Here's That SCAG Table of Contents!

WotC's Extra Life charity funding campaign hit $50,000 just now, and as promised they added the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide table of contents to the already released preface. The chapters are Welcome to the Realms, The Swords Coast and the North, Races of the Realms, Classes, Backgrounds, and a two-page appendix dealing with using the aforementioned options in Dragonlance, Eberron, Greyhawk, and Homemade Worlds.

Find the preface, released yesterday, here. At $60,000, they will release a new cantrip, Greenflame Blade.

Click here for the PDF version
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[Demetrios1453]

There's going to be a lot more than those listed in the PHB, as the book is going to offer a ''tremendous wealth'' of patrons, to quote Steve Kenson. So, I'm expecting a 4e FRCS-style approach: some essential ''stats'' (like portfolio, power level, domains, symbol, allegiances perhaps) and a very small blurb saying what the god is about and a line or two to update their recent history to include what the Sundering did to the god. So yeah, IMO we'll get something like 5 gods per page.

I hadn't heard that quote, and it seems to confirm my personal speculation (and hopes) then.

So, starting with the list from the 3e FRCS, where there are 57 human deities (including demigods), but not including Bhaal, Leira, and Myrkul, (who were... indisposed at the time, but have since gotten better.), but including Tiamat (who would better be listed among the draconic deities) and the four elemental gods (who were not in the PHB list, but maybe that's just an oversight or they've been demoted a bit) - hmm, I'll put that 59 (all but Tiamat). There are, as I said, 53 gods listed from non-human playable races pantheons, and then around 10 or so from the draconic pantheon, depending on which FR sources they use/ignore/amalgamate (my personal count is 13, but includes Saridor, who wouldn't likely be in due to gem dragons not being translated to 5e yet, and this could probably just be cut to Bahamut and Tiamat since we're talking about character patrons - the rest of the pantheon tends to be pretty draconically esoteric). That's putting us in the 120 - 125 range, which would definitely be a "tremendous wealth" of patrons, and actually put us at about 6 per page. And there are dozens of monstrous deities they could include, although that would probably not be necessary if this just for character patrons (if not, yikes, we could be up to 8 - 10 or so a page if they wanted!)

 

[Irennan]

I hadn't heard that quote, and it seems to confirm my personal speculation (and hopes) then.

So, starting with the list from the 3e FRCS, where there are 57 human deities (including demigods), but not including Bhaal, Leira, and Myrkul, (who were... indisposed at the time, but have since gotten better.), but including Tiamat (who would better be listed among the draconic deities) and the four elemental gods (who were not in the PHB list, but maybe that's just an oversight or they've been demoted a bit) - hmm, I'll put that 59 (all but Tiamat). There are, as I said, 53 gods listed from non-human playable races pantheons, and then around 10 or so from the draconic pantheon, depending on which FR sources they use/ignore/amalgamate (my personal count is 13, but includes Saridor, who wouldn't likely be in due to gem dragons not being translated to 5e yet, and this could probably just be cut to Bahamut and Tiamat since we're talking about character patrons - the rest of the pantheon tends to be pretty draconically esoteric). That's putting us in the 120 - 125 range, which would definitely be a "tremendous wealth" of patrons, and actually put us at about 6 per page. And there are dozens of monstrous deities they could include, although that would probably not be necessary if this just for character patrons (if not, yikes, we could be up to 8 - 10 or so a page if they wanted!)

The quote is in the interview included in the latest Dragon+ issue. IMO, they should make a small pdf supplement for further gods, like they did for the 3e FRCS.

 

[the Jester]

They've been pretty specific that they are doing that; so far as we know, all of the subclasses can be generic: even the Purple Dragon Knights are probably just knights.

There is a specific section in the book devoted to porting the crunchy content into other settings.

Not very long, though; the material is probably pretty generic, based on the fact that they have the section to port, but that it is miniscule...

I don't think it would take much to port it, I doubt any of the mechanics, except for maybe for a couple of backgrounds like Waterhavian Noble (even that you could probably just switch it local in the title to another, simular cosmopolitian city), require a forgotten realms location, character, or asset to work, at least none where you can't replace it with another asset, character, or Location from your campaign setting easily.

This just reinforces my objection, which is that I don't want to buy 100 pages of FR lore so I can have 30 pages of non-Realms material. I'd much rather see a book where that crunch was combined with a bunch of other generic, non-setting-specific stuff.

Oh well, my loss. Hopefully I'll get something from 5e that doesn't point right at the FR sometime. Maybe when they do a Monster Manual 2.

 

[martinlochsen]

This just reinforces my objection, which is that I don't want to buy 100 pages of FR lore so I can have 30 pages of non-Realms material. I'd much rather see a book where that crunch was combined with a bunch of other generic, non-setting-specific stuff.

Oh well, my loss. Hopefully I'll get something from 5e that doesn't point right at the FR sometime. Maybe when they do a Monster Manual 2.

I feel more or less the same way. I really want those new character option though, so I might just buy the book anyway. Makes me feel like I'm being tricked into buying stuff I don't need. Not a very fan friendly strategy, in my opinion.

 

[tsadkiel]

I feel more or less the same way. I really want those new character option though, so I might just buy the book anyway. Makes me feel like I'm being tricked into buying stuff I don't need. Not a very fan friendly strategy, in my opinion.

*Glances over at the 3e FRCS and the 4E FR Player's Guide on his bookshelf.* It has always been thus. Forgotten Realms setting books have always included player crunch usable in other settings, like dark elves and genasi and swordmages and so forth.

(The difference for me is that I've stopped buying big hardcover game books altogether, so it's a pretty moot point.)

 

[Staffan]

*Glances over at the 3e FRCS and the 4E FR Player's Guide on his bookshelf.* It has always been thus. Forgotten Realms setting books have always included player crunch usable in other settings, like dark elves and genasi and swordmages and so forth.

(The difference for me is that I've stopped buying big hardcover game books altogether, so it's a pretty moot point.)

2e is probably the only one that didn't. 1e had some new spells in it, but the 2e FRCS was almost entirely crunch-free (other than the included adventure, and a number of entries that gave race/sex/class/level for various NPCs).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I feel more or less the same way. I really want those new character option though, so I might just buy the book anyway. Makes me feel like I'm being tricked into buying stuff I don't need. Not a very fan friendly strategy, in my opinion.

Yea, the 3.0 realms book was the last time I bought one thinking I would run the realms... in 3.5 I skiped everything realms, and in 4e I didn't buy the campaign guide just the players guide to the realms (for swordmage mostly)

 

[Fildrigar]

I have to wonder if what we are getting here in the SCAG was actually going to be the other stuff that originally was planned to go in the Elemental Evil big player's book that never got announced/cancelled? Perhaps the original intention of the Adventurer's Guide was to come out with EE, but either they determined they wanted more time to playtest a lot of the character options, or that the stuff being written about the Underdark and the dwarven halls for OotA was important enough to hold off the setting guide until OotA was also released?

It might explain why there are no spells in the SCAG, if perhaps the spells that were intended for the EE player's book got split out from the AG and they released them with the EE adventure path book (along with several of the races), and everything else got put on hold to be released now during Rage of Demons so that the Rage of Demons material could be added to the setting material?

It also makes me wonder if perhaps now that we've had three FR adventure paths and a setting/player guide to tie them all together... maybe (just maybe) they're going to move onto a new campaign setting for the next three? Yeah, they'd have to do a little finagling around the Adventurer's League still set around the Moonsea, but if they wanted to move onto a new setting to work on... now's the time to do it (with the campaign guide bringing all the current FR info together.)

Considering that this book was written by Green Ronin, that's pretty unlikely.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Considering that this book was written by Green Ronin, that's pretty unlikely.

We were already told. (By Green Ronin as might as well add) That it's not as well.

 

[Parmandur]

Also curious what areas get considered part of the Sword Coast region in this book: depending, this could be slightly more information than the 3E CS, or slightly less (if this goes as far as the Dalelands, considerably less...).