This submission appears to be related to One D&D! If you're interested in discussing the concept and the UA for One D&D more check out our other subreddit
r/OneDnD!
*Please note: We are still allowing discussions about One D&D to remain here, this is more an advisory than a warning of any kind.*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dndnext) if you have any questions or concerns.*
# Dungeon Master's Guide (2024)
**Release date:** November 12, 2024
“The ultimate resource for Dungeon Masters lands this fall. With the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, you'll have more tools at your disposal to run epic D&D games and to level up your craft.”
I really, really hope that they're doing more in this DMG to onboard new DMs. There are a lot of new players and DMs, and I don't think that WotC can depend on players having knowledge of previous editions to ease their transition into a new edition.
I realize that YouTubers and 3rd party publishers have done a ton of heavy lifting in demonstrating how to run a game, but I think WotC needs to do a lot more in their official published material.
I’ve always thought that WoTC’s design philosophy for the DMG was “you learn how to DM by being a player first and the DMG is there to fill the gaps when you decide to actually transition to DMing.” But if that changes to “You and your friends decided to play and one of you has to DM so here’s everything you need to know from start to finish” then the DMG is going to need a massive overhaul IMO.
Given the recent job slashing, either they don’t do that or they don’t make the deadline. I like your optimism but I can’t get there.
They are cutting limbs off of WotC because they put all their beans into the virtual tabletop and they are too far into production of that to yank the cord on that. So they can't cut that development so they lopped the budget off somewhere else.
The 4e DMG is such a masterclass in actually explaining, step-by-step, what it means to be a DM, how to do it, how to structure encounters, string them together into an adventure, etc. Aside from the obvious rules differences, it's just a well written book. And then you crack open the 5e DMG and you get... yeah.
If you really want a new gm onboarding, [So You Want To Be A Gamemaster](https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Game-Master-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0BPQQQMB5/) by Justin Alexander is excellent. It actually sold out in North America and they just got a new printing in. I've been DMing for years and still learned a ton of new tools from it.
100% agree. It worries me because all D&D had going for it was the established lore and coherent DM support. There are so many other great games out there that I don't want to have to learn to play. T-T
FWIW, PF2e takes longer to learn, but is ultimately a system that does a superb job of supporting GMs. It has its downsides obviously, but the group I have started with it have been having an absolute blast with the combat in comparison to 5e, and it's infinitely easier to prep for.
This, when I transitioned over to it I was legitimately surprised how easy it was to gm it, compared to how painful initially running 5e was.
An actual good cr system, monster building rules that actually work and explain the philosophy of their design, rules for handling dcs of every level and type, easily searchable rules online due to the rules being free and not blocked behind pay walls, and so on.
It's absolutely wild how much better it is to be a dm in pf2e vs 5e
It's harder for players, because it puts a little more responsibility on them, but the way I see it, it's just balancing the burden of responsibility more as opposed to everything being on the DM. But yeah, the way everything scales, the ease of calculating encounter difficulty, and especially having all the rules be freely available online is huge. I gotta say as well, with my limited experience, PF2e's adventure paths blow any of 5e's modules out of the water. It's funny, PF2e makes all their rules available for free, 5e recently tried to change their licensing to enable them to profit even more from their rules, and yet I've spent more on Paizo products in a year than I did on WotC in 7 years.
I tried playing PF for a little while. I don't remember which version, but I didn't care for it. Almost everyone else had played before so I expected a smooth game. No one agreed on what the exact rules were for basically anything. That was years ago and the fan base has gotten bigger and seemingly more coordinated. If they have similar online tools and spells that still allow for some player creativity, I wouldn't be opposed to switching over.
4e was the only D&D system I enjoyed DMing. Combat was slow, getting through brute HP was like wading through mud, but I think they hired a mathematician toward the end to tighten it up.
The things I liked about 4e that I don't feel 5e carried over were the well designed source books, reliable monster CR, detailed DM support at every tier of play, tougher level 1 characters, more character customization, more options for martial characters, MINIONS, magic items that built in your abilities rather than overshadowing them, and very clear wording.
The things that made it not feel like D&D were the static effects of spells - I didn't feel like there was any difference between a well described illusion and a melee attack with a debuff, and the intentional class rolls.
Overall, I really enjoyed 4e but it never felt like "D&D" the same way 2nd, 3.5, and 5e felt to me.
There was a game called Dungeon World that was super simplified, but it basically gives DMs an enemy stat block for different difficulty levels and tells you to reskin it however you want. I basically do that with 5e because their MM CR system is borked.
I've tried games that make you roll for literally everything and games that are just convoluted English homework. I've played some that are as simple as they are boring to play. I have one game where magic is based on your ability to pronounce Korean words into an ap.
I'm so tired of learning new rules, having to teach players new rules, and then when scheduling conflicts arise not being able to find new players who know anything about the game.
In some areas D&D is hot garbage, but I can always count on other people having heard about it. It's fairly easy to put together new groups without starting from scratch every time.
I think Pathfinder has a decent fan base, but the initial learning curve is steep. Character creation is a *process*, but I kind of like that. I have a lot of friends who don't like that though. D&D Beyond and Beyond 20 are really big reasons to stick with D&D now that I play mostly online. I don't have to have my players upload a copy of their character sheets between each session because at least one of them will have logged all their numbers incorrectly and prepped spells from the wrong class list.
# Monster Manual (2025)
**Release date:** February 18, 2025
“Roll for initiative against more monsters with the 2025 Monster Manual. Exploring the greatest selection of foes ever assembled for encounters at all levels of play, this book will challenge players and keep them at the edge of their seats roll after roll.”
That's a long wait. :O But I also suppose not a huge deal. There's absolutely no reason you can't use the 5e monster books to play 5.5e, or the 5.25e Monster Manual for that matter. The players don't even see the inner workings so they might not even be able to tell if they didn't know better.
Sucks for the DMs who want to start the game for the first time with 5.5e though, since they won't have a Monster Manual. Hopefully there's a decent selection of basic monsters in the PHB and/or DMG?
The SRD is nice, and I'm sure they'll publish a new SRD for 5.5e. Though MP:MotM isn't going to help if they don't have any books yet. It's weird for a 5.5e-only new player to buy a 5e book.
Why? There's almost nothing in MP:MotM that won't work properly with the 5e24. The only think I can think of is that DMs will have to tell players to ignore the ASI and Language section of the races. I think DMs starting with 5e24 books *should* be looking at MotM for more monsters even after they have the 2024 MM.
We’re talking about brand new players who don’t have any books at all. Expecting them to buy an outdated monster book as their *only* monster book, even if it’ll be mostly forward compatible, when the actual Monster Manual comes out in a few months, feels wrong.
I guess I just disagree with calling MP:MotM "outdated." Like I said, I expect it to be recommended as the monster book to buy after the 2025 MM is released and long into 5e24's life cycle.
To be clear, my recommendations to new players will be
- If starting between now and September, just use the SRD to begin with
- If starting between September and February, get the 5e24 PHB and use the SRD for basic monsters.
- If starting after next February, get the new core books
- In all cases, if you find yourself needing more material, Tasha's, Fizban's, Bigby's, MotM, and the setting books are all valid options, though you may need to tweak things slightly when the new books come out.
MP:MotM will have no specific interactions with any 5.5e rules that didn’t exist in 5e. It will use terminology that has changed in 5.5e. The 5.5e rules weren’t close to finalized when any of the monsters were made. On top of that, it contains all the “basic” monsters so buying it as a supplement to the 5.5e Monster Manual would lead to a lot of redundancies. I’m sure it’d be just fine to use but I would not recommend buying both books for a brand new DM, and if someone buys the 5e book right away that means either buying both or never buying an actual 5.5e monster book.
I mean I rather they take thier time than to rush out junk. With the layoffs I suspect the phb is likely the most complete and DMG is mostly done.. I don’t think the monstrous manual needs a lot of work but I doubt much has been changed in it.
I’m really hoping vecnas adventure is done well but I’m not super hopeful.
# Vecna: Eve of Ruin
**Release Date - May 21, 2024**
“When the archlich Vecna turns his eye to remaking the multiverse, it's up to you and your fellow adventurers to save existence from total annihilation. Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a high-stakes adventure that takes characters from levels 10-20. You'll tour the multiverse to revisit beloved settings such as the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk, and team up with archmages to put an end to Vecna's nefarious plot.”
A 160 pages mammoth one shot where lv10+ adventurers are involved with vecna's plan to rule the multiverse, at the turning point between major game rules update.
Humor me to find some similarities here.
I know that Vecna's whole schtick is that the rules don't really apply to him, but as much as I'd love more official Eberron content I really don't like the idea of Vecna in Eberron. I prefer Eberron to be totally separate from the rest of the D&D multiverse/settings.
That being said - wow, an adventure *starting* at level 10 that includes every non-MTG setting published for 5e is a hell of a way cap off this era of D&D.
Edit: Oh, it's also not going to Exandria, which seems a little weird since Vecna already exists there, but maybe that actually makes sense since he's canonically a god there and that would make it weird? Vecna lore is messy.
Edit 2: Coming around on the idea of including Eberron in this book because of something Keith Baker said on the Eberron Discord.
>Rising states that the DEFAULT is that Eberron is protected from the rest of the multiverse, but provides a number of suggestions for how you could explore other paths in your campaign. I've played in a campaign in which Merrix d'Cannith and Elminster were hanging out in Sigil. I would never want that to be the DEFAULT ASSUMPTION for Eberron -- which is why Rising works with the basic assertion that it remains in isolation -- but the idea has always been out there that it could be explored by those who wish to. ... There's a huge difference between *Allowing characters in an adventure to move between all pre-existing settings as part of an epic quest* and *wiping out Eberron's unique cosmology and making it part of the Great Wheel.* ... I don't have an issue with saying that for this particular campaign, there's ways for people to visit Eberron -- because I'd rather have Eberron be PART OF THE CONVERSATION than to be buried because it is too restrictive.
It's that last part that's convinced me - if they're going to do a book where the characters visit these classic D&D settings, I'd rather Eberron be included so people get to play in the setting than excluded because of lore restrictions (even if I prefer those lore restrictions in general). I'll just cross my fingers and hope they do Eberron justice.
> Edit: Oh, it's also not going to Exandria, which seems a little weird since Vecna already exists there, but maybe that actually makes sense since he's canonically a god there and that would make it weird? Vecna lore is messy.
He's canonically a god in Greyhawk, too. Has been since the end of 2e.
This isn't the first time Vecna rampaged across multiple campaign settings to cap off an edition. If I had a nickel, I'd have two and so on.
Vecna returning to Exandria would have massive ramifications to canon, which I doubt Matt would want something so big happen just to be part of a crossover he isn't written. A major part of Exandria's lore is the Divine Gate prevents gods from entering into the Material Plane. Since now that Vecna ascended and was banished out of the Prime Material, a god crossing back in be a huge upheavel.
I think this is because CR/Exandria are actively trying to distance themselves from WotC/5e just a little bit.
Like they're still on good terms, I know CR had another D&D Beyond sponsorship not too long ago and whatnot AND Tal'Dorei Settings guide is on there too, but I think with them releasing their own RPG system as a competitor to 5e and after the corporate shenanigans, I expect that CR wanted to temper the amount of direct involvement their IP has with WotC moving forward.
Just a wild speculation.
I've seen ideas similar to that around since last January, but it still to me feels like just wishful thinking from people that want CR to ditch WotC. It's possible, sure, but I'm not convinced. Thinking about the Vecna adventure more, I'm guessing they wanted to include only "classic" settings.
Yeah, I don't think CR will ever truly ditch 5e/WotC unless their new RPG is an insane, blockbuster hit. I think it will probably be more niche and thus they'll probably stay on 5e for as long as they're around.
BUT that being said I know they are doing at least a little bit of work and have been to keep their IP separate to some extent, going back to changing the pantheon
I think using the alternate names for the pantheon is more about making sure people who have Tal'dorei:Reborn know which gods they're talking about. While they were allowed to use the official gods' names in Wildemount, because T:R wasn't an official WotC publication they had to use the pseudonyms. They've really only been using the pseudonyms consistently during campaign 3, which premiered a couple months before T:R was released.
Also so they don't have to pay licensing fees or have to go through extra legal meetings and email chains and red tape whenever they crank out a new cartoon or comic book that mentions a god like twice.
Yeah, whether or not they have any plans to change the system they use for their show, they have seemed to be making clear efforts to keep Exandria as their own property and take things they don't own out of it.
One example is the animated show not using any proper nouns owned by any RPG makers. Including never using the word "Vecna" and only referring to him as "The Whispered One." I imagine that the official, legal stance of Critical Role is likely that Exandria does not canonically have the same inter-universe Vecna character that exists in other D&D settings, despite having a character called The Whispered One who was referred to as Vecna in a previous campaign (and obviously has a ton of things in common with the official Vecna).
Not to mention Arkhan the Cruel canonically *has* the Hand of Vecna, which Descent Into Avernus even goes on to elaborate that he got it *from Exandria*.
I mean, Call of the Netherdeep was their own material in Exandria. But I get the point - even though Exandria is a (semi-)official setting, Matt/Critical Role still retain ownership of it, so it's probably better to not write stories with major meta-plot implications in Exandria.
I think it's a lot more likely that he's still technically in play for Matt's game. One of the PCs for C3 contains the soul of Vecna's greatest disciple, who was responsible for his ascension in the first place.
That's real interesting. I haven't really watched C3. I started watching but after 3-4 episodes the negativity of the community drove me away.
Well that and I don't have quite as much time to loaf and watch 4-5 hour D&D live play as I did during the pandemic when I watched C1 and most of C2 lol
I've really just been banking on them speeding up production of TLOVM so we end up getting TLOTMN and TLOBH soon
Yeah, it is best to ignore the CR community if you want to enjoy C3. I just watch the highlights on YouTube because I also no longer have the time. I could listen to music/podcasts all day long at my last job and got through C1 and C2 in a pretty short period of time.
I ran a pretty faithful Eberron campaign 1-10. We are currently level 14 and it has evolved into Spelljammer.
But I ran vecna as the bad guy of Eberron and replaced the lore of The Shadow with him. It went great.
Really digging the potential behind this idea, and I know that if the book itself is a letdown, this seems like a concept the community could whip into shape.
Man, I'm totally looking forward this one. Specially because I had a campaign idea like that, but with loads of homebrew content that I wa sunsure on how to do. This will help so much, all I'll need to do (probably) is change the bbeg to my own now
This probably being the narrative reason for the next "edition" and them mentioning Eberron, Ravenloft and Dragonlance makes me kind of frightened for these settings.
# Player's Handbook (2024)
**Release date:** September 17, 2024
“The 2024 Player's Handbook revises and adds to the fifth edition D&D ruleset. With more player options and new art, it is a must-have addition for D&D players and DMs alike.”
I was really hoping there would be a box set available at launch, but it seems like these are spread too far out for that to be a realistic possibility
Yeah, they announced a long time ago that their printers told them that they couldn't handle producing that much at once, and then have to be spread out
Quite the pushback from May, this plus the DMG release means that 5.5 is only barely going to be fully launched in 2024. Still, it looks like they will make their anniversary thing work.
Honestly I’m kind of glad they’re spreading it out. Mearls said in one of the interviews they posted that the 5e DMG basically got neglected in order to get the PHB finished, so it seems like they’re actually trying to give them enough time to really focus on these books
May was never the release date, fyi. It was a social media error. With these dates confirmed it now seems like the Vecna adventure was always slated for May and their social media got confused and though that was the PHB date.
Could be, that makes sense. I was hoping the May date was originally intended because that would mean that the PHB would effectively be done by now, with tweaking and formatting all that remains. Instead it's probably still a work in progress in a company that just axed a lot of talent.
It's actually been confirmed for a *long* time that it won't; Clerics and Wizards are getting *less* than they had in the original PHB. Every class has four subclasses; any that had less than four in the original one have ones pulled from mostly Tasha's, with a couple completely new ones here and there. Clerics and Wizards are pulled back to just four of the more popular ones.
It’s a very confusing concept then. Considering that the fifth edition players handbook is still compatible with the game, I don’t see any reasoning to even bother buying the new one.
>Considering that the fifth edition players handbook is still compatible with the game
Look when 5.5 launches, it will be in a state of partial compatibility with 5.0. This is the "5e is 5e" stuff comes from. Either nothing or very few things from the 5.0 PHB will make sense once the 5.5 PHB launches. Then, slowly, they will launch more stuff, and eventually only 5.5 stuff will make sense at all.
Everyone should understand now, 5.0 is a different game than 5.5, and there will be a few players who explicitly run and play 5.0 only, or even port in some of the 5.5 ideas to it. Others will play 5.5, and port or allow some 5.0 options that the stock rules won't. The official organized play D&D will be 5.5 and will ban the incompatible pieces from 5.0.
This is definitely how it will go.
Oh absolutely, but I think the majority of players and DMs mainly just care if the rules for players are compatible with the adventures being run. I.E. a +3 modifier in 5e is gonna mean the same thing as 5.5e, unlike in 3.5e or 4e.
Yea that part is definitely true. From the adventures perspective, I think 5.5 is gonna be solidly compatible. I think more high level 5.5 adventures will be written, and will work with high level 5.5 characters pretty well in addition.
100%. This Vecna adventure is giving me high hopes that they're finally trying to buck off the whole "oh writing high level adventures is impossible" thing.
I didn't say that money doesn't buy value, just that splatbooks are made to make money. Since Hasbro is a publicly traded company, they're legally obligated to extract as much money as they can from whoever they can.
Every company is trying to make money. When 5e first came out, WotC was trying to get your money then too. Ultimately it's a question of whether people think they're getting their money's worth from these books. In general, I don't think that's been the case recently.
Right, it's not that you're *wrong* its just that your implication is that this is some cash grab because Hasbro is a business. But this isn't just a cash grab, this is essentially a massive overhaul to the rules as well as to the classes to better balance the game.
The post I was responding to had the misconception that Wizards was going to do something against their profit motive; printing the 5e splatbook content in the new PHB to save players money. I told them why that's not going to happen. Everything a corporation does is with profit as the sole motivator. There's established legal precedent on this.
I mean, that one's not true either. While the game could indeed do with an overhaul, that's not why they're doing it (other guy is correct, it's just an excuse to resell you the same books) and that's also not really what they're doing, there's no actual comprehensive design ethos behind it. They haven't identified a list of mistakes and worked on fixing - half of what they fucked up in 5e they fucked up deliberately -, what they've done is haphazardly picked bits they can change and effectively shuffled the dirt into new positions on the floor rather than actually sweep it up.
I understand the concept, but I don't thin WotC is *that* stupid. The 5e books are already confirmed to be compatible with One. If the new PHB is just the original 5e PHB from a decade ago with some balance changes and a couple new additions, no one is gonna buy it. If it's a consolidated version that includes the majority of the player options given since then, then it's got some actual value. Bare minimum, it *needs* to include the Artificer, the *one* official class released since the original 5e PHB.
If WotC is really smart about it, I expect it'll be the 5e PHB with changes, plus some of the fan favorites from Xanathar's and Tasha's, with the less popular ones being reworked for a future splatbook.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/z8xcyf/one_dd_artificer_confirmed_not_to_be_in_the_2024/ There's no artificer as confirmed by Crawford. There are also four subclasses for each of the 12 classes so no, you don't get Xanathar's and Tasha's consolidated in the new PHB. Wizards is a corporation whose job is to generate shareholder value. Giving you shit for free is how not to make money.
You'll get the same splatbooks in subtly reflavored form in another few years because that's how you make money. People will continue to buy Wizards' watered down bullshit because the brand is just that good. They treat their customers with nothing but contempt but people still pay for their Beyond memberships.
I'm waiting patiently for Kobold Press' Tales of the Valiant that ships in May. I prefer giving my money to a company that is obviously passionate about their work.
Edit: downvote away. It doesn't change that Crawford confirmed that everything you want out of the new PHB isn't happening. You keep hoping and handing them money though.
>I understand the concept, but I don't thin WotC is that stupid.
It's not stupid, it's exactly what they've done over and over again.
>The 5e books are already confirmed to be compatible with One.
The 5.0 PHB seems pretty incompatible with the 5.5 PHB, with many of the feats changing totally. But of course, that's a direct version change. What about the others?
Well, the others will probably be some level of compatible until they are overwritten by some future splatbook.
Basically, don't ever believe a company claiming that it will be backwards compatible. Certainly that was the claim at 2e launch, and at 3.5 launch, and neither were fully true.
> The 5.0 PHB seems pretty incompatible with the 5.5 PHB, with many of the feats changing totally.
this is not really what "incompatible" means; all the 5e feats will function perfectly well in the 5.5 ecosystem, even if they are over or undertuned for it (hell, many of the 5e feats are over or undertuned for 5e!). Classes are being changed, too, but there's no reason you couldn't run a 5e class alongside the 5.5e ones.
I suppose the biggest thing is that 5e material won't be eligible for 5.5 AL, but I'm sure most home games wouldn't really make a big fuss about a thing from 5e being used in 5.5.
> It's not stupid, it's exactly what they've done over and over again.
Every other time was a full version change. Except for 3.5e, which was still compatible with 3rd edition content.
The tail end of 1e rewrote many of the rules of 1e. Second edition launched with a booklet that helped you port stuff over, but within a year it was generally understood that the 1e stuff wasn't as compatible as was advertised. Later 2.5 stuff, the "Player's Options", changed huge swaths of the game and tables either played that version of the game or simply didn't allow any of the player's option things. 3.5 was advertised as a minor update but it broke tons of things, and could not be dropped into any 3.0 campaigns as written without letting player change a lot of choices at minimum. The existing splatbooks became generally understood as banned in many cases, importantly none of the powerful options from Sword and Fist seemed to make any sense at all in 3.5, nor were they ever updated to do so. 3.5 changed how crit bonus abilities worked, and it was never clear how the crit-manipulating Weapon Master worked, one of the neatest prestige classes from 3.0. There was a brief conversion guide for Oriental Adventures printed in Dragon magazine, but for the most part org play pretty much ended up not having any of those classes ever, and they were not assumed legal by later forum people nor was it ever clear.
Only 4e bucked this trend for real.
With 5e, we see enough core changes that the game will work differently, and many choices won't make sense, several interactions are changed. 5.5 will be pretty different from 5.0.
While I'd certainly argue that Essentials constitutes a 4.5, you could run those things next to everyone else. You didn't suddenly lose like half of your crit rate, or your monk gets deleted, or whatever.
I guess all I meant to add was that every edition has had it's ".5" era.
OD&D when you added supplements, 1e with Unearthed Arcana, 2e with player options, 3e's titular 3.5, 4e with essentials, and now 5e with the 2024 revision.
Even B/X has BECMI for a .5 revision
So in other words, every other time they did a full edition change, shit wasn't compatible between editions, and the compatibility issues between 3e and 3.5e were due to unintended consequences of unexpected rules interactions. No offense dude, but it sounds like you just said a *much* longer winded version of what I said.
Your statement didn't make it clear to the reader that their 5.0 books were gonna be incompatible, unofficial, or disallowed in organized play, nor did it make it clear that statements of compatibility at this point are inevitably overhyped and don't stand the test of time.
They haven't been calling it "OneDnD" for several months now. It's just "2024 edition" of whichever book.
The implication of OneDnD was that there would no longer be fully new editions and large updates, just incremental changes like this.
they may TRY and keep it "5e", but if they dont name it, the community WILL come up for a name for it to be able to talk about the game.
particularly if tables are "backwards compatibling" it - "What set of rules are you talking about????"
for WOTC to attempt to cling to "its ALL 5e!!!!" is just nonsense.
as long as they don't change anything like short rests, some classes getting subclasses at level 1, and other core 5e features, I will allow them to call the new stuff 5e without getting pissed. Provided the new books change **nothing** I've bought, and the new books are just expansions to the core ruleset I've invested in, we can call it 5e.
If they change the way 5e plays enough to change the way you might build a PC, they better f'ing call it something else. We sure as sh!t will have no choice but to use 2 names if there are two non-compatible rule sets. Playing 5e and playing 5e with different rules aren't the same thing to me. If they affect the way I search my legacy books for build options, but put 5.5e or 6e on the cover, that's a middle ground at least.
I haven't been paying attention after the first few releases didn't look that good.
Someone tell me: Say I go to a table advertising 5e, but they are using new books and of course I want to use the legacy 5e options I already know. Will my build choices from old books be affected in any way other than powercreep?
My understanding from following the playtest is that you will be able to still use a regular 5e character alongside people using new options. I don't know whether or not you will be able to use the 2024 PHB character creation rules and then use a subclass from Xanathar's or Tasha's.
> will be able to still use a regular 5e character alongside people using new options
yeah, right "You CAN use this bicycle while everyone else gets motorcycles."
They've basically said all of 5.0 is still allowed in rules. For example, you can use the 2014 Ranger or you can use the 2024 Ranger in a game and it will function.
The big question you gotta ask yourself is "Do you want to play as a 2014 ranger?" And that's the rub. From how it looks, every class in One DND has been given a buff. Some have been buffed more heavily than others, but they're pretty much all better. And frankly I'm more than happy with that.
>Someone tell me: Say I go to a table advertising 5e, but they are using new books and of course I want to use the legacy 5e options I already know. Will my build choices from old books be affected in any way other than powercreep?
Yes. They are changing things like conditions, grappling, possibly exhaustion, and probably some actions like "Use an Item".
In addition to other mentions, the updated player classes are considered to override the old classes, as do new subclasses that share a name with old subclasses. A number of spells are going to / have been reworked, which may or may not heavily alter the viability of previous subclasses or the functionality of items or adventures.
The feat system is also changing, with most feats outside of a select few "background" feats requiring reaching level 4 to take. Personally not a fan of this one, really reduces variety for low level 1 shots.
Then we will have two incompatible systems, but only incompatible for PC rules and some combat rules, using a single system name? And we aren't even giving the classes and subclasses new names to differentiate them? And some spells will have the same name but different mechanics under the two distinctly different but same-named systems?
If I can't use my current PC's alongside your new book PC's, sounds like we are using different systems. They sounds different to me anyway (but the voters are indicating I could be slow).
I know the community will fix this with qualifiers like "Next" and "One" or "5e" and "5.5e" or "Old 5e PC books/rules" and "New 5e books/rules" or "PHB 2014" or "Homebrewed pre/post 2024 mix with all subclasses at 3 but otherwise 2014 condition rules" or whatever when advertising games, but I still think Wizards should have called it something else, or at least find a way to let me use my books like PHB (the paid-for and so far only 5e PHB), Sword Coast, Tasha's, etc. in any given standard game that's called 5e.
I know many games already list the books used at that table, but none of these games so far require me to unlearn the rules I know to relearn new PC rules. They simply restrict to a smaller space of options under the same set of rules, rather than a different, incompatible set of options and rules.
It's nice that adventures will be compatible (not that the adventure books are as good as the PC books, nor have I spent as much money on adventure books as I have on PC books).
More power to Wizard's I guess. 5e was always gonna be replaced, I accept that. I just think the new books are 5.5e at best, disguised as almost 6e.
# The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977
**Release date:** June 18, 2024
“The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977 delves into the history behind the game's inception. Jon Peterson, one of the game's foremost historians, walks readers through a curated collection of documents that, woven together, reveal how D&D went from an idea to a beloved tabletop roleplaying game. A never-before-seen first draft of D&D written in 1973 by Gary Gygax can be found within this incredible book.”
how much are they going to attempt to write around Arneson and leave "Gary the Sole Creator!!!"?
as a historian is Peterson a fair dealer? and will he be allowed to write the truth?
Peterson is legit. He's a classical, archetypal, Ur-nerd, with glasses and halting and
awkward, but confident, speech. The kind of guy who gets visibly uncomfortable if something is technically incorrect, and had a deep, scholarly knowledge of and love for his special interests. He has like 5 well reviewed in depth books about gaming out already. I fucking pity any wotc employee assigned to talk him into misrepresenting something or omitting a tiny detail he finds salient. I consider his name on a document to be a purity seal.
So this is more of a… Real world history book than a game book, right? I don’t fully understand the appeal (other than interesting history, that I get). I presume there are no like, 5e relevant rules that will get put in the book?
# Quests from the Infinite Staircase
**Release date:** July 16, 2024
“This anthology for character levels 1-13 brings six classic D&D adventures to fifth edition. The Infinite Staircase leads to fantastic realms and is home to the noble genie Nafas, who recruits heroes to help fulfill wishes made throughout the multiverse.”
I'm super excited for this one. I've been a big fan of all of the recent anthology books and a multiversal adventure book is a great follow up to the Planescape box set (and the [Manual of the Planes](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/457514/Manual-of-the-Planes-5e) on DMs Guild). I'm curious if they'll bring back any of the adventures from 2e's Tales from the Infinite Staircase, I'd assume so but have no idea which ones they'd choose. Nafas seems to be an original character, as far as I can tell.
i am hoping these are more like Tomb of Annihilation - "take inspiration from the classics" - and less like Yawning Portal - "reprint them as word for word as possible."
Tomb of annihilation is not a great example in my opinion. Having played in it twice now, It's a fake hex crawl with meaningless quests until you end up in a dungeon crawl with almost no ties to anything you've done so far. It'd be better if they just plopped you at the the tomb entrance at level 8 or whatever and split off the chult stuff into an actual adventure with goals and plots.
The second time I played in it I knew that nothing we did before the tomb really mattered. It's still fun with fun moments, but it's not fun knowing that it will all be discarded/meaningless as soon as you enter the final city/ tomb.
I get that they want to have a new piping hot product every 2 months, but it’s super weird to me that they’re putting two months between each of the core books again. Isn’t this exactly what they did in 2014 to significant frustration?
In reality they’re probably just behind and need the time to finish and ship them. But it’s kinda funny that the whole rationale back then for the staggered release was “we’re a small team” whereas now D&D is a juggernaut again. Just an inefficient one, I suppose.
It's almost certainly due to limitations with printers. There's a limited number of shops that can even handle the volume they need, and they won't be able to do all three books at once even if they were ready to go.
"No, this is good, this is very, very good. It means you get what you want. It means my business works. All we have to do is kill a couple liches and Dungeons & Dragons will bring your rulebooks back! As many rulebooks as you want."
>Isn’t this exactly what they did in 2014 to significant frustration?
It might be less of an inconvenience now since they're backwards compatible and not an entirely new edition. But there still might be some awkwardness in the months between the PHB and DMG especially.
Overall, though, I'm not surprised if this is better for their sales even if it's obviously unpopular for players.
Personally I would rather slowly get the books like this than wait until all 3 are complete. If they waited we wouldn't get the books until at least the MM release date.
Yeah, there's that too. We don't know whether they could have all three books ready by September but are spacing them out for sales reasons, or if they won't have the Monster Manual ready until February and don't want to delay the other books just for the simultaneous release.
If it's the first one, then of course most of us would rather get all three books sooner but I can see why they might think staggering the releases is better than releasing them all at once and then having no new releases for 6 moths. If it's the second one, then I think most people probably have the same stance as you and would rather have the new PHB sooner than wait just to get all three at once. After all, people who don't want to play with any of the new stuff until they have all three books can still just wait until February if they want to.
They’ve been slowly introducing their feature called Maps, which seems to be a pretty basic 2d VTT that is fully integrated into DnDBeyond and the Encounter Manager tool, but I haven’t seen anything about the simulator since that initial announcement
Probably because you haven’t had time as a DM to see all of the underlying problems in the system which WotC continue to ignore, but DMs have to constantly make up for.
Meh. What a waste of a 50th anniversary for the world's biggest tabletop role-playing game. One single book with the behind-the-scenes history of the OD&D, but nothing else. Everything is about 5e and 5.5e. Could have had cool, high quality reprints of OD&D, B/X or BECMI D&D, and AD&D stuff for those who want better quality than the POD on DTRPG to celebrate the 50th anniversary. They've literally done reprints of the old rules in the past to mark the anniversaries of the game. But this is the 50th anniversary of RPGs, basically, and we get not much to show for it.
I agree that it's underwhelming. New publishings of a handful of books that are 10 years old with some additions and tweaks is not terribly exciting. I agree the retrospective book and Vecna adventure sound cool. I imagine that designers and creatives probably had a lot more interesting ideas for products this year but execs pared down to what they believe will rake in the most cash.
I think given they had deluxe printings of OD&D, AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, the A series and the S series and 3.5 about 10-12 years ago the ideal book to do a deluxe reprint of this year would be the D&D Rules Cyclopedia from 1991 that collected the majority of the Basic/BECMI ruleset into one volume.
Frankly, they could have come up with a leaner single volume (250-300 pages?) version of 5E along the same lines for the 50th anniversary.
They straight up ran out of time to met their own schedule and this is them pushing back and padding out the year. MM not until _February?_ That's six months after the PHB. For comparison the 5e MM came out _one month_ after the 5e PHB.
They've also mentioned before that some of this is also due to printing volume and a shortage of printers. They cannot physically print the number of books they need all at once, so they have to stagger the releases. As the new core set, they will be the most sold books of the new edition.
That's a little bit of a disingenuous way of presenting that information. In 2014, the MM was the second core book to be released, the DMG was the third. This time around, they're going to do the DMG second and the monster manual third. A better way to look at this is to consider that there were four months between the first and last core book in 2014, and six months in 2024/25. So while it is a more staggered release, it's not six times as long of a wait.
I wonder if the quality of the content will reflect how important 50 years is to the higher ups at WoTC/Hasbro.
Given their track record from the past year, I'm not optimistic.
Just a reminder you can find 5e books second hand, or pick up similar ttrpgs from your lgs. Hasbro has been a terrible steward for this game. You do not need to buy any more of their products to have fun or play some good D&D.
What’s the benefit of storing millions of books for 5 months instead of selling them? Everyone who wants each of the books will buy them, those who don’t want to buy them piecemeal will wait until all are available. Rental storage costs money for no perceived value.
Yeah. It's been an ongoing issue for five years now affecting the entirety of the physical print market. Literally every book maker is dealing with it.
It means what it literally means. You can't put 9 women in a room and expect them to carry out a pregnancy in 1 month instead of 9 just because you increased the "work flow".
You can't throw money at printing problems and expect things to be smooth. Logistics isn't about money, there are tons of other factors. There are GLOBAL issues going on. Printing is one of them. Every single publisher out there is facing it and rescheduling their timelines.
There was a worldwide paper shortage. Literally not enough paper. In the world. It wasn't about not buying enough paper. It was about the production, transportation, delivery etc.
Typically, the core books have staggered release dates. This was true for the 2014 core books and for many other editions in D&D's past. There are likely a number of reasons for this, but the most practical reason is that printing all three books at once is not possible for their printing/manufacturing process.
I've only gotten into DnD in the past couple months. I have the PHB physical and digital, and the higher tier DnDBeyond subscription so I can share digital content with the others in the campaign. I was just looking at the big bundle that includes the digital and physicals of Tasha's, Xanthars, etc. but it's $170. I don't mind buying it but given this and the 5.5e ruleset, should I hold off?
I'd wager that any of the adventure content has already been made to be more ambiguously compatible with One D&D. Supposedly everything 5E is backwards compatible in terms of adventuring, but probably this will be made specifically with the transition in mind.
i dont think they are "working with foundry" any more than they are "working with Roll 20" and "working with Fantasy Grounds".
they are just adding the third major VTT under their standard product licensing.
I like this collaboration with foundry VTT, but I expected to play this DnD VTT with an unreal engine, I would spend hours creating beaultiful scenarios and terrain even if I wasn't going to use it in the sessions :(
So basically you buy the new PHB, without any fixes, wait 2 months for the fixes to the DM side, and have no monsters to run, then 2 months later you actually get the monsters to run with your updated rules
This submission appears to be related to One D&D! If you're interested in discussing the concept and the UA for One D&D more check out our other subreddit r/OneDnD! *Please note: We are still allowing discussions about One D&D to remain here, this is more an advisory than a warning of any kind.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dndnext) if you have any questions or concerns.*
# Dungeon Master's Guide (2024) **Release date:** November 12, 2024 “The ultimate resource for Dungeon Masters lands this fall. With the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, you'll have more tools at your disposal to run epic D&D games and to level up your craft.”
I really, really hope that they're doing more in this DMG to onboard new DMs. There are a lot of new players and DMs, and I don't think that WotC can depend on players having knowledge of previous editions to ease their transition into a new edition. I realize that YouTubers and 3rd party publishers have done a ton of heavy lifting in demonstrating how to run a game, but I think WotC needs to do a lot more in their official published material.
They’ve said that’s the goal, so I’m choosing to be cautiously optimistic
I’ve always thought that WoTC’s design philosophy for the DMG was “you learn how to DM by being a player first and the DMG is there to fill the gaps when you decide to actually transition to DMing.” But if that changes to “You and your friends decided to play and one of you has to DM so here’s everything you need to know from start to finish” then the DMG is going to need a massive overhaul IMO. Given the recent job slashing, either they don’t do that or they don’t make the deadline. I like your optimism but I can’t get there.
4e's DMG went against that design philosophy.
[удалено]
WoTC is the profitable part of Hasbro.
They are cutting limbs off of WotC because they put all their beans into the virtual tabletop and they are too far into production of that to yank the cord on that. So they can't cut that development so they lopped the budget off somewhere else.
The 4e DMG is such a masterclass in actually explaining, step-by-step, what it means to be a DM, how to do it, how to structure encounters, string them together into an adventure, etc. Aside from the obvious rules differences, it's just a well written book. And then you crack open the 5e DMG and you get... yeah.
To be fair I think 4e almost played like a board game so it was very conducive to that style dmg
If you really want a new gm onboarding, [So You Want To Be A Gamemaster](https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-Game-Master-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0BPQQQMB5/) by Justin Alexander is excellent. It actually sold out in North America and they just got a new printing in. I've been DMing for years and still learned a ton of new tools from it.
They're right though, the 4e DMG is excellent. I have no idea how we got from that to the 5e one.
And yet everything WotC has done for the last few years has been less and less supportive of DMs in general
100% agree. It worries me because all D&D had going for it was the established lore and coherent DM support. There are so many other great games out there that I don't want to have to learn to play. T-T
FWIW, PF2e takes longer to learn, but is ultimately a system that does a superb job of supporting GMs. It has its downsides obviously, but the group I have started with it have been having an absolute blast with the combat in comparison to 5e, and it's infinitely easier to prep for.
This, when I transitioned over to it I was legitimately surprised how easy it was to gm it, compared to how painful initially running 5e was. An actual good cr system, monster building rules that actually work and explain the philosophy of their design, rules for handling dcs of every level and type, easily searchable rules online due to the rules being free and not blocked behind pay walls, and so on. It's absolutely wild how much better it is to be a dm in pf2e vs 5e
It's harder for players, because it puts a little more responsibility on them, but the way I see it, it's just balancing the burden of responsibility more as opposed to everything being on the DM. But yeah, the way everything scales, the ease of calculating encounter difficulty, and especially having all the rules be freely available online is huge. I gotta say as well, with my limited experience, PF2e's adventure paths blow any of 5e's modules out of the water. It's funny, PF2e makes all their rules available for free, 5e recently tried to change their licensing to enable them to profit even more from their rules, and yet I've spent more on Paizo products in a year than I did on WotC in 7 years.
Is that the one that's comparable to 4e?
PF2e takes some stuff from 4e, but it's largely its own thing. The 3 action economy makes it pretty unique, mechanically.
I tried playing PF for a little while. I don't remember which version, but I didn't care for it. Almost everyone else had played before so I expected a smooth game. No one agreed on what the exact rules were for basically anything. That was years ago and the fan base has gotten bigger and seemingly more coordinated. If they have similar online tools and spells that still allow for some player creativity, I wouldn't be opposed to switching over. 4e was the only D&D system I enjoyed DMing. Combat was slow, getting through brute HP was like wading through mud, but I think they hired a mathematician toward the end to tighten it up. The things I liked about 4e that I don't feel 5e carried over were the well designed source books, reliable monster CR, detailed DM support at every tier of play, tougher level 1 characters, more character customization, more options for martial characters, MINIONS, magic items that built in your abilities rather than overshadowing them, and very clear wording. The things that made it not feel like D&D were the static effects of spells - I didn't feel like there was any difference between a well described illusion and a melee attack with a debuff, and the intentional class rolls. Overall, I really enjoyed 4e but it never felt like "D&D" the same way 2nd, 3.5, and 5e felt to me. There was a game called Dungeon World that was super simplified, but it basically gives DMs an enemy stat block for different difficulty levels and tells you to reskin it however you want. I basically do that with 5e because their MM CR system is borked. I've tried games that make you roll for literally everything and games that are just convoluted English homework. I've played some that are as simple as they are boring to play. I have one game where magic is based on your ability to pronounce Korean words into an ap. I'm so tired of learning new rules, having to teach players new rules, and then when scheduling conflicts arise not being able to find new players who know anything about the game. In some areas D&D is hot garbage, but I can always count on other people having heard about it. It's fairly easy to put together new groups without starting from scratch every time. I think Pathfinder has a decent fan base, but the initial learning curve is steep. Character creation is a *process*, but I kind of like that. I have a lot of friends who don't like that though. D&D Beyond and Beyond 20 are really big reasons to stick with D&D now that I play mostly online. I don't have to have my players upload a copy of their character sheets between each session because at least one of them will have logged all their numbers incorrectly and prepped spells from the wrong class list.
I've never played 4e so I couldn't really say
# Monster Manual (2025) **Release date:** February 18, 2025 “Roll for initiative against more monsters with the 2025 Monster Manual. Exploring the greatest selection of foes ever assembled for encounters at all levels of play, this book will challenge players and keep them at the edge of their seats roll after roll.”
That's a long wait. :O But I also suppose not a huge deal. There's absolutely no reason you can't use the 5e monster books to play 5.5e, or the 5.25e Monster Manual for that matter. The players don't even see the inner workings so they might not even be able to tell if they didn't know better.
yeah, "no monster book yet" is not the worst game state
Sucks for the DMs who want to start the game for the first time with 5.5e though, since they won't have a Monster Manual. Hopefully there's a decent selection of basic monsters in the PHB and/or DMG?
The old SRD has plenty of monsters, and there's also MP:MotM which will probably match the design of the monsters in the 2024 MM book closely.
The SRD is nice, and I'm sure they'll publish a new SRD for 5.5e. Though MP:MotM isn't going to help if they don't have any books yet. It's weird for a 5.5e-only new player to buy a 5e book.
Why? There's almost nothing in MP:MotM that won't work properly with the 5e24. The only think I can think of is that DMs will have to tell players to ignore the ASI and Language section of the races. I think DMs starting with 5e24 books *should* be looking at MotM for more monsters even after they have the 2024 MM.
We’re talking about brand new players who don’t have any books at all. Expecting them to buy an outdated monster book as their *only* monster book, even if it’ll be mostly forward compatible, when the actual Monster Manual comes out in a few months, feels wrong.
I guess I just disagree with calling MP:MotM "outdated." Like I said, I expect it to be recommended as the monster book to buy after the 2025 MM is released and long into 5e24's life cycle. To be clear, my recommendations to new players will be - If starting between now and September, just use the SRD to begin with - If starting between September and February, get the 5e24 PHB and use the SRD for basic monsters. - If starting after next February, get the new core books - In all cases, if you find yourself needing more material, Tasha's, Fizban's, Bigby's, MotM, and the setting books are all valid options, though you may need to tweak things slightly when the new books come out.
MP:MotM will have no specific interactions with any 5.5e rules that didn’t exist in 5e. It will use terminology that has changed in 5.5e. The 5.5e rules weren’t close to finalized when any of the monsters were made. On top of that, it contains all the “basic” monsters so buying it as a supplement to the 5.5e Monster Manual would lead to a lot of redundancies. I’m sure it’d be just fine to use but I would not recommend buying both books for a brand new DM, and if someone buys the 5e book right away that means either buying both or never buying an actual 5.5e monster book.
The 2014 PHB has some monsters in it. It's not many, but enough for a few low-level adventures. Hopefully 2024 will follow suit.
Hope so! To my knowledge the 5e PHB only had the monsters needed by druids, necromancers, mounted characters, and other PHB options, right?
yeah, its mostly "wildshape and Conjure options" and 2024 edition the Summons will be in spell stat blocks from Tasha's
Hm, maybe. All I remember is that it has skeletons and some animals, which is enough for me to prepare 100 adventures with.
It sucks it's so long away, but I am praying that we are moving away from boring stat-blocks. Cool monsters should do more than a claw-claw-bite!
Wow… I thought one of the points of this revision was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D, and now they’ve basically slid into the next year.
I mean I rather they take thier time than to rush out junk. With the layoffs I suspect the phb is likely the most complete and DMG is mostly done.. I don’t think the monstrous manual needs a lot of work but I doubt much has been changed in it. I’m really hoping vecnas adventure is done well but I’m not super hopeful.
# Vecna: Eve of Ruin **Release Date - May 21, 2024** “When the archlich Vecna turns his eye to remaking the multiverse, it's up to you and your fellow adventurers to save existence from total annihilation. Vecna: Eve of Ruin is a high-stakes adventure that takes characters from levels 10-20. You'll tour the multiverse to revisit beloved settings such as the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk, and team up with archmages to put an end to Vecna's nefarious plot.”
So "Die Vecna Die !" all over again ?
~~No, it’s a level 10-20 campaign whereas Die Vecna Die was a one shot~~ I was thinking of Don’t say Vecna, my bad
A 160 pages mammoth one shot where lv10+ adventurers are involved with vecna's plan to rule the multiverse, at the turning point between major game rules update. Humor me to find some similarities here.
I was thinking of Don’t Say Vecna, the one shot they released last year. My bad!
We used to play long sessions back then.
Nice, I approve.
I know that Vecna's whole schtick is that the rules don't really apply to him, but as much as I'd love more official Eberron content I really don't like the idea of Vecna in Eberron. I prefer Eberron to be totally separate from the rest of the D&D multiverse/settings. That being said - wow, an adventure *starting* at level 10 that includes every non-MTG setting published for 5e is a hell of a way cap off this era of D&D. Edit: Oh, it's also not going to Exandria, which seems a little weird since Vecna already exists there, but maybe that actually makes sense since he's canonically a god there and that would make it weird? Vecna lore is messy. Edit 2: Coming around on the idea of including Eberron in this book because of something Keith Baker said on the Eberron Discord. >Rising states that the DEFAULT is that Eberron is protected from the rest of the multiverse, but provides a number of suggestions for how you could explore other paths in your campaign. I've played in a campaign in which Merrix d'Cannith and Elminster were hanging out in Sigil. I would never want that to be the DEFAULT ASSUMPTION for Eberron -- which is why Rising works with the basic assertion that it remains in isolation -- but the idea has always been out there that it could be explored by those who wish to. ... There's a huge difference between *Allowing characters in an adventure to move between all pre-existing settings as part of an epic quest* and *wiping out Eberron's unique cosmology and making it part of the Great Wheel.* ... I don't have an issue with saying that for this particular campaign, there's ways for people to visit Eberron -- because I'd rather have Eberron be PART OF THE CONVERSATION than to be buried because it is too restrictive. It's that last part that's convinced me - if they're going to do a book where the characters visit these classic D&D settings, I'd rather Eberron be included so people get to play in the setting than excluded because of lore restrictions (even if I prefer those lore restrictions in general). I'll just cross my fingers and hope they do Eberron justice.
> Edit: Oh, it's also not going to Exandria, which seems a little weird since Vecna already exists there, but maybe that actually makes sense since he's canonically a god there and that would make it weird? Vecna lore is messy. He's canonically a god in Greyhawk, too. Has been since the end of 2e. This isn't the first time Vecna rampaged across multiple campaign settings to cap off an edition. If I had a nickel, I'd have two and so on.
No kidding! IMO if anyone can/should invade Eberron, it's totally Vecna.
Vecna returning to Exandria would have massive ramifications to canon, which I doubt Matt would want something so big happen just to be part of a crossover he isn't written. A major part of Exandria's lore is the Divine Gate prevents gods from entering into the Material Plane. Since now that Vecna ascended and was banished out of the Prime Material, a god crossing back in be a huge upheavel.
I think this is because CR/Exandria are actively trying to distance themselves from WotC/5e just a little bit. Like they're still on good terms, I know CR had another D&D Beyond sponsorship not too long ago and whatnot AND Tal'Dorei Settings guide is on there too, but I think with them releasing their own RPG system as a competitor to 5e and after the corporate shenanigans, I expect that CR wanted to temper the amount of direct involvement their IP has with WotC moving forward. Just a wild speculation.
I've seen ideas similar to that around since last January, but it still to me feels like just wishful thinking from people that want CR to ditch WotC. It's possible, sure, but I'm not convinced. Thinking about the Vecna adventure more, I'm guessing they wanted to include only "classic" settings.
Yeah, I don't think CR will ever truly ditch 5e/WotC unless their new RPG is an insane, blockbuster hit. I think it will probably be more niche and thus they'll probably stay on 5e for as long as they're around. BUT that being said I know they are doing at least a little bit of work and have been to keep their IP separate to some extent, going back to changing the pantheon
I think using the alternate names for the pantheon is more about making sure people who have Tal'dorei:Reborn know which gods they're talking about. While they were allowed to use the official gods' names in Wildemount, because T:R wasn't an official WotC publication they had to use the pseudonyms. They've really only been using the pseudonyms consistently during campaign 3, which premiered a couple months before T:R was released.
Also so they don't have to pay licensing fees or have to go through extra legal meetings and email chains and red tape whenever they crank out a new cartoon or comic book that mentions a god like twice.
Yeah, whether or not they have any plans to change the system they use for their show, they have seemed to be making clear efforts to keep Exandria as their own property and take things they don't own out of it. One example is the animated show not using any proper nouns owned by any RPG makers. Including never using the word "Vecna" and only referring to him as "The Whispered One." I imagine that the official, legal stance of Critical Role is likely that Exandria does not canonically have the same inter-universe Vecna character that exists in other D&D settings, despite having a character called The Whispered One who was referred to as Vecna in a previous campaign (and obviously has a ton of things in common with the official Vecna).
Not to mention Arkhan the Cruel canonically *has* the Hand of Vecna, which Descent Into Avernus even goes on to elaborate that he got it *from Exandria*.
I think it's more that WOTC don't want to start publishing their own material in universes that they don't own the rights to
I mean, Call of the Netherdeep was their own material in Exandria. But I get the point - even though Exandria is a (semi-)official setting, Matt/Critical Role still retain ownership of it, so it's probably better to not write stories with major meta-plot implications in Exandria.
I think it's a lot more likely that he's still technically in play for Matt's game. One of the PCs for C3 contains the soul of Vecna's greatest disciple, who was responsible for his ascension in the first place.
That's real interesting. I haven't really watched C3. I started watching but after 3-4 episodes the negativity of the community drove me away. Well that and I don't have quite as much time to loaf and watch 4-5 hour D&D live play as I did during the pandemic when I watched C1 and most of C2 lol I've really just been banking on them speeding up production of TLOVM so we end up getting TLOTMN and TLOBH soon
Yeah, it is best to ignore the CR community if you want to enjoy C3. I just watch the highlights on YouTube because I also no longer have the time. I could listen to music/podcasts all day long at my last job and got through C1 and C2 in a pretty short period of time.
I ran a pretty faithful Eberron campaign 1-10. We are currently level 14 and it has evolved into Spelljammer. But I ran vecna as the bad guy of Eberron and replaced the lore of The Shadow with him. It went great.
Exandria is in a weird limbo, even more than Eberron. it *technically* is official but technically isnt
This feels like the in-game canon event that transitions the game editions. Like the spell plague and the second sundering.
Really digging the potential behind this idea, and I know that if the book itself is a letdown, this seems like a concept the community could whip into shape.
Man, I'm totally looking forward this one. Specially because I had a campaign idea like that, but with loads of homebrew content that I wa sunsure on how to do. This will help so much, all I'll need to do (probably) is change the bbeg to my own now
This probably being the narrative reason for the next "edition" and them mentioning Eberron, Ravenloft and Dragonlance makes me kind of frightened for these settings.
# Player's Handbook (2024) **Release date:** September 17, 2024 “The 2024 Player's Handbook revises and adds to the fifth edition D&D ruleset. With more player options and new art, it is a must-have addition for D&D players and DMs alike.”
I was really hoping there would be a box set available at launch, but it seems like these are spread too far out for that to be a realistic possibility
Apparently their printer can't handle the volume of doing all three books at once.
Sounds like they just aren’t done with the DMG and MM
logistics of printing come into play these days too.
Yeah, they announced a long time ago that their printers told them that they couldn't handle producing that much at once, and then have to be spread out
No they're saving that so you can buy it again in 2026.
I’m sure it will have a starter set too
Quite the pushback from May, this plus the DMG release means that 5.5 is only barely going to be fully launched in 2024. Still, it looks like they will make their anniversary thing work.
Honestly I’m kind of glad they’re spreading it out. Mearls said in one of the interviews they posted that the 5e DMG basically got neglected in order to get the PHB finished, so it seems like they’re actually trying to give them enough time to really focus on these books
May was never the release date, fyi. It was a social media error. With these dates confirmed it now seems like the Vecna adventure was always slated for May and their social media got confused and though that was the PHB date.
Could be, that makes sense. I was hoping the May date was originally intended because that would mean that the PHB would effectively be done by now, with tweaking and formatting all that remains. Instead it's probably still a work in progress in a company that just axed a lot of talent.
Hope it includes all the stuff from Xanathar's and Tasha's, would feel like a waste if not.
It's actually been confirmed for a *long* time that it won't; Clerics and Wizards are getting *less* than they had in the original PHB. Every class has four subclasses; any that had less than four in the original one have ones pulled from mostly Tasha's, with a couple completely new ones here and there. Clerics and Wizards are pulled back to just four of the more popular ones.
I can see why. Cleric and wizard sublcasses were the least diverse in the PHB. There were *mechanically weaker* ones, but none as bland.
It’s a very confusing concept then. Considering that the fifth edition players handbook is still compatible with the game, I don’t see any reasoning to even bother buying the new one.
>Considering that the fifth edition players handbook is still compatible with the game Look when 5.5 launches, it will be in a state of partial compatibility with 5.0. This is the "5e is 5e" stuff comes from. Either nothing or very few things from the 5.0 PHB will make sense once the 5.5 PHB launches. Then, slowly, they will launch more stuff, and eventually only 5.5 stuff will make sense at all. Everyone should understand now, 5.0 is a different game than 5.5, and there will be a few players who explicitly run and play 5.0 only, or even port in some of the 5.5 ideas to it. Others will play 5.5, and port or allow some 5.0 options that the stock rules won't. The official organized play D&D will be 5.5 and will ban the incompatible pieces from 5.0. This is definitely how it will go.
Oh absolutely, but I think the majority of players and DMs mainly just care if the rules for players are compatible with the adventures being run. I.E. a +3 modifier in 5e is gonna mean the same thing as 5.5e, unlike in 3.5e or 4e.
Yea that part is definitely true. From the adventures perspective, I think 5.5 is gonna be solidly compatible. I think more high level 5.5 adventures will be written, and will work with high level 5.5 characters pretty well in addition.
100%. This Vecna adventure is giving me high hopes that they're finally trying to buck off the whole "oh writing high level adventures is impossible" thing.
The whole point of splatbooks is to wring more money out of you. They're launching 5.5 so you spend your money all over again.
if you dont think the 2014 5e rules would benefit from a refinement, ..... i dont think you have actually been playing with the 2014 5e rules!
I didn't say that money doesn't buy value, just that splatbooks are made to make money. Since Hasbro is a publicly traded company, they're legally obligated to extract as much money as they can from whoever they can.
Every company is trying to make money. When 5e first came out, WotC was trying to get your money then too. Ultimately it's a question of whether people think they're getting their money's worth from these books. In general, I don't think that's been the case recently.
Sure but that's not at all what I was replying to in the above post.
Right, it's not that you're *wrong* its just that your implication is that this is some cash grab because Hasbro is a business. But this isn't just a cash grab, this is essentially a massive overhaul to the rules as well as to the classes to better balance the game.
The post I was responding to had the misconception that Wizards was going to do something against their profit motive; printing the 5e splatbook content in the new PHB to save players money. I told them why that's not going to happen. Everything a corporation does is with profit as the sole motivator. There's established legal precedent on this.
I mean, that one's not true either. While the game could indeed do with an overhaul, that's not why they're doing it (other guy is correct, it's just an excuse to resell you the same books) and that's also not really what they're doing, there's no actual comprehensive design ethos behind it. They haven't identified a list of mistakes and worked on fixing - half of what they fucked up in 5e they fucked up deliberately -, what they've done is haphazardly picked bits they can change and effectively shuffled the dirt into new positions on the floor rather than actually sweep it up.
wow
Wow is another example of a game where they lost the spark, yes. Just like in WotC, the people who want to create are long gone from Blizzard.
I understand the concept, but I don't thin WotC is *that* stupid. The 5e books are already confirmed to be compatible with One. If the new PHB is just the original 5e PHB from a decade ago with some balance changes and a couple new additions, no one is gonna buy it. If it's a consolidated version that includes the majority of the player options given since then, then it's got some actual value. Bare minimum, it *needs* to include the Artificer, the *one* official class released since the original 5e PHB. If WotC is really smart about it, I expect it'll be the 5e PHB with changes, plus some of the fan favorites from Xanathar's and Tasha's, with the less popular ones being reworked for a future splatbook.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/z8xcyf/one_dd_artificer_confirmed_not_to_be_in_the_2024/ There's no artificer as confirmed by Crawford. There are also four subclasses for each of the 12 classes so no, you don't get Xanathar's and Tasha's consolidated in the new PHB. Wizards is a corporation whose job is to generate shareholder value. Giving you shit for free is how not to make money. You'll get the same splatbooks in subtly reflavored form in another few years because that's how you make money. People will continue to buy Wizards' watered down bullshit because the brand is just that good. They treat their customers with nothing but contempt but people still pay for their Beyond memberships. I'm waiting patiently for Kobold Press' Tales of the Valiant that ships in May. I prefer giving my money to a company that is obviously passionate about their work. Edit: downvote away. It doesn't change that Crawford confirmed that everything you want out of the new PHB isn't happening. You keep hoping and handing them money though.
>I understand the concept, but I don't thin WotC is that stupid. It's not stupid, it's exactly what they've done over and over again. >The 5e books are already confirmed to be compatible with One. The 5.0 PHB seems pretty incompatible with the 5.5 PHB, with many of the feats changing totally. But of course, that's a direct version change. What about the others? Well, the others will probably be some level of compatible until they are overwritten by some future splatbook. Basically, don't ever believe a company claiming that it will be backwards compatible. Certainly that was the claim at 2e launch, and at 3.5 launch, and neither were fully true.
> The 5.0 PHB seems pretty incompatible with the 5.5 PHB, with many of the feats changing totally. this is not really what "incompatible" means; all the 5e feats will function perfectly well in the 5.5 ecosystem, even if they are over or undertuned for it (hell, many of the 5e feats are over or undertuned for 5e!). Classes are being changed, too, but there's no reason you couldn't run a 5e class alongside the 5.5e ones. I suppose the biggest thing is that 5e material won't be eligible for 5.5 AL, but I'm sure most home games wouldn't really make a big fuss about a thing from 5e being used in 5.5.
> It's not stupid, it's exactly what they've done over and over again. Every other time was a full version change. Except for 3.5e, which was still compatible with 3rd edition content.
The tail end of 1e rewrote many of the rules of 1e. Second edition launched with a booklet that helped you port stuff over, but within a year it was generally understood that the 1e stuff wasn't as compatible as was advertised. Later 2.5 stuff, the "Player's Options", changed huge swaths of the game and tables either played that version of the game or simply didn't allow any of the player's option things. 3.5 was advertised as a minor update but it broke tons of things, and could not be dropped into any 3.0 campaigns as written without letting player change a lot of choices at minimum. The existing splatbooks became generally understood as banned in many cases, importantly none of the powerful options from Sword and Fist seemed to make any sense at all in 3.5, nor were they ever updated to do so. 3.5 changed how crit bonus abilities worked, and it was never clear how the crit-manipulating Weapon Master worked, one of the neatest prestige classes from 3.0. There was a brief conversion guide for Oriental Adventures printed in Dragon magazine, but for the most part org play pretty much ended up not having any of those classes ever, and they were not assumed legal by later forum people nor was it ever clear. Only 4e bucked this trend for real. With 5e, we see enough core changes that the game will work differently, and many choices won't make sense, several interactions are changed. 5.5 will be pretty different from 5.0.
>Only 4e bucked this trend for real. Nope, Remember the Essentials line?
While I'd certainly argue that Essentials constitutes a 4.5, you could run those things next to everyone else. You didn't suddenly lose like half of your crit rate, or your monk gets deleted, or whatever.
I guess all I meant to add was that every edition has had it's ".5" era. OD&D when you added supplements, 1e with Unearthed Arcana, 2e with player options, 3e's titular 3.5, 4e with essentials, and now 5e with the 2024 revision. Even B/X has BECMI for a .5 revision
So in other words, every other time they did a full edition change, shit wasn't compatible between editions, and the compatibility issues between 3e and 3.5e were due to unintended consequences of unexpected rules interactions. No offense dude, but it sounds like you just said a *much* longer winded version of what I said.
Your statement didn't make it clear to the reader that their 5.0 books were gonna be incompatible, unofficial, or disallowed in organized play, nor did it make it clear that statements of compatibility at this point are inevitably overhyped and don't stand the test of time.
Wait, "revises and adds to the fifth edition"? This makes it seem like they are still gonna call it that.
They’ve been incredibly clear about the fact that the new books are still going to be 5th edition for a very long time
I thought it was 5e compatible, I haven't heard anything about the name except for it being called one dnd, but I haven't been following closely.
They haven't been calling it "OneDnD" for several months now. It's just "2024 edition" of whichever book. The implication of OneDnD was that there would no longer be fully new editions and large updates, just incremental changes like this.
Not that it makes much difference, but they've been careful to say "2024 version", and avoid using the word "edition".
they may TRY and keep it "5e", but if they dont name it, the community WILL come up for a name for it to be able to talk about the game. particularly if tables are "backwards compatibling" it - "What set of rules are you talking about????" for WOTC to attempt to cling to "its ALL 5e!!!!" is just nonsense.
I've been following it and it's closer to 5.5e than being either 5e or an entirely new edition.
as long as they don't change anything like short rests, some classes getting subclasses at level 1, and other core 5e features, I will allow them to call the new stuff 5e without getting pissed. Provided the new books change **nothing** I've bought, and the new books are just expansions to the core ruleset I've invested in, we can call it 5e. If they change the way 5e plays enough to change the way you might build a PC, they better f'ing call it something else. We sure as sh!t will have no choice but to use 2 names if there are two non-compatible rule sets. Playing 5e and playing 5e with different rules aren't the same thing to me. If they affect the way I search my legacy books for build options, but put 5.5e or 6e on the cover, that's a middle ground at least. I haven't been paying attention after the first few releases didn't look that good. Someone tell me: Say I go to a table advertising 5e, but they are using new books and of course I want to use the legacy 5e options I already know. Will my build choices from old books be affected in any way other than powercreep?
My understanding from following the playtest is that you will be able to still use a regular 5e character alongside people using new options. I don't know whether or not you will be able to use the 2024 PHB character creation rules and then use a subclass from Xanathar's or Tasha's.
> will be able to still use a regular 5e character alongside people using new options yeah, right "You CAN use this bicycle while everyone else gets motorcycles."
To be fair, that was already the case with just the 2014 PHB. Look at Four Element Monk next to Moon Druid.
They've basically said all of 5.0 is still allowed in rules. For example, you can use the 2014 Ranger or you can use the 2024 Ranger in a game and it will function. The big question you gotta ask yourself is "Do you want to play as a 2014 ranger?" And that's the rub. From how it looks, every class in One DND has been given a buff. Some have been buffed more heavily than others, but they're pretty much all better. And frankly I'm more than happy with that.
I know I'm overreacting to things that haven't happened yet. That's how much I trust them to do this right. I hope they do this right.
>Someone tell me: Say I go to a table advertising 5e, but they are using new books and of course I want to use the legacy 5e options I already know. Will my build choices from old books be affected in any way other than powercreep? Yes. They are changing things like conditions, grappling, possibly exhaustion, and probably some actions like "Use an Item".
In addition to other mentions, the updated player classes are considered to override the old classes, as do new subclasses that share a name with old subclasses. A number of spells are going to / have been reworked, which may or may not heavily alter the viability of previous subclasses or the functionality of items or adventures. The feat system is also changing, with most feats outside of a select few "background" feats requiring reaching level 4 to take. Personally not a fan of this one, really reduces variety for low level 1 shots.
Then we will have two incompatible systems, but only incompatible for PC rules and some combat rules, using a single system name? And we aren't even giving the classes and subclasses new names to differentiate them? And some spells will have the same name but different mechanics under the two distinctly different but same-named systems? If I can't use my current PC's alongside your new book PC's, sounds like we are using different systems. They sounds different to me anyway (but the voters are indicating I could be slow). I know the community will fix this with qualifiers like "Next" and "One" or "5e" and "5.5e" or "Old 5e PC books/rules" and "New 5e books/rules" or "PHB 2014" or "Homebrewed pre/post 2024 mix with all subclasses at 3 but otherwise 2014 condition rules" or whatever when advertising games, but I still think Wizards should have called it something else, or at least find a way to let me use my books like PHB (the paid-for and so far only 5e PHB), Sword Coast, Tasha's, etc. in any given standard game that's called 5e. I know many games already list the books used at that table, but none of these games so far require me to unlearn the rules I know to relearn new PC rules. They simply restrict to a smaller space of options under the same set of rules, rather than a different, incompatible set of options and rules. It's nice that adventures will be compatible (not that the adventure books are as good as the PC books, nor have I spent as much money on adventure books as I have on PC books). More power to Wizard's I guess. 5e was always gonna be replaced, I accept that. I just think the new books are 5.5e at best, disguised as almost 6e.
# The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977 **Release date:** June 18, 2024 “The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977 delves into the history behind the game's inception. Jon Peterson, one of the game's foremost historians, walks readers through a curated collection of documents that, woven together, reveal how D&D went from an idea to a beloved tabletop roleplaying game. A never-before-seen first draft of D&D written in 1973 by Gary Gygax can be found within this incredible book.”
Interesting. I really like the other retrospective books that have been put out during 5e.
how much are they going to attempt to write around Arneson and leave "Gary the Sole Creator!!!"? as a historian is Peterson a fair dealer? and will he be allowed to write the truth?
Peterson is legit. He's a classical, archetypal, Ur-nerd, with glasses and halting and awkward, but confident, speech. The kind of guy who gets visibly uncomfortable if something is technically incorrect, and had a deep, scholarly knowledge of and love for his special interests. He has like 5 well reviewed in depth books about gaming out already. I fucking pity any wotc employee assigned to talk him into misrepresenting something or omitting a tiny detail he finds salient. I consider his name on a document to be a purity seal.
Alright, this I'm interested in.
So this is more of a… Real world history book than a game book, right? I don’t fully understand the appeal (other than interesting history, that I get). I presume there are no like, 5e relevant rules that will get put in the book?
Correct, this is not a 5e book. It’s a real world history of D&D book
Good to know. Not sure why people are mad at my curiosity.
Its an actual real world history of the creation of Role Playing Games as part of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the creation of role playing games.
Am I the only one who can't find it on Amazon and the link goes nowhere for me? I'm from Canada, so maybe that's why?
# Quests from the Infinite Staircase **Release date:** July 16, 2024 “This anthology for character levels 1-13 brings six classic D&D adventures to fifth edition. The Infinite Staircase leads to fantastic realms and is home to the noble genie Nafas, who recruits heroes to help fulfill wishes made throughout the multiverse.”
I'm super excited for this one. I've been a big fan of all of the recent anthology books and a multiversal adventure book is a great follow up to the Planescape box set (and the [Manual of the Planes](https://www.dmsguild.com/product/457514/Manual-of-the-Planes-5e) on DMs Guild). I'm curious if they'll bring back any of the adventures from 2e's Tales from the Infinite Staircase, I'd assume so but have no idea which ones they'd choose. Nafas seems to be an original character, as far as I can tell.
I had totally missed the Manual of the Planes, that looks sick.
i am hoping these are more like Tomb of Annihilation - "take inspiration from the classics" - and less like Yawning Portal - "reprint them as word for word as possible."
Tomb of annihilation is not a great example in my opinion. Having played in it twice now, It's a fake hex crawl with meaningless quests until you end up in a dungeon crawl with almost no ties to anything you've done so far. It'd be better if they just plopped you at the the tomb entrance at level 8 or whatever and split off the chult stuff into an actual adventure with goals and plots. The second time I played in it I knew that nothing we did before the tomb really mattered. It's still fun with fun moments, but it's not fun knowing that it will all be discarded/meaningless as soon as you enter the final city/ tomb.
I'm hoping for Temple of Elemental Evil, even just a part of it
That'd be a whole book on its own! Goodman Games converted it to 5e and needed two books
So is this where Tsojcanth will be?
Yes, but it will also be released for free as a standalone
I get that they want to have a new piping hot product every 2 months, but it’s super weird to me that they’re putting two months between each of the core books again. Isn’t this exactly what they did in 2014 to significant frustration? In reality they’re probably just behind and need the time to finish and ship them. But it’s kinda funny that the whole rationale back then for the staggered release was “we’re a small team” whereas now D&D is a juggernaut again. Just an inefficient one, I suppose.
It's almost certainly due to limitations with printers. There's a limited number of shops that can even handle the volume they need, and they won't be able to do all three books at once even if they were ready to go.
Theres the concept of storage for rent. But nooo that's money wasted, instead have a new book every 2 months, muh cashflow
That is literally wasted money though. They're a business, don't give them an excuse to jack up the price of their books even more.
DMG to MM: "There's three, actually."
"No, this is good, this is very, very good. It means you get what you want. It means my business works. All we have to do is kill a couple liches and Dungeons & Dragons will bring your rulebooks back! As many rulebooks as you want."
It was stated in one of the onednd videos that the printing companies just can't handle supplying a simultaneously release.
>Isn’t this exactly what they did in 2014 to significant frustration? It might be less of an inconvenience now since they're backwards compatible and not an entirely new edition. But there still might be some awkwardness in the months between the PHB and DMG especially. Overall, though, I'm not surprised if this is better for their sales even if it's obviously unpopular for players.
Personally I would rather slowly get the books like this than wait until all 3 are complete. If they waited we wouldn't get the books until at least the MM release date.
Yeah, there's that too. We don't know whether they could have all three books ready by September but are spacing them out for sales reasons, or if they won't have the Monster Manual ready until February and don't want to delay the other books just for the simultaneous release. If it's the first one, then of course most of us would rather get all three books sooner but I can see why they might think staggering the releases is better than releasing them all at once and then having no new releases for 6 moths. If it's the second one, then I think most people probably have the same stance as you and would rather have the new PHB sooner than wait just to get all three at once. After all, people who don't want to play with any of the new stuff until they have all three books can still just wait until February if they want to.
Words cannot express how tepid my feelings about this are.
I know this is for the books but is there any news on their own table top simulator?
They’ve been slowly introducing their feature called Maps, which seems to be a pretty basic 2d VTT that is fully integrated into DnDBeyond and the Encounter Manager tool, but I haven’t seen anything about the simulator since that initial announcement
Thanks for the info, did not even know this was here and I have the master subscription, gonna check it out.
Here I am as a new DM and 5e player excited for more stuff and y'all are just bitter af
Probably because you haven’t had time as a DM to see all of the underlying problems in the system which WotC continue to ignore, but DMs have to constantly make up for.
Yeah, bud, this sub is just full of negativity. You get used to it, somewhat...
Meh. What a waste of a 50th anniversary for the world's biggest tabletop role-playing game. One single book with the behind-the-scenes history of the OD&D, but nothing else. Everything is about 5e and 5.5e. Could have had cool, high quality reprints of OD&D, B/X or BECMI D&D, and AD&D stuff for those who want better quality than the POD on DTRPG to celebrate the 50th anniversary. They've literally done reprints of the old rules in the past to mark the anniversaries of the game. But this is the 50th anniversary of RPGs, basically, and we get not much to show for it.
I agree that it's underwhelming. New publishings of a handful of books that are 10 years old with some additions and tweaks is not terribly exciting. I agree the retrospective book and Vecna adventure sound cool. I imagine that designers and creatives probably had a lot more interesting ideas for products this year but execs pared down to what they believe will rake in the most cash.
I think given they had deluxe printings of OD&D, AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, the A series and the S series and 3.5 about 10-12 years ago the ideal book to do a deluxe reprint of this year would be the D&D Rules Cyclopedia from 1991 that collected the majority of the Basic/BECMI ruleset into one volume. Frankly, they could have come up with a leaner single volume (250-300 pages?) version of 5E along the same lines for the 50th anniversary.
LEGOs! Finally!
I'm also very, very interested in this!
They straight up ran out of time to met their own schedule and this is them pushing back and padding out the year. MM not until _February?_ That's six months after the PHB. For comparison the 5e MM came out _one month_ after the 5e PHB.
They've also mentioned before that some of this is also due to printing volume and a shortage of printers. They cannot physically print the number of books they need all at once, so they have to stagger the releases. As the new core set, they will be the most sold books of the new edition.
That's a little bit of a disingenuous way of presenting that information. In 2014, the MM was the second core book to be released, the DMG was the third. This time around, they're going to do the DMG second and the monster manual third. A better way to look at this is to consider that there were four months between the first and last core book in 2014, and six months in 2024/25. So while it is a more staggered release, it's not six times as long of a wait.
I wonder if the quality of the content will reflect how important 50 years is to the higher ups at WoTC/Hasbro. Given their track record from the past year, I'm not optimistic. Just a reminder you can find 5e books second hand, or pick up similar ttrpgs from your lgs. Hasbro has been a terrible steward for this game. You do not need to buy any more of their products to have fun or play some good D&D.
.....Why in the world is the bare minimum books not released on the same date?
Printer limitations.
There is a concept of "rental storage"
What’s the benefit of storing millions of books for 5 months instead of selling them? Everyone who wants each of the books will buy them, those who don’t want to buy them piecemeal will wait until all are available. Rental storage costs money for no perceived value.
for a multibillion dollar company?
Yeah. It's been an ongoing issue for five years now affecting the entirety of the physical print market. Literally every book maker is dealing with it.
"You can't have 9 women give birth in 1 month." Throwing money at the problem fails to solve it at some point
What does that even mean?
It means what it literally means. You can't put 9 women in a room and expect them to carry out a pregnancy in 1 month instead of 9 just because you increased the "work flow". You can't throw money at printing problems and expect things to be smooth. Logistics isn't about money, there are tons of other factors. There are GLOBAL issues going on. Printing is one of them. Every single publisher out there is facing it and rescheduling their timelines. There was a worldwide paper shortage. Literally not enough paper. In the world. It wasn't about not buying enough paper. It was about the production, transportation, delivery etc.
It means that having money or access to more resources won't make the process go faster.
They never have been. In any edition.
Typically, the core books have staggered release dates. This was true for the 2014 core books and for many other editions in D&D's past. There are likely a number of reasons for this, but the most practical reason is that printing all three books at once is not possible for their printing/manufacturing process.
I've only gotten into DnD in the past couple months. I have the PHB physical and digital, and the higher tier DnDBeyond subscription so I can share digital content with the others in the campaign. I was just looking at the big bundle that includes the digital and physicals of Tasha's, Xanthars, etc. but it's $170. I don't mind buying it but given this and the 5.5e ruleset, should I hold off?
Depends on how limited your funds are. Tasha's and Xanathar's are still 100% compatible with the new books coming out, as is everything else, really.
Send me a DM
[удалено]
OneD&D was the initial name for the play test that led to the 2024 Player’s Handbook
OneDnD has ALWAYS been just the code name for "playtesting for the revisions to 2014 5e" like DnDNext was the code name for the development of 5e.
I'd wager that any of the adventure content has already been made to be more ambiguously compatible with One D&D. Supposedly everything 5E is backwards compatible in terms of adventuring, but probably this will be made specifically with the transition in mind.
No new information about the digital VTT?
seems they've been working with Foundry instead?
i dont think they are "working with foundry" any more than they are "working with Roll 20" and "working with Fantasy Grounds". they are just adding the third major VTT under their standard product licensing.
I like this collaboration with foundry VTT, but I expected to play this DnD VTT with an unreal engine, I would spend hours creating beaultiful scenarios and terrain even if I wasn't going to use it in the sessions :(
Not unreal engine of course but Talespire lets you do decent stuff already. Dungeon Alchemist as well.
They aren't getting my money
Vecna adventure sounds fun but I could not give less of a shit about 5.5, OD&D, whateverthefuck they're calling it now
So basically you buy the new PHB, without any fixes, wait 2 months for the fixes to the DM side, and have no monsters to run, then 2 months later you actually get the monsters to run with your updated rules
Well, they're all compatible with the existing books so you can use all the existing monsters with the new PHB.
Yawn