Forgotten Realms: Astarion's Book of Hungers - First Impressions

Astarion's Book of Hungers probably doesn't contain enough content to justify its $15 price tag unless a player is absolutely set on playing a dhampir or a vampire-adjacent character in their D&D campaign. Released today alongside the wide release of the new Forgotten Realms books, Astarion's Book of Hungers features a new species (the dhampir, receiving some minor adjustments from its last appearance in Von Richten's Guide to Ravenloft), three new backgrounds, and a collection of vampire-themed feats. Also included in the set are a handful of new monster statblocks and three stripped-down adventures in the vein of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, all of which are set in the Rat's Run Tavern and are themed around Astarion's extended vampire spawn family.

The new adventure content is also the first of a new kind of product for Dungeons & Dragons - digital "DLC" tied to the release of a physical product. Astarion's Book of Hungers is one of three DLC for the new Forgotten Realms books and can be purchased either via a bundle with the Forgotten Realms books or individually for $15. The price point is where I'm really struggling with this content. Based on the $60 price point of Heroes of Faerun and the 194-page count, one would expect this DLC to have around 50 pages of content in it. It's hard to get an exact page count on this since it's digital, but it certainly feels a lot skinnier than that.

The content itself isn't disappointing - the dhampir contains some minor updates from its last iteration to make the lineage into a standard species. Some of the feats could also be combined to create either a flavorful vampire aspirant or a holy vampire slayer. The new monsters are interesting, especially the new devils that are tied to Mephistopheles. However, I really expected a bit more from this DLC. At the very least, we could have gotten a history of Astarion himself, especially as he's the central character of the book. I suppose Wizards is banking on anyone who purchased this book to have already played through Baldur's Gate 3, but I'm just stunned that there's not more of a focus on Astarion outside of a couple of quick adventures in which players are expected to save him from his vampire kin.

I've expected more digital-exclusive paid content on D&D Beyond for a long while, at least since Hasbro executives complained that D&D was "undermonetized." The key to these releases is to find the right price point and the right amount of content. To be blunt - Astarion's Book of Hungers isn't it. Maybe if the price were lower or if there was more content, this would feel less like a cash grab and more like true add-on content. While I don't mind what we got, I feel like the price point dictated more. Maybe the other DLCs will be more robust, but Astarion's Book of Hungers fell short.

 

[pukunui]

I agree - the content is decent, but there should have been more. At the very least, they could have given us an actual stat block for Astarion instead of just telling us to use the base vampire spawn stat block ... and I haven't even played BG3, so I don't get all the Astarion hype. I do like the Rat's Run tavern, though. Nice map and some decent NPCs. Could be very useful for a campaign set in BG3 or anywhere really!

 

[TravDoc42]

I sadly have to agree. The potential in a vampire/Baldur's Gate themed digital supplement is high, and what was given is neat, but not nearly enough is given to justify the price point, I don't think.

 

[pukunui]

I sadly have to agree. The potential in a vampire/Baldur's Gate themed digital supplement is high, and what was given is neat, but not nearly enough is given to justify the price point, I don't think.

What would have been really neat is if they'd gone farther afield than Baldur's Gate. For instance, Waterdeep has a well-known vampire lord (Artor Morlin) with his own mini-dungeon (The Fireplace Level, so called because it's one level of a larger dungeon known as the Dungeon of the Crypt).

There are probably some other famous FR vampires that I'm forgetting.

 

[TravDoc42]

What would have been really neat is if they'd gone farther afield than Baldur's Gate. For instance, Waterdeep has a well-known vampire lord (Artor Morlin) with his own mini-dungeon (The Fireplace Level, so called because it's one level of a larger dungeon known as the Dungeon of the Crypt).

There are probably some other famous FR vampires that I'm forgetting.

They retcon'ed a certain vampire in Westgate out of existence, but they mention a vampire bandit mystery in the Lands of Intrigue that would he cool to learn more about (the night bandits of Erlkazar). I agree completely, there's plenty of vampires in Faerûn!

 

[EthanSental]

I haven’t downloaded it yet but would a 9.95 or 7.95 be more in line of cost expectation given the material given? Just curious of what people think would be ok. I’ll chime back in after I look through it.

Separate thread for Netheril’s Fall I’m guessing?

 

[TravDoc42]

I haven’t downloaded it yet but would a 9.95 or 7.95 be more in line of cost expectation given the material given? Just curious of what people think would be ok. I’ll chime back in after I look through it.

I'd be content with 9.95, yeah! But I'd much prefer they just put more content into it for the current price, y'know?

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

The new adventure content is also the first of a new kind of product for Dungeons & Dragons - digital "DLC" tied to the release of a physical product. Astarion's Book of Hungers is one of three DLC for the new Forgotten Realms books and can be purchased either via a bundle with the Forgotten Realms books or individually for $15. The price point is where I'm really struggling with this content. Based on the $60 price point of Heroes of Faerun and the 194-page count, one would expect this DLC to have around 50 pages of content in it. It's hard to get an exact page count on this since it's digital, but it certainly feels a lot skinnier than that.

Minor quibble, but you can't really estimate a page count based on price like that. Publishing these things no doubt has a fixed cost attached; you can't just divide the price by the page count and extrapolate that price per page to a smaller product. Doesn't mean that you're not right about the cost per value, just that the metric you're using isn't realistic.

The other factor in the price is that they might be encouraging purchase of the bundle, so are pricing the individual product as a means of pushing buyers towards the bundle instead.

 

[pukunui]

Minor quibble, but you can't really estimate a page count based on price like that. Publishing these things no doubt has a fixed cost attached; you can't just divide the price by the page count and extrapolate that price per page to a smaller product. Doesn't mean that you're not right about the cost per value, just that the metric you're using isn't realistic.

Yeah, for instance, they're undoubtedly factoring in the cost for all the DDB coding.

The other factor in the price is that they might be encouraging purchase of the bundle, so are pricing the individual product as a means of pushing buyers towards the bundle instead.

I'm pretty sure they said the bundle price included these DLCs at their full price. They weren't discounted as part of the bundle. IIRC, the digital bundle didn't really have a discount. It was only the ultimate bundle that discounted the digital stuff. I might be wrong about that, though.

 

[Ramhorn]

Whenever I see D&D beyond flirt with the idea of smaller adventures, bestiaries or setting guides, I often think of Pathfinder 1Es campaign chronicles and settings.

For about 15 bones at the time, you could walk away with a 50ish page guide of a pantheon, setting, or closer look at a category of monsters that while on it's own didn't feel remarkably substantial, also didn't leave me feeling jaded about the purchase.

Compared to some of the older 4e books you can pick up on the DM's guild, it's not nearly as good as a value proposition but it at least let you cobble together a collection of books that you had a specific interest in as a player or GM. Picking up 3 or 4 of them got you pretty close to the amount of content you'd find in a fully published campaign setting.

I feel like Wizards and Hasbro are having a hard time threading that needle between providing too little value and effort for the purchase rather than going overboard and making some of their pricier books look bad by comparison.