D&D 5E Escapist article on SCAG is Brutal.

[garnuk]

I've only briefly perused the book, but why is it that you could only use one or the other?

Adventure League Policy. Only one splat book allowed at a time. Helps reduce broken combos.

 

[gyor]

Adventure League Policy. Only one splat book allowed at a time. Helps reduce broken combos.

You can make special rules for any broken combos, like they did for the Aacokra bird man guys and the winged Tieflings, banning both.

The vast majority of banned combos are not broken. Its a goofy rule, but the AL has other goofy rules.

 

[garnuk]

You can make special rules for any broken combos, like they did for the Aacokra bird man guys and the winged Tieflings, banning both.

The vast majority of banned combos are not broken. Its a goofy rule, but the AL has other goofy rules.

I assume thats broken for the design team who want to assume people are stuck to the ground most of the time

 

[Doc_Klueless]

Just got the book this weekend, read through it; following off of this comment, the book is perfect setup for playing with people who have no exposure to the Realms (happily, my player pool is such). I have no plans to start reading FR novels, nor do those I play with, but this sets up a perfect generic playground for us.

Pretty much mirrors my experience, expectations and plans. I like the book.

 

[Diffan]

Yep, another crap-tastic "review" that I've come to expect from the Escapist. Man do they love to complain about the most meaningless crap. "Oh noes! The book doesn't detail Neverwinter!!" We JUST got a book that detailed the crap out of that area.....what they think it needs a brand-new book for each edition??

Give me a break.

 

[delericho]

You can make special rules for any broken combos, like they did for the Aacokra bird man guys and the winged Tieflings, banning both.

They could, but special rules are a PITA, and of course will only protect against broken combos they happen to know about. A general rule not allowing those combos to form in the first place is something of a nuclear option, but it should work.

 

[gyor]

They could, but special rules are a PITA, and of course will only protect against broken combos they happen to know about. A general rule not allowing those combos to form in the first place is something of a nuclear option, but it should work.

It doesn't work, because it will cause problems further on. It not needed and does nothing against any of the broken combos within the same book.

 

[darjr]

It doesn't work, because it will cause problems further on. It not needed and does nothing against any of the broken combos within the same book.

It DOES work. It keeps the unintended consequences down, as a fact, and it frees up the increasing time it would take to playtest each splat book against ALL previous ones. Not one of the AL volunteers (stress volunteers) has had to do that for these two. That's a win right out of the box.

If you want to discuss it more there are threads in the AL group already, mention me there if you'd like.

 

[criticalfumble]

Just got the book this weekend, read through it; following off of this comment, the book is perfect setup for playing with people who have no exposure to the Realms (happily, my player pool is such). I have no plans to start reading FR novels, nor do those I play with, but this sets up a perfect generic playground for us.

Same experience here - this book comprises a manageable amount of information for me to wrap my head around, without trying to "boil the ocean" by reading through a bazillion pages of fluff and crunch from umpteen books. I'm too busy at this point in my life to DM anything but the published adventure paths. There is just enough in SCAG to make what we're doing at the table feel a bit more "real" and in context.

 

[Shasarak]

And, that's exactly what we got with the SCAG. A player might, as was mentioned before, use a tiny fraction of the book and every player in the group might use a different small fraction. Yet, very, very little complexity is added.

Compare with, say, 3.5, where you might have a player using the FRCS, the spell compendium and Complete Arcane. I hope you'll agree that this adds significant levels of complexity to the game. Never minding that it serves as a huge barrier to getting new players into the game when they get confronted with the wall of books that games accumulate.

I hope I never live to see a version of DnD that does not have enough imagination to produce the equivalent of a Spell Compendium and/or Complete Arcane.