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

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".

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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.

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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.

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

 

[Aldarc]

Art without hyperbole is just industrial design. If we're to consider games as art, we must be able to make grand sweeping statements about it the same way we can literature and cinema.

For some reason saying "4e D&D isn't an RPG" is somehow more controversial than "Atlas Shrugged isn't a novel."

Also, for some more context, I started DMing with 4e. I naughty word love that naughty word. Don't take my statement as an insult just because you disagree with it.

So you don't want to anyone to piss on your leg and say that it's raining but you want to piss on 4e D&D and tell everyone that it's just rain? Gotcha.

 

[DEFCON 1]

While I (as a long-time veteran player) do not necessarily see much gain myself in the "player mat" format that this new starter set uses... I can certainly admit that I don't think there's anything wrong with changing focuses or format on various products over time.

5E14 had the Starter Set - Lost Mines, Essentials Kit - Icespire Peak, and Starter Set - Stormwreck Coast... all of which had the prototypical character sheet format. And they all served their purpose. So it isn't a requirement that ever single set past that has to maintain that format, and indeed the only way to find out if there are better ways to do something is to experiment. Which is what the new Heroes of the Borderlands are doing.

So I cannot fault anyone for trying something new. And if it doesn't grab hold? Then the next set might go back to the previous iteration, which is also fine. The are many ways to skin a cat as they say.

 

[Umbran]

Art without hyperbole is just industrial design. If we're to consider games as art, we must be able to make grand sweeping statements about it the same way we can literature and cinema.

That you can make sweeping statements about literature and cinema doesn't mean you should, or that those sweeping statements actually have any utility in considering literature or cinema. The value in critique is not found in its hyperbolic statements.

But, either way - there is no "must" here that you get to insist upon.

For some reason saying "4e D&D isn't an RPG" is somehow more controversial than "Atlas Shrugged isn't a novel."

Some reason? The reason: this is a site to discuss role playing games, not political literary analysis. We don't have strong feelings about whether Rand's work is a novel, because it is not relevant to the local topic of interest.

Meanwhile, many will find the implicit attendant attempt to create In- and Out- groups within our gaming community particularly relevant.

Don't take my statement as an insult just because you disagree with it.

I find it to be insulting not because I disagree with it, but because it implicitly includes a condescension on your part, along with an attempt to divide the community, which is inevitably insulting to the ones left out.