Stormonu
NeoGrognard
Earlier today I got the Hellfire Club Starter set, and I've spent a little bit of time with it checking it out and comparing it to the Heroes of the Borderlands starter set.
It, of course, has a really different feel - where the Borderland set seems aimed squarely at modern newcomers who've never touched D&D, the Hellfire Club seems squarely aimed at those who have some knowledge of what D&D is - either from pop culture (such as through Stranger Things...) or having had played prior versions and returning to try out 5E for the first time.
Unlike Borderland's equipment and gear cards, the premade characters here are actual character sheets, with 1st, 2nd and 3rd level versions. However, unlike Borderlands, the Hellfire Club pregens don't allow you to pick race or background - they're already set for you. I am annoyed a little bit that neither set covers making your own characters from scratch, but the free SRD rules are available if you did want to go that route (of course, those who start with these are unlikely to know the 5E SRD even exists...).
Both starter sets come with spell, magic item and monster cards, though the latter is quite different between the two (Hellfire comes with a couple devils and the demodand monsters of the show).
While the art in both play guide's starter set is similar to the typical 5E core book introductory chapter tone, the art in the Hellfire Club adventures interior is black-and-white line art along the lines you would expect to see in late 1E products by Elmore, Parkinson, Roslof and the like. The covers have a sort of Jeff Dee like tone.
The adventures that come in the Hellfire set are in four (thin) booklets of 12 pages apiece, and they are all dungeoncrawls. There is an overland map of the overworld area of "Greyhawkins", but I've not seen any of the booklets cover it, unlike the Borderlands set coverage of the Wilderness area and the Keep. Also, I find it amusing that while it has "12+" on the box cover, there's some foul language in Eddie's notes among the adventure booklets for the DM, including an F-bomb.
While I think Borderlands wins in the amount of adventure content and number of battlemaps, Hellfire comes with a real, heavy duty DM's screen that has a pretty decent player-facing side.
There's aspects that I like about both sets, each having its good and not-so-good points. The Borderlands set covers an old classic but has a rather light-hearted tone, while Hellfire will give you something off the beaten path and the adventures are a bit more 80's camp while at the same time having moments that could touch on the horror side (though the writing tone comes across to me as a bit silly, like a too-old middle aged man trying to fit in with the cool kids).
It, of course, has a really different feel - where the Borderland set seems aimed squarely at modern newcomers who've never touched D&D, the Hellfire Club seems squarely aimed at those who have some knowledge of what D&D is - either from pop culture (such as through Stranger Things...) or having had played prior versions and returning to try out 5E for the first time.
Unlike Borderland's equipment and gear cards, the premade characters here are actual character sheets, with 1st, 2nd and 3rd level versions. However, unlike Borderlands, the Hellfire Club pregens don't allow you to pick race or background - they're already set for you. I am annoyed a little bit that neither set covers making your own characters from scratch, but the free SRD rules are available if you did want to go that route (of course, those who start with these are unlikely to know the 5E SRD even exists...).
Both starter sets come with spell, magic item and monster cards, though the latter is quite different between the two (Hellfire comes with a couple devils and the demodand monsters of the show).
While the art in both play guide's starter set is similar to the typical 5E core book introductory chapter tone, the art in the Hellfire Club adventures interior is black-and-white line art along the lines you would expect to see in late 1E products by Elmore, Parkinson, Roslof and the like. The covers have a sort of Jeff Dee like tone.
The adventures that come in the Hellfire set are in four (thin) booklets of 12 pages apiece, and they are all dungeoncrawls. There is an overland map of the overworld area of "Greyhawkins", but I've not seen any of the booklets cover it, unlike the Borderlands set coverage of the Wilderness area and the Keep. Also, I find it amusing that while it has "12+" on the box cover, there's some foul language in Eddie's notes among the adventure booklets for the DM, including an F-bomb.
While I think Borderlands wins in the amount of adventure content and number of battlemaps, Hellfire comes with a real, heavy duty DM's screen that has a pretty decent player-facing side.
There's aspects that I like about both sets, each having its good and not-so-good points. The Borderlands set covers an old classic but has a rather light-hearted tone, while Hellfire will give you something off the beaten path and the adventures are a bit more 80's camp while at the same time having moments that could touch on the horror side (though the writing tone comes across to me as a bit silly, like a too-old middle aged man trying to fit in with the cool kids).
