I don't understand the logic that people have to play every single combination of every class/races/background/subclass or they're not allowed to want something new. I never want to play bard. And there are many other options that I have no interest in either. And that logic could also be applied to any of the other classes/races.
Like why should we have barbarian when people have clearly never played every single fighter subclass/race/background combination? The answer is because people like the barbarians unique mechanics. So while you can reflavour a fighter as a barbarian extremely easily, it will still play differently mechanically. Ultimately we don't 'need' anything past fighter, expert, caster. But people 'want' options beyond those, which is why we have 13 classes and not 3.
I wouldn't be wanting an arcane spellsword nearly as much if we had an elemental themed paladin or ranger. That would tick all the boxes for me, being a half caster with elemental themed spells, and a spellstrike mimic with things like searing smite and thunderous smite.
I love Rocky Road. I imagine there are dozens of flavours I would mix and match that with. I also love Cookies and Cream. Once again, dozens of flavours I can mix and match with. Combining those two, with a 3rd, gives me hundreds of combinations, the vast majority I would find delicious.
The good combinations don't matter in this situation. It's the bad ones. You are being forced to use your own money to buy disgusting combinations that you must eat in order to be allowed to recommend a different flavor to be added. It doesn't matter if you like it, it's involuntary and at your own expense. Hundreds of those combinations may be delicious, like Cookies and Cream, Caramel, and Chocolate, but others would be so disgusting that you would feel violated by being forced to eat them and pay for them in order to get what you want in the end.
It doesn't matter if the majority of them were good. I'm sure the majority of the character combinations I would be forced to play in this scenario would be enjoyable. However, it's not my choice and taking my own time and energy in order to do that when I would rather prefer a different combination.
If tried a new flavour combo every week, it would me at least a couple years, just with those two as a base. I am not going to get into the math of it, but if you can't find combos and permutations you don't want to explore, strictly within the PHB, let alone the XGTE, then perhaps your problem is with D&D entirely. Using your Baskin-Robbins analogy, if that chain did not have my favourite ice cream, I would go to a chain that did. I would not petition them demanding they carry my favourite flavour. Further, maybe I would try the various flavours on the menu, and examine a ton of combinations and permutations BEFORE I said I hated them. (Except for Tiger Tail. I tried that once...absolutely vile stuff.)
What if it's the only ice cream chain in town? Or the only one within a reasonable amount of distance to travel to get ice cream? I play D&D mostly because it's fun, but there is a part of me that plays it because it is convenient. It is the most popular and best supported TTRPG. I know the system already. Imagine if your favorite flavor of ice cream was available, but you would have to drive to a region that spoke a language you didn't know and the ice cream was overall a lower quality than at Baskin-Robbins. That's what you're telling me to do. Either eat every combination of ice cream, including the disgusting ones, and then complain about not having the options that I want, or go somewhere else to get what I want and have to learn a new language in order to do so.
Does that sound fair to you? Is it not just easier and more beneficial to everyone for Baskin Robbins to just add that one flavor of ice cream? Especially if there are a ton of people with the same dilemma?
Now, getting back to the D&D world, as a DM, I like to craft NPC's based on the player available builds. I have literally dozens and dozens of builds, all at various levels, that are essentially one shots. Some are recurring NPC's, most are not. But I can tell you, they are all builds I would love to try out. ALL of them are built solely with the PHB and XGTE. The backlog is years of chars, and that is without exploring any other source material.
I don't see how this is relevant.
But I accept that WOTC can't make money without the newest "flavour of the month". The Artificer is the newest fad at my gaming cafe. Yesterday, at the table of 5 players, two were Arcane Trickster/ Artificers. And one of those players is talking about retiring the char because, and I quote, "He is not feeling it." So that fad may pass. Oh yeah, my three current chars are a Stout Halfling Scout Rogue, a Half-Elf Oath of the Ancients Paladin, and a Half-Elf Hexblade. Chars lined up, but have no way of playing them at the moment, include a Tiefling Fiend Warlock, a Lightfoot Halfling Lore Bard, a Gnome Evocation Wizard, and a Wood Elf Monk. I have not even begun to explore Humans and Dwarves.
New content will be used more often than old content once people have played old content. "Been there, done that". Old TV shows are nice to rewatch, but it eventually gets old and makes you want newer, fresher content. If you don't like the new flavors, don't eat them. I like a lot of them and use them. It hurts me to not have them, but doesn't hurt you to exclude them.
So, I am sorry if you have become bored with the core of the game, but I have not...not by a longshot. Outside of a financial perspective, there is no reason for WOTC to add more species, classes, and sub-classes.
It is not that I am bored with the so called "core" of the game. It's that there are options that could exist but don't for no reason other than "older players don't like it" or "D&D hasn't been there yet, so we can't do it". Who the %#$* cares?!?! I mean, obviously the die-hard, TRADITION-screaming old-school players care, but Dark Sun, Eberron, and D&D as we know it wouldn't exist if we hadn't rejected the traditional way things were before them. D&D as is is good enough for me, but that doesn't mean it can't be better. Good =/= Perfect.
Also, WotC is a business. Businesses exist, first and foremost, to make money. If it is financially superior for them to make new content, you're yelling at the tide by telling them to not go after money. (There are reasons to add more species, classes, subclasses, and other content to the game besides money, but that is off topic and likely not worth discussing.)
Ultimately, we agree. WOTC is a business, and will add classes far faster than players can try them out, because that is where the money is. I watched the Hasbro CEO in an interview last week talking about his plans for growing revenue, and it is very clear that turning WOTC into some kind of cash cow pumping out all kinds of new content is part of that plan. I say "new" content. Not good content. They will not change that to protect the integrity and soul of D&D. You can bet that the CEO does not care one whit about what D&D was, or is, or will become. Only maximizing profit matters. The abomination that shall not be named and what happened to Mr. Potatohead are prime examples of that, both Hasbro products. Oh, and when the current fad ends, and the pushback gets intense, watch Hasbro shift with the winds again, to once again, maximize profit.
Of course, they SHOULD not pump out who knows what content at some accelerated rate. But that is irrelevant. The soul and integrity of D&D means nothing to the C-Suite.
I didn't fully read the other several pages, so it could have already been mentioned.
Is there an actual Undead official "race" somewhere among any of the recent splat book supplements? If not, I could see a lot of players enjoying something like that.
For a new potential class? Not sure. I'm of the opinion that less classes (compromise for more subclasses maybe) is probably better. What could be so fundamentally different than what already exists? In reading all the strong opinions about the older editions Psionics, for example, it's likely not worth it to reintroduce and risk monumental backlash from strongminded opinionaters/haters.
Personally, I think it'd be neat to have an entirely non-magical class somehow, something for those players who want to feel more or less like an everyday person yearning to be reaching out to join in adventures with mighty mages and other heroes. Some sort of scientist/researcher/librarian class? Whose added value could be languages, prep, research, geologies, chemistries, monster biologies, etc. but with absolutely no way to even cast cantrip or spells and somehow is beefed up in other ways to help make the class attractive. Absolutely no idea off hand exactly what such a levelling progression would look like though. And a lot of those ideas/skills are likely already covered among many of the dozens of subclasses that already exist but to which I've never read.
I didn't fully read the other several pages, so it could have already been mentioned.
Is there an actual Undead official "race" somewhere among any of the recent splat book supplements? If not, I could see a lot of players enjoying something like that.
For a new potential class? Not sure. I'm of the opinion that less classes (compromise for more subclasses maybe) is probably better. What could be so fundamentally different than what already exists? In reading all the strong opinions about the older editions Psionics, for example, it's likely not worth it to reintroduce and risk monumental backlash from strongminded opinionaters/haters.
Personally, I think it'd be neat to have an entirely non-magical class somehow, something for those players who want to feel more or less like an everyday person yearning to be reaching out to join in adventures with mighty mages and other heroes. Some sort of scientist/researcher/librarian class? Whose added value could be languages, prep, research, geologies, chemistries, monster biologies, etc. but with absolutely no way to even cast cantrip or spells and somehow is beefed up in other ways to help make the class attractive. Absolutely no idea off hand exactly what such a levelling progression would look like though. And a lot of those ideas/skills are likely already covered among many of the dozens of subclasses that already exist but to which I've never read.
VRGtR will have Reborn and Dhampir as official races.
Serious question. There is a huge database of user created classes, backgrounds, and subclasses on this website. Have you searched to find out if the class you want is already available there?
While I'm still not sold on the new lineage direction myself, this would be a great way of introducing things like half-dragon or planar touched character options. I would like a couple more plant races (and plant creatures in general, 5e is severely lacking in this creature type).
For classes, I will also chime in on the desire for a Warlord as a martial support class. An Arcane half caster would also be a neat idea to complement the primal half caster (Ranger) and the divine half caster of (Paladin). I'd love the Blood Hunter to become official as well, and for there to be a full Psionic Class.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Since my preferred world is Mystara, I can answer that for you. They live in the Broken Lands section of the Known World, and are related to Kobolds like Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears are related. They can also be found in some areas of the Orc’s Head peninsula. At least, that was how I fit them in.
harder to fit in were things like Warlocks, Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi, etc. Since the Immortals jealousy guard Mystara so the gods & co. can’t come and mooch off the spheres, the Immortals Kinda keep those extra planar sorts out. So in my Mystara those suckers snuck in during the blackout of 1009, and more slip through during the DoD.
My timeline is currently semi-freddo in late Kalemont waiting for Covid to **** off so the heroes can get back to work and return to Specilarum just in time for the 2nd annual DoD, followed by the Nuwmont 1st festival when they will get to hear King Stephan rename the city as part of his unification efforts.
(I know, I know. What can I say, I’m a 2e man at heart.)
Ultimately, we agree. WOTC is a business, and will add classes far faster than players can try them out, because that is where the money is. I watched the Hasbro CEO in an interview last week talking about his plans for growing revenue, and it is very clear that turning WOTC into some kind of cash cow pumping out all kinds of new content is part of that plan. I say "new" content. Not good content. They will not change that to protect the integrity and soul of D&D. You can bet that the CEO does not care one whit about what D&D was, or is, or will become. Only maximizing profit matters. The abomination that shall not be named and what happened to Mr. Potatohead are prime examples of that, both Hasbro products. Oh, and when the current fad ends, and the pushback gets intense, watch Hasbro shift with the winds again, to once again, maximize profit.
Of course, they SHOULD not pump out who knows what content at some accelerated rate. But that is irrelevant. The soul and integrity of D&D means nothing to the C-Suite.
Ultimately, actually, we seem to disagree on practically everything worth disagreeing on. WotC's choice to add newer options has absolutely nothing to do with so called "cancel culture" or Mr. Potato Head losing the "Mr." (which itself has nothing to do with "cancel culture", despite what you may believe).
"New" is not an antonym for "good". If you don't believe me, check a dictionary or thesaurus. New content can be, and often is, "good" (in terms of balance, popularity, and every other objective meaning of the word in this hobby). All other non-objective meanings of "good" that could apply are opinion based and cannot be stated as definitive fact, as you seem to try to do in many threads.
D&D "was" the first and only TTRPG, heavily inspired by tactical wargames, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, and quite a few other well known fantasy authors, and created as a dungeon crawl where you create a random character, kill some monsters, and get some loot. D&D now "is" the most popular tabletop RPG in a sea of plenty of other decent/good options (Call of Cthulhu, Edge of the Empire, Pathfinder/Starfinder, Warhammer, GURPS, etc), where people have a much larger attachment to their characters and roleplaying than they did when the game started and mechanics are overall better balanced and simple than they were in the first versions of the game. D&D "will be" an increasingly popular and mainstream fantasy TTRPG where you can be and play practically whatever/whoever you want in order to tell any story you want that manages to qualify to the vague restriction of being "fantasy".
The more popular and mainstream D&D becomes, the more ideas will be added to it. People are different and like different things. I personally prefer a bit more choice in character creation than my friend IamSposta does, which is completely fine, it's just a different preference in playstyle. IamSposta enjoys rolling for ability scores and discovering your character through the dice. On the other hand, I prefer choosing who I play and how to play them, having an idea for the character that is developed/changed throughout the game through roleplay. Playstyle is inherently subjective, and thus there is no objective "right", "wrong", "good", "bad", "false", or "true" to the matter. This is the key. Fun cannot be wrong as long as its overall outcome for the people at the table is positive and does not directly negatively impact people outside of it.
I have fun in Eberron. I have fun in Wildemount. I have fun in my homebrew fantasy-modern world of Tor-eal (which I imagine you would find completely abhorrent). My fun is not your fun, but that does not make it wrong. It does not mean that some elite corporate owners that have no idea what D&D is are caving to some imaginary mob of people on Twitter in order to diversify D&D and turn all of the fictitious potato-humanoids in the multiverse gender-neutral. It means that the scope of D&D is increasing, and that is good for the hobby, as that means it will reach more people. This is both beneficial financially for WotC (which is good for the people that play the game, because we need the game designers to make the game), and beneficial fun-wise for the overall community that plays the game.
Additionally, you keep trying to pretend like none of the new things that are being added make any sense to add to D&D. British Space-Hippos, Brain-Eating-Platypuses, and 11-Laser-Eyed-Giant-Floating-Heads have been in D&D for decades. Don't act like it's just getting weird and silly now. That's complaining about a dead unicorn.
Blood Hunter. I totally forgot that in my post above. They should do another book with Matt Mercer with an official Blood Hunter class in it.
Im not a huge fan of critical role but I love the flavor of the blood hunter and would love to see a 5e official version. The issue I see is as they release more books like Xanathar's and Tasha's, would Matt Mercer be tied into making new subclasses for the Blood Hunter as well? Or more realistically would he just have to sign over all creative rights to the WotC team?
On a similar note, if a book were released containing the Blood Hunter class, I would love to see more subclasses/spells related to blood magic as well
when 4e was out I didn't have a group to play with, but I was pretty interested in the Thri-Kreen race. They're just so weird and interesting... I think there's a lot of fun potential there. Luckily it's one of the races that has a ton of solid homebrew for it, so it wouldn't be hard to find a version of the race if I really wanted to for my home game, but I'd still like to see an official version.
I know some people disagree, but I actually really like the balance of classes in D&D and think that most classes I would want would actually work just fine as a subclass to one of the existing classes. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that they felt Artificer, rather than being a class unto itself, would have worked fine as a subclass, or series of subclasses. The most unique aspects of the Artificer are mostly flavoring anyway. Prior to releasing the full class you could just as easily be any other spellcasting subclass and reflavor your spells as being delivered through inventions instead of traditional magic and gotten most of the same feel. You could be a sorcerer whose spells are delivered by tiny magical creatures stored in mystical balls you carry on your belt and essentially play as a Pokemon trainer.
D&D "was" the first and only TTRPG, heavily inspired by tactical wargames, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, and quite a few other well known fantasy authors, and created as a dungeon crawl where you create a random character, kill some monsters, and get some loot. D&D now "is" the most popular tabletop RPG in a sea of plenty of other decent/good options (Call of Cthulhu, Edge of the Empire, Pathfinder/Starfinder, Warhammer, GURPS, etc), where people have a much larger attachment to their characters and roleplaying than they did when the game started and mechanics are overall better balanced and simple than they were in the first versions of the game. D&D "will be" an increasingly popular and mainstream fantasy TTRPG where you can be and play practically whatever/whoever you want in order to tell any story you want that manages to qualify to the vague restriction of being "fantasy".
This is a fantasy not the reality. D&D became a tactical wargame under Wizards of the Coasts watch and is far more a tactical mini's game today then it ever was in the past by a nearly immeasurable margin. The players handbook for 5e is nearly 300 pages of almost exclusively combat rules, the 1st edition AD&D players handbook had nearly none. This myth projected by elitism of contemporary gamers that classic D&D was about tactical gaming is about as ridiculous as the presumed "complexity" of THAC0, as if subtracting was some sort of mechanical wonder beyond the grasp of the average person.
Its ridiculous, a myth propagated by intentional ignorance.
I guess you have never heard of the game Chainmail
Who, here, is willing and able to post a picture of their official, Wizards-sanctioned Badge of Stewardship of the Soul of D&D? Who, here, has been given official leave to be the sole determiner of what constitutes True D&D and what is simply add-on fluff distracting from the One Truth? Who, here, has been appointed the Creative Director of the D&D 5e IP and is allowed to say without falsehood or hyperbole that their vision for D&D is the true vision for D&D?
No one? Not one single soul?
That's what I thought.
Quit badgering and shaming people for wanting their favorite cool thing just because you already have yours, [Insert Grognard Here]. Your old-fashioned games of grim men in grim times fighting to keep Ancient Evils from consuming their home villages are no more or less 'True D&D' than my newfangled games of youkai sky pirates setting out in search of Not-One-Piece-I-Swear. Eberron is no less D&D than Faerun. Nor is Athas, or Wildemount, or whatever the hell they called the general worldscape of Spelljammer. Nor, for that matter, is someone's homebrew world and the homebrew species they populate it with 'less D&D' than Faerun.
Youdon't get to decide what D&D is for everybody else. You get to decide what D&D is to you, and if somebody else's D&D is different than yours? Tough titties. You can console yourself by running your game any damn way you please and kindly keeping your intrusive noses out of ours, ne?
D&D "was" the first and only TTRPG, heavily inspired by tactical wargames, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, and quite a few other well known fantasy authors, and created as a dungeon crawl where you create a random character, kill some monsters, and get some loot. D&D now "is" the most popular tabletop RPG in a sea of plenty of other decent/good options (Call of Cthulhu, Edge of the Empire, Pathfinder/Starfinder, Warhammer, GURPS, etc), where people have a much larger attachment to their characters and roleplaying than they did when the game started and mechanics are overall better balanced and simple than they were in the first versions of the game. D&D "will be" an increasingly popular and mainstream fantasy TTRPG where you can be and play practically whatever/whoever you want in order to tell any story you want that manages to qualify to the vague restriction of being "fantasy".
This is a fantasy not the reality. D&D became a tactical wargame under Wizards of the Coasts watch and is far more a tactical mini's game today then it ever was in the past by a nearly immeasurable margin. The players handbook for 5e is nearly 300 pages of almost exclusively combat rules, the 1st edition AD&D players handbook had nearly none. This myth projected by elitism of contemporary gamers that classic D&D was about tactical gaming is about as ridiculous as the presumed "complexity" of THAC0, as if subtracting was some sort of mechanical wonder beyond the grasp of the average person.
Its ridiculous, a myth propagated by intentional ignorance.
I guess you have never heard of the game Chainmail
Of course I have, I have also heard of Warhammer, Lord of the Rings and Conan, lots of things inspired Dungeons and Dragons, but D&D was very specifically created to get away from war gaming with the very intent to create role-playing experience. Original D&D (OD&D) was the first step into a larger world. By the time B/X and 1st edition AD&D was released the understanding of what that was, what it meant was discovered and the vision created in those games. There were no rules of any kind whatsoever for tactical combat in B/X and AD&D had an absolute minimalist approach to the subject largely being a marketing element to sell D&D miniatures.
I'm not saying D&D doesn't have tactical elements but turning D&D into a game about tactical combat happened in 3rd edition at which point it was nearly impossible to play the game without miniatures. By 4th edition it was impossible to play D&D without miniatures, the game was quite literarily exclusively a tactical combat game, the rules that cover out of combat in 4e was regulated to half a page about "skills challenges" which boiled down to a dice roll off.
It wasn't until 4e utterly failed as a system that Wizards of the Coast approach old school designers which notably made up the vast majority of the design team and through their direction was 5e created, a game that for the first time under Wizards of the Coast took a step away from being a tactical mini game, it was a tiny step, as the game is still barely playable without mini's but at least they made the attempt. But to suggest that B/X which had no rules of any kind about miniatures at the table or AD&D which barely mentioned it were tactical combat games is ridiculous.
D&D's original ruleset was mostly a variation of Chainmail. The post you responded to said "D&D "was" the first and only TTRPG, heavily inspiredby tactical wargames,..." Then you went on a rant about "This is a fantasy not the reality. D&D became a tactical wargame under Wizards of the Coasts..." Which is wrong because that completely ignores the origin of D&D. While yes it went from table top miniatures to more theater of the mind, it's original foundation was a tactical miniatures game.
Also, when I started playing in 81, we used miniatures, coins, bottle caps and the like to play from time to time. We were tactical in how we ran combat. Were my experiences with the game standard, no. Were your experiences with the game standard, also no. People need to stop acting as though what they did was what everyone did or was even the norm.
Can we please stop making every thread a heated debate about what D&D really is and why other’s opinions are wrong. Make a new thread about the topic if people really want to debate it. Some of us just like to think of neat additions that could potentially be added since we know that WotC will add new content anyways.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Joking aside, I kind of want to revamp the races and make them more like we do the classes. I would have prefered a large "Fey Origin" race that included elves of all stripes, satyrs, fairies, changelings and more. I'd have put Warforged and dwarves under the same ruleset.
A small handful of dynamic species that are flexible.
Joking aside, I kind of want to revamp the races and make them more like we do the classes. I would have prefered a large "Fey Origin" race that included elves of all stripes, satyrs, fairies, changelings and more. I'd have put Warforged and dwarves under the same ruleset.
A small handful of dynamic species that are flexible.
I wouldn't mind this too much and current races aren't too far of from that with Race/Subrace working similar to Class/subclass. It would just need to be expanded on. Of course that would require a HUGE over hall of the system.
Joking aside, I kind of want to revamp the races and make them more like we do the classes. I would have prefered a large "Fey Origin" race that included elves of all stripes, satyrs, fairies, changelings and more. I'd have put Warforged and dwarves under the same ruleset.
A small handful of dynamic species that are flexible.
This is kinda what I want as well, though your idea is much more streamlined then what I was thinking off.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
"D&D had arisen out of miniatures wargaming and, for several years after its appearance, still advertised itself as a miniatures wargame, albeit of an unusual sort. Likewise, many of the game's earliest players were themselves miniatures wargamers and had been introduced to D&D through the medium of wargaming clubs and conventions (such as Gen Con, whose first formal gathering in 1968 was sponsored by the International Federation of Wargamers). Consequently, editions of Dungeons & Dragons prior to 1981 retained many conventions derived from miniatures wargaming, such as measuring movement in inches (one inch equaled ten feet indoors and ten yards outdoors), in part because those conventions were well understood by the game's earliest players and those who learned to play D&D from them."
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She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
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I don't understand the logic that people have to play every single combination of every class/races/background/subclass or they're not allowed to want something new. I never want to play bard. And there are many other options that I have no interest in either. And that logic could also be applied to any of the other classes/races.
Like why should we have barbarian when people have clearly never played every single fighter subclass/race/background combination? The answer is because people like the barbarians unique mechanics. So while you can reflavour a fighter as a barbarian extremely easily, it will still play differently mechanically. Ultimately we don't 'need' anything past fighter, expert, caster. But people 'want' options beyond those, which is why we have 13 classes and not 3.
I wouldn't be wanting an arcane spellsword nearly as much if we had an elemental themed paladin or ranger. That would tick all the boxes for me, being a half caster with elemental themed spells, and a spellstrike mimic with things like searing smite and thunderous smite.
Ultimately, we agree. WOTC is a business, and will add classes far faster than players can try them out, because that is where the money is. I watched the Hasbro CEO in an interview last week talking about his plans for growing revenue, and it is very clear that turning WOTC into some kind of cash cow pumping out all kinds of new content is part of that plan. I say "new" content. Not good content. They will not change that to protect the integrity and soul of D&D. You can bet that the CEO does not care one whit about what D&D was, or is, or will become. Only maximizing profit matters. The abomination that shall not be named and what happened to Mr. Potatohead are prime examples of that, both Hasbro products. Oh, and when the current fad ends, and the pushback gets intense, watch Hasbro shift with the winds again, to once again, maximize profit.
Of course, they SHOULD not pump out who knows what content at some accelerated rate. But that is irrelevant. The soul and integrity of D&D means nothing to the C-Suite.
I didn't fully read the other several pages, so it could have already been mentioned.
Is there an actual Undead official "race" somewhere among any of the recent splat book supplements? If not, I could see a lot of players enjoying something like that.
For a new potential class? Not sure. I'm of the opinion that less classes (compromise for more subclasses maybe) is probably better. What could be so fundamentally different than what already exists? In reading all the strong opinions about the older editions Psionics, for example, it's likely not worth it to reintroduce and risk monumental backlash from strongminded opinionaters/haters.
Personally, I think it'd be neat to have an entirely non-magical class somehow, something for those players who want to feel more or less like an everyday person yearning to be reaching out to join in adventures with mighty mages and other heroes. Some sort of scientist/researcher/librarian class? Whose added value could be languages, prep, research, geologies, chemistries, monster biologies, etc. but with absolutely no way to even cast cantrip or spells and somehow is beefed up in other ways to help make the class attractive. Absolutely no idea off hand exactly what such a levelling progression would look like though. And a lot of those ideas/skills are likely already covered among many of the dozens of subclasses that already exist but to which I've never read.
Boldly go
VRGtR will have Reborn and Dhampir as official races.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Serious question. There is a huge database of user created classes, backgrounds, and subclasses on this website. Have you searched to find out if the class you want is already available there?
Bit harsh.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
While I'm still not sold on the new lineage direction myself, this would be a great way of introducing things like half-dragon or planar touched character options. I would like a couple more plant races (and plant creatures in general, 5e is severely lacking in this creature type).
For classes, I will also chime in on the desire for a Warlord as a martial support class. An Arcane half caster would also be a neat idea to complement the primal half caster (Ranger) and the divine half caster of (Paladin). I'd love the Blood Hunter to become official as well, and for there to be a full Psionic Class.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Since my preferred world is Mystara, I can answer that for you. They live in the Broken Lands section of the Known World, and are related to Kobolds like Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears are related. They can also be found in some areas of the Orc’s Head peninsula. At least, that was how I fit them in.
harder to fit in were things like Warlocks, Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi, etc. Since the Immortals jealousy guard Mystara so the gods & co. can’t come and mooch off the spheres, the Immortals Kinda keep those extra planar sorts out. So in my Mystara those suckers snuck in during the blackout of 1009, and more slip through during the DoD.
My timeline is currently semi-freddo in late Kalemont waiting for Covid to **** off so the heroes can get back to work and return to Specilarum just in time for the 2nd annual DoD, followed by the Nuwmont 1st festival when they will get to hear King Stephan rename the city as part of his unification efforts.
(I know, I know. What can I say, I’m a 2e man at heart.)
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Ultimately, actually, we seem to disagree on practically everything worth disagreeing on. WotC's choice to add newer options has absolutely nothing to do with so called "cancel culture" or Mr. Potato Head losing the "Mr." (which itself has nothing to do with "cancel culture", despite what you may believe).
"New" is not an antonym for "good". If you don't believe me, check a dictionary or thesaurus. New content can be, and often is, "good" (in terms of balance, popularity, and every other objective meaning of the word in this hobby). All other non-objective meanings of "good" that could apply are opinion based and cannot be stated as definitive fact, as you seem to try to do in many threads.
D&D "was" the first and only TTRPG, heavily inspired by tactical wargames, the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, and quite a few other well known fantasy authors, and created as a dungeon crawl where you create a random character, kill some monsters, and get some loot. D&D now "is" the most popular tabletop RPG in a sea of plenty of other decent/good options (Call of Cthulhu, Edge of the Empire, Pathfinder/Starfinder, Warhammer, GURPS, etc), where people have a much larger attachment to their characters and roleplaying than they did when the game started and mechanics are overall better balanced and simple than they were in the first versions of the game. D&D "will be" an increasingly popular and mainstream fantasy TTRPG where you can be and play practically whatever/whoever you want in order to tell any story you want that manages to qualify to the vague restriction of being "fantasy".
The more popular and mainstream D&D becomes, the more ideas will be added to it. People are different and like different things. I personally prefer a bit more choice in character creation than my friend IamSposta does, which is completely fine, it's just a different preference in playstyle. IamSposta enjoys rolling for ability scores and discovering your character through the dice. On the other hand, I prefer choosing who I play and how to play them, having an idea for the character that is developed/changed throughout the game through roleplay. Playstyle is inherently subjective, and thus there is no objective "right", "wrong", "good", "bad", "false", or "true" to the matter. This is the key. Fun cannot be wrong as long as its overall outcome for the people at the table is positive and does not directly negatively impact people outside of it.
I have fun in Eberron. I have fun in Wildemount. I have fun in my homebrew fantasy-modern world of Tor-eal (which I imagine you would find completely abhorrent). My fun is not your fun, but that does not make it wrong. It does not mean that some elite corporate owners that have no idea what D&D is are caving to some imaginary mob of people on Twitter in order to diversify D&D and turn all of the fictitious potato-humanoids in the multiverse gender-neutral. It means that the scope of D&D is increasing, and that is good for the hobby, as that means it will reach more people. This is both beneficial financially for WotC (which is good for the people that play the game, because we need the game designers to make the game), and beneficial fun-wise for the overall community that plays the game.
Additionally, you keep trying to pretend like none of the new things that are being added make any sense to add to D&D. British Space-Hippos, Brain-Eating-Platypuses, and 11-Laser-Eyed-Giant-Floating-Heads have been in D&D for decades. Don't act like it's just getting weird and silly now. That's complaining about a dead unicorn.
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Im not a huge fan of critical role but I love the flavor of the blood hunter and would love to see a 5e official version. The issue I see is as they release more books like Xanathar's and Tasha's, would Matt Mercer be tied into making new subclasses for the Blood Hunter as well? Or more realistically would he just have to sign over all creative rights to the WotC team?
On a similar note, if a book were released containing the Blood Hunter class, I would love to see more subclasses/spells related to blood magic as well
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when 4e was out I didn't have a group to play with, but I was pretty interested in the Thri-Kreen race. They're just so weird and interesting... I think there's a lot of fun potential there. Luckily it's one of the races that has a ton of solid homebrew for it, so it wouldn't be hard to find a version of the race if I really wanted to for my home game, but I'd still like to see an official version.
I know some people disagree, but I actually really like the balance of classes in D&D and think that most classes I would want would actually work just fine as a subclass to one of the existing classes. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that they felt Artificer, rather than being a class unto itself, would have worked fine as a subclass, or series of subclasses. The most unique aspects of the Artificer are mostly flavoring anyway. Prior to releasing the full class you could just as easily be any other spellcasting subclass and reflavor your spells as being delivered through inventions instead of traditional magic and gotten most of the same feel. You could be a sorcerer whose spells are delivered by tiny magical creatures stored in mystical balls you carry on your belt and essentially play as a Pokemon trainer.
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I guess you have never heard of the game Chainmail
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Query. Just in general.
Who, here, is willing and able to post a picture of their official, Wizards-sanctioned Badge of Stewardship of the Soul of D&D?
Who, here, has been given official leave to be the sole determiner of what constitutes True D&D and what is simply add-on fluff distracting from the One Truth?
Who, here, has been appointed the Creative Director of the D&D 5e IP and is allowed to say without falsehood or hyperbole that their vision for D&D is the true vision for D&D?
No one? Not one single soul?
That's what I thought.
Quit badgering and shaming people for wanting their favorite cool thing just because you already have yours, [Insert Grognard Here]. Your old-fashioned games of grim men in grim times fighting to keep Ancient Evils from consuming their home villages are no more or less 'True D&D' than my newfangled games of youkai sky pirates setting out in search of Not-One-Piece-I-Swear. Eberron is no less D&D than Faerun. Nor is Athas, or Wildemount, or whatever the hell they called the general worldscape of Spelljammer. Nor, for that matter, is someone's homebrew world and the homebrew species they populate it with 'less D&D' than Faerun.
You don't get to decide what D&D is for everybody else. You get to decide what D&D is to you, and if somebody else's D&D is different than yours? Tough titties. You can console yourself by running your game any damn way you please and kindly keeping your intrusive noses out of ours, ne?
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D&D's original ruleset was mostly a variation of Chainmail. The post you responded to said "D&D "was" the first and only TTRPG, heavily inspired by tactical wargames,..." Then you went on a rant about "This is a fantasy not the reality. D&D became a tactical wargame under Wizards of the Coasts..." Which is wrong because that completely ignores the origin of D&D. While yes it went from table top miniatures to more theater of the mind, it's original foundation was a tactical miniatures game.
Also, when I started playing in 81, we used miniatures, coins, bottle caps and the like to play from time to time. We were tactical in how we ran combat. Were my experiences with the game standard, no. Were your experiences with the game standard, also no. People need to stop acting as though what they did was what everyone did or was even the norm.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Oh, oh, me me! I got mine from a box of Cracker Jacks! I should still have it somewhere!
Can we please stop making every thread a heated debate about what D&D really is and why other’s opinions are wrong. Make a new thread about the topic if people really want to debate it. Some of us just like to think of neat additions that could potentially be added since we know that WotC will add new content anyways.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Joking aside, I kind of want to revamp the races and make them more like we do the classes. I would have prefered a large "Fey Origin" race that included elves of all stripes, satyrs, fairies, changelings and more. I'd have put Warforged and dwarves under the same ruleset.
A small handful of dynamic species that are flexible.
I wouldn't mind this too much and current races aren't too far of from that with Race/Subrace working similar to Class/subclass. It would just need to be expanded on. Of course that would require a HUGE over hall of the system.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
This is kinda what I want as well, though your idea is much more streamlined then what I was thinking off.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/small-beginnings
"D&D had arisen out of miniatures wargaming and, for several years after its appearance, still advertised itself as a miniatures wargame, albeit of an unusual sort. Likewise, many of the game's earliest players were themselves miniatures wargamers and had been introduced to D&D through the medium of wargaming clubs and conventions (such as Gen Con, whose first formal gathering in 1968 was sponsored by the International Federation of Wargamers). Consequently, editions of Dungeons & Dragons prior to 1981 retained many conventions derived from miniatures wargaming, such as measuring movement in inches (one inch equaled ten feet indoors and ten yards outdoors), in part because those conventions were well understood by the game's earliest players and those who learned to play D&D from them."
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