D&D (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

Zaukrie said:

I like Dyson logos, but they need to give us great looking maps meant for VTT use. With color and STUFF.

Click to expand...

The actual boxed set appears to have brand new full-color battlemats, at least.

oh! and the end of the adventure says this is a prequel to the Starter Set.

I need to find a way to correct the map from this prequel though. That's bugging me a lot

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

The actual boxed set appears to have brand new full-color battlemats, at least.

Click to expand...

Yes. But if this is a preview to get us excited......

Zaukrie said:

Yes. But if this is a preview to get us excited......

Click to expand...

it's for the International Day of Play, not a product preview.

like, it's for kids, as part of a UN program that suggests that play is a human right

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

The castellan isn't named in this adventure. It will be wild if, in 2025, we're back to "new DMs should be excited to come up with a dozen or more NPC names on the fly."

Click to expand...

Forcing us to improvise it what made us stronger DMs. Getting TPKed by the owlbear made us stronger players.

Don't get me started about riding in the back of pickup trucks are drinking hose water. Or why we wore onions on our belts

sevenbastard said:

Forcing us to improvise it what made us stronger DMs.

Click to expand...

The first very, very long campaign of The Adventure Zone had a recurring character named Barry Bluejeans -- who ended up critical to the plot -- because the DM had to come up with a name on the fly.

I am skeptical that many people are truly good at plucking good names out of thin air.

At best, B2 presented DMs with homework.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

The castellan isn't named in this adventure. It will be wild if, in 2025, we're back to "new DMs should be excited to come up with a dozen or more NPC names on the fly.

Click to expand...

Are your players in the habit of asking the personal names of every NPC they meet? It may be a cultural thing, but it seems to me that it would be normal to address them by their job title.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

It uses a cave map by Dyson Logos from the DMG, but tells the DM to ignore most of the map. But the map isn't labelled in any way, so I suspect this might be more confusing to use than is intended. Amusingly, the player version of the map is identical and shows the secret door and the rooms beyond it.

Click to expand...

It appears to be written for theatre of the mind. I would only use the map when a fight breaks out, if then. No player map.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Also, the discussion of mending in the skill challenge area was confusing to me, and I understand the spell and how skill challenges work. I think this will be baffling for newbies.

Click to expand...

They seem to have forgotten that it takes 10 rounds to cast mending. And mending a leaking bowl in less than a minute seems a bit implausible, even if the adventurers happen to have tinker's tools with them. Do any of the pregens have them? This smacks of "we need to shoehorn in a skill challenge, no matter how inappropriate it is".

sevenbastard said:

Forcing us to improvise it what made us stronger DMs. Getting TPKed by the owlbear made us stronger players.

Don't get me started about riding in the back of pickup trucks are drinking hose water. Or why we wore onions on our belts

Click to expand...

It was the style at the time?

sevenbastard said:

Forcing us to improvise it what made us stronger DMs. Getting TPKed by the owlbear made us stronger players.

Don't get me started about riding in the back of pickup trucks are drinking hose water. Or why we wore onions on our belts

Click to expand...

Gimme 5 bees for a quarter you’d say!

Paul Farquhar said:

They seem to have forgotten that it takes 10 rounds to cast mending. And mending a leaking bowl in less than a minute seems a bit implausible, even if the adventurers happen to have tinker's tools with them. Do any of the pregens have them? This smacks of "we need to shoehorn in a skill challenge, no matter how inappropriate it is".

Click to expand...

The spirit they're fixing the bowl for loses 1 HP per round, and has a maximum of 10 HP (but starts at 4). So they can heal it up to buy more time. It's three checks to succeed, and Mending counts as one success, but can only be used once.

So, basically, they either just throw whatever checks they can come up with at it (and use Help if only a certain number of them have the right Tool Proficiencies) for four rounds and hope they succeed, or they use magic to give them more chances to pass checks. I don't think that's the intended solution, rather it's the most obvious workaround players might come up with, so there's some guidance for it. "Can we stop the spirit from dying?" "Can we fix the bowl with magic?" The DM would have to explain that Mending takes 10 rounds, so the spirit needs 6 more HP, and then everyone else has ten goes each to succeed on two checks before they fail five.

It should probably spell that out a bit more explicitly though (as well as clarifying that each attempt to fix the bowl takes an action).