D&D General Take A Look At The Class Boards From The New D&D Starter Set

Check out the cleric's 'dashboard'.
Heroes of the Borderlands, which is Dungeons & Dragons' upcoming new starter set, is one of the largest starter sets the game has ever produced--not least in part to the card-based character creation pops. One essential part of that card-based process is the class board--as D&D Beyond puts it, "a dashboard that clearly lays out everything you need to play, from your Armor Class to your spells and features, with card slots and token trackers that keep the game moving fast".

class-board.jpg

There's a board for each class in the boxed set (the example above is the cleric). In the bottom left you can see a 'What You Need To Play' section which lists the additional cards you need to play a cleric--in this case, two equipment cards, 7 spell cards, and a bunch of gold pieces.

The card itself includes your basic stats--ability scores, saving throws, skills, hit points, speed, and so on. There are also clearly marked spots where you can place cards for your armor, your spells, and other things. There's also a space over on the far right for species and origin cards.

Once you reach level 2, you flip the card cover. That automatically increases your hit points and other features.

cleric-level-2.jpg

Finally, at level 3, you choose your subclass and you swap your class board for a more specialised one. The included cleric includes boards for the Life and Light domains. The new board not only updates your stats (like when you leveleled up to level 2) it also adds in the subclass features.

cleric-board-3.jpg

Heroes of the Borderlands comes out September 16th for $49.99.

 

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I'm a little taken aback at the amount of work that seems to have been done to ensure that you don't need...a pencil with an eraser.

Like, I'm sure that there legitimately is a group of people for whom having dozens of little yellow physical circular cardboard tokens in denominations of 1 and 5 is for whatever reason easier than just...writing down how much gold you have and subtracting from that number when you buy things. But I can't imagine that this is the easier method for the majority of players.

I feel like there is a lot of awesome stuff in this box (I really, absolutely do want this many color battle maps, yes) but there is also stuff that feels like a solution to a problem that I can't imagine actually existed. BUT if playtesting with total novices informed these design choices, fair enough. I'm obviously not the target audience.

The absence of a "when you're ready to move on from this set, here's the next thing you might want to do/read/buy to continue playing D&D" element is an omission that is difficult for me to understand.
Yup, Armin said ine one of his interviethsr one of their primary design goals was to make it so no pencil or paper was needed at all...because it is an intro to people who alresdybfamilisr with complex modern board games, but not pen & paper gaming.

Apparently they got it to the point where entirely newbie players could open the box, create their characters and begin playing the adventure within 20 minutes.

Yes, this is different than a normal D&D experience...but it is an intro experience.
 

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Pretty sure the intent is to pull people from Gloomhaven and Frosthaven away to play D&D instead, not to become one of those. That's why you convert this character over to regular format once you reach 4th level. It's a way to transition people from boardgames to role playing games in a way that seems somewhat familiar as you start out.
Gloomhaven is far more complex!
 

I'm a little taken aback at the amount of work that seems to have been done to ensure that you don't need...a pencil with an eraser.

Like, I'm sure that there legitimately is a group of people for whom having dozens of little yellow physical circular cardboard tokens in denominations of 1 and 5 is for whatever reason easier than just...writing down how much gold you have and subtracting from that number when you buy things. But I can't imagine that this is the easier method for the majority of players.

I feel like there is a lot of awesome stuff in this box (I really, absolutely do want this many color battle maps, yes) but there is also stuff that feels like a solution to a problem that I can't imagine actually existed. BUT if playtesting with total novices informed these design choices, fair enough. I'm obviously not the target audience.

The absence of a "when you're ready to move on from this set, here's the next thing you might want to do/read/buy to continue playing D&D" element is an omission that is difficult for me to understand.

They also make a clear design choice to support a table with "rotating DMs" where a new DM takes over every session. In doing so, they sacrifice narrative links, or for that matter the adventure having a beginning and an end or any discernable climax. For ME, that hurts the usefulness of the product. If it legitimately ends up creating more DMs, then obviously it's worth it for WotC, because DMs are the big spenders when it comes to D&D.
I think the theme here is "If you boardgame, you'll like this too." Boardgames give you all the physical pieces needed to play, and so does this.
 



I think the theme here is "If you boardgame, you'll like this too." Boardgames give you all the physical pieces needed to play, and so does this.

Okay, but when I play Clue (Cluedo, for Brits), they give me a little golf pencil in the box so I can mark off that it wasn't Professor Plum in the Library with the Candlestick. It's not like NO board games involve pencils.
 

I'm a little taken aback at the amount of work that seems to have been done to ensure that you don't need...a pencil with an eraser.

Like, I'm sure that there legitimately is a group of people for whom having dozens of little yellow physical circular cardboard tokens in denominations of 1 and 5 is for whatever reason easier than just...writing down how much gold you have and subtracting from that number when you buy things. But I can't imagine that this is the easier method for the majority of players.
Boardgamers. It's designed to attract boardgamers.
For ME, that hurts the usefulness of the product.
It's not designed for you. It's designed for boardgamers. You don't need this.
 


Boardgamers. It's designed to attract boardgamers.

It's not designed for you. It's designed for boardgamers. You don't need this.

I'm aware. I guess I'm speaking to anyone who might not be.

Arman has said that part of the reason they went with Keep on the Borderlands was, of course, to capture the nostalgia audience. This suggests that in addition to boardgame players (who, yes, are the primary intended target) they're also hoping to capture at least some segment of the existing base with this product - that's the segment for whom I'm not sure this is gonna work. At least, not without the inevitable DMsGuild supplements that add "quests" to it.
 


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