D&D 5E What would 5E be like if the playtest's modularity promise was kept?

[Maxperson]

hey if we could get a Birthright (or BR like) setting book with mass combat and a Darksun (or DS like) setting with tactical impressive martial options I wouldn't mind so much

I would buy Dark Sun if it gave me a Psion and some more psionic subclasses for the other classes.

 

[Maxperson]

I get tired of this argument.

It's a game. Developed by a company with the goal of selling product. It may be the McDonalds of the TTRPG world or the Honda/Toyota instead of some obscure Indian/Mexican/Asian fusion restaurant that sells sushi tacos with chutney you personally love. It's not a Ferrari that really only makes sense on a race track.

Obviously it works well for millions of people, with more people playing every year for a decade. It is a quality product, if it weren't it wouldn't sell. It may just not work for you.

Here's quality for you!

"Eating McDonald's regularly — and fast food in general — isn't a sustainable diet. The 2004 documentary Super Size Me followed documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock as he ate three meals a day at the fast-food chain for 30 days. He gained almost 25 pounds and was told he suffered from irreversible heart damage."

There are a great many quality(real quality) foods that I could eat like that for 30 days and be better off for it at the end.

 

[Parmandur]

Here's quality for you!

"Eating McDonald's regularly — and fast food in general — isn't a sustainable diet. The 2004 documentary Super Size Me followed documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock as he ate three meals a day at the fast-food chain for 30 days. He gained almost 25 pounds and was told he suffered from irreversible heart damage."

There are a great many quality(real quality) foods that I could eat like that for 30 days and be better off for it at the end.

I like the Mexican food analogy: homey and basic ingredients, very customizable, not usually "fancy" or "complex."

 

[Parmandur]

Goodness I was worried about the Lunar Sorcerer with the initial Krynn playtest. Glad it survived. I am now totally worried on what will be the fate of the Squire/Knight of Solamnia background/feats.

I have a good feeling about the Background Feat change.

 

[Maxperson]

Xanathar's and Tasha's are this entirely, and frankly I disagree that the Setting books aren't modular. Heck, the Adventures often include significant rules modules (Rune magic in SKT, for example, vehicles in Ghoats of Saltmarsh, etc.).

New rules don't equate to modules. Modules imply the ability to remove a major portion of the game and insert a new version of it. Remove races as presented in the PHB and put in place a completely new race module. Simply providing new rules for floating bonuses doesn't cut it. That's not a module, but an optional rule(soon to be the default). The optional rule to use point buy is not a module, either. Feats is major enough to be considered to be a module I suppose, but there are very few such modules in 5e and they are spread out in products you may not want to buy.

A few mostly hard to access modules =/= a modular edition.

 

[Maxperson]

Or is it they just didn't go far enough with the modularity you specifically wanted?

They didn't go far enough to achieve the modularity talked about the OP quote from Cook.

 

[Parmandur]

New rules don't equate to modules. Modules imply the ability to remove a major portion of the game and insert a new version of it. Remove races as presented in the PHB and put in place a completely new race module. Simply providing new rules for floating bonuses doesn't cut it. That's not a module, but an optional rule(soon to be the default). The optional rule to use point buy is not a module, either. Feats is major enough to be considered to be a module I suppose, but there are very few such modules in 5e and they are spread out in products you may not want to buy.

A few mostly hard to access modules =/= a modular edition.

That's precisely what a module is, though. They could remove the Rave or Class system from the game, if they wanted to: Mearls actually ran some Gamma World games at Coms that replaced both with a old timer Gamma World approach, and the system would support a point buy system (because, spoilers, Rave and Class are point buy packages). They haven't done as many modules as the rules can support, because of demand more than anything.

 

[Parmandur]

They didn't go far enough to achieve the modularity talked about the OP quote from Cook.

Herethe thing: they made a system that could go there, but by the end of the playtest they didn't see a need to go all the way there. Can 4E combat be put in 5E? Yeah. Can 5E support a Warlord? If desired. But the desire was not there, and they adjusted the final product to work for the audience they had.

 

[Maxperson]

That's precisely what a module is, though. They could remove the Rave or Class system from the game, if they wanted to: Mearls actually ran some Gamma World games at Coms that replaced both with a old timer Gamma World approach, and the system would support a point buy system (because, spoilers, Rave and Class are point buy packages). They haven't done as many modules as the rules can support, because of demand more than anything.

They could. Where are the modules to replace it? I haven't seen any.

 

[Maxperson]

Herethe thing: they made a system that could go there, but by the end of the playtest they didn't see a need to go all the way there. Can 4E combat be put in 5E? Yeah. Can 5E support a Warlord? If desired. But the desire was not there, and they adjusted the final product to work for the audience they had.

Whatever reason they had, they didn't go where they said they would and a lot of us were really exited over the prospect of the modules. I love 5e. I'm still really disappointed that it's not modular in the way that they said it would be.