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D&D 5E All New Mystara Player's Handbook

The Glen

Legend
This has been a labor of love for some months, though I had to take a break for life stuff. This is the latest version, still very much a work in progress as I'm trying to raise money (even got a gofundme) to replace all the filler art. Its 143 pages right now, so on par with the Sword Coast book. Added in several new archetypes, including bounty hunter, trouble shooter, fire wizard, gallowglass and merchant prince. Cleaned up a lot of typos and fixed some formatting and added new art. The table of contents needs updating, and I have numerous pages left to add. Any comments, suggestions and especially proofreading is welcome.

This is the current flipbook:
http://anyflip.com/btzh/aeqw/

This is the host site, though it's not live yet. You can check back.
http://www.rpgmp3.com/ipb/files/file/1284-mystara-players-handbook/
 

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Ath-kethin

Elder Thing
This is seriously cool, and I appreciate the work that went into it. Your discussions of class roles in Mystara, the race writeups, and the sections on the Immortals are just awesome. I really like the way you implemented some of the BD&D aspects (like Weapon Mastery). Though I'm not clear on why you feel there should be no dragon sorcerers or wild sorcerers. Sure, they didn't exist in Basic, but neither did Warlocks, and you found a way to integrate them.

The section on building costs is great (maybe not the most necessary stuff in the world, but a welcome addition), and integrating the Secret Crafts as a prestige class is pretty cool. I could go on.

A comment and suggestion: the Backgrounds section should have a heading indicating where the backgrounds start. It's easy enough to deduce, but having a heading title like the Class Options right before it would make it easier to read and less jarring.

All around, an amazing effort, and greatly useful even for non-Mystara campaigns.

That being said, this latest version adds a bunch of stuff I don't recognize. Where did "Fire Wizard" come from? "Gallowglass?" "Troubleshooter?" And many of the options you show as subclasses might work better as backgrounds. The Bounty Hunter, Gallowglass and Troubleshooters for example - these seem like concepts that would appeal to and draw members of more than one class. There would be no sense in making a "Homeless Person" or "Guy With A Job" subclass - these are roles and categories that many different people could fill or fall into.

Though I really like your writeups of them, I'm also hesitant to have the Matter, Entropy, etc. spheres be discrete cleric domains. Like the subclass options described above, doing so seriously restricts the number and type of characters that can be affiliated with these ideas. That wasn't the case even back in the days of "let's arbitrarily restrict everything we can" Basic D&D. It certainly doesn't seem to fit with the broader 5e ideology.

EDIT: I just noticed that the "Mixed Blood" background appears twice, on pages 68 and 70.

Also (and I'm sure that this is something you were planning to adjust one you had the final art and the general layout is finalized), the page numbers in your table of contents are no longer accurate.

There is a typo in the Extra Attunement feat; it closes with "You may attune an additional three magic times" (which I assume was intended to be ". . . three magic items." Which also seems way too powerful to me, incidentally, especially since it can be taken multiple times. One additional item per feat would make more sense to me).

You also have fairly frequent punctuation issues (commas where colons or semicolons would be more appropriate, stuff like that). I don't know how concerned you are about it, though.
 
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The Glen

Legend
This is seriously cool, and I appreciate the work that went into it. Your discussions of class roles in Mystara, the race writeups, and the sections on the Immortals are just awesome. I really like the way you implemented some of the BD&D aspects (like Weapon Mastery). Though I'm not clear on why you feel there should be no dragon sorcerers or wild sorcerers. Sure, they didn't exist in Basic, but neither did Warlocks, and you found a way to integrate them.

The section on building costs is great (maybe not the most necessary stuff in the world, but a welcome addition), and integrating the Secret Crafts as a prestige class is pretty cool. I could go on.

A comment and suggestion: the Backgrounds section should have a heading indicating where the backgrounds start. It's easy enough to deduce, but having a heading title like the Class Options right before it would make it easier to read and less jarring.

All around, an amazing effort, and greatly useful even for non-Mystara campaigns.

That being said, this latest version adds a bunch of stuff I don't recognize. Where did "Fire Wizard" come from? "Gallowglass?" "Troubleshooter?" And many of the options you show as subclasses might work better as backgrounds. The Bounty Hunter, Gallowglass and Troubleshooters for example - these seem like concepts that would appeal to and draw members of more than one class. There would be no sense in making a "Homeless Person" or "Guy With A Job" subclass - these are roles and categories that many different people could fill or fall into.

Though I really like your writeups of them, I'm also hesitant to have the Matter, Entropy, etc. spheres be discrete cleric domains. Like the subclass options described above, doing so seriously restricts the number and type of characters that can be affiliated with these ideas. That wasn't the case even back in the days of "let's arbitrarily restrict everything we can" Basic D&D. It certainly doesn't seem to fit with the broader 5e ideology.

EDIT: I just noticed that the "Mixed Blood" background appears twice, on pages 68 and 70.

Also (and I'm sure that this is something you were planning to adjust one you had the final art and the general layout is finalized), the page numbers in your table of contents are no longer accurate.

There is a typo in the Extra Attunement feat; it closes with "You may attune an additional three magic times" (which I assume was intended to be ". . . three magic items." Which also seems way too powerful to me, incidentally, especially since it can be taken multiple times. One additional item per feat would make more sense to me).

You also have fairly frequent punctuation issues (commas where colons or semicolons would be more appropriate, stuff like that). I don't know how concerned you are about it, though.

Dragon Sorcery and Wild Magic are more associated with the Forgotten Realms than Mystara. Mystara's magic is extremely stable, but finite apparently. They have null magic, but not wild magic. The dragons don't play a major role either, it seemed extremely out of place.

Will look at a header for the backgrounds, cosmetic changes aren't a problem thought I have very limited space.

Fire Wizard is featured heavily in Glantri, Ierendi and Alphatia gazetteers. It was going to be one of the initial subtypes but had some rules issues. Gallowglass is the traditional heavy infantry of Scotland, and my ancestors would haunt me if I didn't include it in a setting that including fantasy Scotland. As they are warriors first and foremost they aren't a background, but a form of very fast and resilient fighter. Modeled them after the Highlander rush tactics, close fast or die. Troubleshooter was just going to be filler, but the playtesters fell in love with it. It's a underground locksmith, it wasn't criminal at all, and the abilities were extremely situational but very useful. So I left it in because of overwhelming popular feedback. Bounty Hunter was added as a request for a new ranger that wasn't geographically linked. The playtesters didn't like the options in the PHB at all, and the Forester, while canon, was tied to a single terrain type. People suggested opening it up to other types, but it didn't make any sense to have a forester with his abilities starting the mountains.

The extra attunement in the playtests was rarely taken, and then I don't know of a group where somebody took it more than once. Taking a feat that requires you to find physical objects to make it work was too much of a risk for them to try.

The sphere domains are included for completion. There are no domains restricted at all, everything in the PHB is allowed. Since the spheres where extremely important in Mystara, including domains keyed to them seemed appropriate. This is to reflect a lot of people in Mystara follow philosophies rather than single immortals.

I've nuked the duplicate background, was a duplication error. I'm still adding and editing the book, the TOC is probably going to be the last thing fixed so I don't constantly keep changing it. I'm killing typos as I can find them, it's an extremely slow and tedious process. Girlfriend helped with a read along last night, but her brain frazzled on page 53. Will pick it up when she feels like trying to finish it.
 


Ath-kethin

Elder Thing
. . . <Lots of stuff> . . .
I would like to reiterate that I fully understand the enormity of the task to which you set yourself here, and you have done an absolutely amazing job - far above and beyond the call of duty.

Your explanations for your work in response to my questions make sense, and after all it's your document. My suggestions are not intended to be vicious or attacks; I simply have an editorial instinct I can't seem to switch off. (Which of course fails me continuously in my own writing :))

All of that being said: I noticed another oversight, on page 89. The name "Thor" is not boldface like the names of the other Immortals.
 

The Glen

Legend
Trust me, I know honest criticism or proofreading vs. just trolling. From my own read through of just the first 50 pages I've found over 70 typographical errors. Only a fool edits his own work, only the king of fools gets upset at the person that does. I've still got to add about 35+ pages, from an expanded description of the nations to maps provided by Thorfinn Tait, who has painstakingly (obsessively) gone over each map and fixed the continuity errors he has found. In the end the book is looking at 200+ pages.
 



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