Pages From The Upcoming Nautical D&D Book!

Parmandur · Feb 12, 2019

bedir than said:
Over the past week we've had the snowiest month in 50 years. Yes, one week but more snow than any month for 50 years. The next pass at the Artificer was delayed. A couple streaming shows were skipped. The Renton School District (home of WotC) hasn't had a full school day in a week and was cancelled several days in that stretch.

Yup, their work seems delayed slightly: this is why they avoid promising specifics, life happens.

Parmandur · Feb 12, 2019

Demetrios1453 said:
Sneak peaks generally indicate that an announcement is relatively imminent.

Yeah, and these previews tip their hand pretty significantly: doubt they would do that unless the whole story is going to be broadcast soon.

Connorsrpg · Feb 12, 2019

IchneumonWasp said:
I'd be interested in that as well. It would certainly fit my play style and would allow me to place some location/region right into my game world.

And I also completely agree with you about Ravnica. It's a really amazing book if you give it a chance. The factions are really flavourful and easy to adapt.

Yeah, the guilds have inspired me as to what to do with my organisations in my worlds. Especially like the attaining henchmen/soldier/etc for certain jobs and the allowance of items too. Really cool and a good guide for other organisations.

(We also have relationship dice with each step of renown that works great).

Paul Farquhar · Feb 12, 2019

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
It's a really good mini-adventure path, and includes a lot of stuff not regularly seen in D&D adventures, despite everything in it being around since the OD&D days.

EDIT: Except there's (spoiler) an illusionist in the series and I think those only showed up in The Dragon in the OD&D era and then made the leap to a rulebook in the 1E PHB.

Illusionists where in the 1st edition AD&D PHB (as a subclass of Magic User) from the start.

Paul Farquhar · Feb 12, 2019

bedir than said:
Over the past week we've had the snowiest month in 50 years. Yes, one week but more snow than any month for 50 years. The next pass at the Artificer was delayed. A couple streaming shows were skipped. The Renton School District (home of WotC) hasn't had a full school day in a week and was cancelled several days in that stretch.

I would think most of the work could be done from home.

Connorsrpg · Feb 12, 2019

Further on this topic of this being a themed book - I really hope so, as the themed books from 3E were my favourite. Iwas waiting for more of them when the end came.

I don't mean Warrior themed with 2-3 things in there to make it 'useful' for wizard PCs. I thought 4E did that better with their power source books.

The 3E themed books I really liked were those about groups of monsters or terrain types. So, what I am saying is I hope this is 5E's 'Stormwrack'. That and 'Sandstorm' are books I keep going back to when running nautical or desert styled campaigns. Of course there is room for improvement, such as an adventure, mini-setting, etc, but those are the type of books I would really LOVE to see in the 5E game.

Some 3rd party publishers have started down this route with fey and nautical themed books already. I have neither, unfortunately, but if I run such a themed game, I will be getting them. (Oh, one member of our group did back the nautical/pirate Kickstarter).

lostsanityreturned · Feb 12, 2019

Staffan said:
This seems like it's related to a remake/reimagining of the Saltmarsh series (the leather harnesses with silver buckles are all over U3). I'm hoping it will be more Tomb of Annihilation (new adventure with similar theme and some callbacks) than Tales from the Yawning Portal (straight-up remake updated to 5e).

To be scathing towards yawning portal, it was a pretty lazy port with very little actually adjusted to be appropriately balanced for 5e play, especially when it came to rewards.

(yes I am in for a propper remake too

)

Retreater · Feb 13, 2019

dave2008 said:
Why do you say that? I see nothing inherently wrong with having a large number of foes. I usually do it in waves, but we have had severally encounters of that size or larger without any issue. In fact, they tend to be the more exciting ones!

My experience might be different than yours, but I've found a few issues with large numbers of opponents in 5E. The creatures usually pose no threat and go down in a single strike and can't reasonably hurt the party. Or they completely overwhelm the party with their numbers. In either case, the combat turns into a slog.

If the party is being expected to just walk into a town and put every inhabitant to the sword, (to me) that isn't good adventure design. If it is meant to be a role-playing encounter dealing with an evil civilization, that's fine - but in that case you don't really need encounter stats.

Jay Verkuilen · Feb 13, 2019

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
It's a really good mini-adventure path, and includes a lot of stuff not regularly seen in D&D adventures, despite everything in it being around since the OD&D days.

EDIT: Except there's (spoiler) an illusionist in the series and I think those only showed up in The Dragon in the OD&D era and then made the leap to a rulebook in the 1E PHB.

The U1-3 series was published a few years after the 1E PHB was released. The date on U1 is 1981. The PHB is from 1978.

dave2008 · Feb 13, 2019

Retreater said:
My experience might be different than yours, but I've found a few issues with large numbers of opponents in 5E. The creatures usually pose no threat and go down in a single strike and can't reasonably hurt the party. Or they completely overwhelm the party with their numbers. In either case, the combat turns into a slog.

Yep, different experiences. But if it is that swingy for you it sounds like a player expectations issue I had. When we first transitioned from 4e to 5e we had a similiar issue because the players expected they could take on any challenge. So I had to make encounters so overwhelming to convince them that hey - some times running from / avoiding a fight is the correct choice. Once they understood this, it didn't matter how many monsters there were (in general) they had a solution for the problem.

Retreater said:
If the party is being expected to just walk into a town and put every inhabitant to the sword, (to me) that isn't good adventure design.

I am not familiar with the adventure (U3), is that how it is designed? Evidently the first adventure in the series (U1) is considered one of the better adventures ever for D&D and apparently the whole series is well regarded, so I find odd that would be the expectation.