D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

New free content from WotC - the latest 4-page Unearthed Arcana introduces six new races: astral elf, autognome, giff, hadozee, plasmoid, and thri-kreen.

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Looks like Spelljammer and/or Planescape is back on the menu!

 

[Parmandur]

True. But you wouldn't play a campaign set fully in both simultaneously. I would have a spelljamming port in Waterdeep, though, bringing in goods from space, while still running a ground campaign that is using the great wheel.

Absolutely.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Dungeon of the Mad Mage literally had a Spelljamming Helm in it. It worked a tiny bit differently from original Spelljamming Helms (it produces air for the ship, doesn't consume your spell slots), but it was there.

So, yeah, the odds of them bringing back Spelljamming Helms that work more or less as they did in 2e are actually pretty likely.

Lol do not agree. They're not going to eat slots, they're not going to force ships to have a high-level caster to power them, and they're not going to have the weird 24 hour lockout thing. The hard requirement of a Vancian caster to make your ship go (unless it has a wacky alternate engine) is just fundamentally incompatible with 5Es approach to classes, balance, adventure design and so on. I can't rule it out as an optional rule or an outdated type of helm no longer in common use, but as the default? Pffft.

Predicting an entire setting from a throwaway elements in a single adventure is the most ridiculous extreme kind of tea-leaf reading. I mean hell, you couldn't have accurately predicted the new Ravenloft from an entire adventure set there.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Other option is the spelljammers as living vehicles, and if with help by the PCs it can earn its own XPs and become bigger and more powerful.

Or maybe a secret was discovered. Special plants growing about "carvorite" meteors can used to construct space-ships whose wood enjoy special anti-gravity propieties. Hasbro could produce some "relatively cheaper" videogame for mobiles.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

There isn't really anything in astral elves sufficiently radical that needs testing. They are just another minor variation on the 1001 flavours of elf already in the game. They are just along to pad out the numbers.

Why would they need to pad the numbers?

 

[Chaosmancer]

And therein lies the problem.

I have a problem, and the only answer, is more Great Wheel/Sigil!

It is only a problem if they don't do it in a way that the majority of people find interesting.

 

[Remathilis]

Why would they need to pad the numbers?

Might be it's a stealth test for his elves in general might look in the future PHB. Kinda like kobold or hobgoblin were in other UAs but will probably be in Multiverse.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Lol do not agree. They're not going to eat slots, they're not going to force ships to have a high-level caster to power them, and they're not going to have the weird 24 hour lockout thing. The hard requirement of a Vancian caster to make your ship go (unless it has a wacky alternate engine) is just fundamentally incompatible with 5Es approach to classes, balance, adventure design and so on. I can't rule it out as an optional rule or an outdated type of helm no longer in common use, but as the default? Pffft.

Predicting an entire setting from a throwaway elements in a single adventure is the most ridiculous extreme kind of tea-leaf reading. I mean hell, you couldn't have accurately predicted the new Ravenloft from an entire adventure set there.

Do you own the Dungeon of the Mad Mage? Because the Spelljamming Helm in it doesn't require you to expend spell slots to use it, doesn't stop you from using spell slots to cast spells (it only requires that you have at least one spell slot to pilot it, and the higher level the slot is, the faster the vehicle is), and it doesn't have a "24 hour lockout-thing", whatever that means. I fully expect the Helm of the Scavenger to be the basis for most spelljamming helms in D&D 5e. It is much more simplistic and game-friendly than 2e spelljamming helms were, even if it's partially based off of them.

Yes, I do think that a lot of the rules from Dungeon of the Mad Mage for how space and Spelljammers work will make it into whatever book the majority of these races do. The rules for how outer-space works from the Asteroid level of the dungeon, the design of the Squid Ship, the planets of Realmspace and Tears of Selune are all pretty large parts of Spelljammer that could be the basis for Spelljamming in 5e, just like slightly altered versions of the Vehicle rules from Ghosts of Saltmarsh were the basis for Infernal War Machine rules in Descent into Avernus.

 

[Maxperson]

Lol do not agree. They're not going to eat slots, they're not going to force ships to have a high-level caster to power them, and they're not going to have the weird 24 hour lockout thing. The hard requirement of a Vancian caster to make your ship go (unless it has a wacky alternate engine) is just fundamentally incompatible with 5Es approach to classes, balance, adventure design and so on. I can't rule it out as an optional rule or an outdated type of helm no longer in common use, but as the default? Pffft.

They don't have to in order to make Spelljammer, though. You don't need identical helms. You just need a chair that makes ships fly. You don't need an identical phlogiston, though there's nothing wrong with the one from before. You don't need the odd gravity at all. Spelljammer could easily be done in 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

Predicting an entire setting from a throwaway elements in a single adventure is the most ridiculous extreme kind of tea-leaf reading. I mean hell, you couldn't have accurately predicted the new Ravenloft from an entire adventure set there.

I mean, I'm predicting it based on the UA full of pure Spelljammer material, but the drib and drab cameos that Chris Perkins has been getting in there for years also suggest that the first Setting next year that Chris Perkijs is heading may relate to this UA of Spelljammer material.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I think people are missing @Ruin Explorer 's point: there's no way they'll do it exactly the way they did it in 2e, because the base rules are different. They'll make minor changes, at the very least. That was option 4 on Ruin's list.

So we end up with that classic internet argument: You're wrong, the right answer is [exactly what they said but with a single word replaced with a synonym that in no way affects the meaning].

Someone was saying that "Spelljammer but with non-drastic changes" didn't cover this possibility, which is just a semantic point, and frankly one I disagree with. There is no way they will release a completely unedited, unrevised, version of 2e Spelljammer with no changes as a 5e supplement.