Emphasis mine.Necron 99 wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2022, 1:18 pm Today, on DriveThruRPG, I noticed the PDF for the 5e version of Midnight is available. But...so far, it doesn't really look too favorable. One of the reviews had this to say about the 5e version in comparison to 3.x.
Someone else mentioned this:Very disappointing. As an old grognard who had a standing order for every 3e Midnight supplement from my FLGS back int he day, I feel like they just missed the mark.
The setting is there. The fluff is there. The feel... not so much. The mechanics for bringing Midnight to 5th Edition are severely lacking. I say that because they left out a lot - not stuff from the years of supplements that they had in 3rd edition, but stuff that was in the original 3e Midnight CRB.
No half-races. No Defender class. No special weapons (technically, they are there, but almost all are "Treat as existing weapon x with no modifiers"). No new sub-classes to the existing 5e classes. No new classes (so no 5e Monk, no Defender, if you want to be an unarmed combatant, I guess be a fighter?). No Wildlander (play a Ranger, I guess?). You can play a 5e paladin or Bard though!?! They do give write-ups for the standard (full) races of Midnight, but not the half-races (dworg, dwerro, elfling).
The Heroic Paths are... less than expected. In 3e, they gave you an ability each level. In 5e, you get a free bonus feat at 1st level, but any further investments into your heroic path come at the expense of your ability increases/feats every 4 levels. Want to take all of the abilities in your Heroic Path? You'll pretty much never get any other feats or ability increases. Mechanically, I feel like this might have been a better fit for Pathfinder 2e, not D&D 5e.
Don't even get me started on magic. Wizards, Sorcerers, and Druids are valid classes, no reworked Channeler (except as a Heroic Path, see above). A caster can take the new Subtle Spellcaster feat to choose 2 1st level spells to cast without detection once per long rest, but that's all I could see.
I feel like a lot of the original thought and care that went into making the game a balanced 3e experience was left out of this version. This is not a 5e version of the classic Midnight setting, it is 5e with Midnight flavor text.
That said, I still hope that the publishers put forth the effort to fix the issues and correct things. The setting is truly phenomenal and deserves better than this book offers.
Not including the half-races and gender swapping NPCs sounds like the usual attempt to appease the "woke" crowd. This trope is getting tiresome. Not including the Defender is a head scratcher because that was something of an iconic class in the original books where getting and using traditional weapons was difficult, those fighting against Izrador had to scrounge and struggle to fight the dark god and his followers, Defenders allowed this as a viable option for those wanting something outside of the usual fighter-type of combatant, and showed how the resistance was tapping into other sources of personal and spiritual power.An intriguing but also rather flawed interpretation of the Midnight setting. It is missing some of the elements that made the 1st and 2nd editions unique, such as the survivor class and the Elfling and Dwarrow races. It also shows a lack of imagination on the part of the author as they have changed the gender of some of the cast so that they are now women, rather than coming up with interesting new female characters themselves.
Jaden Norfall, and the head of The Gorand Clan of Bodruna are now women. The Nightking Jahzir also has a different name and background. There is not much consistency between this edition and the previous ones.
Allowing wizards, sorcerers and druids is a complete antithesis to what the setting is about. This is just bad.
IMO, it sounds like a quick money grab by someone who doesn't really care about the setting, looking to ride the 5e train and going so far as to just ruin everything that made the setting unique and interesting.
Alas, it seems to be as I anticipated for the 5e version. Weak sauce. My dollars will be better off going elsewhere, it seems.
