View Full Version : Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything
othaero
2017-12-12, 06:08 AM
Has anyone seen this? Thoughts, comments, criticisms, AL legal?
https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/12/09/xanathars-lost-notes-to-everything-else/
Aett_Thorn
2017-12-12, 06:26 AM
Has anyone seen this? Thoughts, comments, criticisms, AL legal?
https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/12/09/xanathars-lost-notes-to-everything-else/
Definitely not AL legal, since it’s not an official printing that I can see. Just a collections of homebrew-ish stuff.
Beelzebubba
2017-12-12, 10:28 AM
Extended rules for critical hits and fumbles?
Sorry, I was scarred enough the first time I TPK'd playing Rolemaster.
Grod_The_Giant
2017-12-12, 11:06 AM
It's a collection of homebrew posted on an unofficial site by someone not associated with WotC in any way, near as I can tell. Take it as "random homebrew some random guy recommended," with however much salt you think that rates.
jollydm
2017-12-12, 11:27 AM
They're selling it on the DM's Guild for $19.95 (USD). That price seems just a bit...high for my tastes. I'm curious what other people think of the price point.
Theodoxus
2017-12-12, 12:08 PM
It's a pdf... it'll be free in about 3 seconds... with some searching :smallwink:
Seriously though, I was mildly interested in it, until I saw the price. Had it been in the $3-5 range, I would have considered it - but at 40% of the hardbound Guide for a pdf? not a chance.
War_lord
2017-12-12, 12:33 PM
I wouldn't pay $20 for a collection of homebrew from multiple authors. I could buy something from Kobold Press for that kind of money.
It has the same flaw as most attempts to charge for homebrew, in that I can probably find the same ratio of crap-to-useful items from just searching the internet.
QuickLyRaiNbow
2017-12-12, 02:44 PM
It's a collection of homebrew posted on an unofficial site by someone not associated with WotC in any way, near as I can tell. Take it as "random homebrew some random guy recommended," with however much salt you think that rates.
Would you pay $20 for a collection of random things pulled from reddit and DandDWiki?
From what I've seen of the DM's Guild, I'm not exactly encouraged. I barely like anything the more well-known third parties come up with.
Avonar
2017-12-12, 02:55 PM
So a friend with too much money has bought this, and I've had a bit of a read through. I won't give a full review or anything but here are my main points I take away:
The fluff is dreadful. Some classes, the concept does not match the abilities (A Bard College which is supposed to be about laying the dead the rest and guiding them onwards is actually about summoning undead). Others make absolutely no sense. One Barbarian Path apparently is about Barbarians having a purpose and a goal? It's actually about them being vampire-like. Strange.
Balance has been ignored. Some options seem overpowered, many seem unpowered and some I can't tell without playing them and seeing what happens. The worst offenders though has to be the Path of the Sacred Kin Barbarian:
At level 3 this Barbarian Path gives you:
- Casting abilites similar to Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster, focusing on Conjuration and Divination using the Sorceror spell list (not sure what's so Sacred)
- Heal fo 3 x Spell level when you cast a spell
- Can Concentrate on spells while raging
- Resistance to all "Magical Damage" while raging (so resistance to everything except physical)
- Bonus to AC equal to STR mod while not wearing heavy armour
- Immunity to a type of damage chosen when you reach level 3
- You do not gain the normal rage benefits
You could take this, never cast a spell and still outclass several other Paths in terms of tanking if nothing else. You also get Metamagic, the EK War Magic and indefinite flying at later levels.
Cross-Over. Very little attention seems to have been paid to existing abilites. A Monk can get an ability which does what Warding Bond does, a Barbardian can get a free Tavern Brawler equivalent, another Barbarian straight up steals the Eldritch Knight War Magic ability...there's a lot of duplication of existing ideas and just giving them to other classes.
Writing. The writing here is awful, just awful. Not only the fluff but some abilities are very hard to figure out, mixing in complex new mechanics with terrible descriptions leaving me not knowing how some options are even meant to work.
I haven't really looked into the backgrounds or anything else, because this thing is hard to decipher and I got tired of figuring out what the pointless flowery language meant. All in all, from what I've seen this has some good points but nothing that would make it worth paying for.
LordEntrails
2017-12-12, 03:37 PM
This is from the WotC Guild Adept program. See; http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/guild-adept-program
It means this stuff is sort of "blessed" by Wizards. It comes from people WotC has some regard for and that they have collaborated with, but it hasn't been play tested like "official" stuff has.
SaintRidley
2017-12-12, 04:05 PM
Would you pay $20 for a collection of random things pulled from reddit and DandDWiki?
You'd have to pay me $20 for me to even look at it, just because of DandDWiki.
mephnick
2017-12-12, 04:25 PM
It means this stuff is sort of "blessed" by Wizards.
They need to be pickier about their blessings.
They need to be pickier about their blessings.
I mean, with how they write their own rules...
Mortis_Elrod
2017-12-12, 04:48 PM
Yeah, these are some bad clerics.
AL legal?
Not currently.
It will supposedly be reviewed for AL approval, but at most that would be the adventure and the backgrounds.
The subclasses are very, very unlikely to be approved. (I think only one non-official WOTC publication subclass has ever been approved, and even that was with a special cert that is so rare I’m not sure it even exists.)
jaappleton
2017-12-12, 04:55 PM
This is from the WotC Guild Adept program. See; http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/guild-adept-program
It means this stuff is sort of "blessed" by Wizards. It comes from people WotC has some regard for and that they have collaborated with, but it hasn't been play tested like "official" stuff has.
When Tomb of Annihilation was released, there were several Guild Adept products released alongside it. Sort of mini-adventures you could use in conjunction with ToA.
Many of them, at least aspects of them, received official AL blessing.
I do believe there's now an official Entropy Domain Cleric, and a Circle of the Reaper (I may have the name wrong) Druid.
So.... It's entirely possible a lot of this stuff becomes official material.
"But WOTC didn't write it!" Well, they didn't do much with the SCAG, either, for whatever that's worth.
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