D&D 5E Mearls on other settings

[Yaarel]

Lets figure out a simple but realistic way to quantify obsidian weapons.



Crystalline blades, such as obsidian or quartz, are extremely sharp, but brittle.

A fresh crystalline blade deals an additional 1d6 slashing damage to the damage total. However, each natural 1 fumble on a d20 attack, dulls the blade and penalizes this damage by one more −1d6 from the damage total. If the minimum damage of the penalty, exceeds the maximum damage of the weapon type, the weapon is considered to be effectively destroyed.

You can spend a 1 hour short rest to attempt to repair a dull obsidian blade. You sharpen a crystalline rock by hitting it with a strong sharp rock that you can handle easily. Each impact at an angle typically causes a razor-sharp coin-sized clam-shaped chip to fly off. You can chip away to sculpt a serrated edge. Rudimentary tools are sufficient, essentially a suitable rock and a solid work area.

To repair a blade, each successful skill check removes a −1d6 penalty, until the +1d6 bonus returns. But each failed skill check inflicts a −1d6 penalty, until the weapon is destroyed.

Note, it is still possible to salvage fragments of a broken weapon to create a different kind of weapon that can make use of the smaller pieces. Even the small chips that fly off can be useful, such as small blades to cut or perforate hides for sewing, or so on.

Stone Knife: d4 slashing − hand-held rock with sharp edge
Stone Drill: d4 piercing − hand-held arrow-like wood, stone drill bit, can stab like dagger
Stone Dart: d4 piercing − arrow-like wood, stone arrowhead, flung with launcher (Atlatl)
Stone Axe: d6 slashing, throw
Stone Spear: d6 piercing, throw
Stone Edged Club (Macuahuitl): d6 slashing, versatile
− flat wood club, double-edged with teeth-like stone blades
Stone Arrow, Short Bow: d6 piercing, wood shaft, stone arrowhead, feather fletching

The above is base damage for weapon type, assuming blade of flint-like stone, or maybe horn or bone to pierce.
Wood may be scarce, bows rare and precious. Shafts can be bone or similar material.



Obsidian and quartz are extraordinarily sharp yet fragile. Such a rock-glass blade can only reach the size of a hand at the most. See above for possible uses for weapons.

If a stone weapon that slashes or pierces is made of fresh obsidian or quartz, increase the base damage die by one step up. For example, a Stone Edged Club used versatilely is base d8, thus steps up to d10 if the edge is fresh obsidian.

For each, natural 1 fumble to the d20 attack, decrease the damage die by one step down:

d12 → d10 → d8 → d6 → d5 → d4 → d3 → d2 → destroyed



You can use an 8-hour long rest (!) to try repair a damaged obsidian or quartz blade, by chipping away at its edge to reveal a new sharper edge. This process reduces the amount of stone left. (Compare sharpening a pencil.)

Do skill checks (ask DM, craft or knowledge). Each success increases the damage die by one step up, to a maximum of one above the base damage, thus refreshing it. Oppositely, each failure decreases the damage die by one step down, possibly destroying it.

The stone fragments of a destroyed weapon can be recycled to make a different kind of weapon, with a smaller blade.

 

[MoonSong]

How is this common enough to have a name!?

The internet stopped surprising me long ago. There's a ton of stuff that I didn't even thought existed let alone have a name...

Parents say no to kids demanding chocolate all the time, there is a reason. FR, Eberron, Nerath, Spelljammer are buffet Darksun is a lamb kofta dish with spiced rice.

Paternalistic too much?

Based on the surveys, every setting other than FR is going to have a narrowed appeal. And even FR has a narrowed appeal compared to the PHB, and that's already out. So that means there's no point in publishing any setting because the appeal can only narrow from there. If you're not going to adhere to the themes of the setting and then say "this is how you can add these things that aren't a thematic fit, if you want to" then you might as well not even publish it. You might as well skip all settings and just produce books of monsters or character options to expand what's available in the PHB.

Then they should just do everyone a favour and flog off their old vanity products to someone else that can actually make it work which at this stage is basically everyone else in the RPG market.

However, WotC has to publish those settings sooner or later. Trademark law demands that they keep using the brands or they'll lose the trademarks. And since they want to license, they need the trademarks, otherwise anybody could publish a game and call it Eberron, Spelljammer etc. If they don't publish something soon, they could lose the trademarks.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The internet stopped surprising me long ago. There's a ton of stuff that I didn't even thought existed let alone have a name...



Paternalistic too much?







However, WotC has to publish those settings sooner or later. Trademark law demands that they keep using the brands or they'll lose the trademarks. And since they want to license, they need the trademarks, otherwise anybody could publish a game and call it Eberron, Spelljammer etc. If they don't publish something soon, they could lose the trademarks.

I really think the best route is just to put out a crunch book with player and DM tools for playing games in the settings, a "Doctobadwolf's Guide To The Multi-Verse", and then a "Yawning Portal" style book with adventures that showcase the radness of each setting in the crunch book.

What can't fit in those two books can be released free online as digital supplements.

 

[Darkness]

The 4E fans were very good at yelling "fake news" or the equivalent to convince each other how well the edition and changes were received.

Keep it civil, please. Edition warring has no place on these boards. Nor does attacking your fellow posters, whether individually or in groups.

 

[Zardnaar]

My bad.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This might be kind of divergent, but the earlier talk of themes and denying options is the part of this discussion that just sticks out to me the most.


I've been planning to run a game this fall where the players are shipwrecked on a deserted island and must survive with limited supplies and zero access to other people for the vast majority of the short campaign (college game so we go by semester).

Obviously I need to tell my players what the campaign is going to be about, so they will know this information.


In the spirit of keeping the themes of survival should I tell them that I am banning Bards, Druids, Outlanders, Totem Barbarians, and Rangers? Should I encourage any rogues to not take expertise in survival? Because all of these would make it much easier for them to survive in the forest on the island for an extended period of time.

I mean, let's narrow this discussion down to a campaign specific discussion, because most settings only get used in one campaign and then people switch to another for a while.

If you were planning a classic "escaped prisoners/slaves" game, where starting with zero weapons and armor is the point will you deny monks and barbarians at the table? Do you ban clerics and paladins in games featuring major undead themes?


It seems to me, that your only telling people "sorry, you would shine in this game so I can't let you play that character." which seems kind of the worst reason to ban options for players.

 

[Zardnaar]

This might be kind of divergent, but the earlier talk of themes and denying options is the part of this discussion that just sticks out to me the most.


I've been planning to run a game this fall where the players are shipwrecked on a deserted island and must survive with limited supplies and zero access to other people for the vast majority of the short campaign (college game so we go by semester).

Obviously I need to tell my players what the campaign is going to be about, so they will know this information.


In the spirit of keeping the themes of survival should I tell them that I am banning Bards, Druids, Outlanders, Totem Barbarians, and Rangers? Should I encourage any rogues to not take expertise in survival? Because all of these would make it much easier for them to survive in the forest on the island for an extended period of time.

I mean, let's narrow this discussion down to a campaign specific discussion, because most settings only get used in one campaign and then people switch to another for a while.

If you were planning a classic "escaped prisoners/slaves" game, where starting with zero weapons and armor is the point will you deny monks and barbarians at the table? Do you ban clerics and paladins in games featuring major undead themes?


It seems to me, that your only telling people "sorry, you would shine in this game so I can't let you play that character." which seems kind of the worst reason to ban options for players.

Depends on what the game is trying to do. Ravenloft for example did make Paladins lives more erm interesting so to speak.

There is also a wide varitety of undead as well, so in an undead thmed game a cleric even if focused on undead will struggle depending on how encounters are structured.

Even 2E Darksun nerfed or removed the spells that were a bit to good at creating food and water, other things got removed as well such as decanters of endless water.

A lot of that was key to the world though, it had its own rules on magic and how things interacted with the world and things like the Athas cosmology.

If you ran allow mgic game and most of the spellcasting classes were banned or changed I would have no problem with it in theory, the execution would matter though. If magic did not work full stop and you only had a few classes (Assassin, Thief, Champion, Battlemaster, Open handed monk) and the setting was interesting enough I would not mind.

Or if the DM ran a historical game or mythological game where you could only take 1 spellcaster level every for or levels (do by level 20 you could be spellcaster 4/whatever 16).

 

[Hussar]

Part of the issue here too would be with the level system. It's somewhat expected that challenges change as you advance in levels. You meet bigger monsters, bigger traps, bigger pretty much everything as you climb the ranks. So, how long should "you are scrabbling for food and water" be a thing in the campaign?

Is it going to make for an interesting campaign when your 10th level character dies of thirst? I dunno. Maybe. Depends on the table. But, in my mind, a lot of issues that lower level characters have largely disappear and are replaced by other issues later on in the campaign. Finding food for a 1st level character is one thing, but, your 10th level party just killed a dinosaur - food's no longer really an issue, at least for a very long while.

Now, for a short campaign, probably only encompassing a couple of levels? I'd probably be more restrictive since those issues are going to be main issues for the entire campaign. But, in a longer one? Not so much. It's very likely in a longer campaign that those issues will simply stop being issues, regardless of what classes the players are playing.

 

[Coroc]

This might be kind of divergent, but the earlier talk of themes and denying options is the part of this discussion that just sticks out to me the most.


I've been planning to run a game this fall where the players are shipwrecked on a deserted island and must survive with limited supplies and zero access to other people for the vast majority of the short campaign (college game so we go by semester).

Obviously I need to tell my players what the campaign is going to be about, so they will know this information.


In the spirit of keeping the themes of survival should I tell them that I am banning Bards, Druids, Outlanders, Totem Barbarians, and Rangers? Should I encourage any rogues to not take expertise in survival? Because all of these would make it much easier for them to survive in the forest on the island for an extended period of time.

I mean, let's narrow this discussion down to a campaign specific discussion, because most settings only get used in one campaign and then people switch to another for a while.

If you were planning a classic "escaped prisoners/slaves" game, where starting with zero weapons and armor is the point will you deny monks and barbarians at the table? Do you ban clerics and paladins in games featuring major undead themes?


It seems to me, that your only telling people "sorry, you would shine in this game so I can't let you play that character." which seems kind of the worst reason to ban options for players.

It is not about not letting ppl shine it is about trivializing a challenge.

 

[Coroc]

Part of the issue here too would be with the level system. It's somewhat expected that challenges change as you advance in levels. You meet bigger monsters, bigger traps, bigger pretty much everything as you climb the ranks. So, how long should "you are scrabbling for food and water" be a thing in the campaign?

Is it going to make for an interesting campaign when your 10th level character dies of thirst? I dunno. Maybe. Depends on the table. But, in my mind, a lot of issues that lower level characters have largely disappear and are replaced by other issues later on in the campaign. Finding food for a 1st level character is one thing, but, your 10th level party just killed a dinosaur - food's no longer really an issue, at least for a very long while.

Now, for a short campaign, probably only encompassing a couple of levels? I'd probably be more restrictive since those issues are going to be main issues for the entire campaign. But, in a longer one? Not so much. It's very likely in a longer campaign that those issues will simply stop being issues, regardless of what classes the players are playing.

Everything gets easier at higher levels, and yes in DS managing water supply should always be an issue, even if that means killing dinosaurs to drink their blood every now and then.