D&D 5E Could the next book be Advanced D&D?

[Capn Charlie]

The Peril Portfolio?

Take a page or two from the Monstrous Manual, and make it the Perilous Portfolio, perhaps.

Maybe one filled with high level challenges, a Legendary Libram.

 

[designbot]

What I want is a gathering of humanoid npcs of a wide range of CRs, so I can stock a game of any level with intimidating bodyguards and crack soldiers enforcing the king's law. I would call it... the Adversary Album.

You might be interested in Adversaries & Allies.

 

[jayoungr]

(Also, I thought they'd do a "Monster Manual 2" first, but I guess not.)

I kind of consider the upcoming Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press to be the Monster Manual 2, and possibly WOTC does too. Or at least, maybe they don't want to release their own monster manual too close to it--after all, why split the buyer base for monster manuals when you can instead produce something else and let the sales of both drive each other?

 

[delericho]

I kind of consider the upcoming Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press to be the Monster Manual 2, and possibly WOTC does too.

I'll probably pick that one up, and I enjoyed "Fifth Edition Foes" also. However, the itch that those don't scratch is for a whole bunch of WotC-owned monsters that the others obviously can't do (in particular the Eberron ones). It's possible the DM's Guild may fill that need, but not yet - I'm really not interested in picking up monsters one or two at a time, even at a low, low cost, though if someone were to do a big compilation...

All that said, MM2 is definitely in the nice-to-have category now. On the other hand, that's also true of everything else.

 

[Li Shenron]

Had a thought: what are the odds our next "core" book is AD&D? Introduce a bunch of "optional" variants such as Race/Class prereq's, expanded Spell List and Equipment, fully fleshed-out Grid rules, Kits, Psionics, etc. It seems like the natural progression of 5th-as-cousin-of-2nd Ed...

If they put together all the material and topics that has been in Unearthed Arcana, it might be enough for a book, but I don't think they would call it "Advanced".

But as already pointed out, the best bet is on a Psionics book. It would be a more cohesive mechanical expansion of the game in a specific direction.

 

[GreyLord]

Unearthed Arcana?

I'd think this would be the most logical idea

I DO have something that includes a conversion for AD&D to 5e on DMSguild along with that for OD&D and the Red/Blue books that I wrote (191/2 pages of it) here http://www.dmsguild.com/product/180409/5e-Old-School-and-Oriental-Adventures?term=Old+School (it can be d/l'ed for free if one wants to take a look to see what my ideas were)

However, I'm not sure if they could make it like AD&D of the past if they chose that. AD&D had 4 main classes (7 if you separate the Monk out and include the Barbarian and Cavalier from UA as main classes) and the rest were subclasses of that.

In order to make it work, I reduced the number of classes to 4 (basically, warrior, priest, mage, and rogue) and made everything else a subclass for AD&D.

5e is WAAAAY beyond that at this point. I'm not sure what all they could add to actually make it more like advanced (unless they complicate the Ability stat tables, the experience tables, and add things like Weapon speeds and such).

Instead, a book of options like UA was for 3.5 sounds like a more logical idea for a mechanical expansion. On the otherhand, they already have a column under that moniker, so I'm not certain a book called Unearthed Arcana would be used.

If I had to bet (and I don't, luckily) I'd be guessing that it was actually something to do with Psionics or an expansion of that type.

Instead of something called Advanced or anything in that light, I'd think they'd add another optional subsystem or idea (like Psionics, but not necessarily Psionics) which would be the mechanical expansion they are talking about.

Of course, I could be 100% wrong, I don't have any inside information on this one.

 

[CapnZapp]

I kind of consider the upcoming Tome of Beasts from Kobold Press to be the Monster Manual 2, and possibly WOTC does too. Or at least, maybe they don't want to release their own monster manual too close to it--after all, why split the buyer base for monster manuals when you can instead produce something else and let the sales of both drive each other?

I do not think WotC is considerate of their competitors.

Which is a good thing really. At least for us disinterested in 3PP solutions.

 

[Erik Westmarch]

Zero chance.

WotC wants the free basic rules to be enough to play in any game. Any expansions will present more options, not make the game more complicated.

The major expansion will probably be psionics, and it will probably be tied to an adventure path that has psionic enemies and plot lines.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Had a thought: what are the odds our next "core" book is AD&D?

5e is very much like AD&D, already. PH/MM/DMG.

An 'Unearthed Arcana' like product, perhaps.

Most likely, though, considering the Mystic is in the pipeline, a psionics supplement of some sort.

 

[bedir than]

Zero chance.

WotC wants the free basic rules to be enough to play in any game. Any expansions will present more options, not make the game more complicated.

The major expansion will probably be psionics, and it will probably be tied to an adventure path that has psionic enemies and plot lines.

Can there be an expansion that doesn't add complexity? Do you have an example?