Ravnica Table of Contents & More

Thank you.

 

[Kramodlog]

It's massively different from FR, all the Planeswalkers do is distract from the setting. Ravnica hasn't had a full fledged war in over 10,000 years, FR has a bunch of wars going on at any given time, making of them civilization ending.

And than the Guildpact was broken. And now Nicol Bolas is gonna invade and Ravnica will get the Yagmoth treatment and that is pretty close to Infinite Avatar Crisis on Toril.

Ravnica is just Bigger Waterdeep. With guilds! The comparaison to Sigil is misleading as without the guilds Ravnica is just the FR. Without the factions Sigil still has a lot going for it.

FR has tons of nature, Ravnica has no completely wild areas, only condemned urban areas,

That just means more urban adventures and dozens after dozens of hidden/forgotten pockets of nature for the DMs convinience.

Ravnica is less diverse, but more broadly tolerant then most places in FR.

Meh. Racism only goes so far in a game.

People in Ravnica don't know about other planes, FR the way existence of Planes well known.

Yet, the PCs will still manage a way to go to the planes and there will still be threats from the planes.

Religion is super different on Ravnica and FR and an FR deities' most powerful servants could wipe out what passes for deities on Ravnica.

Everyone tries to be different from FR's pantheon.

Rakdos might, just might be more powerful then a Solar, but I'm betting not an Empyrean. Just a guess. The rest won't even be close. Again, I could be wrong. Only old school Planeswalkers came close to FR demigods. An FR Greater God would normally be way beyond anything in an MtG setting.

And those Planewalkers are the interesting part I want to see in a MtG book.

 

[SkidAce]

They are creating just enough framework with these style books for me.

Moneywise a complete conversion from them is impractical, and since different DMs value different things anyway...

this lets me build and add the parts I want.




(I mean the big art books were enough for me, this is gravy)

 

[Remathilis]

Actually it has a soft ban list, as I understand officially Ravnica doesn't have Dwarves, Half Orcs, Gnomes, Halflings, Tieflings (that one was silly, Ravnica has fiends), Dragonborn, not counting planeswalkers, but you can choose to add them. Centaurs, Elves, Loxodon, Vedelken, Simic Hybrid, Humans, Minotaur, Goblins, Half Elves. If ones counts subraces, that is less opinions then just the pure PHB. It less then one could expect from Darksun for a setting that bills itself as a diverse setting.

I await the official text of the book to see how the race-thing shakes out. Canonically, the MTG universe has had dwarves (as recently as Kaladesh), orcs (Ixalan), and even fiend-blooded races (Tibalt counts as one, as well as Azra, which are tieflings in all but name from Battlebond), even if Ravnica has lacked them. Either way, this is D&D's Ravnica, so I also don't see any hard-locks on races anymore. I wager a future Dark Sun book might look like human (DS variant), Dwarf (DS subrace), Elf (DS subrace), Halfling (DS subrace), Half-elf, Mul, Half-giant, Aarakroka, Dragoborn (Dray), Tiefling, and a few other options.

Moreover, Ravnica literally puts no restriction on class (or subclass for that matter) and I expect that will be a tradition going forward. Races are easy to mix and remix, classes are a different story (based on how WotC has given us dozens of them, but yet to give us an official 13th class).

And I don't even consider Ravenloft it's own setting, it's just a region of the Forgotten Realms Shadowfell now, instead of a completely separate demiplane. It even uses FR Gods now, like Lanthder the Morning Lord. Ravenloft is not the first setting to be fed to FR. Kara Tur was originally a completely separate setting, that FR simply devoured. FR ate part of Spelljammer, Realmspace. It ate Al Qadim and the Maztica from birth. The Cold Lands were originally part of a video game that later got added FR. The Moonshaes were not originally intended to be part of FR, someone decided to get Niles to make it an FR novel.

You're completely off on Ravenloft. Ravenloft (as I6) was setting neutral and didn't imply a demi-plane at all; that came with the 2e campaign setting. WotC backtracked on that in Expedition, then soft-embraced the demi-plane idea (devoid of the larger Demiplane of Dread) in 4e before splitting the difference in 5e. The Morninglord IS Lathandar, but he's been a fixture of Barovia since Vampires in the Mist back in the 2e era (Thanks to Jandar Sunstar bringing the faith over). In fact, Ravenloft was devoid of any official religions (outside a few domain specific ones like G'Henna) for most of its 2e run. CoS implies the Morninglord may actually NOT be Lathandar though thanks to CoS's retcon of the faith being older than the demiplane and coming from Strahd's "unnamed prime world" of origin.

So Ravenloft is still fairly independent from Faerun (except for nosy adventurers from there who end up in Barovia) but its far less independent than it was during the late 2e run.

Volo's Guide to Spirits and Specters will be the same way. My guess is it will be a VGTM style book that focuses more on undead and religion based monsters, like celestials, like you merged Avatars & Pantheons with open grave: secrets of the undead, a players option book, and an MM. Maybe some more stuff too.

Where is this coming from? Is there another announced book or some form of speculation?

This doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to GGR, I very much am and the only thing that surprised me was the loss of Vashino. I'm still buying it, I'm not venting over what could have beens, missed opportunities and the fact that they keep making the same mistakes.

I was hoping it'd be a touch crunchier, but I'm probably still picking it up. I like MTG and D&D, and the idea of a setting that straddles both games is appealing, even if I don't intend to run it any time soon.

 

[gyor]

And than the Guildpact was broken. And now Nicol Bolas is gonna invade and Ravnica will get the Yagmoth treatment and that is pretty close to Infinite Avatar Crisis on Toril.

Ravnica is just Bigger Waterdeep. With guilds! The comparaison to Sigil is misleading as without the guilds Ravnica is just the FR. Without the factions Sigil still has a lot going for it.

That just means more urban adventures and dozens after dozens of hidden/forgotten pockets of nature for the DMs convinience.

Meh. Racism only goes so far in a game.

Yet, the PCs will still manage a way to go to the planes and there will still be threats from the planes.

Everyone tries to be different from FR's pantheon.

And those Planewalkers are the interesting part I want to see in a MtG book.

I can play this game too.

Athas, just FR but with more sand!

Eberron, exactly like FR, but with more Dragonshards and Warforged!

Planescape exactly like FR. It actually is closet to FR IMO, because it's basically the entire D&D Multuverse, but centred on Sigil. In fact even in Sigil Planescape is more like FR then Ravnica is, Planescape and FR share a lot of cultures, races, gods, and characters, and so on. There has even book Planescape FR crossover books. Greyhawk is the only still separate setting from FR that is more similar to it. Greyhawk is closer and that is only because FR ate most of it's best NPCs.

Ravenloft is just like the Forgotten Realms, because FR straight up ate it.

 

[Parmandur]

I await the official text of the book to see how the race-thing shakes out. Canonically, the MTG universe has had dwarves (as recently as Kaladesh), orcs (Ixalan), and even fiend-blooded races (Tibalt counts as one, as well as Azra, which are tieflings in all but name from Battlebond), even if Ravnica has lacked them. Either way, this is D&D's Ravnica, so I also don't see any hard-locks on races anymore. I wager a future Dark Sun book might look like human (DS variant), Dwarf (DS subrace), Elf (DS subrace), Halfling (DS subrace), Half-elf, Mul, Half-giant, Aarakroka, Dragoborn (Dray), Tiefling, and a few other options.

Moreover, Ravnica literally puts no restriction on class (or subclass for that matter) and I expect that will be a tradition going forward. Races are easy to mix and remix, classes are a different story (based on how WotC has given us dozens of them, but yet to give us an official 13th class).



You're completely off on Ravenloft. Ravenloft (as I6) was setting neutral and didn't imply a demi-plane at all; that came with the 2e campaign setting. WotC backtracked on that in Expedition, then soft-embraced the demi-plane idea (devoid of the larger Demiplane of Dread) in 4e before splitting the difference in 5e. The Morninglord IS Lathandar, but he's been a fixture of Barovia since Vampires in the Mist back in the 2e era (Thanks to Jandar Sunstar bringing the faith over). In fact, Ravenloft was devoid of any official religions (outside a few domain specific ones like G'Henna) for most of its 2e run. CoS implies the Morninglord may actually NOT be Lathandar though thanks to CoS's retcon of the faith being older than the demiplane and coming from Strahd's "unnamed prime world" of origin.

So Ravenloft is still fairly independent from Faerun (except for nosy adventurers from there who end up in Barovia) but its far less independent than it was during the late 2e run.




Where is this coming from? Is there another announced book or some form of speculation?



I was hoping it'd be a touch crunchier, but I'm probably still picking it up. I like MTG and D&D, and the idea of a setting that straddles both games is appealing, even if I don't intend to run it any time soon.

Volo's Guide to Spirits & Spectres is an off-hand joke in Waterdeep Dragon Heist, when Volo as NPC is discussing his future plans. It's an alcohol pun.

 

[Parmandur]

This one looks to be a hard pass for me, as I have no interest in running a game in Ravnica since it's basically a poor-man's Sigil, but I held out hope that it would be something akin to Mordenkainen's where the crunch (specifically for monsters) would be worth the purchase. As it stands 38 pages worth doesn't cut the mustard, and many of the other aspects (races/classes) were awful based on their previews. Oh well, I hope their next offering is more worthwhile.

I count ~80 pages in the beastiary...?

 

[Remathilis]

Guilds, factions, clans, groups, whatever, rarely work for PCs. They often do not mess well when members of different groups are together. Like member of the Boros Legion working with a member of the the Cult of Radkos? At least Sigil is an interesting location and connects all the planes.

And yet I can shuffle a Vraska, Golgari Queen in with Trolstani Discordant in an Abzan deck and the two play nice together. In fact, my EDH deck has cards from Radkos, Boros, and Orhzov all in it. I don't see their being any more issue with mixing guilds than there would be with a Harper and a Zhent in AL or a Mercykiller and a Xaostict in Planescape.

Who cares? Who really wanted to play a Loxodon? Races are the least interesting part of D&D. The archetypes of fantasy have been done and now it is just about doing weird stuff. What archetype Dragonborn are filling? Big lizard guy that always is in every fantasy novel? The tiefling has been the real last racial innovation and that dates back to the 90s.

So you think that the seven races in the AD&D PHB should be the only races ever in fantasy, got it.

Meh. New classes would be more interesting.

WotC is allergic to new classes, as evidenced by the 35th redrafts of Mystic/Psion, Artificer, and the abandonment of the revised ranger concept.

What a new setting needs is a whole manual. And there are more iconic MtG monsters than psychic vampires or Orzhov angels.

It sounds less like you want D&D supplement for a MTG setting and more like you want an MTG RPG that is cross-compatible with D&D.

Not the most iconic MtG NPCs. Urza, Nicol Bolas, Jace, Gerrard on the other hand...

None of which have origin on Ravnica. In fact, only two even have ties to the plane (Jace became the Guildpact, Bolas is coming to tear things up). The others you mentioned have been dead for a thousand years in the timeframe.

Yeah, not the list of iconic MtG spells that could have filled a whole book by it self.

Yeah, spells like Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Fireball, and... uh, well look at that...

Again, not the MtG we are looking for.

Not the MtG YOU'RE looking for!

Those are the least interesting locations MtG has to offer.

The Planechase series covered some of the biggest names in MtG (Dominaria, Innistrad, Zendikar) as well as some newer ones (Amonket, Kaladesh, Ixalan). Ravnica, the setting with soon to be NINE card-sets set in it, is getting a hardback rather than a PDF. Aside from Pharexia, where do you think they should have covered?

Colored magic could have gone beyond vancian spellcasting and expends 5e magic system. Something a long the line of power points.

Back to the "separate RPG with all new rules that is compatible with D&D" magical Christmasland thinking...

This whole thing is a wasted opportunity and will be forgotten rapidly. Like 5e's APs.

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

 

[gyor]

Volo's Guide to Spirits & Spectres is an off-hand joke in Waterdeep Dragon Heist, when Volo as NPC is discussing his future plans. It's an alcohol pun.

The first instance of VGTSS mentioned in W: DH it was as an alcohol pun. The second time it was mentioned it wasn't. If the joke had been the only mention I'd have written it off as a joke, but twice and the second mention more serious, I feel positive it's an Easter Egg, Volo's Guide to Spirits and Specters is coming, likely late Winter/Early Spring is my guess.

 

[Kramodlog]

Not really, it's a great setting that doesn't need the MtG metasetting elements to be great. Ravnica is very different from FR, I think it is going to work well within the DnD system.

Let's flip this a second and see if the logic still applies. Say WotC used D&D to make some MtG cards. I would expect to see stuff like Bigby's hand spells, Magic Missile, Vorpal sword, the Eye of Vecna, Drizzt, Elminster, Raistlin, etc, cards. Not all of them and maybe not them specifically, but some similarly iconic elements tied to the D&D brand. If those wouldn't be turned into cards, what would be the point of doing a D&D MtG block?

 

[gyor]

I count ~80 pages in the beastiary...?

I don't think he is willing to count the NPCs as part of the Beastiary.