D&D 5E (2014) Xanathar's Guide to Everything -- new mechanical expansion/UA book! -- November 10 with a limited-edition cover by Hydro74

[variant]

Because a vast majority of people playing 5e are either new to DnD or have been away long enough that they don't remember the flavor elements.

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If they want the subclasses in the SCAG they can buy the SCAG like everyone else. If the writers thought they didn't want to deprive people who don't play games in Faerun the subclasses that aren't firmly rooted in Forgotten Realms, maybe they should have thought of that before putting such content in the SCAG. If they want to rectify it, maybe they should release the classes for free in PDF form instead of wasting precious book space on reprinting them.

Edit: On another note, why is Xanathar's name in the title when he is a very specific Forgotten Realms monster? They definitely aren't disassociating it from the central campaign setting even if all the content is very campaign setting neutral. They could very well call it Mordenkainen's Guide To Everything, but they won't because he's from Greyhawk. I guarantee more people know of Mordenkainen than Xanathar. I think Codex of Mordenkainen would be a suitable name.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I do see [MENTION=41293]variant[/MENTION] 's point about why are we putting classes from the SCAG into another book instead of more new stuff.

Back when I had money I ended up biting the bullet for "Out of the Abyss" just so I had the Demon Lord stat blocks. Finding them in a different book might end up leaving a bitter taste in my mouth if that book could have instead included the Archdevils.

 

[Rellott]

I do see [MENTION=41293]variant[/MENTION] 's point about why are we putting classes from the SCAG into another book instead of more new stuff.

Back when I had money I ended up biting the bullet for "Out of the Abyss" just so I had the Demon Lord stat blocks. Finding them in a different book might end up leaving a bitter taste in my mouth if that book could have instead included the Archdevils.

I totally see it, too - especially since I don't play AL and don't care about the PHB+1 rule. Since that seems to be the reasoning behind the reinclusion, I doubt you'll have to worry about duplicated stat blocks like that. It's still fun to speculate about what will get reincluded even if I don't want it to be. I doubt any amount of whining would change WotC's mind, so it'd just be whining over milk that's about to be spilled.

 

[gyor]

I knew the AL rule was a bad idea, but people wouldn't listen to me. Now it's actually undermining the quality of products, even if only slightly.

 

[gyor]

If they want the subclasses in the SCAG they can buy the SCAG like everyone else. If the writers thought they didn't want to deprive people who don't play games in Faerun the subclasses that aren't firmly rooted in Forgotten Realms, maybe they should have thought of that before putting such content in the SCAG. If they want to rectify it, maybe they should release the classes for free in PDF form instead of wasting precious book space on reprinting them.

Edit: On another note, why is Xanathar's name in the title when he is a very specific Forgotten Realms monster? They definitely aren't disassociating it from the central campaign setting even if all the content is very campaign setting neutral. They could very well call it Mordenkainen's Guide To Everything, but they won't because he's from Greyhawk. I guarantee more people know of Mordenkainen than Xanathar. I think Codex of Mordenkainen would be a suitable name.

Actually I believe Mordenkainen is visiting the Forgotten Realms at the moment.

 

[Mistwell]

I knew the AL rule was a bad idea, but people wouldn't listen to me. Now it's actually undermining the quality of products, even if only slightly.

How is it undermining the quality of the product? Also people wouldn't listen to you because they thought you didn't have a very thoughtful opinion, and I for one still think that. I think it's a fantastic rule!

 

[Demetrios1453]

Now that I think on it, since the subclasses from SCAG aren't going to count against the 25+ mentioned by Perkins, that might be part of the reason why we had the original conflict between what Perkins and Mearls said about the number of subclasses in XGtE. Once we count in a few SCAG subclasses, we might get close to the original "3 subclasses for everyone but wizards" statement...
s

 

[Li Shenron]

Just ran some numbers quickly, and thus possibly wrong...

Assuming that "more than 25" is true (i.e. minimum 26), and with minimum 2 new subclasses each (except Wizard), between the PHB and the XGE every class would have minimum 4 subclasses available (Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Ranger and Sorcerer have 4, everyone else 5+). This takes up 23 out of the 26.

If they pick the Battlerager and Storm Sorcerer from SCAG (the other 3 classes above didn't have subclasses in SCAG), then with the proper selections XGE could raise the minimum subclasses to a nice 5 for every class, which is nice and fair

 

[GarrettKP]

In the course of three years, that's very little crunch. To reprint stuff when they are releasing a single crunch book in three years is just ridiculous. I did actually buy the SCAG for the little bit of crunch that was in there, the rest of the book is useless to me. Why is precious space being wasted on stuff I already own when there is lots of content they could add instead?

They already said that the pages taken by the reprints are not replacing any possible new crunch. If they didn't reprint the SCAG stuff they would not be adding more new things, only lowering the page count.

 

[GarrettKP]

The name "Purple Dragon Knight" is FR specific, but the subclass itself isn't. Its generic name is "banneret", and it's a kinda/sorta warlordish fighter subclass.

Crawford mentioned the PDK specifically when saying that FR specific things are not included. So while you may not think the class is FR specific, the devs certainly do.