Spelljammer Dark Sun confirmed? Or, the mysterious case of the dissappearing Spelljammer article...

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm in the camp of "I'm not upset by the change itself, but I'm super-curious as to why they chose the Astral instead of the Ethereal."

I may never know the actual answer, but I'm not upset by it.

Well, we've been seeing a very minor but (at least to me) noticeable trend of being less violently allergic to anything which smells too much like 4e. So perhaps it could be taking a leaf from 4e's conception of the Astral Sea and the Domains floating within it.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Well, 'alienated' is probably a strong word to use. A lot of 2e Ravenloft fans (I'm talking about the diehard types over at fraternityofshadows.com who've been keeping Ravenloft alive, releasing large and generally high-quality netbooks, etc etc since 3rd ed) REALLY disliked the new take on the setting (I count myself among them, for what it's worth), but only the really hardcore can't find anything worth borrowing/appropriating etc in the new edition. As far as i can tell, general opinion is that the new Ravenloft baby is cute at times, but that still doesn't mean you had to so ruthlessly throw the old one out with the bathwater. A very casual skim over there says that most people take bits and pieces from VRGtR and just throw out the whole floating domains concept and run it in some version of the Core. And its worth noting, the posters on that board disproportionately represent the people who really liked the 2e/3e Ravenloft. I've seen a lot of posters here who say that they never enjoyed the old Ravenloft but did get interested in VRGtR.

But still, disliking the creative choices in one product (two, if you count Curse of Strahd) doesn't mean that the older school fans are actually alienated as such - they may very well buy other WotC products from here on in. After all, from WotCs point of view, if a group of fans feel alienated and decide to avoid WotCs take on Ravenloft in future - so what? It's not like WotC is going to release another Ravenloft product for them to boycott any time soon.

Pretty much my feeling though I flicked through the 5e Ravenloft book and found nothing particularly interesting or useful.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Crawford went into this in the Sage Advice videos during the Tasha's playtests: they found that people didn't want options that didn't use Spell Slots. That's a fact.

then use spell slots but add a cool new mechanic as well. this is not hard.

Eh, I don't think they've alienated many 2e Spelljammmer fans. The phlogiston was by far the least interesting facet of the setting, and very few are showing any signs of being upset that it's been replaced by the Astral. Beyond that, the changes seem fairly minimal...

it also means we can use guns, lots of guns.

 

[Parmandur]

then use spell slots but add a cool new mechanic as well. this is not hard.

It's hard enough that nobody nailed it on t Editioons that tried.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It's hard enough that nobody nailed it on t Editioons that tried.

they have an interesting mechanic the psi knight and psiknife use one thus use that.

 

[Parmandur]

they have an interesting mechanic the psi knight and psiknife use one thus use that.

It's bit thin as a basis for a Class that needs to support a dozen or so Subclasses. They have made the bar for entry in new Classes very, very high in 5E because of what happened in 3.x and 4E with the willy-nilly proliferation of Classes. The easy way out is to just make more and more Classes. Limitations are a challenge.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It's bit thin as a basis for a Class that needs to support a dozen or so Subclasses. They have made the bar for entry in new Classes very, very high in 5E because of what happened in 3.x and 4E with the willy-nilly proliferation of Classes. The easy way out is to just make more and more Classes. Limitations are a challenge.

firstly ranger is a class as is bard high standards are clearly not in place.
secondly please clarify this point"The easy way out is to just make more and more Classes. Limitations are a challenge."
thirdly instead of class bloat, we have subclass bloat which is different in no way that matters.
fourthly nothing gets people talking more than a new class and setting and races they got down fine but other stuff is needed to sell more books.

 

[grimslade]

I, personally, would prefer a new system for psionics. Crawford has never been interested in psionics for D&D. That is not a slam, it is a legitimate preference. To me, spell slots are one of the most boring concepts for a magic system imaginable, but it is what magic is in D&D. It is why the wizard is king and sorcerer is an afterthought. Warlock starts bringing invocations and short rest mechanics to the magic table and then dumbs down to spell slots per day with Mystic Arcanum. Now we look to be removing short rest mechanics for multiple spell slots per day... There are plenty of 3rd party solutions to WotC blind spots, but the 5E system is able to handle so much more. I guess this gives more design power to a third storm sorcerer subclass to be developed.

 

[bedir than]

I, personally, would prefer a new system for psionics. Crawford has never been interested in psionics for D&D. That is not a slam, it is a legitimate preference. To me, spell slots are one of the most boring concepts for a magic system imaginable, but it is what magic is in D&D. It is why the wizard is king and sorcerer is an afterthought. Warlock starts bringing invocations and short rest mechanics to the magic table and then dumbs down to spell slots per day with Mystic Arcanum. Now we look to be removing short rest mechanics for multiple spell slots per day... There are plenty of 3rd party solutions to WotC blind spots, but the 5E system is able to handle so much more. I guess this gives more design power to a third storm sorcerer subclass to be developed.

You know who else isn't interested in psionics?
Most of the fans. That's why every attempt keeps getting ripped up after feedback

 

[Mind of tempest]

You know who else isn't interested in psionics?
Most of the fans. That's why every attempt keeps getting ripped up after feedback

most fans are not ripping it apart they literally never heard of it.
you got psionic fans with more infighting than political movements and the group who hate psionics being in the game under any situation.
the latter two are more likely to be what is being dealt with.
even if psionics are a no go can we at least get something new I want fire lit in my imagination something different from generic fantasy class number 14?