New WotC Product: The Complete Warrior

[John Crichton]

Well, my theory is that a bit of the splat-book material is likely going to get into 3.5 (mostly Feats & Equipment, possibly Prestige Classes). After this, what's left will likely either be scrapped (outdated and/or never worked right to begin with) or updated and compiled with new information. Mass-combat would be nice, but not holding my breath.

The name would imply, over-all, a more "martial" sense of things, being that primarily Fighters, Monks and (possibly) Warriors would gain most from it, but will include things easily adopted by Rangers, Paladins and battle-centric Clerics. With the suggestion of new Core Classes being introduced in the Miniatures book, and with mass combat being suggested in regards to it, there may be a Class or three in that which would benefit as well.

I like this theory as it is similar to my own and would jive well with the current way WotC is going right now: Fix things according to fan demand. That is the way to stay in business with a game like this. Cuz they have to keep selling product and the only way to do that is listen to what people who use it are saying. I commend them, personally. Sure, they'll make money off it as that is the other side of the coin (no pun intended). Works for me.

 

[Ranger REG]

I hope your theory is right. But to be brutally honest, with the exception of the Dragonlance Campaign Sourcebook, all of the Wizards' D&D products announced for this Summer and Fall/Winter have not piqued my interest.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Heh, if that's true then maybe we'll be getting The Complete Commoner a bit afterwards.
Imagine:
New, intense rules for plowing a field.
An example farm.
CR ratings for especially difficult crops
Special (New) Commoner feats such as Fast Plower, Mighty Hoeing
New Prestige Classes: The Farmer, the Town Drunk
Stats for common farming pests such as the Groundhog and the Rabbit
New magic items: Shovel of Mighty Digging, Hoe +4

Last time we played in our Scarred Lands-campaign our DM threw Dark Farmers at us. That's right fallen commoners! (Because if paladins become more powerful as blackguards then commoners should get more powerful as dark farmers).

Their Ill Will ability was pretty scary:

Sorcerer: What do you mean I get a -1 to my magic missile damage?
DM: Everybody gets -1 to whatever they do. It's Ill Will!

 

[WizarDru]

I like this theory as it is similar to my own and would jive well with the current way WotC is going right now: Fix things according to fan demand. That is the way to stay in business with a game like this. Cuz they have to keep selling product and the only way to do that is listen to what people who use it are saying. I commend them, personally. Sure, they'll make money off it as that is the other side of the coin (no pun intended). Works for me.

WotC has ALWAYS been good at listening to the fans, and has a reasonable track record of giving them what they want. What some folks don't always get is that ENWorld, RPG.net and several other online sites are not necessarily the majority of D&D players, or even necessarily a good sampling of them. They may or may not be, at any given time.

Remember that what doomed TSR was that they never, EVER gathered any marketing information from their customers/fan base. They published based on concepts of what they 'felt' would be popular, and what their 'guts told them'. That was a large part of how TSR lost money...total disregard for the customer. WotC has a much better history of printing what will sell, and giving customers what they want.

There often seems to be some odd perception that WotC should stop publishing new game material, or releasing updated material, as soon as most people have everything they need to play. It ignores two things: one, that WotC is a publisher, and needs to keep publishing to make money; and two, I LIKE buying new material, as long as it well written. You may disagree with the quality of the new material, of course, but (IMHO) I have only seen one truly bad supplement come out for 3E from WotC (namely the FR module 'Into the Dragon's Lair', I think it was).

 

[Ranger REG]

That's good, but we need some official answers:

Is Complete Warrior just one of the many replacements for those 3e Class Guidebook series?

 

[John Crichton]

WotC has ALWAYS been good at listening to the fans, and has a reasonable track record of giving them what they want. What some folks don't always get is that ENWorld, RPG.net and several other online sites are not necessarily the majority of D&D players, or even necessarily a good sampling of them. They may or may not be, at any given time.

Remember that what doomed TSR was that they never, EVER gathered any marketing information from their customers/fan base. They published based on concepts of what they 'felt' would be popular, and what their 'guts told them'. That was a large part of how TSR lost money...total disregard for the customer. WotC has a much better history of printing what will sell, and giving customers what they want.

There often seems to be some odd perception that WotC should stop publishing new game material, or releasing updated material, as soon as most people have everything they need to play. It ignores two things: one, that WotC is a publisher, and needs to keep publishing to make money; and two, I LIKE buying new material, as long as it well written. You may disagree with the quality of the new material, of course, but (IMHO) I have only seen one truly bad supplement come out for 3E from WotC (namely the FR module 'Into the Dragon's Lair', I think it was).

Oh, I totally agree. On all points, actually. They have done an excellent job with D&D and RPG's in general. I've never looked upon them as 'evil' or 'money grubbing.' Despite what many say here and as you mentioned other places, I consider them the saviors of D&D. They've made the game more accessable (Hasbro helped, of course) and produced products, on the whole, that I have been proud to buy and own.

 

[barsoomcore]

There is no "report", aside from the title.

Well, yes, and it was in fact the report of the title that I was asking about. So there was a report (of the title) and I'm wondering if we know if it's true.

Do we know for a fact that WotC is putting out a book called The Complete Warrior?

That's what I'm wondering.

But carry on with the rank speculation.

 

[Soldarin]

Couldn't it just be an Adventure module? Maybe based around an Alchemsit?

 

[Olive]

That's good, but we need some official answers:

Is Complete Warrior just one of the many replacements for those 3e Class Guidebook series?

you're not going to get them for a while. WotC don't comment on products until they're announced in the catalog, and the catalog won't be out till august or so for 4th quarter will it?

 

[Olive]

Do we know for a fact that WotC is putting out a book called The Complete Warrior?

as has already been said, no we don't. we're merely talking about the report of the title at gamingreport.com.

and given that WotC don't comment on releases until they're printed in the catalog, we won't know 'for a fact' for a while yet.