D&D 5E Rising from the Last War preview featuring Keith Baker

[PsyzhranV2]

What's the source for that slate of quote from Anthony Turco?

A Discord chat group I'm in with him, and a whole slew of other people, including the hosts of the Manifest Zone podcast and Keith Baker himself. The link is in the sidebar of the Eberron subreddit: r/Eberron

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Greater Dragonmarks are still part of Wayfarers guide. So you can always use those ones.

 

[Parmandur]

This sets a very poor precedent that will likely haunt 5E to the end of its days and somewhat hasten that end, I would say. In previous editions, it was always possible for a specific setting to require the usage of certain otherwise-optional rules.

This decision essentially suggests that no official setting can ever now require an optional rule, however much sense it would make, however fundamental to the lore of that setting it is. At the very least it says that of Feats, which is pretty bad.

I'm sure some people will defend it, just as some people defend every Wotc decision until they hit that one they can't stand, but it was a bad decision, and smacks of corporate meddling, where branding and mindless consistency trump setting lore and and common sense. It's not 4E FR bad but it's the same kind of thinking, just applied to mechanics. In this case someone higher up the food chain at WotC obviously overruled the actual writers and decreed that Feats couldn't be used, and to the nine hells with the setting and lore consequences, just as someone at WotC once decreed that Tieflings, Dragonborn et al need major, world-altering, generic race lore consistent presences in the FR, and to hell with what needed blowing up to achieve that (they could easily have been inserted without blowing up the FR, just not in a way easily consistent with their generic lore).

What next, Dark Sun without Defilers, because that's not how it works in the PHB? Or without Psionics, even? (as an aside this PHB+1 shenanigans means any Psionic classes must appear in the Dark Sun book itself, which I suspect may well lead to WotC skipping both DS and Psionics in 5E, which would be shameful).

There is a Feat in the book, the Aberrant Dragonmark. There is no "corporate meddling" at play, the Aberrant Dragonmark crossed the 70% approval threshold that the rules designers have set, while the Greater Dragonmark Feats did not.

 

[Parmandur]

Greater Dragonmarks are still part of Wayfarers guide. So you can always use those ones.

I heard they have been removed, actually.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Greater Dragonmarks are still part of Wayfarers guide. So you can always use those ones.

Except on dnd beyond, or in an AL game, where WGTE will be “updated” with the new way of doing things.

 

[TwoSix]

No it doesn't, it increases it. What about the Medium Dragonmarks? Or the Slightly-Bigger-Than-Medium-But-Smaller-Than-Greater Dragonmarks? I would suggest that the Lesser/Greater dragonmark idea is an artefact of 3rd edition feat trees, rather than a "realistic" depiction of something that should really be a continuum.

If you buy into the idea of refluffing classes to represent dragonmark powers, as suggested in the Wayfinders Guide (I quoted earlier) then you can have a much more flexible range of abilities.

I'm saying the Greater Dragonmark feat should exist along with the spell list increase, not instead of.

What I really would have liked to see is a Prestige Class/alternate class feature type progression (where you could trade in a class level, or class features for more and stronger uses of the dragonmark, but only at certain levels), but that's tech that the inherently conservative 5e design ethos wouldn't be able to do officially.

 

[Weiley31]

I'm just giving Greater Dragon marks to nonspell casters but it's leveled based on acquiring the spells.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is a Feat in the book, the Aberrant Dragonmark. There is no "corporate meddling" at play, the Aberrant Dragonmark crossed the 70% approval threshold that the rules designers have set, while the Greater Dragonmark Feats did not.

This seems quite plausible. I think from a purely mechanical PoV the Wayfinder Greater Dragonmark Feats where not very powerful or very interesting. Not really worth an ASI.

In the new version, most of the "spell list" spells are nothing for adventurers to get excited over either, mostly focusing on utility, but they are okay for something that is "free".

Most of the Dragonmark good stuff - Hunter's Mark, Shield, Mage Armour, friendly owlbears - is not in the spell lists.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There is a Feat in the book, the Aberrant Dragonmark. There is no "corporate meddling" at play, the Aberrant Dragonmark crossed the 70% approval threshold that the rules designers have set, while the Greater Dragonmark Feats did not.

This sort of thing always makes me chortle. The naive belief that things actually operate internally in the precise way they're described, in shorthand, to outsiders, is very cute, in a puppy-like way, but slightly hopeless.

WotC is a business, and not a new or small-time one. Unless there is an actual signed charter or the like, the "70% approval" threshold is, at best, a guideline or aspiration, much like Google's abandoned "Don't be evil". If the right person says "nah" then "70% approval" doesn't mean jack. Further, there is likely pressure to agree with certain people which means even where some sort of vote is held (and I am skeptical that it is remotely that formal), people will follow those leads.

 

[Parmandur]

This sort of thing always makes me chortle. The naive belief that things actually operate internally in the precise way they're described, in shorthand, to outsiders, is very cute, in a puppy-like way, but slightly hopeless.

WotC is a business, and not a new or small-time one. Unless there is an actual signed charter or the like, the "70% approval" threshold is, at best, a guideline or aspiration, much like Google's abandoned "Don't be evil". If the right person says "nah" then "70% approval" doesn't mean jack. Further, there is likely pressure to agree with certain people which means even where some sort of vote is held (and I am skeptical that it is remotely that formal), people will follow those leads.

I see no reason to to doubt it in this case. I give all Feats 1 out of 5 in every playtest survey, on principle. Given that only a decided minority of players use Feats, 31% disapproval seems highly likely. Look how few Feats made it through into Xanathar's Guide.