D&D 1E What 1e Books Should Make a 5e Comeback?

[hawkeyefan]

They could easily combine Manual of the Planes along with Deities and Demigods. I voted for that.

Unearthed Arcanna would be fine as a collection of player options and possibly some alternate rules. Maybe incorporate psionics into that.

Wilderness and dungeoneer survival guides could be combined and have backgrounds and archetypes that fit those settings. I'd be okay with that.

Having said all that, though, I actually feel that none of it is necessary. I've been using all kinds of material from prior editions for my 5E campaign so far. All of the fluff already exists, and the crunch is pretty easy to convert. So if they did publish any of those books, I'd likely get them...but I'm fine if they just continue with their current approach.

I suppose the only book that we could say might be necessary would be a second monster book, which I would call Fiend Folio. And if they needed a third down the line go with Creature Catalogue or something else like that.

 

[graves3141]

A new monster book would be nice. They should call it the Fiend Folio instead of Monster Manual II... that will help distinguish it from the core Monster Manual.

Also, I would like to see the two survival guide books (DSG and WSG) combined into one environmental supplement book. 3E had Stormwrack, Frostburn, Sandstorm, etc... I always felt that just one quality book covering multiple environments would have been better.

A new Manual of the Planes would be great, although I don't think we'll see it anytime soon. If they start making planar adventures, we're more likely to see something like a "Adventurer's Guide to the Planes" or something that fits along side the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. At least it would be something though.

An Unearthed Arcana book would also be great. The 3E version of this book was really awesome with tons of great variant ideas. I think a 5E version would be very welcomed by many people and could give us the options we're looking for in 5E. For me, this is preferable to a whole series of "Complete" books like we got in past editions.

Deities & Demigods would be nice too, but I think this book is even less likely to be produced than the previous ones I mentioned. WotC is more likely to spread out the Gods across multiple source books like Adventurer's Guide books instead of putting a bunch of them all in one place. Still, a well done version would be cool to have.

However, if WotC's goal is to sell a minimum of 100K copies of every book it produces, don't expect a bunch of supplements anytime soon.

 

[Nellisir]

Do you want to have twenty different tables to roll to figure out what the weather is? Eh, get those survivalist guides.

I'll bet you can still use a lot of the original WSG and DSG as is. Weather tables and random cave tables aren't things that are really subject to rules change, although the effects thereof may need adjustment.

That said, I was thinking more along the lines of wilderness and underdark campaigns, and less along the lines of random weather tables (although those have a place). Ways to make wilderness adventures work and pop. Different environments and things. I grew up in central New Hampshire, and my internal concept of "wilderness" (and particularly forest) is a lot different from someone from the Midwest or Florida, or even upstate NY where I live now. Every campaign setting ever published has seemed to me to lack trees, and you get a much different geography with granite than you do with limestone or shale. Not things I expect a WSG to delve in depth into, but features to consider.

 

[fuindordm]

Deities and Demigods hasn't been the most popular choice, but I voted for it. I think there's a lot of room to flesh out the differences between the clerics of different gods with unique domains, different uses of channel divinity, and so on. And I always liked the idea of specialty priests, and that clerics of, say, Njord and Thor, even if they both are "tempest" clerics, can still have a lot of difference between them.