ELEMENTAL EVIL Player's Companion - FREE!

The Elemental Evil Player's Companion is available for free download over at DTRPG (and RPGNow). It includes new races (aarakocra, deep gnome, genasi, and goliath) and ove 40 new spells. The PDF is a full-colour 25-page PDF; according to the first page, the genasi in chapter 1 and all of the spells in chapter 2 also appear in the appendices of Princes of the Apocalypse, the adventure due to hit store shelves very soon.

"Not inherently evil, elemental power can be mastered by those with both malevolent and benign intentions. The Elemental Evil Player’s Companion provides everything players need to build a character that is tied directly into the Elemental Evil storyline.

New race options include the aarakocra, deep gnome, genasi, and goliath. Additionally, a plethora of new spells put the elements directly at your command.

The Elemental Evil Player’s Companion, was original designed by Richard Baker, Robert J. Schwalb and Stephen Schubert, with additional design and development by Wizards D&D R&D.

This accessory is specifically meant to support the Elemental Evil–Princes of the Apocalypse adventure product."

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[BryonD]

Your flippant comments notwithstanding, how DO you cancel something not announced? .

Obviously you can't.

But if you have a mock-up cover and it is on ENWorld for weeks, and you let it sit there, then acting like not formally announcing it makes a big difference to the customers is not very bright.

I'm all for canceling products if they are not coming together. And while people will bitch no matter what, the overall community is very forgiving *IF* you have a track record to support it.

So just say, "Hey, we obviously we thinking about it. But it didn't work out like we wanted. We want to deliver the best value we can to you, and so we are changing the plan." The "can't cancel" quip seemed like he was pulling out a loophole on the clients. Which is not a good plan.

Even with that, it isn't like it was PR move. I'm sure it was juts an off-the-cuff from Mearls. No big deal. But don't double down on it.
Don't treat your paying customers like you think you can pull fast ones on them.

 

[CapnZapp]

Obviously if your customers expect X then you need to act as if you announced X.

Anything else makes you come across as a .

 

[Gecko85]

Obviously if your customers expect X then you need to act as if you announced X.

Anything else makes you come across as a .

If that were true, Apple would be in big trouble. You could write encyclopedic volumes on the number of "leaked" prototypes for Apple products that never existed. And, every time, some overzealous tech writer or blogger took them as fact, and every time the message boards and comment threads were filled with disappointed/angry/confused people when an Apple press event happened and their magical vaporware product that never actually existed wasn't announced "like it was supposed to!" Apple's response to each and every one of these rumors and supposed leaks (some coming from manufacturing facilities in China purporting to be a new product) has been the same: nothing. No response at all. It's the correct response because it's a no-win situation for them.

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't think WotC sees the beastmaster animal companion as weak. The fact that it doesn't line up with player expectations is a different, though quite valid, concern.

I never said it was weak.

Though in the end it doesn't matter - whether a feature is weak or not fun boils down to the same single concern in the end: it isn't used.

I wrote my reply in that view.

 

[delericho]

This kind of material seems like a fair replacement for Dragon Magazine...

In combination with their other web articles, sure. Provided they do it monthly.

Edit: And no, I don't expect them to "do it monthly", nor indeed do I think it would be reasonable to expect them to do such a thing. It is, after all, free.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I never said it was weak.

....

If they only had displayed this level of awesome already in the PHB... Then you could have said something like:

I really love how 5e isn't afraid to put options out there that not everyone will use. Rather than trying to water-down the beastmaster to please everyone who doesn't like powerful and independent animal companions at an early level, they just let the ranger subclass be what they are and rely on DMs who don't like the thing to say "not in my game, buddy." That's awesome.

Yeah, you didn't use that particular word, but you did say it was "watered-down," and if we were talking about alcohol and not ranger companions, that is synonymous with "made it weaker," and you also inferred that if it was more "powerful" it would be improved, so you can see how one might reasonably infer that.

Though in the end it doesn't matter - whether a feature is weak or not fun boils down to the same single concern in the end: it isn't used.

I wrote my reply in that view.

Sure, but I don't think making the companion more "powerful" or less "watered-down" is necessarily the right course of action here. Independence I can see as a big part of it.

At any rate, it's easier including options that might prove divisive in a book like the DMG or a free product put out online than it is including them in the PHB, so ultimately these apples and these oranges are pretty different...

 

[CapnZapp]

....


Yeah, you didn't use that particular word, but you did say it was "watered-down," and if we were talking about alcohol and not ranger companions, that is synonymous with "made it weaker," and you also inferred that if it was more "powerful" it would be improved, so you can see how one might reasonably infer that.



Sure, but I don't think making the companion more "powerful" or less "watered-down" is necessarily the right course of action here. Independence I can see as a big part of it.

At any rate, it's easier including options that might prove divisive in a book like the DMG or a free product put out online than it is including them in the PHB, so ultimately these apples and these oranges are pretty different...

Feel free to not interpret my original post so literally.

My point was that in the same way they allowed the aaracocra with the same kind of disclaimer (or thereabouts) they used for drow and wild mages, they could have and should have used for a beast master ranger that didn't suck, was fun.

Please focus on this as the point, and not the specifics of whether such an animal companion would be better, improved, stronger, more independent or whatever. Thank you

 

[I'm A Banana]

Feel free to not interpret my original post so literally.

My point was that in the same way they allowed the aaracocra with the same kind of disclaimer (or thereabouts) they used for drow and wild mages, they could have and should have used for a beast master ranger that didn't suck, was fun.

Please focus on this as the point, and not the specifics of whether such an animal companion would be better, improved, stronger, more independent or whatever. Thank you

Sure, that's where the apples/oranges thing comes in - you got different standards of "this will not be used by folks" to hit for a PHB vs. a free web enhancement for an adventure.

 

[Mistwell]

Obviously you can't.

But if you have a mock-up cover and it is on ENWorld for weeks, and you let it sit there, then acting like not formally announcing it makes a big difference to the customers is not very bright.

It was long ago established that nobody from WOTC is really at EnWorld anymore. They used to be, but they're not anymore. So, I suspect it was never on their radar. I think it's unwise to judge someone, to this level, for something they, 1) did not know was out there, and 2) did not authorize to be released.

So just say, "Hey, we obviously we thinking about it. But it didn't work out like we wanted. We want to deliver the best value we can to you, and so we are changing the plan." The "can't cancel" quip seemed like he was pulling out a loophole on the clients. Which is not a good plan.

It seemed to me like he was saying, "I didn't plan that product, so I didn't change plans. I didn't tell the clients we were doing that, so why are the clients telling me I did that?" And that's what happened it seems - imagine the first time you become aware of something from a client, is when they're accusing you of cancelling one of their projects you supposedly announced to them when you never announced any such thing. And imagine on top of that you find out the reason the client even thinks it was announced is because some anonymous person leaked some R&D experimental mock-ups you had someone do, and you don't even know how or why that leak happened.

And now you have 140 characters per Tweet to respond to that.

Yeah, I can definitely imagine one reasonable response would be,

"Someone sent you what looks like a new piece of planned product support? No, that's not right, we didn't announce that. You're upset we're saying this cancelled product support? We can't cancel product support we never planned to do or announced to you. You see, what happened here is we do a lot of stuff that may or may not end up as released product support, and this is was one of those. We've played things close to the vest on product support for a reason. It remains a huge, open question on what support should look like. Because our past experience over the last 15 years demonstrates doing too much support of a certain type can be bad for our clients. So we're doing a lot of internal experiments, and there are more to come, and this was one of those experiments. It was not intended to be released like that to our clients, and we're not sure how you got that."

Which is a paraphrase of what Mike Meals said, in a string of 140 character Tweets in reaction to some Tweets he got.

Even with that, it isn't like it was PR move. I'm sure it was juts an off-the-cuff from Mearls. No big deal. But don't double down on it.
Don't treat your paying customers like you think you can pull fast ones on them.

What fast one?

 

[Kramodlog]

Intentional by the leaker, of course, but not intentional by the people who have the secret (in this case, WotC). Those people presumably are not happy about secrets being revealed.

Except when they do it volontarely, like film studio excutives, corporations like Apple or politicians who want some info to be leaked.

It's not naive to imagine that this is exactly what WotC claims it is [...]

When did WotC claimed that Kettie leaked the info without WotC's permission? Do you have that statement? That was my question to Mistwell and I never got the info from him.

I consider myself informed on D& matters, but I do not have that info. Please share it if you have it. All I have is speculations, like Mistwell. When I quoted him asking if it was his opinion, it was because he was talking like it was a fact and I was curious how he was sure it was a fact.

There's something wrong with people presuming that a leak represents reliable marketing information.

That is your moral judgement. Other people see it differently. You could explain to them why they are wrong for doing so. I'm not your target audience. Sorry.

The idea that this is a "negative" result is counter-intuitive, since basing your expectations on a leak is basing them on the thinnest of bits of hints. You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you treat leaks as always reliable.

Heh. Who said I did?