D&D 5E Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft Table of Contents

As shared by DMs Guild brand manager Lysa Penrose.

D&D 5E - D&D Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft showing up in the wild!

Here's the first one I saw by the fantastic Lysa Penrose! Any others folks have seen?

www.enworld.org

 

[overgeeked]

Stress sounds pretty good. Fear is mostly good but relying on Inspiration was probably a misstep. (Reinforces my mixed feelings on Inspiration having that cap of 1 for sure.)

Right. Something like Inspiration cap of your prof bonus. They're only advantages. It's not like having a few in your pocket is going to break the game.

Yeah, I'm kinda meh about it as it stands. I wish they'd have tied them together more. I get that stress would reduce your fear save, that makes sense, of course, but I think the fear save should be based on the monster or circumstances, not just a flat DC15. Dis/advantage are the equivalent to a -/+5, sure, but I didn't see mention of using dis/ad for that in the text. Though, to be fair, I was zooming in on the highest resolution YouTube video of the guy flipping through, so I might have missed it.

Something like you take stress from not roleplaying off your Seeds of Fear, in addition to everything else listed. There's only so much carrot available for RPing in 5E, a bit more stick would be nice here.

Also, the genres of horror looked pretty good. A double-page spread for each of the main ones with plenty of charts and advice.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You could always use your inspiration on your fear save when you encounter your "seed of fear", roleplay being "very very brave" and get it back again.

 

[Lieslo]

Here's another more in-depth first look into Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft

Be warned though, it's basically a flip through of the book through to the end, so if you don't want spoilers it's probably best to skip this video.

It's really looking like it's a must-buy for me, the book is just chock-a-block full of inspiration and general coolness.
A big spoiler for the monsters, though it probably comes as no surprise, is that Proficiency is listed but Alignments are not listed.

This looks great. I wonder if this is the future format of setting books. Could imagine a planescape setting would suit a similar production

 

[Parmandur]

This looks great. I wonder if this is the future format of setting books. Could imagine a planescape setting would suit a similar production

I mean, it's pretty similar in format to Ravnica, Eberron, and Theros, so....yes.

 

[Remathilis]

 

[overgeeked]

You could always use your inspiration on your fear save when you encounter your "seed of fear", roleplay being "very very brave" and get it back again.

No, because you have to rp being scared to get your Seed of Fear inspiration.

 

[Tonguez]

I like that Undead Patrons include specific Darklords like Ankhtepot, Azalin Rex and Kas the Vampire, Its another way to essentially turn into an undead and do necrotic damage

and dark gifts let you play as a Slime - its Ravenloft Anime!!!!

 

[vecna00]

The important question is ... can monks Suplex the engine?

....I would allow it.

 

[Xohar17]

Kalidnay was moved to the Gray in 4e (Dungeon 190), while many people don't like 4e DS it's possible that WotC wants to keep most of the info from the 4e era reasonably canonical.

That's because as far as I remember the gray is the equivalent of the shadowfell in 4e, and ravenloft in 4e is basically a bunch of domains of dread located in the shadowfell.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No, because you have to rp being scared to get your Seed of Fear inspiration.

Bravery is being scared but doing it anyway. which, mechanically, means making a successful fear save.

The character can't be brave if they are not frightened.