Recent content by OB1

Absolutely gorgeous. Good thing my wife will need her own PHB copy so I have an excuse to get both.

Monsters are the primary IP for D&D. Characters are for players. The fact that the PCs on the cover are IP is more of an easter egg. The important thing is to inspire new players and show them what the game they are picking up is all about.

I think there are two things in play, one is the nostalgia effect on older players, and the second is to teach a new generation of DMs a bit about the history of D&D under the guise of showing how Gygax built his setting. It's there to be inspirational to a new generation of DMs.

This is just marketing positioning 101. D&D has claimed 'The World's Greatest Roleplaying Game' as their core identity (they know they are the most popular, which in many minds equates with 'great'). Other RPGs then have to position their message around this. Level Up, for example uses...

Love this cover art so much (both front and back)! Really appreciative of showing 2 full groups of brave adventurers facing deadly perils as a team. Think that's a great first image for new players to see.

C3 is a slow burn and densely packed. The payoffs for the setups don't come quickly, but when they do, they're really good. In a lot of ways it plays more like an epic fantasy novel in the vein of Jordan or Sanderson. That said, the new format of only shooting 3 episodes a month sometimes...

Building out from my previous post. Class makes you generally good in a lot of things, background makes you better in specific things. Class - Provides blanket Prof bonus to all checks with one ability Score Background - Choose 2. Provides Prof bonus to specific checks (add bonus to Class...

For that matter, combine perception and insight into 'awareness', and deception and persuasion into 'communication', drop acrobatics and merge it into athletics (apply to str and dex checks) and slight of hand and stealth into 'sneak'. Finally I'd make class choice give you your prof bonus to...

Specific beat's general. In this case, the specifics of Wish Beats the general rule for Summoning in Planescape.

Yeah, I think ultimately it let's them compete with Amazon on the final price. If Amazon discounts the book to $40, and you buy the digital on DDB for $30, it's the same total price. If Amazon only discounts the book to $45 or $50, you win by buying both from DDB.

$70 for the bundle $90 separately ($60 book, $30 digital).

For the Vecna adventure, pricing is $20 less than if you buy separately. As of now, Vecna is still listed at full price on Amazon (which is odd, all through 5e Amazon offered a 20-30% discount on list price for pre-orders) so it's a deal. Wonder if WotC put something in place that Amazon can't...

Bummer about the ala carte purchases being gone, and potentially awesome that you can get digital/physical bundles (will need to check the prices for buying separately on DDB and Amazon vs the bundle). My initial guess on al a carte going away would be to support a new subscription package that...

Yes and I would say that it's likely that at the least, they're looking to give a slight bump to the current core book rate of new players over the next 10 years. It's the old 'new and improved' strategy of product marketing. Meanwhile, they also get an immediate ROI from existing players...

I'm also thinking the Assassain is likely out in the PHB. Would be cool if they added the one feature of that subclass that was actually solid to either the Soul Knife or to the rogue in general. Advantage against enemies that haven't taken a turn in combat would be a great QOL improvement for...