D&D 5E (2024) Heroes of the Borderlands

[Parmandur]

Not able to wat h the video at work now, any info on how the Adventure booklets are setup, or even their ToC? Any idea on page count?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The unboxing video didn't show everything, but it looks like there are four species (elf, dwarf, human, and halfling), and about 7 background options provided in the set. So if you have more than four players, you can at least have some variability between the characters within the four class options.

They appear to have male and female options for each species as well.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So to clarify, "Heroes of the Borderlands" includes a limited set of rules compared to the PHB and DMG, and it does not include the emblem focus or war caster feat that would allow a cleric to cast with a shield equipped?

This is a starter set. Why would you assume it has more advanced options? The rest of the D&D line is for more advanced players.

 

[bedir than]

No feats are in this really, the Starter Set only goes up to level 3.

There could be up to 8 feats in it, as there are 7 backgrounds and Human

 

[Lazybones]

Not able to wat h the video at work now, any info on how the Adventure booklets are setup, or even their ToC? Any idea on page count?

The books all appear to be relatively short, the Wilderness one is the shortest at 15 pages. The Keep booklet looks to be about the same length; it focuses on the NPCs in the keep and apparently the players can do minor quests for them. The wilderness book includes various encounters, including a graphic of how to place them on the maps provided (several of the maps appear to be reused; for example there is a spider encounter that involves placing a "webbed space" token on the map). The Caves of Chaos book is the largest of the three, but most of the 11 caves seem to be covered in a single two-page spread.

 

[Lazybones]

There could be up to 8 feats in it, as there are 7 backgrounds and Human

The feats are integrated into the species and background cards. For example, the Human species card has the "Fortunate" trait, which uses the rules from the Lucky feat (I'm not sure why the changed the wording). The Acolyte background has the spells for the Magic Initiate feat preselected, including a space for a token to track usage of the 1st level spell.

 

[GarrettKP]

There could be up to 8 feats in it, as there are 7 backgrounds and Human

Human all default to Lucky and the backgrounds have their default feats, but they are not presented as an option to choose so much as a static benefit of the cards. The Human card for example doesn't say "you gain the lucky feat," it just says "Fortunate: You have two power tokens to fuel your good fortune." and then goes on to explain how the Lucky feat works.

The backgrounds are also not presenting their benefits as feats, just as features. Acolyte gives you Guidance, Spare the Dying, and Detect Evil and Good.

So do not expect the rule book to have any section on feats or provide any choice in the matter outside of picking your background.

 

[mrzarquon]

So to clarify, "Heroes of the Borderlands" includes a limited set of rules compared to the PHB and DMG, and it does not include the emblem focus or war caster feat that would allow a cleric to cast with a shield equipped?

Guys, I know I make a lot of jokes about 5e having a Basic vs Advanced split, but...

Teaching people things is hard, it's really difficult because once you know the things, you either forget what were the difficult parts of those things to learn or assume everyone has the learning path you have, because that's the one you are the most familiar with.

This design appears to reflect a ton of play testing across a really broad group of people, tables of mixed aged groups, people with no experience, mixed levels of experience, etc.

I mean one of the designers behind the starter set just dropped in to clarify why, but tl,dr; none of these rules really appear to contradict the PHB/DMG, they just don't introduce those complex mechanics with what is in the box.

Hey folks! Regarding the line on the Cleric Class Board about casting spells while holding a Shield, that is indeed unique to the Cleric's board and designed to help out the newbies. None of the Shields in Heroes of the Borderlands have symbols emblazoned on them, and unlike the Fighter, the Class Board for the Cleric has only one space for equipment that encourages them to place a Simple Weapon there. (It assumes the other "hand" is holding a Holy Symbol like the character on the cover, allowing that space to be a reminder about spells that require Concentration.) Additionally, no character gets a Shield at the outset—they have to purchase them at the keep! This is so we can teach them foundational aspects about Armor Class without having to worry about where to put that Equipment Card or the extra math involved; they can opt in for the +2 bonus to AC later on. It's by no means a perfect solve, but there are always trade-offs involved in starter experiences like this one. All feedback is good feedback.

I gotta say @JusticeArman, this whole design looks beautiful and I'm eagerly waiting for my set to show up so I can use it for the group of friends who all want to learn to play. I hope you have expansions in the works for other classes - I realize that those other classes are of different levels of complexity - but as someone whose been tapped to do emergency one shots for experienced players, there's some appeal in a low level character but "class/species/background I've never played before" that could add another dimension of use for the set.

It does look like the spell cards don't include the VSM requirements, and I realize that means you probably avoided spells with material components that cost anything (and gave the cleric and wizard arcane foci), having that present would go well for reusing the cards with part of any future "spell card" releases that come out later. (less the material part, obviously, but folks forget guidance has verbal and somatic components).