D&D 5E Princes of the Apolcalypse/Adventurer's Handbook by Sasquatch Game Studios

[Dahak]

So that's their strategy to generate the "fresh core book" sales spikes for 5e? Well, in 4e calling them PHB 2, 3, etc. failed and people saw them as the splat books that they are rather than real PHBs. I don't think this new approach will have better success.

I suspect the Adventurer's Handbook will be more like HotFL or HotFK in that it serves as a standalone PHB alternative. If Part 2 is reprinted in whole, and classes each have new subclasses, new assortment of spells, with only a few key reprints, it might work. Elemental Evil would effectively be a standalone game that is fully compatible with the core.

 

[DMZ2112]

Was just done. She actually tried right before Shar made her latest attempt

Source? I'm not challenging you, I'm just curious. Most of the internet sources for FR lore are woefully behind "present day."

Not her again, she just had 3 or 4 attempts in a row. Cyric, Bane and the others are already impatiently tapping their feet in the waiting line

Ooh, Bane. Sure, I'd go for that.

Actually that has just been done recently too

It seems to require relatively constant maintenance, the Weave.

I am so tired of Lolth.

Yeah, but the kids love Lolth.

Manshoon is the other FR guy but doesn't transcend other campaign worlds.

I dig Manshoon in The Herald.

The Transcendent One ?

...No thanks. Reasonably decent attempt to distill the essence of Planescape into a single character for the purposes of a necessarily discrete single-player computer game, but he really doesn't belong at the table. Ever.

Maybe the players are the Villains and the NPCs are trying to stop them from taking over the world?

Return to the Reverse Dungeon!

 

[MerricB]

Source? I'm not challenging you, I'm just curious. Most of the internet sources for FR lore are woefully behind "present day."

The adventure/Encounters season was War of Everlasting Darkness. (It was the third adventure in the Rise of the Underdark trilogy, after Web of the Spider Queen and Council of Spiders).

War of Everlasting Darkness was a very unusual adventure - characters gained a level every session and it played more like a highlight reel of the major events of the story; it was assumed the adventurers had more adventures between sessions, but dealt instead with just the major events of the storyline.

It's available as a pdf from dndclassics: 64-page adventure (4E): http://www.dndclassics.com/product/123366/War-of-Everlasting-Darkness-4e

Cheers!

 

[Agamon]

Heh, weird. I guess those that played 4e published adventures got a whole lotta Lolth, then? My current campaign is about Lolth trying to take over the Weave, which I've come to find out now is kinda the same plotline to both a 4e adventure and the 2nd Sundering book.

Must be a good idea then.

 

[Klaus]

What was the last new big-bad created for D&D? Did Eberron actually have you square off in any epic conclusions against Vol or the Dreaming Dark?

Let's not get stuck on nostalgia, folks.

Although there was no adventure, Eberron did provide stats for the Lord of Blades, King Kaius and one of the Daelkyr (IIRC Mordain the Fleshweaver).

 

[Haffrung]

Maybe, but where are the adventures that don't involve saving the world?

I am so glad to see that WOTC finally gets the fact that adventure support is Key.

I just wish it wasn't in the form of World Saving mega adventure paths, which I have absolutely no use for.

It disappoints me that save-the-world railroads are apparently the most profitable, since I have no desire to play or run them, and I think they're generally bad design for an RPG (where you're supposed to be able to do anything).

Put me in this camp. WotC showed in the late 4E era that it could do setting-based, non-epic-linear-story adventure material. The Neverwinter Nights campaign setting. Vor Rukoth. Madness at Gardmore Abbey. I had high hopes that approach would carry forward into 5E. Looks like I was wrong. WotC is going full Paizo. That means all epic world-saving, all the time. Hopefully 3PPs will publish ruined cities, deep dungeons, and savage wilderness settings where the motivations and actions of the PCs are left entirely up to the players.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Our group is currently playing through a 3.5E campaign of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I have a feeling that this series of adventures will tie in really well after we've finished that!

 

[Wrathamon]

Best background ever, no need for further game development, stick a fork in D&D5 -- it's done.

Heh... thanks!

Best reply I have ever gotten

 

[Blackbrrd]

Put me in this camp. WotC showed in the late 4E era that it could do setting-based, non-epic-linear-story adventure material. The Neverwinter Nights campaign setting. Vor Rukoth. Madness at Gardmore Abbey. I had high hopes that approach would carry forward into 5E. Looks like I was wrong. WotC is going full Paizo. That means all epic world-saving, all the time. Hopefully 3PPs will publish ruined cities, deep dungeons, and savage wilderness settings where the motivations and actions of the PCs are left entirely up to the players.

Same here. I like adventures are more open-ended, and not an endless railroad towards the final module. It's why I like modules that covers a relatively small set of levels, usually three, but sometimes a bit more. Red Hand of Doom covers about 7 levels and is still pretty open. I bet it would play out even better in 5e because of bounded accuracy.

I am about 66% done with Reavers of Harkenworld, which is a module that is really cool to incorporate into a campaign. My players focused on getting their own domain, so now they are helping out, hoping to get a little village called Redwood, the ancestral home of the Vrylokka PC. When you have a module like this (3 levels), with a start and end that can easily be changed to fit with the PC's action it's much more rewarding for me as a DM, and would have been as a player as well.

This, as opposed to a opposed by an "adventure path" that has assumptions about the general outcome of the previous module, and general assumptions about it's outcome. In Reavers of Harkenworld, the PC's could have decided to do something outside the box, like subverting part of the Iron Circle and taking the power there for themselves. It's something you can do in a 3-level module without breaking anything, while it would probably render much of an adventure path inconsistent and/or really hard to run, since just about everything would have to be changed to allow for an outcome so outside the box.

 

[The Hitcher]

Could be that we'll see some smaller one-off modules for the Elemental Evil story (even besides the OP ones).

Having not yet seen HotDQ, I'm on the fence about these world-saving epics. If there's enough small-scale character detail in there, it might work for me. I definitely prefer grittiness and moral ambiguity over straight good vs. evil, though.

It's sounding like DungeonScape is aiming to allow publication of fan-made adventures, so it may also become the defacto portal for third-party content - an app store of sorts. That seems like a smart approach from where I'm sitting.