D&D (2024) What's In D&D's New Starter Set?

There's a new Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, titled Heroes of the Borderlands, coming in September. WotC has given us a quick peek at what's inside! The set is designed to be replayable, and comes with maps and cards, which are presumably part of the tile-based character creation system WotC has hinted at recently. The video doesn't reveal much else, but we should have more information over the coming months.

 

[darjr]

Fair Question. It's very steril and clean looking. I want my borderlands rough and tumble.

I liked this 3d rendering more.

View attachment 398510

I love that one!

 

[Imaro]

Fair Question. It's very steril and clean looking. I want my borderlands rough and tumble.

I liked this 3d rendering more.

View attachment 398510

For beginners I'd rather have something clean and useable... The one above, IMO, looks to crowded and difficult to reference at a glance. Maybe if this was a more advanced adventure I could see it but this is something beginners and even kids are supposed to be able to easily run as an intro to D&D. So I feel useability should trump aesthetics in this case. But I can understand your sentiment.

 

[npick03]

Cards on the character sheet? The doors Daggerheart opened.

 

[BigZebra]

Seriously. That looks awesome.

 

[The Soloist]

It looks awesome. Love the artwork. The box is thicker than we are used to.

 

[UnplayedRanger]

I enjoy picking up starter sets in general so I will probably pick this up at some point. It looks cool.

 

[GarrettKP]

Meant to be replayable.
View attachment 398494
View attachment 398500
View attachment 398501

Interesting one of the cards says “Lizardfolk Warden,” which isn’t a stat block in the MM 2024/5. Didn’t expect the starter set to include new monsters.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Cards on the character sheet? The doors Daggerheart opened.

Character sheets on cards? Long before Daggerheart

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Cards on the character sheet? The doors Daggerheart opened.

We had that in 4e, but it was widely panned as too "gamist".

(Though, to be fair, they weren't usually well designed, implemented, or used, IMO).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Cards on the character sheet? The doors Daggerheart opened.

Surely 4E opened these doors a very long time ago lol? Hell 2E had packs of spell cards sold for it, and I think some 2E-era D&D (i.e. not AD&D) versions had spells on cards with them.

For beginners I'd rather have something clean and useable...

Agree.

Talking of maps, that Nothic Lair map is to me, a near-perfect fusion of line-map and drawing-type map, with big blocky clear edges and simplified, comic-book-y art, rather messy overdetailed stuff which is common in 5E adventures.