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

[MockingBird]

Changing a single, solitary comma in the books is a line too far for a lot of players, apparently. And referees it turns out.

Isn't there some videos of people removing a coma or something and essentially turning 1st level characters into immortal beings? Just seems counter intuitive to fun.

 

[Parmandur]

Isn't there some videos of people removing a coma or something and essentially turning 1st level characters into immortal beings? Just seems counter intuitive to fun.

Yea, verily, I say unto thee, not one comma or table entry shalt be altered until Gygax returns to take his throne.

 

[overgeeked]

Isn't there some videos of people removing a coma or something and essentially turning 1st level characters into immortal beings? Just seems counter intuitive to fun.

That's power gaming for you. It's all about "accidentally" reading the rules slightly wrong to gain unlimited power and it's counter intuitive to fun.

 

[SkidAce]

Wildspace was always the meat of the setting anyway. Spelljammer campaigns were either exploring your own system's Wildspace, or going to other Wildspace spheres to explore. The phologiston was just there, and no one really went there just to go there for itself, but to go through to get to somewhere else more exciting. It served no purpose other than to be passed through. Now they've replaced it with a much more interesting transitive space in the Astral, which is definitely a smart move in the design sense. And a change that's likely to ruffle a minimum of feathers outside the absolute Spelljammer purists, if such exist.

The only remaining question is if you can go from Wildspace to Wildspace without passing through the Astral? Is the Material Plane fully contiguous (meaning you can theoretically travel from system through system, presumably through a large void like our own interstellar space, although distances might be too long to be practical), or is it broken up into discrete and non-contiguous Wildspace systems floating in the Astral? The latter is a bit weird considering how the Material Plane has been consistently described in all editions up until now (as an unbroken infinite plane, or an infinite number of unbroken infinite planes).

Regardless of how they end up describing it, I will have the Material as one contiguous plane.

When you reach the distance that your helm can take you into the Astral, you can either transition to the Astral, or continue onwards through the void of space. Years and years to the next "system".

Astral would likely be much much faster. Treated as "Hyperspace" in my opinion.

 

[SkidAce]

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.

I dont think it needs a lot of subclasses. Maybe some feats for wild talents, but other than that, if you want more focus on psionics, you take more levels of psion. (multiclassing).

That wayn any class can go as deep or shallow as they like.

 

[SkidAce]

The acrimony is because 1 group wants 1e psionics another wants 3e psionics another wants 5e spell slots another wants a warlock variant another wants "something original it's not that hard"

The people who wants psionics can't even agree on what they want.

Actually, sometimes I think we cant agree on what we want with ANY topic.

(warlord, "what is a fighter", hit points, skill challenges, alignment, etc...)

 

[Maxperson]

Isn't there some videos of people removing a coma or something and essentially turning 1st level characters into immortal beings? Just seems counter intuitive to fun.

I liked 3e's conditions.

If your hit points go to -1 you go unconscious.

"Unconscious: Knocked out and helpless. Unconsciousness can result from having current hit points between –1 and –9, or from nonlethal damage in excess of current hit points."

Once you hit -10 you are dead.

"Dead: The character’s hit points are reduced to –10, his Constitution drops to 0, or he is killed outright by a spell or effect. The character’s soul leaves his body. Dead characters cannot benefit from normal or magical healing, but they can be restored to life via magic. A dead body decays normally unless magically preserved, but magic that restores a dead character to life also restores the body either to full health or to its condition at the time of death (depending on the spell or device)."

Okay. So since unconscious is only until -9, you are no longer unconscious once you die. Further, all dead says is that your soul leaves your body. Okay And that you can't be healed with normal or magical healing. Okay. And that you start to decay. Okay. Nothing about the death definition says that you cannot now get up without a soul and continue fighting. You're no longer unconscious and helpless.

 

[Parmandur]

I dont think it needs a lot of subclasses. Maybe some feats for wild talents, but other than that, if you want more focus on psionics, you take more levels of psion. (multiclassing).

That wayn any class can go as deep or shallow as they like.

The "can support a dozen Subclasses" is an internal WotC design goal, per Mearls.

 

[overgeeked]

Actually, sometimes I think we cant agree on what we want with ANY topic.

(warlord, "what is a fighter", hit points, skill challenges, alignment, etc...)

Two things, first. Honestly, I think a lot of that is us confusing what we want things to be or what they used to be (in previous editions) with what they actually are now, i.e. as written. The warlord is whatever the 4E book says. Fighters are whatever the edition you're using as a reference point says they are. Hit points are whatever the book you're referencing says they are. Etc.

But we complicate things. Many of us have the rules and definitions of several editions fighting for space in our heads. We argue about our interpretations of what the books in our heads mean, rather than what a shared text actually says.

Second, how boring would it be if we all agreed on everything? It would be nice if there were less animosity about disagreements, sure, but there'd be nothing to talk about if we all simply agreed with one another.

 

[Yaarel]

Xanathar's made it a little more clear how you could go about that.

Yeah. That's more or less like 3e did it.

I like how 5e Xanathars focuses the Cleric on a "cosmic power" (≈ domain), even more than the 3e philosophy. The "power" results in a sacred tradition that feels plausible and with verisimilitude to reallife nontheistic sacred traditions. Indeed, even a polytheistic deity can be understood as one of the may possible "cosmic powers" to choose from. The 3e approach as an existentialist belief in belief can sometimes end up solipsistic or silly (like Banjo the Clown). The 5e approach is excellent.

I hope the 2024 Players Handbook makes this Xanathars sidebar part of its core Cleric class description.