Here's What's In That $500 Beadle & Grimm Platinum Edition of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist

If you've been wondering what you'll get for your $500, wonder no more! Footage and images straight from Gen Con reveal the expensive box's contents!

Click the image to watch a video!

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What you get in the box:

• Waterdeep: Dragon Heist broken down into 8 smaller books
• A selection of important maps and all the major artwork
• A custom DM Screen -- "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is a city-based adventure, and that means tons of NPCs for a DM to keep track of. The exclusive Platinum Edition DM screen will be packed with quick reference guides to help you keep track of who’s who, who’s aligned with whom, and where they’re likely to be found. On the player side, we feature some of our favorite artwork from the module."
• 22 miniatures (2 large, 20 regular sized) including the beholder shown below.
• A range of battle maps.
• A stack of encounter cards including stats for creatures and more.
• Custom handouts including letters, journals, newspapers, and more.
• Two large canvas maps, one of Waterdeep and the other secret for some reason.
• A dragon coin.
• Other stuff they can't tell us about.

DM Screen

Beholder Miniature

Faction Objects

Volo's Guide to Waterdeep

Encounter Cards

Canvas Maps

Dragon Coins

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[LordEntrails]

Anyone compare the scales to what was used in FR Interactive Atlas?

 

[R_J_K75]

I owned it at one point and probably tried with little success. I have since sold mine.

I would just like something that is somewhat all inclusive and is size thats not too big or too small and I dont have to cross reference multiple products. I have a pretty good idea where alot of key locations are on the map after 20+ years of running games there, but imparting that to my players can be difficult at times.

 

[EthanSental]

I bought a platinum box back on June 1st and asked for a refund (received it) after the "here's what's in the box" but not everything thing in the box supposedly...2 months later. Just too frustrating to keep wondering if it's worth it to me right now.

 

[Augreth]

Hope they sell that canvas map separately :-D

 

[R_J_K75]

The canvas maps would be nice to be able to buy seperately. $500 is way too steep for me as well as probably most people.

 

[Henry]

I get the feeling that this is one of those things where, if I question the price, it’s not for me. In my case, I can’t EVER see myself paying more than $60 or so for a premium Adventure Path type product, because it’s something I’d never get repeat use from. Same thing with Monte Cook’s Invisible Sun product - even if I had players willing, we’d play it ONCE, and 75% of it would get shelved forever.

 

[R_J_K75]

Pretty true. I find that when I run adventure modules my players 90% of the time stray from the "intended storyline". Ive bought every adventure that WotC has put out for 5E for collection completion sake but Ive run zero of them. I know I'll eventually take bits and pieces from them here and there and drop them into my campaign but as a whole theyre just too long to read, digest and then run for my group. Heck, as the DM I cant get out 4 sentences before one my players makes a wisecrack and the table erupts in laughter for 3 minutes.

When they came out '97-'98 I planned on running the FR/Ravenloft cross-over modules which started with Castle Spulzeer. I read the first one, got out the highlighter, dilligently took notes and was all set to run it. Got to the table, 10 mins in nothing I could say could get my players to take the hook so I took the book and trew into the corner of the room and said "Well there goes that adventure"! We played for 6 or 7 hours just from the natural DM/PC back and forth, but they did make it to Ravenloft. Turned out to be a good session which ended with the Ranger Anlon Fudrekkis (who was going insane from impending vampirism) riding off into a burning chasm of sulfur, brimstone and fire on a Nightmare. To this day never know where he ended up.

I bought the "Rats of Waterdeep" off DMs Guild. Ran it for a group of players, 2 Ive been playing with for 20-some years, another about 5 and 2 players who have never played before. Its a short and sweet adventure, but has a few flaws. The beauty of it was the brevity and all stats were included. Actually lead to one one side quest with only 2 PCs. For the $5 it was a good starting adventure for a campaign, we had a lot of fun which is the most important thing. There were some famous one-liners which came out off that. I had one PC tipping over the statue at thevtemple of rot telling the infected ward folk, "Youre worshipping Garbage. Im just trying to clean up the streets".

My point being I think short, affordable, non linear adventures are the way to go from WotC. Some suggested encounters, stat blocks for NPCs/Monsters, suggested rewards, spells and magical items in about 20 pages would be great at the base price point. Then after that add additional things you can buy ala carte as you like. Im never going to pay for for some Whaterdavian Toal pieces, But Id buy the map. I like that WotC is only releasing a few products a year to prevent edition bloat but I think they need to re-evaluate this "all or nothing" approach; third party companies included. Best survey they could run is how much is the gaming population willing to spend and on what type of product?

 

[Kobold Boots]

I suppose I shouldve have said in my OP that I have never seen an accurate scale. I just always found it frustrating that the 2E City of Splendors map was such a strange T-shape layout, Volos Guide and Waterdeep and the north are too small, and I could wall paper my whole house with the City Systems map. I wish the 2E City of Splendors map had a scale on it, thats the best one IMO. Because the location tags are different on every map, depending on which book your using to run your campaign, or multiple books/editions they are essentially not interchangable.

I did some calculations and came up with the following for the 2E CoS map.

City Systems Boxed Set
Southgate measures 3.000
Scale: 1”=100’

City of Splendors Boxed Set
Southgate measures 1.000
Scale: 1”=300’

11250’ Long x 5250’ Across. Approximately 2 miles long x 1 mile across.

20 Speed 2 mph, 30 speed 3 mph, cart or wagon 2 mph.

These never sat right with me because it seemed too small. A character could walk the entirety of the city in an hour? I suppose with crowded streets and wagons, etc it may take longer. I fall back on the 2E turn system to determine how long it takes to get from point A to point B.

Huge oversight by TSR, its a shame. I would love to see each ward get its own poster size map with location labels on them instead of just numbers, including street names, alleyways and landmarks included too. I bet alot of people would pay $25-$40 for a map pack like that.

The measurements you've stated are pretty spot on when you consider that London circa 1300 had a population of about 80000 living inside an area about 11000 feet wide by 6000 feet across.

Of course, your mileage may vary. If you live in the northeast US like I do, it makes sense. If you live in Houston, everything looks small. That city sprawl would take up half my state.

KB

 

[R_J_K75]

Just seems small to me. I equate WD to Toronto CA, or NYC or LA. Cosmopolitan city. I live in Buffalo, population wise its small, but theres urban sprawl and delipidationn, its the rust belt. I try to make real world references while playing. A player asked me how big is WD? I said about the size of South Buffalo. Because based on my calculations, is about right and I can walk that in a half hour. Walking Buffalo entirwly would take 5-6 hours, point a to b. Population wise, Bflo has approx. 250,000. I understand things were closer quarters then but still seems small. Blame it on the row houses.

 

[Morrus]

Just seems small to me. I equate WD to Toronto CA, or NYC or LA. Cosmopolitan city. I live in Buffalo, population wise its small, but theres urban sprawl and delipidationn, its the rust belt. I try to make real world references while playing. A player asked me how big is WD? I said about the size of South Buffalo. Because based on my calculations, is about right and I can walk that in a half hour. Walking Buffalo entirwly would take 5-6 hours, point a to b. Population wise, Bflo has approx. 250,000. I understand things were closer quarters then but still seems small. Blame it on the row houses.

Medieval cities were a fraction of the size of modern cities. Heck, the entire *planet’s* population in 1300 was about that of the modern US. The world didn’t break 1B until the mid-1800s, and is at about 7B now.