D&D 5E 5E Ptolus vs 3E Ptolus?

[Erekose]

With people starting to receive their 5E/Cypher Ptolus books from the Kickstarter campaign (mine arrived today), it made me wonder how much content is different between the 5E book and the original 3E book? By content, I don't mean the mechanics update, but new information about the city itself?

I could go through my copies but just wondered if anyone had already done it

 

[dave2008]

I would be interested myself, but I have neither books so I am a sorry but I can't help (other than giving this post a little bump)

 

[R_J_K75]

With people starting to receive their 5E/Cypher Ptolus books from the Kickstarter campaign (mine arrived today), it made me wonder how much content is different between the 5E book and the original 3E book? By content, I don't mean the mechanics update, but new information about the city itself?

I could go through my copies but just wondered if anyone had already done it

Pretty sure Sean K Reynolds said that the only things that changed for the most part was the mechanics, the flavor text mostly remained the same.

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

What Sean said is found in post #53 of this thread:

D&D 5E - Monte Cook's Ptolus Kickstarter Has Launched

This is one of MCG's luxury products - at nearly 700 pages depicting a massive, detailed fantasy city, we're looking at $150 for the book, or $40 for the PDF, either for D&D 5E or Cypher System. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montecookgames/ptolus-monte-cooks-city-by-the-spire/ "Monte...

www.enworld.org

He said:
"We pulled the layout text from the 3e version of the book, stripped it down to plain text, re-styled all of it, made all of the running text system-neutral, moved rules-specific stuff to the callouts (the margin notes), had the text edited again, and then it was all laid out from scratch. You probably won't see significant changes in the first chapters (frex, the player's guide, world, and history chapters) because they were mostly system-neutral already; the later chapters (particularly magic, chaositech, and monsters) have a LOTTTT of updates compared to the original version.

It was not our intent to rewrite the book except as needed to make it work with 5e and the Cypher System. So you won't see changes to locations and events in Oldtown, but you will see that NPCs have their stats updated to the new systems."

 

[Erekose]

So “margin notes” (and the specific rules heavy sections mentioned) aside the 5E (or Cypher system) books are essentially the same (i.e. system neutral).

It would be interesting to know what of the system neutral setting text actually had to be amended to accommodate 5E rather than 3E (or even the Cypher System). I had thought Ptolus was quite tightly bound to 3E (and it’s central design concepts) but perhaps not?

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I have the 3E hardcover and 5E PDF. To me, it looks like there are essentially no differences. A handful of new art pieces and few sidebars. This is basically just a rules update and a reprint, not a revision.

 

[Voadam]

Any stuff about dragonborn and warlocks? Those seem the most immediate additions to D&D between OGL 3e and 5e.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Any stuff about dragonborn and warlocks? Those seem the most immediate additions to D&D between OGL 3e and 5e.

"Warlocks in Ptolus are few, and
those who have evil patrons are often involved
with the Fallen. Even warlocks not allied with
such groups were likely drawn to Ptolus like
moths to a flame, for within this city, some
eldritch beings are not distant entities but actual
inhabitants."
They're mentioned a dozen times in the text, and there are some new spells for them

"Duergar do not exist in the world of Praemal, nor do the standard PC species subtypes (hill
dwarves, high elves, lightfoot halflings, and so on) or dragonborn. Praemal’s dwarves, elves, and
other PC-type species are specific to this world and are described in Chapter 3: Species"

 

[Aldarc]

Paging @Whizbang Dustyboots.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If I had a player who really wanted to play a dragonborn (I DM for a lot of younger players and new players, and try to accomodate their wishes as much as possible in these early get-you-hooked-on-D&D games), I would just decide that they're either dracha or mojh, and emigrees from the Lands of the Diamond Throne to the distant west. That's my personal head canon, but there's enough stuff in Ptolus to suggest that Monte was thinking about stuff that would turn into Arcana Unearthed when he was writing it to make it work. (Most especially the stuff in Ptolus about giants.)

And Ptolus is such a cosmopolitan city, with at least a few ogre mages and minotaurs walking around without trouble, I think you can toss in pretty much any player character race without a great deal of trouble.

I had thought Ptolus was quite tightly bound to 3E (and it’s central design concepts) but perhaps not?

I've run Ptolus in three different systems. As long as the game supports D&D-style fantasy roleplay, or something closely related (you could almost certainly run it under Runequest, for instance), it's fine.