D&D 5E Xanathar's Guide errata coming

[Nebulous]

when will this be updated on DnD Beyond? I looked at Healing Spirit and it still the old version

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ok, maybe it is not a big deal to you, maybe you are one of those maniacs that destroy books for fun. But I like to keep my books untainted and in one piece. It is very traumatic to me having to mess with them. (I likely have issues with this, but that is not the point here, besides I don't have drama queen in the description for no reason)

Look, and I mean this with the upmost respect for both books, and you.

Books aren’t sacred. It’s a copy of the actual thing, and the actual thing is the words and pictures. The ideas.

Books only ever became revered because they were rare and hard to make, and thus destroying* a book could easily mean that information was just lost. Forever.

You cannot make the information of the 5e phb be lost forever.

*actual destruction, not just dog ears and page inserts that only damage the spine theoretically, while in practice you will never in 100 years see any damage from it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's far and away better than every other patron for every type of Warlock.

It's not even close. It's just better.

Patrons usually have minor abilities. Hexblade gives you medium armour and shields. That alone is a bump of 4-5 AC and worth taking over any other patron.

The other patrons just use Mage Armor, and stay at range.

And no, they don’t have minor abilities. The Hexblade is not more powerful than the fiend or archfey, or the celestial.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm glad you found a friend but you're not making yourself look any better.

Bud, you’re the only one looking bad in that exchange.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What exact business principle are you referencing when you mention"running sustainable profits instead of trading long-term viability for short-term gain."? To be clear long-term gains are the goal, no one is disputed that as this is common sense but repeat business is the goal of a business and how businesses grow. MTG for example makes money of selling the core set but it is repeated business in terms of booster packs that keeps the profits coming. What Mearls is saying lines up with a business decision to not focus on the book portion of D&D so much as the other portion by a company who needs a certain amount of profit for something to be considered worth their while. Splatbooks actually do make money. That is how most RPG company's stay alive in the current era not the 1990's but they don't make the kind of profits for a major corporation like Hasbro to consider an investment in. Thus we have microtransactions on D&D Beyond, we have board games, stuff Hasbro understands very well.



Here you are speculating because again WOTC has not said how much money they have made from book sales alone compared to other editions they have just released total profits. People have actually asked this question and never gotten an answer. If I was a gambler I would solidly bet that D&D Beyond alone accounts for a good portion of these profits via the microtransactions available there. Microtransactions are highly profitable as "free" video games like Marvels Contest of Champions has shown.



Well, 1. I said I believe it was Ryan Dancey not sure it was him. 2. The person was just telling what was a general principle of how RPG companies view things. Basically they (he didn't say WOTC) he was referencing RPG companies in general believe that not coming out with a new edition every 5-6 years is leaving money on the table. How he ran or didn't run the company is irrelevant to the conversation. 3. Assuming what you say about him is true that does not mean he does not know what he talking about. That is like saying just because a professional football player failed to get a touchdown they don't understand football. It is a a common type of fallacy because it is an attack on the person not the person's argument.




When I said ahead of D&D I meant ahead in terms of editions produced not sales. I try not to state the obvious because I feel people should get the obvious. Bottom line, I will agree splatbooks don't produce the profits Hasbro wants. As far as it killing product etc pretty much every RPG company in existence proves you wrong. Let's not forget that up until a few years ago Paizo with Pathfinder was beating out D&D. I am not a fan of Pathfinder but it was successful and I guess still is. By your admission Paizo should not be successful because they churn out books all the time and we are not talking about the 1990's. They made a huge shift in the RPG market without Hasbro money behind them and again I am not a fan of Paizo or actually more specifically I am not a fan of PF (I have nothing against the company). It is my believe is the only thing holding them back right now is the complex rules set of PF 2 vs the streamlined but still customizable ruleset of D&D 5E, and by by convoluted I mean the core game not the splat books but the game itself is dense which is not appealing to many people. I think if paizo just produced worlds and adventures and optional rules for the 5E system they would be golden right now instead of focusing on PF2 but I guess they have audience that wants what they offer and market diversity is good.

You know wizards doesn’t make anything from “microtransactions” on dndbeyond, right? They sold DDB a license.

 

[Olrox17]

It doesn’t, though. It just synergizes well with some other classes. It doesn’t break anything.

And I don’t care about legacy. I’m saying that HS is a spell that hits above its weight class, and that’s fine, there are other spells that do the same. Fireball is just one example.
You disagree that it’s okay to have a few of those, and that’s fine, but I’m not especially interested in continuing to debate that.

Well, apparently the designers agreed that HS was more powerful than intended and moved to adjust it, but whatever, it’s not like they can (or should) force you or anyone to go along with their decision.

The hexblade, among other things, breaks an already powerful class, the paladin, that would normally have to deal with MAD. But let’s not dwell too much into this topic that has already been discussed at length in all charOp forums.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, apparently the designers agreed that HS was more powerful than intended and moved to adjust it, but whatever, it’s not like they can (or should) force you or anyone to go along with their decision.

The hexblade, among other things, breaks an already powerful class, the paladin, that would normally have to deal with MAD. But let’s not dwell too much into this topic that has already been discussed at length in all charOp forums.

It doesn’t break it, it just makes them less annoying to build with point buy.

So...their other stats get a small bump in point buy. Okay. The game functions just as well with point buy and rolled stats, it can handle a kinda MAD class being less MAD at the cost of one or more levels in a second class.

 

[ad_hoc]

The other patrons just use Mage Armor, and stay at range.

And no, they don’t have minor abilities. The Hexblade is not more powerful than the fiend or archfey, or the celestial.

So they spend an invocation which is a powerful ability and then they still end up with 4 less AC than the Hexblade. That's almost a continual Shield spell.

If you're playing a game where 'at range' means you don't get attacked then it's an easy game anyway so most balance concerns like these just don't matter.

If you're playing a regular game though where most 5e monsters can easily move around and attack the characters they want, then it is a big deal.

 

[Don Durito]

I'd be interested to see a deeper analysis of 3.5e vs 5e. Many third-party companies sprang up and thrived in the early 2000s during 3E and later 3.5E. A bunch of those companies are still here and in many cases are making 5e content - but it doesn't seem to be at the same level of output.

Business realities aside it would be nice to have the same level of support for 5E that Paizo is giving to 2E.

There's a few differences I think that affect 3rd party support.

• 5E isn't designed to explode with options to the extent 3E did. There's less room for crappy prestige classes for every concept or umpteen feats (sure you still have feats, but players need them less, you still need subclasses, so you can still produce the stuff, but the space is not as big.
• There's limits on how easily 3rd party stuff can be implemented in the digital era. If you use digital tools like DndBeyond or play on Roll20, options that are in 3rd party books and not 'officical' can be a pain to implement and are therefore less desirable.
• The gaming culture these days seems more conscious of 'balance' than it was in the early 3E days when the D20 boom really began exploding and there's the perception that WOTC materials are more balanced.
• 5E, and the gaming culture around it, seems more focused on traditional dungeon exploration and the like - a lot of the D20 boom seemed to be about providing GMs and players with options for leveraging some of simulatist aspects of the system to play all sorts of different games, such as court intrigues and the like. You had several versions of the Noble class, you had classes that were just upgraded versions of the expert, you have lots of alternate magic systems and the like. By and large it seems that 5e players (at least for now) just want to play D&D.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So they spend an invocation which is a powerful ability and then they still end up with 4 less AC than the Hexblade. That's almost a continual Shield spell.

If you're playing a game where 'at range' means you don't get attacked then it's an easy game anyway so most balance concerns like these just don't matter.

If you're playing a regular game though where most 5e monsters can easily move around and attack the characters they want, then it is a big deal.

I mean, I’ve played with hexblades and other warlocks in the same party, and it just isn’t actually a big deal. Most melee warlocks find a way to get either medium armor or at least shields, anyway. Or they go high dex, in which case mage armor is the same as +1 studded leather.

Getting medium armor isn’t a big deal.