D&D 5E [Merged] D&D Next/5E Release Schedule Threads

[Cybit]

One thing about the price. WotC may be giving out a higher-than-normal MSRP in order to give the stores more room for discounting.

Note that no one is actually selling the books for $50. The "real" or street price is $40 so far. Maybe a local store will have room to sell the books at $45, and they can advertise it as a 10% discount. It could be that there is some psychological difference between getting a discount (MSRP $50) vs not getting a discount (MSRP $45) that could boost the local stores.

Also note that you will be able to buy all of the books 2-3 weeks earlier from a local game store before you can buy them from Amazon. Wizards does have a deal where local game stores end up getting product prior to big retailers. So the PH officially comes out August 19th, but will probably be at your LGS for purchase at the end of July.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Interesting that the warforged will be in the DMG. So it is confirmed that the DMG will have additional races (at least one but most likely more).

And I *really* like that stance. It gets those races out in the first set of books, but with them in the DMG, DMs will find it easier to say no to them.

Thaumaturge.

 

[tsadkiel]

Interesting that the warforged will be in the DMG. So it is confirmed that the DMG will have additional races (at least one but most likely more).

On the one hand, curses! I was hoping to get away without buying a DMG, but warforged are a THING in the campaign I'm running, so I'm going to need them.

On the other hand, this maybe they'll put a bare minimum of setting specific crunch for the various sup[pourting settings in the DMG, so that people can run, say, Dark Sun right away, rather than having to wait for a big book. I would be down with that.

Either way, i expect kender will also make the move to the DMG.

 

[GravyFingerz]

Confirmed that starter set won't have character creation, just pre-gens. Disappointing. I'll probably still pick it up.

 

[ewpierce]

View attachment 61740

Confirmed that starter set won't have character creation, just pre-gens. Disappointing. I'll probably still pick it up.

So the starter set won't have chargen, but players will be able to create characters without it? Assuming that online plays a role here... I'd rather have the rules in the box personally. That's a bit of a disappointment, but at least the option is there.

 

[bachhus]

Video game sequels often change the rules. Look at Starcraft and Starcraft 2, similar games, but the mechanics has changed about as much as changed between D&D 4e and 5e. What you are calling sequels is expansions, which as you said don't change how the game work (to a large degree anyway).

I really think that video game sequels are much more iterative than D&D has been throughout its many editions. Starcraft 2 made more changes than the average video game sequel and beyond graphics and the ability to select more units and the UI's ability to perform more complicated tasks, its the same exact game with the same rules with the same strategies with the same races with the same strengths and weakness and units filling the same roles. If D&D editions only changed how much damage weapons did and the kinds of monsters you could fight or just the monster art I would agree.

There are probably examples of games that change a lot and maybe my argument is meaningless and petty and distracting from my original point, which was that new players would not be confused by the absence of an edition identifier. They will likely have to do some digging to even find the older editions, since the assumption is that they are novices and will have a casual interaction with the game likely through a marketing push, browsing Amazon or a local retailer or browser ads for the new version of the game.

I'm struggling to think of an example where someone new will accidentally grab 4th edition when searching for D&D post 5th edition release, unless their first search involves a second-hand bookstore.

 

[kmdietri]

PDF's?

Sorry if it's been answered, but will PDF's come out at the same time?

 

[Morrus]

Sorry if it's been answered, but will PDF's come out at the same time?

The answer was "no news yet; we'll let you know when there is some." Which sounds to me like there will actually be some news on that front.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I really think that video game sequels are much more iterative than D&D has been throughout its many editions. Starcraft 2 made more changes than the average video game sequel and beyond graphics and the ability to select more units and the UI's ability to perform more complicated tasks, its the same exact game with the same rules with the same strategies with the same races with the same strengths and weakness and units filling the same roles. If D&D editions only changed how much damage weapons did and the kinds of monsters you could fight or just the monster art I would agree.

There are probably examples of games that change a lot and maybe my argument is meaningless and petty and distracting from my original point, which was that new players would not be confused by the absence of an edition identifier. They will likely have to do some digging to even find the older editions, since the assumption is that they are novices and will have a casual interaction with the game likely through a marketing push, browsing Amazon or a local retailer or browser ads for the new version of the game.

I'm struggling to think of an example where someone new will accidentally grab 4th edition when searching for D&D post 5th edition release, unless their first search involves a second-hand bookstore.

Regarding your last point here, yeah, I don't see that happening either. After the core books have all been published, I don't see this happening. It's about as likely as somebody picking up the wrong game system.

I don't know how much you follow the Starcraft professional gaming community, but I do, and you are basically completely wrong. Beyond the absolutely simpleste strategies (build a spawning pool, build zerglings, attack), there isn't a single strategy that's the same in SC:BW and SC2. They kept a three-four units from each race*, and changed the 7-8 other. They completely changed the mechanics for what does more/less damage to other units. They completely changed the pathfinding algoritm which really changes how the game is played and they changed how high-ground works. There are so many weird micro things you can/have to do in SC:BW to make units work. For instance Muta micro in SC:BW is a small science in itself that made a player with the nick Jaedong famous (and really successful). You basically can't do the same micro in SC2.

*but they changed quite a lot of aspects with these units, especially the upgrades. Overlords in SC2 can't see invisible creatures as in SC:BW for instance.

 

[Blackbrrd]

The answer was "no news yet; we'll let you know when there is some." Which sounds to me like there will actually be some news on that front.

I am guessing we will have something more like http://www.d20srd.org/ than a pdf. With some luck, it will be a html5 based site that works well on everything from smartphones to linux desktop pc's.