Unearthed Arcana Why UA Psionics are never going to work in 5e.

[Guest 6801328]

I'm not familiar with a Blood Hunter but it's certainly not from an "official" book.

Before thinking about it I would have put your group in the extreme minority (Using the main books only) however with more thought I suspect there are a LOT of new groups and on-and-off groups that also do the same.

Huh. I’ve got zero insight for you. My group is neither new nor on-and-off again. But N = 1.

My next question for you is....do some of the players WANT to use the additional content you aren't using (like Xanathar's) and get outvoted or do the players just not have an interest in buying/reading/adding additional content?

No idea. Hasn’t been discussed. But we do use Xanathar’s. Not sure how I gave the impression we aren’t. It’s neither homebrew nor 3rd party. SCAG, too.

EDIT: ah I see, I didn’t read your first questions very carefully. I thought you were just asking about 3rd party.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

@Elfcrusher

You had mentioned previously you preferred a game that has a "narrow" selection of player choice to maintain some focus. The reasoning behind my questions was to try to understand what this meant in your actual game group. It sounds like as it stands now for your group, you are using the PHB, Xanathars, and some of the content from the SCAG. I would say that your group describes my group, although we use the PHB,Xanathars, and the races from the monster books instead of the SCAG.

If I were describing your table I would describe it as "like most long term 5e games" in terms of the amount of player content, not "narrow" moreso than 5e is by its nature very "narrow" when it comes to character options.

Just trying to understand your position better, i'm not trying to lure you into some sort of GOTCHA trap or anything.

 

[Guest 6801328]

@Elfcrusher

You had mentioned previously you preferred a game that has a "narrow" selection of player choice to maintain some focus. The reasoning behind my questions was to try to understand what this meant in your actual game group. It sounds like as it stands now for your group, you are using the PHB, Xanathars, and some of the content from the SCAG. I would say that your group describes my group, although we use the PHB,Xanathars, and the races from the monster books instead of the SCAG.

If I were describing your table I would describe it as "like most long term 5e games" in terms of the amount of player content, not "narrow" moreso than 5e is by its nature very "narrow" when it comes to character options.

Just trying to understand your position better, i'm not trying to lure you into some sort of GOTCHA trap or anything.

I definitely would not call the way my group plays my preferred style. We splintered off from an official DDAL group, but for the most part stick with DDAL rules for characters.

We take turns DMing, and sometimes we split into sub-groups. I recently DM’d Dragon Heist with 4 players, and we intentionally went with the classic 4: Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard. It was great.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not familiar with a Blood Hunter but it's certainly not from an "official" book.

Matt Mercer's homebrew class. It has been editted a few times and is currently on DnD Beyond, so fairly official

 

[Maxperson]

Not counting individual adventures or accessories....

1st Edition had 14 books
2nd Edition had 70+ books
3rd Edition had 50+ books
4th Edition had 45+ books
5th Edition has 23+ books

*Data taken from hastily counting things in the Wikipedia entry for List of Dungeons and Dragons Rulebooks.

5th doesn't really have 23 books. Most of those are just hard covered modules.

 

[Guest 6801328]

@Elfcrusher

If I were describing your table I would describe it as "like most long term 5e games" in terms of the amount of player content, not "narrow" moreso than 5e is by its nature very "narrow" when it comes to character options.

From what are you deriving your conclusions about “most long term games”? I mean, I think you’re probably right but I’m totally guessing. My dataset is fewer than 10.

 

[Dire Bare]

Matt Mercer's homebrew class. It has been editted a few times and is currently on DnD Beyond, so fairly official

The Blood Hunter class is pretty cool, but hardly official. At best, quasi-official? WotC partnered with Critical Role (Mercer's group/franchise) to produce the Wildemount book, and the Blood Hunter is from the same campaign but was not in that book. The Blood Hunter is, of course, on D&D Beyond, but that service is a D&D licensee, and not a part of WotC.

Semantics, perhaps. And, to a degree, who cares what is and is not official? The Critical Role material is interesting in that it is spread out between WotC, Green Ronin, D&D Beyond, the DM's Guild, and the Critical Role stream itself. The CR crew is certainly everybody's darling at the moment, and it's well deserved.

I would love if D&D Beyond would implement campaign "folders" (containers?) for the game data, and publish the remaining CR content gathered in one place (partnering with CR, Green Ronin, and WotC).

 

[gyor]

No, not really. A Sorcerer controls and uses the exact same magical energies as a Wizard. They just come into it naturally, rather than having to train to control the power. Think of a child prodigy pianist versus a music-school trained pianist. They may play just as well as each other and are using the same skills/talents, but one "just does it" while the other had to train.

The Divine Soul Sorcerer uses Divine Magic instead of Arcane unlike other Sorcerers (although I can see an arguement that Shadow Sorcerers use Shadow Magic instead).

And I think their powers come from a magical spark in their soul, so it's innate, but it's more then just talent, it's apart of them. Sorcerers blur the lines between their race and something else, something more then humaniods.

 

[gyor]

Honest answer. Since the beginning of the 5e era which of the following have you seen more often in the circles in which you discuss Dungeons & Dragons?

1. I want there to be a fleshed out psionic class.
2. I want there to be a fleshed out Magic the Gathering setting.

Ravnica was a MtG turned D&D setting, but calling it fleshed out is an over statement, it over focused on the guilds, left out some of the coolest monsters, and missed an opportunity to explore elements that get ignored by the main story of, Ravnica, like the Ravnica cards that aren't linked to a Guild. Plus it could have branched out beyond the the central location, it's supposed to be a planet sized city, a Ecumenopolis, but it just doesn't really feel like one.

Don't get me wrong, Ravnica is cool, but with a higher page count it could have been better and the fact that what makes sense to focus on for a MtG card set, is not what should be the main focus of a D&D book.

At least from what I've heard about Theros it sounds like they figured this out, and fleshed the whole setting out better. Ravnica, Eberron, the SCAG, Wildemount, Curse of Strahd, and so on were learning experiences. I think Theros could be a E: RftLW tier book.

 

[gyor]

This is the biggest issue I have with the Unearthed Arcana surveys. (And polls in general; you don't need to look far to see parallels in this behavior and the behavior of voters.) There are better strategies for measuring excitement and collecting feedback. @Fenris-77 is right: WotC needs to not give so much weight to negative feedback on these surveys and find a way to focus on the positive.

It also doesn't help that they often don't give us the context for classes. And that they give up way, way too easily.