This is true and not only that, but in each god's section they go through the 'if you want to use this god as the villain in your story' spiel. To me if you're going to offer making one or more god's the villain of your story and then not offering a true conclusion to that it just fizzles some of the excitement out. Like "yay we stopped his evil plan! But isn't he just going to do it again? How do we stop him?" Says my players. Me - "shrugs"...
When you provide a stat block for a god, it changes the way you think about opposing that god. It just becomes a matter of getting strong enough to defeat them in combat. Even if you don't usually take that approach to problems, that solution is always sitting there in the back of your mind.
No stat block means you get no 'default' matter of defeating the god, and it gets you thinking of other ways to foil a god outside of just killing him. I think that starts to open up a lot of interesting narratives. Maybe you convince the god to change. Maybe you make a deal with it. Maybe you get enough gods on your side that they keep the bad one in line.
I also think that the way these gods are described, you can't really kill them by punching them to death anyway. They are manifestations of belief. If you want to destroy them, you need to get everyone to stop believing in them.
It isn't a matter of killing them. It's a matter of the principle of punching them in the face (for me).
besides, I have a statblock for a Tarrasque that you can't kill. Sure, you can drop its HP to zero, but it never truly dies, and it'll just regenerate in however many months or years.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
It would be nice if the character creation features were coded into the character builder. Missing this for the Wildemount book as well. It would be nice if we could use the books we paid for in the toolset, otherwise why not just buy the physical book?
Same, if I had known that none of the functionality was going to be implemented I wouldn't have bought it. Same with Wildemount and AQ Inc.
Exactly this. Which I feel bad saying because I know DNDB are busy with a tonne of stuff but man if the books release on here first you'd think they would prioritize functionality of the books on or near release so people can actually fully use what we pay for
It would be nice if the character creation features were coded into the character builder. Missing this for the Wildemount book as well. It would be nice if we could use the books we paid for in the toolset, otherwise why not just buy the physical book?
Same, if I had known that none of the functionality was going to be implemented I wouldn't have bought it. Same with Wildemount and AQ Inc.
Exactly this. Which I feel bad saying because I know DNDB are busy with a tonne of stuff but man if the books release on here first you'd think they would prioritize functionality of the books on or near release so people can actually fully use what we pay for
Except they had to spend literally all of last year recoding the back end to make it possible to implement these features, and are now working on making them work. So uh... yeah. they're working on it. And they have for over a year.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I enjoyed reading through this setting, but I found some things under my expectations. It shows how it was originally a MtG setting and a few details feel a bit forced into "color-themes". I think that some things that work for a CCG might need change to be good RPG material.
Erebos, for example, is described as so evil that the only way to make a paradisial afterlife possible was to make Ilysia being beyond his influence just because potato. I'd rather picture him as a proud god who keeps the paradise running because it's a task that was assigned to him and he wants to show Heliod how well he could make the world go. So, he maintains this place to rub it in his brother's face and (the part he enjoys more) to tantalyze the damned by showing them how happy their enemies and random people (never loved ones) are in their blessed afterlife.
Athreos, on the other hand, feels a little niche. He only cares about the living and the dead not trespassing into the other's realm. Big deal, Erebos is also concerned with it. I guess it's not completely redundant (they fulfill roles like the ones of siris and Anubis, after all), but the only reason I picture a character enforcing this rule for Athreos instead of doing it for Erebos is because Athreos is not evil. But wait... he is listed as evil! Even when he is listed as lacking cruelty, he is listed as an evil god on the grounds that he doesn't care about people either. Well, I find these two traits together rather definitory of neutrality, and neutral he will be when I run this campaign. Also, I'm considering to make him a little less niche by making him the patron of closed passages. He will be the god to whom you pray when bolting your home at night to keep intruders out, and the one whose effigy guards the city walls from invaders. He would also be worshipped by jailers.
I did like the other gods (even if it irks me a little to find that good gods can have shades of grey but not evil ones like Erebos and Pharika, whose good deeds the developers felt the need to justify), and the geography. The races are fine too, although I feel somewhat torn about Tritons being playable far from the water and the images of Satyr revels are a bit more "Disney" than I pictured them, but anyway...
The rules for Piety are among the best things in the book. Alignment could work a bit more like this, especially for classes with some relationship with the gods.
Overall a good setting. It feels a bit like mythologic Greece (with some parallels being "the right amount of obvious", one might say). I can't wait to run an adventure in my group.
Book fell short. Seems like they forgot to make NPC's for pretty much anything and they did not make a Gazetteer. Pretty lazy on WOTC's part leaves it up to the DM to Breath any real life into the setting. A campaign setting should have more to it. Should be $20 max since they just left most of the work to DM's. Hopefully this book is a fluke and not what we can expect from future books.
There is a lot to like about the material in the book and it makes me excited to play in a game set on Theros especially with a Piety system and Supernatural Gifts.
I think it needed to do a better job rooting new players into the setting with things like the Heroic Chronicle which was so well received in the Explorer's Guide to Wildmount and informative passages on the Empires at play, whereas here we are left with a few city states and that just feels underwhelming. Putting on my DM's hat for a moment the chapter on creating Theros adventures was rather excellent with lots of good ideas to be mined and recycled.
Overall I just wish there was more information fleshing out pretty much the entire book as it just feels like there its almost like it expects you to have a prior knowledge of the setting.
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Alston | Level 12 | Human | Cleric | Forge Dorrin | Level 1 | Stone Dwarf | Warlock | Fiend DM | Toril Catastrophe | Rime of the Frostmaiden DM | Clockwork Contingent | Tyranny of Dragons
If you're a spellcaster, do you have to tap the whole land or just part of it to cast your spells?
It feels like your being facetious a bit, but I'll still answer.
If you're playing on Theros as a DnD setting, it doesn't matter because that isn't a mechanical part of the game.
In terms of Magic: the Gathering, the land cards are an abstraction of a planeswalker's connection to the lands from which they draw their mana from... and technically speaking (to my understanding), tapping a land card is "the amount of mana a planeswalker can draw at one time from that land." It's not a matter of tapping the entire land (because how do you quantify that?) but rather just as much mana as they can get from each land in one go.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Yes, couldn't Wizards, I don't know, update Greyhawk or DragonLance for 5e rather than try to push another of their products on us?
I'm saturated with campaign settings. Although I'm one of the Dark Sun fans, I'd rather see another setting-agnostic options book like XGtE or another MToF-type monster manual.
Yes, couldn't Wizards, I don't know, update Greyhawk or DragonLance for 5e rather than try to push another of their products on us?
I'm saturated with campaign settings. Although I'm one of the Dark Sun fans, I'd rather see another setting-agnostic options book like XGtE or another MToF-type monster manual.
Probably coming soon, in the form of Xanathar's 2.0/Planescape. (Not exactly setting agnostic, but can be used for many settings, like spelljammer)
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I'm curious if anyone has found a way to add the Supernatural Gifts into a character sheet without creating a new item and/or modifying the character by themselves.
I'm curious if anyone has found a way to add the Supernatural Gifts into a character sheet without creating a new item and/or modifying the character by themselves.
Create them as homebrewed feats and add them to the character directly under “manage feats”
Recently got an Emissary of Erebos from an Icons of the Realms Booster. Are there stats for this anywhere? I couldn't find it in the Theros Beastiary.
If it isn't in the Theros Bestiary, we weren't given a statblock.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Thank you for the reply! Interesting. I wonder if it was something cut from the final book but the mini was already in production. Maybe it'll end up in one of the charity folios they did like the Eye of Fear and Flame.
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It isn't a matter of killing them. It's a matter of the principle of punching them in the face (for me).
besides, I have a statblock for a Tarrasque that you can't kill. Sure, you can drop its HP to zero, but it never truly dies, and it'll just regenerate in however many months or years.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LordBritishPostulate
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Exactly this. Which I feel bad saying because I know DNDB are busy with a tonne of stuff but man if the books release on here first you'd think they would prioritize functionality of the books on or near release so people can actually fully use what we pay for
Except they had to spend literally all of last year recoding the back end to make it possible to implement these features, and are now working on making them work. So uh... yeah. they're working on it. And they have for over a year.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I enjoyed reading through this setting, but I found some things under my expectations. It shows how it was originally a MtG setting and a few details feel a bit forced into "color-themes". I think that some things that work for a CCG might need change to be good RPG material.
Erebos, for example, is described as so evil that the only way to make a paradisial afterlife possible was to make Ilysia being beyond his influence just because potato. I'd rather picture him as a proud god who keeps the paradise running because it's a task that was assigned to him and he wants to show Heliod how well he could make the world go. So, he maintains this place to rub it in his brother's face and (the part he enjoys more) to tantalyze the damned by showing them how happy their enemies and random people (never loved ones) are in their blessed afterlife.
Athreos, on the other hand, feels a little niche. He only cares about the living and the dead not trespassing into the other's realm. Big deal, Erebos is also concerned with it. I guess it's not completely redundant (they fulfill roles like the ones of siris and Anubis, after all), but the only reason I picture a character enforcing this rule for Athreos instead of doing it for Erebos is because Athreos is not evil. But wait... he is listed as evil! Even when he is listed as lacking cruelty, he is listed as an evil god on the grounds that he doesn't care about people either. Well, I find these two traits together rather definitory of neutrality, and neutral he will be when I run this campaign. Also, I'm considering to make him a little less niche by making him the patron of closed passages. He will be the god to whom you pray when bolting your home at night to keep intruders out, and the one whose effigy guards the city walls from invaders. He would also be worshipped by jailers.
I did like the other gods (even if it irks me a little to find that good gods can have shades of grey but not evil ones like Erebos and Pharika, whose good deeds the developers felt the need to justify), and the geography. The races are fine too, although I feel somewhat torn about Tritons being playable far from the water and the images of Satyr revels are a bit more "Disney" than I pictured them, but anyway...
The rules for Piety are among the best things in the book. Alignment could work a bit more like this, especially for classes with some relationship with the gods.
Overall a good setting. It feels a bit like mythologic Greece (with some parallels being "the right amount of obvious", one might say). I can't wait to run an adventure in my group.
Book fell short. Seems like they forgot to make NPC's for pretty much anything and they did not make a Gazetteer. Pretty lazy on WOTC's part leaves it up to the DM to Breath any real life into the setting. A campaign setting should have more to it. Should be $20 max since they just left most of the work to DM's. Hopefully this book is a fluke and not what we can expect from future books.
If I wanted to play Magic the Gathering, I'd play Magic the Gathering.
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/7.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
There is a lot to like about the material in the book and it makes me excited to play in a game set on Theros especially with a Piety system and Supernatural Gifts.
I think it needed to do a better job rooting new players into the setting with things like the Heroic Chronicle which was so well received in the Explorer's Guide to Wildmount and informative passages on the Empires at play, whereas here we are left with a few city states and that just feels underwhelming. Putting on my DM's hat for a moment the chapter on creating Theros adventures was rather excellent with lots of good ideas to be mined and recycled.
Overall I just wish there was more information fleshing out pretty much the entire book as it just feels like there its almost like it expects you to have a prior knowledge of the setting.
I agree
"...and that happened."
Yes, couldn't Wizards, I don't know, update Greyhawk or DragonLance for 5e rather than try to push another of their products on us?
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/7.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
If you're a spellcaster, do you have to tap the whole land or just part of it to cast your spells?
[CENTER][URL=http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm][IMG]http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/7.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/CENTER]
It feels like your being facetious a bit, but I'll still answer.
If you're playing on Theros as a DnD setting, it doesn't matter because that isn't a mechanical part of the game.
In terms of Magic: the Gathering, the land cards are an abstraction of a planeswalker's connection to the lands from which they draw their mana from... and technically speaking (to my understanding), tapping a land card is "the amount of mana a planeswalker can draw at one time from that land." It's not a matter of tapping the entire land (because how do you quantify that?) but rather just as much mana as they can get from each land in one go.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
I'm saturated with campaign settings. Although I'm one of the Dark Sun fans, I'd rather see another setting-agnostic options book like XGtE or another MToF-type monster manual.
Probably coming soon, in the form of Xanathar's 2.0/Planescape. (Not exactly setting agnostic, but can be used for many settings, like spelljammer)
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
nope
Create them as homebrewed feats and add them to the character directly under “manage feats”
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Recently got an Emissary of Erebos from an Icons of the Realms Booster. Are there stats for this anywhere? I couldn't find it in the Theros Beastiary.
If it isn't in the Theros Bestiary, we weren't given a statblock.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Thank you for the reply! Interesting. I wonder if it was something cut from the final book but the mini was already in production. Maybe it'll end up in one of the charity folios they did like the Eye of Fear and Flame.