I got this book two days ago.

I was disappointed by the fact there was so much reprint material from other books in this book. Specifically in the different progression paths for the character classes. It certainly lessened my enthusiasm for this book after reading it.

That said. It is a good book. A really decent expansion on the core three.

I just can't help having a lingering feeling that it could have been a lot better.

I recognized the Mastermind and Swashbuckler paths for the Rogue from SCAG (although I haven't compared them to see if they are exact matches), but what else was a reprint?

Got mine today. Just started reading it. Really a blast to see all the stuff we playtested finally in print.

The reprint aspect is to keep consistent the Adventure League rules of only allowing people to use core books plus one single outside ('splatbook') source.

5e?

As a GM I like books that consolidate information between one set of covers. Fewer books for me to cart from session to session.  That said, there is a point at which I don't want to buy the same information yet again.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1009702I recognized the Mastermind and Swashbuckler paths for the Rogue from SCAG (although I haven't compared them to see if they are exact matches), but what else was a reprint?

I recognized several of the Sorcerer types from other books.

Storm Sorcery is from the SCAG, but what books are Shadow Magic or Divine Soul from?

Quote from: Kane;1009774Storm Sorcery is from the SCAG, but what books are Shadow Magic or Divine Soul from?

Alot of these are from the playtest packets.

Mariner, Swashbuckler and Storm sorcerer are from an early UA packet. Waterborne Adventures.

Quote from: Kane;1009774Storm Sorcery is from the SCAG, but what books are Shadow Magic or Divine Soul from?

Free online supplements I believe.

Many of them were taken through Unearthed Arcana playtesting, but it's nice having them all collected into one hardback volume, while sub-classes like the Swashbuckler and Mastermind were too good to leave out.

Overall, the new options are a lot of fun, with a few that people may like more than others of course. The Ranger sub-classes seem a little under-defined (as is a problem for the Ranger Class in general for 5E, to be honest). The Hexblade for the Warlock is a beast, but it begs the question why anybody would want to choose any other option for the Pact of the Sword at least and I'm not sure I like the vague notion of the 'sword from Shadowfell' as a patreon concept. People may also find the War Wizard makes the Evoker a bit redundant too. Still, there are plenty of other really good options in the book.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1009781Many of them were taken through Unearthed Arcana playtesting, but it's nice having them all collected into one hardback volume, while sub-classes like the Swashbuckler and Mastermind were too good to leave out.

All of them were, at one point.  However, Willie The Duck is correct as to why they reprinted the class information, it's for AL.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1009781Overall, the new options are a lot of fun, with a few that people may like more than others of course. The Ranger sub-classes seem a little under-defined (as is a problem for the Ranger Class in general for 5E, to be honest). The Hexblade for the Warlock is a beast, but it begs the question why anybody would want to choose any other option for the Pact of the Sword at least and I'm not sure I like the vague notion of the 'sword from Shadowfell' as a patreon concept. People may also find the War Wizard makes the Evoker habit redundant too. Still, there are plenty of other really good options in the book.

According to an AL source, they're still working on the Ranger update.  There was a release for the Unearthed Arcana that rewrote a lot of the class (which I use in my home game) but WoTC seems to not be happy with what they have.  I've heard that when they do release their changes it MAY (no guarantees) be free.  And official for those who care about that.

Also, according to the same source, the original Pact of The Blade Warlock was meant for those who wanted to multiclass Warlock and Fighter, specifically.  There seems that there's a rather sizeable contingent who wanted more multiclassing options, and are vocal enough for WoTC to cater to them.

As for myself, I don't get the appeal of it, but I'm not going to tell someone no.

YMMV as always.

Now, as for my opinion on the book, as an AL DM, I needed to pick it up to stay current, but I find myself enjoying it more than I had hoped.  Things like the character class options for background reasons, for those of us who need an idea to expand on.  The common magic items are cool, even if some are more actually useful than others, I like that some items, like Heward's Handy Spice Pouch really do nothing but, if you'll excuse the pun, add flavour to any campaign.

The expanded traps are also nice to help give ideas.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1009781Many of them were taken through Unearthed Arcana playtesting, but it's nice having them all collected into one hardback volume, while sub-classes like the Swashbuckler and Mastermind were too good to leave out.

More to the point than just having them together in a hardback, is that we wouldn't have ever gotten the free playtest material if it wasn't contributing towards the end goal of this fungible product.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;1009781The Hexblade for the Warlock is a beast, but it begs the question why anybody would want to choose any other option for the Pact of the Sword at least and I'm not sure I like the vague notion of the 'sword from Shadowfell' as a patreon concept. People may also find the War Wizard makes the Evoker a bit redundant too. Still, there are plenty of other really good options in the book.

The Hexblade seems (to me) clearly an attempt to salvage single-class pact-of-blade warlock. It is clearly better than all the other bladelock options, undoubtedly deliberately so, and does so quite well. It is still not overpowered (especially compared to the other cha-based gush build, the sorcerer-paladin multiclasses). I am disappointed however, in that you get much of the benefit (for one-handed weapons) with just a 1-level dip, making them entirely too tempting of a dip for many cha-based builds. And yes, the fluff for the hexblade is hot garbage (actually no, it's just gibberish).

The war wizard will never take one thing from the evoker: the evoker is still the best choice for anyone who hasn't played a wizard (or D&D) before, and need a low-mechanical-decision-making character with few-bad-options in their what-to-do decision tree more than they need truly good ones.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1009782According to an AL source, they're still working on the Ranger update.  There was a release for the Unearthed Arcana that rewrote a lot of the class (which I use in my home game) but WoTC seems to not be happy with what they have.  I've heard that when they do release their changes it MAY (no guarantees) be free.  And official for those who care about that.

Any idea what isn't satisfactory? I think some of the low level abilities can be, if very loosely interpreted, make the UA_update ranger omniscient in the wilderness. Other than that I don't see anything in it that falls outside of the overall 5e power variance.

QuoteNow, as for my opinion on the book, as an AL DM, I needed to pick it up to stay current, but I find myself enjoying it more than I had hoped.  Things like the character class options for background reasons, for those of us who need an idea to expand on.  The common magic items are cool, even if some are more actually useful than others, I like that some items, like Heward's Handy Spice Pouch really do nothing but, if you'll excuse the pun, add flavour to any campaign.

The expanded traps are also nice to help give ideas.

I think I'm of the same mind. I would have preferred more page count dedicated towards the downtime stuff and flavor stuff and so on and so forth, but I understand the new character crunch options is what sells books. However, just the existence of those common magic items and downtime activity charts and so on give me hope. There's the bones of that OSR/modern D&D hybrid I want so much buried in this book, which along with Tomb of Annihilation has made this a really good year for me coming from WotC.

Pact of the Blade is fine as-is. There's nothing in the world stopping you from taking both Agonizing Blast and the weapon invocations. Where it fails is when people think they should be able to completely stop using their core Warlock powers thanks to having a sword.  If one-dimensional builds are flatly superior at your table to characters who are more broadly effective, your DM is going easy on you. And that's fine, but it doesn't really fly in my games. Notably, I recently ran a short adventure where the party decided to be 3 casters and a paladin. The lack of any ability to stop monsters from waltzing by the front line thanks to the "front line" being "one guy" caused them serious pain the entire time.

This whole discussion gives me that late-3E, fin-de-siecle feeling. Is there anything in this book other than kewl pwrzz class builds?

Quote from: Larsdangly;1009837This whole discussion gives me that late-3E, fin-de-siecle feeling. Is there anything in this book other than kewl pwrzz class builds?

Absolutely there is. Lots. There are downtime activity rules (making stuff, finding stuff, social interaction charts), character motivation stuff (rivals rules), tool use ideas, extra random encounter listings, more on traps, awarding magic items, shared-DM campaigns, minor magic items (i.e. items with few game-related abilities but flavor). Obviously an experienced DM could do these without help, but then again an experienced DM barely needs game rules.

To be clear, there is power creep, and nothing in the book is exactly filling a had-to-be-filled hole in an otherwise incomplete ruleset. But for what it is (a 'splatbook'), it's fairly decent.