SCAG Thread

[kalani]

I hope AL admins will release their expected statement today rather than later. By delaying, they will be indirectly reducing the advantage brick and mortar stores have over amazon who offers all D&D books at 40% off. Already some B&M stores often require a table fee to play D&D in order to see some return on investment. (The fee does get turned into store credit).

Um..... You do realize that the admins don't get advance copies of the book right, and would need time to read it first. Try and have a little patience. I would not expect an announcement before the official release date (Nov 3rd) at the earliest (remember: today is only the premier release date, and there is no guarantee that the admins live near a premier store).

Not only that, but this decision will come from WotC, not the admins.

 

[Inconnunom]

Um..... You do realize that the admins don't get advance copies of the book right, and would need time to read it first. Try and have a little patience. I would not expect an announcement before the official release date (Nov 3rd) at the earliest (remember: today is only the premier release date, and there is no guarantee that the admins live near a premier store).

Not only that, but this decision will come from WotC, not the admins.

I was informed by Regional Coordinators that the book was already under review. Additionally, that's fine if they wait until the 3rd but if I was a store owner I wouldn't think it would be much of a "premier" if the book was a glorified paperweight that is useless until the 3rd that amazon sells for 40% off.

Lastly, WotC higher ups have already made statements that the book was designed for AL use. (Granted they didn't say when).

Again, I'm patient. I already have a level 6 character so the book is no use to me regardless. Many of the other players at my store took the 40% discount from amazon and will be getting the book on the 3rd. I was just pointing out that it might hurt Brick and Mortar stores, or at the very least, doesn't help.

 

[skerritthegreen]

You do realize that the admins don't get advance copies of the book right,

By way of information, the package guy just dropped mine off about 10 minutes ago. Claire was lucky, of the admins, her's arrived last night.

 

[kalani]

I was informed by Regional Coordinators that the book was already under review. Additionally, that's fine if they wait until the 3rd but if I was a store owner I wouldn't think it would be much of a "premier" if the book was a glorified paperweight that is useless until the 3rd that amazon sells for 40% off.

This is a gross misunderstanding. Just because it is not yet available in AL does not mean that it is a glorified paperweight. AL represents a minority of the 5E audience (although it is speculation as to how much of one). It is still perfectly valid for AL DMs (all of the fluff material should be useful for helping improve their knowledge of the area), as well as non-AL campaigns (the majority of the 5e player base).

Even in AL, having the book early allows players to experiment with mock builds ahead of the official announcement. Whether some of those options end up being banned/restricted or not is irrelevant, as advance knowledge does afford you the opportunity to tinker, find combinations, etc.

Finally, there is the impulse market. Many players have been itching for a supplement for the game since mid-last year. A large number of players will choose the opportunity to purchase it at the first opportunity (even if it ends up being a higher cost). As such, premier stores will see a large spike in sales, over the next 11 days - after which regular stores will see a moderate increase. Only those patient enough to wait until Amazon et al. ships their product (which wouldn't arrive until mid-late november on average) will receive a discount.

 

[Inconnunom]

This is a gross misunderstanding. Just because it is not yet available in AL does not mean that it is a glorified paperweight. AL represents a minority of the 5E audience (although it is speculation as to how much of one). It is still perfectly valid for AL DMs (all of the fluff material should be useful for helping improve their knowledge of the area), as well as non-AL campaigns (the majority of the 5e player base).

True but the stores are the places running AL. I'm specifically talking about the AL/store interaction. The store is the one helping at the local level and it just seems like it might be difficult trying to convince a frequent player (and likely frequent patron) someone to buy a book they can't use in AL.

Even in AL, having the book early allows players to experiment with mock builds ahead of the official announcement. Whether some of those options end up being banned/restricted or not is irrelevant, as advance knowledge does afford you the opportunity to tinker, find combinations, etc.

That's fine until you build something that gets banned and then people tell you well you should've just waited.

Finally, there is the impulse market. Many players have been itching for a supplement for the game since mid-last year. A large number of players will choose the opportunity to purchase it at the first opportunity (even if it ends up being a higher cost). As such, premier stores will see a large spike in sales, over the next 11 days - after which regular stores will see a moderate increase. Only those patient enough to wait until Amazon et al. ships their product (which wouldn't arrive until mid-late november on average) will receive a discount.

I don't know about where you live, but Amazon here usually takes 1 day and delivery is guaranteed on the 3rd. When OotA hit, several DMs running it got it a day early.

 

[Pauper]

Now that I have the book (picked it up from one of our local Premier stores), I can say that I'm seeing a great potential analogy to the potential usefulness of the SCAG in the contents of page 5 in the book's Preface.

Page 5 is a wonderful-looking large-scale map, stretching from the Spine of the World in the north all the way to the Forest of Tethir and the Nelanther Isles in the south, and stretching as far east as Cormyr. You can tell at a glance that most folks travelling from Waterdeep to Mirabar are doing so overland (and how), while most folks going from Waterdeep to Baldur's Gate are likely going by ship (and why). For someone playing in Encounters, or in a campaign spun off from one of the hard-cover Encounters-legal adventures, it's a great resource all by itself.

And for folks who almost exclusively play Expeditions, it's pretty but useless -- you'd need another map of similar size and scale to even get as far east as the Moonsea and the cities on it that comprise the adventure areas referred to in Expeditions modules.

If there is an announcement in the next few days, I suspect it will be to clarify the distinction between setting material (which comprises the first two chapters and roughly the first 100 pages of the book) and player options (which start with Chapter 3: Races of the Realms and covers the race, class, and background options that compromise the last roughly 50 pages of the book). It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, for example, to say that a new character created as a Season 4 character would be eligible to worship Deneir, Lliira, or the Red Knight (all, I believe, deities that don't appear in the Player's Handbook), but that a new character created as a Season 2 character would not be eligible to worship those deities (assuming SCAG is not made legal for seasons prior to Season 4).

A few other bits of note from an initial perusal of the book over lunch, in keeping with the speculative intent of this thread:

- Genasi are barely (if at all) mentioned in the book; they have no index entry and do not appear among the races discussed in Chapter 3. As such, genasi in AL are still only legal as Season 2 (Elemental Evil) characters. Unless SCAG player options are made legal for Season 2 characters, you will not be able to make a genasi eldritch knight (swordmage) with the Greenflame Blade cantrip.

- There are a number of places in the SCAG that refer back to the Player's Handbook: as an example, dragonborn, rock gnomes, and forest gnomes all refer to the PH when talking about racial traits -- no new traits are presented in SCAG for those races.

- Svirfneblin, however, refer back to the PH, and not to the Elemental Evil Player's Companion. The EEPG combines the PH and svirfneblin traits in its entry, while the SCAG only lists the svirfneblin traits different from the generic gnome traits in the PH, so while they appear to be the same to me, any difference in those traits will likely result in a difference between season 2 deep gnomes and season 4 deep gnomes.

- Tieflings refer back to the PH, with the exception of tieflings that can trace their ancestry directly to Asmodeus, where those abilities are called out in a sidebar. It is almost certain that the Winged ability in the sidebar will not be allowed in AL (for the same reason aarakocra from the EEPG were banned), and possible that the entire sidebar will be disallowed for AL play, since it requires a connection to an evil deity that might not be seen as 'kosher' for public play.

- People who have been asking for a 5E warlord: meet the Purple Dragon Knight fighter archetype.

- The paladin section adds a bunch of traits that all paladins in the Realms are expected to uphold, regardless of their specific Oath. A number of these 'virtues' are going to be challenging for players who've built an evil paladin and are playing him in 'evil-jerk' mode, though there's no specific penalty for failing to uphold the traits, and the text does specify that different deities favor different traits and gives a couple of examples. I predict that this is going to cause more arguments in AL than perhaps any other part of Chapter 4.

- The Warlock section gives explicit examples of the different warlock patrons that exist in the Realms; I predict that, if SCAG's player options are 'back-ported' to seasons prior to Season 4, that choice of patron will be required for warlocks just as choice of deity is for clerics.

- The SCAG notes that the racial restrictions on battlerager barbarians and bladesinger wizards are for the Forgotten Realms and might not apply to a given DM's setting or version of the Realms; however, since AL is presumed to be running on a 'baseline' Forgotten Realms setting, expect these restrictions to be maintained in Adventurer's League.

Just my $0.02US -- I expect that at least one of these predictions to be proven wrong by the actual announcement, coming Soon(tm).

--
Pauper

 

[kalani]

That's fine until you build something that gets banned and then people tell you well you should've just waited.

I don't understand this comment. Nothing in SCAG is legal until such times as the announcement is made. As such, any character you make with those rules is invalid for AL play, but is useful for the purpose of testing ideas, running a few mock battles (in a non-AL scenario), or finding combo's.

Getting a head start on character optimization is not for everyone, but there are enough people out there which would love this opportunity. It shouldn't even be that hard to figure out what options are likely to be banned outright (flying races for example), and simply leave those questionable options out of your experiments.

 

[aarduini]

I agree with all that except for the part about Asmodeus. He's a LE god just like Bane who is already legal.

I also believe the need to rethink the restrictions on flight. They already made a mod that gives boots of flying to characters of level 1-4.

Its a shame that who ever wrote the book didn't include Genasi. They have been an exclusive FR race since 2nd edition I think. I may be wrong on that. It may be 3rd edition.

 

[aarduini]

Here's a question,

If I run a bladesinger in Out of the Abyss, and while I'm playing the mod as a home game it becomes legal can I then bring that character into expeditions?

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

I just hope that the variant half-elves are legal for AL use. The PHB version feels more like a human with a two generic elven traits instead of being varied like the three elven subraces. Each half-elf in AL play should be able to choose to be more like their elven parent than their human parent. My half-drow Lore Bard-tender, Jaymes Isaac Bartles, would love to use the Drow Magic ability instead of just getting two more skills.