D&D 5E The Final Announcement from The Descent Live Stream: Eberron Hardcover

Yaarel · May 20, 2019

Parmandur said:
Apparently not, since they are both being published. In the Dragon Talk where they announced Wayfarer's Guide and the Ravnica book, Keith Baker went a little into how to mix Ravnica material into Eberron.

Do you have a link handy to where Baker suggests mixes?

EltonJ · May 20, 2019

Don't be too hasty to celebrate, you don't know all the details yet.

Parmandur · May 20, 2019

Yaarel said:
Do you have a link handy to where Baker suggests mixes?

Sure, I don't remember what he says in detail, but they go into that here:

https://youtu.be/_95EaQMvPmA

dave2008 · May 20, 2019

Staffan said:
The artificer got an update last week, featuring two new subclasses, the addition of Xanathar spells to the spell list, three new infusions, and a slight update to the multiclassing rules.

Yes, but the PDF of Wayfinder's Guide has not been updated with the artificer yet - that is what I was talking about.

Parmandur · May 20, 2019

dave2008 said:
Yes, but the PDF of Wayfinder's Guide has not been updated with the artificer yet - that is what I was talking about.

But the playtested portions have been updated: they talked this weekend about making it available for Print on Demand, so it will be updated again. Likely, they will add the Artificer rules.

dave2008 · May 20, 2019

lostsanityreturned said:
I expected it, sad but expected.

I think them making it a separate book from Wayfinders rather than just expanding wayfinders to be a full product is scummy. But hey, I will never buy into one of their beta releases ever again

IDK. I find it hard to describe them as "scummy" when they explained this from the get go. They said: Wayfinder's will be updated and when it is complete it will be official and offered in POD. The said a future hardcover would compliment Wayfinder's.

At this point it seems they are providing what they said they would. However, maybe I have a different viewpoint as I didn't purchase Way and unlikely to purchase the hardcover.

Olaf the Stout · May 20, 2019

Jester David said:
My reaction was probably similar to a few thousand other people: well, I sure wasted $20 on the DMsGuild.

As I said elsewhere, I'm disappointed by this.
We already have Eberron. We could already run games in that world. This doesn't give us anything new. We can't tell stories we couldn't before. We don't get more races. We don't unlock another world on the DMsGuild. The DMsGuild Adepts are unlike to do any products that they haven't already released.
We're not really given any more toys to play with that we weren't already expecting, as the artificer was already supposed to go into the Wayfinder's Guide. (If they can even managed to get the artificer not to suck before the books is released.)

Okay, yeah, there could be more monsters. Wheeee. I literally have well over a thousand monsters spread over eight books, with a ninth on the way.
Oh, and the world lore. Which I already have. Because Eberron's timeline hasn't changed. That doesn't need to be updated to 5e.

It feels a little like a snub that Eberron fans get TWO full campaign setting books before before fans of any other classic setting get anything.

Meanwhile, I'm left wondering why they gave Descent into Avernus the "Baldur's Gate" surtitle, if there's no second BG book. And wondering how many more years we'll have to wait before we get to see the rest of Hell.

How have you “wasted” $20? The PDF came out 11 months ago and I’m guessing there will be about an 18 month gap between the PDF and the hardcover.

Even if the hardcover was an exact reprint of the PDF (which it won’t be, and could be completely different), you’ve still had Eberron material for 18 months before the hardcover was released. Does that hold no value to you?

You could run an entire campaign or two in that time. Not to mention that when I buy a hardcover WotC book, I don’t get a PDF copy of the same book. So to suggest you wasted $20 is just incorrect in my opinion.

dave2008 · May 20, 2019

Parmandur said:
But the playtested portions have been updated: they talked this weekend about making it available for Print on Demand, so it will be updated again. Likely, they will add the Artificer rules.

Yes, I know. I am not trying to argue that point. I have been saying WotC is in the process of delivering what they promised (updates and POD). We are in agreement and saying the same thing.

Olaf the Stout · May 20, 2019

Abstruse said:
Yes, the initial game got patched as needed, as with any game a AAA video game company sales. The only thing they said for sure that would be added was the One Extra Character Skin and new associated material needed to play that one. So that $20 you paid for the Early Access got you everything in the initial game you bought, plus all of the patches and that one single character skin. Nothing more. So hopefully people who bought it did not misunderstand and will still pay the full premium price of $50-60 for our new game that will come out that's essentially the same as the previous game we said we'd continue to support.

Starting to see why people might be upset? Seriously, picture a video game company doing this on Elder Scrolls 6 or The Outer Worlds or something else and just imagine the rant Jim Sterling would go on.

I don’t know why you keep trying to equate roleplaying books with video games as though they are homogeneous interchangeable products. They aren’t and trying to use video games in your examples as a comparison just weakens your argument.

MarkB · May 21, 2019

Yaarel said:
For Eberron lovers, do you view Ravnica as competition? Both are mainly urban and ubiquitous magic.

Note, I would describe Eberron as ‘wide’ (availability of low level) magic, rather than ‘high’ (level of) magic.

I'm not sure I'd classify Eberron as being that highly urban. Certainly, there's support for urban campaigns, and the Wayfinder's Guide focused a lot on Sharn, but the setting as a whole has vast ranges of well-detailed wilderness in which to adventure. I'd describe it as more modernist (in terms of attitudes and social structures rather than technology) rather than urbanised.