Comment from discussion I’m curious, what made you/the designers decide the the Death domain should be villainous/evil, DMG only material? Especially when the flagship setting for 5th edition has a neutral god of death in Kelemvor? Not to mention the fact that the Necromancer wizard has a far more evil vibe, but was still put in the Player’s Handbook instead of held back like the Death domain.
I can understand the whole “undead are evil” thing, but the Death domain doesn’t even mess about with undead for the most part (it has animate dead as a domain spell, but that’s it… and again, the Necromancer wizard loves undead). Given the wealth of non-evil deities of death, both in the real world and the various D&D settings, what caused that decision?Kelemvor is a little bit of an outlier compared to most settings. We wanted it to be available in the core, but felt that making it a default didn’t fit the flavor of most campaigns.
While DMs can pick and choose options, we felt that the PHB had to be a selection of material that 90% of DMs would be happy to have in their campaigns. The death domain and the oathbreaker didn’t quite hit that level.AMA: Mike Mearls, Co-Designer of D&D 5, Head of D&D R&D.
I can understand the whole “undead are evil” thing, but the Death domain doesn’t even mess about with undead for the most part (it has animate dead as a domain spell, but that’s it… and again, the Necromancer wizard loves undead). Given the wealth of non-evil deities of death, both in the real world and the various D&D settings, what caused that decision?Kelemvor is a little bit of an outlier compared to most settings. We wanted it to be available in the core, but felt that making it a default didn’t fit the flavor of most campaigns.
While DMs can pick and choose options, we felt that the PHB had to be a selection of material that 90% of DMs would be happy to have in their campaigns. The death domain and the oathbreaker didn’t quite hit that level.AMA: Mike Mearls, Co-Designer of D&D 5, Head of D&D R&D.