D&D 4E 4E Essentials: Dungeon Masters's Kit in Hand

[Falstaff]

So in the tradition that has been posted before our local game store has a copy of the Dungeon Master's Kit for the Essentials Line.

I will field questions about the box set in this thread, but I will give you a quick run down of the contents of the Box itself.

Dungeon Master's Book 6x9 Digest Format, 271 pgs with Index
DM Screen, more flimsy Card Stock with new Info Layout, yet old art of Original 4E Screen
1 Adventure Splint into 2 parts, Set in Harkenwold of Nentir Vale
Reavers of Harkenwold by Rich Baker
Part One: The Iron Circle
Part Two: The Die is Cast
3 Token Sheets, 2 support the aforementioned adventure, and one is a Player Character Sheet of tokens.
Two Double Sided Poster Maps that supports the Reavers of Harkenwold.

Thats the Kit in a nutshell at a Price Tag of $39.95, I have to admit its a pretty decent deal. Much of the Book seems to cover alot of rules that the Rules Compendium does but if your a new DM you can pick up the kit and not have to buy the Compendium, the 2nd half of the book goes into running a game. Building Adventures, Quests, a decent look at Encounter Building and Skill Challenges, and bringing it all together and turning it into a Campaign. Also a very small section on Magic Items ranging from Common to Rare.

Compared the the DMG 1 and say Keep on the Shadowfell, you get a much better purchase with the DM's Kit.

Does your token sheets say some thing like Monster Tokens A, Monster Tokens B, and Character Tokens?

 

[Renshai]

I finally got my DM's Vault today and while I am mostly happy with it, there was one unforgiveable oversight.

The Essentials books are supposed to be a core product for the D&D line. A DM and players are supposed to be able to DM and play the game using just those books.

Well, after having to look across multiple sources to build traps/hazards/obstacles, I was looking forward to having all of this information compiled in one easy to access place... in the DM's Vault. Instead all I got was a few pages of traps with no explanation of how they are built.

So, at this point I've got to use a Dragon Article (or DMG2) to tell be how to build them, and the Rules Compendium to give the appropriate DCs for the level of the trap.

Couple this with the missing Essentials updates in the Character Builder, I think WotC really dropped the ball on what could have been a flawless release. I just need the tools to help me do all the number crunching and formatting quickly so that I can enjoy the game. Besides the Monster Builder (which is great)... they've failed miserably in giving me the tools I need.

Thanks, I just had to get that rant off my chest.