Perchance to Dream
Well, this week I was invited to take part in the “Friends and Family” wave of the D&D Next play testing and I have to say I am pretty excited to see what the designers have in mind.
Of course, I signed an NDA and I am not allowed to talk details. However, you can bet your ass if I see the word “Shardmind” in that document, I’ll make a point to include a 12-point bullet list and quicktime movie detailing why I do not believe Shardmind’s should be one of the core races.
But hey, to each his own. One of the best things about D&D is it’s very much a “use what you like, ignore the rest” game.
Brian
Also: There are 7 days left to get in on the Flaming d20 Hoodie pre-sale! I will have a very limited number of these in stock after the initial order is placed so strike while the iron is hot.
What the fuck is a sharmind?
A gate of crystaline psi in the etheral plane holds back the cthulu type elder horrors. Some gods fucked with it and brought about the 4th era (4e) and as a result it got smashed.
If enough shards of it get together they form a shardmind, a sentient humanoid made of many medium to small crystals held together by telekinesis.
Also, psionics manifesting in the mortal races is a natural defense mechanism of reality itself against the elder horrors.
Some kind of race added during 4e… um I’d be interested to see that list O.o
From the short list of psionic races. Weird concept, but one that felt… Out of place in most of the settings I’ve used. I’d much prefer a toolkit that lets DMs “kitbash” their own races effectively than see the return of the Shardmind…
Wilden was the other one that never really clicked for me, but I’m sure SOMEONE liked them.
Thank you. Just, thank you.
@NewbieDM – PHB3. They were a psionic race, as well as an attempt to create a second Living Construct race to complement Warforged. They had an interesting enough story, but fell rather flat as a PC race.
I wouldn’t mind seeing them in a monster manual, perhaps as a Far Realm NPC race. But yeah, that’s about it.
@Jonathan – I’ve seen one Wilden I’ve liked, and he was played basically as Swamp Thing. It was kind of neat, actually.
Shardminds can go. Wilden can stay. I’ve seen quite a few played very very well.
Hello. I’m Eric and I’m one of the two that like Shardminds. *sigh*
Oh, the second one is my girlfriend.
On the bright side, we both like wind chimes. 🙂
I support the anti-shardmind movement, spoken as a big 4e fan. I’m not a “weird race” fan in general, so shardmind would be the first (but not the last) race I’d kill off if I were starting a new edition from scratch.
I’d like to see them start with human, elf, dwarf and halfling, and that’s it. They can add more from there, but the “core four” sound good to me.
@OnlineDM: I could not agree with you more. Stick with the iconic races and make the rest optional.
@Brian: No love for Half-Orcs?
/sharpens skinning knife, sips from human skull goblet with pinkie extended.
Well, suit yourself.
I actually rather liked the set of races from the PHB, but I’d prefer something like Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Human, Half-Orc, Tiefling, Eladrin, Drow, Dragonborn… Basically the races from HoTFL and HoTFK combined.
@Graham: I withdraw my statement concerning Wilden, because that sounds awesome.
I’m a big gnome; any race that’s been around since 2e or earlier should be grandfathered into support somewhere.
* I dislike eladrin mostly for their name. They really just need to be “grey elves” again or even “faeries” or “Fair Folk”. They serve a purpose, but they’re a textbook example of something that should be a “subrace”.
* I dislike shardminds because they came out of nowhere. They’ve been around since the day of time but have no connection to any established lore. That’s just lazy. And a race of crystal shards being held together by mental energy just stretches my verisimilitude when they can be stabbed, poisoned, diseased, and bled just as easily as any other race. Shardmind vampire: silliest character concept ever.
* Ditto the “wilden”, another race divorced from the existing game. A plant race totally works, but they should have been “dryads” or “entlings” or “shambling folk” and not this wacky race whose name that screams “this was the fourth choice on our list but the first we could trademark!”.
Are you all so narrow minded? I have been been playing a Shardmind for 4 months now. I haven’t played since the 1st edition 20 years ago and just got back into playing. I love the new choices and was glad to see the game expanded. Is this role playing and make believe or not? What’s the difference between and elf, dwarf or shardmind as long as you are playing and having a great time. Maybe those of you who don’t like the expanded races just are not imaginative enough. Seriously, whats the big deal? Why be limited to just the basic races? Change equals progress! Variety is the spice of life.The more verity, the more the game can expand. Why limit yourselves to fighter dwarfs and elf rangers? Some of your attitudes remind me of Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. Smart, but not a lick of sense.
Why the racism towards the Shardminds? Scared you can’t take us? I am the Big Red Shiny…FEAR ME!! You have just been Mind Thrusted
@The Big Red Shiny: Please don’t Mind Thrust again…it makes me feel dirty, plus you got some shard in my eye. Seriously, I agree with your sentiments, but there needs to be some line for what is included as a playable race in a PHB and what is included in a later supplement. I think where WotC went wrong with the 4E books was putting some of the more different races in later PHB’s. It started to feel like they were reaching for material to add to the game. Maybe in 5E (4.5E?) they can put out one supplement outlining how to make ANY race playable. That puts the decision on the DM’s for what they will allow.
Honestly, I hope the first book (or boxed set) for the next D&D trims it down to something like four races and four classes.
Races: Human, elf, halfling, dwarf
Classes: Fighter, wizard, rogue, cleric
I’d love to see all the half races become optional and the other classes become kits (like 2E) of the main four classes.
lol nice!
When it comes to half races, I’d like to see a system that actually allows for pretty much any two race to be ‘bred’. Why do all half elves have to be half human? Why not half elf/half dragonborn? I’d also like to see more support for easily customising things across the board. Particularly with the online stuff like the character builder. The easier it is to customise races, powers, items and so on, the better. I’m a big supporter of the character builder as a tool, but it makes playing with custom stuff a lot trickier when you’re using it for your games.
@The Big Red Shiny: Point taken. I’m glad you like it and are having fun, and in all seriousness – I’m pro choice for players all the way. I think that’s why WoTC makes so many races, even if they seem weird on the surface; because they know that SOMEBODY is going to think they’re awesome. And I’m cool with that. I’ve defended the pixie for the same reason. So please forgive my earlier statements as somewhere between kidding and forgetful. As long as you’re playing and having fun, that’s awesome. 😉
I’d love to see them make a system that lets us create our own races and have them balance effectively with the core, but that’s probably (read: almost definitely) wishful thinking on my part.
@The Big Red Shiny –
Fair enough. My real issue with Shardminds is twofold.
1) I just don’t like the name. This is petty, sure, but why not call them Shardlings, oreven just Shards? Shardminds sounds clunky to me.
2) I like the story behind them, but it doesn’t really work well for a PC race (most of the time). The Shardminds have a built-in driver, a built-in plot hook that all of them are questing to complete. This is neat, but unless the campaign includes that as a plot element (even a minor one), there’s really no reason for a Shardmind to join the group.
Sure, there’s the occasional one who might break off from the pack and go off doing his own thing, but for that rare story, do they really need a full PC writeup?
Hence my preference that they be a monster/NPC race. They have a cool plot line, which the group can quest for, but unless you’re basing a campaign around that, they probably won’t be PCs.
Note that this doesn’t exclude including PC stats alongside them, just as we have PC stats for Goblins, Kobolds, Githyanki, Duergar, and even Bullywugs. I don’t mind that they’re playable, I just think that a better choice could have been made to give a full PC writeup to.
@Jester David –
re: Shardmind Vampire. With a tiny bit or refluffing, this could actually be quite cool. You grab the enemy, and tiny slivers of crystal pierce his skin, act5ing as a conduit to absorb its neural energies, leaving the enemy weakened and you energized.
I’ve actually considered playing a Warforged Vampire using a similar schtick. Two retractable probe cables in the back of his wrist (think of how the Borg assimilate people with their retractable cable tendril things) extend, latch onto the target, and through pure necromantic energy siphon life force from it.
Who says a vampire needs to use its teeth and drain blood?
4e is my first run with D&D, so seeing all these races like Shardmind and Warforged and Goblin etc seem normal for me.
With 5e, I really wouldn’t mind if they kept Shardmind or the other races in, as long as they dont actually ruin anything outside of people going, “Man, that race sucks and shouldn’t be in.” It seems no different to me than an ice cream parlor having steak flavored ice cream. Most may find it a bad flavor, but it is there in case someone DOES want to get it.
If they plan to take races out of 5e, I wouldn’t complain if they took Shardmind out either. I havent made a character as a Shardmind thus far and have stuck with Dwarf for my current campaign, Goliath for an Avatar: Last Airbender campaign we’ll be doing soon, Deva for a Swordmage, and a Changeling for a Bard. So my range of races isn’t really that huge.
However, my complaint is actually Essentials builds in the character builder from WotC. I understand why they are there and don’t hate the whole Essentials thing, but I would have preferred they had classes with an optional “Essentials Build” check box and do away with the classes that are ONLY pre-built.
On an UNRELATED topic, does anyone know how the sizes if his tees compare? Was planning on ordering some but what constitutes a “L” varies a shittonne.
Yeah! As one of the two shardmind fans, I guess I’m sad that I know now I’ll never see anything of value for it.
To me, the Shardmind was part of what was wrong with 4th edition. When they said, “Screw all this optional crap” and made all of the material that used to go into different books like Races of X or Complete Y and just went into the Player’s Handbook…. well, the Psionics Handbook only appeals to a few people. Stuffing it into the PHB3 with psionic based themes and calling it the PHB3 doesn’t really make it the PHB3. If I want a book called Oriental Adventurers that has Samurai, Ninja, Kensai, etc… I don’t want to have to hunt down a dozen different books to do it.
So among all this talk of Shardminds, no one thought to ask Brian WHEN his playtesting will begin!?