What's in the works

[Oddman80]

So in each of the 6 year runs for both 3.0/3.5 and 4th edition releases, Wizards of the Coast published over fifty 1st party source books to support their product. This was in addition to all of the adventure modules they produced in that time. That comes out, on average to a new book ever 1.5 months.

9 months since the starter set came out for 5th edition, and there are only 3 source books out to support the new product (and 2 adventure modules).... or half as many as would be expected given the past two editions' histories.

What is in the works? Is there going to be a huge bulk of products released soon? I haven't been following the new release... but I noticed this today - so I am a bit curious.

[Edge of Dreams]

They've cut down the team so there's a lot fewer people working on 5e, from what I've heard. They've also said that they think the overly aggressive publishing schedule for 3rd and 4th editions ultimately hurt them because each individual book was lower quality and players didn't like feeling like they had to collect every book to catch up.

The current plan for 5e is to publish 2-3 campaigns or settings per year, each with an adventure module and some new player content. The current one, coming out on April 7th, is called Princes of the Apocalypse, and there's already a free player supplement out for it: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/EE_PlayersCompanion.pdf

They're also doing a monthly series of articles called Unearthed Arcana that will feature various setting conversions, untested material, and other such content for GMs and Players. So far they've done Eberron (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/unearthed-arcana-eberron) and mass combat rules (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/unearthed-arcana-when-armies-clash).

[asorel]

Wizards seems to be moving away from releasing a large amount of supplements, likely in response to the user base's reaction to the amount of splat books for 3.X and 4, which many considered bloat. Their official policy right now is to release a pair of adventure models per year, with accompanying extra player options if necessary. They also appear to be moving away from paid splat books, preferring instead to release free supplements, while the adventures are still printed.


As far as what's in the works, I would guess something Psion-related, either for Dark Sun or Eberron. A lot of people have been asking for a Psionic class, and the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article alluded to Psion rules being WIP.

[M Placeholder]

As far as what's in the works, I would guess something Psion-related, either for Dark Sun or Eberron. A lot of people have been asking for a Psionic class, and the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article alluded to Psion rules being WIP.

A book on Psionics? Hell yeah!

A Dark Sun campaign without Psionics is like Pizza without cheese, and a book on the powers of the mind would finally mean the setting can be used in 5e with the flavour being kept. I also expect the book to include Githzerai, Thri-Kreen and Duergar as PC races, and new Psionic monsters.

The OGL will probably be updated too, so third party releases will arrive too.

[jkat718]

As far as what's in the works, I would guess something Psion-related, either for Dark Sun or Eberron. A lot of people have been asking for a Psionic class, and the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article alluded to Psion rules being WIP.
Where in the Eberron UA were Psionics mentioned? I didn't see that, but I only skimmed most of the packet.


The OGL will probably be updated too, so third party releases will arrive too.
Mearls did mention something about the OGL on Twitter. The fireball here blocks both Sage Advice and Twitter, so I can't get you a direct quote, but he said they were working on it. No mention of how they might change it, but I'm still hopeful.

[M Placeholder]

Where in the Eberron UA were Psionics mentioned? I didn't see that, but I only skimmed most of the packet.

In the section under new races for 5e. It was mentioned that since there were no rules for Psionics in 5th as of the writing, the Kalashtar were not included. It also mentioned that once the rules for psionics become available, there may be an update of them.

[asorel]

What Dark Sun Gnome said. While indirect, the implication is that Psions are being addressed from a design capacity in some fashion.