UA to Become Weekly! Pendleton Ward Helped On New AP!

WotC is currently at Gamehole Con, a convention in the US Midwest. According to a GameholeCon attendee at one of WotC's D&D panels, featuring Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, and Mike Mearls, Unearthed Arcana (Mike Mearl's monthly rules column) is going to become a weekly column. Not only that, Sage Advice will be pausing for a while while Jeremy Crawford joins Mearls on the UA columns. There will be a new Unearthed Arcana every Monday, with the next being three new barbarian options.

WotC's Chris Perkins also said that "The next D&D story is *not* based on Adventure Time. However, Pendleton Ward did help us create it." Ward is, of course, the creator of the US cartoon Adventure Time.

Photo courtesy of @BasementofDeath
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[Pauper]

I'm not sure how much of their UA stuff has become hardcopy-AL-legal yet, but my impression is that it's a very small amount.

And you'd be right.

Of the class-based options previewed in Unearthed Arcana, only one -- the storm sorcerer -- has made it into a hard-cover sourcebook. Given that ten playable races were included in Volo's Guide, you might expect at least one of them to have been an Unearthed Arcana subject, but no: changelings, warforged, minotaurs, and variant tieflings all appeared in UA, but none of them made Volo's Guide.

And I'm OK with that -- of the four UA races that could have been included, three were strongly identified with a setting that wasn't the Forgotten Realms. It's nice to see the designers rejecting the 4e-era 'everything must be usable in every game' attitude that made all the different worlds of D&D seem to run together into a bland mush.

If I have a criticism of the approach, it seems to me that much too much weight is put on characters that supposedly have a nostalgia appeal (Volo, Minsc, etc.); FR fiction authors are coming up with interesting new characters in each book, and there are plenty of NPCs in the hard-cover adventures that could really use some extra fleshing-out. I'm not sure we need to revisit Planescape or Dragonlance, but if we do, let's at least view those settings through fresh eyes, and maybe allow a new generation of players to find something of their own to like in those settings.

--
Pauper

 

[Demetrios1453]

Think one of the APs in the pipeline will be Modron-centric, based on the core books obsession with them and hints from Perkins, and wouldn't be surprised to see "Volos Guide to the Planes."

I 100% agree with both of your assumptions here. VGtM stated they plan on looking into fiends in the future, so I imagine that "Volo's Guide to the Planes" would do deep dives on fiends and celestials at least. Possibly modrons, slaad, and elementals as well, but I'm not sure how must monster lore stuff you can squeeze in there and still do a fairly comprehensive guide to the planes, although presumably the "beastiary" section will be somewhat smaller - you could probably fully update most planar creatures in 50 - 60 pages instead of 100 like on VGtM

 

[bedir than]

And you'd be right.

Of the class-based options previewed in Unearthed Arcana, only one -- the storm sorcerer -- has made it into a hard-cover sourcebook. Given that ten playable races were included in Volo's Guide, you might expect at least one of them to have been an Unearthed Arcana subject, but no: changelings, warforged, minotaurs, and variant tieflings all appeared in UA, but none of them made Volo's Guide.

And I'm OK with that -- of the four UA races that could have been included, three were strongly identified with a setting that wasn't the Forgotten Realms. It's nice to see the designers rejecting the 4e-era 'everything must be usable in every game' attitude that made all the different worlds of D&D seem to run together into a bland mush.

If I have a criticism of the approach, it seems to me that much too much weight is put on characters that supposedly have a nostalgia appeal (Volo, Minsc, etc.); FR fiction authors are coming up with interesting new characters in each book, and there are plenty of NPCs in the hard-cover adventures that could really use some extra fleshing-out. I'm not sure we need to revisit Planescape or Dragonlance, but if we do, let's at least view those settings through fresh eyes, and maybe allow a new generation of players to find something of their own to like in those settings.

--
Pauper

Swashbuckler made SCAG.

There's been a lot of talk of Luskan in SCAG, Volo's, etc. I think that the minotaur as mariner and other pirate type stuff makes an AP soon.

 

[Shroomy]

The UA Barbarian PDF is available if you can figure out it's URL; I'm assuming the article will be up shortly.

 

[Prakriti]

The UA Barbarian PDF is available if you can figure out it's URL; I'm assuming the article will be up shortly.

Did I figure it out?

http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Barbarian.pdf

 

[Xeviat]

Did I figure it out?

http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Barbarian.pdf

On the surface, I like it!


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[flametitan]

I'm not sure what to think of the flavour of these, (I have minor concerns that the zealot path is starting to tread on the toes of the Paladin and Cleric) but rage beyond death seems like an amazing Path capstone.

 

[Corwin]

Oh, thank the gods we will be getting a whole lotta new options soon. Not that it will stifle those incessantly crying for more. Because it will either not be the *particular* options the want, or it won't be done in the *exact way* they wanted. I just hope its useful and fun for those of us who actually *like* 5e.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

On the surface, I like it!


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Me too.

 

[Corwin]

Did I figure it out?

http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Barbarian.pdf

Ooooo! I really like the Zealot!