D&D 5E What would you like to see in 5e books?

[Fenris-77]

I really want some Planejammer action. I don't see both Planescape and Spelljammer getting separate releases, so why not portmanteau them into one thing? This isn't the first time I've mentioned this, but I do think it would be awesome. Just mash them up and pour a little Treasure Planet over the top and serve piping hot.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I really want some Planejammer action. I don't see both Planescape and Spelljammer getting separate releases, so why not portmanteau them into one thing? This isn't the first time I've mentioned this, but I do think it would be awesome. Just mash them up and pour a little Treasure Planet over the top and serve piping hot.

I'm not like, opposed to this, but how would it work? Because they have these fundamentally different approaches to travel, it's like Dr Who (Planescape) and Firefly (Spelljammer) being mashed up. They also have these fundamentally different settings. Planescape is all about the planes, Sigil, the Lady of Pain, the Factions, the Blood War, the Modron March and all these struggles over ideology and concepts. Spelljammer is much more trad/light-hearted, with villainous spider-eels and mind flayers, straight-backed, stuffy elves (standing in for the British Empire, I feel, somewhat), and all sorts of over-the-top stuff like the Giff and space hamsters. It doesn't really have a central conflict and it's all a bit unfocused.

I guess for me I'd basically want to overwrite a lot of the Spelljammer stuff with PS stuff. Like the Blood War could be fought with badass spaceships in hell-space (fits with the Mad Max deal in Avernus). The Modrons could have massive fleets of differently-sized and shaped and very precisely ordered ships, and so on. You could take the Neogi and Giff and that lot and make them into minor but memorable parts. Sigil becomes a massive space-station. People travel between crystal spheres with massive portals, over which battles take place and so on.

Hmmm I guess I see it could be done.

More precisely on-topic, what I want to see is:

1) Another Xanathars-style book.

2) More monsters. By all means many of them can be variants of existing monsters, but I love that lore stuff too.

3) Magic item and spells focused book. More spells, more items, more stuff on crafting items, including 2E-style awesome-crafting (where you have adventures to go and get stuff).

4) Planescape - I will accept a general Planar book if it puts the Factions back in Sigil and does Sigil some justice. See if you can find the cash to commission a couple of pieces of art from DiTerlizzi (maybe cover?). He's still amazing.

5) Dark Sun - Come on. And it should include a Psion and Psi or Dark Sun subclasses for all classes (Clerics don't need Psi subclasses, but they do need Elemental Priest and Templar subclasses).

6) Rules for level 20-30 play - could be in the Xanathars book, or in an epic adventure (probably fit the latter better and get me to finally buy an adventure).

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, I was thinking that some of the goofier elements of Spelljammer could be replaced by Planescape content. The Spelljammer of old doesn't, IMO. translate all that well as-is to 5e play in tone or execution. However, the idea of magic ships sailing the planes is still awesome. It also gives a prospective book a nice mechanical focus for something new. The whole airship thing is useful in a whole lot of contexts and I think people would buy the book just for that bit. Even if the book was more a Manual of the Planes plus a re-worked Spelljammer with some Planescape story laid on top where necessary it would be awesome, and then Planescape could be its own thing.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, I was thinking that some of the goofier elements of Spelljammer could be replaced by Planescape content. The Spelljammer of old doesn't, IMO. translate all that well as-is to 5e play in tone or execution. However, the idea of magic ships sailing the planes is still awesome. It also gives a prospective book a nice mechanical focus for something new. The whole airship thing is useful in a whole lot of contexts and I think people would buy the book just for that bit. Even if the book was more a Manual of the Planes plus a re-worked Spelljammer with some Planescape story laid on top where necessary it would be awesome, and then Planescape could be its own thing.

I kind of like the idea of turning the Outlands/Concordant Opposition into a giant space dimension, with Sigil as a giant torus-shaped space station in the center. Different planes and layers look like planets and moons to land on. (Because the Outer Planes are non-Euclidian and primarily run on metaphor anyway.)

The scro operate out of the iron mines of Acherus. The neogi operate a slaving operation on Gehenna. The illithid run farms of humanoids driven mad by the winds in deep caverns on Pandemonium.

 

[FrozenNorth]

If they make a new setting book, I hope they keep the format of Wildemount where after each location they include one or two 4-line plot hooks.

Even if I don’t use the setting, I can mine the plothooks, and 4 lines is the perfect amount to spark an idea I can then run with.

 

[Stormonu]

I'll always take more monsters, and spells. More martial options would be nice, but I personally have no desire to see a Book of Nine Swords take on the fighter. Maybe a more 13th age take.

But what I'd like most of all is the re-introduction of old campaign worlds. Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Jakandor. Birthright, Hallow World, Mystara, Blackmoor (if they can), Nerath and even Mahasarpa (in that order).

I'd like to see a complete overhaul of Council of Wyrms that actually works - maybe start the dragon kin (i.e., dragons) off at about 5th level instead of trying to do 1st. Lean more into the bonded humanoid as the "hands" of the characters, with their dragon selves coming into the last act of the adventure when things spiral beyond their bonded humanoid's ability to handle the situation. And definately more intrigue - like a well-crafted World of Darkness troupe where the characters are often working at secret motivations for their dragons that may have them slightly at odds with one another, while still having to work together.

I'd also like to see a ground-up reimagining of Maztica and Karu-Tur, on their own world, less cardboard copies of their real-world analogs and more fantastical. Al-Qadim may fall here as well, though it feels less a copy of the middle east to me and more fantastical (maybe I'm just less familiar with those areas).

 

[Jester David]

I'd like the next couple rules expansions to be more focused. Tome of Foes was a mess and had no clear purpose. Was it a book of conflicting factions? Was it the book on the PC race lore? It had no idea. Stronger themes.

But honestly, I have more than enough content for years of play and a stack of homebrew. I don't want to repeat my mistake of Pathfinder and buy books for the sake of buying books.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'd like to have adventures using the published settings. I loved Ravnica, and Planescape looks awesome, its pretty hard to use published adventures in those settings beyond ''urban campaigns''. It would be a lot of work, for example, to play Storm King Thunder's or Dragon of Icespire peak in Ravnica.

Setting guides such as Wildemount and Eberron make it a little easier because, beyond their own aesthetic, they work well with the assumed medieval fantasy kitchen-sinky world of the published adventures.

Doesnt even need to be huge adventure path, a bundle of modules with a few potential adventures hooks tables at the end of the book would be nice.

 

[Undrave]

A book with enough player options I'm interested in to make it worth buying.

 

[Fenris447]

In terms of specific books, I think a Plamejammer/XGTE2 book is the best idea. I also happen to think it's our Q4 book this year.

But overall, I think 4-5 products a year is solid. Two adventure books per year, with either 1 collection of smaller adventures and one big path, or 2 connected adventures like ToD or Waterdeep. Then 2-3 more books. Those could be a setting book, a VGM/MTOF-style book, or an XGTE-style PHB2 book. Each has content for the DM, each has content for the player.

It's been this approach that made 5e so accessible and successful, and I don't think they should stop doing what's worked.