Full scoopage right here! Sasquatch will be following Kobold Press and producing two official products - a sourcebook and an adventure.
D&D 5E Princes of the Apolcalypse/Adventurer's Handbook by Sasquatch Game Studios
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
I like the rules supplement tied to a specific adventure/story-arc approach. It makes it much easier to know what to say "yes" or "no" to.
Thaumaturge.
Thaumaturge.
Saint&Sinner
Explorer
Is this licensed or independent? And if official is this another story arc to happen after ToD?
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
Boarstorm
First Post
I'm not sure how I feel about splats being linked to APs. On the one hand, it will make the AP much more tempting if characters are tied directly to it.
On the other hand, will the information and options therein be useful for homebrew campaigns or story arcs later down the line?
On the other hand, will the information and options therein be useful for homebrew campaigns or story arcs later down the line?
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
Taking a cue from the Adventurers League guidelines, I think the supplements will be potentially useful for later campaigns and will be as useful as a DM wants them to be.
In the guidelines, they mention you pick the "storyarc" your character uses rules from. The storyarc doesn't have to be the current story. So, theoretically, 3 years from now, if you've got a cool idea for a character from the Adventurers Handbook, you can say you are making a Princes of the Apocalypse character for the March of the Modrons storyline.
All of that implies, to me, the rules will have a utility beyond just the one "super adventure". But we probably won't really know until March of next year.
Thaumaturge.
Kobold Avenger
Legend
Out of the 2 game studios hired to do books for WotC, it seems like they all are run by former WotC employees. Which I guess is a good thing for them, since it's people they know.
As for expansions to classes in that book, I'm guessing there's going to be the elemental schools of wizardry and the elemental cleric domains. Monk is covered already by an elemental theme, but I guess I could see them having elemental Barbarians, Druids, Warlocks and Paladins.
As for expansions to classes in that book, I'm guessing there's going to be the elemental schools of wizardry and the elemental cleric domains. Monk is covered already by an elemental theme, but I guess I could see them having elemental Barbarians, Druids, Warlocks and Paladins.
I also like tying the sourcebooks into the storylines, so long as the storylines are suitably thematic. Elemental evil is pretty thematic for D&D, so I think it will probably be a good sourcebook. Has some decent developer names on it too. I could see problems if the storylines get more tightly "Realms focused", but if they can stick to iconic D&D storylines like "dragons" or "elemental evil" or "demons", I can see it working well.
They expect to kick off the next storyline in March - about a seven month gap from the kick-off of the Tyranny of Dragons storyline. That only gives them about 5 months until GenCon - will they kick off a new storyline there next year as well? I keep wondering if two storylines a year will be too ambitious. (It's far more ambitious than my group would ever be able to do, but we are old and can only play about once a month - or sometimes ever other month - so I suspect we might be outliers). I'd really like to see a second world in there - Ravenloft or Eberron or Dark Sun or Planescape or something. I can see how you wouldn't want to split your organized play like that, but I'd still like to see it.
And Princes of the Apocalypse is $50 instead of $30 (for Hoard of the Dragon Queen) The whole Tyranny of Dragons adventure is $60 between two books, but the way the ad copy is written I would kind of expect another book in the series. That's a bit of a shift - I wonder if the book is significantly bigger, or if the cost on the two Tyranny of Dragons books was lowered to make it attractive to jump on as a starting point for the new edition.
(The ad copy is also kind of annoying "Provides background and setting information critical to having the greatest chance of success." Just that one sentence- the rest of the ad was fine. You really don't need to do the hard sell of "BUY THIS BOOK OR YOUR CHARACTER WILL DIE IN THIS ADVENTURE". It's the second release of books for the game and it's going to be full of lots of bits and bobs for players - sales are going to be pretty good whether you beat that horse or not.)
They expect to kick off the next storyline in March - about a seven month gap from the kick-off of the Tyranny of Dragons storyline. That only gives them about 5 months until GenCon - will they kick off a new storyline there next year as well? I keep wondering if two storylines a year will be too ambitious. (It's far more ambitious than my group would ever be able to do, but we are old and can only play about once a month - or sometimes ever other month - so I suspect we might be outliers). I'd really like to see a second world in there - Ravenloft or Eberron or Dark Sun or Planescape or something. I can see how you wouldn't want to split your organized play like that, but I'd still like to see it.
And Princes of the Apocalypse is $50 instead of $30 (for Hoard of the Dragon Queen) The whole Tyranny of Dragons adventure is $60 between two books, but the way the ad copy is written I would kind of expect another book in the series. That's a bit of a shift - I wonder if the book is significantly bigger, or if the cost on the two Tyranny of Dragons books was lowered to make it attractive to jump on as a starting point for the new edition.
(The ad copy is also kind of annoying "Provides background and setting information critical to having the greatest chance of success." Just that one sentence- the rest of the ad was fine. You really don't need to do the hard sell of "BUY THIS BOOK OR YOUR CHARACTER WILL DIE IN THIS ADVENTURE". It's the second release of books for the game and it's going to be full of lots of bits and bobs for players - sales are going to be pretty good whether you beat that horse or not.)
No, the article mentions Realms organizations.
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
2 a year is definitely too ambitious for my group. The good news is, though, after a couple of years, we'll have plenty to pick from.
My guess is one every 8 months. That's the gap here, and that feel like a more sustainable pace.
The ad copy doesn't mention multiple books. [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] does in his intro piece, but I don't see anything from their ad copy that suggests 2 adventure books. I may have missed it, though.
Yep.
Thaumaturge.
Yeah - it seems more likely that the Temple of Elemental Evil has just become kind of iconic to D&D, and the Realms are supposed to have everything that is iconic to D&D. So here's how the Temple of Elemental Evil fits into the Realms.
Remathilis
Legend
Hmmm...
Elemental Themed Adventure.
Forgotten Realms.
"New Races"
Oh Hai Genasi! Wondered where you went.
Elemental Themed Adventure.
Forgotten Realms.
"New Races"
Oh Hai Genasi! Wondered where you went.
Not directly - what I meant was a few of the choices they made made me think that there would be another book. As in why call the sourcebook a sourcebook "for the Elemental Evil story arc" if there's only going to be one adventure book for the arc? And if there's only going to be one adventure book for the arc, why not just call it "Elemental Evil" instead of calling it "Princes of the Apocalypse"? It seems to unnecessarily muddy up the brand unless the "Elemental Evil" arc is made up of more than one book. Just something about the way the ad copy reads that makes me think that in May or June there might be a second adventure book for the arc. I admit it's all tea-leaf reading and I've probably read way too much ad copy recently for my own good...
KirayaTiDrekan
Adventurer
Here's my little bit of speculation...
This seems like the answer to the OGL/GSL question - every year a different 3rd party company or studio gets to do the official adventures for that year's major story arc.
This seems like the answer to the OGL/GSL question - every year a different 3rd party company or studio gets to do the official adventures for that year's major story arc.
I don't think that's the intent - I think this is the answer to the "how can we produce D&D RPG product at a rate sufficient to support the game with a severely reduced Design and Development staff for the RPG" question. Especially given that they want to keep their Organized Play network stocked with official storyline material.
And the answer they've come to is - "find the people that Wizards has laid off for the past few years and outsource the work to them".
Mad Zagyg
Explorer
Setting an Elemental Eye themed campaign in the Forgotten Realms is a massive misstep.
The Temple of Elemental Evil, and all themes associated with it, are classic Greyhawk. Porting this iconic storyline into the Forgotten Realms is a big mistake. It can only serve to create tension among the player base that cares deeply about their particular campaign settings. They did this sort of stuff all the time in 4th edition and it was one of the many things that made me loathe the design team's strategy during that era.
I mean, why do it?
If you are the kind of person who doesn't care, then you probably wouldn't care if it was called anything else. If you're new to the game, and you've never heard of it, then you wouldn't care if it was called anything else. If you are a huge fan of all things Greyhawk, then you'll probably be incredibly irritated. It seems like WotC can only stand to lose more than they gain with these types of choices.
So far, I am LOVING 5th edition, but I'm not impressed with their adventure writing strategy.
The Temple of Elemental Evil, and all themes associated with it, are classic Greyhawk. Porting this iconic storyline into the Forgotten Realms is a big mistake. It can only serve to create tension among the player base that cares deeply about their particular campaign settings. They did this sort of stuff all the time in 4th edition and it was one of the many things that made me loathe the design team's strategy during that era.
I mean, why do it?
If you are the kind of person who doesn't care, then you probably wouldn't care if it was called anything else. If you're new to the game, and you've never heard of it, then you wouldn't care if it was called anything else. If you are a huge fan of all things Greyhawk, then you'll probably be incredibly irritated. It seems like WotC can only stand to lose more than they gain with these types of choices.
So far, I am LOVING 5th edition, but I'm not impressed with their adventure writing strategy.
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
You could very well be right, and I could just be excusing the price of the adventure.
However, my thought is that for the "Tyranny of Dragons" story arc, they didn't use the name "Tyranny of Dragons" for either adventure because that's the name of the story arc as a whole. My guess is "Elemental Evil" is the thing that Neverwinter, the books, maybe a board game, and whatever else they make ties in to. There will be an "Elemental Evil" icon (an Elder Eye?) and banner across the top of "Princes of the Apocalypse", but that adventure is no more the complete "Elemental Evil" experience than any of the other stuff they're doing.
"Thaumaturge."
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