D&D (2024) Here's The New 2024 Player's Handbook Wizard Art

 

[Jaeger]

How much less?

Well, it's kinda a sliding scale...

I find it particularly perplexing when people have an obvious favourite past edition and their main gripe about the current/new edition is that it is not like that past edition. WotC will not confiscate your old books! If you like them better, just keep using them instead!

I think that a lot of this has to do with the fact that the wider player base tends to move to the current edition.

Yes, one could keep playing older editions; but people really like to tap into the larger network effect of the current edition.

It's just that much easier to get players...

 

[Chaosmancer]

Totally missing it.

That is not my reasoning. This is about setting a mood for the game. I don’t prefer things that take me out of my preference for medieval flavored fantasy.

No, I don’t describe the king’s knights as wearing glasses. This is a taste thing only. No value judgment or moral concern to it. Might as well argue with me for not liking mayo.

Its a good piece of art. I made a statement about taste and design decisions in the context of it being skillfully done.

I am not getting the vapors over it but based on several posts in the thread, it is unthinkable that I don’t like D&D characters with glasses. The only answer is I must like that design choice?

One person informed me about when glasses were invented and suggested I don’t know much about history.

I made it clear that they “seem” anachronistic…and made a point to not argue about gunpowder in China or the first person to wear glasses.

If you imagine Elric or Aragorn or whatever with glasses more power to you.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to select my duergar artificer’s feat…and laugh about his goggles. He is fun but not exactly and exemplar for a core class in my mind.

Flexibility is a virtue or something.

I'm not saying that you must like it, and I don't care about historical reality at all. The fact of the matter is that if you don't like anything that takes you out of your preferred medieval fantasy... you don't like somewhere around half of the official DnD settings for 5e.

Which is fine, you don't have to like them, but going forward with "this doesn't feel like DnD" seems silly to me. Maybe the King's Knights don't have glasses in Greyhawk... but does a librarian in Sigil have glasses? What about a news reporter in Eberron? A Guild Artificer in Ravnica? A teacher in Strixhaven? An Alchemist in Drakkenheim?

The official setting of 5e is the Multiverse. And the multiverse contains much much much more than medieval fantasy worlds.

 

[mamba]

True, it is a common phenomenon. I find it particularly perplexing when people have an obvious favourite past edition and their main gripe about the current/new edition is that it is not like that past edition. WotC will not confiscate your old books! If you like them better, just keep using them instead!

If they have a preferred past edition then there is no need to complain, but as @Jaeger said, many like to play the current edition and still want it to reflect their preferences

 

[Parmandur]

Several posters have said this wizard gives MTG vibes. Several other posters have pointed out that that Strixhaven is a D&D setting. Which got me thinking:

How fast would the D&D corner of the internet explode if the sample setting in the DMG was Dominaria?

Personally hoping for Greyhawk, but I could roll with that.

 

[Parmandur]

Better than Forgotten Realms, that's for sure!

I really don't get the MTG complaint. Like I haven't player MTG for ages, but I still browse MTG art time to time, as it tends to be high quality, as well as imaginative and evocative. And some specific themes and concepts aside, I don't find it unfitting to D&D at all. D&D art style has varied from editions to edition, so there really isn't any specific art style I strongly associate with D&D anyway.

Right?? Magic the Gatherong is rooted in D&D to begin with.

 

[ezo]

you don't like somewhere around half of the official DnD settings for 5e.

Probably more than half in my case.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Good for you! And I'm sure if you were in a D&D dungeon and had your glasses broken, lost, or taken from you, you wouldn't have any issues.


I don't think anyone ever said they couldn't, did they?

It just doesn't make sense to me that they could choose that. It's like mushrooms. I hate mushrooms, can't stand them and think they are disgusting, but other people like them. I don't know why... but that isn't my concern. However, if someone presents a gourmet dish and says, "this looks wonderful and tastes terrific," but I see mushrooms, I'm not going to agree with them.

So, no, I don't agree that a powerful PC would wear eyeglasses for corrective purposes if they could afford magical aid instead. But hey, that's just how I feel about it. I've never said others have to or should feel the same.

You seem to be taking this as a player choice, when I'm talking about a character choice. You understand that people can disagree with you, so why can't the character in question disagree with you? If you think they can then... why keep bringing up how it doesn't make sense that they would have disagreed with you? You agree that they can disagree with you but it makes no sense that they would?

Sure, I get that. I'm bald, have been balding since I was in my late teens. If I could have hair again I'd have to give it thought. I'd probably think I'd look wierd with hair at this point! Someone might ask, "why don't you regrow your hair?" to which I would reply: I might, or I might not. But the difference is me not having hair wouldn't impact me in an adventuring environment as much as relying on glasses could IMO, and so I see little reason to keep them if you didn't have to. You might not weigh the potential risk as highly as I would, which is fine, and decide to keep wearing glasses even then.

Now, this is a very different discussion. But also... maybe you've been without glasses for too long? Like, I have some pretty terrible eyesight, and if I lost my glasses I wouldn't be able to read, and I'd have a hard time seeing people's faces... but I other than a headache I could still interact in the world.

For a powerful mage, who doesn't really need to see the fine details of their enemies... yeah their enemies are going to be a bit blurry and indistinct, but you don't need to slip a firebolt as thick as your wrist through a gap in their armor, you just need to hit center of mass.

Not everyone with glasses are Velma and utterly blind without them. There is no reason to think that just because she would be unable to read a book she would be helpless without her glasses.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

i really think you're misidentifying what are the actual factors of isekai here, i don't deny that some of those things have prominently turned up in isekai but they've also turned up in multiple other works and are not what makes isekai, isekai, the literal translation of the word is 'other world'.

(and if your post was meant to be a joke the humor REALLY didn't come through for me)

I don't think I am misidentifying them, I'm afraid.

Isekai doesn't have to be like that, and there are honorable exceptions, one of which already mentioned, but the vast majority of Isekai that reaches the West, at least, does conform, to a greater or less extent, to the broad stereotype I'm putting out there. It's like there's an entirely different set of standards for Isekai. Non-Isekai anime, to be successful, to be recommended, to be well-regarded, has to be pretty good, by and large - dramatic, well-animated, clever, sometimes original and daring, it usually has to have something to say, or at least something familiar in a clever way. It also tends to need charming and memorable characters. Further, if it falls into a lot of tropes like the crude cheesy power-fantasy (sub-Shonen stuff, more about min-maxing than "unlocking your true power"), or harem stuff, most anime tends to get severely mocked and disregarded and rightly so.

But Isekai? You just cannot trust any Isekai that is being recommend or watched by a lot of people because it isn't being held to those standards. It isn't being watched for the same reasons. It isn't because it's a cool story, or clever, or has something to say, or looks great, or has, amazing, ridiculous fight scenes (or all the above, like JJK). It's being watched because it's cheap, completely uninspired, completely uninspiring, nothing-to-say, nothing to add, not even visually, power-fantasy, often significant harem or harem-adjacent elements, and very often with protagonists so fundamentally awful they hark back to the worst anime protags of the '80s and '90s.

Is there other anime that bad? Yes. But it tends to be unpopular and often not even make it to the West or performs poorly if it does. Whereas in Japan and seemingly to a lesser extent in the West, Isekai, no matter how dire, and most of it is so dire, seems to get a free pass on any kind of quality or decency or modernity at all.

I know I'm not alone here - I'm not even alone in this thread - in feeling this. Isekai has become a watchword for "complete trash on every level" to me. Like, offensively bad. And I think a lot of people who watch some anime, but for who it's not like, their "lifestyle" and "anime fan" is not a descriptor they'd identify with, the visceral reaction to the term "Isekai" is... pretty negative.

Might that change in future? Maybe, but it would it take the genre to fundamentally start asking far more of itself.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I'm not saying that you must like it, and I don't care about historical reality at all. The fact of the matter is that if you don't like anything that takes you out of your preferred medieval fantasy... you don't like somewhere around half of the official DnD settings for 5e.

Which is fine, you don't have to like them, but going forward with "this doesn't feel like DnD" seems silly to me. Maybe the King's Knights don't have glasses in Greyhawk... but does a librarian in Sigil have glasses? What about a news reporter in Eberron? A Guild Artificer in Ravnica? A teacher in Strixhaven? An Alchemist in Drakkenheim?

The official setting of 5e is the Multiverse. And the multiverse contains much much much more than medieval fantasy worlds.

I assume some worlds have jet fighters. I mean why not put them in the sky with rhe picture of the fighter? They exist somewhere.

like whatever you like. I won’t tell you why it’s wrong.

I expressed an opinion. I like the art but not that choice. It “feels” anachronistic…for a medieval fantasy vibe I typically like. Granted the D&D world is not historical.

Why is the ONLY acceptable answer that this piece of art is perfect. I am sorry. I don’t like that choice. But not really. I am not really sorry actually.

So many other people likes all of it…maybe that would be more pleasant for you to focus on?

And no, I do NOT like a lot of what has been put out in terms of settings to include the Realms.

For the record despite the &$@* glasses, I think this piece bodes well for the overall quality of the upcoming art.

 

[Yaarel]

Not only is that interpretation completely unsupported by the rules (short-sidedness is NOT a disease) it is also anti-inclusive. People who wear glasses, or use a wheelchair or whatever, want to see people like them represented in game.

It’s equivalent to saying Alter Self can cure your gender and ethnicity.

Near-sightedness is a kind of blindness, albeit mild. Most people who are legally blind actually have some degree of sight. Heal can "end" any form of blindness.

I personally am nearsighted since my teens. The last pair of glasses I had fell into the ocean. Since then, I am able to wear contact lenses more comfortably than many others can. In my life it is a nonissue, and I havent cared enough to get eye surgery. I dont need to see pictures of people wearing glasses.

I have two friends who are blind, each from a genetic condition that exhibited while they were adults. Both very much are seeking a way to cure it.

I have less experience with people dealing with wheelchairs, or so.

These people are highly competent and good at the jobs they do. That is the part that I feel is most important to communicate in D&D.

Alter Self is temporary, but one can appear as any age or in any physical condition. Obviously, one can appear any ethnicity or any gender.


It depends on the setting, but typically the populations at large are low tier. In the settings I play in, professionals are proficiency +3, levels 5 thru 8. Levels 9 thru 12 are rare. Levels 13 and up are superhuman, and tend to be away from public view. The high slot healing spells exist − but are difficult to obtain.