5e announced!

[alhoon]

It was all my fault though, cause he told me he wanted to multi-class to rogue.
So, I filled the dungeon with traps expecting him to use this +15 to disarm them. And after a couple of session it hit me that he was disabling paragon-level traps with tools he found in a destroyed village... out of the blue.
I couldn't just say to him "you know what, there'll be training time." cause I already filled the place with traps and he had disarmed like 2-3 of them before I realized he's better than the vast majority of people that do it for all their lives.

[Daisu]

Perhaps the method he came up with, is so simple that other rogue thought superior methods to open a complex lock or deadly trap. But maybe the key is so obvious that only those who do not overthink will see it. If you throw a shape block puzzle in front of a genius he think there is more too it and in that method of thinking lies the trap.

[Zilfer]

Having the right tool for the right job makes things exceedingly easier. Bottle openers, and can openers for example. If you have the tools and know how to use them it makes opening them infinitely easier. That isn't to say there can't be traps that aren't able to be disabled because their mechanisms are in the walls, and the only way to get past them is to avoid them using a trick that the original trap owner new. Like every fourth tile down a hallway you skip stepping on, easy to remember for the trapper of pressure plates.

[Jester of the FoS]

I wrote a piece for En5ider magazine:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/3331181

En5ider is run by ENworld, the D&D/RPG news site and paid for by Patreon, where you pay whatever you want in exchange for content.

[alhoon]

I saw the preview page of "Out of the Abyss" that had Orcus.
Really... uninspiring. He was just a big blob of hp and AC with some weak attacks, except from time-stop and his wand. His wand is most of the threat he represents cause it can cast Power Word Kill, finger of death and some other nasty stuff*. Without it, time-stop from him would be a "yawn... OK, let him deal 80-90 damage to me then"

He's worth 26K XP which means that he's a bit more difficult encounter than a trio of frost giants. And that's exactly right; the all powerful demon is as hard to kill as three frost giants together. Which means that four frost giants would probably take him down.

And don't believe the DMG's difficulty calculations. A "real" well rested and prepared 11th-12th lvl party could take him down, wand* and all.

(real = people with magic items, and not the standard array of stats but good stats you end up with when you roll the dice after you cry a bit on the DM's shoulder if the dice betray you at first)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... 4595&pid=1

*Obviously I'm not talking about the cheat-power of the wand, where he can summon 2-3 liches or death knights.

[alhoon]

Prestige classes!
They follow the 3rd edition paradigm and you multiclass in them for benefits. However, with most of the cool stuff in paths and styles... the presented prestige class is "Meh".

[alhoon]

WotC has given out the 5e SRD... and it contains more stuff than basic D&D.
Multiclassing rules and feats as well as more classes


EDIT: Actually, the SRD contains TONS of stuff. It's not lime-weight like the basic. You can REALLY have a campaign using this. The DM will need the DMG too to make encounters and monsters, but for the players it has everything except feats.

[Jester of the FoS]

WotC has given out the 5e SRD... and it contains more stuff than basic D&D.
Multiclassing rules and feats as well as more classes


EDIT: Actually, the SRD contains TONS of stuff. It's not lime-weight like the basic. You can REALLY have a campaign using this. The DM will need the DMG too to make encounters and monsters, but for the players it has everything except feats.

It has fewer subraces and backgrounds than the Basic rules but more classes, monsters, and spells.

But it's not meant to be a set of rules for playing the game, but a template used for making content. It gives you the text that you can copy freely.

It's really cool. Better than I expected.

[alhoon]

Yeah, but it also gives me a ton of useful things in a PDF at last, so I can use the find function. I've been using D&D basic more than the full books. Want equipment? Page 44 is armor and you go up and down from there. Conditions? near the end of the D&D basic. Spells\lvl? A little above page 22 (i.e. 20 or 21).
I have a far more vague idea where those things are in PHB. PHB I use mostly for the spells and for Warlocks. (page about 190 for spell lists, about 100 for warlock).


Anyway, about the actual SRD: Yes, it has lots of stuff (and different spell names ). But it provides a real solid basis. I will really miss beholders and mind flayers from "public" adventures but mostly everything else I care about is either in, or not in the books anyway (i.e. you have to make it).

And one more thing: Ravenloft is NOT on the list of names you can't use. I checked. So we can finally have Toben zombie Snuggies.
And perhaps you can send to that DMGuild your Ravenloft rules. I would check with WotC first just in case. Even if you cannot, you can certainly share your Dark Shadows idea.

[Jester of the FoS]

And one more thing: Ravenloft is NOT on the list of names you can't use. I checked. So we can finally have Toben zombie Snuggies.

Where is that list?

[alhoon]

http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads ... L_V1.1.pdf

First page of the SRD, which is the OGL. Forgotten Realms is the list of things you can't mention. Ravenloft is not.
Although probably it's still covered by other copyright laws, and will be for the foreseeable future.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Doesn't work like that, lamentably. Each and every item is considered as a separate entity, via US copyright law. This means, in a nutshell, that you have to stand accountable not just for "Ravenloft", but also for "Strahd", "Barovia", and so on. - I oversaw some documents relating to some other licenses of older Hasbro IPs; they are meticulous with that. The shortest document I had in my hands was eight letter-sized pages, with font size six.

- Which is why I am not going to trust this DMsG-license until a few years pass by where it is applied in practice. I sympathize with the license's apparent intent, but my head is spinning from how WotC could mess with inexperienced writers, if they just tried to.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

Here's what I think it means:

1 - OGL rules (from 3e) still prevail. Unofficial 5e content (that is, content that doesn't generate revenue) is okay as long as you agree to the Community Content Agreement (CCA) and slap it on whatever you seek to put out.

2 - You can publish 5e content AND make money out of it exclusively through the DMGuild, for as long as the content is set in the Forgotten Realms (as of this writing). Setting agnostic material is apparently okay for the DMGuild as well (so horror stuff that doesn't mention any campaign is okay).

3 - ayy lmao

[alhoon]

Well, the license says that if you err, and you're notified, you have a month to make a change.
Also, FR is a big place.

If someone puts out a "Forgotten Realms" adventure that after the first encounter has mists that roll in and pull the PCs in a "weird place hidden in Shadowfell, with its own laws, governed by mysterious powers, inexplicable by the simple human mind and that they can't escape through normal means" ... They're not breaking any laws, are they?
Shadowfell is NOT on the prohibited list.

I think I'll just go on and do something like that.

Anyway, there's also the OGL for D&D next that allows you to publish stuff on your own.

[Ender]

If someone puts out a "Forgotten Realms" adventure that after the first encounter has mists that roll in and pull the PCs in a "weird place hidden in Shadowfell, with its own laws, governed by mysterious powers, inexplicable by the simple human mind and that they can't escape through normal means" ... They're not breaking any laws, are they?
Shadowfell is NOT on the prohibited list.

That's a bit tricky. If something is so similar to reserved intellectual property that it can be identified as such, even if it isn't stated to be the same thing, it may draw the unwanted attention of some lawyers. If you introduced "Cthuloids" into an adventure, indicating they are a race of aberrations that have tentacle faces and suck the brains out of their enemies... WotC will very likely pull the plug, citing that you're infringing their copyright on Mind Flayers. You might be able to get away with similar things, but I find it likely that Wizards will remove things if they even think it comes close. Fighting that means lawyers and money.

I'm willing to bet that, if this endeavor is successful, they'll directly allow other settings, but only if they don't intend to release their own material or their introductory material for said setting has already been released.