Thought on the yearly Core Books

[Lord Mhoram]

While looking at the thread on "which race would you hate to be the secret race" a thought came to me.

We are going to get a setting book a year.

We are going to get a set of three core books a year.

I wouldn't be surprised is info that is tied to that setting, but easily adopted for general use ending up in the core books that year. Say Eberron comes out, and in the MM there are a bunch of monsters that fit Eberron (but useful to any D&D game). The PH has Warforged, Shifters and whatnot as new races. The artificer as a new class. Generic versions of "dragonmarked" as power source, and new classes and magic items that fit that.

Then the setting book could assume that the players and GMs have those books, and not include that in the Setting book - leaving more details for the specific setting there, and a fair amount of the crunch in the core books.

Just a thought.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Depends on what's in the setting books.

For example, the current Eberron book has all the racial info.

The real thing I'm worried about is these yearly core books being compenediums from Dragon since we know WoTC has mentioned that there will be compilations. Why should they have to think twice, especially since they know that with the limited internet audience and the sell out of the previous best of dragon, there is a potentially huge audience.

I'm also wondering if these yearly books will take the place of the various complete xxx and races of yyy books or if we'll get those in addition to the yearly core.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Depends on what's in the setting books.

For example, the current Eberron book has all the racial info.

The real thing I'm worried about is these yearly core books being compenediums from Dragon since we know WoTC has mentioned that there will be compilations. Why should they have to think twice, especially since they know that with the limited internet audience and the sell out of the previous best of dragon, there is a potentially huge audience.

I'm also wondering if these yearly books will take the place of the various complete xxx and races of yyy books or if we'll get those in addition to the yearly core.

Hadn't thought of the Dragon angle. I suspect anything that is in the complete and race books are what is going to populate the yearly core.

And while the current Eberron has all that, does that mean that the future one will - that is what I was thinking. And there is only going to be one Setting book for a particular setting, having extra info and support in the Core (mostly crunch) will allow more setting development in the setting book, and a motivation to buy that year's core stuff.

I don't know that it would be a bad thing necessarily but different.

 

[Abstraction]

I wouldn't have a problem with this approach, if for instance, setting 6 only assumes you have PHB1, MM1, DMG1 and PHB6, MM6, DMG6. This might actually get rid of a problem in 3.5 where all supplements assume that you do NOT have any other supplements and thus make it hard to integrate new ideas like warlock. At the same time, we don't want happened in 2nd edition where the supplements used everything from every supplement and the only way you could run anything is if you owned everything.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I wouldn't have a problem with this approach, if for instance, setting 6 only assumes you have PHB1, MM1, DMG1 and PHB6, MM6, DMG6. This might actually get rid of a problem in 3.5 where all supplements assume that you do NOT have any other supplements and thus make it hard to integrate new ideas like warlock. At the same time, we don't want happened in 2nd edition where the supplements used everything from every supplement and the only way you could run anything is if you owned everything.

And yet, it's rare for a core setting book to assume you have anything out of the core three...

Wonder if that'll change.

I wouldn't mind if they didn't act like you didn't have any other book and edited their products so that it either repeated the same information for feats and PrCs or just referred you to that other book as opposed to making up another luck feat or another +2 to two skills feat.

 

[Wepwawet]

We are going to get a set of three core books a year.

Come on...
This rumour was dismissed the next day it was published!!!
There will be NO set of core books every year

Edit: found the link

 

[TwinBahamut]

Come on...
This rumour was dismissed the next day it was published!!!
There will be NO set of core books every year

Edit: found the link

Err... This "rumor" was around since the 4E announcement. Your "dismissal" is just a clarification that the new books each year will be totally new books with new rules, rather than a modified reprint of the old rules.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Err... This "rumor" was around since the 4E announcement. Your "dismissal" is just a clarification that the new books each year will be totally new books with new rules, rather than a modified reprint of the old rules.

Yeah, what he said. PHB 2, DMG 2, MM2 the second year, ect.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I wouldn't have a problem with this approach, if for instance, setting 6 only assumes you have PHB1, MM1, DMG1 and PHB6, MM6, DMG6. This might actually get rid of a problem in 3.5 where all supplements assume that you do NOT have any other supplements and thus make it hard to integrate new ideas like warlock. At the same time, we don't want happened in 2nd edition where the supplements used everything from every supplement and the only way you could run anything is if you owned everything.

That could be cool. I really don't have a problem with the approach either - I just noticed a possibility in cross marketing that I hadn't seen anyone discuss before. I was making no value judgment.

As someone who prefers all the crunch in the game system, and the setting being a completely different book, I would actually like that kind of thing.

 

[Christoph the Magus]

I don't like it, as it seems clear to me that default assuption for a module will be that you have all of the "core" books. This will likely make any modules published after the first year unusable for me since I can't imagine that I'll buy more than the 3 main core books.

I also suspect that some of the classes (like druid and bard) are being intentionally withheld so as to increase sales of the new "core books". Sure, there will be 3rd party fixes for druids, bards, etc, but once the "official" versions come out the third party versions will be dropping like flies.