D&D 5E Get The Vecna Dossier Free At D&D Beyond

WotC is offering a free product which you can claim by signing into D&D Beyond, including Vecna’s 5E statistics.

The dossier includes the stat block plus a half page or so of lore. Vecna's stat block is a CR 26 undead wizard, prior to the fallen paladin (and former bodyguard to the lich) Kas's betrayal. That means he still has his hand and eye, although he is a time traveller and can appear in different worlds and eras.

The archlich Vecna is one of the most iconic villains of Dungeons & Dragons lore. And now you can bear witness to his necromantic magic with the Vecna Dossier! Available at no cost with your D&D Beyond account, this thrilling supplement details the legacy and statistics of the Undying King himself!

This claim unlocks the contents of this promotional supplement for use with D&D Beyond, including the supplement in digital format in the game compendium and in the searchable listings, character builder, encounters, and digital sheet.

Claim The Vecna Dossier now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I mean, yes and no. Yes it doesn't mention Stranger Things. But no, they kinda nerfed Vecna to make him more defeatable by a lower level party because of Stranger Things. At least I think that's what happened? I could be wrong. Is it your impression this is the full version of Vecna?

It’s outright stated to be Vecna before he was betrayed by Kas, and thus Vecna a good deal of time before he obtained Godhood.

He’s still CR 26 the same level as Orcus, Demogorgon, and Zariel.

 

[Mistwell]

It’s outright stated to be Vecna before he was betrayed by Kas, and thus Vecna a good deal of time before he obtained Godhood.

He’s still CR 26 the same level as Orcus, Demogorgon, and Zariel.

Ah OK fair enough. I guess my impression this was released because of Stranger Things is off. Cool though! I like Vecna as a villain and I am happy he's higher level.

 

[Parmandur]

Ah OK fair enough. I guess my impression this was released because of Stranger Things is off. Cool though! I like Vecna as a villain and I am happy he's higher level.

They definitely did it to take advantage of that pop culture momentum, but it's a Greyhawk Vecna. The (comparative to godhead) weakness is explained by this being a timebending early version of Vecna.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Ah OK fair enough. I guess my impression this was released because of Stranger Things is off. Cool though! I like Vecna as a villain and I am happy he's higher level.

This was released to tie into Stranger Things, but D&D Vecna is not the same thing as ST Vecna. Still I quite like it, I hope they do Dossiers on other notable D&D villains.

 

[Demetrios1453]

1. To get this free thing, it does not require you to purchase anything;
2. To get this free thing, it does not require a subscription service to anything.
3. It's WAY too short to need to search. We're not talking about a book here. It's literally a couple pages of a Stranger Things themed Vecna stat and description. Nobody is searching this thing or bookmarking anything (what would you do, bookmark one of two pages?)
4. I don't think it's associated with Twitch anymore?
5. It's definitely not associated with Facebook.
6. There is no social media overlap required to obtain this book.
7. It's quite obvious you have not checked. I am guessing for years now, since your description of DNDBeyond and how it works doesn't really match how it works these days and sounds like it's from long ago.
8. You don't need to put any money into anything to receive this free product.
9. Again, you can just print or save to PDF this free thing. I think there is now an app to download your stuff from DDB too now

None of your objections seem related to this actual free product. Your knowledge of DDB seems kind of badly out of date?

It's rather annoying that some people will take a first impression (or even a first impression based off erroneous or misleading second-hand information from sources that might have an agenda), instead of just, you know, taking two seconds and a couple of clicks to see if it's true or not. I recently responded to a thread on Reddit where the OP was ranting about how he couldn't support any further 5e products since the new racial system debuting in MotM meant that any character could choose to be Small or Medium (so, to paraphrase, "haflings could be as tall as goliaths") and that all races now had human lifespans. I happily quoted, verbatim, the various places in MotM that outright refuted his claims - apparently he, getting garbled info second handedly, believed that the descriptions on size and longevity that applied to some races applied to all. He shut up after my response, and some posters jokingly said I killed the debate by daring to bring actual facts into the discussion...

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

D&D Vecna is not the same thing as ST Vecna

Yeah. They're very, very different people. Stranger Things' Vecna has both hands and eyes!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

If anything, this is a D&D Vecna, but perhaps the one that would have been had 5e been the ruleset in 1986 (the time that Stranger Things is set).

 

[bedir than]

I didn't want myself associated originally with the cultural cesspool that is Twitch, nor do I want a Facebook account, nor do I want to link my google email. I despise social media and do not want any sort of overlap what-so-ever. I'll concede I've not checked if the purchase to being directly under WoTC has changed this detail or not but initially you could not even create an account with a twitch account.

They no longer require an SSO, if they ever did. You can create a username and password there just like a vast majority of sites that allow SSO

 

[doctorbadwolf]

the fact that searchable pdfs of roleplaying products are just as effective as their stupid website, far cheaper for the actual customer,

Their website is leagues ahead of searchable PDFs for utility. As for cost, the service is free. You can use SRD and homebrew material all you want for free. They aren’t obligated to do things the way you would prefer.

and are more or less the industry standard for literally every other Tabletop RPG except D&D.

Literally every other TTRPG is a tiny fraction as big as D&D. Wotc isn’t necessarily making decisions from a perspective that is recognizable from the perspective of evil blue frog hat productions or whatever.

This still requires me to purchase the books and have a subscription service for their website.

No it doesn’t. It only requires buying the content. You don’t need to be a subscriber to do anything other than sharing your purchased and homebrew content with other users and gaining unlimited character slot.

It also doesn't result in searchable pdfs with bookmarked links to different categories and tables (stuff that many pdf files have). It also doesn't address my main concern: I dont want to have an acount with D&D Beyond.

That isn’t a concern that translates to a legitimate and reasonable criticism of wotc, though. Hell at first DDB was just a company paying a licensing fee. They got more and more wotc support because they got more and more popular.

just as I did my concerns about having to both purchase the books AND have a subscription.

This isn’t true.

Additionally I do not want any part of a service that can be arbitrarily taken away from me at any point if I am putting money into it. The addition of an offline mode would allow one to make a backup to prevent that from happening (which is why they don't want to do it). Frankly at this point D&D Beyond to me is a poisoned well, one which I want no part of.

I mean there is an offline mode, but okay.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, PDF is kind of an outdated model. I don’t use Beyond except for occasional messing about, but it is much easier for me to use on the phone than read a PDF.

I refuse to accept that the ability to have personal, offline access to a product you purchase is somehow "outdated".