Dungeons & Dragons Announces Arcana Unleashed, New Magic-Themed Sourcebook at $49.99 Price Point

[Paul Farquhar]

It's pretty much exactly what they seem to have intended with the Elemental Evil season before scrapping the rules supplement book in 2015

No, it’s exactly the opposite. For that, the adventure came first, and had accompanying player facing crunch packaged separately. And that was a failed idea, they ended up giving it away.

This is crunch first - necessary crunch, given that backwards compatibility currently means you need the 5.0 PHB if you want to play a necromancer. The adventure is an exemplar of what to do with it (that is probably a repurposed unrelated product). The price points, order in which the products are listed, and the inclusion of the primarily product in the name of the secondary (and not visa versa) make that clear.

Again, the crunnch you mention is only about half the book, at most

It’s shorter than Xanathar’s and Tasha’s (judging by the price point) and they are only crunch.

I expect the new book will discuss how to use the new factions with the Red Wizards of Thay as well as similar groups across the range of D&D settings, so it won’t be completely devoid of lore.

 

[Parmandur]

It’s shorter than Xanathar’s and Tasha’s (judging by the price point) and they are only crunch.

Right, 192 pages, with an estimated 100 pages or less of said crunch, assuming a maximum amount of possible material (more Spells than Cana that's, more magic items than the Book of Many Things, all the UA Subclasses magically passing muster for publication, a record number of Backgrounds).

If you look at what fills the page count for Xanathar and Tasha, for one they each had like twice as many Subclasses on dock, but also a bunch of other stuff unlikely to be repeated in this product. What is likely is Arcana Unleashed storyline material.

 

[GarrettKP]

Not really, no. The primary purpose of AU is to restore the specialist wizard subclasses and spells from 5.0 that didn't make it into the PHB for reasons of time and space. It's the main event, the adventure is the supplement.

The book will have more than just the Wizard subclasses and old spells from 5e. We’re looking at probably 8 subclasses total, likely getting Arcane Archer and Arcana Cleric at minimum. Probably the Ancestral Sorcerer and the Mystic Arts Monk, maybe getting the Spell Thief Rogue and Spellguard Paladin.

And yes, this book is the main event. But it’s still a pair along with Deadfall the same way Heroes of Faerun and Adventures in Faerun are a pair.

The pitch for those books was: “Here’s player options for you to use, and here’s a book of adventures and settings to play them in.”

This combos pitch is the same: “Here’s player options for you to use, here’s an adventure to play them in.”

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The book will have more than just the Wizard subclasses and old spells from 5e. We’re looking at probably 8 subclasses total, likely getting Arcane Archer and Arcana Cleric at minimum. Probably the Ancestral Sorcerer and the Mystic Arts Monk, maybe getting the Spell Thief Rogue and Spellguard Paladin.

And yes, this book is the main event. But it’s still a pair along with Deadfall the same way Heroes of Faerun and Adventures in Faerun are a pair.

The pitch for those books was: “Here’s player options for you to use, and here’s a book of adventures and settings to play them in.”

This combos pitch is the same: “Here’s player options for you to use, here’s an adventure to play them in.”

Sure, absolutely true. What AU won’t have is content that is only for the adventure, or only for the Forgotten Realms setting.

And of course, the adventure will be completely playable without AU, it just won’t have the thematic player options.

 

[GarrettKP]

No, it’s exactly the opposite. For that, the adventure came first, and had accompanying player facing crunch packaged separately. And that was a failed idea, they ended up giving it away.

This is a misunderstanding of what the Elemental Evil Players Companion was. It started as a full rules supplement to be released in conjunction with Princes of the Apocalypse, the same way these two books are pair together.

The difference is WotC didn’t have the staff to do it themselves during that era of 5e and so they licensed those early adventures out to third parties. But having their team try and write a player supplement while another team wrote the adventure did not work, logistically, so Princes was ready and the scrapped the player book and instead released the player options they had ready as a free PDF.

Had WotC had the manpower to do what they wanted, Princes and the EEPC would be the same style of two book drop that both the FR books last year and the Arcana books this year are trying to be. This is them doing that.

 

[GarrettKP]

Sure, absolutely true. What AU won’t have is content that is only for the adventure, or only for the Forgotten Realms setting.

Sure. But WotC is very aware that the community doesn’t care about gatekeeping setting options. I’d wager most tables out there are running dragon marks and Bladesingers and Hexbloods and Giff all together in their settings, with little care for what is “for” a setting and what isn’t. For most tables, the answer to “is this allowed” is “do I have the book” and “does the table think it’s cool.”

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, absolutely true. What AU won’t have is content that is only for the adventure, or only for the Forgotten Realms setting.

And of course, the adventure will be completely playable without AU, it just won’t have the thematic player options.

Anything they release for the FR is double duty for any generic Homebrew.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Anything they release for the FR is double duty for any generic Homebrew.

And it goes the other way - any non-specific content goes in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Remathilis]

The book will have more than just the Wizard subclasses and old spells from 5e. We’re looking at probably 8 subclasses total, likely getting Arcane Archer and Arcana Cleric at minimum. Probably the Ancestral Sorcerer and the Mystic Arts Monk, maybe getting the Spell Thief Rogue and Spellguard Paladin.

I'm not convinced the mystic UA is going into this product. The UA is too new (only can't out in January), and the terminology change (Arcana for the first two, Mystic for the new one) really tell me they are for a different project. I think your arcana subs will be the four wizards, arcana cleric, arcane archer, and tattoo monk. The hexblade is a 50/50 shot of being here or in Ravenloft.

WotC has been cheeky about signposting the UAs. Artificer/Eberron update for Forge of the Artificer. Forgotten Realms for the FR Players book. Horror for the The Horrors Within. Arcana for Arcana Unleashed. I'm guessing Dark Sun will be something like Champions of the Apocalypse and Mystic will be part of something with Mystic in the name. The only exception is the Update UA, but that one so far feels like the biggest "I have no idea where this is going" UA.

 

[GarrettKP]

I'm not convinced the mystic UA is going into this product. The UA is too new (only can't out in January), and the terminology change (Arcana for the first two, Mystic for the new one) really tell me they are for a different project. I think your arcana subs will be the four wizards, arcana cleric, arcane archer, and tattoo monk. The hexblade is a 50/50 shot of being here or in Ravenloft.

WotC has been cheeky about signposting the UAs. Artificer/Eberron update for Forge of the Artificer. Forgotten Realms for the FR Players book. Horror for the The Horrors Within. Arcana for Arcana Unleashed. I'm guessing Dark Sun will be something like Champions of the Apocalypse and Mystic will be part of something with Mystic in the name. The only exception is the Update UA, but that one so far feels like the biggest "I have no idea where this is going" UA.

Maybe, though I do think the Mystic Arts Monk was created to replace Tattoo’d Warrior. But we will see.