D&D 5E (2024) Ravenloft: The Horrors Within preorder page lists the book's contents

You can now pre-order preorder Ravenloft: The Horrors Within over on D&D Beyond--the ultimate bundle costs $149.99, while the book alone comes in at $59.00. There are pages for the new DM screen, map pack, and Tarokka cards as well. The pre-order page lists the book's contents.

• 16 Domains of Dread, including the new cosmic horror domain Innsmouth.
• 17 Darklords for your party to face or flee from, equipped with challenging stat blocks.
• 7 subclasses (including the new Reanimator and Hollow Warden), 4 species, 4 backgrounds, 2 Origin feats, and 9 Dark Gifts for building tortured protagonists.
• 10 genres of horror from gothic to dark fantasy.
• A bestiary of 41 monstrosities and 10 domain denizens for your party to encounter.
• 47 maps and 28 digital quickplay maps for Maps VTT.
• Digital Pre-order Bonus: the Mists of Ravenloft Digital Dice Set, Ravenloft Play-Along Pack, and D&D Encounters: Shadows of Sithicus mini-adventure.

Tonight, your party’s greatest nightmare... is the one you create.

Bring fear to the table with the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Ultimate Bundle, the complete horror toolkit with everything you need to create a personalized horror campaign – and strike fear into the hearts of your players.

The Ultimate Bundle includes:

• Physical and digital versions of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, containing 16 Domains of Dread, 17 Darklords, 7 subclasses, 4 species, 4 backgrounds, 11 feats, 68 monsters and 47 maps including 28 digital quickplay maps for Maps VTT.
• Physical Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Tarokka Deck for weaving terrifying twists into your campaign with 54 fully illustrated cards.
• Physical Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Dungeon Master’s Screen for keeping your plans enshrouded in mystery.
• Physical and digital versions of the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Map Pack for plotting out eerie encounters for your party.
• Digital Pre-order Bonus: the Mists of Ravenloft Digital Dice Set, Ravenloft Play-Along Pack, and D&D Encounters: Shadows of Sithicus mini-adventure.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Your experience with 5e is so different from reality that I'm not convinced you’re the startfish alien.

Mod Note:

Why with the “odd” hominem attack? You know better, so do better.

 

[Remathilis]

Fair enough. But I prefer to think of D&D as a series of dials and switches, that a DM can manipulate.

Turn Magic items up a bit, turn Ability Scores down, turn Monster challenge up, toggle Multiclass off. Move the healing length slider down.

It can always be broken by a player that seeks to do so, but I think you can get a lot of mileage and variability in D&D games that way. Including horror.

I also think that theme is more than just a camouflage. A theme that both players and DM buys into is extremely powerful. In my opinion much more powerful a change than any game system.

See I think that is better handled at the system level. Level Up for powerful heroic fantasy, The One Ring for low magic epic adventure. The system that tries to allow both does neither well.

 

[TheSword]

See I think that is better handled at the system level. Level Up for powerful heroic fantasy, The One Ring for low magic epic adventure. The system that tries to allow both does neither well.

Well there are arguments in favor of both methods. Sometimes being a jack of all trades gets the job done to a degree you’re happy with.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Looking at the art they have for the subclasses, I'm guessing the species are:
Reanimator Artificer: Human
College of Spirits Bard: Rock Gnome
Grave Domain Cleric: Dhampir
Hollow Warder Ranger: Storm Goliath
Phantom Rogue: Reborn
Shadow Sorcery Sorcerer: Hexblood
Undead Patron Warlock: Infernal Tiefling

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I will point out again: horror does not depend on the fear of death. Any action adventure game or story threatens the life of the protagonist, without being horrific. Dying isn’t scary, everyone does it.

As for horror, Marvel Comics* does it regularly, superpowered protagonists don’t make it any harder to do.

*So does DC. Other horror comic brands are available.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To be fair though the early editions were so lethal that even those credibly presented as something that could be dangerous enough to warrant caution.

As someone who extensively played 1st edition, that’s just the myth. PCs rarely died in my experience unless they did something really stupid. Well designed encounters and sufficient information available about death traps if players looked for it and everyone lives. The reputation for lethality stemmed from poor encounter design and sadistic DMing not being called out as toxic. Also Dragonlance was 1st edition and gave certain characters plot armour of invulnerability.

And it’s easy enough to create deadly encounters in 5e, just ignore CR - as VGR suggests in the section on Slasher horror.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think it's a failing of the 2e setting that it took itself too seriously when it came to itself. Especially for a genre built on Hammer horror and Monster Mash films.

Yeah, the trouble with being too serious is the seriousness itself becomes a joke. Same is true for excessive grimdark which 2e Ravenloft also suffers from - Warhammer parodies that.

The original Ravenloft adventures are very much based on Hammer movies rather than the book. The Strahd romance subplot is from movies rather than the book for a start, as is the lurid colours of the cover art. I6 was really the second in the series, with Pharaoh doing the same thing for Hammer mummy movies. Gryphon Hill was the first instalment to actually try messing with the players’ heads, and is rather less jokey.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

On a side tangent, I've never gotten a good visual on how the eldercross is supposed to look. The best I can get is a Laurel wreath but made of flesh or horn

It can be any kind of organic growth on the hexblood’s head. It doesn’t have to actually be elder. It’s just something to make hexblood’s easily identifiable so the commoners know who to burn. Choose what suits your character’s theme. Eg bone if you are necromancer, mistletoe for a druid etc.

The elder tree is connected to witches in folklore, and “cross” in this context means brand or mark.

Sometimes May Queens wear a crown made of elder branches. It has little white flowers.

 

[tetrasodium]

As someone who extensively played 1st edition, that’s just the myth. PCs rarely died in my experience unless they did something really stupid. Well designed encounters and sufficient information available about death traps if players looked for it and everyone lives. The reputation for lethality stemmed from poor encounter design and sadistic DMing not being called out as toxic. Also Dragonlance was 1st edition and gave certain characters plot armour of invulnerability.

I started with ad&d2e and agree. The comment about lethality was in comparison to 5e. PCs survived in those old editions because they rolled with caution and a plan while working together. That's a vast difference from 5e where those things can be treated as an afterthought in favor of face rolling through encounters like leroy Jenkins and expect to survive easily barring execution by the gm

And it’s easy enough to create deadly encounters in 5e, j

Cutting words
Death save
Letstakeashortrest

ust ignore CR - as VGR suggests in the section on Slasher horror.

Death save
Healing word
Death save
Letstakeashortrest
That's not even a full list of those kinds of abilities

 

[Mecheon]

We are talking about a game with rules not your third place amusement park to hang out while someone writes your personal self insert fanfic for you. The gm runs the world and that means the gm requires tools that support them in doing so. The fact that you take issue with the mere concept of a gm toolbox shows that you view the world as something far beyond a mere 2 dimensional amusement park that exists only to serve the PCs, not every gm runs that "world" and you shouldn't expect them to any more than the rules should try to force them into doing so.

I mean, right back at you. We're talking about a game, not the GM's personal story generator where everyone is wowed by their decisions and follows the exact story beats. If they want to have exact reactions to things, they can go and write a fanfiction instead of trying to drag players by the ear through it

I believe that I completely answered this earlier and you aren't phrasing it in a way that changes the question enough to add anything so I'll quote what I said earlier about it: Just like Darksun & Eberron, Ravenloft needs rules that apply a different set of baselines for PCs than forgotten realms because the genre's themes and tones require players to play their PCs in a way that said PC is aware of a different set of things to consider in risk calculations reward paths and concerns.

Dark Sun and Eberron don't have rules that establish a different baseline. They have extra rules, yeah, but its not a different baseline.

Regardless though, rules shouldn't negatively run up against the play experience like a bunch of 'gotchya' traps for innocuous actions

5e has one single setting. Omniman Saitama Kal-El Wolverine and Doctor Manhattan. Deviate from that and it quickly runs into problems because the power level is too high, the risk is too low, the stakes are too low for the PCs, and the PCs are starfish aliens without needs who don't need to exist within the world.

Oh come on, 5e isn't that bad.