D&D 5E 6 months without a UA
- Thread starter Mind of tempest
- Start date
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
I think there was a Kickstarter for that
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darjr
I crit!
Cool.EN5ider: Professional DnD Content For Your Game
Weekly D&D supplements and adventures for less than a cup of coffee!
But I mean we have ENWorlders have beta things they want tested. Then a poll and thread about them.
Marandahir
Crown-Forester (he/him)
1. The next two books are Critical Role: Call From the Neverdeep and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. That takes us through May. They don't need to do an UA immediately because last year's UAs covered MP:MotM and that book was always planned to appear first around the holiday and then later as their big May crunchy release.
2. If the non-Spelljammer setting of this year and/or Magic setting of the year doesn't have major new player options (could have reprints or Tasha/MP/2024-style redesigns of earlier released lineages), then they don't need to do UA for it. If it's something like supernatural gifts (Theros) or spell-list backgrounds (Strixhaven), that's really not something that needs playtesting.
3. Fighter - Rune Knight and Warlock - The Genie Patron are both redesigns of subclasses that appeared in the DM's Guild Adept book, "Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else," where they were called the Runeguard and Noble Genie Patron respectively. The Genie Patron even was called a Noble Genie Patron in UA. So yeah, they're totally looking at what worked in DM's Guild, especially the seemingly-but-not-confirmed-to-be discontinued Guild Adept Program.
4. I've been refreshing the website every day to see if there's new UA too. Really want to see what WotC is working on!!
2. If the non-Spelljammer setting of this year and/or Magic setting of the year doesn't have major new player options (could have reprints or Tasha/MP/2024-style redesigns of earlier released lineages), then they don't need to do UA for it. If it's something like supernatural gifts (Theros) or spell-list backgrounds (Strixhaven), that's really not something that needs playtesting.
3. Fighter - Rune Knight and Warlock - The Genie Patron are both redesigns of subclasses that appeared in the DM's Guild Adept book, "Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else," where they were called the Runeguard and Noble Genie Patron respectively. The Genie Patron even was called a Noble Genie Patron in UA. So yeah, they're totally looking at what worked in DM's Guild, especially the seemingly-but-not-confirmed-to-be discontinued Guild Adept Program.
4. I've been refreshing the website every day to see if there's new UA too. Really want to see what WotC is working on!!
dave2008
Legend
They did say they would release UA related to the 2024 Anniversary edition. So I expect will start to see UA again later this year / the beginning of next year.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
More like next year: no doubt they are planning, but their product development turnaround is 12-14 months so I don't reckon we we will see anything until 2023 as they ramp up.
JEB
Legend
To be fair, none of the 5E sourcebooks needed public playtesting. But they kept doing it, presumably because it worked well for D&D Next, still provided useful feedback, and also worked as PR.
MOTM was the first deviation from this pattern, outside of special situations like Acquisitions Inc or Wildemount. For whatever reason, they apparently didn't see value in testing any of MOTM's changes publicly - save two races, one of which was misrepresented as a variant.
It'll be interesting to see if this is the approach going forward for the 2024 revisions - public playtests only of tiny, specific elements, with most of the decision-making made internally.
Benjamin Olson
Hero
My guess would be yes. Given where the brand and business is now, some free publicity and unpaid beta testers are probably no longer worth letting the public see (and later critique the finished product based on) the various draft mechanics they want to test, the way they were before the edition came out.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
The Elemental Evil guide was not playtested, and SCAG had several elements that were not playtested in advance, as did Wildemount. And it could be that the limited tests for MotM provided enough data to make the case for it. Also, MOTM might itself be the test, to see how it is received as a variant, before the reiterate core rules changes based on feedback.
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