College of Whispers is the next Xanathar's Guide Preview!

College of Whispers might be the weakest of the colleges, but I love the idea of it. You are basically a magic spy/secret agent. I am really really excited for this

 

[Coroc]

Ahm, still this does not address how the DS bard should be spelless and is best reflected in 5E by an assassin subclass rogue with access to poisons atm.

 

[Dausuul]

Can I play a chaotic neutral kender college of whispers bard in your next game?

This is the kind of scenario that leads to player death in short order.

And I do not mean PC death.

 

[Mephista]

quick aside - anyone know what the preorder bonuses are?

 

[Morrus]

quick aside - anyone know what the preorder bonuses are?

Here you go:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...and-Xanathar-s-Guide-to-Everything-pre-order/

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ahm, still this does not address how the DS bard should be spelless and is best reflected in 5E by an assassin subclass rogue with access to poisons atm.

It doesn't need to address that, Whispers is only a dark sun bard in that it is creepy and dangerous, and I think the bard of shadow magick is more accurate myself

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=6801228]Chaosmancer[/MENTION] Yes it does have to address that, since arcane Magic in DS is either preserving or defiling at least in my Point of view, and that is much more interesting for me than the xth subclass of bard.

Maybe the silence bard is an interesting character concept but it has absolutely nothing to do with a dark sun bard.

 

[Chaosmancer]

[MENTION=6801228]Chaosmancer[/MENTION] Yes it does have to address that, since arcane Magic in DS is either preserving or defiling at least in my Point of view, and that is much more interesting for me than the xth subclass of bard.

Maybe the silence bard is an interesting character concept but it has absolutely nothing to do with a dark sun bard.

I think I may have missed what I was trying to say.


The College of Whispers bard does not need to address what it means to be a Bard in Darksun because it is not a Bard in Darksun, it is a mostly generic subclass for the Bard.


Sure, Mike Mearls is saying "I think this reminds me of the DarkSun bard, being a creepy infiltration expert and poisoning people's minds and getting them alone in dark alleys" but that doesn't make this a Bard subclass in 5e Darksun, because 5e Darksun does not exist at this moment in an official capacity. Mearls is just associating a darker bard subclass with Darksun bards, because I guess for him that was the first time they had a darker bent to them. For me, a master of manipulation and illusion magic does not need a specific setting to be creepy, Bards have always had it in them

 

[gyor]

Like I said before I'd associate the College of Whispers more as a Dark Elf tradition, prehaps enhance by other dark races over time.

I honestly think it fits FR more, were as the DS Bard is just a Rogue Assassin with the Entertainer background and experise in preformance and deception.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Ahm, still this does not address how the DS bard should be spelless and is best reflected in 5E by an assassin subclass rogue with access to poisons atm.

Spell-less Bard was acceptable in 2e, but with the classes in every edition 3e and beyond developed with more parity in mind, you couldn't do that to the Bard in 5e.

You can't really have a separate class for Defilers and Preservers either, as it's a fundamental part of every edition 3rd and beyond that all classes advance at the rate.

So it's best to simply have all classes with arcane spellcasting to have the Defiling or Preserving mechanic built in.

 

[Coroc]

Spell-less Bard was acceptable in 2e, but with the classes in every edition 3e and beyond developed with more parity in mind, you couldn't do that to the Bard in 5e.

You can't really have a separate class for Defilers and Preservers either, as it's a fundamental part of every edition 3rd and beyond that all classes advance at the rate.

So it's best to simply have all classes with arcane spellcasting to have the Defiling or Preserving mechanic built in.

Also [MENTION=6801228]Chaosmancer[/MENTION]

I did not want separate classes for defiler and preserver those are mages - and only - them walking down different paths in DS campaign,
What I was trying to say is not to criticize what Mearls said the whisper bard is a bit like the former DS bard, but that rather having loads of new subclasses I miss other aspects of the game converted to 5E more, now that we are 3 years into 5E.

I mean a main critics on 3E was about those splatbooks, but what WotC is doing mostly atm. seems to me they produce those splatbooks themselves, but still do not have working recipes to get some important older settings running with 5E. Eberron is one of them, Dragonlance and especially Darksun are the others.

And Darksun especially needs some guidelines without totally rebooting the setting like 4e did. Look at the threads e.g. by [MENTION=6716779]Zardnaar[/MENTION] discussing the DS specific problems in 5E of which a missing psionic 1-20 class is the least difficult thing to do for WotC.

Things like rules for defiling, how to do Halfgiants or thrikreen as a PC if at all, how to do inferior weapons and armor, those things need to be cleared up. I do not want new content but a working conversion for the mechanics.