D&D 5E What kind of planar book do you hope for?
- Thread starter Mercurius
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TiwazTyrsfist
Adventurer
I'd really like a Spelljammer setting book and to have that integrate into Adventurer's Leagues next couple seasons.
I'd also accept a Planescape Setting book the same way.
I'd also accept any of the other options, but the first two things in that order are my preference.
I'm currently at a point where my opinion in general is either A> A book needs to be AL legal and provide player options to make it worth my money, or B> I have all this stuff from 2nd and 3rd edition I can adapt from I don't need a book for this for home games. But that is, as I say, just my current position.
I'd also accept a Planescape Setting book the same way.
I'd also accept any of the other options, but the first two things in that order are my preference.
I'm currently at a point where my opinion in general is either A> A book needs to be AL legal and provide player options to make it worth my money, or B> I have all this stuff from 2nd and 3rd edition I can adapt from I don't need a book for this for home games. But that is, as I say, just my current position.
I would like one hardcover book for each outer plane. Mind you, not a single book for Gehenna, or the Abyss, but a book for each level of each plane.
I plan on getting an entire room outfitted with bookshelves just for the abyss; personally, I am looking forward to some quality time with Volume 66.
I plan on getting an entire room outfitted with bookshelves just for the abyss; personally, I am looking forward to some quality time with Volume 66.
Ath-kethin
Elder Thing
Was it? I bailed on 4e long before they got that far into it, so I don't know. I've heard people talking about Spelljammers using the Astral plane, which to my mind absolutely defeats the point of Spelljammer.
ZeshinX
Adventurer
I don't hope for anything inparticular with a planar book. I've never found planar stuff all that compelling to be honest (adventuring-wise) and find the descriptions offered in the various PHBs/DMGs sufficient.
That being said, I do enjoy reading about the various planes and how they're organized, their denizens, how/why planar beings interact with mortal/material beings, etc. So I suppose I'd enjoy those elements of a planar book, but little beyond that. I like my adventuring almost entirely terrestrial, though a brief sojourn to a planar place can be rewarding (think rescuing Haer'Dalis and his friends from the planar prison in BG2 for the type of brief planar sojourn I speak of).
That being said, I do enjoy reading about the various planes and how they're organized, their denizens, how/why planar beings interact with mortal/material beings, etc. So I suppose I'd enjoy those elements of a planar book, but little beyond that. I like my adventuring almost entirely terrestrial, though a brief sojourn to a planar place can be rewarding (think rescuing Haer'Dalis and his friends from the planar prison in BG2 for the type of brief planar sojourn I speak of).
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I dunno about spelljammers in 4E, I don't remember them at all, but since 1E or earlier, there have been spelljammer-like ships which travelled in the Astral plane, so perhaps that is what is being referred to?
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Re: a planar sourcebook in general, I think the options presented show how difficult this would be to do right.
A lot of people here like the idea of a "toolbox" type, but that hasn't really been how 5E has been designed (despite optional stuff in the DMG, and the variable approach to cosmology), and whilst it would support more campaigns, I'm skeptical that it would actually be particularly successful or at all useful to most DMs.
I think what's a lot more likely is an approach which picks a cosmology and runs with it, and makes it a playable setting, not just a place high level adventurers go sometimes and low-level adventurers freak out about. What that cosmology would be is harder to say. Planescape is, ironically, more like a Magic setting than a D&D one in some ways. So you could have what some people have suggested and the ol' reverse tie-in, where they go with Planescape, and also put out a Magic set based on it around the same time or soon thereafter. I doubt this will happen because I strongly suspect the Magic team somewhat consider D&D's settings/IP material, and indeed that of pretty much everyone else, to be "beneath them". Also, arguably a Sigil-centric Planescape would kind of make Ravnica look bad, because Ravnica is kind of Sigil turned down to 6, and I really suspect the Magic team (who I think have been higher up the pecking order at WotC than the D&D team) would not appreciate that. I think they want to keep this strictly one way, which Magic stuff appearing in D&D, but not vice-versa.
That said, I might be completely wrong, the people running Magic may be very different to those of earlier eras, and with D&D's success over the last few years, things may have changed.
Personally I'm hoping for Planescape-centric, just think it's unlikely. Failing that, Planescape/Spelljammer mash-up. Failing that, a totally revised, modernised and re-thought Spelljammer.
A lot of people here like the idea of a "toolbox" type, but that hasn't really been how 5E has been designed (despite optional stuff in the DMG, and the variable approach to cosmology), and whilst it would support more campaigns, I'm skeptical that it would actually be particularly successful or at all useful to most DMs.
I think what's a lot more likely is an approach which picks a cosmology and runs with it, and makes it a playable setting, not just a place high level adventurers go sometimes and low-level adventurers freak out about. What that cosmology would be is harder to say. Planescape is, ironically, more like a Magic setting than a D&D one in some ways. So you could have what some people have suggested and the ol' reverse tie-in, where they go with Planescape, and also put out a Magic set based on it around the same time or soon thereafter. I doubt this will happen because I strongly suspect the Magic team somewhat consider D&D's settings/IP material, and indeed that of pretty much everyone else, to be "beneath them". Also, arguably a Sigil-centric Planescape would kind of make Ravnica look bad, because Ravnica is kind of Sigil turned down to 6, and I really suspect the Magic team (who I think have been higher up the pecking order at WotC than the D&D team) would not appreciate that. I think they want to keep this strictly one way, which Magic stuff appearing in D&D, but not vice-versa.
That said, I might be completely wrong, the people running Magic may be very different to those of earlier eras, and with D&D's success over the last few years, things may have changed.
Personally I'm hoping for Planescape-centric, just think it's unlikely. Failing that, Planescape/Spelljammer mash-up. Failing that, a totally revised, modernised and re-thought Spelljammer.
Ash Mantle
Adventurer
Could we get something like a Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, Eberron Rising from the Last War, and Mythic Odyssey's of Theros, but for a combined Planes and Spelljammer book? That'd truly be glorious!
Helldritch
Hero
As long as we get something, I don't truly care which approach they will take. The open source book would be great, but something like planescape would make me happy too.
Shroomy
Adventurer
I'd imagine any 5e planar book would be an examination of the Inner Planes, Ethereal/Astral Planes, and Outer Planes in the Great Wheel configuration (with nods to demiplanes, the Far Realm, and alternate cosmologies like the World Axis and Mystara's) heavily influenced by the Planescape setting - just like every other planar book published in 2e, 3e, and 5e (and 4e too, since it borrowed concepts from PS).
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