Planescape Check Out The Planescape Character Options

WotC has unveiled some of the character options to be found in the upcoming Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse setting in a D&D Beyond article and a video.

The player options include two backgrounds and a handful of feats. The backgrounds are the Gate Warden and the Planer Philosopher, and the feats include Scion of the Outer planes, which gives you a damage resistance and a cantrip based on the plane you have a connect with. For example, a chaotic Outer Place give you resistance to poison and access to the minor illusion cantrip, which the Outlands give you resistance to psychic damage and the mage hand cantrip. Also included are a couple of new spells and some magic items.

Preview Planescape Character Options for Your Multiversal Adventures

This article is a deep dive into the backgrounds and feats found in the three-book set Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse!

www.dndbeyond.com

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[Remathilis]

WotC obviously made a deal with Mercer's group to give his stuff their seal of "official" approval for sales reasons, not because they necessarily think it's good design work. It's all just $$. Makes being sanctioned worth even less than I thought.

Sanctioned just means "the company was big enough to make a deal with WotC". But to be fair, it's on par with much of the mechanical stuff in Mercer's other projects or even Keith Baker's Eberron stuff. Being a good writer and lore person doesn't always translate into a good game mechanics designer.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Sanctioned just means "the company was big enough to make a deal with WotC". But to be fair, it's on par with much of the mechanical stuff in Mercer's other projects or even Keith Baker's Eberron stuff. Being a good writer and lore person doesn't always translate into a good game mechanics designer.

Ah I'd heard tons about the additional Eberron stuff and assumed it was high quality. Are there issues with it?

Though honestly, I think the bar for what people consider 'good' for homebrew content is higher than WotC content. If a homebrewer made twilight cleric, it would be considered Dandwiki level of bad. But because it's WotC there is only a few people who point out how busted it is.

 

[Remathilis]

Ah I'd heard tons about the additional Eberron stuff and assumed it was high quality. Are there issues with it?

Though honestly, I think the bar for what people consider 'good' for homebrew content is higher than WotC content. If a homebrewer made twilight cleric, it would be considered Dandwiki level of bad. But because it's WotC there is only a few people who point out how busted it is.

Keith's PC stuff mechanically tends to run weaker than WotC standards, with the occasional weird power spike. I've not done a deep dive, but I can tell you the two artificer subclasses I've looked at (Maverick and Mastermaker) were both underpowered compared to the subs in Tasha's, but then he gave us a spell that is basically fireball at level 1, but force damage and d4s.

And yes, WotC also does have some badly designed stuff, and the revised playtest has brought a lot of that to light via the revision process. I still feel the majority of WotC stuff is good, or at least sets the bar at an acceptable level with some outliers like twilight cleric or the original beastmaster being the edges of that scale. Baker's stuff tends to sit in the lower end of WotC's offerings with that beastmaster, while Mercer's hangs out with twilight on the upper end. And again, these are generalized based on reading and some light use, I've never deconstructed the books in any sort of detail.

I fully admit bias here, but I still feel that most WotC stuff is good enough to allow in my game carte blanche, while my experience with 3pp has been "per item" due to how wildly it can swing. WotC tends to hit the sweet spot more often than not, while 3pp tends to miss in one direction or another more often.

 

[Kurotowa]

Ah I'd heard tons about the additional Eberron stuff and assumed it was high quality. Are there issues with it?

The setting information in Keith Baker's DM's Guild Eberron books is high quality. The character options are ...pretty run of the mill for third party books. Which is to say, he's mostly farming that part out to other people, and depending on the book they range from blandly unexceptional to outright terrible.

 

[Parmandur]

The setting information in Keith Baker's DM's Guild Eberron books is high quality. The character options are ...pretty run of the mill for third party books. Which is to say, he's mostly farming that part out to other people, and depending on the book they range from blandly unexceptional to outright terrible.

I don't think this phenomenon is due to lack of design talent, but third parties do not have the playtesting resources and data thst WotC does. Lore and basic mechanical bits and bobs like a Monster ot is easy to match and exceed WorC quality. Complex systems like a Class? Tough challenge without those systems to draw on.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't think this phenomenon is due to lack of design talent, but third parties do not have the playtesting resources and data thst WotC does. Lore and basic mechanical bits and bobs like a Monster ot is easy to match and exceed WorC quality. Complex systems like a Class? Tough challenge without those systems to draw on.

Oh absolutely. 3pp lore is easily on par or exceeds, but 3pp mechanics often lack the extensive playtesting (internal and external) WotC and some other big companies (Paizo or Kobold) do. And even then, the big guys get it wrong sometimes.

 

[Kurotowa]

I don't think this phenomenon is due to lack of design talent, but third parties do not have the playtesting resources and data thst WotC does. Lore and basic mechanical bits and bobs like a Monster ot is easy to match and exceed WorC quality. Complex systems like a Class? Tough challenge without those systems to draw on.

Quite so. And let's not leave out the advantage in institutional knowledge that WotC has. They know all the under the hood assumptions about class design, both thematic and mechanical, that went into 5e. That's stuff that we speculate about endlessly and try to reverse engineer, but it's not the same as having the original design specs.

 

[Parmandur]

Quite so. And let's not leave out the advantage in institutional knowledge that WotC has. They know all the under the hood assumptions about class design, both thematic and mechanical, that went into 5e. That's stuff that we speculate about endlessly and try to reverse engineer, but it's not the same as having the original design specs.

Data is WotC biggest advantage when designing products.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

while Mercer's hangs out with twilight on the upper end.

I've only used the mutant blood hunter but played it up to level 12. I definitely didn't feel it was overpowered (clunky and not feeling like it belongs in 5e though). In fact I was usually the one on the floor making death saves.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ah I'd heard tons about the additional Eberron stuff and assumed it was high quality. Are there issues with it?

Though honestly, I think the bar for what people consider 'good' for homebrew content is higher than WotC content. If a homebrewer made twilight cleric, it would be considered Dandwiki level of bad. But because it's WotC there is only a few people who point out how busted it is.

I don't think it's a matter of quality, so much as negotiating a deal with the 3rd party. Matt Mercer is pretty chummy with WotC. Keith Barker's Eberron stuff would be a logical next move, but it would require both sides to negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement. And KB seems to want to move away from Eberron at the moment.