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 more about t...

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.

 

[Bagpuss]

That's a very old school 2nd Edition illustration you've chosen for this article. I highly doubt something like that would be the cover of a D&D product today.

 

[Reynard]

Just had a look through the preview adventure. Looks pretty good. Only thing that strikes me as a bit weird is that the player handout map looks very sci-fi.

It seems like The Golden Vault are a Mission: Impossible style organization. And D&D has been moving toward aetherpunk aesthetics for a couple decades now, starting with Eberron.

 

[Zaukrie]

I’ve been reading a lot of OSR adventures and I’m not sure I’m able to enjoy these ( 5e) anymore. Upon reading all that occurs to me is:
Why is the layout of this Prison so simple? Why do they give you a prescribed infiltration plan? Isn’t the fun in these making your own plan and having it go wrong? Why so much boxed text? Why is the layout so verbose?

You are looking at old stuff vs new, and wonder why new stuff is verbose?

It is a short adventure, not meant to be combat at all. There are a lot of different ways to run stuff like this, not all of them have to be the same. This one is not meant to be about coming up with your own plan.

As for the prison layout being simple, that seems ultra realistic to me. Why would it be complex?

 

[John R Davis]

Heists good for low level but magic soon starts to overcome a lot of obstacles.
May buy it after a bit more preview / review

 

[Reynard]

Heists good for low level but magic soon starts to overcome a lot of obstacles.
May buy it after a bit more preview / review

You can do heists at any level, but just like dungeons you need to take high level character capabilities into account.

 

[Clint_L]

As for the prison layout being simple, that seems ultra realistic to me. Why would it be complex?

Logically speaking, you are correct, but for the purposes of adventure I want all layouts to be like the interior of the starship NSEA Protector in the film Galaxy Quest.

 

[Haplo781]

I’ve been reading a lot of OSR adventures and I’m not sure I’m able to enjoy these ( 5e) anymore. Upon reading all that occurs to me is:
Why is the layout of this Prison so simple? Why do they give you a prescribed infiltration plan? Isn’t the fun in these making your own plan and having it go wrong? Why so much boxed text? Why is the layout so verbose?

The answer to all your questions is "because 5e".

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I’ve been reading a lot of OSR adventures and I’m not sure I’m able to enjoy these ( 5e) anymore. Upon reading all that occurs to me is:
Why is the layout of this Prison so simple? Why do they give you a prescribed infiltration plan? Isn’t the fun in these making your own plan and having it go wrong? Why so much boxed text? Why is the layout so verbose?

What's funny is, by WotC standards this is a pretty well-presented adventure.

 

[John R Davis]

You can do heists at any level, but just like dungeons you need to take high level character capabilities into account.

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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The answer to all your questions is "because 5e".

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.