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

[JRedmond]

Morrus got a life...?



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That's not allowed. Just kidding. I didn't realize he was the only one that could make those posts.

 

[Prakriti]

Although I do have to say... if this new book doesn't include the Mystic or the Artificer... I'd be very curious how they'd expect to reach the 320(?)ish page count this product I thought was talked about having.

If this book is more than 256 pages, I'll be pleasantly surprised. That seems to be the standard page-count that they work around these days.

I'm taking the wait-and-see approach at the moment, but I don't see myself buying a book that's under 300 pages, or one that doesn't contain a significant amount of new material.

 

[DEFCON 1]

By waffling...?

I mean, it's not as if WotC is shy about releasing as little crunch for your dollar as they think they get away with... Neither SCAG not Volo was exactly a good deal for the DM that doesn't need another truckload of just words (as opposed to cold hard game crunch)

Heh... well, that would be a *crapton* of added word flourishing if you had to replace probably 20-40 pages lost from the removal of these two classes from the book. You can really only pad so far. Most likely I'd imagine they'd either reduce the page count of the book, or they have a lot more additional rules / variants / spells loaded in the chamber that they can insert into the document if it comes to it.

Personally I'd hope to see them both in this book... but if not and they get held back, I wonder if the 2018 book becomes the planescaping book that references all the other campaign settings and such, as that would make the most thematic sense for having the Mystic and Artificer appear in a new book (as they both are primary usage for Dark Sun and Eberron respectively.)

 

[SigmaOne]

Select stores always get the 5e books 11 days ahead of the standard release, since the Starter Set.

So, one thing I've noticed is that in the streamed games in the SoA, there seem to have been at least a few people playing UA subclasses. Has there been any discussion of whether these offer a preview of those subclasses which will appear in the Xanathar book?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Don't be. Expect WotC to bend over backwards to help sell every book to every gamer.

They really don't want only players (or God forbid, only DMs) to purchase a given product.

And that is a good thing too. These days, a non-core DM-only non-adventure book would almost definitely be a surefire money loser.

I mean, it's not as if WotC is shy about releasing as little crunch for your dollar as they think they get away with... Neither SCAG nor Volo was exactly a good deal for the DM that doesn't need another truckload of just words (as opposed to cold hard game crunch)

They are fine with me and, so far, are the only non-core 5E books that I have bought. I keep thinking about getting SKT, but I am not sure the lore is worth the money if I do not ever use the adventure. And I am sure I will have the same thoughts about this new adventure too once I see what the ratio is between lore and adventure.

 

[Greg K]

For the most part, I have found the majority of UA classes and subclasses to be drek either mechanically or conceptually (and often both). Therefore, unless, they have undergone serious changes, the player content will be a lot of content for which I have no use (and, there, banned in games that I run). The question for me, as a DM, will be how much DM directed content I find to be useful and the ratio
of that content to the entire book.

 

[Jester David]

I'm excited for this. I wonder if Mearls new initiative system will make it into it. Why is this not on the front page for news?

There's a convention going on at the UK right now.

 

[gyor]

This has been their M.O. all along though. The days of an exclusive "player splatbook" or "DM's splatbook" or "new monster book" are over. I'm sure in part to generate more sales (but also to make things more interesting for everyone to read) they've been mixing and matching different things for all players in their books. So SCAG had setting info and player character info... VGtM had monsters and player race info... and now XGtE has DM info and player character info.

Although I do have to say... if this new book doesn't include the Mystic or the Artificer... I'd be very curious how they'd expect to reach the 320(?)ish page count this product I thought was talked about having. I mean unless they have a whole heapton of spells that they haven't given the public to playtest (which is of course a possibility)... they'd need to have a LOT more DM material to reach that size without having these two new classes (and the amount of material they both would have.)

It's not generate more sales it's because they don't have the staff to do more, so they have to merge the DM and the Player book.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's not generate more sales it's because they don't have the staff to do more, so they have to merge the DM and the Player book.

Well that's not true. They could easily make each book strictly of a specific type if they wanted. Volo's Guide to Monsters didn't have to have player races in them, they could have just put in more monsters. Likewise, they could have chosen to put all the backgrounds and subclasses that were in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide in the Elemental Evil supplement had they wanted to (and indeed quite possibly was expected to be done back when it was going to be the unannounced "adventurer's book".)

They're only releasing one of these supplemental books a year. So they do indeed get more eyes on them by not making them specifically a "DM book" or a "Monster book" or a "PC book", but instead have bits and bobs for all of them. And yes, that probably does result in part in additional sales.

 

[pukunui]

I thought he was referred to as "the Xanathar" ... ?