D&D 5E Beadle & Grimm's Waterdeep: Dragon Heist - Platinum Edition

[Magus Darkwind]

Hello everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster. I've been a D&D DM for years, playing in both 3.5 and now 5e. After taking a hiatus from playing D&D for awhile, I was lured back in as I've picked up the miniature painting part of the hobby. Anyways, I bring all of this up as I've been tempted to buy the new Waterdeep: Dragon Heist- Platinum Edition from Beadle & Grimm's. However, I'm quite concerned about a few things, and I hope I can get some advice from you all.

https://www.beadleandgrimms.com/platinum-edition/

I have the disposable income to get this, and I feel it would be a great way to immerse a mostly new group of players into the game. However, the complete lack of examples of what it comes with (All of their examples are placeholders), the lack of details about the Gold and Silver editions of the game, the casual joke of a Copper edition, the pressure to buy the Platinum Edition while it's still on sale, it being a Limited Run, and it being the very first product of a brand new company have left me very leery about whether this product is worth even close to its price tag. Is there anyone else out there who bought this or is considering it? If not and you'd otherwise be able to buy this, why are you passing on this? I'd love to know what you all think about this product and company. Thanks in advance!

 

[Quickleaf]

From what I can tell based on their website alone, $449 seems to be a lot of markup for what you get.

Unless the adventure book itself is of different binding/paper quality/length, that’s $50.

The sample map shows pregenerated black gridlines that don’t quite track to the actual subtler gridlines created for the map. Past battle map packs, when sold separately, ran for ~$20. Maybe $25 is a new price point.

The sample minis look like unpainted from the Nolzur’s line (~$5 for two medium), and I’d ballpark $70 for 20 assuming there’s a couple large or huge figures.

DM screen probably runs $15.

That accounts for $160 of product.

That leaves player handouts, extra encounters, box itself, and whatever else to make up the difference of $289. Maybe I misunderstand the product or there’s more info forthcoming, but as much as I like the idea of the boxed set, that price seems off base.

It must be meant as a collector’s item or something to be purchased by groups streaming their games.

 

[Magus Darkwind]

That accounts for $160 of product.

That leaves player handouts, extra encounters, box itself, and whatever else to make up the difference of $289. Maybe I misunderstand the product or there’s more info forthcoming, but as much as I like the idea of the boxed set, that price seems off base.

This is how exactly how I feel right now. If it had been $250, I probably wouldn't have even blinked. Pricey? Sure, but just at a point where it's prestigious but at a reasonable enough price for a Collector's Item. But $450, soon to be $500, for what amounts to a leap of faith on a new product and company is a lot to ask for. The idea of 5e box sets is really fantastic, but this has red flags all over it...

 

[EthanSental]

I ended up plunking down the cash but have yet receive a response from my email or twitter question on any thing product related like are previous storylines going to be added or is it just storylines going forward. Not impressed at the moment by the lack of replies. I'll probably get the - we were so busy and overwhelmed during the stream that we couldn't respond" but I'm not buying that to be honest.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The lack of details would make me hesitate on that price tag. Heck, so would the price tag alone, for that matter! What they showed during the Stream of Many Eyes looked cool, but nowhere near enough to justify that price for me. I don't use battlemaps or minis, so those features would lost on me.

Also, you could totally see the Wizards hosts’ faces turn to stone when the Beadle & Grimm representative accidentally mentioned Waterdeep: Dragon Heist’s name before the official word.

 

[Dire Bare]

I think it's pretty clear they intend to include *more* that we've seen so far . . . but, agreed, hard to throw them $450 based on the extreme lack of details so far. That has got to be one box of awesome if I'm going to fork over $500 for the "Dragon Heist" kit, and then maybe another $500 for the Undermountain kit which is sure to follow.

 

[Magus Darkwind]

I think it's pretty clear they intend to include *more* that we've seen so far . . . but, agreed, hard to throw them $450 based on the extreme lack of details so far. That has got to be one box of awesome if I'm going to fork over $500 for the "Dragon Heist" kit, and then maybe another $500 for the Undermountain kit which is sure to follow.

I think Dragon Heist, alone, could be worth it as a giant kit for Waterdeep with the right amount of art, props, inserts, etc detailing and adding to the city. It's all speculation, though, and that's a real hard pill to swallow with a price tag this high.

 

[ehenning]

I’m skeptical for several reasons, primarily because I don’t see that they have done this before for any of the previous adventures.

Sounds like it’s a real thing, with WotC partnership, but that is a lot to drop for an untested group of creatives and an unseen adventure.

 

[Dausuul]

$450 for a level 1-5 adventure?

I could maybe see dropping that much on a 6-20 adventure, if it were an adventure that I was incredibly psyched about for some reason, and included a lot of cool minis that I didn't already have, and artwork of my favorite iconic characters, and maps of my favorite iconic places.

And I'd just gotten a big raise.

Maybe.

 

[Charlaquin]

I’ll be interested to see what comes in the gold and silver editions when they come out. Platinum is too expensive. I get that a certain amount of the price is paying for the time they save you by doing a lot of the work of finding artwork, compiling stats, printing all of it, building additional custom material, etc. but $500 is just too much for one boxed set for a campaign that spans levels 1-5.