ELEMENTAL EVIL Player's Companion - FREE!

The Elemental Evil Player's Companion is available for free download over at DTRPG (and RPGNow). It includes new races (aarakocra, deep gnome, genasi, and goliath) and ove 40 new spells. The PDF is a full-colour 25-page PDF; according to the first page, the genasi in chapter 1 and all of the spells in chapter 2 also appear in the appendices of Princes of the Apocalypse, the adventure due to hit store shelves very soon.

"Not inherently evil, elemental power can be mastered by those with both malevolent and benign intentions. The Elemental Evil Player’s Companion provides everything players need to build a character that is tied directly into the Elemental Evil storyline.

New race options include the aarakocra, deep gnome, genasi, and goliath. Additionally, a plethora of new spells put the elements directly at your command.

The Elemental Evil Player’s Companion, was original designed by Richard Baker, Robert J. Schwalb and Stephen Schubert, with additional design and development by Wizards D&D R&D.

This accessory is specifically meant to support the Elemental Evil–Princes of the Apocalypse adventure product."

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[tomservo999]

No cleric spells, but that's no big deal to me. I already have custom Earth, Air, Fire, and Water domains. Now I can edit them and give them more appropriate spells

 

[nightspaladin]

The best thing to do would be to emulate 2e specialty priests. Since spells in 5e don't really distinquish between divine and arcane, they just are Spells, and appear on certain lists, I would simply make spell lists for each deity or domain. Or just say they can swap them out for their domain spells they would get if you want less work.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Does anyone know if these free updates will be added to the "Basic" rules? Seems like they might as well, since they're all available freely - and that would just make it easier to get to them.

I don't think the Basic Rules is primarily defined by 'free'. It is defined by 'basic' - 4 races, 4 classes - one subclass each.

Adding fringe races, especially ones that will be widely insta-banned (Aarakocra) goes against that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If they only had displayed this level of awesome already in the PHB... Then you could have said something like:

I really love how 5e isn't afraid to put options out there that not everyone will use. Rather than trying to water-down the beastmaster to please everyone who doesn't like powerful and independent animal companions at an early level, they just let the ranger subclass be what they are and rely on DMs who don't like the thing to say "not in my game, buddy." That's awesome.

I don't think WotC sees the beastmaster animal companion as weak. The fact that it doesn't line up with player expectations is a different, though quite valid, concern.

I am both totally unsurprised yet nevertheless disappointed that the first player supplement is mostly cool stuff for Wizards.

Come to think, I'm a little surprised elementalist monks didn't get a few more options...but it looks to me that druids and sorcerers get more love than wizards with the spell list additions. And the races are pretty class-agnostic. Aarakocra make good monks and rangers. Svirfneblin are good wizards but even more kick-ass rogues (or the blended arcane trickster). Genasi are delightful as any class, though they have certain preferences (Air Genasi are good archer-fighters, Earth Genasi are strong, mobile melee fighters and great barbarians, fire genasi will see some use as wizards but they'd make better eldritch knights!, water genasi are one of the few non-dwarf races that makes a kick-butt cleric). Goliaths are solid fighters and barbarians.

But anyway, I guess that's to say that I see a few gaps that could've been filled, but I wouldn't characterize this as "mostly cool stuff for Wizards."

....in fact an EK could get a lot of these new spells...hm....

 

[Mistwell]

Considering they only handed this PDF out because they cancelled the Adventurer's Handbook

They cancel the Adventurer's Handbook

As Mike Mearls said, how do you cancel something that was never announced?

Its nice, but its does feel like they started something bigger, like the book they announced, and stopped.

They did not announce the book. You are mistaken (and no that is not me joking).

 

[Remathilis]

I find it unlikely this will generate more traffic than the Basic Rules. Did that crash the site at any point?

First day for a couple hours.

I think they just wanted to throw a bone to DTRPG, and then moved it to their own servers after the complaints of the watermarking began.

 

[jodyjohnson]

They cancel the Adventurer's Handbook and release a 25-page pdf instead, with no notice*. So, no. If anything, the lack of information about the release makes me more nervous. I found out about it on Reddit, since it had already been pushed down out of view on the front page here.
A version that doesn't devour my ink cartridges would be nice too....

Cute disclaimer.

*If there was an announced release date for this, then I withdraw this point. I hadn't heard one.

Characters in the D&D tabletop roleplaying game can help prevent devastation to the lands and people of the Forgotten Realms in the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure by Wizards of the Coast and Sasquatch Game Studio. Princes of the Apocalypse is available on April 7, 2015 and includes an epic adventure for characters levels 1–15 as well as new elemental spells and the element-touched genasi as a new playable race. In addition, a free download will be available in mid-March that includes more new races plus the player content available in Princes of the Apocalypse, just in time for the start of the Elemental Evil season of the D&D Adventurers League.

http://dnd.wizards.com/elemental-evil January 20, 2015 – Renton, WA

 

[Nellisir]

It is interesting, that the size of the PDF at the wizards page is bigger, than the one at DTRPG

Wow. Someone didn't optimize their pdf. Wizards is 22.3, DTRPG is 6.4. Same content.

 

[TerraDave]

As Mike Mearls said, how do you cancel something that was never announced?



They did not announce the book. You are mistaken (and no that is not me joking).

Mike Mearls may not have, but someone did:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...E-APOCALYPSE-for-D-D-5E-in-2015!#.VP9PcYHXab5

 

[The Grand User]

Mike Mearls may not have, but someone did:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...E-APOCALYPSE-for-D-D-5E-in-2015!#.VP9PcYHXab5

Looks more like it was a leak rather than an announcement. So it could be they thought they'd need the Adventurer's Handbook but perhaps it turned out the amount of content wouldn't quite match up as they initially thought.