D&D 5E Everything We Know About The Ravenloft Book

Here is a list of everything we know so far about the upcoming Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Art by Paul Scott Canavan​

• May 18th, 256 pages
• 30 domains (with 30 villainous darklords)
• Barovia (Strahd), Dementlieu (twisted fairly tales), Lamordia (flesh golem), Falkovnia (zombies), Kalakeri (Indian folklore, dark rainforests), Valachan (hunting PCs for sport), Lamordia (mad science)
• NPCs include Esmerelda de’Avenir, Weathermay-Foxgrove twins, traveling detective Alanik Ray.
• Large section on setting safe boundaries.
• Dark Gifts are character traits with a cost.
• College of Spirits (bard storytellers who manipulate spirits of folklore) and Undead Patron (warlock) subclasses.
• Dhampir, Reborn, and Hexblood lineages.
• Cultural consultants used.
• Fresh take on Vistani.
• 40 pages of monsters. Also nautical monsters in Sea of Sorrows.
• 20 page adventure called The House of Lament - haunted house, spirits, seances.

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D&D 5E - Full Wraparound Cover Art For Ravenloft

We've seen the cover already, but here's a look at the full wraparound art by Anna Podedworna. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/ https://www.enworld.org/threads/heres-the-ravenloft-alternate-cover.678414/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Here's the Ravenloft Alternate Cover!

As usual, there is an alternate hobby-store exclusive cover for the upcoming Ravenloft book. Here's a look at it! And here's the full wraparound art. https://www.enworld.org/threads/updated-with-cover-the-d-d-book-is-van-richtens-guide-to-ravenloft.678411/...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - [Updated with cover!] The D&D Book Is.... Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft!

Yesterday's hints that a new D&D book would be announced today have born fruit -- we now have a product description and a title! It's a Ravenloft setting book, with tools and new rules for horror-themed games, and new horror-themed character options. I'll update this post with a product image as...

www.enworld.org

 

[overgeeked]

I kind of view Ravenloft like I do the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World. Is it in the horror genre? Yeah. Is it scary? Not really. Is in fun? Most definitely.

You should try playing with a DM who really likes horror sometime. Ravenloft generally gives them permission to get...creative.

 

[tetrasodium]

For an easy fight, you’d put four wolves against a party of four 1st-level PCs. With +4 to-hit and advantage from pact tactics and each hit dealing 2d4+2 damage...when, on average, a 1st-level PC has 6-14 hp. A PC goes down in 1-2 hits. Wolves have 40ft move and most PCs have 30ft. With an average of 11 hp, wolves also take 1-2 hits to die. Things turn way, way worse if you just add one or two more wolves. A pack of eight wolves against a party of four PCs? You’re well into a deadly encounter.

My games tend to progress slower than many others sure, but in the grand scheme of a campaign only a small fraction is spent at 1st level, that's part of the problem with so much of 5e being tuned towards the super hero end of the scale. Yes ravenloft gives the gm more freedom, but when you start needing to rebuild parts of the system itself like rests, various spells, stuff like the fear effects you raised, etc your going to get pushback if too much of that is whole cloth houserules rather than "I'm using page xx & yy variants for the bulk of the system tweaks"

 

[overgeeked]

My games tend to progress slower than many others sure, but in the grand scheme of a campaign only a small fraction is spent at 1st level, that's part of the problem with so much of 5e being tuned towards the super hero end of the scale. Yes ravenloft gives the gm more freedom, but when you start needing to rebuild parts of the system itself like rests, various spells, stuff like the fear effects you raised, etc your going to get pushback if too much of that is whole cloth houserules rather than "I'm using page xx & yy variants for the bulk of the system tweaks"

I don’t think a Ravenloft game should progress past 3rd level. Scale things down to suit the lower power level, but once you start getting ASIs and easy access to fireballs and lightning bolts, things go superhero rather quickly. You could allow higher levels, of course, but you’ll need to crank the difficulty of any combat encounters way, way up. To me, combat in Ravenloft should be meaningful and deadly. It’s hard to threaten gods.

 

[humble minion]

One possibility would be to allow PC advancement beyond a set level threshold (maybe 5th, I'm just brainstorming without any playtesting here..) but there's no hit point gain beyond that point. So you can dish out more as you get more experienced, but a couple of decent hits and you go down. It keeps low-level critters like zombies and wolves dangerous longer, if you're even only a little bit careless.

 

[overgeeked]

One possibility would be to allow PC advancement beyond a set level threshold (maybe 5th, I'm just brainstorming without any playtesting here..) but there's no hit point gain beyond that point. So you can dish out more as you get more experienced, but a couple of decent hits and you go down. It keeps low-level critters like zombies and wolves dangerous longer, if you're even only a little bit careless.

The problem is both hit point inflation and access to higher level spells. Fewer hit points is good, but once the PCs can throw a fireball or lightning bolt those low-level critters become speed bumps rather than anything you could describe as dangerous.

 

[Voadam]

I always disliked the save or roleplay act scared mechanics. Acting scared when you intellectually and emotionally don't feel it drains scenes of their atmosphere and can lead to eyerolling as the player loses agency over their character and increases emotional distance from how their character would be feeling. I always just worked to have the situation play out and try to effectuate actual tension and uncertainty for the players. I was doing this before Ravenloft in places like the Moathouse to good effect and I feel it works better with the desired Ravenloft play experience. If it does not always work it is ok for things to not always be scary even in Ravenloft.

I am generally more a fan of supernatural fear effects that instead impose more mechanical penalties like inducing minuses to hit or disadvantage on checks.

 

[Remathilis]

I don’t think a Ravenloft game should progress past 3rd level. Scale things down to suit the lower power level, but once you start getting ASIs and easy access to fireballs and lightning bolts, things go superhero rather quickly. You could allow higher levels, of course, but you’ll need to crank the difficulty of any combat encounters way, way up. To me, combat in Ravenloft should be meaningful and deadly. It’s hard to threaten gods.

Which is why I tend towards "Gothic Fantasy" rather than true horror. Stuff in the vein of Castlevania, Van Helsing, Vampire Hunter D, Bloodborne, Dark Souls, etc. D&D is about demigods, so why fight it, embrace the powertrip rather than focus on the survival aspect.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I always disliked the save or roleplay act scared mechanics. Acting scared when you intellectually and emotionally don't feel it drains scenes of their atmosphere and can lead to eyerolling as the player loses agency over their character and increases emotional distance from how their character would be feeling. I always just worked to have the situation play out and try to effectuate actual tension and uncertainty for the players. I was doing this before Ravenloft in places like the Moathouse to good effect and I feel it works better with the desired Ravenloft play experience. If it does not always work it is ok for things to not always be scary even in Ravenloft.

I am generally more a fan of supernatural fear effects that instead impose more mechanical penalties like inducing minuses to hit or disadvantage on checks.

I don't know. I think real world reactions to fear are reluctance to act, inability to act, or freaking out. Losing control of your character due to fear, I think is fair. Where I would criticize the old rules is that you didn't have to make a fear check if you RPd it. I think everyone should have had to make one, regardless of how they RP. I do agree, fear is something you ether feel or don't. But suddenly not being able to swing your sword as a deadly creature moves towards you, in my experience, can generate fear.

 

[overgeeked]

I always disliked the save or roleplay act scared mechanics. Acting scared when you intellectually and emotionally don't feel it drains scenes of their atmosphere and can lead to eyerolling as the player loses agency over their character and increases emotional distance from how their character would be feeling. I always just worked to have the situation play out and try to effectuate actual tension and uncertainty for the players. I was doing this before Ravenloft in places like the Moathouse to good effect and I feel it works better with the desired Ravenloft play experience. If it does not always work it is ok for things to not always be scary even in Ravenloft.

I am generally more a fan of supernatural fear effects that instead impose more mechanical penalties like inducing minuses to hit or disadvantage on checks.

In my experience, unless there’s a mechanical effect (like Call of Cthulhu’s SAN loss), then PCs will literally never act scared. And that’s kinda the point. You mentioned emotional distance from how their characters would be feeling. Their characters would crap their pants and run screaming into the night if any one of the hundreds of monsters in D&D confronted them...yet, they generally just shrug and charge headlong into battle. Having a roll for fear, terror, horror, and madness closes that emotional distance by making the character act how they actually would be. This is why I hate advice in horror games that focuses on scaring the players. That’s literally not what gaming is about. Focus on scaring the characters. Most players simply refuse to go along and will make an endless litany of excuses as to why. Fine. Make a fear check or drop your sword.

 

[Azzy]

I kind of view Ravenloft like I do the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World. Is it in the horror genre? Yeah. Is it scary? Not really. Is in fun? Most definitely.

To be fair, I don't find most horror movies to be particularly scary in any real sense—most of it's just cheap jump-scares and/or gross-outs.