Tomb of Annihilation Is Here - What Do You Think?

Today's the day - WotC's latest Dungeons & Dragons adventure, Tomb of Annihilation, is out! Head on down to your friendly (or unfriendly) local (or not so local) gaming (or comic) store and pick up your copy. Alternatively, if you use a virtual table top, it's available for Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.

 

[kenmarable]

D&D Beyond is meant to make things easier as a tabletop replacement for flipping through books. The argument that it's "no more difficult" than flipping through a physical book is ridiculous and defeats the point of buying D&D Beyond in the first place.

To be fair, you did edit out where they said it's better.

And in my experience with it so far, when first reading an adventure, I did flip back and forth with the index a lot, but that flipping was far easier with DDB than a physical book because I could jump straight to the section I want. Also, more importantly, in actual play, I did not have to flip at all. We are typically only focused on that one section/encounter, so there has been no need to flip to other sections at all. Plus monsters and NPCs are easily hyperlinked regardless of whether they are from that adventure book, that book's appendix, the Monster Manual, or Volo's Guide. With physical books, I usually have to print off monster and NPC stats to avoid flipping through a whole stack of books. That is a tremendous benefit.

So in first getting familiar with an adventure DDB is somewhat more useful, and in actual play (which matters more to me), it has been incredibly useful and far superior to using physical books.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

To be fair, you did edit out where they said it's better.

What?

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Not that I've seen. It's easy enough to judge, though. I mean, you either say you're on the beach or not, for a hex that has beach in it. You're not necessarily "in a hex", you're in a location within the hex, and that can be whatever seems appropriate to the DM at the time.

The map is beautiful but lacking a proper legend makes determining what the light brown and dark brown forest hexes are. I assume the green forest hexes are Jungle. Do the other colors refer to different kinds of jungle? Or is it elevation? Hard to tell.

 

[kenmarable]

What?

It's not a big deal. Either DDB is worth it for you or not, but just to clarify what I said...

Galendril said:

No more difficult than flipping through a physical book. I would argue it's actually easier.

And then you replied:

No more difficult than flipping through a physical book.

D&D Beyond is meant to make things easier as a tabletop replacement for flipping through books. The argument that it's "no more difficult" than flipping through a physical book is ridiculous and defeats the point of buying D&D Beyond in the first place.

Sure, Galendril didn't elaborate on how they thought it was easier, but the flow of it sort of felt like this:

Oranges are no worse than apples. I would argue that oranges are actually more nutritious.

Oranges are no worse than apples.

But oranges are supposed to be more nutritious. The argument that they are "no worse than" apples is ridiculous and defeats the point.

You were calling them out for saying DDB isn't any easier than physical books when they actually specifically said they thought DDB was easier than physical books. You just didn't quote that sentence. (I suppose Galendril could have added that sentence afterwards, but I think posts are labeled when they are edited.)

But, like I said, I just wanted to clarify my comment since there was confusion. I, personally, find DDB is significantly easier to use than physical books, especially with adventures in actual play and tried to explain why. If it's not easier for you in actual play, at least the developers are very open to feedback. Maybe there is a way to make it more useful to you. *shrug*

 

[Galendril]

D&D Beyond is meant to make things easier as a tabletop replacement for flipping through books. The argument that it's "no more difficult" than flipping through a physical book is ridiculous and defeats the point of buying D&D Beyond in the first place.

I also said "I would argue it's actually easier." I guess you like selectively quoting people to make yourself look superior.

 

[kenmarable]

I also said "I would argue it's actually easier." I guess you like selectively quoting people to make yourself look superior.

Selective quoting can be annoying, but I don't think this is an issue worth elevating the spite-o-meter over.

It's tangential to the thread anyways, so... uh... back to the topic, anyone start actually playing Tomb of Annihilation yet? Sadly my group voted to do Out of the Abyss instead (although that one is pretty cool, and we haven't played it yet) and wanted to wait to hear what opinions were of ToA.

 

[EthanSental]

We started in Chult with our Saturday session, picked up the book Friday from my game store. Did some of the encounters with the merchant princes and guide selection and headed down the Soshenstar river to Camp Vengeance. They are looking for a cure as well a faction member from the Lord's Alliance that had went into the jungle a couple 10 days before. One character has been raised from the dead and is down 20 HP from his total (8th level fighter). They were trying to get to an old temple ruin as that was where the previous faction member was using as a spear head location into Chult....hence the picture I posted earlier in the thread of the ziggurat and the T-rex as a cliff hanger for next session.

 

[JesterOC]

Most of my group is excited to finish curse of Strahd and jump into Chult.
They just killed most of Strahd's minions in a massive fight during Strahd's wedding to Ireena.
They are low on most everything but Strahd is planning on turning Ireena into a full vampire. So we shall see what happens. Good chance next session will be the last.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

 

[HawaiiSteveO]

Really enjoying first read through (Beyond version - export to PDF is sweet), up to Chapter 3.

Chapter 2 is stuffed with ideas, hooks, encounters, some with a real quirky vibe that I think is fantastic (Orolunga, Wreck of the Star Goddess, and Yellyark are my favorites so far). Some great NPC's as well!

It's got a different feel to it, so far so good.

 

[Stormdale]

Started last night on another adventure. 2 pcs started losing 1 hp per day. Bailed on adventure to head back to town to get some advice from local clergy as to why they were losing hps. They thought it had to do with some kind of cursed magic item but learned people who'd been raised were all wasting away. Were pointed in direction of a local sage and met Syndra, learned more about things and headed south via a teleport.

RPed sights and sounds in city, met merchant prince then headed to local taverns trawling for rumours. Next week they will get a guide and head inland.

Players very happy with this unexpected change in campaign focus. I don't usually start the adventures straight away, usually just mine them for ideas/ locations to incorporate into ongoing campaign but as we'd just finished a major adventure last week the timing was perfect and intend to run the entire thing. My guys range for 4th-9th level (2 new pcs started this week after one retired and another died) so will be heading them towards Omu pretty quickly and get the lower characters up a level or two on the way... once they've chosen a guide.

Have found using the D&D Beyond version at my table much easier than having the actual books too.

Stormdale