actually, I would love to play a campaign set in one of the Alternate Krynns. If I had a say, my preference would be set in the Mageocracy of Krynn, or the Kingpriest Ascended. If we are going to have a campaign set in the main timeline though, I would prefer to see either the Chaos War or War of Souls campaigns (while there was a module set in the Chaos war, neither of which have been fully fleshed out as campaign arcs).
Personally, I don't mind crossovers et al.
I also don't mind crunch in adventure fluff books. It's the way most other RPGs have done it for decades as they tend to have a lower book count than D&D.
I do however lament the lack of originality.
Each campaign world has unique elements that set it apart, and each are liked in part for those elements.
Taking 'Elemental Evil' as a concept and porting it from Greyhawk to Forgotten Realms is one thing.
Cut and pasting high level concepts and making them fit into your MMO world region because you primary concern is the digital game is another.
I would be far more reassured if they announced 5th Edition Gazeteers for the other official gameworlds, or that they'd given the nod to keen and competent third party publishers to run with them. Given 5th Edition's first year sales I don't think they'd have trouble finding some.
I would also like to see these big adventures made campaign neutral, each with a chapter dedicated to using it in each of a handful of the major D&D worlds. Or at the very least, set in FR but with box sections inserted with the detail necessary to port it to Mystara or Greyhawk - those worlds most similar (Medieval Fantasy).
But no - if you want to run it 'out of the box', it's FR, Sword Coast or you have conversion work on your hands.
They are essentially saying - play where you want, but it's so much easier to go with the same-old, same-old.
Boring, lazy old WoTC...
Artifact wrote:
MonsterEnvy wrote:
This will make my 5e library quite small. I'll be passing on this adventure for the foreseeable future (6 sessions into the starter set and they STILL haven't finished it! And then it's off to Serpent's Skull books 2-6). Still, at least I don't have to worry about my players hassling me about adding extra books to the campaign midway through.
i'll be sure to check out the free options when they're released though.
Coredump00 wrote:
As far as competent 3PPs for the other campaign worlds - you can't get more competent for Dragonlance than Sovereign Press (owned and operated by Margaret Weiss, one of the original DL creators). Mind you, I would like to see some more original content for the world (as indicated above) rather than a rehash of the WotL. I have no less than 3 variations on that particular adventure path (DL1-15, the Dragonlance 25th Anniversary book for SAGA/2E, and the 3.5 Dragons of Autumn/Winter/Spring).
1eejit wrote:
1eejit wrote:
Kazadvorn wrote:
Kalani wrote:
Synjin wrote:
TheNovaLord wrote:
Life cleric is kinda of an exception to heal outside of combat tendency in 5E. That cleric is also around 100% maybe even 200% better at healing than the other clerics. The other clerics are slightly better at healing than the other classes due to betters pells like Prayer of Healing.
I hope it really is a re-visit version of ToEE for 5E. I could not play it and I am sure that a lot of the new customers and not so hardcore gamers haven't played. A good edition to just buy and enjoy. I see it as a good move. Of course for those that played it, Greyhawk hardoce fans, etc this is like sh1t but it is impossible to please everybody.
Still wonder if they will do any other setting than FR, though.
Or if GR will make a NewAgeD20whatsoever Freeport edition hehehe
Throvin wrote:
Reius wrote:
@MerricB : Do we have a page count for Princes of the Apocalypse yet?
@mikemearls : I *think* it's in the 256 - 320 range - can't remember off the top of my head
@Morrus : Yikes. 256-320? That's very... broad! :D
@mikemearls : it's not so wide when you think in 32 page increments!
@Morrus : Anyone would think you had more than just one single book to remember the page counts of! :D
@mikemearls : I have the stuff we're doing in 2017 much more front of mind these days! Elemental Evil is so 730 days ago
BRJN wrote:
A monster like Cthulu would be the brainstealer dragon from Dragon Magazine.
* If alternative timelines were canon in Dragonlance saga, a reboot would be possible, but keeping the original timeline.. maybe the different timelines would face each other, for example the god Raistling would try to invade Sithicus, the dark realm ruled by lord Soth within the demiplane of dread, and the timeline where kingpriest rules is invanded by enemy spellajmmers, or the orcs are created by magic to be the new supersoldier.
Remember the time travel is canon in Dragonlance.
In my settings when a future is changed by time-travellers, that timeline becomes a "nightmare realm", something like a dark realm from Ravenloft. It isn´t the true future but it isn´t totally erasured.
* Ri-laganth, the city-empire from "Chronomancer's handbook" (AD&D) could be its own setting, like Nethir Vale, with time crystal spheres and "hollow worlds" like the one from Mystara, even and a almost crossover with d20 Future (races from Gamma World, Alternity and Star Frontiers). And the "city of the gods" from Blackmoor module would be also a demiplane, a time crystal sphere created to be like a cosmic backup to avoid effects by chronomancers and another "crononauts" (time-travellers).
What if there is god Tharizdun from an alternative timeline, but this doesn´t want to destroy all universe, but to destroy all different timelines but the one ruled by him? And there is a war between the time dragons (the last published paper dragon magazine) and the leShay (fay race from Epic levels handbook)... the leshays lost (or they were affected by the time war between daleks and timelords) and only survived in a time crystal sphere, a demiplane where they could avoid temporal paradoxes.
Time travel is canon in Dragonlance with one major caveat....... Only Chaos and his creations (including the gemstone races) can alter its flow.
All other races become trapped within the flow of the "River", and are swept along. Raistlin was frustrated by this when he go swept up in the Dwarfgate wars, and were it not for Tasselhoff and Gnimish - Raistlin would have met the same fate as Fistandantillus before him.
Tasselhoff has seen two alternate futures. The one in which Silvanoshei is Speaker of the Sun and Stars of the United Elven Kingdoms, and where he was late for Caramon's funeral - and the one in which Chaos' influence altered its flow creating the 5th Age/War of Souls timeline.
Throvin wrote: