Pages From The Upcoming Nautical D&D Book!

Older Beholder · Feb 10, 2019

I really thought this would be more of a Volos underwater guide than a large undersea adventure.

Looks like I was wrong. It's still cool, I'm just not sure if a big adventure (which are basically full campaigns) is what I need right now., so I hope if it's all adventure it's a bunch of different stuff like Tales of the Yawning Portal.
Or even if it they played with the balance and gave us 100 pg adventure with 120 pg for underwater sourcebook + monsters I'd be pretty happy.

Douglas Beebe · Feb 10, 2019

A Saltmarsh U1-u3 themed series would be wonderful. Im using Saltmarsh tonight for a new 1st level group.

Older Beholder · Feb 10, 2019

Jester David said:
Ravnica was primarily done by the MtG team and was a bonus book. How much it “counts” is debatable. If it counts, the Ravnica art book can as well.

If it was The Factions guide to Sigil, detailing the factions, a chapter on Sigil and new monsters, etc, basically the Planescape version of the Ravnica book, would you have counted that?

Demetrios1453 · Feb 10, 2019

Hussar said:
Honestly, it's almost guaranteed that this will be set in FR. I mean, 5 years in, EVERY major AP has been set in FR (barring Ravenloft) and why on Earth would they support a setting that has been out of print since before the vast majority of D&D gamers were born?.

This looks to be an almost direct update, like the modules updated in Tales from the Yawning Portal. So I would expect them to follow what they did there with adventures originally set in Greyhawk - acknowledge that the adventure canonically took place in Greyhawk, and then give suggestions on where to place it in other settings.

Paul Farquhar · Feb 10, 2019

A few thoughts:

* U1-3 is level 1-5 if they keep the original level range. This corresponds to statistically the most popular range for adventures and the range of the waterdeap book.
* U1-3 is a bit short to fill a book on it's own. The remaining space could be taken up by ship and underwater rules and creatures, or the adventure could be expanded up to level 10.
* It has ships and underwater, but I don't remember any navel battles (as featured in UA) in U1-3.
* Saltmarsh was originally located in Greyhawk but it could easily be relocated to any generic fantasy setting (or even real world 17th century Cornwall).

BMaC · Feb 10, 2019

epithet said:
If they republish the Saltmarsh modules as a 5e conversion, and they feel the need to remove the adventure from Saltmarsh (which is on Oerth, the World of Greyhawk) and transplant it to the Forgotten Realms, I might have to put some effort into organizing the Greyhawk fans into some kind of actual pain in the ass until WotC quits dumping on the setting, by which I mean pillaging Greyhawk's stories and characters while continuing to forbid 3rd party Greyhawk products and 5e Greyhawk updates from being put up on the DMs Guild.

It's already gotten ridiculous, it rapidly approaching the point where my inherent laziness will be overcome.

The successful Goodman Games reincarnations of Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread show that classic adventures are money makers when given to safe hands. If not the DM's Guild then perhaps we can hope for something explicitly Greyhawk from Goodman Games or Kobold Press under license.

Ash Mantle · Feb 10, 2019

DQDesign said:
IF it is not set in Forgotten Realms AND IF includes some setting material (also mini-setting would be sufficient) AND IF that setting material will be open for DMsGuild authors to develop, THEN I could consider buying this book.

Do whatever you feel like, mate

Parmandur · Feb 10, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
A few thoughts:

* U1-3 is level 1-5 if they keep the original level range. This corresponds to statistically the most popular range for adventures and the range of the waterdeap book.
* U1-3 is a bit short to fill a book on it's own. The remaining space could be taken up by ship and underwater rules and creatures, or the adventure could be expanded up to level 10.
* It has ships and underwater, but I don't remember any navel battles (as featured in UA) in U1-3.
* Saltmarsh was originally located in Greyhawk but it could easily be relocated to any generic fantasy setting (or even real world 17th century Cornwall).

Considering that per Mearls, they just started revising the vehicle rules based on feedback, and this book is in layout, I doubt the seafaring UA was meant for this release. It was probably meant to be useful for playtesting with this book.

vpuigdoller · Feb 10, 2019

Parmandur said:
Considering that per Mearls, they just started revising the vehicle rules based on feedback, and this book is in layout, I doubt the seafaring UA was meant for this release. It was probably meant to be useful for playtesting with this book.

Oh, this is a very interesting piece of information. In an earlier post, I mentioned that the original U3 module included some kind of guidelines for underwater adventures but there were none for seafaring or navigating ships or other water vehicles. If you are correct and the big AP from summer is also water-themed, that one might include then the seafaring rules that were playtested.

vpuigdoller · Feb 10, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
A few thoughts:

* U1-3 is level 1-5 if they keep the original level range. This corresponds to statistically the most popular range for adventures and the range of the waterdeap book.
* U1-3 is a bit short to fill a book on it's own. The remaining space could be taken up by ship and underwater rules and creatures, or the adventure could be expanded up to level 10.
* It has ships and underwater, but I don't remember any navel battles (as featured in UA) in U1-3.
* Saltmarsh was originally located in Greyhawk but it could easily be relocated to any generic fantasy setting (or even real world 17th century Cornwall).

I agree Saltmarsh was written in a way that can easily be placed elsewhere if you wanted to. They will probably give you some tips in how to set it in other Campaign Settings as they did in TftYP. I do hope that if Saltmarsh is indeed included that they also include the Saltmarsh maps.