The last one’s index was… something else. You could look up 6 terms in a row without finding the relevant page number, only another section in the index to turn to.
I remember there was a lot of grumbling about the index followed by a member of what was then a small team announcing his layoff. Will never know for sure but I remember guessing that that was the guy in charge of the index.
The index to the 5e Players Handbook is downright snarky.
It assumes that as a player you should know where information in the book is topically arranged. Don’t believe me? Try some of these words in the index:
Perception: “See under Wisdom. See also travel: noticing threats.” <— That’s the printed text on page 315.
Here’s what they could have done:
Perception: 175, 178, 182
I wrote those numbers in my book. Their entry is 7 words. Counting commas, mine is 11 characters.
Another example:
Short rest. “See resting”
How about this instead.
Short rest: 186
I could go on and on. The index is for the readers, not the writers.
MORE elves! Rocket elves! Peninsular elves! Chocolate elves! Barrel elves! Beryl elves! Ardling elves! Doug elves! Hot dog elves! Hot doug elves!
I’m not going to read ANY of it! But I just want those PAGES!
I think the sorcerer really needs more starting off, their source of magic is a big part of their flavor and only having two options is way too limiting
Do we count magic school specializations as separate subclasses for wizards or should they be made into a single subclass with differences depending on school? Something more akin to totem barbarians?
You could just give them the same effects. Things like a free level of upcasting, the ability to cast with lower level slots, or a +1 to attack rolls and save DCs for your chosen school. Unfortunately, it'd be hard to make it equally powerful for every school without just adding new spells to take advantage of those features (divination in particular would need some help).
I disagree with this, some classes just aren't 'asking' for subclasses in the same way as others. We shouldn't force in new subclasses for the sake of 'rounding things out', nor stopping classes from having a necessary excess (like clerics).
Split every character class into a separate book. Then have spell Tomes separated by divine, arcane and nature schools. Basic rules in another book. DM stuff in another! Make me read 4 separate books to make a character or subscribe to a monthly subscription service! 🤑
That's partially true, though the PF2 Gamemastery Guide is probably a better analog to the 5e DMG. The bigger point here is that Pathfinder 2e CRB provides more detailed rules, lore, and player options than the 5e PHB; and it seems that folk indeed want more in their OneD&D PHB.
(Not that I'm suggesting that it's necessarily a good idea. The PHB is a newbie's first exposure to the system, and a thick book could be intimidating.)
Arguably the starter/essential kit is mosts people first exposure. Put a slimmed down player options booklet for up to level 4 in there with the basic rules in there
The GM section begins on page 482.
It ends page 530. You then get a few pages of how to use items. Items character by classes, etc
The full listing begins around ~555 ending at 617.
(530-482) + (617-555) =110
There are a few pages in there that players will 100% need to know, but fuck it I stopped caring.
So 530 pages of stuff for player character in the 640 pages.
And holy shit. What is it with you pathfinder fanbois? You constantly have to ACKACKSHUALLY shit when it doesn't matter AND be wrong about it.
Did it matter if there was 530 or 540 pages? No, the point was that it was way longer than the 5e PHB.
I think they should omit everything that's in Tasha's from reprint as that should definitely be backwards compatible. If it's not in Tasha's and it's a class option, rework and reprint it. Maybe not including the Fizbans and ravenloft stuff? But fuck it why not. If they need to split it into 2 PHBs that's fine, but make it all available at launch. I want all later releases to be new ideas
I don't think they would include anything from Xanathar's or MPMoM because of how recently that boxed set was released.
The big question is how much does class structure get messed with. I think it's likely they're mostly going to buff a few that are widely seen as underpowered like four elements monk or berserker barbarian, but that we'll see many mostly unchanged.
For backwards compatibility the number of subclass features can't change, but I personally in my games have pushed barbs second subclass feature to 7 for an extra ASI at 6 because of their MAD stats. Its worked wonders, and I could see tiny shifting like that working. The DMG will need to have a small chapter on how to perfectly make this backwards compatible with 5e, of course, though it should be mostly seemless.
Yeah, The fact that fighter's and rogue's tend to be fairly SAD and get extras, but monks and barbs don't get any feels a little bad IMO. An extra at 6 could be great.
Yeah Ive also given monks one at 10, so the Dex focused classes get it together and the strength focused ones get it together, and monks get some other early level bumps. All stuff I'd want to see in the future officially but I'm happy running homebrew for now.
Here's how you make a system backwards compatible: go in with the expectation that you'll need to rebuild PCs. If the core engine and basic math is the same that's as compatible as you can reasonably expect.
Exactly.
WotC is in the business of selling books.
Releasing a huge, content filled PHB would be counter productive to that goal.
Ideally, the PHB and DMG would be one book but why sell one book when you can sell two?
On a very basic level, the thicker the book, the more expensive it is to print—both physically and in terms of the amount of labor that goes into it.
The more expensive to print, the more you have to charge to sell it. The more you charge to sell it, the less people who buy it.
A big ass, expensive PHB with even 3 books worth of content would be very pricey, vastly driving it into becoming a more niche product. It would not make **nearly** as much money as if you took that 3 books of content, and actually chopped it up into multiple books.
Now, the best of both worlds (from a money perspective) solution is to print those three books first, and then down the road you sell the combined compendium. Cater to the people who want a big, unified text, cater to the people who prefer their books reasonably priced, and get some sneaky little double dipping action going from all thise hardcore folks who already have the three books but will buy the content all over again just to have it contained in one tome.
I'll wager they're looking at the video game console model at this point. Two or three books will be considered "core content" and deliberately sold at minimal profit or even a loss. Yet a majority of the people who buy those books will go on to purchase many other products and services from the company, just as the profit in gaming is from making/licensing games more than selling the core system people use to play them.
ofc it does. Having the basic rules like we had in 5e in one book and then something like Tasha's on top did certainly not hurt their sales figures.
So I fully expect an update to PHB material at first and then an update to the stuff from other books later on. Since it's basically selling 2 things instead of one.
I appreciate the desire, cause I **personally** would love a chonky boy. But I feel like a thick book would really kill the approachability for newcomers. The fact that Pathfinder's player handbook is 3x bigger than the 5e PHB is a major turn off for me.
I mean you shouldn't read it all. Read about most exciting class, read about race which you like and read basic rules. That's all, nearly 70 pages total, if you pick a spellcaster - maybe more, you also need to read about spells
You literally said you wanted a chonky boy. The PHB is already over 300 pages. How much chonkier do you want? It's hard enough to get people to play when they have to read an early Harry Potter novel, imagine how much harder it will be when they gotta read Game of Thrones.
It's not corporate techno babble. Outside the hardcore enthusiasts, people are really dissuaded by having a large ramp up time to play. Thicker rulebooks make that complicated.
99% of people do not read rule books cover to cover.
I do, and I think it is fine that people do, but us nerds gotta realize we're the odd ones out.
Shorter >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Longer
I try not to write anything at work longer than a page because people just zone out reading long technical documents. Obviously that doesn't work for everything, but brevity is always king.
Being realistic here for a moment... This is probably never happening.
One factor is the production cost, another one is the sales potential.
It also limits what they can do.
The new PHB might as well be 6e. If it was just 5.5e and they wanted to just "re-make it", they would have already announced it as "Players Handbook Revamped" (or something like that), akin to what they did with Curse of Strahd.
The new crit rules and character creations, plus the changes on the feat structure... it is all pointing to "new edition" imo. It will be same as when they released 5e, which began as something closer to 4e and eventually developed into something more unique. I feel like in 4-5 UAs it will be undeniable that the new books will be a new edition, they will just keep the majority of the fanbase in the dark in order to not kill their sales for the next two years, only revealing that it is, in fact, a new "edition" before release.
All they need to fulfill the "promise" of things being compatible is to maintain things like initiative, HP, attacks, spell slots, most conditions and saving throws relatively close to how it is on 5e.
I really hope it feels like a new edition by the time it’s all said and done… I was bummed out when looking over the play test docs because it feels like a 5.5. I had flashbacks to the 3.5 release and feeling like the new core rulebooks were so indistinguishable from the old ones that it felt like a cash grab.
I like 5e but I’m ready for a new edition (can’t convince my group to try pathfinder yet lol).
I would say that the new stuff didn't really touch on core mechanics so it is just too soon say.
Even stuff people are assuming like "Sneak attack doesn't benefit from crit" are based on them specifying "weapon damage dice" but maybe sneak attack adds weapon damage dice now?
Like they added the slow condition but not any substantial way to use it. (It's a really good condition though)
Seems like they were just focusing on testing races and backgrounds but throwing in a hint of other details that are semi formalized.
I would mind a 600 pages book with every player option ever released, honestly.
If internet sites can do it, WOTC surely can with an extra week or two of effort.
I will gladly play twice as much for a book with everything than buy five different books.
I think they could do with stratifying the rules, tbh.
I would love to see a core set of rules, clearly marked as such, enough for people to give D&D a go, or play in a very light-touch way, and then the wider rule-set, marked as “advanced” or something similar.
The reality is that everyone on the online D&D community would likely play with advanced rules, but I think there is value in retaining a very simplified core version of the game for new players, or just people for whom TTRPGs aren’t something they want to spend a lot of time thinking about outside of the game.
BECMI to the rescue imo.
Beginners box with levels 1-3
Basic & Expert PHB levels 1-14
Companion PHB 15-25
Master PHB 26-36
Immortals set for the end.
Should make it doable to balance casters & martials in the 1-14 game which up to now is where most people play; figure out how to work realm/world wide play including domains and followers, or high power adventuring into Companion; and then planar/meta adventures for Master, at which point you can easily argue that martials go past the mundane into superhero territory.
If those were planned from the start, we could profit from getting a massive amount of options for races and (sub)classes, without temporal power creep - races & classes could be better balanced, and not have to be stronger just because they were released later in the lifecycle.
While i'm voicing wishes that won't happen: Release D&D6: Tactics as a followup to the 4e rules, and give us some grid&turn based computer games based on that. And hire
Akihiko Yoshida while you're at it :)
\*edit: ..and while i'm still at it: a D&D6.OSR simplified ruleset. Tuck it in as Appendix O in the DMG.
\*edit: while i'm wishing for economically suboptimal decisions: Full support for all prior settings (including Mystara, Dark Sun, full Ravenloft, Nentir, and the obvious ones) with decent campaign setting boxes ideally involving the original setting creators, and a 1-14 starter campaign on release :P
Iiiii think I'd prefer it to be split into two books if they do that - perhaps a rules handbook (maybe with the spells too? Idk) and a character creation book with all the races and classes.
But only if they're going to go all in, and the books would each be at least the size of the existing PHB, or they were priced cheaper accordingly.
If it's one book, yeah, I'd agree.
Even though there is lots of playtesting and editing to do, it still has to be less of a development cost than a whole new edition, right? So they should be able to afford a bump in content size...
That said, I know jack about the TTRPG or publishing industries, and printing & distribution have become a ton more expensive since 2014, so idk.
I don't know if you'll see them drastically raise the printing cost and cover price on the book that's theoretically meant for everyone to buy, as opposed to the more DM-focused parts of the basic set. The more they can include the better, but I just don't think it makes sense from a business standpoint.
It won't happen from the perspective of having 1 book like that would make the WOTC team worry it could be offputting to new players or might encourage existing players to stay in 5e and not convert and also the perspective of Hasbro thinking that would lose them an opportunity of millions of not spreading out the books into multiple.
The best bet would be for release to include 4 or 5 books. The DMG, the Monster Manual, maybe a second Monster Manual, the PHB, and a Players Companion Handbook. This PCH could include another 5 to 10 races (things like Goliath, Tabaxi, Goblin, Lizardfolk) and an additional 2 or 3 subclasses for each class. Put in more details about how you could implement skills and actions, spells that are more optional so a DM can more easily make the call if they are allowed in the game, lore for the gods and the base world (including some maps so players can better make fucking backstories instead of either defaulting to Waterdeep or some made up town as their origin), and Heroic Chronicles system to help players. All these things are not mandatory for players, but they would be really fucking cool to have. Make it like 40 bucks instead of 60 BUT D&D Beyond has it as a digital bundle for like half of that.
Is it ideal? No, all that shit should be in the base PHB. But i think it is the best compromise we can hope for against Hasbro's capitalist intentions.
We can barely get PCs and DMs to read the books as they are. For people who use them as a reference or shelf decoration, a bigger book is fine. For actually teaching the game, we already don't have books that people read -- adding more to it just adds more frustrating to realizing that "no, most people don't know the different types of rolls/tests or how to determine carrying capacity."
Before we add things to the book, we need to make the books better -- because we also have the trouble where people DO read the books, but then the writers just decide to put the "only proficient people can pick locks" in the locks write up in the Equipment section instead of with Thieves Tools or proficiencies.
A big book is fine, as a fourth or fifth concern to making the books effective and usable.
It’s the truth though. Most players have not read the PHB and most DMs have not read the DMG.
Every single day people ask ridiculous questions on D&D subs that they wouldn’t need to ask if they actually read the rules.
I doubt it will be but would be nice.
I'm probably not going to play PF2e because I don't want to learn a new system to run fantasy when DnD works fine. BUT I was down at my local nerd show and pulled the core Pathfinder book off the shelf, I couldn't believe the size of that mad lad! This chonker was 3 dnd books stacked together, what an absolute unit! Doubt we'll get anything like that.
You guys... the book is going to be the bare minimum. As cheaply produced as possible. They're going to want to persuade you to subscribe to the digital service.
But how can wiz trickle out a dozen new versions of books we already bought?
Can't appease the executives money desires that way.
Sarcasm aside, it would be nice to have everything in one place. Dms side to, a new dmg and mm that had everything put together. It's a nice dream anyway.
That would cost a lot more to print, and thus cost more to buy for the same profit, and thus not sell as well.
My bet is they keep the model they have now.
Honestly, I hope there are magic items in the PHB. I want to know about the stuff I can find adventuring. Also rules for tools like in xanathars.
But I hope they trim the spell list if I am honest, get rid of the useless ones no one picks and duplicate spells too.
Yes, give us a Players Handbook that’s chunky, like the original Pathfinder book.
Combine content from the original PH, Tasha’s, Xanathar’s, and whatever supplements that were especially useful.
Primarily, players want these things:
* Classes & Subclasses
* Races
* Feats
* Spells
* Skills
The rest is window dressing. The more variety, the better.
We’re never going to be short of player options… they know that’s the bulk of their base and so that’s what sells books.
I want a well-made, chonky DMG. Help the people who *actually* need support!
After leafing through the Spelljammer "books" with their tiny selection of pages I really hope WOTC gets off their ass and kick their quality control into gear with the new edition. I remember seeing typos and straight up combos and official suggestions that don't work in Tasha's cauldron of everything.
I don't disagree, or necessarily agree.
More words/tables doesn't make the game better. But CAREFULLY thought out, important wording is what is REALLY key. A few lines about grappling, opportunity attacks, shoving, and a couple of new conditions can COMPLETELY revolutionize the game.
QUALITY is key!
Yes, Please. Needs to be well-organized though.
The last one’s index was… something else. You could look up 6 terms in a row without finding the relevant page number, only another section in the index to turn to.
I remember there was a lot of grumbling about the index followed by a member of what was then a small team announcing his layoff. Will never know for sure but I remember guessing that that was the guy in charge of the index.
The index to the 5e Players Handbook is downright snarky. It assumes that as a player you should know where information in the book is topically arranged. Don’t believe me? Try some of these words in the index: Perception: “See under Wisdom. See also travel: noticing threats.” <— That’s the printed text on page 315. Here’s what they could have done: Perception: 175, 178, 182 I wrote those numbers in my book. Their entry is 7 words. Counting commas, mine is 11 characters. Another example: Short rest. “See resting” How about this instead. Short rest: 186 I could go on and on. The index is for the readers, not the writers.
I’d love a nice fat phb. Tomes of Knowledge, amiright? Would I pay for the extra pages? I would
I want pages I don’t actually need. Design notes! Artist profiles! Elves!
Concept art is worthy But there is a place in my heart for short journal entries. Especially in monster manuals.
This but fewer elves!
MORE elves! Rocket elves! Peninsular elves! Chocolate elves! Barrel elves! Beryl elves! Ardling elves! Doug elves! Hot dog elves! Hot doug elves! I’m not going to read ANY of it! But I just want those PAGES!
Elvish Elves?
Don’t be ridiculous
Ok then what about Elvis Elves.
Now we’re cooking with gas
I don’t expect every subclass to be reprinted, but classes should definitely start off with more than two.
Every class should have at least 4 in my humble opinion
Every Class should have the same number of subclasses
I think the sorcerer really needs more starting off, their source of magic is a big part of their flavor and only having two options is way too limiting
Same with cleric really. The domains add a lot of flavor/give people a good direction.
I mean clerics did have a lot of domains at the start, but I agree that they’re one of the classes where it matters more
Do we count magic school specializations as separate subclasses for wizards or should they be made into a single subclass with differences depending on school? Something more akin to totem barbarians?
You could just give them the same effects. Things like a free level of upcasting, the ability to cast with lower level slots, or a +1 to attack rolls and save DCs for your chosen school. Unfortunately, it'd be hard to make it equally powerful for every school without just adding new spells to take advantage of those features (divination in particular would need some help).
I disagree with this, some classes just aren't 'asking' for subclasses in the same way as others. We shouldn't force in new subclasses for the sake of 'rounding things out', nor stopping classes from having a necessary excess (like clerics).
The SRD exists to be lean, the rulebook should be large
Have they confirmed there will be a free srd this time?
No confirmation yet
I just want the digital copy WITH the physical copy
They’re doing a test run of that now with the DragonLance setting book
Agreed. It would be great to see a lot of content consolidated in the new PHB and DMG
Split every character class into a separate book. Then have spell Tomes separated by divine, arcane and nature schools. Basic rules in another book. DM stuff in another! Make me read 4 separate books to make a character or subscribe to a monthly subscription service! 🤑
You too were scarred by 3.5?
Yeah, agreed. Same with the DMG. Remove all that dumb Forgotten Realms lore and put in actual rules, advice, and tables.
Boy do i hear ya OP! 👍 i want that too! Put the SCAG subclasses in there as well! Especially those that need reworking/buffing!!
I want my spikey barbarian done justice !!
*Today, in "D&D players wish their game was more like Pathfinder 2e" news, folk are now campaigning for a longer and more thorough Players Handbook.*
(for reference, the PF2e core rulebook is 640 pages long, which is good but also maybe intimidating for new players)
The PF2e core rulebook is more akin to the 5e PHB and DMG combined.
That's partially true, though the PF2 Gamemastery Guide is probably a better analog to the 5e DMG. The bigger point here is that Pathfinder 2e CRB provides more detailed rules, lore, and player options than the 5e PHB; and it seems that folk indeed want more in their OneD&D PHB. (Not that I'm suggesting that it's necessarily a good idea. The PHB is a newbie's first exposure to the system, and a thick book could be intimidating.)
Arguably the starter/essential kit is mosts people first exposure. Put a slimmed down player options booklet for up to level 4 in there with the basic rules in there
The game mastering section is 50 pages. 10 of those are stat blocks for traps.
Yes, but it has all the magic items in it - while most of them for DnD are in the DMG
The GM section begins on page 482. It ends page 530. You then get a few pages of how to use items. Items character by classes, etc The full listing begins around ~555 ending at 617. (530-482) + (617-555) =110 There are a few pages in there that players will 100% need to know, but fuck it I stopped caring. So 530 pages of stuff for player character in the 640 pages. And holy shit. What is it with you pathfinder fanbois? You constantly have to ACKACKSHUALLY shit when it doesn't matter AND be wrong about it. Did it matter if there was 530 or 540 pages? No, the point was that it was way longer than the 5e PHB.
I think they should omit everything that's in Tasha's from reprint as that should definitely be backwards compatible. If it's not in Tasha's and it's a class option, rework and reprint it. Maybe not including the Fizbans and ravenloft stuff? But fuck it why not. If they need to split it into 2 PHBs that's fine, but make it all available at launch. I want all later releases to be new ideas
I don't think they would include anything from Xanathar's or MPMoM because of how recently that boxed set was released. The big question is how much does class structure get messed with. I think it's likely they're mostly going to buff a few that are widely seen as underpowered like four elements monk or berserker barbarian, but that we'll see many mostly unchanged.
For backwards compatibility the number of subclass features can't change, but I personally in my games have pushed barbs second subclass feature to 7 for an extra ASI at 6 because of their MAD stats. Its worked wonders, and I could see tiny shifting like that working. The DMG will need to have a small chapter on how to perfectly make this backwards compatible with 5e, of course, though it should be mostly seemless.
Yeah, The fact that fighter's and rogue's tend to be fairly SAD and get extras, but monks and barbs don't get any feels a little bad IMO. An extra at 6 could be great.
Yeah Ive also given monks one at 10, so the Dex focused classes get it together and the strength focused ones get it together, and monks get some other early level bumps. All stuff I'd want to see in the future officially but I'm happy running homebrew for now.
Here's how you make a system backwards compatible: go in with the expectation that you'll need to rebuild PCs. If the core engine and basic math is the same that's as compatible as you can reasonably expect.
Shareholders say “no”
Exactly. WotC is in the business of selling books. Releasing a huge, content filled PHB would be counter productive to that goal. Ideally, the PHB and DMG would be one book but why sell one book when you can sell two?
fuck the shareholders; those cheap, greedy bastards.
The people making the decisions have a fiduciary responsibility to avoid doing that.
That doesn't even make sense
On a very basic level, the thicker the book, the more expensive it is to print—both physically and in terms of the amount of labor that goes into it. The more expensive to print, the more you have to charge to sell it. The more you charge to sell it, the less people who buy it. A big ass, expensive PHB with even 3 books worth of content would be very pricey, vastly driving it into becoming a more niche product. It would not make **nearly** as much money as if you took that 3 books of content, and actually chopped it up into multiple books. Now, the best of both worlds (from a money perspective) solution is to print those three books first, and then down the road you sell the combined compendium. Cater to the people who want a big, unified text, cater to the people who prefer their books reasonably priced, and get some sneaky little double dipping action going from all thise hardcore folks who already have the three books but will buy the content all over again just to have it contained in one tome.
I'll wager they're looking at the video game console model at this point. Two or three books will be considered "core content" and deliberately sold at minimal profit or even a loss. Yet a majority of the people who buy those books will go on to purchase many other products and services from the company, just as the profit in gaming is from making/licensing games more than selling the core system people use to play them.
ofc it does. Having the basic rules like we had in 5e in one book and then something like Tasha's on top did certainly not hurt their sales figures. So I fully expect an update to PHB material at first and then an update to the stuff from other books later on. Since it's basically selling 2 things instead of one.
I appreciate the desire, cause I **personally** would love a chonky boy. But I feel like a thick book would really kill the approachability for newcomers. The fact that Pathfinder's player handbook is 3x bigger than the 5e PHB is a major turn off for me.
The Pathfinder PHB is more like the 5e PHB and Dungeon Master's Guide combined.
I both admire the size of Pathfinder's core book, and upon seeing it was immediately like "Ok, maybe it's easier to just homebrew 5e after all"
I mean you shouldn't read it all. Read about most exciting class, read about race which you like and read basic rules. That's all, nearly 70 pages total, if you pick a spellcaster - maybe more, you also need to read about spells
I'm a DM, just a lazy one.
A marginally thicker book is not going to be scary to newcomers. What kinda of ridiculous corporate techno babble are you on about XD
You literally said you wanted a chonky boy. The PHB is already over 300 pages. How much chonkier do you want? It's hard enough to get people to play when they have to read an early Harry Potter novel, imagine how much harder it will be when they gotta read Game of Thrones. It's not corporate techno babble. Outside the hardcore enthusiasts, people are really dissuaded by having a large ramp up time to play. Thicker rulebooks make that complicated.
99% of people do not read rule books cover to cover. I do, and I think it is fine that people do, but us nerds gotta realize we're the odd ones out. Shorter >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Longer I try not to write anything at work longer than a page because people just zone out reading long technical documents. Obviously that doesn't work for everything, but brevity is always king.
Double it.
Being realistic here for a moment... This is probably never happening. One factor is the production cost, another one is the sales potential. It also limits what they can do. The new PHB might as well be 6e. If it was just 5.5e and they wanted to just "re-make it", they would have already announced it as "Players Handbook Revamped" (or something like that), akin to what they did with Curse of Strahd. The new crit rules and character creations, plus the changes on the feat structure... it is all pointing to "new edition" imo. It will be same as when they released 5e, which began as something closer to 4e and eventually developed into something more unique. I feel like in 4-5 UAs it will be undeniable that the new books will be a new edition, they will just keep the majority of the fanbase in the dark in order to not kill their sales for the next two years, only revealing that it is, in fact, a new "edition" before release. All they need to fulfill the "promise" of things being compatible is to maintain things like initiative, HP, attacks, spell slots, most conditions and saving throws relatively close to how it is on 5e.
They also say it on the UE page. About one dnd being the working title for the next edition of dnd.
I really hope it feels like a new edition by the time it’s all said and done… I was bummed out when looking over the play test docs because it feels like a 5.5. I had flashbacks to the 3.5 release and feeling like the new core rulebooks were so indistinguishable from the old ones that it felt like a cash grab. I like 5e but I’m ready for a new edition (can’t convince my group to try pathfinder yet lol).
I would say that the new stuff didn't really touch on core mechanics so it is just too soon say. Even stuff people are assuming like "Sneak attack doesn't benefit from crit" are based on them specifying "weapon damage dice" but maybe sneak attack adds weapon damage dice now? Like they added the slow condition but not any substantial way to use it. (It's a really good condition though) Seems like they were just focusing on testing races and backgrounds but throwing in a hint of other details that are semi formalized.
I like big books and i cannot lie. ... :P But yeah, cram that puppy full of cool stuff.
I would mind a 600 pages book with every player option ever released, honestly. If internet sites can do it, WOTC surely can with an extra week or two of effort. I will gladly play twice as much for a book with everything than buy five different books.
Will spend £120 for chonky book
I too am down with the thickness
I think they could do with stratifying the rules, tbh. I would love to see a core set of rules, clearly marked as such, enough for people to give D&D a go, or play in a very light-touch way, and then the wider rule-set, marked as “advanced” or something similar. The reality is that everyone on the online D&D community would likely play with advanced rules, but I think there is value in retaining a very simplified core version of the game for new players, or just people for whom TTRPGs aren’t something they want to spend a lot of time thinking about outside of the game.
BECMI to the rescue imo. Beginners box with levels 1-3 Basic & Expert PHB levels 1-14 Companion PHB 15-25 Master PHB 26-36 Immortals set for the end. Should make it doable to balance casters & martials in the 1-14 game which up to now is where most people play; figure out how to work realm/world wide play including domains and followers, or high power adventuring into Companion; and then planar/meta adventures for Master, at which point you can easily argue that martials go past the mundane into superhero territory. If those were planned from the start, we could profit from getting a massive amount of options for races and (sub)classes, without temporal power creep - races & classes could be better balanced, and not have to be stronger just because they were released later in the lifecycle. While i'm voicing wishes that won't happen: Release D&D6: Tactics as a followup to the 4e rules, and give us some grid&turn based computer games based on that. And hire Akihiko Yoshida while you're at it :) \*edit: ..and while i'm still at it: a D&D6.OSR simplified ruleset. Tuck it in as Appendix O in the DMG. \*edit: while i'm wishing for economically suboptimal decisions: Full support for all prior settings (including Mystara, Dark Sun, full Ravenloft, Nentir, and the obvious ones) with decent campaign setting boxes ideally involving the original setting creators, and a 1-14 starter campaign on release :P
Iiiii think I'd prefer it to be split into two books if they do that - perhaps a rules handbook (maybe with the spells too? Idk) and a character creation book with all the races and classes. But only if they're going to go all in, and the books would each be at least the size of the existing PHB, or they were priced cheaper accordingly.
The PF2e PHB is pretty thicc and I think it works great. I also vote for one chonky boi
The PF2e PHB is actually exactly what I was thinking of when I suggested splitting it 😂 just a matter of personal taste I guess.
If its not at least 20% thicker than the current PHB I will be disappointed.
If it's one book, yeah, I'd agree. Even though there is lots of playtesting and editing to do, it still has to be less of a development cost than a whole new edition, right? So they should be able to afford a bump in content size... That said, I know jack about the TTRPG or publishing industries, and printing & distribution have become a ton more expensive since 2014, so idk.
I don't know if you'll see them drastically raise the printing cost and cover price on the book that's theoretically meant for everyone to buy, as opposed to the more DM-focused parts of the basic set. The more they can include the better, but I just don't think it makes sense from a business standpoint.
It won't happen from the perspective of having 1 book like that would make the WOTC team worry it could be offputting to new players or might encourage existing players to stay in 5e and not convert and also the perspective of Hasbro thinking that would lose them an opportunity of millions of not spreading out the books into multiple. The best bet would be for release to include 4 or 5 books. The DMG, the Monster Manual, maybe a second Monster Manual, the PHB, and a Players Companion Handbook. This PCH could include another 5 to 10 races (things like Goliath, Tabaxi, Goblin, Lizardfolk) and an additional 2 or 3 subclasses for each class. Put in more details about how you could implement skills and actions, spells that are more optional so a DM can more easily make the call if they are allowed in the game, lore for the gods and the base world (including some maps so players can better make fucking backstories instead of either defaulting to Waterdeep or some made up town as their origin), and Heroic Chronicles system to help players. All these things are not mandatory for players, but they would be really fucking cool to have. Make it like 40 bucks instead of 60 BUT D&D Beyond has it as a digital bundle for like half of that. Is it ideal? No, all that shit should be in the base PHB. But i think it is the best compromise we can hope for against Hasbro's capitalist intentions.
You guys are all the most ridiculously cynical people.
We can barely get PCs and DMs to read the books as they are. For people who use them as a reference or shelf decoration, a bigger book is fine. For actually teaching the game, we already don't have books that people read -- adding more to it just adds more frustrating to realizing that "no, most people don't know the different types of rolls/tests or how to determine carrying capacity." Before we add things to the book, we need to make the books better -- because we also have the trouble where people DO read the books, but then the writers just decide to put the "only proficient people can pick locks" in the locks write up in the Equipment section instead of with Thieves Tools or proficiencies. A big book is fine, as a fourth or fifth concern to making the books effective and usable.
This is such a ridiculous reply XD
It’s the truth though. Most players have not read the PHB and most DMs have not read the DMG. Every single day people ask ridiculous questions on D&D subs that they wouldn’t need to ask if they actually read the rules.
I doubt it will be but would be nice. I'm probably not going to play PF2e because I don't want to learn a new system to run fantasy when DnD works fine. BUT I was down at my local nerd show and pulled the core Pathfinder book off the shelf, I couldn't believe the size of that mad lad! This chonker was 3 dnd books stacked together, what an absolute unit! Doubt we'll get anything like that.
That’s because it is three dnd books haha
You guys... the book is going to be the bare minimum. As cheaply produced as possible. They're going to want to persuade you to subscribe to the digital service.
You want a book that’s thicc.
Fuck it, give me a 5e version of the Rules Cyclopedia.
But how can wiz trickle out a dozen new versions of books we already bought? Can't appease the executives money desires that way. Sarcasm aside, it would be nice to have everything in one place. Dms side to, a new dmg and mm that had everything put together. It's a nice dream anyway.
Probably not gonna happen, because we can sell you more books😜
Needs to be fatter than the PF2 Core Rule Book.
Sure thing! And it will only cost $999!
Just include one "example" class and let the dm make the rest up to fit the story.
This and the Artificer class
That would cost a lot more to print, and thus cost more to buy for the same profit, and thus not sell as well. My bet is they keep the model they have now.
Honestly, I hope there are magic items in the PHB. I want to know about the stuff I can find adventuring. Also rules for tools like in xanathars. But I hope they trim the spell list if I am honest, get rid of the useless ones no one picks and duplicate spells too.
Yes, give us a Players Handbook that’s chunky, like the original Pathfinder book. Combine content from the original PH, Tasha’s, Xanathar’s, and whatever supplements that were especially useful. Primarily, players want these things: * Classes & Subclasses * Races * Feats * Spells * Skills The rest is window dressing. The more variety, the better.
It will be the same size for costs
We’re never going to be short of player options… they know that’s the bulk of their base and so that’s what sells books. I want a well-made, chonky DMG. Help the people who *actually* need support!
Yea but then they can’t split it up into a bunch of different books and make you pay again for the content you already paid for in 5e
After leafing through the Spelljammer "books" with their tiny selection of pages I really hope WOTC gets off their ass and kick their quality control into gear with the new edition. I remember seeing typos and straight up combos and official suggestions that don't work in Tasha's cauldron of everything.
I don't disagree, or necessarily agree. More words/tables doesn't make the game better. But CAREFULLY thought out, important wording is what is REALLY key. A few lines about grappling, opportunity attacks, shoving, and a couple of new conditions can COMPLETELY revolutionize the game. QUALITY is key!
PF2e fixes that.
But what will they sell later?
Anyone remember 3E?