D&D 5E Curse of Strahd 'Revamped' Boxed Collector's Edition

If you're in the market for a revamped (geddit?) edition of Curse of Strahd (which is my favourite of all the D&D adventures so far) in a coffin-shaped box with additional material, you're in luck!

This boxed set is coming out in October and costs $99.99.

There's a whole bunch of stuff included:

• Updated softcover of the adventure itself, including errata and presumably some of the other adjustments to Vistani talked about recently.
• A short 20-book of monsters called Creatures of Horror.
• Double sided poster map of Barovia and Castle Ravenloft.
• A Tarokka deck and 8-page booklet.
• Handouts for players.
• A dozen 'postcards' from Barovia.
• A DMs Screen.

Updates to the original adventure include errata, minor tweaks, and sections of text which have been identified as problematic regarding the Vistani.

IGN has a video looking inside the box.

 

[Orcslayer78]

5E Curse of Strahd 'Revamped' Censored Boxed Collector's Edition

Here, corrected.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

5E Curse of Strahd 'Revamped' Censored Boxed Collector's Edition

Here, corrected.

Don't worry, you can still lean into all the ethnic stereotypes and racism you want at home.

 

[orial]

I have a lot of issues with this:

• I don't want a coffin shaped box. Why did they do that? I would have probably thought that it was cool when I was 16, but that was a long time ago. It's not even useful. It will look strange on a shelf and you can't put as much stuff in it as in a normal box.
• Softcover? Really? For this price?
• They make the effort to do a monster booklet, and then include only the module specific monsters? Why not all the monsters / NPCs that you can encounter? If you need the MM, then what was the point in doing a separate booklet?
• They do a huge map where one side is for GM only and the other is for the players, the map of the adventure. If the GM wants to use it, they need to take it away from the players. It's porbably too huge for the GM to use it behind the screen anyway. And why does the player map include the details of every location? They should be separate maps, this way it will spoil everything.
• I don't dislike the art on the screen (it's funny), but for this screen I would have liked something more creepy.
• They revisit the adventure after so many years, and they probably did not change it in any meaningful way. Not talking about the Vistani stuff, but making it more playable, better structured, whatever. Like the Tyranny of Dragons re-release. That was a huge disappointment. They just fixed some small bugs but nothing esle. I'm expecting the same here.
  

They changed some of the story for the Vistani and some story of the disabled character. See the video on IGN with Chris Perkins.

 

[jasper]

As far as the actual adventure goes . . . yes. There are some presentation changes with the monster section split out into its own booklet, and the books are softcover this time, but other than that, it's just errata and revisions to the Vistani. I would assume that if they continue new printings of the hardcover book, these changes would show up there as well.

How significant are the changes to the Vistani? Perkins was vague about what exactly the problems were, and what exactly the fixes are as well. Hopefully at some point some enterprising fan will do a comparison.

I have D&D beyond which may have the updated language. Give me the write up of Vistani and I check it.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Good lord folks, this is just a deluxe version of an existing adventure . . . . this is for folks who, already owning Curse of Strahd or not, would fancy a deluxe version. Considering the regular book version has an MSRP of $50 . . . you're paying an extra $50 for the cool box, a nice Tarokka deck (nicer than the one previously published), a nice screen, and a few extra goodies like the postcards (plus a mystery item hinted in the video linked in the OP). It's a good deal if all of that appeals to you.

All of this crying of "Why? Why?" . . . I don't get it. If a deluxe version of Curse of Strahd isn't appealing to you . . . move on my dudes, there's plenty of other things to spend your money on. It's not like this product is somehow stealing your fun or preventing WotC from working on that Dark Sun conversion you've been wanting . . . .

You keep saying "Deluxe" yet what's deluxe about going from a glossy hardcover to a softcover?

Also I can't wait to see Shaggy's $400 version of this. I'm sure that'll even be a better value. The book might even be hardcover there!

 

[jasper]

If the broke the map into two maps. If they gave you 20 postcards. Better yet 38 postcards. And maybe redesign the box it maybe worth it. Currently it is "I love you gift to your dm"

 

[Evhelm]

My first knee jerk reaction: soft cover?!?

Yes! That was my reaction too. Why softcover? Will that be, in any way, an improvement? Curious as to what they're trying/testing with that...

 

[EthanSental]

Beadle haven’t done hardbacks in their boxes....soft covers broken out in story chapters. I hope they do create something but it’s a short window with them with their recent box for the frost maiden story line out a month before.

 

[stadi]

They changed some of the story for the Vistani and some story of the disabled character. See the video on IGN with Chris Perkins.

But those are not big changes. Yes, they are important ones, but those don't make this a new edition. They just corrected those issues (he even mentioned surgically), but nothing more.

A real update would be to include things like:

• Flowcharts, like all the recent campaigns have them
• Encounters that scale to player number (like in the Essentials Kit)
• Rewrite parts of the adventure if there was feedback about (gameplay, logic) issues. I haven't run or played the adventure, but I'm sure there was a lot of feedback regarding this
• And / or whatever they might come up with, that woul make it version 2.0 (or at least 1.5. This seems to be nothing more than 1.1)
  
  
  
  

 

[jgsugden]

Vote with your wallet.

The original adventure did little to excite me. A revised version is unlikely to do so. If I want to run an adventure with a Vampire as the big bad, I am not going to use a book that players might be able to download... horror, most especially, needs to be unpredictable to players.

The contents here seem to be a bit light compared to the price. Even if it were a product that excited me, I'd be looking at the return on investment and being a bit sad.

And really - these revised versions just highlight that they could have done better the first time. I'm not expecting products released to be perfect, but I do have an expectation that when released, they will be good enough that a revised edition within the same edition of the game would not be worth the effort.