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.

 

[Professor Murder]

Time will tell, but yeah, intro products that have reduced appeal to already enfranchised consumers should be underpriced. It's basic drug dealer 101 people.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Seems like a lot of stuff you don't really need to play D&D, and yet since they come in the starter box, it'll set the expectation that character building tiles etc are required to play an RPG...

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Here are the exact stated contents.

• 40-60 hours of play featuring Combat, Exploration, and Roleplaying adventures
• A Quick-Start Guide to start playing in minutes
• 1 play guide and 3 adventure booklets for Dungeon Masters
• 4 iconic D&D classes for players to choose from: Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, and Fighter
• Over 200 game cards for backgrounds, species, spells, equipment, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and more
• 18 maps for the Caves of Chaos Valley, the Keep on the Borderlands, and the Wilderness
• Over 200 tokens, including resources, monsters, and terrain
• Combat Tracker that teaches new Dungeon Masters how to track initiative effectively
• Set of 11 dice

I also noticed we have what looks like a few new monsters, the Lizardfolk Warden (I am guessing a low level standard Lizardfolk), the Curate, Wight Lifedrinker, and maybe the Jelly Cube (if it's not just a renamed Gelatinous cube for some reason).

 

[Metroido]

$50 for a glorified one shot? LOL oh Wotc.

Eh the cards are neat I guess and reusable.

It's Keep on the Borderlands. You know what that is? It's not a one-shot.

 

[Metroido]

Seems like a lot of stuff you don't really need to play D&D, and yet since they come in the starter box, it'll set the expectation that character building tiles etc are required to play an RPG...

LOL. No, it won't.

 

[John Lloyd1]

It's Keep on the Borderlands. You know what that is? It's not a one-shot.

I do wonder how many hours the individual quests take. Would they be suitable for a rolling series of one-shots?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

$50 for a glorified one shot? LOL oh Wotc.

Eh the cards are neat I guess and reusable.

They gave 40-60 hours even going with the 40 that is 10 4 hour sessions.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The price seams reasonable to me. The last couple of starter sets have been ridiculously cheep (with poor quality components to match). This is priced in line with the majority of modern boardgames (which it will sit along side on retail shelves), which should be fine for its target audience of new players. It's not existing-players-pick-up-a-bargain, but then that is not what its for.

 

[John R Davis]

I buy all the starter sets the world offers. £40 seems ok. The gold standard is the Arkham Horror starter set for me.
This DND one contains a lot of stuff, a real lot so a definite buy

 

[aiouh]

Man. Hearing all the dissatisfied folks about the $50 price point has me getting a bit worried about my own boxed set. (skip to the 2 min mark). I'm listing it for $100. Granted, it's not a starter set but the full game, and it has more stuff. And since it's a limited run, I don't get to enjoy large scale cheap print runs so I have to have a higher mark up (but customers really don't care about that). I'm starting to get worried that when I launch in a few weeks, no one will be interested, and that will be...disappointing.

People have a lot more patience and price flexibility for indie box sets than effin Hasbro which has an entirely different supply chain and overhead to you. (e.g. Mothership and the like)