D&D 5E Heroes of Baldur's Gate is a D&D Adventure From Bioware's Baldur's Gate Designer

MNblockhead · May 12, 2019

Have had my copy for several days now. While the materials are not the same production values as the WotC published books, it is still feels like a quality book and it fits right in with my other 5e books on the shelf. Other than the unobtrusive DMs Guild logo on top of the book title and at the bottom of the back cover, it looks like any other official 5e book.

I enjoyed the content and it was fun to follow along in the book while listening to Chris Perkins "Lore You Should Know" segment on Baldur's Gate in the most recent episode of Dragon Talk.

The book is organized to make it easier to run the game in a particular order. It is not a sandbox. Which is fine. But if you want to use it as setting book, it is annoying to not have all the maps of the city together. The first map and content on the city is in Chaptor 2: Southwest District. Then Chapter 3 goes into the sewers beneath the city. Then, 38 pages (covering locations outside the city) later you get back to Baldur's Gate in Chapter 9: The City of Baldurs Gate, with contains the bulk of information on the city (other than the Southwest District and Sewers, which were covered in Chapters 2 and 3).

I would have preferred to have chapters 2 and 3 combined into Chapter 9.

But I can understand they they organized it this way to support the adventure's story line and make it easy for the DM to run without having to jump around the book.

ddaley · May 12, 2019

I have played quite a few CRPGs over the years... Wizardry was the first computer game I ever owned. Then probably Ultima... much later it was Eye of the Beholder, Icewin Dale and Neverwinter Nights. There are so many more (Bard's Tale, Wasteland... etc)... but I never played Baldur's Gate. I did own it, but never played it. So, I just picked up Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition a few days ago, rolled up my sleeves and made a character.

Paul Farquhar · May 12, 2019

Don't forget to gather your party before venturing forth.

cbwjm · May 12, 2019

ddaley said:
I have played quite a few CRPGs over the years... Wizardry was the first computer game I ever owned. Then probably Ultima... much later it was Eye of the Beholder, Icewin Dale and Neverwinter Nights. There are so many more (Bard's Tale, Wasteland... etc)... but I never played Baldur's Gate. I did own it, but never played it. So, I just picked up Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition a few days ago, rolled up my sleeves and made a character.

It's a lot of fun, they even added in an expansion to cover what happens between BG1 and BG2 which was pretty cool. Recently I started up a game of Icewind Dale EE. I still have to finish Pathfinder Kingmaker and yet, here I am going back to an old school 2e CRPG. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Guest 6801328 · Jun 14, 2019

Minor thread necromancy...

For those familiar with this adventure, 2 questions:

1) I read the bit about iconic character "companions". Would that make this a good candidate for just two players, in that you could pad out the party with these NPCs?

2) Where is this on the railroad-sandbox spectrum? My two players will be D&D novices (especially one) who I think are going to want a pretty straightforward story line, where it's generally obvious where to go next, and who you fight versus who you talk to.

Tazawa · Jun 14, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
Minor thread necromancy...

For those familiar with this adventure, 2 questions:

1) I read the bit about iconic character "companions". Would that make this a good candidate for just two players, in that you could pad out the party with these NPCs?

2) Where is this on the railroad-sandbox spectrum? My two players will be D&D novices (especially one) who I think are going to want a pretty straightforward story line, where it's generally obvious where to go next, and who you fight versus who you talk to.

1) The adventure would work well with just one player and the companions, just like the original video game. The companions have simple stat block and are easy to run, with a lot of personality details in their descriptions (and nice pictures). Two players would be fine.

2) About in the middle. Enemies and allies are generally easy to distinguish. The story has clear goals but the characters can take different routes to get there.

Have fun!

Paul Farquhar · Jun 14, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
Minor thread necromancy...

For those familiar with this adventure, 2 questions:

1) I read the bit about iconic character "companions". Would that make this a good candidate for just two players, in that you could pad out the party with these NPCs?

2) Where is this on the railroad-sandbox spectrum? My two players will be D&D novices (especially one) who I think are going to want a pretty straightforward story line, where it's generally obvious where to go next, and who you fight versus who you talk to.

1) Yes, this adventure is about as good as you can get for that.

2) It's quite sandboxy compared to most published adventures. However, if players are familiar with the CRPG they should have a better idea about what to do.

MockingBird · Aug 26, 2019

Thread Necromancy...so is this still available? The link takes me to Murder in Bladurs Gate. The search function yields nothing as well.

Inchoroi · Aug 26, 2019

Beleriphon said:
DM Guild products can use WotC trade dress. There's even a document provided by Wizards showing how to do it, with the proportions and fonts they use.

...where is this document?