D&D 5E D&D Beyond Reveals New Golden Vault Details

Over on D&D Beyond you can read more about Keys from the Golden Vault, including information on 3 of the 13 adventures, the Golden Vault organization itself, and an overview of how the heist adentures within work.

What Is Keys From the Golden Vault? 13 Heist-Centric Adventures

Gather your crew and get to planning—you're going on a heist! The latest book from D&D takes characters of all levels on epic heists. Learn mo...

www.dndbeyond.com

Four of the adventures include:

• The Stygian Gambit (for 2nd-level adventurers): Case a Nine Hells-themed casino and steal the prize for the Three-Dragon Ante tournament that's currently taking place.
• Prisoner 13 (for 4th-level adventurers): Infiltrate a remote prison in the tundra of Icewind Dale and extract information from an inmate.
• Vidorant’s Vault (for 7th-level adventurers): Break into the safe of a renowned thief, bypassing its many security features en route.
• Fire and Darkness (for 11th-level adventurers): Navigate the grim fortress of an efreeti and retrieve an artifact of unimaginable evil, the Book of Vile Darkness.

 

[Reynard]

Which is why these theme-specific adventure books tend to expand on the core rules--or at least remind you that the DMG exist and give examples of how to use variant rules from the DMG. Curse of Strahd comes to mind. I don't recall the DMG giving suspicion mechanics--but I keep forgetting that the DMG exists.

It isn't even really about rules in general. The problem is that the density of PC options outside of combat is so low that you can't actually make a good crew. A book like this should be paired with a PC facing "heist PHB" -- but WotC would not and probably could not provide that. Maybe some DMsGuild folks will offer some mechanics, but I think people would just be better off choosing a game that provides actual options outside of combat.

 

[MNblockhead]

Nah, they are so many options that scale exponentially it becomes really hard to prepare challenges, without utterly shutting down the PCs.
Hopefully the book finds a nice balance.

D&D is really a different game at high levels. But it is a game where high entities, including gods, get imprisoned. High level breakouts and heists can be done, but they are not going to look anything like what comes to mind when most people hear "heist" or "prison breakout." At this point, WotC really needs to put out an adventure + guide for tier 4 play. I run high level 5e games, but it is a lot of work and I can understand why most games never go above 15th level and many stop at around 10th. Once you have parties running around polymorphed as dragons, with similacrum's, their own created golems, and access to Wish — it is a very different game.

 

[MNblockhead]

More "because WotC", I'd say personally. There are plenty of 5E adventures which don't have these issues.

Some of it is just bizarre like the level of detail on Prisoner 13's badass tats, most of which would be absolutely never be visible to PCs, because it even specifies that she's fully clothed when the PCs meet her.

You've obviously never played with groups that abuse the spirit of medicine checks.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Because it has to be targeted to new DMs as much as experienced DMs. I'm hoping some of the adventures allow for more party planning, but it makes sense that they would have at least one adventure that holds the DM's and player's hands and that this would be the one that they would release for free.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr have you read this adventure? This is not a hand-holding adventure, it's a railroad of the most dangerous (to the PCs) kind.

If there's any significant deviation from the plan, the most likely single outcome for any party which isn't full of highly experienced players is that a probably good-aligned party is forced into a massive prison-fight with like 70+ CR3 (!!!) monsters (who are part of an LN/LG organisation). Which I guess will end up with the PCs all in jail? And if they talk, their LG backer will presumably be in quite a lot of trouble, or at least opprobrium.

Most OSR adventures are far safer and easier to run. This is DANGER MODE stuff. It's just that the peculiar kind of danger is deviation from the railroad.

 

[Loren the GM]

I haven't seen this pop up in this thread yet, so if anyone is looking for a 5e adaptation of Blades in the Dark rules, this DM's Guild product is a really solid option.

Edit: I'll also add, I hope the book provides some guidance like this when we have the whole thing, but in case it doesn't, this is a great resource to add some additional heist mechanics into the mix.

 

[Zaukrie]

I haven't seen this pop up in this thread yet, so if anyone is looking for a 5e adaptation of Blades in the Dark rules, this DM's Guild product is a really solid option.

Edit: I'll also add, I hope the book provides some guidance like this when we have the whole thing, but in case it doesn't, this is a great resource to add some additional heist mechanics into the mix.

This looks interesting. Thanks

 

[MNblockhead]

Mark me as someone not enthused.

Yes you can run a heist in D&D, you could run a dinner party in D&D.

I've done both. And once as part of the same one-shot adventure.

However other systems can give you so many more interesting options for heists IMO, frex: Mission clocks in The Sprawl, flashbacks in BitD, astral security in Shadowrun, investigative skills in gumshoe, etc.

But isn't that true of any aspect of D&D? Kinda the strength AND weakness of generalized systems.

I love D&D for dungeon crawling, especially with random encounters, reaction rolls and morale, but it'd be one of my least favourite systems for a heist campaign.

Yeah, but then someone will argue that various OSR games do this better.

I'm hoping (not optimistic, but hope) that we see more modularity in One D&D. I heard a lot about that when I started looking into getting back in the hobby, but WotC seemed to back track on this. I think core rules can stay mostly the same in One D&D but would hope that the DMG will be more of a kit-bashing guide full of variant rules and tips for home brewing to help customize the play experience for use in different themes and with different play styles.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Why do some people find it necessary to trash someone as "poor DM" whenever they raise questions about whether D&D handles certain themes well? I can see how fans of D&D may be irked by people criticizing or questioning the game, but responses like this just come across as petty.

Poster 1: "D&D is not a good system for X type of games."
Poster 2: "Not true. You just suck."

D&D 5e is designed to accommodate a wide variety of playstyles and themes. Unlike games that are specifically tailored for a specific style of play or theme, it does make 5e a bit more reliant on examples and, often, variant mechanics to aid DMs into running a theme or play style that hasn't received as much official support. A DM can been an amazing DM running amazing games in one style or theme but struggle running others (horror and heists come up a lot). Even the designers of the game realize that the standard core mechanics don't give a lot of support, which is why Curse of Strahd devoted a good amount of space to advice on running horror-themed games and this book apparently devoting space with advice and mechanics for running heists games.

Yeah not sure why some people do that. But I hardly think that qualifies as ‘trashing someone.’ But I stand my the overall point. 5E is incredibly rules light so much of the experience is based on the DM and the players to be flexible.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah not sure why some people do that. But I hardly think that qualifies as ‘trashing someone.’ But I stand my the overall point. 5E is incredibly rules light so much of the experience is based on the DM.

Emphasis mine.

That statement suggests to me you haven't played many rules light games. 5E is literally thousands of pages of rules at this point.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Emphasis mine.

That statement suggests to me you haven't played many rules light games. 5E is literally thousands of pages of rules at this point.

Well then you inferred incorrectly. I have played rules light and rules heavy games over the past 30 plus years. 5E does not have thousand of pages of rules at least what I consider rules. I don’t included classes subclasses as rules per say.

 

[Umbran]

Either you are a poor DM or you have a poor DM...

Mod Note:
Hey there.

1) Not having the same experience than you does not speak to overall ability - so there's no cal to be casing judgement on people.

2) Casting judgement on people makes this discussion about the people rather than the topic. You could have made this constructive, by asking what about their heist experience seemed sub-par, and maybe offer some coaching in improving that experience. But you didn't - you just decided to be insulting. How do you expect this makes you seem to everyone reading?

If you aren't going to try to make things better for anyone, and want to be mean to people, that's going to be a problem. So, you know, try to be better to folks in the future. Thanks.

 

[Reynard]

Well then you inferred incorrectly. I have played rules light and rules heavy games over the past 30 plus years. 5E does not have thousand of pages of rules at least what I consider rules. I don’t included classes subclasses as rules per say.

In the context of "rules light" versus "rules heavy" that doesn't make much sense to me, but to each their own. 5E is on the heavier side of rules because it has a giant pile of rules exceptions -- class abilities, race abilities, feats, spells, monster abilities, magic items, etc... -- that all interact with one another. Sure, the core mechanic of 5E is simple, but that hardly matters when you have to refer to some other rule or game component literally every time you engage with that core mechanic.

 

[MNblockhead]

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr have you read this adventure? This is not a hand-holding adventure, it's a railroad of the most dangerous (to the PCs) kind.

I find rail-road = handholding in many adventures. I am not a fan of this, but I can enjoy a short rail-road adventure. But with my current players, railroads are harder to run on, because they are used to more sandbox games. I find I have to do more work to get them back on the track. But in my experience, many groups prefer to coast on rails. At least that is my experience with the local AL games. Which is why I only play the AL epics at conventions or special-fundraising epics at my FLGS.

If there's any significant deviation from the plan, the most likely single outcome for any party which isn't full of highly experienced players is that a probably good-aligned party is forced into a massive prison-fight with like 70+ CR3 (!!!) monsters (who are part of an LN/LG organisation). Which I guess will end up with the PCs all in jail? And if they talk, their LG backer will presumably be in quite a lot of trouble, or at least opprobrium.

When planning something like this, one generally wouldn't want a significant deviation from the plan. I think that as written the adventures provides a number of avenues the players can take to avoid a massive prison-fight, if anything the DCs and overall defenses are rather easy to bypass for what is supposed to be fantasy equivalent of a supermax prison.

I don't think that you need a group of highly experience players to avoid a massive prison fight. If anything, I think it would be a cakewalk for highly experienced players. New players would quickly grok that they would want to avoid a direct combat approach, even if they don't care about being the "good guys." Overall, I feel it the adventure is fine as written.

What would you do to change it?

Most OSR adventures are far safer and easier to run. This is DANGER MODE stuff. It's just that the peculiar kind of danger is deviation from the railroad.

Safer? I'll admit to not having a lot of experience with OSR, but there is a lot more save-or-suck situations. I'm not sure how the edition of D&D or retroclones would address what seems to be your primary concern. The adventure lays out several approaches to get the information through subterfuge and sneaking. If the PCs ignore all of that, then they are likely killed or captured by the guards. Kinda what I would expect from an adventure that involves infiltrating a high-security prison.

 

[Clint_L]

Emphasis mine.

That statement suggests to me you haven't played many rules light games. 5E is literally thousands of pages of rules at this point.

Agree that this is a matte of perspective. I consider 5e incredibly rules dense, just less so than other editions, arguably. Trash Pandas is an example of a rules lite RPG.

 

[Reynard]

Agree that this is a matte of perspective. I consider 5e incredibly rules dense, just less so than other editions, arguably. Trash Pandas is an example of a rules lite RPG.

Lasers and Feelings is my go-to example for a rules light game that essentially infinite playability.

 

[MNblockhead]

Well then you inferred incorrectly. I have played rules light and rules heavy games over the past 30 plus years. 5E does not have thousand of pages of rules at least what I consider rules. I don’t included classes subclasses as rules per say.

Yeah, more accurate to say that it can be rules light. You can simply play with the free basic rules. Even the PHB without feats isn't that heavy, it is mostly the classes and spells that add to the heft.

But compared to Index Card RPG, Dread, InSPECTREs, Hackmaster...yeah, D&D is far crunchier. For folks that have been playing TTRPGs for 30 years, they may forget how daunting D&D can be for new players.

 

[Mistwell]

I too love heists but if Keys from the Golden Vault follows the naming conventions of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist it will feature no Keys and the Golden Vault will turn out to be someone's yellowed lunch box.

We turned Waterdeep into a heist. Because if they were not going to hand the party a heist, we were going to pull one off anyway. We considered the pirate ship, but I think we settled on a mansion of a particularly nasty rich owner who was a minor NPC. And then the raid on Xanathar's could have been a heist but it was more fun to kill or capture or chase off all the baddies. Until my PC killed that stupid pet goldfish and all hell broke lose.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Yeah, more accurate to say that it can be rules light. You can simply play with the free basic rules. Even the PHB without feats isn't that heavy, it is mostly the classes and spells that add to the heft.

But compared to Index Card RPG, Dread, InSPECTREs, Hackmaster...yeah, D&D is far crunchier. For folks that have been playing TTRPGs for 30 years, they may forget how daunting D&D can be for new players.

Fair enough. There are many games with lighter rules and many with a lot more. However 5E is relatively rules light to me especially compared to previous editions of D&D (except basic). I have two groups and one is with old friends and one is with middle schoolers who picked it up quite quickly.

 

[teitan]

D&D may not be the best game for specific options like a heist game but games built on specific styles aren’t even good at anything but their specific style without major tweaks whereas D&D just needs some mild tweaking that doesn’t break anything or change the overall game.

 

[Haplo781]

D&D may not be the best game for specific options like a heist game but games built on specific styles aren’t even good at anything but their specific style without major tweaks whereas D&D just needs some mild tweaking that doesn’t break anything or change the overall game.

Because D&D is trying to be everything to everyone and ends up being a big bland pile of meh...