D&D 5E (2024) Lorwyn: First Light Released on D&D Beyond

The D&D/Magic The Gathering crossover book Lorywn: First Light has been released over on D&D Beyond.

Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is a MtG plane which switches between its night and day aspects ever 300 years. Lorwyn is the 'day' aspect and has strong fey influences and does not feature humans.

The digital-only release includes the Lorwyn Changeling (which differs from Eberron Changeling in interesting ways) and Rimekin (an ice-person) species, and two new elven lineages: Lorwyn elf and Shadowmoor elf. Feats are Shadowmoor Hexer and Child of the Sun (tied to Lorwyn Expert and Shadowmoor Expert backgrounds).

You can grab Lorwyn: First Light on D&D Beyond for $14.99.

Travel from the Forgotten Realms into an all-new fey realm with this Magic: The Gathering crossover!

Journey beyond the Forgotten Realms to the beloved plane of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, where eternal sun shifts into eerie moonlight. Here, you’ll discover new Fey-inspired character options, a rich gazetteer of mystical locales, monstrous incarnations of nature, and ready-to-run adventures.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not true. You can use the Ready Action to move as a Reaction on a turn other than your own.

Right, but this feature doesn’t allow you to use the Ready action, it allows you to use the Dash action, which does not have any effect when it isn’t your turn. That’s why the Ready action has to specify that one of your options is to move up to your speed. If Dash made you actually move, that option would be redundant with Readying Dash.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is nothing in the writing of that rule that supersedes the limitation that a creature may only use their movement on their own turn.

Specific beats general. Core principle. And there are lots of specific examples that enable someone to move out of their turn, such as Dissonant Whispers. This one enables you to move when initiative is rolled. It’s plain, clear, and involves no contradictions.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And that’s a little bit worrying. It suggests that the experienced writers and/or editors who knew this stuff are gone

5e is written in plain English, not legalise jargon. That’s the design principle. Thus, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to word a rule. So long as the intent is clear, the rule is clear and correct.

 

[cbwjm]

So the Lorwyn Changeling is broken. As in, it has a feature that doesn't work at all.

It gets a feature that lets it take the Dash action as a reaction when you roll initiative. The Dash action grants you extra movement on the turn it is used. But you can't use that movement outside of your own turn, so the feature doesn't do anything at all except waste your reaction.

This is glaring, because every other time in the history of the edition, the designers have understood that they need to explicitly confer the ability to move when a feature lets a creature move outside of its normal movement. By trying to use the Dash action as a shortcut (most likely to encourage optimizing around this feature), they've made a feature that's entirely non-functional as written. (Even if your character gets the top initiative roll, there is no current turn for the benefit to apply to before the actual first turn anyway.)

Specific overrides general, in this case, the ability does indeed let you take the dash action as your reaction.

 

[Yaarel]

5e is written in plain English, not legalise jargon. That’s the design principle. Thus, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to word a rule. So long as the intent is clear, the rule is clear and correct.

This technicality about "turn" seems like the kind of thing that gets clarified during the next errata.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This technicality about "turn" seems like the kind of thing that gets clarified during the next errata.

What’s to clarify? It’s clear how the ability works, we just have a few people nit-picking about the wording.

 

[Parmandur]

When you put it that way... Oof.

And people wonder why shorter books don't happen anymore.

For me, yea, about that. Somewhere between 0.2 and 0.25 USD per page. (Or 4-5 pages per USD.)

For $70, I would be expecting a 280-350 page book. I'd pay $60 for a 256 page book.

Paizo has started selling 256 page adventure books for $79.99 now, because small paperbacks are no longer economicly feasible for them. Inflationary pressures are getting brutal.

 

[zakael19]

I thought this was going to be a setting guide with a gazetteer and stuff. Is that no longer the case?

 

[Yaarel]

What’s to clarify? It’s clear how the ability works, we just have a few people nit-picking about the wording.

Sure, but errata includes nit-picking. Things like spelling and grammar get fixed, even when the meaning is obvious. Using technical jargon correctly can be important when there are many, and complex, rules.

 

[bedir than]

I thought this was going to be a setting guide with a gazetteer and stuff. Is that no longer the case?

There's a gazeteer