Tag Archives: 5E

Latest Unearthed Arcana: Eberron Update, v1.1 Analyzed

Posted on February 16, 2015 | 1 comment

At some point this week, Wizards of the Coast silently updated the first installment of their monthly R&D/playtest series, Unearthed Arcana: Eberron. This is exciting, especially since I had previously offered a detailed critique of the Artificer class, and I’m hopeful for some thoughtful revisions. I’ll breakdown the changes in version 1.1, point by point, after the jump.

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Posted in Dungeons & Dragons, News

Tagged 5E, d&d, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, Unearthed Arcana, Wizards of the Coast

We Need to Talk About the Artificer from Unearthed Arcana: Eberron

Posted on February 11, 2015 | 8 comments

This is not the Unearthed Arcana you’re looking for… via

A week ago, Wizards of the Coast’s R&D team released Unearthed Arcana: Eberron, the first supplemental material that’s been released for Dungeons & Dragons 5E, and the first hat tip to Eberron since the D&D Next playtest ended. Of course, this is all stamped with a huge DRAFT label, and effectively serves as a playtest feedback period for the materials.

The purpose of the Unearthed Arcana series appears to be providing an early glimpse into the R&D team’s priorities, projects, and products, as well as a way to get playtest feedback from the D&D community. Though the product strategy for 5E is still “evolving,”it seems clear that Wizards is more open to giving new content to players for free online. Leveraging the D&D community to validate design decisions and provide playtest feedback is an encouraging new trend for Wizards of the Coast, and I support any move towards transparency for the hobby’s flagship brand.

So while I think Unearthed Arcana is great in theory, now that we’ve had more than a week to play the beta of the first rules supplement, it’s time to offer some feedback. We need to talk about the Artificer.

Update 2/16: Unearthed Arcana was updated to v1.1. The Artificer wasn’t affected, but I’ve got the full changelog available here.

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Posted in Dungeons & Dragons, Game Design Dungeon

Tagged 5E, Artificer, d&d, Design, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Eberron, Splatbooks, Unearthed Arcana

I Read Some Things: Week of February 2nd, 2015

Posted on February 7, 2015 | Leave a comment

I read some things this week. After the jump, you can read them, too.

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I Read Some Things: Week of January 26th, 2015

Posted on February 1, 2015 | Leave a comment

I read some things this week. After the jump, you can read them, too.

Enjoy the Super Bowl.

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Pathfinder “Core Campaign” Shows Paizo is Worried About D&D Competition

Posted on January 27, 2015 | 1 comment

One of the axiomatic truths of the Dungeons & Dragons “edition wars” is that 3.5/Pathfinder is the “system mastery” edition. Between the Open Gaming License opening the system to third party content and Wizards of the Coast’s business strategy around monthly releases of splatbooks, the 3rd and 3.5 Editions of the game quickly bloated with options for classes, prestige classes, feats, and spells. Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder rebooted D&D 3.5 and fixed a number of issues with the system, particularly the resulting class imbalance, but it still embraced the variety of character options.

Yesterday, Paizo announced its new organized play campaign, Pathfinder Society Core Campaign. Amongst other differences from the existing Pathfinder Society campaign, this campaign will limit the character options to the Pathfinder Core Book and two small, free supplements. Paizo cites that one of the shortcomings of its existing Pathfinder Society campaign is “new players being overwhelmed or overshadowed by over-optimized characters.”

Catering to new players? Over-optimized? Don’t look now, but there’s a battle a-brewin’ between Wizards and Paizo.

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Posted in Dungeons & Dragons

Tagged 3.5E, 4E, 5E, Business, d&d, dnd, Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Roll20