Has it been a year already? The Adventurers League kicked off its latest season with the release of its Season 11 Player’s Guide on September 22nd (The DM’s guide and clarifications will be coming out at a later date). Yes, that means all the rules you knew about your favorite D&D organized play system have changed! Now we’re all busy people, some of us are busy with work. Others, like me, are busy poring over every change.
So what’s the low-down, you ask? Well, we like what we see! The new season gives us a ton of things to be excited about, so many things in fact, that I just had to write a clickbait article about it! Let’s begin:
1. Seasonality is gone
The vastly unpopular change from Season 10 has been reversed! The Historic, Masters, and Seasonal campaigns have merged back into the singular Forgotten Realms campaign.
That leaves just the Eberron – Oracle of War and the Mist Hunters alternate campaigns still separate.
Rejoice, for your characters have now been freed from being confined to just one campaign. No longer will you have to check which campaign each module is in before you sign up.
With supply and demand for all three campaigns being smooshed together, expect finding games and players to be a whole lot smoother.
2. Join the circus in the Wild Beyond the Witchlight storyline
Season 11 heralds not just a new set Adventurers League rules, but a fresh new D&D storyline. This time we’ll be heading to the Witchlight Carnival in the Wild Beyond the Witchlight hardcover storyline.
The Witchlight Carnival is a magical carnival and a gateway to the Feywild domain of Prismeer. For the uninitiated, the Feywild is the plane of the Fey, as in Fairies, expect a whole lot of whimsical fairytale magic. Time works differently in the Feywild, especially in Prismeer, which is currently dominated by the Hourglass Coven. With this much timey wimey stuff going on, more experienced players can also expect a few blasts from the past!
As usual, the hardcover’s release will also be tied to a series of Adventurers League modules for those who prefer a more directed experience. Fans of the Dungeoncraft programme will be happy to know that it’s also being renewed for Season 11, so expect a whole lot of community-written adventures with fey and circus themes to drop this year.
Lastly, for those who like new character creation options, the Wild Beyond the Witchlight hardcover offers two new races: the nimble Harengon, and the flying Fairy. That’s not all, Custom Lineages from Tasha’s are allowed now, allowing truly chaotic reflavours for your races.
3. No Gold Limits
Another unpopular change that’s been reversed: In Season 11 there’s no more maximum GP per hour or per level.
On one hand, that means you’re going to have to remember how much gold you get- it’s not going to default to the same thing every time.
On the other hand, players will finally have a tangible benefit to seeking out monetary rewards and mundane treasure scattered about modules now that it’s not disappearing into the aether. Finally a reason to touch those suspicious piles of treasure!
And yes, we said no more maximum GP per level too! That’s the first time we’ve had that at the same time as the option of rejecting level ups. That means a steady of supply of wealth even if you’re keeping your character back in a lower tier- perfect for topping up your potion supply.
4. Downtime Adjustments
Speaking of keeping your character back, you now gain 10 downtime days after every adventure, not when you level up. If you run out of that precious resource, you can just play more adventures.
Some of the standard Downtime Activities have also been changed:
- Catching Up now costs a flat 10 downtime and can be done at any level, not just at levels 4, 10, and 16.
- Trading now costs 5 downtime, down from 15, but you need to spend it even if you’re at the same table as another character.
- Copying Spells costs 1 downtime for spells up to 4th and 2 downtime for spells 5th and higher, and you can only copy from others after an adventure with them. You can no longer fail to scribe spells from scrolls.
5. Free rebuilds for all
Last year’s midseason Historic and Masters rules releases added free rebuilding to all characters in that campaign. The rule allows you to change your characters’ class, race, background, etc freely between adventures.
Now that rule has been extended to the new combined season. This is an improvement to Seasonal characters, who could previously only freely rebuild their characters up to level 5.
6. "Renown" items changed
Upon reaching Level 5, characters can choose magic items from a set list to gain. Previously referred to as “Renown Items”, the list has undergone some changes and now no longer has anything to do with the concept of Renown. It now contains a number of special class-specific magic items printed in the recently released Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything sourcebook. Each of these new items are made for a specific spellcasting class.
Another big change is that you can now only pick these items once. A surprise clarification last year spelled out that you could pick more than one renown item- but that is no longer the case. Now you pick just once at level 5.
Leaving the list are the six faction rings that PCs gained access to by belonging to a faction and taking the Safe Haven background feature.
Old Renown Items
- Bag of Holding
- +1 Weapon
- +1 Shield
- +1 Rod of the Pact Keeper
- +1 Wands of the War Mage
Faction Specific
- Ring of Protection
- Ring of Free Action
- Ring of Animal Influence
- Ring of Fire Resistance
- Ring of the Ram
- Ring of Evasion
New Level 5 Items
- Bag of Holding
- +1 Weapon
- +1 Shield
- +1 Rod of the Pact Keeper
- +1 Wands of the War Mage
- +1 All-Purpose tool (TCE)
- +1 Amulet of the Devout (TCE)
- +1 Arcane Grimoire (TCE)
- +1 Bloodwell Vial (TCE)
- +1 Moon Sickle (TCE)
- +1 Rhythm-Maker’s Drum (TCE)
7. Magic Item System Changes
Now the magic item limit applies to the items you bring into an adventure, not the items your character possess! What’s the difference? It means you can keep those niche magic items you find in reserve and swap them in if you expect them to be used in an adventure.
Additionally, now every player gets to keep a copy of every magic item earned in an adventure when they complete it, including consumables.
It’s not all good news, though. Your common and consumable magic items are now subject to limits. Common permanent magic items are limited to 5 at all tiers, while consumables are limited to 5 at tier 1 and 10 at tiers 2 and 3, and 15 at tier 4.
As a side note, the definition of consumable has been changed to “any magic item that is consumed if used”, it remains to be seen what exactly this new definition entails.
8. You can skip straight to Level 5
After being trialed in the Master’s campaign, the ability to start a character straight at Level 5 is coming to the masses. You won’t get any gold or downtime, but since you don’t have any level caps on those, you can make up for it later.
9. Historically slow levelling is gone
The incredibly slow leveling rate at higher tiers of the Historic campaign has been removed. Now we’re back to being able to level up at the end of each adventure. This is similar to how it worked in the Masters and Seasonal campaigns. However, the removal of gold caps per level also mean that you can blaze on ahead without fear of losing out on potential gold.
10. Less penalty for dying
Previously, characters that were removed from play through death or other effects could receive spellcasting services without paying gold- if they sacrificed a magic item and reduced their magic item limit by 1 until they reached the next tier of play.
Now you don’t even need to sacrifice an item. At the end of the adventure you can choose to return the character to play for free.
However, you won’t get to play for the rest of the adventure or get rewards for the adventure if you do it this way. A small price to pay really.
If you or your party members manage to get you back during the adventure, which you’ll have to do with old-fashioned way (usually by spending lots of money on a resurrection spell), you’ll be able to collect the adventure rewards.
As another small change, you can now remove negative effects on your character this way even if they don’t actually remove you from play, this category of effects includes curses and diseases.
11. New season hype
Between the hype for a fresh storyline, the removal of a ton of unpopular rules, and combining three campaigns of players back into one, expect a lot more momentum behind this season.
The Legitimate Business will be ramping up its offerings as the new season unfolds, with a few interesting events up its sleeve. (More details on those when the time comes.)
We look forward to doing business with you, and happy gaming.