D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: Travelers of the Multiverse

New free content from WotC - the latest 4-page Unearthed Arcana introduces six new races: astral elf, autognome, giff, hadozee, plasmoid, and thri-kreen.

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

Looks like Spelljammer and/or Planescape is back on the menu!

 

[Chaosmancer]

You know, you can just decide that you want to run a Spelljammer game because you like it, and rule that your PCs dont know about Sigil, or that it doesn't exist. The presence of Sigil in the lore doesnt have to invalidate Spelljammer. It's a big tent people.

Never claimed otherwise. The entire point was the challenges of what happens if you combine them into a single setting.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't believe that was the original intent at all. The original intent was D&D in Spaaaaace! as a standalone setting. The connection to various settings seems more like an excuse to take existing characters into Spaaaaace! than to be some sort of transative device. Of course, because of that connection, travel between settings is also a possibility.

If that is true, then all I'm advocating is for more focus on "D&D in SPAAAAACE!", but I have always been informed that the main draw of Spelljammer was it being multiversal and allowing that travel. If I'm wrong, hey, I'm glad, because I think DnD in space has legs that can work, but you also need a solid reason to go into space.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So I actually am curious as to how to reconcile this, so did a bit of digging on Sigil and its portals here; Sigil - 1d4chan

It looks like the majority of portals require specific keys or are only temporary (sometimes both), meaning they can't be relied upon for free trade on a large scale. It also looks like most permanent portals are directly controlled by factions, who use them for specific purposes (ie not trade). For example, the Doomguard has four permanent portals to the Negative Energy plane in the armory, but they use that specifically to connect Sigil to their strongholds there.

My takeaways from this are that if I am a merchant, traveling through Sigil is very unreliable. I probably don't have access to permanent portals, and if I do it's from inside information from factions that are pretty loathe to share secrets. So trade is possible through Sigil, but only on a small-business scale of merchants tracking down temporary portals to maintain business.

If I'm a bigger trader who relies on larger scale, I can't build a business around this. Although trading via Spelljammer has its own risks, it is risk I can plan around. There are stable routes through the Phlogiston which are always traversable. There are raiders and pirates, but this I can plan around by hiring mercenaries, adventurers and the like.

Spelljammer has a lot of chaos, but there are permanent stable routes from world-to-world as well. So travel via Spelljammer is definitely possible, and can co-habit a world with Sigil and its infinite doors.

I don't see how "specific keys" prevents the free trade. I mean, the article refers to Sigil as an "interdimensional port city", and port cities existed because of trade.

The temporary portals do, I admit that, but I also don't see how Factions who have access to most of the permanent portals can't end up supporting trade that serves their purposes, they do still need coin after all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not trying to say they are the same. I just don't get why people are trying to argue wich is worse and shouldn't be published....

I haven't seen that argument at all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yeah, I don't get it either: I think thst people are viewing it as a zero sum situation thst threatens their preferredoption, but it really isn't.

Okay, this is the third reference to an argument I've never seen in this thread, and I'm getting a bizarre feeling.

Do you people think that my position is that Spelljammer shouldn't be published? I'd like to know how my actual stated position of "Spelljammer would be better served focusing on asteroid mining and other D&D in space stuff, while Planescape can focus on inter-planar and multiversal travel because portals are better for travel and trade between primes" somehow translates into "Spelljammer shouldn't exist."

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm going to specifically address this part... I started explaining trade in Sigil vs. Spelljammer because there's a poster on this thread who believes that because Sigil has portals, there is no reason for Spelljammer to exist. His opinion being that Sigil portals are always faster and safer than Spelljamming ships (which I don't think is true, but besides the point).

So I was addressing that, by talking about why one would want to trade using Spelljammer ships, and not with Sigil portals.

No, this is not my position. My position is that Spelljammer would have to be refocused from planar, intermultiversal travel and more into doing other things, like asteroid mining. How do people take that and say that Spelljammer shouldn't exist?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

No, this is not my position. My position is that Spelljammer would have to be refocused from planar, intermultiversal travel and more into doing other things, like asteroid mining. How do people take that and say that Spelljammer shouldn't exist?

Reading your posts, it did sound like your position, because I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) it looked like you wanted Spelljammer/Planescape in one book.

 

[Parmandur]

Okay, this is the third reference to an argument I've never seen in this thread, and I'm getting a bizarre feeling.

Do you people think that my position is that Spelljammer shouldn't be published? I'd like to know how my actual stated position of "Spelljammer would be better served focusing on asteroid mining and other D&D in space stuff, while Planescape can focus on inter-planar and multiversal travel because portals are better for travel and trade between primes" somehow translates into "Spelljammer shouldn't exist."

Not really speaking to you at all, but to the calls for "Planejammer" as a hybrid of the two, which are present in this thread.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I don't see how "specific keys" prevents the free trade. I mean, the article refers to Sigil as an "interdimensional port city", and port cities existed because of trade.

Largely because it makes it way easier for specific factions to control trade. It's like the troll sitting on a bridge demanding a toll... if the troll doesn't like you, or you don't pay the toll, you can't pass.

It doesn't prevent trade, but it puts limits on it that do not exist for Spelljamming (or at least, are harder to enforce for Spelljamming).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As for hitting ACs. +5 for stat, +6 for proficiency, +3 for weapon, +1d4 for bless and you are rolling +15 to +19, making an AC of 30 hittable 25-40% of the time. Bards can make that even easier.

I also wouldn't read too much into what the designers do. They tend to place self-imposed limits on themselves that DMs don't have, so even if they only give a max of AC 25, that doesn't mean that DMs shouldn't exceed that. It just means that given the range of different gaming styles out there, a 25 is as high as they want to go since all styles will encounter the official stuff.

IMO having a hard cap at 30 is really good exactly because high level characters can cooperate to make it “easy” to hit that. IMO the target numbers shouldn’t ever exceed what can be made totally doable by an epic character within their specialization with some help from their friends.