D&D 5E D&D Celebration Schedule

From September 23-26, the D&D community comes together for D&D Celebration – a weekend celebrating the release of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and previewing Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons (Oct 19) and Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (Nov 16)!

The first official D&D musical? The cast of Star Trek: Discovery rolling the d20s? This year’s D&D Celebration will offer fans a front row seat to watch all that and more as hilarious Dungeon Masters lead adventures in a slate of side-splitting virtual games including:

- Disco Does D&D
o Cast members from Star Trek: Discovery Anthony Rapp, Mary Wisemann, Blu del Barrio, Ian Alexander, and special guest Wil Wheaton, play D&D with Noah Averbach-Katz at the helm as DM

- The Circus of Sound – a D&D Musical
o The long-awaited D&D musical event starring Anthony Rapp, Jason Charles Miller, Azie Dungey, Vico Ortiz, and Mariah Rose Faith with Kelly Lynne D’Angelo as DM

- The Slapstick Hunt: A Silly Chase
o DM Amy Vorpahl leads cast members from The Guild, Sandeep Parikh, Vince Caso, Robin Thorsen, Amy Okuda, and Jeff Lewis on a comedic adventure through the multiverse

- The Dungeon & The Dragon
o An unlikely band of monsters are assembled to help a wronged dragon track down the heroes who stole her hoard with Alicia Marie, Deborah Ann Woll, Todd Stashwick, Patrick Rothfuss, and Matthew Lillard playing as monsters and B. Dave Walters as DM

- The Great Dragon Tourney
o Get ready for a tourney unlike any other featuring dragon jousting, racing, and diplomacy starring Anna Prosser, Mica Burton, Nathan Sharp, Jonathan Indovino, and Kate Welch (in an extra-special role) with Mark Hulmes as DM

The weekend will close with a look to the future of the brand with the Future of D&D panel hosted by D&D’s own Liz Schuh, Ray Winninger, Chris Perkins, and Jeremy Crawford.

The full schedule of events, including virtual gaming and D&D Studio and community led panels, can be found here: https://dndcelebration.com/schedule

 

[generic]

I'm wondering beyond changes to races and classes what they could add to the PHB and MM. More races? Artificer? more subclasses? Subraces? Piety and Faction systems, more Gods in the Appendix?

Well, I can't claim to know the inner workings of WotC, but I fully expect any references to alignment to be axed. I think the addition of a couple more 'fringe' races, like maybe the Tabaxi, is likely as well.

Systems for handling piety seem like a reach, to me, at least, but I expect some of the more comprehensive rulings from Tasha's and Mordenkainen's to leak into the core sourcebooks.

Aside from that, I do see the addition of a class or two being likely, but which class will be included is up for debate.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Well, I can't claim to know the inner workings of WotC, but I fully expect any references to alignment to be axed. I think the addition of a couple more 'fringe' races, like maybe the Tabaxi, is likely as well.

Systems for handling piety seem like a reach, to me, at least, but I expect some of the more comprehensive rulings from Tasha's and Mordenkainen's to leak into the core sourcebooks.

Aside from that, I do see the addition of a class or two being likely, but which class will be included is up for debate.

No, they're keeping alignment, just using modifiers like "typically". Perkins (I believe) went over their decision making process on this in a Witchlight preview video last week.

 

[generic]

No, they're keeping alignment, just using modifiers like "typically". Perkins (I believe) went over their decision making process on this in a Witchlight preview video last week.

Ah, that's actually something I'm happy to hear. As flawed as alignment is, it serves its purpose as a generic description of a person or creature's behavior quite well, in my view.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Well, I can't claim to know the inner workings of WotC, but I fully expect any references to alignment to be axed. I think the addition of a couple more 'fringe' races, like maybe the Tabaxi, is likely as well.

Systems for handling piety seem like a reach, to me, at least, but I expect some of the more comprehensive rulings from Tasha's and Mordenkainen's to leak into the core sourcebooks.

Aside from that, I do see the addition of a class or two being likely, but which class will be included is up for debate.

No other none PHB class has been tested via UA then Artificer so it's likely the only new class to the PHB 5.5e.

 

[generic]

No other none PHB class has been tested via UA then Artificer so it's likely the only new class to the PHB 5.5e.

I believe the Mystic was, am I incorrect?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I believe the Mystic was, am I incorrect?

The Mystic died from a lack of popularity.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm wondering beyond changes to races and classes what they could add to the PHB and MM. More races? Artificer? more subclasses? Subraces? Piety and Faction systems, more Gods in the Appendix?

Housekeeping, I'd expect. Beyond races and classes, there are a lot of areas that could do with a balance tweak--feats being a prime example, and the Monster Manual's CR values are all over the place.

Then there are bonus actions. Bonus actions cause issues in a number of places: The bonus action spellcasting rules that nobody can keep straight*, two-weapon fighting clashing with bonus-action class features, and "triggered" BAs like the Shield Master push attack, which cause confusion around timing (can you use the push before your regular attack? after your first attack but before the second? only after all attacks?). I don't think they will get rid of BAs altogether, but there is certainly room to scale back their use and clarify those that remain.

They also seem to be angling to get rid of short rests, with recent books substituting "proficiency bonus times per long rest" for what would once have been a short-rest ability. Myself, I'd rather see them resurrect the 4E-style short rest, but that's probably not in the cards, and the current system can create balance headaches if the DM doesn't take care to carve out space for short rests. I would never bring a warlock or a monk PC to a new gaming table; I'd wait to see how the DM ran things first.

All this would add up to D&D 5.5. It would be mostly backwards compatible, but not a hundred percent; it would polish and refine the 5E engine without making fundamental changes. Mainly, it would be a chance for the designers to apply the lessons of 7 years watching 5E play out in the wild.

*I expect this post to get at least one reply from somebody telling me the bonus action spellcasting rules are dead simple, who will then go on to explain how they work, and get it wrong.

 

[generic]

The Mystic died from a lack of popularity.

Well, I never said it was a likely inclusion, I was just pointing out that it did exist.

But, man, that really bummed me out. The Mystic was one of my favorite UAs of all time.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Housekeeping, I'd expect. Beyond races and classes, there are a lot of areas that could do with a balance tweak--feats being a prime example, and the Monster Manual's CR values are all over the place.

Then there are bonus actions. Bonus actions cause issues in a number of places: The bonus action spellcasting rules that nobody can keep straight*, two-weapon fighting clashing with bonus-action class features, and "triggered" BAs like the Shield Master push attack, which cause confusion around timing (can you use the push before your regular attack? after your first attack but before the second? only after all attacks?). I don't think they will get rid of BAs altogether, but there is certainly room to scale back their use and clarify those that remain.

They also seem to be angling to get rid of short rests, with recent books substituting "proficiency bonus times per long rest" for what would once have been a short-rest ability. Myself, I'd rather see them resurrect the 4E-style short rest, but that's probably not in the cards, and the current system can create balance headaches if the DM doesn't take care to carve out space for short rests. I would never bring a warlock or a monk PC to a new gaming table; I'd wait to see how the DM ran things first.

All this would add up to D&D 5.5. It would be mostly backwards compatible, but not a hundred percent; it would polish and refine the 5E engine without making fundamental changes. Mainly, it would be a chance for the designers to apply the lessons of 7 years watching 5E play out in the wild.

*I expect this post to get at least one reply from somebody telling me the bonus action spellcasting rules are dead simple, who will then go on to explain how they work, and get it wrong.

All those are excellent points actually.

 

[Parmandur]

I could see a 6E revision, but Winninger went out if his way to say that the new "Classic Setting" products would be breaking new ground format wise, so...here's an idea.

A Dragonlance megaset, containing an expanded 5E-ification of the original Adventures, but separated from the original precons and spun out way further, with more Setting material and a full on mass combat wargame.