Completionism: Or how 5e's release schedule saved my life

I'm something of an obsessive-compulsive when it comes to D&D-- I want the game to feel complete, like nothing is missing or unaccounted for, like it's all thought through.

Sometimes this works for me. Sometimes it compels me to pull at threads and I get a fun, insightful article that gives me (and hopefully you) a greater appreciation for the game, or an interesting new way of handling things. Other times it just causes a lot of trouble and stress for me as suddenly it occurs to me that I overlooked something, and now its absence gnaws at me and leaves me dissatisfied.

This, as a matter of fact, is why I haven't really followed the OSR too closely since my big hiatus. I spent long nights cribbing from every blog post, retroclone, zine, and supplement out there-- and occasionally from the WOTC editions that formed the bulk of my background-- until I lost sight of the simplicity and fun of the game and developed a veritable Frankenstein's monster of house rules, custom classes, and edge cases, every bit as bulky and inaccessible as late-period 3.5 or tax law.

Enter 5th edition. A new D&D, compatible enough to be familiar, or even to reuse old material when necessary, but different enough from TSR!D&D to not allow for direct porting, containing very nearly everything I expect D&D to include in its toolkit, it gave me an opportunity to cast off all the cruft I let myself accumulate-- the cruft I would have had to make a significant effort to stop myself accumulating. It was a breath of fresh air.

There was, during the fall, an expectation that this Elemental Evil/Princes of the Apocalypse campaign they're now preparing to launch would include a supplement, an "Adventurer's Handbook." Whether this was the actual plan and they changed their minds or the whole thing was just misguided speculation isn't for me to know, but either way there's no Adventuer's Handbook planned, either for Elemental Evil or for any future offerings, and there never will be. For the foreseeable future, 5e is just those three books.

Of course there will in all likelihood be new options for Elemental Evil, in all likelihood released through the web (and the monthly Unearthed Arcana column as well, of course.) But the ethos of 5e has so far been very-core focused, so I expect they will not be too many or too sweeping and I also expect they will be treated in a more optional fashion than supplemental rules have been in the past. As such I do not feel the same pressure to keep up with them as I did when I played 3.x and 4e. And furthermore since I feel like I don't have anything vital to my conception of D&D missing, only things I might like, I don't feel the same pressure to incorporate additional options that fell outside of the traditional OSR purview that I felt from about 2011 onwards.

For the first time in a long time, I don't feel like I'm having to extensively kitbash or run the Red Queen's race to get the game I need. Instead, I have everything I need and am being presented with an occasional spate of extras if the mood should strike me.

Now if only I can start feeling ready to accept a little vagueness when I'm worldbuilding...

Maybe the rivers of the Thunder Rift make more sense than I gave them credit for?

Over at the Piazza (and right here on this blog as well), some feedback on my rant about the fluvial system of everyone's favorite micro-setting reached me that I thought was particularly interesting. Maybe these things were more thought-out than I initially assumed they were, or maybe it's just a happy accident that they seem to hold up to surface analysis. Either way, it put me in a good mood. Here's the comment itself reposted for the convenience of those of you who don't follow links.

Possible ret-cons or reinterpretations:

• Change the flow of the southern rivers. They now empty into Lake Melinir. We can’t really tell the slope of that SE canyon/channel from eyeballing the map. 

• Where does Lake Melinir drain? It drains into a subterranean river system that leads into cavernous realm connected to the Rift. Thunder Rift’s Underark, if you will. 

• The Gloomfens, as you note, may be whacky due to magic origins. But why not Wizardspire, too? Does the stream in fact flow uphill in contravention of the laws of nature? That would be pretty trippy. These two sites, Gloomfens and Wizardspire, have linked histories, of course. The Wizard-Warrior feud, magical curses thrown down.

• Option two Wizardspire- Somebody left the tap water one when the assassins wiped out the magic-users. That’s not ONE stream flowing uphill and then down, but TWO streams flowing downhill from two windows/spouts/gutters on the hidden side of the spire. 

Starter Set vs. B/X - Spell Lists.

Okay, so this isn't Better Know A District Hex. Don't worry, that's still coming, but this was something I could dash off quickly that I thought might be interesting to discuss.

The 5e starter set's spell list just came up in an excerpt on Wizards' website.

I thought it might be interesting to compare the spell lists they offered up to the Basic/Expert one. I think the changes are pretty interesting. Spells struck through are only in the old list, spells in italics are only in the new one, spells that are bolded changed levels

	Cleric Cantrips	Wizard Cantrips
1	Guidance	Dancing Lights
2	Light	Light
3	Resistance	Mage Hand
4	Sacred Flame	Prestidigitation
5	Thaumaturgy	Ray of Frost
6	--	Shocking Grasp

The cantrips, of course, are almost completely new. I'm somewhat ambivalent about Light being a cantrip, it seems to make torches or lanterns something of an unnecessary investment for a party with either class in it. I'm not a huge aficionado of the resource-and-logistics game beloved of many old-schoolers, but I hope the DMG will include guidelines for those that are, and presumably that'll involve moving Light back up.

	B/X cleric spells, level 1	5e Starter Set Cleric Spells, level 1
1	Cure Light Wounds	Bless
2	Detect Evil	Command
3	Detect Magic	Cure Wounds
4	Light	Detect Magic
5	Protection From Evil	Guiding Bolt
6	Purify Food And Water	Healing Word
7	Remove Fear	Inflict Wounds
8	Resist Cold	Sanctuary
9	--	Shield of Faith

Two AD&D standbys, Command Word and Sanctuary, come into the Next list. Losing Purify Food and Water seems in line with the less resource-management focused game (though I'm quite certain it'll be there in the PHB-- most of the removed ones, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see there, before one worries too much.) I'm most surprised to see Protection From Evil out of the Starter Set list, unless Shield of Faith is its new name. I might have to check the playtest packet on that. Spells like Guiding Bolt and Healing Word show a little 4e influence-- my memory from the playtest is that Healing Word is a minor (or whatever they ended up calling it) action healing spell with a lower value than Cure Wounds, and Guiding Bolt is an attack spell that gives a bonus to other allies attacking. The "leader" focus of the 4e cleric is cool, so it's neat to see that they want to run with that, IMO.

	B/X Magic User spells, level 1	5e Starter Set Wizard Spells, level 1
1	Charm Person	Burning Hands
2	Detect Magic	Charm Person
3	Floating Disc	Comprehend Languages
4s	Hold Portal	Detect Magic
5	Light	Identify
6	Magic Missile	Mage Armor
7	Magic Mouth	Magic Missile
8	Protection From Evil	Shield
9	Read Languages	Sleep
10	Shield	Thunderwave
11	Sleep	--
12	Ventriloquism	--

The 5e Wizard's list is shorter and somewhat more blasty. I suspect the loss of Read Magic is a matter of need-- unknown scrolls can be sussed out with a simple identify, but as to copying spells from other spellbooks... well, we'll see? Once again I wouldn't be surprised to see the rest of the B/X list turn up in the PHB. Thunderwave is another loan from 4e, it pushes the target away and does a little damage. Its inclusion here feels to me like a deliberate 4e-ism more than anything, I probably would have put something else on the list. Don't know what. Otherwise it feels like a very logical, iconic list to me, the old classics-- Charm Person, Detect Magic, Magic Missile, Sleep, are all still there.

	B/X Cleric spells, level 2	5e Starter Set Cleric Spells, level 2
1	Bless	Aid
2	Find Traps	Augury
3	Hold Person	Hold Person
4	Resist Fire	Lesser Restoration
5	Silence, 15’ Radius	Prayer of Healing
6	Snake Charm	Silence
7	Speak With Animals	Spiritual Weapon
8	Spiritual Hammer	Warding Bond

Augury's an old AD&D favorite, of course, and I think so is Aid, but my memory could be off. I'm not sure what Prayer of Healing or Warding Bond are... maybe Warding Bond is our Protection from Evil? I'm led to understand Lesser Restoration handles things like blindness, paralysis, disease, etc, in which case it's lower-level than usually expected. I don't miss Snake Charm overmuch, but I am sorry to see Find Traps and Speak With Animals not there. I'll be interested to see if they make it into the PHB.

	B/X Magic User spells, level 2	5e Starter Set Wizard Spells, level 2
1	Continual Light	Blur
2	Detect Evil	Darkness
3	Detect Invisible	Flaming Sphere
4	ESP	Hold Person
5	Invisibility	Invisibility
6	Knock	Misty Step
7	Levitate	Spider Climb
8	Locate Object	Suggestion
9	Mirror Image	Web
10	Phantasmal Force	--
11	Web	--
12	Wizard Lock	--

Another shorter list, though not quite so much more attack-focused as the level 1 one. There are utility spells, but many of them are different. I always liked Spider Climb, though. Between the lack of Knock here and Find Traps on the Cleric list, maybe they made an effort to cut down on the ability of casters to eat the Thief/Rogue's lunch. I feel like ESP and Phantasmal Force (or as they've been known in more recent editions, Detect Thoughts and Minor Image) should have been there, though. The lack of Continual Light is perhaps  logical since you can cast Light as a cantrip.

	B/X Cleric spells, level 3	5e Starter Set Cleric Spells, level 3
1	Continual Light	Beacon of Hope
2	Cure Blindness	Dispel Magic
3	Cure Disease	Mass Healing Word
4	Growth of Animals	Protection from Energy
5	Locate Object	Revivify
6	Remove Curse	Spirit Guardians
7	Speak with Dead	--
8	Striking	--

This must be the most radically different spell list of the lot. Nothing is shared between the two lists. But that makes sense considering how many of the old ones moved around in level. Protection From Energy is clearly a close cousin to Resist Cold and Resist Fire. In 3.x Revivify was like Raise Dead with an extreme time limit... I think it might have been only effective within a single round of death. Dispel magic moves down in place of Remove Curse, but Remove Curse might be part of Lesser Restoration as well (here I've counted it as being, because I think it was). I don't recall for sure from the playtest. Mass Healing Word is fairly obvious in its function, but I don't know about what the other new ones might do.

	B/X Magic User spells, level 3	5e Starter Set Wizard Spells, level 3
1	Clairvoyance	Dispel Magic
2	Darkvision	Fireball
3	Dispel Magic	Fly
4	Fireball	Lightning Bolt
5	Fly	Protection from Energy
6	Haste	--
7	Hold Person	--
8	Invisibility, 10’ Radius	--
9	Lightning Bolt	--
10	Protection from Evil, 10’ Radius	--
11	Protection from Normal Missiles	--
12	Water Breathing	--

This one is the most reduced of all, almost too much so. That said, while the Cleric was most unlike, what remains here is possibly the closest list, with only one new spell. Of the ones that didn't make the cut, I'm most surprised about Haste.

Overall, I think the list strikes a good balance of old and new, but as it increases in level there are slightly too few spells in the new lists, and does a good job of suggesting some of the differences in assumed playstyle between 5e Basic and B/X. These are differences I'm mostly comfortable with but I predict some old-schoolers might not be. But I remain optimistic that the DMG will include guidelines to tweak it to focus a little more on resources and stuff, which should hopefully placate them as well.