It’s not like FR hasn’t always been the kitchen-sinkiest of kitchen sinks. Psionics gets awkwardly shoehorned in at a rate of once per edition, artificers should be well-represented among the Lantanna gnomes, and so forth. =)

Perkins et al have made clear that we are not going to see a PHB2, like we did in previous editions, it is not even going to be called Player’s Handbook. It is going to be one of these hybrid books they issue now, just like SCAG and VGtM. So it is not going to be just player options thrown inside, it is going to have lore and lots of it.

On the other hand, I like the fact that they are actively showing interest in other settings other than FR. We had Artificer (Eberron), Horizon Walker (Planescape), Mystic (Eberron or Dark Sun) so this makes me optimistic about WotC finally issuing new modules in new (for 5e) settings. For one, it will be really funny if they ultimately launch these classes for FR as well.

For your average fantasy game, some of these are pretty throw away for sure. I hope we get something more than a PHB2 this fall. I like how Volo provides a mix of lore and monster stats, and I would have been happy with a simple Monster Manual 2.

Pretty sure the uniting theme of all of this is “okay so we’re working on a book that will be the Player’s Handbook 2 but not named that, so we want to playtest that content.” Like all Player’s Handbook 2s that D&D has released (the 1e Unearthed Arcana, and the 3.5 and 4e PH2s), there’s not likely to be a through-line theme any more than the core Player’s Handbook has one. I’m still trying to sift through the incredible tonal and aesthetic differences along class lines.

Thanks. I just cleaned it up. That’s what I get for typing and reading the PDF at the same time. I did misread and then didn’t clean it up once I did a detailed read.

Only some of the time. The rest of the time, my saintly wife is holding him or he’s asleep. (At five days old, he sleeps almost as much as our cats.)

Brandes must be cradling the newborn in one hand and typing with the other.

I think you misinterpreted what they wrote. The introduction to the article says “The ranger receives two Ranger Archetype options: the Horizon Walker and the Primeval Guardian, both of which work with the Player’s Handbook ranger *and* the Unearthed Arcana ranger. [emphasis added]” The Unearthed Arcana ranger is not reprinted in this article.

It’s posted now. =)