(Part 2) Top products from r/dndnext

I use this stuff:

https://www.amazon.com/Standard-3-Hole-Punched-Sheets-Carton/dp/B00AQDGJRO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1481062411&sr=8-4&keywords=1+inch+graph+paper

and draw my own maps with sharpies. They come out looking like this:

http://i.imgur.com/Q9pWlEP.jpg

Note that many locations in CoS are too big to fit on one of those sheets, which are 27x32. The amber temple I drew there is scaled to 10' per inch. It's not suitable for grid combat, but I still wanted to draw the map (and I plan on using a plastic battle mat and drawing the rooms real quick when combat occurs).

I just like to have maps for the players to move around on during a dungeon crawl because it helps them visualize the space.

So that paper works really well for the locations that are normal buildings, like the wizard of wines, the coffinmaker's shop, the basement of the church in barovia, even Argynvostholt is small enough that you can fit it to 5' scale on one sheet (you have to kind of leave the ruined side of Argynvostholt off the map, but no big deal). And if you need more room you can tape two of the sheets together.

As for Castle Ravenloft, I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. I could tape two sheets together but then my table isn't big enough to make that useable. The map of the castle that comes is an isometric 3d view which is really beautiful but even if you had it printed out, you couldn't really play on it...

On the other hand, Strahd will be hunting them through the castle since his main difficulty comes from the fact that he can just a lair action to just phase through walls--meaning he's going to be moving through the rooms pretty freely, so I think it's important to have them all modeled. I'm still not sure what I'll do. I want to draw the maps but it's just so huge. I might do the same thing I did with amber temple, and draw it in 10' scale, but then I'm stuck having to re-draw any room where combat takes place, and it makes combat between rooms cumbersome. IDK.

Things you can roll ahead of time to save time:

• The content of the wagons at Tser Pool.
  
  
• Initiative for all the monsters you KNOW will make appearances
  
  
• Madnesses and traits for the mongrelfolk in the abbey
  
  
• random encounters in castle ravenloft (lots of unoccupied rooms here)
  
  
• the results of pulling the rope in K30
  
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  Some other random cool stuff I'd like to suggest you think about...
  
  Think about who should get the Blood Spear at Yester Hill. When they get there, the spirit of Kavan, a barbarian warlord, calls out to the most appropriate PC and invites them to take up the spear and rule the tribes. The spear's temp HP gain on kill works for anyone but the chosen PC gets to use it as a +2 spear. If you have an obviously perfect PC for this, like a barbarian, or a ranger or something, then that's great. My suggestion is that you give them weird prophetic dreams of this Kavan, as he gazes out over yester hill sometime long before strahd ever moved into the valley. I like the idea that he keeps a wary eye toward mount ghakis in these dreams, as a kind of very subtle warning against the amber temple. Basically show him, show the spear, maybe even show him doing battle with a giant goat, or a roc. Nice foreshadowing for when the party crosses tsolenka pass and fights these themselves. The chosen party member will probably have the spear by then and will sort of feel like they're really chosen by Kavan. Cool.
  
  Be aware of how dang easy it is to get on the bad side of the burgomaster of vallaki. As written he is very thin skinned. If you kick the party out of vallaki too early you're gonna cut off a bunch of quest threads. So be careful! If you have Izek play the way he's written, and immediately try to abduct Ireena, that is almost certainly going to lead to a fight and lead to the characters being kicked out of Vallaki. So definitely think about what you want to happen here. I kept Izek's creepy obsession and the dolls and all that, but I did not have him try to abduct her immediately. I may not have him do that at all because it's uncomfortably rapey. It just says he takes her to his bedroom...yeah idk, I didn't want to mess with that, you know?
  
  Also, don't feel like you have to spring the Bluto-Arrabelle event the very first time the party might go by the lake. Sometimes they will be too busy to want to deal with anything and if you pull the trigger there's no going back and arrabelle will be dead. The party will be in and out of Vallaki a lot so it's fine for this to be something that comes up the second time they arrive--especially if they are, say, coming back from the west, that way the vistani can stop them on their way in and ask if anyone's seen a little girl around. Then once in town, people are talking about Bluto acting strange/not showing up at the bar today. Etc.
  
  The 3 night hags at the windmill are beyond deadly for a level 4 party if you play them no-mercy. Just be aware of that fact. Lots of things in CoS are that way. The 6 vampire spawn in the coffinmaker's shop also qualify. Just be aware of this and make sure your players know that they can't necessarily kill everything they come across. Hags will be glad to make deals with the party rather than slaughter them, and the vampire spawn situation can be approached in such a way that it's manageable.
  
  Curate your tarokka deck readings. There is a greater than normal chance that items wind up somewhere in the castle. You should make the decision on whether this is something you want. The sword and symbol make things a lot easier on the party. You don't want them showing up too early, like at Tser Pool or somewhere easy like that, but you don't want them showing up right before the end of the game, either, probably. If you think your party would enjoy the card drawing aspect, you have a few options. Let them draw cards, but then whatever card they draw, just give them the reading you want out of it. Or you could simply build in redundancies, so that x card and y card both lead back to x card's location, in order to prevent y location from happening, but preserve some randomness. Of course then you run the risk of drawing X card and Y card back to back... in which case you can designate a spot for that, and default to it if that happens. It's messy, but it's better than all 3 treasures winding up in the basement of the castle or something impossible like that.
  
  

• To echo everyone else, I would also say start with the starter set because it has everything you need to start, including a pretty nice set of dice. You could get away with this for your first session, but you will probably want some
  
• dice This may be your most cost effective way of having a set for everyone, and enough spares for people to grab from for crits and spells like fireball. Everyone will eventually get nicer sets they like more, but this is a good way to start with matched sets. Depending on how happy people are with the player options in the starter set, your next investment will either be the
  
• PHB for more player options, spells, items, and guide lines for how things should work. This is far and away the most import of the three books. As most people have said, you will probably get to the point where everyone wants access to this book. During play, you will probably want 2-3 of these at the table.
  
• Battle Mat D&D can be played in Theater of the mind, but grid combat makes a lot of rules easier to implement and officiate with a grid. The one I linked is pretty big without being overly huge (there are larger ones), and it is vinyl which makes it durable, and it erases pretty well with good wet erase markers.
  
• Miniatures is something else entirely. Most of the groups I play with have more than enough for me to ever have to buy any. Some players will make or buy a mini for his/her character. There are the round cardboard tokens that you could use for cheap. I run a D&D game on Fridays at the school I teach at and have the students use one of their dice as their mini. Monsters are usually balls of playdoh.
  
• After finishing of the LMOP (the adventure in the starter's set) you will either want to pick up one of the other adventures like Out of the Abyss or Princes of the Apocalypse. You might need a Monster Manual to go with it. PotA has a digital supplement with the extra monsters, while OotA does not.
  
• The DMG is optional really. It is great for magic items, alternative rules you could use, and world building strategies. You'll want a copy eventually, but like the MM, you wont need more than 1.
  
• Other things. Look around for things like the Elemental Evil Player's Guide and Unearthed Arcana articles. They have a bunch of free content you could use in your games. They are usually rough drafts so they might be imbalanced, but you might find something you really like in there. There are also tons of homebrew monsters, classes, races, and items if you wanted to expand your game that way.
  
  angel14995 has a great summary of all the books. This list is more useful as a logical purchasing progression guide.

So for 5e there are a couple of things you can look at getting:

• Basic Rules: Look at the section for "Free Basic Rules". These PDFs are basically what you need to start playing D&D. The D&D 5e Player's Basic Rules has information about the basics of the game for players. It's got 4 races (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human) and 4 classes (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard) and one "subclass" for each class (Life Domain Cleric, Champion Fighter, Thief Rogue, and School of Evocation Wizard). Items, customization, character building, and the general "here's how you play!" are included in this document. Great resource for a simple lookup if you want to introduce someone to the game, since the characters you can build out of it are generally solid characters. The D&D 5e Dungeon Master's Basic Rules is the starting point for your DM. For the most part is bunch of creature/enemy stat blocks with explanations on how to balance encounters to the players' levels, as well as a quick off-hand on how to generate magic items. DMs are the creative source of the campaign, so there isn't much required to actually build a simple campaign.
  
• Dungeons & Dragons 5e Starter Set: This is the most basic form of the game you can get with most things included. Looks like it's $13 on Amazon right now, which is pretty good. The box set comes with a 32-page player guide (mini Player's Handbook), a 64-page Dungeon Master's guide (mini Dungeon Master's Guide/Monster Manual), a couple of pre-generated characters, and a few dice. It's good for getting into 5e if you've never played before since the rules are greatly reduced down to levels 1-6 and there are only 8 classes. Most of the content is the same stuff you can find in the Basic Rules, minus the story that comes with the Starter Set. If someone gets this, everyone else can download/print the Basic Rules and should be good. Most of the content is all about how to play the characters that are in the starter set, not about character generation and the like, so make sure to look at the Basic Rules if you want to play a Halfling Fighter for example. See this comment for more explanation.
  
• Player's Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons 5e): This is the core of most of your games of 5e at this point. This has all of the basic necessities, like character classes, character races, items, spells, feats, etc. This is exactly what you need if you are a player, since this and some imagination allows you to build some pretty fun characters. If you end up playing 5e a lot, I'd recommend that everyone have somewhat regular access to a PHB, considering that 90% of the characters you make will come in most part from this books.
  
• Monster Manual: This is where you'll find the largest collection of all of the "basic" monsters that you can meet in a game of D&D. Enemies in general are in this book, and there is a lot of good explanation into the monsters, their stats, their decision routes, etc. This is super helpful since you can basically do whatever you want with this book and make some awesome fights. Find an enemy you like, but it's too high level? Nerf it somehow, and have your players fight it. I'm actually planning on setting a dragon with her wings clipped and her firebreathing removed, give them a fight, and see how they react.
  
• Dungeon Master's Guide: This is basically world building, combat building, enemy building, item building... basically, if it's not covered in the PHB or MM, the creation of object X or something similar will be in the DMG. It's there for the DMs to be able to balance items or enemies against certain requirements, since there is a lot to take into account. Helpful for the DM who doesn't have as much experience.
  
  So the Basic Rules help out a lot, the Starter Set is basically a physical copy of the basic rules (plus some), and then the core 3 books in order of (my personal opinion of) usefulness are PHB > MM > DMG. I'd say you probably want at least everyone to have a PHB, or access if you guys continue to play.
  
  Aside from that, most of the other 5e stuff you can pick up from wizards are modules. Modules are pre-created campaigns that have quests, items, locations, enemies (number, size, etc.) already pre-designed for you. Each of the following books has some sort of extra character information (like more subclasses, new races, etc.), but nothing is absolutely required. Generally if one person wants to play something (say, an Half-Elf Bladesinger Wizard) they should pick up the book to help build their character and to provide the GM with references to how the character works, but it's not necessary.
  
  
• Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat are two halves to the same campaign aimed at stopping the biggest baddest dragon of them all, the five-headed chromatic dragon Tiamat.
  
• Princes of the Apocalypse is a cool campaign all about cults related to the 4 elements (Air, Water, Earth, Fire) trying to be bad. Pretty well designed, I'm currently running this with my group. They seem to be liking it a lot, but then again, I'm throwing a lot of other things in with it.
  
• Out of the Abyss is a campaign set in the Underdark. it sounds really cool, but I haven't looked into it much.
  
• Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide isn't a campaign but rather a campaign setting book. It's useful for reading up on how the Sword Coast in Forgotten Realms (the "main" D&D world) works. It's interesting.
  
  If you need any other help, please feel free to ask!

I would suggest the essentials kits of Ice Spire Peak or Lost Mines of Phandelver - though probably the former over the latter.

If you want the full books though, I would suggest DNDbeyond. You'd need a subscription to manage your full party, but that would also be splitting the cost 6 ways, give access to the party entirely all the time, let the DM easily see his player's sheets, and it's very user friendly to certain classes that otherwise are not - such as the druid having to manage wild shape and prepared casting.

My last suggestion is to consider the free Basic Rules to see if it's sufficient for you and if you enjoy using a digital platform. Players can make basic characters this way on dndbeyond for free as well- it'll be restrictive playing free but would be enough to see if they enjoy using the platform. Be sure to use the webpage on whatever device you'd be using in play as well.

Hey, glad you're running a Neverwinter campaign.

NPC wise, here are a few links that might help.

Back in the 4e days, there was/in an actual campaign/setting book. Great reference.
http://www.amazon.com/Neverwinter-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Supplement/dp/0786958146

The MMO by the same name, has a wiki you might find useful and a source of inspiration.
http://neverwinter.wikia.com/wiki/Category:NPCs

And I found this in just a quick search. An Epic Words posting with npc's.
http://www.epicwords.com/neverwinter/npcs

From the Wizards of the Coast webpage:
http://dnd.wizards.com/dungeons-and-dragons/what-is-dnd/locations/neverwinter

Dungeonmaster.com has a review of the DnD Encounters game Storm over Neverwinter.
http://dungeonsmaster.com/2013/06/dd-encounters-storm-over-neverwinter-report-card/

A quick google search for Neverwinter map, brings up a ton of stuff. Use whichever ones you want for your game.
https://www.google.com/search?q=map+of+neverwinter&espv=2&biw=1346&bih=739&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=N1FFVJn7JsKqyASxmIKABA&ved=0CB0QsAQ&dpr=2

Ok... with those out of the way, remember regardless of "canon" material. Run the game how you want too. Maybe you want to use a Pathfinder adventure. Ok, just reskin it(as little or as much as you want) to fit your game.

It's your adventure setting. Make it relevant to your players, they won't care if it's 100% perfect.

Good luck, and have fun.

I was raised (almost literally) playing with minis and a battlemat. I helped my dad build a magnetic dungeon board set when I was about 7 years old. I played recently with a relatively new group of my college age friends who were doing theatre of mind, and I was miserable.

A lot of actions specifically denote spacing, which is very difficult to do in theatre of mind. Attacks of opportunity, spell/attack range, etc all get kinda weird when it's just spoken and imagined. I am certain that other people are better at keeping track of it all, and more experienced DMs could make it more interesting.

I know I am personally extremely biased, but about half way through the session we were supposed to storm a castle, and there was no way I was going to try to keep the different passageways straight in my head without a visual representation. I went out to my car and brought in my tackleboxes of minis, battlemat, and vis-a-vis markers. The DM was a little apprehensive at first, but most everyone seemed to agree that the minis and mat were far superior after playing for about 10 minutes with them.

One of the player's made this analogy: [Theatre of Mind] is like a text based RPG, while minis and the battlemat is like playing Skyrim.




ninja edit

I didn't address prices. Minis can be very expensive. If you get the pre painted figures, they are unbelieveably costly. Here is a site that has all sorts of figures. Their search bar is amazing.

Here is a link to a battlemat on amazon. It may look pricey (I don't know your budget) but this mat is worth more than you can imagine.

Here is a link to a pack of markers that should do the trick for drawing any kind of terrain/buildings/caves you like. Just dip a spare rag or paper towel in some water, and the lines come right off.

What about running the adventures from Tales from the Yawning Portal? Classic Fantasy. Old school modules updated for 5e. Designed so you can run them individually or string them together as a longer adventure. https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Yawning-Portal-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/0786966092

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There are also support materials on the Dungeon Master's Guild for TftYP. Sunless Citadel has this one (probably more but that was one I knew about) https://www.dmsguild.com/product/208783/The-Sunless-Citadel-CRD

That way you aren't committing to a huge long campaign right out of the gate. Do The Sunless Citadel (really geared towards newbie DMs but also a good adventure) and then the other adventures can be done in order or you can leap off and go do something else. Maybe now you have a better idea of which much longer campaing you want to run and can choose something that fits your play style.

Or maybe something on the Dungeon Master's Guild.

Running these epic modules can be fun, don't get me wrong, but they can also fizzle. Also, its a big commitment. Like planning to move in with someone you only just met. Maybe get your feet wet first.

You've got a couple of options. You can scale everything down. I did that with the Temple of Annam fight, since the room in 1-inch to 5-feet scale is almost 5 feet wide. Doing something like "each square is 15/30 feet" works pretty well to reduce the size of the map but still let you use minis. You just have to make sure that the players know about this an are understanding of any potential issues with distances. If you're still using 1inch scale minis then it'll involve handwaving stuff like how characters can't share 30 feet of space.

You can make a giant map. I like this for major locations. For example, the Thane Kayalithica stone giant fight I used foam core board from the dollar store that I cut into 6 18-inch squares and then carved a grid on them and painted it with cheap craft store paint. It took probably three hours to make. Was it necessary? No. But it was cool adding tiles to the table as players explored the darkened room.

Also an option is using large pads of paper with 1-inch squares on them. I wouldn't necessarily go with that one from Amazon since I think it's more expensive due to shipping, but you can pick up something like that from Staples easily. Also you don't necessarily have to get all of the room, just the part of the room the players are in/near.

Also theater of the mind works well for large spaces. I like having a small drawing of the room and the general position of any creatures/features so the players can visualize something. With the exception of the encounters in chapter 2 and the final fight with Iymrith, you aren't usually dealing with a lot of combatants, so it's decently easy to keep track of everything.

I've used a combination of all 4 options, depending on the amount of setup time I have, the relative importance of the encounter, and other factors. For example, one on one fights with creatures work best in the theater of the mind.

The pathfinder bestiary boxes are usually considered highly prized by many for a price-to-minis ratio.

I personally use and prefer game mash tokens as they're pretty cheap (about 60 cents a pop) and look really nice.

Sometimes you can find an old D&D 4E monster vault on sale for cheap, but that's getting much more rare these days as they've been out of print for a while. It comes with a pretty good number of tokens.

And as others have said, you can use various objects (washers, candy, etc.) instead of tokens/minis in a pinch.

Edit: in the past, i've also made some pretty good use out of fish tank glass beads.

I'm assuming you're young, since just the PHB is an acceptable expense (in my opinion) to begin as a player. As of right now it's not even $50, which was the typical price when I began playing in 3.5. So might I suggest this as a birthday or other holiday gift if you're not able to get together the money?

I'm definitely not digging on your for not being able to afford it, that's fine and people have reasons. I'm just saying, $30 entry point is damn good and there's so much meat in this game that I'd pay $50 gladly for the core book.

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In addition, if you and your gaming group would go in on the core rule set, it's 50% off currently on Amazon, so you're getting each book for effectively $27.50 with a free DM screen.

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PHB: https://www.amazon.com/Players-Handbook-Dungeons-Dragons-Wizards/dp/0786965606/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=players+handbook&qid=1564688516&s=gateway&sr=8-2

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3 Book Core Set:

https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Rulebooks-Slipcase-Handbook/dp/0786966629/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=players+handbook&qid=1564688680&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFSNDJCRjExRFA0UkkmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTEwMDQwMzU2OUtKM1Y0MjRQRUcmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDQ5MDAwNDhJSUVBQTU2T0ZPUCZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Matt Colville's first couple videos in this series will be incredibly helpful, I think. He's focused on DMing.

If your more interested as a player and not a DM (though, one of your friends is gonna have to step up and do it), Colville has a video for that, too.

Bare minimum is buy dice, but getting the players handbook (PHB) is also great, though you can wait and see if you enjoy your first session before you buy it since they post the basic rules online for free.

Here is the SRD (free rules) in website form.
Here is the "official" PDF.

Also, if you really dig critical role, Matt Mercer put out a campaign book for the world. Whoever is gonna DM could buy this and run a game in the same setting.

If you enjoy Forgotten Realms, I highly recommend Murder in Baldur's Gate (DriveThruRPG has it cheaper in PDF format). It's a fantastic resource on one of the most interesting cities in the setting. It comes with campaign guide to the city, it's history, major players, etc. A DM's screen with all kinds of great info, map handouts (like a flyer to hotspots). Not to mention a great sandboxy adventure about ancient curses, terrible plots and city politicking.

Note: It was written before 5e came out, and designed for any edition 3.5 - 4 - 'next'. But there's lots of 5e stats & such around the web people have made for it.

If looking for something a little darker, little less 'realms', one of my favorite kickstarter writers, Dan Colman just released Ebonclad - A Thieve's Guild Setting

It's got an interesting city setting, revolving of course around a thieve's guild with lots of detailed NPCs with hidden agendas, new player options, etc.

I bought this book years ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Gygaxs-Gygaxian-Fantasy-Worlds/dp/1931275564

It mostly helps if you're playing games set in the "real world" (like White Wolf, Call of Cthulhu, or Cyberpunk), though a lot of the names can easily apply to D&D universes as long as your DM isn't anal about not using "real" names (ie, you can have a character from Calimshan named or someone from Luskan named Otto). I've personally used names like Lysandra (an Elf Battle Master Fighter) or Vaughn (a Ffolk Dunken Master Monk) for D&D characters. And that book in particular has a chapter on "made up" names that are mostly just random syllables jammed together if you want something more exotic.

That book's probably not a realistic option for most players today, but you can get more or less the same thing by looking for baby name books (which you can probably check out for free from your local library), or just use online baby name sites (or even Wikipedia's "given names by culture" categories). Just pick a region that fits the feel of the character you're trying to make (ie, for Illuskans go Germanic, Calimshan tends towards Arabic names, the Ffolk are blatantly Irish/Welsh, etc), and pick a name that feels like it would fit someone from there.

As long as you're not naming your elf royal "John" or "Bob" or something, you're probably good.

Akuma mentioned it, and I also want to suggest picking up the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. It's absolutely phenomenal in terms of detail about regions, events, history, setting, etc. You will see a lot of mechanics for 3.x, but it's easy enough to disregard or even use their fluff to convert and make stuff for 5e FR.

Also worth picking up is the 4th edition book (Ed Greenwood Presents) Elminster's Forgotten Realms. It has a lot of "on the ground, personal level" detail and fluff, like what people eat in different regions, how they worship, etc. Neat book, fun read.

Agreed. It's ridiculous that they don't have a more comprehensive book for FR given how heavily it's used for 5e.

The 3e edition campaign setting book is still my goto for FR lore. Course it's before the spellplague and a good ways in the past from 5e but it's loaded with great stuff. NPCs, organizations, governments, lore that are mostly still applicable to 5e FR. It details a much larger area than just the Sword Coast North and Chult. It's the best FR campaign book out there imo.

I'd recommend the Neverwinter Campaign Setting of 4e. While the mechanics are all for 4e, there's a lot of fluff specific to Neverwinter and the surrounding areas. Might not want to use all of it, but it'd certainly be great for background/descriptions/fluff/NPC and faction ideas.

As I recall, it has details for Castle Never as an adventure site, and has info on Lord Neverember and other important leaders of the city.

Here's the amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Neverwinter-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Supplement/dp/0786958146

My recommendation would be to go pick up some 2nd, 3rd or 4th edition sourcebooks for dirt cheap at Half Price Books or online. The Forgotten Realms sourcebook from 3.5 is what I am currently using, it has a removable foldout map of Faerun, and detailed lists of major sights throughout the realms, including descriptions of the major cities, ruins, etc.

I've heard good things about the Greenwood Forgotten Realms book as well.

You can probably also find sourcebooks specific to Waterdeep, Neverwinter, etc. though I don't know the specific titles.

The point is that generally speaking the edition doesn't matter when it comes to background materials, physical descriptions, major characters, history, politics, factions, maps, etc. It just doesn't. So do yourself a favor and buy this stuff cheap from older editions.

Also, keep in mind that while you are building off of an existing world, and there is something cool about that, the minute you start to play in it it's YOUR world. None of these sourcebooks are going to have every single detail fleshed out, and often will just give you the flavor of a particular city, a few major landmarks, etc. From there on you should create your own landmarks, taverns, interesting characters, history, etc.

This is the book that I use a lot:
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478819&sr=1-2&keywords=FOrgotten+Realms

Here are more:

http://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345

Neverwinter book:
http://www.amazon.com/Neverwinter-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Supplement/dp/0786958146/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478789&sr=1-4&keywords=Neverwinter+source+book

Waterdeep book:
http://www.amazon.com/City-Splendors-Waterdeep-Roleplaying-Supplement/dp/0786936932/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478895&sr=1-1&keywords=Waterdeep

http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Realms-Atlas-Karen-Fonstad/dp/0880388579/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478853&sr=1-3&keywords=FOrgotten+Realms

Hope that helps. Also buy 4th edition stuff now if you ever think you want it. Lots of stores are having fire sales moving their 4th ed stuff.

I only ever played a couple of sessions of tabletop 4e, but I had purchased the 4e Essentials Monster Vault which looks similar to this.

One thing they have that your set doesn't is that monsters that are often encountered in groups (goblins, wolves, etc.) are numbered. It's a small thing, but it's helpful. I had a token goblin "graduate" to an NPC during a run-through of LMoP. The party had found an RP solution to the Yeemik problem, and I decided that the goblin token labeled "3" would be Yeemik's "runner" who would help set their plan in motion. Because he was no longer fodder, he was graduated to an actual mini - but the party continued to refer to him as "3" for the rest of the session.

I don't like this idea, as most of those pads are only going to be good for one or two uses. However, best of luck.

Alternatively, I recommend these guys: http://www.amazon.com/Standard-3-Hole-Punched-Sheets-Carton/dp/B00AQDGJRO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457476853&sr=8-1&keywords=1%22+easel+paper+graph

They end up being about $0.30 per page, nice and big, and allows you to draw new maps whenever you need them. I use them for big special battles or dungeons, with a small battlemap for positioning in smaller battles. I don't use maps for towns and cities, and just use descriptions.

Chessex Role Playing Play Mat: Battlemat Double-Sided Reversible Mat for RPGs and Miniature Figure Games (26 in x 23 1/2 in) Squares/Hexes https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015IQO2O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_5CxOCbSK7ND37

EXPO 16078 Vis-A-Vis Wet-Erase Overhead Transparency Markers, Fine Point, Assorted Colors, 8-Count https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006IFGW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_wDxOCbB3WHT45

If I don't have a mini for the monster I need I use a cheap, solid color dice from a big set I bought. Looks like the one I got is no longer being made but this is similar:
Yellow Mountain Imports 42 Polyhedral Dice, 6 Colors with Complete Set of D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20, and D% https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07586H7KJ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_1ExOCbK31AJD9

Pathfinders Bestiary Box 1 goes on sale for 20 something dollars sometimes, tons of monsters from the Monster Manual at a decent price:
Pathfinder Pawns: Bestiary Box https://www.amazon.com/dp/1601255616/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_nGxOCbJB02KBK

I wouldn't worry too much about having minis, and terrain, and everything as dnd is more about the imagination and sometimes too much detail at the table can detract from that. My friend runs his campaign mostly "theater of mind" style but has a little tiny dry erase board he draws on to show relative positions and obstacles and it works great.

Hope this helps!

Thanks! :) my kids want to be dragons and animal shapeshifters so I think dnd 5e will be ok as long as it’s not too scary. I figure I can tweak it with my descriptions if I need to. You mean this one right? Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit (D&D Boxed Set) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786966831/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_XA3YDbKXTTTAD

Dragon of Icespire Peak is a neat adventure that's part of the Essentials Kit. It's not very story focused and has a bunch of relatively short quests for players to take on which you might find better for shorter sessions. While it's not free, you can get it on Amazon for about $20 (It comes with dice, a DM screen, the starter rules, and hand outs).

• Do you assume they are innocent or guilty?
  
  
• The main issue will be, why do the players work together? What makes them trusted friends and not selfish psychopaths?
  
  
• The official campaign Out of the Abyss has the "outlaw on the run" set-up, you can look at it for ideas.

Oh wow that is tiny. Do you know if all of the 'DnD Adventure' listings on Amazon are all of the campaigns out at the moment?

Such as...
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Tiamat-Adventure-Wizards-Team/dp/0786965657/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1466616249&sr=8-4&keywords=Dnd+adventure

There is a new adventure coming up soon called Hoard of the Dragon Queen which is designed as the starting point for player made characters and not specifically the Pre-generated ones in the Starter Set. Although there is nothing stopping you from using those as well. Since this adventure is coming out when the PHB does, expect to see some things in there that are not available in the Starter Set or free DnD Basic Rules.

Well actually!

https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Wizards-RPG-Team/dp/0786966092/ref=pd_sim_14_30?ie=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0786966092&pd_rd_r=FM603Q8RGPB9GAVNJA46&pd_rd_w=wwL97&pd_rd_wg=Ic5X3&psc=1&refRID=FM603Q8RGPB9GAVNJA46

Went hunting immediately after I saw this on Amazon.ca the other night. It was buried in the recommended list for Volo's Guide. It's not a F up on someone's part, its a placeholder!

Edit: I do get a laugh out of this though that Amazon.ca was the first place it was easily found. Normally all the Canadian websites are terrible at getting pages up for the latest D&D books.

Hey guys,

I know that the physical books typically don't come with DNDBeyond codes, but I thought I read somewhere that the core rulebooks bundle (PHB, DMG, and MM) comes with a code to unlock all three books on DNDB. I can't find the post anymore, so it might've just been a fever dream, but if anyone could verify either way I would appreciate it!

Rise of Tiamat is the second half of the a 2 book adventure, the first being Hoard of the Dragon Queen: http://www.amazon.com/Hoard-Dragon-Queen-Adventure-Wizards/dp/0786965649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458181435&sr=8-1&keywords=horde+of+the+dragon+queen

I DM'd all of Horde at a store, it needs a serious overhaul in order to be less of a railroad and to actually make sense. After Horde I DM'd the first 2.5 chapters of Rise of Tiamat which is better, but I would prefer it if PCs actually were able to succeed in the goals presented to them in the campaign. I can't give away more without getting spoilery.

The party starts at level 7 or 8 (depending on where Horde left off and if you are just skipping Horde and starting this fresh). The overarching plot is that a combination of factions need the PCs to act as their agents and stop the resurrection of Tiamat, who is being raised from Hell by a cult of dragons.

Also, I believe the campaign is from 7/8-15, but good luck killing the big T.
Neverwinter isn't exactly central to the story, it's just a 'base' for the party and the factions fighting the cult. This base could really be anywhere, it doesn't have to be Neverwinter. I don't know the lore behind Neverwinter, but apparently Neverwinter needed to be rebuilt and New Neverwinter is where you all are, or something like that? I can't remember, it's been a while.

If you can find the 4e Monster Vault it comes with a few hundred tokens for nearly every imaginable monster and hero. It's awesome. I prefer tokens anyway, I like my players to use their imaginations but still be able to interact on a grid.

http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Vault-Essential-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/0786956313/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1420671454&sr=8-3&keywords=dungeons+and+dragons+monster

Are you aware of the official adventure featuring exactly that? Would be a good resource for you.

https://www.amazon.com/Hoard-Dragon-Queen-Adventure-Wizards/dp/0786965649

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Tiamat-Adventure-Wizards-Team/dp/0786965657

There's a set of cheap plastic knights/warriors for $7 which I think is a great starter kit:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000YA7FS6/

If you need minis there are lots of cool ideas on how to make cheap ones:

Like this - http://newbiedm.com/2008/11/22/newbiedm-tutorial-counters-tokens-or-pogs/

People also use small wooden pegs (like these) and decorate them.

Some people also use Lego.

Also:

http://www.reapermini.com/FigureFinder

and

http://www.trollandtoad.com

and

http://www.amazon.com/Toysmith-36-Piece-Guardian-Knights-Action/dp/B000YA7FS6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1449186880&sr=8-2&keywords=plastic+fantasy+men

Yeah, get yourself a set of overhead projector markers like these. Permanent/wet erase/dry erase won’t work.

Also, pay an extra ten bucks for a Chessex Megamat, not a Chessex Battlemat. Your ranged characters will thank you for the larger area to work with. Chessex has three sizes of the vinyl mats: Battlemat (small, fits basically any table), Megamat (medium, fits dining tables), and Mondomat (better build your own gaming table for this bad boy).

In addition, the mats come with 1.5 or 1 inch squares/hexes (squares on one side, hexes on the other). Be sure to get the 1 inch size as this gives you more squares in the same area, and it properly scales with minis as the players fight larger monsters (a huge mini is four squares, but four 1.5 inch squares is a lot bigger than four 1 inch squares, and the mini will look smaller than the space on the grid that it actually threatens).

The Gift set is on sale for $90

https://www.amazon.com/Waterdeep-Dragon-Heist-HC-Adventure/dp/0786966254/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536353784&sr=8-1&keywords=waterdeep+dragon+heist

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/dragonheist

Roll20, DnD Beyond, and FG are not the actual book. Yes those are out today.

If you don't care too much about exact scale, you can get bags of plastic toy figures on Amazon for dirt cheap. They're a bit larger than normal minis, but work fine.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004DK4FO0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RYM2F0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000YA7FS6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Looks like HOTDQ and Rise of Tiamat are also on sale for around $20:

• Hoard of the Dragon Queen
  
  
• Rise of Tiamat
  
  Volo's and Xanathar's are around $30:
  
  
• Volo's Guide to Monsters
  
  
• Xanathar's Guide to Everything
  
  SCAG is $30, as is the not-yet-released Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes:
  
  
• Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
  
  
• Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (pre-order)
  
  ...and scrolling down the list, it seems a bunch of normally $50 adventures are also on sale around $30-34. The DMG is $32 and the Monster Manual is $34:
  
  
• Dungeon Master's Guide
  
  
• Monster Manual

D&D is getting an Eberron book in November. It includes the artificer and dragonmarks (sort of a race customization system with feats).

Pathfinder 2e goes for the same appeal to complexity/depth as 1e, which is the opposite of 5e's focus on simplicity/accessibility. I don't think they need to worry too much about competing with each other as they're both successful in their separate niches.

Actually it is on US amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786966890/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786966890/

​

This is the US Amazon link which is up for pre-order

This is the Amazon link from the article:

https://www.amazon.com/Waterdeep-Dragon-Heist-HC-Adventure/dp/0786966254/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=sl1&tag=polygonopt-20&linkId=a9fc4e6f1487d7dd6d0bea1b547cccf2&language=en_US

Does the writer or site point out that they get a cut of the sale to Amazon? It's shady he doesn't mention that when referencing the link.

I preordered in early April. I've now had an update saying it will be delivered between the 9th of July and the 8th of August.

I emailed to complain, they said sorry and gave me £10 amazon credit. They said I want to cancel my preorder I still can and suggested I could still buy it on amazon from another seller. I'm still deciding what to do.

Amazon

Be aware this is the box before he does anything with it.

http://www.amazon.com/BOX-WOOD-FILIGREE-TREE-VELVET/dp/B003O4QN7S

Now that we have dev confirmation via u/Inxanity1 we can surmise it will be here when available for preorder.

https://www.amazon.com/Labyrinth-Wizards-RPG-Team/dp/0786966092/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Is this the one you are referring to?

http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1459344620&sr=8-1&keywords=forgotten+realms+campaign+setting

This. And these.

Eberron: Rising from the Last War

>Just make a Critical Role adventure guide already.

That's already a thing though, just not "official WOTC."

I just use a wet-erase mat and these tokens. The players each have a mini they bought, but that's it.

Amazon.

E: Honey says it can take off another $6.

http://www.amazon.com/Neverwinter-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Supplement/dp/0786958146

Again, it's technically 4e and I'm not personally familiar with it but I hear it's setting-free.

If you can wait a month, the new one will be coming out. That'll be new for everyone.

http://www.amazon.com/Princes-Apocalypse-D-Accessory/dp/0786965789

PSA: These appear to be inexpensive, easily-attainable boxes that already come with a velvet lining.

Looks like the Etsy artisan is ordering these (in bulk for cheap, presumably), sticking a block of foam-or-whatever in the lid and jacking up the price.

>PSA: These appear to be inexpensive, easily-attainable boxes that already come with a velvet lining.

>Looks like the Etsy artisan is ordering these (in bulk for cheap, presumably), sticking a block of foam-or-whatever in the lid and jacking up the price.

Just a heads up to people complaining that the book is not worth $50 due the maps' quality: If you don't mind waiting until September 18 (literally less than a week), you can get it here for ~$30. You are not paying WotC $50 for their book, you are paying them $30 for the book and $20 for their pockets. Don't ever buy directly from WotC.

If they're a fan of Critical Role (or any other livestreamed campaign with a merch store), you could always consider getting them some merch. Critical Role in particular has a homebrew campaign setting with some new character options, for 3rd-party book option.

Murder in Baldur's Gate http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Baldurs-Gate-Sundering-Adventure/dp/0786964634

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is releasing on Fantasy Grounds May 18th. Their releases usually coincide exactly with the pre-release. So... pre-release on May 18th

>D&D Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
Coming to Fantasy Grounds May 18
We are happy to announce the next big release from Wizards of the Coast. The master magician Mordenkainen has amassed information on many of the biggest conflicts in the D&D multiverse such as those between elves, gith, devils and demons.
The Fantasy Grounds version is expected to be $29.99 and will feature an integrated reference manual, NPCs, new races, dynamic story templates and tokens.

This Amazon product page seems to indicate the regular release is on May 29th.

... I may have accidentally gotten distracted and skipped over half of your post. :/

It's higher than your quoted price range, but maybe you could find a cheap copy of Murder in Baldur's Gate and adapt something from that?

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Baldurs-Gate-Sundering-Adventure/dp/0786964634/