Covers Preview for Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook and Princes of the Apocalypse!

So, it's official now. The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms. No fantasy world was described in more detail than the Forgotten Realms, and they still manage to produce not one, but two storylines in a row with themes and antagonists that have nothing to do with the Realms. Good job, Wizards.

 

[lyle.spade]

Isn't that a good thing? It would be in our advantage if WotC made a profit and D&D 5e was a financial success.

Amen. I will not go around tearing at my clothes and covering myself in ash & dirt over a company trying to make a profit...profit that will enable said company to continue producing this game.

No one will force anyone to buy any of these books, folks.

You may now go back to your wailing and tooth-grinding.

 

[mcbobbo]

Where on the covers of these two books are you people seeing the words 'Forgotten Realms'?

 

[Remathilis]

They already said their first few adventures were Realms-specific, and that was for brand recognition. It was part of their big cross-marketing strategy. EE storyline is going to cross over AL (which must remain Realms focused for factions), Neverwinter MMO (set in realms), comics (the Baldur's Gate comic line) and novels. The fact its set in the Realms is a no-brainer.

 

[Zaukrie]

I just want a good adventure.

 

[Uder]

Amen. I will not go around tearing at my clothes and covering myself in ash & dirt over a company trying to make a profit...profit that will enable said company to continue producing this game.

No one will force anyone to buy any of these books, folks.

You may now go back to your wailing and tooth-grinding.

Yeah! They're killing babies with all their hyperbolic whining!

...

Wait. Who are you talking about? Or is it just a sermon?

 

[Nareth]

Not seeing the problem here, or the reason for the Realms hate. If you want to move it, then do it. Realms is really only official for AL play as it stands at the moment. Aside from that, the entire Abyssal Plague storyline was about Tharizdun trying to get out of his prison by sending out what were essentially pieces of himself to the Realms, Athas, and Eberron. Things change, and even as a long time gamer, I acknowledge that sometimes things I loved in one setting need to migrate to be kept relevant.

 

[gyor]

Tell me about it. I wrote up Tharizdun's demiplanar prison in 3.x, so it was a shame to see it and the earlier material I built upon ignored.

As for these modules, Rich Baker is quite talented, so it really all comes down to how much is imposed by WotC in terms of the setting assumptions. We'll see how it works out I suppose.

That wasn't changed specifically for the Abyssal Plague, Tharizdun's prison was reconned into being in the Abyss, made I believe from a Universe he destroyed. In fact according to general 4e lore Tharizdun was responsible for creating the Abyss by dropping a Shard of the Far Realms into the Elemental Chaos.

I don't know where they're going to place Tharizdun in 5e, the Abyss is no longer dumped into the Elemental Chaos so that 4e story no longer works even though the Elemental Chaos still remains.

It should be interesting.

I think Adventurer's Handbook will be the first 5e book I will buy since the PHB.

 

[Psyga315]

So, it's official now. The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms.

... Oh crap, what if someone had a hand in that and the second part of the adventure is to but the Eye back in Greyhawk and beat up the dude that took it out in the first place?

 

[Zarithar]

Sure -- if I wanted an adventure that was themed more for Krynn or Oerth. If I want an adventure that runs with the themes that are representative of Faerun, I don't want either of these. I refuse this business of shoehorning in the Elder Elemental Eye and Krynnish Tiamat themes just because someone wants them to fit in the Realms. Faerun has quite enough lore by itself that is recognizable without needing to shoehorn in another world's villains and threats. It's just a very quirky choice given how much trouble they've gone to to go back to the well for the game, only to kit bash one world's themes into another just because someone thought it looked cool.

Then again, it'll be a while before I get to run a game, so what do I know.

In case someone hasn't already pointed this out, Tiamat existed in AD&D long before Dragonlance was a thing. She was in the original Monster Manual along with Bahamut. Tiamat is not "Krynnish", but her aspect, Takhisis certainly is.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I'm pretty tired as well, but two books a year isn't *that* bad, especially if they're really thematic and only half the book is a standard splatbook. Tying the splatbooks to large bi-annual adventures is a good idea from that perspective, as you can play with just the PHB and the one other splatbook just fine.

I am not exactly raging here, but I had hoped they prioritized other material. Tools and options for the DM would have been my choice. I can see, from a short-term monetary view that they are going the right way.

Well, this looks less like an adventure path and more like a 1-15ish super adventure. So the WotC strategy seems to be two big adventures every year. Smaller stand alone books would be nice, and there's still time for WotC to produce those. But I imagine they might consider the D&D Expeditions encounters to be those. Or any of the myriad adventures on D&D Classics. There are years of games available digitally, and there's going to be content that even the most dedicated D&Der won't have heard of.

It should be noted that this adventure is being written/produced by Sasquatch Games, founded by the designer who wrote the Starter Set adventure. So if you liked that, you might like this adventure more.


That would be cool too.

I don't quite see the difference between a level 1-15 super adventure and five 3-level adventures in an adventure path. There might manage to make it a bit more sandboxy, but most likely, there will be a red thread (read: railroad) through the whole adventure (path) that will get a bit old after fifteen levels and feel constricting as a DM (if I want to use the whole adventure). I loved DM-ing Red Hand of Doom, but I skipped the last dungeon crawl part of it, so basically from level 6 to 10, or five levels.

I really like the Starter set though. It does have it's quirks, but it's really easy to DM and let me run a game with minimal effort. With some effort, I could have modified the adventure to fit into any campaign I wanted to run.