I know that there are some people who look at an RPG character as nothing more than a transportation device for equipment, but I personally can’t make myself care very much about equipment that isn’t important to the plot or the character. My basic attitude towards character equipment is that if the character needs one, he probably brought one. Because he’s a fucking professional. If it seems really unlikely, the player can always roll for it. 

Given my general distaste for tracking arrows and strips of jerky, I initially liked D&D 5’s idea of lumping standard adventuring crap (rations, torches, rope, owlbear erotica) into themed packs of equipment: The Dungeoneer’s Pack, The Explorer’s Pack, The Scholar’s Pack, etc. Seemed like a nice way of making players commit to general theme of nonsense equipment without having to list it out. “Need some chalk? No problem, I’ve got a Dungeoneer’s Pack, so I’m sure I’ve got some. Helps with marking where I’ve been” Right? Of course not. The Dungeoneer’s Pack, like all the other packs, contains a list of very specific items (a backpack, a crowbar, a hammer, 10 pitons, 10 torches, a tinderbox, 10 days of rations, a waterskin, and 50’ of rope). So the packs are basically pointless beyond a possible bulk discount (the description only says the packs “might be cheaper than buying the items individually,” and I’m not doing the math to find out). 

So yeah, D&D still demands of list of everything your character is carrying, because nothing says “grand, epic adventure” like torch accounting. 

Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. The chapter actually opens with armor and weapons, because this is D&D. They’re armor and weapons. Other than shields now adding 2 to armor class instead of 1 and a rule about improvised weapons, there’s not much new here. In fact, the list of weapons has been seriously streamlined to things that are mostly recognizable to people who have read a few fantasy novels. Polearm listings in particular have been slashed like mattress prices on Presidents’ Day. While this robs the incoming generation of players of the chance to learn patience, determination, and research skills so they can figure out the differences between a Glaive, a Glaive-Guisarme, a Guisarme, a Guisarme-Voulge, and a Voulge, the simplification does make the game more accessible. Besides, they can probably just look it up now, anyway. I blame Unearthed Arcana and the internet. 

Adventuring Equipment is always an interesting part of the Equipment section, and we’ve got some new entries here in the form of Ball Bearings, Hunting Traps, Healing Potions (presumably non-magical, though it’s not really specified), Mess Kits (clearly of the same design we used when I was a Boy Scout), and a few others. Perhaps the oddest thing about the section is what the authors choose to describe, and what they choose to describe about it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of logic applied here. For example, they describe exactly what they mean by “Hunting Trap” (it’s a bear trap), but Caltrops just get mechanics. Are there really people (presumably a majority of people?) walking around today who consider “caltrop” a standard vocabulary word but are completely baffled by the concept of a bear trap? I’m not sure I believe that. 

Then we get to Tools, which we first met in the Character Classes chapter, where some PCs got proficiency with certain types of tools. In the equipment chapter, it becomes clear that Tools are, for all intents and purposes, just a different way of mechanically phrasing skills. And it’s really weird what skills they decide to tie to tool proficiencies. Things like pottery or specific types of vehicles mostly make sense, and I could even see an argument that a musical instrument or navigational charts are so essential to their respective skills that the skill doesn’t exist outside of the tool, but gambling? Really? 

Unlike the adventurer’s packs, the exact contents of the tool sets is left vague. With the exception of Thieves’ Tools (which are fully itemized), all of the descriptions either contain a partial list followed by some form of “and some other stuff” or completely lack any indication of what they contain. For example, all the craft skills are lumped into a single “Artisan’s Tools” tool set, so all I know about Smith’s Tools is that they weight 8 pounds and cost 20 gold pieces. Given the weight, I think it’s safe to assume they don’t include a forge or an anvil (unless it’s a really cute teeny-tiny anvil), so what does that leave? A hammer, tongs, and a bucket? Maybe some thick gloves? I know that the reason these kits aren’t itemized is because the writers didn’t want to do the research required to figure it out and most players aren’t going to care, but once you’ve established a “list every piece of chalk” approach to inventory, it’s a little disingenuous to try to pass off an 8 pound bag of alchemy supplies as a single item that doesn’t merit further clarification. 

The next few sections get into even fiddlier minutiae, starting with mounts and vehicles, which are framed as nothing more than a way to carry all your other crap, then listing some trade goods for those who want to enjoy the magic of barter, and finally a lifestyle cost for players who just don’t get enough accounting during dungeon crawls and want to track how much their character spends on room and board between adventures. Grand. Epic. Adventures. 

The Hireling section does remind me of one thing from the beginning of the chapter that I haven’t mentioned: Unlike in 3E, where magic was just another trade and every town had three magic shops where you could buy a Hand of Vecna and a Wish spells with predictable suggested retail prices, 5E goes back to the idea that magic is something special that you can’t just pick up at the local bodega. Since the sheer D&Dness of D&D already robs magic of a a lot of its magic, it’s nice to see the game ditch the idea that magic is as common and easy to obtain as a nice pair of boots. 

The last section, “Trinkets” is the other thing I actually like about this chapter. Every player gets to roll on a table to generate one random thing the character has somehow acquired. The items on the table tend to be some combination of useless, weird, and mysterious: a mummified goblin’s hand, a nightmarish idol that gives you bad dreams, and a glass jar full of lard labelled “Griffon Grease” are just a few examples. While a random table (even one with 100 entries) is kind of limiting in my opinion, the basic idea of “your character has this weird thing, maybe there’s a story behind it”  is a good one, especially for newer players who aren’t used to building story hooks into their characters. 

Next up is a chapter called “Customization Options,” which looks like it may include some new material. 

Holy shit, I’m finally done with classes and races! Let’s get through the rest of this thing! I remember an earlier chapter promising what looked like role-playing mechanics, so hopefully this chapter will have something that’s not just a minor variation on the same game TSR has been repackaging since the 70s. The early pages aren’t especially promising: name, sex, physical description, alignment; All things we’ve seen before. 

Ok, maybe not all things we’ve seen before. In the section on sex (next time on Phil & Dixie!), there’s discussion of playing characters who don’t conform with societal expectations in terms of sex, gender, or sexual behavior, because D&D is Woke AF. Don’t get me wrong: Even if this is purely cynical market-tested virtue signalling, it’s still important at this particular in moment in time. It will probably look horribly outdated and old-fashioned when D&D 18th Edition players dig up the book in 5 or 10 years, but if so that’s a win. The comics industry is still struggling to accept the idea that straight white guys born in the 70s isn’t a market with a lot of growth potential, so it’s nice to see D&D actively trying to ensure that the hobby doesn’t die when its current core demographic does. 

I believe they got rid of “everybody with an Intelligence higher than 11 is massively multilingual” thing in 3E, but if memory serves it kind went in the other direction and made you spend skill slots on languages. I’m comfortable assuming this resulted in most characters just speaking the languages they started with. This edition finds a happy medium by giving characters of certain backgrounds bonus languages. 

Three pages in we move into the “Personal Characteristics” section. Rather than ending with the  traditional “your character can have a personality and catchphrases and mannerisms and stuff” paragraph, this version actually makes some of that stuff part of the character creation rules. Every player starts by choosing two personality traits, though the concept is sort of undercut by the “base them on your ability scores” suggestion. They also choose one ideal that drives the character, so you’ll understand why they’ve taken up a career invading and looting the homes of marginalized creatures. Don’t worry, you can base this one on your alignment if coming up with a character motivation makes your brain hurt. Next up is a Bond, which gives your murderhobo an uncharacteristic-for-D&D connection to other people and the world around him. Where I’ve mainly seen Bonds used to establish links between party members, here the Bond is used to establish a link between the character and literally anything else in the world. Baby steps, I suppose. Last but not least, you pick a flaw. Don’t worry, the flaw can be a vice or just something that pisses you off, so it’s not like you have to make a character who’s vulnerable or sympathetic or anything like that. 

So far this section is just formalizing things that most players do anyway. The new lines on the character sheet have even less effect on the game mechanics than alignment in its current (and preferable, in my opinion) barely-even-a-character-trait form. Inspiration tries to give them some game meaning. Just not much. Inspiration is basically a temporary bennie point that you can use to get a bonus on one roll or give to another character. While I guess it’s admirable that D&D finally acknowledge the idea of giving good role-players some kind of game bonus, the unbelievably limited nature of the rule suggests a pants-shitting fear that giving the players a bonus that isn’t explicitly tied to a character trait will somehow subvert the rightful authority of...random die rolls, I guess? It’s a completely alien mindset that I can’t even begin to understand. 

Throughout most of this chapter, there are sidebars comparing Tika Waylan from Dragonlance to a character name Artemis Entreri, who I felt like I vaguely remembered from one of the many terrible D&D novels I read in high school. In the last sidebar, it’s revealed that he’s Drizzt’s nemesis, so I guess there’s just no escaping R.A. Salvatore. About all the sidebars really accomplish is to establish that two wildly different characters are, in fact, different. I guess WOTC pays by the word. Must be nice. 

The chapter ends with Backgrounds, which have come a long way from the d% table in the original Dungeon Master’s Guide. Now they’re basically mini-classes without levels that you just add on to your existing character, kind of like Kits in the old Complete Splat series (but not tied to a specific Splat). They give you an assortment of bonus abilities, equipment, and other perks. For example, the Acolyte background gives you the Insight and Religion proficiencies, 2 extra languages, a goodie bag full of religious trinkets, and goodwill from the church. For complete thoroughness, I should probably review each of the Background options, but fuck that. There are like 15 of them, and I’d like the finish writing this review before GenCon. 

Next time*: Equipment! You know what that means, don’t you? Those sweet, sweet vision distance and encumbrance rules are right around the corner, baby! 

*Two weeks from now. I’m taking next week off to finish preparing for DieCon. 

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Time to burn through the last of these character classes. I vaguely remember something about the next chapter seeming ineteresting. 

Rogues

• Thieves Cant now includes Hobo Signs. If a Locoviathan shows up in the 5E Monster Manual, we might have to sober up our lawyer. 
• Rogues have three “Roguish Archetypes” (it’s like they just didn’t feel like trying): Thief, Assassin, and Arcane Trickster.
• The Thief is pretty much what you expect.
• The Assassin is more of a Disguise Artist with a couple of murder skills. 
• The Arcane Trickster is basically the master of the Mage Hands spell, but also gets the weird ability to steal a spell from someone as if it were a physical object (the original caster can’t use the spell during the time the Trickster can cast it). 
• The remaining classes are all different flavors of Magic-Users. 

Sorcerers

• Much like Harry Potter, John Boorman’s interpretation of Merlin, and Queen’s Freddie Mercury, Sorcerers are born with magical powers. 
• Sorcerers get their powers from “an exotic bloodline, some otherworldly influence, or exposure to unknown cosmic forces.” The first two have well-established precedents in fantasy literature, but I’m pretty sure they last one is just Marvel-style Cosmic Rays. Have the Fantastic Four secretly been wizards all along? 
• Sorcerers have spell points (called Sorcery Points), but they immediately get converted into Vancian spell levels, at least for purposes of spell selection. You can also use them to do things that were accomplished my Feats in 3E, like increasing range, duration, effect, and other spell stats. It’s like the game wants to introduce new and better magic mechanics, but just can’t let go of the Old Ways. I realize that Vancian magic, dumb as it may be, is a hallmark of the D&D genre, but can’t they let one lousy class use a magic system more in tune with the rather expansive “not Jack Vance” subgenre of fantasy fiction? 
• Sorcerers have a Sorcerous Origin: Draconic (Grandpa fucked a dragon; delicately described in the book as “some other exceptional circumstance” but I think we all know they mean dragon fucking) or Wild Magic (Cosmic Rays, I guess). Given the description of where sorcerers get their magical power from the beginning of the class write-up, this seems like a very limited selection of options.
• The dragon fuckers get dragon-related powers: bonus HP, dragon scales that improve AC, bonuses for spells associate with the dragon ancestor’s breath weapon, the ability to sprout wings, and dragon fear.   
• Wild Magic Sorcerers allow the GM to roll out the old Wild Magic table that’s been around since 2E (longer if you count its obvious ancestor, the Wand of Wonder) and get to do some luck-style dice fuckery. 
• Josh Burnett should be happy to know that one of the wild magic effects is the random appearance of 1d6 flumphs 

Warlocks

• Warlocks are kind of like clerics, but with wizard magic. And they get their spells from demons, fairies, or Cthulhu. So basically they’re the kind of wizard that usually shows up in real-world folklore and magical realist fiction. The probably smell like either old money or patchouli and feet. 
• In addition to spells, Warlocks get Eldritch Invocations. Most of them are just free spells, but a few give you other abilities. 
• At 3rd Level, Warlocks get either a familiar, a weapon that can magically appear out of nowhere and take any form the Warlock wants, or a Book of Shadows that lets them cast a few cantrips. One of these things seems significantly less useful than the other two (Though the Cthulhu version of the Book of Shadows may make up for usefulness with style, since it’s the Necronomicon (Mad Arab version; the Evil Dead version would definitely make up for usefulness with cool points). 
• As you’ve probably already guessed, the Warlock subclasses are based on your Otherworldly Patron: Archfey, Fiend, or The Great Old One. These work basically like you’d expect, though the Fiend Warlock’s ability to literally smack someone into Hell seems kind of excessive. 
• Mentioning Demogorgon post-Stranger Things almost seems like name-dropping. 

Wizards 

• The Wizard is of course the new(ish) name for your favorite guano connoisseur, the Magic-User.  
• Wizards have to be specialist wizards in this edition, so the subclasses are the eight schools of magic. Are there really only 8? For some reason I thought there were nine. Maybe it’s just because 9 is a mystically sexier number, so I’ve been adding one all thse years. Well damn. 
• Transmuter’s Stone? Really? 
• Man, Dungeons & Dragons is just the master of making magic boring as shit, isn't it?

Next week: Chapter 4: Almost Certainly More Interesting Than Schools of Magic. 

Ok, we’re jumping right into this one. There are a lot of classes left and we don’t have time for niceties. 

Druids

• This edition is considerably more specific about what the hell is meant by “preserving the balance.” It’s an improvement for the game, but it ruins my Thanos joke. 
• Every time they refer to “the Old Faith,” I picture Nicol Williamson.
• I still don’t get the “druids don’t use metal” thing. It’s not like metal is some unnatural synthetic material from outer space. “Druids don’t use alloyed metals” might make sense, like some kind of Leviticus polyester thing, but it seems like regular old metal that you dig up from the earth would be perfectly Druid-friendly. 
• Other than spellcasting, the attribute bonuses every class gets, and slow aging after 18th level, the druid’s only special ability is shapeshifting. The other traditional druid powers that are still around are mostly in the “Circle of the Land” subclass thing (the other, “Circle of the Moon” is just super-shapeshifting). 
• “These druids [Circle of the Land] meet within sacred circles of trees or standing stones to whisper primal secrets in Druidic.” This seems like a weird hobby. “Any plans tonight, JIm?” “Oh, you know, I’ll probably just go down to the grove and whisper primal secrets in Druidic...” 
• “Their order [Circle of the Moon] gathers under the full moon to share news and trade warnings.” This seems much more productive than standing around whispering in a secret language. 

Fighters

Fighters. The class you play when you don’t want to deal with high-falutin’ character concepts or tricky special ability rules. Just a guy with a sword who wants to kill some stuff. Good ol’ Stabby McPunchyblade. What could go wrong? 

• In a break from tradition, every Fighter has to choose a preferred fighting style: Archery (ranged weapons), Defense (AC Bonus), Dueling (single weapon, no shield), Great Weapon Fighting (2-handed weapons), Protection (Meat Shield), and Two-Weapon Fighting (Drizzt).  
• Most of the Fighter’s class abilities are basically cheat codes for various standard (mostly combat-related) rules: healing surge, extra actions, and saving throw re-rolls. 
• Fighters get three Martial Archetypes (subclasses) instead of the standard two: Champion (Bruiser), Battle Master (Tactician), and Eldritch Knight (Battle Mage)
• High level Eldritch Knights can teleport short distances, so we can finally make Jason and Michael Myers as D&D characters. 

Monks

This version of D&D just accepts that monks are ninjas and Kung Fu masters. It makes everything less awkward. 

• D&D finally gets a spell point system, but it’s for Kung Fu powers. 
• The Kung Fu-centric Monastic Tradition (subclass), “Way of the Open Hand”  is the only one that still gets Quivering Palm.  Quivering Palm will still fuck you up. 
• The ninja subclass, “Way of the Shadow,” might just be my favorite D&D ninja class yet. They have actual magic powers instead of just really good Thief skills.  
• The final subclass, “Way of the Four Elements,” basically has elemental super-powers, often in the form of standard spells. 

Paladins

• They don’t have to be Lawful Good. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen any alignment restrictions so far. 
• The Paladin subclasses are based on the character’s Sacred Oath: Oath of Devotion (traditional vanilla paladin), Oath of the Ancients (kind of a Druid Paladin), and Oath of Vengeance (Batman). 

Rangers

• “Humanoids” as a group no longer count as a favored enemy. You can either choose one of the standard groups (dragons, elementals, undead, etc.) or choose 2 specific races of humanoids. In previous editions it was kind of dumb to choose anything but humanoids, given that they make up a huge percentage of D&D encounters. Making those other enemies more viable is a good idea, since some of the weirder ones (like oozes or constructs) could lead to some very interesting rangers. 
• At 10th Level, Rangers gain the ability to Dutch.  
• Ranger subclasses are just called “Ranger Archetypes,” which is kind of boring. The options are Hunter (Combat Monster) and Beast Master (Marc Singer). 
• One of the Hunter’s special abilities is “You’re totally like Crow from Hawk the Slayer, dude!” 

Next Week: Rogues and Spellcasters, then we’re out of the stat block section of the book. Hopefully it’ll go faster from there on out.