There were some interesting things to come out of the general Q&A Mike Mearls and the DMG. EN World site
The one I found intersting was no Battle System in the DMG. They want to play test it and put it with the basic for free which is all good by me. The intersting thing about that to me is that I figured the Battle System would be at least 5 pages. Now we know that it is not in the DMG that is around 7 to 8 pages combat option (not including battle system)which is about the size of the combat section in the players handbook. That is allot of combat options. Chapter 8 Running the game 247 to 252 around 5 pages and chapter 9 DM Workshop 270 to 273 about 3 pages. That is not counting combat options in other sections.
I agree that battlesystem will take up several pages, but I'd rather see page count reduced by removing all the mediocre art.
It's good to hear that they don't want to introduce too many splat books, but we all know they will change their minds.
btw, Kender and Warforged are also not going to be in the DMG.
Got a link to the Q&A text?
Nevermind. Here it is.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2022-Mike-Mearls-Answers-Anything-Well-Nearly-Anything!
Sounds like warforged and kender were cut for page count but the mass battle stuff was cut because it wasn't ready yet. But it will all be available free online, which is awesome.
dmgorgon wrote:
This proposed 'Unearthed Arcana' article (with warforged and kender) might be free but isn't it also possible a small price tag will be attached?
I'm just wondering. 'Unearthed Arcana' was a series of articles for D&D Insider (Dragon/Dungeon). 'Legends & Lore' they gave away because (little or) no actual game content was involved. Unearthed Arcana sounds more like a series for the ezines, something we'd be expected to pay for.
Not complaining. I'm all for paying for supplemental material. Guess I'm just wondering if the give-away of warforged and kender will be followed by anything else? A decade ago, back when I first started coming to the website, there was lots of stuff free for the taking (a whole bunch of adventures as I remember, psionics articles with classes/prestige classes, Realmslore articles, on and on). Hard to imagine that now days.
I liked what I heard. I like that they don't want to bloat the system with 101 add ons like they did in 3.5E. I'm also happy not to have kendor and warforged in the book.
The core rules are not complete if there are no rules for Warforged.
Shasarak wrote:
Mistwell wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
akaddk wrote:
Mistwell wrote:
Warforged were gonna be an example of a setting specific race. That was the whole idea of sticking 'em in the DMG. Apparently, I wasn't there 
.
I'm guessing most of the dragonborn went back to Abeir with the Sundering's Realms Shattering Event? Some must have remained behind given their inclusion in core 5e.
At least the Eladrin and Deva remain banished from the core game. Sorry to sound like a hater. I know it's all personal opinion and preference. I just don't like the imbalanced races with abilities far beyond the traditional races ie: wings, breathing fire, etc. These races also don't fit my more classic era perspective, which may be the biggest factor in my "fantasy racism". I've also thought the Warforged were Eberon specific?, so excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong. The return of aasimar would be nice , in regards to giving balance to the tiefling class, but evil humanoids and evil monstrosities should remain npc's, imho. ie: No drow pc's in my game
Before I start sounding like a gronard...I, um.. "hey you kids get off my lawn!! "
If BattleSystem means rules for grid combat, I'm glad the design team has decided to hold off for public playtesting, rather than rush it into the DMG. The rules for grid combat are quite possibly the most important "modular add on" of them all and deserve to be done right. Given how different and new the 5e combat dynamics are (eg: changes in movement rules, circumstances that allow bonus actions, etc) there will undoubtedly be unseen and unwanted dynamics that only a proper playtest will reveal. I'm glad they are being cautious to ensure a better end product, regardless of how eager I am to have it all now.
Shasarak wrote:
That is a good point, they could have kept Drow out of the core rules and kept it for the Greyhawk setting.
Angel7 wrote:
I, for one, am overjoyed that there won't be kender in the core books. My hatred of those obnoxious kleptomaniacs knows no bounds!
Shasarak wrote:
I'm glad the toasters are not in the core rulebooks. I have always despised them as a race in general.
Shasarak wrote:
some qyestions and awnsers where the DMG was mentioned.
Do you think we'll ever see a meta-game math document anywhere? For example, you very obviously have target numbers for damage (incoming and outgoing, with varying accuracy) at each level (or at least certain levels). And you clearly are willing to deviate from them a bit for various reasons.
The DMG will cover that for monsters. For stuff like spells, that's something that will evolve with time. I'd like to address it via a regular web column.
Are there alternatives to Vancian casting and X-Per-Day mechanics?
The DMG has a spell point system, but it does not replace all X/day abilities.
Where's the warlord?
Warlord is available under the fighter's battlemaster path.
Where are all the modules we were promised in the Legends and Lore columns?
DMG
You once talked about a tactics module for 5e, that would facilitate a playstyle similar to 4e. Any update about this?
DMG has rules for grids and miniatures.
However, I'm playing in my favourite setting ever - Ebberon. I was wondering if you could tell me if and when it'll be getting a revamp to 5E?
Eberron's definitely on the radar - my longest running 3e campaign was set there. A few of the rules options in the DMG speak to Eberron campaigns, plus we have the warforged designed already.
I'm a huge fan of the 4e campaign setting -- the Dawn War, the Gods versus the Primordials, the abyss within the Elemental Chaos, the shattered Astral Sea. How will the DMG support that?
DMG includes that pantheon with domains.
On a related note: The Death Domain presented in the DMG includes animate dead. What would you do for a cleric of the Raven Queen?
For animate dead, I'd replace it with bestow curse. Feels appropriate given her ties to fate.
What are your thoughts on the homebrewing of classes? I would love to see some basic class templates or guidelines in the DMG.
We'll be tackling that in a future web column. We thought about covering it in the DMG, and did write up some material, but given how the game can evolve we didn't want to have outdated info in a core rulebook in a few years.
I'm a big fan of homebrewing - it's part of what makes D&D great.
Hi Mike. Will the warforged be in he DMG? Will there be support of Eberron in 5e? Many have supported Keith Baker's Eberron charity initiatives
Warforged are not in the DMG, alas. Cut for space reasons. However, we will be making that material available.
here is a rumor going about that WOTC will be taking an extended break from publishing D&D content after DMG, are there 2015 supplements planned?
We definitely have stuff planned for 2015! We are moving away from the monthly model, and you can expect fewer releases overall, but we want to avoid splat creep and system bloat. That decision is based on our personal preference plus data we collected via the playtest.
As a DM, I really value consistency. I want my players to know what their characters can accomplish, and be confident about those things. When it comes to ability checks though, difficulties for standard activities (climb a wall, swim in a river) seem to be left out entirely. Can we look forward to seeing some guidelines in the DMG?
There are more guidelines for DCs in the DMG, but we are consciously avoiding the concept of a canonical list of DCs. Each DM has a different approach, and we also feel that the spread of DCs is narrow enough that DMs can quickly silo tasks into them.
Resting for a night replenishes all of a characters HP, as well as half their hit dice. The full heal seemed to garner a fair bit of criticism during the playtest, so what was the deciding factor in including it?
We found that the full heal was the most popular option, but there are alternatives in the DMG. It's definitely a case where groups varied the most in terms of preference, but full healing seemed to make many groups happy while doing the least offense in turning people away. We generally created defaults that are fairly liberal, and then let DMs tone down things. That seems to be a pattern that works well for most DMs.
What kinds of guidelines were used when assigning monsters their CRs? Is there a range of values for each rating/level? Coming from 4e with its fairly strict progression I've been having a hard time finding any sort of pattern in monster capabilities.
The DMG breaks down CR into an offensive and defensive rating, with a range of values for each (attack bonus and damage for offense, AC and hit points for defense). Special abilities can also modify those CRs, and this is where a fair amount of design sense and playtesting comes in to make sure that something is weighed correctly.
Once you're done, you simply average out offensive CR and defensive CR to come to your final rating. Again, you might adjust a little in either direction for monsters with weird abilities, but the process is easy if you're making typical monsters.
I'm currently running the HotDQ adventure with my party, and we're liking the system a lot.
My big issue is that my party has now amassed a lot of money, but have nothing to spend it on. The PHB says that only common magic items are sold, so it sounds like they can't buy +1 weapons, etc.
What can my party do with all its wealth?
The DMG has guidelines on this, but to tide you over I'd take a look at the final chapter of HotDQ (spoiler - flying castle) and set a price tag on getting that thing repaired and flying again.
Stuff like that gets players really excited, because they get a really cool toy that logically needs a lot of cash to keep functional (staff, guards, repairs, etc.)
Otherwise, I'd eyeball magic item sales, land and titles, and so on. The key for me as DM is to avoid giving the players a blank check - for magic items, I'd have them create a list of ones they want to buy, then incorporate that into the game as a key event (someone sells them a treasure map to one, someone else will take a bribe to help steal one, etc - keep it fresh rather than making it feel like a trip to the corner store).
Does the DMG include wealth by level tables and magic item price for GMs who want to run very high magic games
We give a baseline of how many items are typical for a campaign, plus guidelines for creating higher level characters and their typical gear.
There are price ranges based on level for items, plus guidelines for buying and selling items.
Is the mass combat Battlesystem you posted about in L&L going to be in the DMG? What about material for PC domains? I really want to incorporate that stuff into my campaign as it levels up.
Mass combat is not in the DMG - we decided that the system needed more playtesting. So, we'll be conducting open testing of that material and releasing it as part of Basic D&D once it is complete.
There are rules for domains and managing a realm or business as part of the downtime system.
The PHB says that a paladin who breaks his oath can become an Oathbreaker Paladin or "abandon this class and adopt another." Does this just mean begin mutliclassing as usual? Does a 10th level paladin who breaks his oath and switches to Fighter or Rogue retain all his existing Paladin powers and just become unable to learn new ones, or do some of them go away? I always had the impression that a fallen paladin (who does not become an evil paladin from the DMG) would lose his divine abilities temporarily or permanently.
It's based on the DM's campaign. You can go two ways - the paladin can multiclass and keep the existing paladin powers, or the paladin rebuilds as a character with levels in a different class (most likely fighter).
In the first case, you're saying that paladin is something that people can learn. As you level up in the class, you unlock secrets that you get to keep.
In the second, you're saying that once you anger the gods, they take your power away.
In a campaign where paladins aren't tied to deities, the first approach makes sense. The second one fits if you see the gods as tightly tied to what makes a paladin a paladin.
Thanks for posting the question and answers in a more indepth manner. I missed the one about having the rules modules from legends and lore in the DMG. I am curious to see if they do both lingering wounds and critical hits table like the one in old Dragon Mag Article or something new. I wonder if called shots and massive damage will be included. There are more pages combat options than I had thought so maybe most will be in there.
I love kender and warforged and would have prefered them to halflings and dragonborn in PHB. Still, as long as they come out eventually, it's fine.
FallingIcicle wrote:
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Timborama wrote:
Timborama wrote: