D&D 5E Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: Player Content Guesses

[CrusaderX]

I wonder if they will modify the Realms list of deities to better match 5e rules. For example, Tempest is a popular Cleric Domain. But there are only three FR gods in the PHB that have Tempest as their domain, and all three of these gods are evil. I would guess they might add the Tempest domain to a few good or neutral gods, or bring in a few new gods to give players more choices to pick from.

 

[gyor]

I could see adding Tempest to Silvanus and Akadi for example. They may add they're own domains in this book as well.

 

[Wik]

More like better structure to what each renown rank entail. For example if you are rank 2 what does it mean in the game world? Is there something the player can strive to? That sort of thing.

Warder

I believe it goes something like this (going from AL notes, mostly)

Rank 1: Nothing.
Rank 2: You get a patron who gives you secret quests and whatnot.
Rank 3: You get a new downtime activity. Plus you get some sort of perk that's fairly mild.
Rank 4: You get a role within the organization. People you can hire, resources you can draw upon.
Rank 5: You become a guild leader. What this means isn't revealed yet.

 

[Wik]

Personally, I hope the book has a bit of new stuff. I loved the spells in PotA, for example... it was my favourite part of the book (my girlfriend loves the genasi).

Just speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some FR-specific stuff in there. Spellplague stuff, if that's still going on. Definitely some sort of gish... swordmage would be awesome (it was one of my favourite classes from 4e, although maybe it's stepping on Eldritch Knight toes). I'd expect some class support for the Sorcerer (Favoured Soul?), Ranger (who knows what, but they know the fans don't really like it much), and I'd expect some sort of Bardic subclass. It'll probably have a bit of Realms stuff, but not as much as people will think... it'll be more along the lines of "here's the sword coast. And here's some ideas on how to convert it to your own game, or, hey, Dark Sun! Just, um, turn the ocean into silt, Elminster's a dragon king, and, uh, Waterdeep's now a slave tribe. Oh, and the harpers are now cacti. Yeah, that could work."

 

[CrusaderX]

They've been talking about a redesigned Ranger for awhile now. Maybe it will debut in this book?

 

[Staffan]

They've been talking about a redesigned Ranger for awhile now. Maybe it will debut in this book?

I highly doubt it. Any redesigned ranger is likely to show up in Unearthed Arcana first, and I don't think there's time for an UA (next of which would be in September), followed by a survey a month later, and then incorporating the feedback in time for a November book.

 

[CrusaderX]

I highly doubt it. Any redesigned ranger is likely to show up in Unearthed Arcana first, and I don't think there's time for an UA (next of which would be in September), followed by a survey a month later, and then incorporating the feedback in time for a November book.

I wonder how they determine which new subclasses get the UA treatment and which ones do not. Obviously, we don't have time for things like the Purple Dragon Knight and the Bladesinger to be in UA first and to go through user playtesting, though these have been confirmed to be in the new Sword Coast book.

 

[lvl20dm]

At one point during the playtest, Mearls mentioned the idea that the PHB domains would be a default with setting and god specific domains coming later. So we have the knowledge domain to cover a set of gods, but an FR book might have an Oghma or Denier domain.

I think cleric domains are generally an easy area for expansion that probably wouldn't require too much plsytesting.

 

[Staffan]

I wonder how they determine which new subclasses get the UA treatment and which ones do not. Obviously, we don't have time for things like the Purple Dragon Knight and the Bladesinger to be in UA first and to go through user playtesting, though these have been confirmed to be in the new Sword Coast book.

I think subclasses in general don't need all that much playtesting, because they're pretty limited and usually follow some form of pattern. Cleric domains may be the most formulaic ones (bonus spells prepared at spell levels 1-5, some proficiencies and/or cantrips at level 1, a Channel Divinity at level 2, another Channel Divinity or other significant ability at level 6, either +1d8 to weapon attacks or +Wis to cantrip damage at level 8, and a powerful new ability at level 17), but others often follow some other theme, and all of them at least have structures common to each class where abilities are granted at level X, Y, and Z.

So far, Unearthed Arcana has offered three different subclasses (Artificer wizard, Swashbuckler rogue, and Storm sorcerer), and the only one that's been poorly received has been the Artificer wizard - and that was not because of power level concerns, but because it was trying to be something different than the Eberron artificer class has traditionally been.

 

[Remathilis]

So far, Unearthed Arcana has offered three different subclasses (Artificer wizard, Swashbuckler rogue, and Storm sorcerer), and the only one that's been poorly received has been the Artificer wizard - and that was not because of power level concerns, but because it was trying to be something different than the Eberron artificer class has traditionally been.

A little of both actually. The bulk of the people who complained were doing so from the position of it not filling the Eberron artificer's original role(s), but there was a fair amount of complaint centered around it being too weak and actually making your character less effective.

UA also did offer the Favored Soul as well, and that was (generally) well received.