Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set Price Point Revealed

The new Heroes of the Borderlands D&D boxed set will be significantly more expensive than past Starter Sets. Pre-order pages up on D&D Beyond and Amazon confirm that the new Starter Set, made to introduce the new version of 5th Edition rules to newcomers, will cost $49.99. Previous starter sets, such as the Essentials Kit or the Dragons at Stormwreck Isle, had much lower price points ranging from $19.99 to $24.99.

One reason for the price increase is that the new Starter Set will contain many more components than previous Starter Sets. A trailer (seen below) shows off many of the cards, tokens, and handouts that are included in the boxed set in addition to the standard quickstart guide and character sheets. Per Amazon, the new Starter Set will contain 3 adventure booklets, 8 character class boards featuring iconic D&D classes, 1 quick-start guide, a reference booklet, 5 in-world immersive handouts (including a tavern menu and shop catalogs), 9 double-sided poster maps, a combat tracker, 11 dice, 210 game cards (including spells, magic items, and equipment), and 273 tokens (including monsters, terrain, and resources).

One twist for this new boxed set is that it will include tiles that will add a modularity to character creation. Players will choose their background and class and then build a character sheet using corresponding tiles.

Hasbro also previously stated that the Starter Set was produced in China, so the increased price could be impacted by the current tariffs imposed by the US on foreign-made goods.


The new Heroes of the Borderlands Starter Set will be released on September 16th, 2025.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

didn’t those end up for pennies on the dollar at discount stores a while ago? If so, that probably explains it

They're $40 on Amazon right now, as far as dollar store I'm not sure but they're selling through the D&D store on Amazon so it doesn't appear to explain much of anything.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I can envision a day when your character is fully card based and you no longer need paper sheets.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Waterstones had Icespire Peak in stock as of last week. Didn't see essentials kit, but they had it fairly recently.

I have both for sale and have never had any trouble sourcing either, but I suspect that they won't keep them in print and they will dry up eventually. I was able to get more copies of the Phandelver Starter for something like six months after they announced that they had discontinued it, so there is probably some time yet. But expect supply to dry up.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They haven't printed any cards for D&D books since MToF which pretty much equates to none for the 5.5 books (if you consider TCoE, and MPMoM as 5.5), Gale Force 9 was printing the cards for 5.0, and Wizbro has some of the decks on ddb so they may still be printing them.

I'm really, really surprised that we haven't seen them announce in-house produced Spell Cards for 2924 divided by the Arcane, Divine, and Primal categories.

They also have not come out with any cling packs for the campaign case: creatures either, which would seem to be easy to produce as they need the art for the maps tool on ddb and would generate some physical purchases.

I'm afraid that those were flops, sadly. We won't see any, though they may try again with something similar. This Starter looks like it comes with "pog"-versions. Maybe they will try something like that going forward.

 

[mamba]

They're $40 on Amazon right now, as far as dollar store I'm not sure but they're selling through the D&D store on Amazon so it doesn't appear to explain much of anything.

if you dump loads of them for $2.99 at Ollies, I'd say it does explain things, regardless of whether some of them are available elsewhere for $40. If they didn't massively overproduce inventory / overestimate demand, they would not be dumped at Ollies

 

[kayakingpoodle]

if you dump loads of them for $2.99 at Ollies, I'd say it does explain things, regardless of whether some of them are available elsewhere for $40. If they didn't massively overproduce inventory / overestimate demand, they would not be dumped at Ollies

Did Wizbro dump them, or some other middle man that went under?

Hardly seems likely Wizbro would hold on to any of them let alone enough to still be selling them on Amazon almost 2 years later if they were dumping them as discontinued cheap enough to be sold for $3 at are discount retailer with 600 stores in 30 states. Sounds more like a warehouse was foreclosed on during the COVID fall out than a Wizbro dump.

Regardless I find them handy and would like to see clings for the other books even if they never make them. Same for the cards for Tasha's.

 

[CleverNickName]

$50 for a boxed set sounds...reasonable to me. And getting the digital content for an added $5 is really nice (more of this, please).

 

[jasper]

I'm curious why you feel this way. Based on previous D&D starter sets, and other modern starter sets from other companies, a $50 price seems pretty standard. Full game boxed sets seem to be much higher. Is it the price that makes you feel that way? Starter sets in general?

the price is too Darn high for a starter set. And don't most other starter sets give you the full game?
Daggerheart is only $60 and i only paid about 54 for it.

 

[mamba]

Did Wizbro dump them, or some other middle man that went under?

Hardly seems likely Wizbro would hold on to any of them let alone enough to still be selling them on Amazon almost 2 years later

I assume they did, but who knows. In either case it is a strong indication that they did not sell.

That Amazon still has some just means they had them in stock already, instead of also ending up at Ollies. If anything it shows that they are not selling that well given that they still have them now, so I would not hold out hope for more clings