Every revolution of 'Core' books themed by Power Source?

[The_Fan]

Repeating info in every "core" book is bad. White Wolf realized that, which is why they made a single core "World of Darkness" book for the new game. I doubt Wizards will repeat the mistakes of their main competitor.

 

[Sadrik]

2008
PHBI (Arcane, Divine, and Martial)
MMI (Basic Monsters)
DMGI (Basic Magic Items and dungeon adventuring)
2009
PHBII (Nature)
MMII (Nature Monsters)
DMGII (Nature Magic items and outdoor adventuring)
2010
PHBIII (Psionic)
MMIII (Psionic Monsters)
DMGIII (Psionic Items underdark adventuring)
2011
PHBVI (Elemental)
MMVI (Elemental planar Monsters)
DMGVI (Elemental Items elemental planar adventuring)
2012
PHBV (OA)
MMV (OA Monsters)
DMGV (OA Items and adventuring)

I assume that the later books will be slimmer and cheaper volumes because I really don't see them filling them to the level of the first set. Possibly with only 4 classes and 4 races instead of 8 and 8.

The thing I don't like about this schedule is that I will want the other books info sooner than 2 years out!

The other thing that concerns me is that they will have to fit in the other classes somewhere. Adding other books in between PHB's would be a necessity to add in the illusionist, bard and swordmage in the Complete Arcane makes sense. With that said all of these books and the potential for massive 'class' glut it is a little scary.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Well, I did hear that each year's PHB, MM and DMG will have a campaign setting to support it.

2009 = Eberron (psionics, gnomes?, monks?, warforged etc).


…Reminds me of M:tG blocks…

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Well, I did hear that each year's PHB, MM and DMG will have a campaign setting to support it.

2009 = Eberron (psionics, gnomes?, monks?, warforged etc).


…Reminds me of M:tG blocks…

This why my personal speculation is that the PHB/DMG/MM II will be psionics (kalashtar, psion classes, lots of aberrations in the MM), artifice (alchemy, warforged, gnomes, artificers, possibly a firearm/blast wand-based striker?, construct-heavy MM), and 'fey' (not sure what they'd call it; druids, bards, shifters, possibly the return of the killoren?, lots of 'remote reaches of the earth' and Xen'drik beasts in the MM - 'lost' giants would look good here). The Eberron campaign setting gives you a world to use all these new toys in.

Which means the -real- speculation should be: What's Campaign Setting III?

 

[Baby Samurai]

Which means the -real- speculation should be: What's Campaign Setting III?

I would love for it to be something Oriental/Asian – chi/ki, hengeyokai, dang ki, yogi, samurai, wu-jen, vanara etc.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

I would love for it to be something Oriental/Asian – chi/ki, hengeyokai, dang ki, yogi, samurai, wu-jen, vanara etc.

I'm not certain how I feel about this. On the one hand a really good Oriental PHB, DMG, and MM is attractive, but on the other I'd rather get about a half-dozen smaller campaign setting books covering the entire selection of sources; wuxia film & legend, the now-mythologized samurai, Indian legend, possibly casting the net wide enough to include Mesopotamian myth and history, Arabian Nights and/or Crusade-era fantasy, and a really good SE Asia/Endless Jungle setting.

 

[drothgery]

Thoughts? Do people like this approach or hate it? Any guesses as to whether or not WotC will go in this direction?

I'm still holding out hope that magic items and PrCs get in the Player's Handbook where they belong, and if that's the case, I think coming up with content for DMG3 and later is going to be problematic.

But in any case, I don't see WotC going that route, mostly because it's not really sustainable. There's tons of existing material out there to mine for ideas for arcane, divine, and martial classes. There's a fair amount for psionics. But anything else is pretty much going to need to be created whole-cloth, and classes that are percieved as being 'out there' don't seem to reasonate with the gaming public.

I won't be surprised to see each PH/DMG/MM cycle (which I expect to be cut down to a PH/MM cycle after the second or third DMG) have a theme assosiciated with it. And sometimes that may be a new power source. But, just to give an example, I'd guess that the 'psionic' PH may include the monk and possibly some of the 'oriental' classes.

 

[coyote6]

They could put traps and other assorted non-monster challenges in future DMGs.

They could also put new rules in either the PH, DMG, or both -- sailing rules, mass battle, running domains, etc. -- all that stuff people requested in this thread that there won't be time or room for in the first cycle of books.