D&D 5E Primeval Thule for 5th edition: Wizards I hope you are taking notes.

[Psikerlord#]

Does it change up the classes at all? Magic is supposed to be "dangerous and rare" in Thule, which doesn't make a lot of sense when every single class but the barbarian has at least one archetype that casts spells with zero consequences and no chance of being pulled screaming into the abyss by some tentacle monster you lose control over. IMO, D&D rules just dont work for that type of setting.

I havent read it all yet, but it says spellcasters are very rare, eg only a few in major cities, and magic items also rarer (they changed the default treasure table rolls for magic items, reducing frequency by half).

Then there are new spells such as summon evil (different levels of) Cthulu style beastie, and if you lose concentration, from memory, the creature tries to kill you. And there are madness rules for encountering cthulu style beasties too.

But I dont think there is anything like a wild magic table making magic inherently more dangerous to the user. Magic is certainly rare, it is also dangerous (in general, for all DnD), and in Thule the world is generally very superstitious of it and mysterious. Eg it suggests most commoners never see a spell cast or magic item in their life, and the known wizards/clerics in a city are widely feared.

The more martial narratives offer a not dissimilar amount of infamy/fame to other classes. One says something like at 10th you get a legion of 100 men and every 3 years you can raise an army to fight for you. There are a few variations of that - pirate ship navy, barbarian horde, you become head of a city thieves guild, and so on.

Looking through the classes, looks like paladin is suggested as banned, and monks/casters supposed to be very rare. Then you choose a narrative (uber background), choose a patron and an enemy, and go seek your fortune.

Just reading back over this stuff - I love Thule!!

 

[Corpsetaker]

Does it change up the classes at all? Magic is supposed to be "dangerous and rare" in Thule, which doesn't make a lot of sense when every single class but the barbarian has at least one archetype that casts spells with zero consequences and no chance of being pulled screaming into the abyss by some tentacle monster you lose control over. IMO, D&D rules just dont work for that type of setting.

These are things that you can role play and with a little help from the DM. Your DM could limit classes, races, slow down leveling up. The DM could adjust the environment to act differently to your actions. Sense magic is rare and dangerous then throwing a Fireball in the city could cause people to become frightened and attack the PC.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Does it change up the classes at all? Magic is supposed to be "dangerous and rare" in Thule, which doesn't make a lot of sense when every single class but the barbarian has at least one archetype that casts spells with zero consequences and no chance of being pulled screaming into the abyss by some tentacle monster you lose control over. IMO, D&D rules just dont work for that type of setting.

Thule does not make changes to any of the character classes. It discusses each and its role in the world, but does not even mention the casty sublasses of the fighter, rogue, etc. I'm OK with that, personally; I have my own system, derived from the Taint rules of 3.5's Heroes of Horror, that I implemented for the casting of magic by humans. It adds a sense of danger and mystery without being too handicapping, and it works for me/us. I also pulled in a conversion of the Sorcerer variant found in "The Spider God's Bride," and I actually derive a lot of my sensibilities from that book as well.

 

[Greg Benage]

I'm going to restrict classes. I want barbarian, fighter, rogue and Open Hand monk PCs. Maybe rangers and 1/3 casters with race restrictions (halfling rangers, elf, dwarf (play up the Norse angle on dwarves...seems like they kinda mailed it in, here) or Atlantean eldritch knights and arcane thieves). The cool thing is, you can keep the low-magic S&S vibe with this kind of class restriction, while some of the narrative abilities alongside Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster still allow pseudo clerics, warlocks and paladins -- the flavor is there, just with much less magic. I may allow PCs with appropriate narratives to cast spells from scrolls, which seems thematically appropriate.

I'm pretty excited about a campaign in which true casters are the bad guys.

 

[Psikerlord#]

The authors are careful to note that although magic is very rare in general, that does not necessarily apply to the party and the places they explore.

 

[ddaley]

Whereas your poor assumption is that WotC actually cares about your [Corpsetaker's] money. Which they don't. They don't care or need your [specifically your] money. Any one individual's cash matters nothing to them. If it did... we would have seen them do and release every single thing that people on these boards have clamored about over the last decade with their ridiculous refrains of "I want to give Wizards my money but they won't take it!!!"

For YEARS during 4E people complained they couldn't get any back catalogue materials. They bitched and moaned about WotC and how they were "sitting on a goldmine!" and that they "have all this cash to give!" but that WotC wouldn't take it. But it was only on the path towards 5E did they ever bother to do so.

For the past year we've had people DECRYING the fact that WotC refused to release new splatbook material and that they wanted to spend their money on D&D. But it's only now a full year and a half later that they finally are doing so.

If WotC really cared about the money demands of any one individual, don't you think they'd be all about making sure that person was getting what they wanted exactly how they wanted it? Of course they would. But... they're not. All they care about is that the game is healthy. And that people are playing it. Or even... that people are playing ANYTHING. Which is why they finally did release all the previous edition material in the first place. Because people who game [game ANYTHING] begat other people who game. Which is all that matters. If gaming as a hobby is healthy... then D&D will be healthy. Because gamers will oftentimes try and play D&D.

And thus the "threats" of any one individual such as yourself... how WotC better "learn their lesson here!" or else you're "spending your money elsewhere!"... are nothing but echoes in the wind.

You aren't that important Corpsetaker. Not to WotC and their top-down view of the hobby. Sorry!

Am I back on the WotC forums? Wow. Maybe you guys should move the petty arguments back there?

 

[Hussar]

Does it change up the classes at all? Magic is supposed to be "dangerous and rare" in Thule, which doesn't make a lot of sense when every single class but the barbarian has at least one archetype that casts spells with zero consequences and no chance of being pulled screaming into the abyss by some tentacle monster you lose control over. IMO, D&D rules just dont work for that type of setting.

There's also the Madness rules:

Madness Saves: When a character is exposed to a creature or situation that threatens madness, he or she must make a Wisdom save (DC varies). Events that call for madness saves include:
• Encountering an aberration,undead,or extraterrene creature for the first time (DC 10).
• Seeing an ally defeated by an aberration,undead,or extraterrene creature (DC 10).
• Being charmed by an aberration,undead,or extraterrene creature (DC 10).
• Witnessing alien or unwholesome magic(DC8+ spell level).

Now, it doesn't specifically define "alien or unwholesome" magic, but, the DM certainly could. Having a necromancer in your party is going to be a bit tricky if the entire party goes insane after a couple of castings of animate dead. Heck, if you really wanted to expand on it, pretty much any summoning (they are extra-planar creatures after all), necromancer, a lot of transmutation, and even evocation possibly, could fall under this. That would just leave a spell list of spells without real visible effects and illusions. Would fit nicely into the setting.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Am I back on the WotC forums? Wow. Maybe you guys should move the petty arguments back there?

I've never posted on the WotC forums, so all my petty arguments are homegrown EN World ones. We have them just as often as the WotC forums did. Better get used to it.

 

[ddaley]

I've never posted on the WotC forums, so all my petty arguments are homegrown EN World ones. We have them just as often as the WotC forums did. Better get used to it.

It's always a pity to see a useful thread be destroyed by an inane argument over completely unrelated things (kind of like I am doing now). There are threads on the WotC forums with hundreds of posts by people bickering about how much involvement WotC has in producing content or about things that were completely unrelated to the OP.

Anyway, I also backed Pirmeval Thule and have downloaded the PDF version. However, I'll wait until my hardcopy arrives before attempting to read it. I love electronic versions for use at the table, but don't care for them during extended reading sessions.

I am going to have a busy winter trying to read all of the adventures and campaign settings that I backed via kickstarter. However, currently, I am reading Out of the Abyss, which is also a great read and will hopefully make for an interesting campaign! I will continue to support WotC AND 3rd party projects on kickstarter that sound interesting to me. I think kickstarter is a great way for these creative, but independent writers to produce their content.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The authors are careful to note that although magic is very rare in general, that does not necessarily apply to the party and the places they explore.

It is next to useless to declare magic as "rare" if all the action focus is on a party filled with casters and they encounter many spell using enemies in quite a few very magical places. For magic to feel rare in a world then it can't be that ubiquitous in actual play. This is a similar problem to worlds where races other than human are "rare" but there isn't a single human in the party.

The point of something being rare is that it is seldom encountered. If rare stuff literally fills every session of play how rare is it really?