D&D 5E Strixhaven Table of Contents

Strixhaven's table of contents has appeared on Reddit. The book contains 7 chapters, plus an appendix, including four adventures.

1. Basic setting information, about 20 pages
2. Character options, about 22 pages
3. 4 adventures organized in a unified campaign, about 32 pages per adventure (plus general campaign organizational tools which take up about 20 pages)
4. NPCs & monsters, about 42 pages

D&D 5E - Strixhaven Previews Start to Appear

It's that time in the D&D pre-release publicity phase where previews of the upcoming book start to appear across the web on various sites. It looks like each site is getting a different college to preview -- Screenrant has Prismari, and Polygon has Silverquill, for example. There are 5 colleges...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Strixhaven's Monsters: Groffs, Mage Hunters, & Oriq Recruiters

Gizmodo has a preview of Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos, showing off some of the new monsters in the book. The Oriq Recruiter is an agent of a dark mage cult; a Groff is a canine swamp creature; and a Mage Hunter is a spider-legged drone. The article also talks about trudges, daemogoths, the...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Strixhaven Has Exams, Jobs, & Extracurricular Activities

It's IGN's turn to preview part of Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos, taking a look at exams, extracurricular guilds, and jobs. An example of an exam includes the Magical Physiologies exam, and a success gives them an advantage when fighting those creatures. The exams have a studying and a...

www.enworld.org

 

[Parmandur]

I see the hogwarts thing but I kinda think it’s a lame complaint. It’s like complaining that the wheel of time is a copy of Lord of the Rings. Or Lord of the Rings is a copy of Nibelungenlied.

It is, to me, all of an obvious statement, an unconvincing argument against it, and a gross hilarious overstatement.

Like OK? So?

There is an element of homagé, but it's not overwhelming or 1-to-1.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is an element of homagé, but it's not overwhelming or 1-to-1.

No Hogwarts students ever worked at a US-style diner: Free D&D Adventure: Work at Strixhaven's Firejolt Café in 'No Tears Over Spilled Coffee!'

 

[Zarithar]

Great - I hope you all enjoy it. Don't let my non-enthusiasm take away yours. It just seems like a very "YA" concept for a D&D setting and I'm just not into it. And you are right - magical school settings with various houses/organizations are nothing at all like Hogwarts...
Honestly though, the main thing that turned me away from it was the fact that there seems to be very little I can extract and use in my own campaign as a DM. Other than the addition of the Owlin race, I really don't see anything that I would ever be tempted to use.
I'm also not a fan of the Eberron setting per se, but I bought the book because there are many elements from within the setting that I do like and have incorporated them into my campaign world. Strixhaven just doesn't seem to have that and seems more of an adventure book/path than an actual sourcebook (which is what I hoped for) along the lines of Wildemount or Ravnica.

 

[Smackpixi]

I feel like no one has said this in the Strixhaven threads, but probably they have, ANY wizard school whatever will always be called hogworts by all of us not super schooled in the larger variety of wizard schools.

Even if your wizard school adventure predates Harry Potter it doesn’t matter, it’s Hogwarts for DnD. It is, you can’t do anything about it.

Strixhaven was Harry Potter for Magic, now it’s Harry Potter for DnD. It just is. It doesn’t matter if there is nothing other than wizard school in th resemblance, it’s weird anyone would think otherwise.

All wizard schools will forever be more or less Hogwarts forever, there is nothing you can do about it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It just seems like a very "YA" concept for a D&D setting

The primary audience for D&D has always been YA. Grousing about it now is getting dangerously close to gatekeeping. How many of us where not YA when we started playing D&D? I know I was 12.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It occurs to me that a magical university background could be good information for a Candlekeep campaign also.

 

[Parmandur]

The primary audience for D&D has always been YA. Grousing about it now is getting dangerously close to gatekeeping. How many of us where not YA when we started playing D&D? I know I was 12.

That's actually a pretty solid point: a huge percentage of layers are actively in middle school, high school or College.

 

[darjr]

I LOvE that this edition is stretching its legs in different ways. I’m going to support that.

 

[Zarithar]

The primary audience for D&D has always been YA. Grousing about it now is getting dangerously close to gatekeeping. How many of us where not YA when we started playing D&D? I know I was 12.

I was 10 or 11 and started with Keep on the Borderlands. Please tell me how that is even remotely similar to Strixhaven. Also I'm just saying that I am not interested in the setting. Why is that a problem for you? If you like it - go for it and enjoy yourself. I'm not discouraging anyone else from buying it, but I guess if you don't like the way I personally feel about the setting then that is "gatekeeping" in your mind. I love 5th edition - my favorite edition of the game, and I've played them all. I've also enjoyed 90% of the content released for it. I can't say the same for any other iteration of the game... including AD&D, 2nd edition, etc.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I was 10 or 11 and started with Keep on the Borderlands. Please tell me how that is even remotely similar to Strixhaven.

Back then TSR hadn't realised who their core market was. But Dragonlance a couple of years later was clearly YA - it practically invented the genre!

Also I'm just saying that I am not interested in the setting. Why is that a problem for you?

Not being interested in it is fine. Having to go on constantly about just how not interested you are is the problem. I'm probably not going to use it either, because I'm not YA any more, and neither are my players. But remarkably enough, I don't think the universe revolves about what I want, and I am really excited to see WotC trying something new and different, and I really want to see this bold experiment succeed.