Let’s talk about encounter balance.

A common misconception is that the challenge rating system in D&D is meant to guarantee specific encounter outcomes: The CR = X, therefore the encounter will end with precisely Y resources depleted.

This isn’t really true. Furthermore, I would argue that it’s not possible for any challenge rating system to accomplish this (unless you so thoroughly constrain player choice as to choke out the creative heart of an RPG), because a challenge rating system is inherently limited in the systemic knowledge it can have about a specific encounter.

Factors beyond the scope of 5^th Edition’s challenge rating system, for example, include:

• Players’ tactical skills
• Variance in character builds
• Environment
• Encounter distance
• Stat block synergy (in both PCs and opponents)
• Equipment
• Random dice rolls

(I frequently get static on listing random dice rolls here: “But probability!” Yes, probability exists. But, first, the number of dice rolls in a single fight are often too few for probability to become truly relevant — for the results to conform to the expected value — except over multiple encounters. And, second, the entire point of random dice rolls is to have random outcomes. QED.)

Does this mean that the challenge rating system is pointless?

Not at all. The function of the challenge rating system is to help the DM identify monsters and build encounters that are in the right ballpark. Our first hot take today is that the challenge rating system is actually pretty effective at doing that. And, furthermore, that’s all it needs to do and, arguably, all that it should do.

Despite this, DMs are constantly lured by the siren call of hyper-precision: If we could just account for every single variable, we could guarantee specific outcomes! We wouldn’t even need the players at all! Their choices wouldn’t matter!

(That, by the way, is why this is not actually a desirable goal, even if it was achievable.)

There are several reasons for this.

Partly, it’s the allure of false precision: If we have a Challenge Rating Table, then the designers need to put numbers on the table. And no matter how many times they use words like “maybe” or “might” or “roughly” in describing the function of that table, this can create the expectation that hitting that precise number is important. (In reality, the difference between a 1,600 XP and 1,700 XP encounter is essentially nonexistent.)

The labels applied to different encounter levels also seem prone to misinterpretation. I find this varies depending on the methodology used for the label. In the case of 5^th Edition D&D, the designers have generally chosen a label which describes the worst case scenario. For example, a “Deadly” encounter doesn’t mean “this encounter is likely to result in a TPK.” It actually means that there’s a risk you’ll see at least one PC making death saving throws. (You can think of the possible outcomes of an encounter as being mapped to a bell curve: The outcome of an 8^th-level encounter might, in actual practice, be the average result of anything from a 4^th-level encounter to a 12^th-level encounter. The 5^th Edition label is generally describing a result somewhere a little off to the right side of the bell curve.)

But the final factor is linear campaigns.

THE PROBLEM WITH LINEAR CAMPAIGNS

I’m occasionally accused of hating linear campaigns. This is not the case. I dislike predetermined plots, but that’s not the same thing. I’ve actually talked in the past about how to design linear campaigns, and in So You Want To Be a Game Master I have several chapters and adventure recipes for creating linear scenarios.

(A linear scenario is also not the same thing as a railroad. It’s accurate to say that I loathe railroads, and everything I talk about here is probably ten times more true if you’re railroading your players.)

There are, however, consequences for using a linear structure. (Just as there is for using any structure.) This is particularly true if you only use linear structures, which can be the unfortunate case for many DMs who don’t have alternative scenario structures in their repertoire.

A linear scenario inherently means that you, as the DM, are preparing a specific sequence of experiences/scenes/encounters/whatever you want to call them. The players will experience A, then they will experience B, then they will experience C, and so forth.

A consequence of this style of prep, therefore, is that the DM is solely responsible for what the PCs will be doing. This creates an enormous pressure on the DM, because you’d better get it right: You’d better get the spotlight balance right and make sure that every single PC has an equal chance to shine, because otherwise you’re making it difficult or impossible for one of the players to participate. And you’d better get the combat balance right, because forcing the players into fights they can’t win is a dick move.

So the DM will, naturally, spend more effort carefully crafting each encounter to make sure it works. Ironically, the more specific their prep becomes for each situation, the more weight is placed on their shoulders to make sure they get it right. This can quickly decay into a vicious cycle, with the DM pouring more and more effort into every single encounter in order to meet ever-rising expectations. The result is often My Precious Encounters™, in which every encounter is lovingly crafted, carefully balanced, painstakingly pre-constructed, and utterly indispensable (because you’ve spent so much time “perfecting” it).

… and then the challenge rating system isn’t hyper-precise and the players mop up the whole thing with a couple of quick spells?!

This is an outrage!

I guess we’ll just need to lock down more choices, get out the shackles, and try even harder next time guarantee the encounter works exactly as we predetermined it should.

NON-LINEAR BALANCE

Some of you reading this may be thinking, “Okay… but what’s the alternative?”

And when I say that the alternative is non-linear scenarios, your gut reaction is likely to be, “You mean design even more encounters? And the players might not even encounter some of them? I can’t do that! Do you know how much work I put into these encounters?!”

In truth, however, non-linear design is a completely different paradigm: The players are now able, to at least some extent, choose the experiences they’re going to have. And because the players now have responsibility for what they do and how they do it, that weight is lifted from the DM’s shoulders.

Looking at just the issue of combat balance, for example, if the PCs run into an encounter in a linear adventure that they can’t defeat, that’s a disaster! They can’t move forward unless they defeat the encounter, and they can’t defeat it, so they’re completely stuck. It’s as if they lived on an island and the only bridge to the mainland was closed for construction.

In a non-linear scenario or campaign, on the other hand, if the PCs run into an encounter they can’t defeat (or which they just think they can’t defeat or which doesn’t look fun to them), then they can just change direction and find a route around that encounter. Or, alternatively, go and do something else until they level up, gain magic items, make allies, or otherwise become powerful enough to take out the challenge that was previously thwarting them.

You can see an analogous set of paradigms in video game RPGs: Some will allow players to grind XP, allowing them to dial in the mechanical difficulty they’re comfortable dealing with at their level of skill. Other CRPGs will level up the world around the PCs or limit the total amount of XP they can earn. The former games can appeal to a broader range of skill levels and the designers have a lot more leeway or flexibility in how they design the challenges in the game. The latter games have a lot less flexibility, and players can end up completely stuck (due to lack of skill, a mistake in their character build, disability, or any number of factors).

LINEAR BALANCE WITH MILESTONES

Okay, but you want to run a linear adventure. Maybe that’s the best structure for the campaign you’ve got planned. Maybe you’ve picked up a published adventure that uses a linear structure and it’s just not working: It’s too easy or it’s too hard, and you want it just right.

Fortunately, there’s an incredibly powerful tool you can use for balancing linear campaigns: Milestone leveling.

The trick is that you just need to ditch the idea of hardcoding the level ups to specific beats in the campaign. Instead, after each scenario, do an assessment of how your encounter balance is working in actual practice:

Are the players cruising through stuff? Increase the difficulty of encounters. If you’ve been designing 6th-level encounters, bump them up to 7^th-level encounters. (You can also change the balance of Easy/Medium/Hard/Deadly encounters you’re using, or do half-step bumps in XP budgets between levels.)

Are the players feeling challenged? You’re in the sweet spot. You can hold in that sweet spot for X sessions, with the number X being adjusted to your personal taste. Then you can start increasing the difficulty by steps again until…

Are things getting really tough for the PCs? Level them up (without immediately shifting encounter difficulty) and then assess.

One thing to be aware of is that this doesn’t work great for 1^st-level characters, which are very fragile (and kind of need special treatment when it comes to encounter building in general).

Another thing to keep in mind is that you need to miss very low and for a very long time for “too easy” to ruin your campaign; you only have to miss once for “too hard” to TPK the group. So, when in doubt, you’re generally better off aiming low and then adjusting up.

You’ll also likely discover that sometimes PCs will level up, feel like they’re in the sweet spot, and then suddenly everything gets easier and they’re cruising through encounters that are too easy. What’s likely happened is that the players have figured out how their new abilities work (and, importantly, work together), allowing them to perfect their tactics.

You can see the opposite effect happen if the PCs have been fighting one type of monsters for awhile, but then the campaign shifts and they’re suddenly fighting completely different monsters. Experienced difficulty may momentarily spike until they get a feel for the new creatures.

It’s also not a bad idea to check in with the players periodically and see how they’re feeling about the difficulty level in the campaign. They won’t always be right, but neither will you, so comparing notes can help you find the sweet spot for your group.

“Hey! Isn’t that actually Level Advancement Without XP?” Sorry, folks. The ship sailed on this one back in 2014 when every single official adventure started referring to “you pick events in the campaign when the characters level up” as milestone XP. “Milestone” is just too convenient a term for the form of level advancement best suited to these linear adventures. If you have any complaints about this, please address them to Wizards of the Coast.

LINEAR BALANCE WITHOUT MILESTONES

“But I don’t want to use milestone XP! I want to give XP for combat!”

… you just want to make things difficult, don’t you?

That’s okay. Once you understand the principles described above, you can accomplish the same effect with combat/challenge-based XP, it will just be a little more obfuscated.

Specifically, with XP awards, the PCs will be gaining levels at a certain pace. If they’re cruising through encounters, you just need to increase the difficulty of the encounters they’re facing at a faster pace than the pace they’re leveling at. (So in the time they’ve gone from 6^th to 7^th level with everything feeling too easy, the encounters you’re building will have gone from 6^th level to 8^th level or maybe even 9^th level. Or, conversely, if the encounters have been too tough for them, you might hold the encounter design at 6^th level even though they’ve leveled up to 7^th.)

In other words, it’s the same process of dialing in: It’s just made slightly more complicated by the PCs being a moving target.

OTHER FAQs

“Doesn’t this mean that my 7^th-level PCs could end up facing, I dunno, 11^th-level encounters?”

Quite possibly. Or your specific group of 7^th-level PCs might be better served by 5^th-level encounters. If it makes you feel better, even by-the-book 11^th-level Medium encounters are actually easier than 7^th-level Deadly encounters, so you’ve probably already been doing this.

More importantly, these are just arbitrary numbers. The important thing is that you and your players are having fun: If your players are really good at tactical planning or they’ve managed to get their hands on an unexpectedly powerful magical artifact, that can easily mean that they’re capable of punching above their by-the-book weight-class.

And you know what? That sounds fun to me!

“I’m running a published adventure. How do I ‘increase the difficulty’? Do I need to rebuild the encounters?”

Instead of adjusting encounter difficulty, just skip the next milestone level suggested by the scenario. You can see a similar technique in Random D&D Tip: Adjusting Encounters by Party Size.

“Couldn’t I use these same principles when designing non-linear scenarios or campaigns?”

Absolutely!

For scenarios, you’re generally targeting a certain difficulty in your encounter design regardless of whether it’s a linear or non-linear scenario. This technique is about dialing in what your current target should be in the challenge rating system, so it works just as well either way.

For non-linear campaigns, you want to avoid the potential pitfall of leveling up the campaign world. So if you’ve got a structure like a megadungeon or hexcrawl, where the players can already dial in their preferred difficulty level, this technique probably isn’t going to be particularly useful. But it can find application in some node-based campaigns and freeform sandboxes.

FURTHER READING
Revisiting Encounter Design
The Many Types of Balance
Fetishizing Balance
The Death of the Wandering Monster
Adversary Rosters

Our Let’s Read of the original 1974 edition of D&D continues as we open the eldritch tome of Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure. Topics covered in this video include:

• How did D&D transform our understanding of fantasy?
• What were the original three Tiers of play in D&D?
• Why do cloud giants have a keen sense of smell?
• Why are Arneson & Gygax directly responsible for the Twilight novels?

If you want to start watching from the beginning, you can do that here.

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The original 5^th Edition D&D Starter Set was released in 2014, reaching shelves shortly before the core rulebooks.

In 2019, Wizards of the Coast released a new introductory boxed set: The D&D Essentials Kit.

Your first thought might be that they were replacing the Starter Set with a new and improved game box, but this wasn’t the case: The Starter Set remained in print and on shelves next to the Essentials Kit until early 2022, when it was replaced by the new D&D Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle.

(Along the way, Wizards also published additional starter sets featuring Stranger Things and Rick & Morty.)

So why do we have so many introductory boxed sets?

I suspect it has less to do with what’s inside the box and more to do with the box existing in the first place.

In the mass market and big box stores, entertainment products have a shelf life: If you’re successful enough to crack that market in the first place, your game will be stocked, it will sell, and then at some point the big box stores will stop stocking the game and the sales will stop. If you’re lucky, this will be based on your sales (because if you can keep selling, then you can keep selling), but more often it’s just a matter of time: Automated reorder systems will play it safe by ordering fewer copies each time; which results in fewer sales; which results in a smaller reorder or, eventually, no reorder at all.

By having multiple introductory boxed sets for sale, Wizards of the Coast pays a cost in customer confusion: Someone wanting to play D&D for the first time may become uncertain which of these nigh-identical products they should buy.

But what they gain is a new SKU; a new product code. Each time they release a new SKU, it’s a fresh opportunity for their marketing team to go back to the big box stores that have dropped the previous boxed set and get D&D back on the shelf in Target or Walmart or Barnes & Noble.

If you’re reading this review, though, you’re probably not an account manager at Walmart. (If you are, there’s a book you should definitely acquire.) You’re a gamer. Or maybe a search engine brought you here because you’re interested in becoming a D&D player.

So if you’re looking for your own introduction to D&D, is the Essentials Kit what you should pick up? Is it worth grabbing a copy if you already own the D&D Starter Set? What if you already own the core rulebooks?

This review will probably make more sense if you’re familiar with my review of the D&D Starter Set, so you might want to read that if you haven’t already. But here’s a quick overview of what I’m looking for in an introductory boxed set like the Essentials Kit:

• A meaty, full-featured version of D&D.
• An introduction for complete neophytes to roleplaying games that would not only teach them how to play, but how to be a Dungeon Master.
• A complete gaming experience, even if you never picked up the Player’s Handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide.

OPENING THE BOX

So let’s take a peek inside the D&D Essentials Kit.

Where the D&D Starter Set was fairly barebones, the Essentials Kit packs in a bunch of gimmicks and gewgaws to fill the box:

• The 64-page Essentials Kit Rulebook, doubling the size of the 32-page rulebook from the D&D Starter Set. (Notably absent, however, is the index that the D&D Starter Set included.)
• The 64-page Dragon of Icespire Peak, which serves as an adventure book and monster manual.
• Six blank character sheets.
• A full set of dice.
• A two-sided poster map of Phandlin and a hexmap of the surrounding area.
• A mini-DM screen.
• 108 cards on perforated sheets, including initiative cards, quest cards, an oddly arbitrary selection of NPCs, magic items, and conditions.
• A cardboard tuck box for your cards.

Notably, both the rulebook and the adventure book have been given cardstock covers, replacing the flimsy pamphlets from the D&D Starter Set with books that can actually endure some meaningful use at the table. This was a shortcoming I called out in my review of the Starter Set, and it’s great to see it improved here. Along similar lines, the dice set in the Essentials Kit is larger, including the second d20 (for advantage/disadvantage rolls) and 4d6 whose absence I’d noted.

I’d also mentioned that a poster map of the region around Phandalin would have been a great addition to the D&D Starter Set… and here it is! Including a mini-DM screen is also an inspired choice, not only giving the game a little more “table presence” when you get set up for play, but also giving the new DM a valuable cheat sheet that will help them master the game.

I’m a little more agnostic leaning towards pessimistic when it comes to the cards. There’s a mishmash of stuff here:

• Condition cards.
• Initiative count cards.
• Sidekick cards.
• Quest cards.
• Magic items.

I find the basic utility for quite a few of these cards fairly suspect, and while I respect the quixotic quest to include “value-add” components to introductory boxed sets down through the ages, I think it mostly sets up a false expectation of what you “need” to run a D&D adventure.

(You do not, in fact, need to prep quest cards or NPC cards.)

Your mileage may vary.

RULEBOOK v. RULEBOOK

Before opening the Essentials Kit box, I was actually expecting to find the exact same rulebook that Wizards of the Coast had used in the D&D Starter Set. The rules of the game, after all, hadn’t changed.

Instead, the Essentials Kit Rulebook has doubled in size, from 32 pages to 64 pages!

There are several reasons for this, but the biggest one is that the Essentials Kit Rulebook includes character creation! Which was another thing I thought was missing from the D&D Starter Kit! This is fabulous!

But there are a couple things that could have made it even better. First, the ideal introductory boxed set would include both character creation rules and pregen characters. Character creation gives you a fully functional game, while pregens let new players leap directly into the action.

Second, if you’re going to have a bunch of these introductory boxed sets in print at the same time, I’d love to see them go a little wild with the class/race selections. If the D&D Starter Set features human/dwarf/elf and fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard, I’d have loved to see the Essentials Kit feature something like dragonborn/gnome/half-orc/tiefling and druid/monk/ranger/warlock. Mix it up! Instead, the selection here is pretty tame (although they do toss bards into the mix).

Another major addition here are rules for Sidekicks. This is a very smart addition, because it lets a DM easily run the game for a single player (playing a PC plus sidekick). That’s huge for an introductory boxed set, because it makes it a lot easier for a new player looking to play D&D for the first time to start playing.

It’s interesting looking through the two rulebooks side by side and seeing how the sequencing of information shifts subtly from one to the other, but for the most part everything seems to be pretty equivalent. (With the exception of experience points, which have been removed from the Essentials Kit.)

There are a couple other bits of rules-type content that don’t technically appear in the Essentials Kit Rulebook, but which I want to comment on here: Monsters appear as an appendix in the adventure book and magic items have been moved onto the item cards.

The monsters are given better descriptions in the Essentials Kit than in the Starter Set, but I found the selection of both monsters and magic items disappointing. There’s not really a way for me to objectively demonstrate this, but looking at the Starter Set I felt like I could take the included magic items and monsters and remix them to create a bunch of different adventures. But with the Essentials Kit, I just… don’t. It feels like there’s a lack of variety, or that key niches have been left unaddressed.

So the inclusion of character creation is a major upgrade for me, but overall I think, from a mechanics standpoint, that the Essentials Kit is something of a mixed bag for me. But I think it has a slight edge over the Starter Set here.

DRAGON OF ICESPIRE PEAK

The Essentials Kit includes an all-new adventure book: Dragon of Icespire Peak.

Like the Lost Mine of Phandelver from the D&D Starter Set, however, Dragon of Icespire Peak is set in the village of Phandalin.

In fact, at first glance, Dragons of Icespire Peak is structurally very similar to Lost Mine of Phandelver: You’ve got a bunch of individual adventures, forming a complete Tier 1 campaign. You don’t need to complete these adventures in any particular order, with the PCs being able to gather adventure hooks in the hub of Phandalin and then choose which ones they want to pursue. The whole thing ultimately culminates in a cap adventure where the PCs hunt down the titular dragon that’s plaguing the region.

So this should be just as good as Lost Mine of Phandelver, right?

… right?

I’m not going to beat around the bush here: It’s not.

Dragon of Icespire Speak gets off on the wrong foot, in my opinion, from the very beginning by giving some absolutely terrible advice to the first-time DM: Instead of reading the adventure book ahead of time, the DM is instructed to wait until the players are creating their characters and then “read ahead” to figure out how the adventure works.

(This is despite the fact that, on the same page, the DM is told that part of their role is to help the players create their characters. So… yeah. Do that and also read the adventure for the first time. At the same time.)

I think what they’re trying to do is support people who want to open the box and immediately play the game: They’d obviously have to claw out some time during the session to read the adventure, right? Realistically speaking, however, this is never going to happen: There’s a 64-page rulebook that needs to be digested before play can begin. So all you’re left with is some terrible guidance that will lead new DMs straight into an almost certainly horrific first-time experience at the gaming table.

This is particularly true because Dragon of Icespire Peak isn’t designed with a single initial scenario. Instead, the campaign begins with the PCs standing in front of a jobs board posted outside the townmaster’s hall, where they’ll immediately be able to choose between three different adventures. (Read fast, Dungeon Master!)

This jobs board is, in fact, the primary structural problem I have with Dragon of Icespire Peak. Unlike Lost Mine of Phandelver, in which the adventures were all connected to each other and emerged organically from interactions with the game world, Dragon of Icespire Peak primarily delivers Quests by having the DM hand the players a Quest Card when they read the Quest on Harbin Wester’s job board.

The result is an experience which has been video-gamified.

To be clear here, I don’t have an inherent problem with using a jobs board in D&D. The problem here is the implementation.

To start with, for many of the Quests there’s no clear mechanism by which Harbin Wester could have become aware of them. In other cases, the continuity doesn’t make sense. For example, there’s one quest where the PCs are sent to check on a ranch that was attacked by orcs:

• Orcs attacked the ranch. Almost everyone there was killed.
• “Big Al” Kalazorn, the ranch owner, was captured.
• A ranch hand escaped and rode to Phandalin.
• Harbin Wester then waited ten days before sending the PCs to see if Kalazorn is still alive.

In addition to frequently not making any sense, these quests are all disconnected from the world around them. In fact, the adventure frequently seems to go out of its way to eschew these connections!

For example, there’s a wilderness encounter in which the PCs stumble across an unattended riding horse branded with BAK (for “Big Al” Kalazorn). That’s good! That’s a clue that something is wrong at Big Al’s ranch and the PCs could follow that lead and discover the adventure in a way that makes the world feel like a real place!

… except that encounter is hardcoded so that it ONLY occurs if the PCs are already on their way to the Big Al’s ranch.

This lack of continuity, context, and connection, combined with the fact they’re delivered in the most impersonal manner possible (Harbin literally hides inside his house and won’t let them in), makes all of the Quests feel like meaningless errands, something which I feel is only further emphasized by the adventure using quest-based leveling. These are not things that the players will actually care about; they are rote obligations.

A subtler difference is that Dragon of Icespire Peak’s Quests are filled with a lot of Thou Must imprecations as opposed to Lost Mine of Phandelver’s presentation of options and tacit support for open-ended play driven by the players.

On a similar note, a lot of the goals in Dragon of Icespire Peak default back to “clear the dungeon.” This, too, greatly reduces the players’ ability to creatively engage the campaign and forge their own destiny… which once again gives the sensation of trudging through obligations.

I also have a much longer list of specific concerns when it comes to the individual adventures in Dragon of Icespire Peak. Stuff like:

• There’s a 60-foot-long tunnel. If the PCs don’t declare that they’re searching for traps, the tunnel collapses when they reach the half-way point and everyone in the tunnel (which, given the length of the tunnel, is likely to be all of the PCs) is automatically buried. If you’re buried, you cannot take any actions and the only way to escape is if someone who isn’t buried helps you get out. So… yeah. That’s just an instant death trap. (And there are a bunch of other death-trap issues in this vein, like the adventure that dumps 1^st-level PCs run by neophyte players into multiple fights with ochre jellies.)
• There’s an adventure where a gnomish king has been driven insane by the knowledge that a mimic is eating his subjects. Okay… sure. But as soon as the PCs kill the mimic, the king’s insanity is instantly cured! … that is not how madness works. (Fundamental breakdowns in worldbuilding, character, and basic logic are far too frequent here.)
• That same adventure, however, has a lot of really neat ideas and interesting roleplaying opportunities. It’s fairly complicated and relatively difficult for a DM to run. Which would be okay… unless you position it so that it can be the very first adventure a brand new DM using the Essentials Kit would need to run. Which is, of course, exactly what the adventure book does. Why not scale this adventure up a couple levels so that it can come in the middle of the campaign after the DM has a bit more experience under their belt? (There’s a number of strange sequencing decisions like this.)

Dragon of Icespire Peak is, ultimately, a mediocre but passable campaign. In comparison to many other introductory adventures, it’s actually quite good. But when directly compared to Lost Mine of Phandelver — and, of course, one is more or less compelled to make that comparison — it does not fare well.

THE VERDICT

In the showdown between the D&D Starter Set and the D&D Essentials Kit, which one comes out on top?

With the D&D Starter Set out of print, of course, this is something of a moot point. The Essentials Kit wins more or less by default.

Even when both were available, however, it’s hard to pick a clear winner. I’d probably give the edge to the D&D Starter Set strictly on the strength of Lost Mine of Phandelver: In large part, an RPG lives or dies by its adventures, and Lost Mine of Phandelver is just a fundamentally better campaign.

The truth, though, is that if you were to merge these two sets together, you’d likely end up with a near-perfect starter set in the fusion: Give me the rulebook from the Essentials Kit. Give me the campaign from the Starter Set.

More than that, though, when we start talking about combining the Essentials Kit with the Starter Set, we suddenly discover that Dragon of Icespire Peak suddenly becomes vastly better simply by running it at the same time you’re running Lost Mine of Phandelver. (Which is, of course, quite trivial to do.)

Having the impersonal, decontextualized jobs board as the central pillar of your campaign is alienating and results in a shallow, forgettable, and even frustrating experience for the players. But if you take that same structure and add it as a spice to a larger campaign, suddenly it comes to life! The roots of Lost Mine of Phandelver will dig in, twining themselves around the adventures of Dragon of Icespire Peak, lending them the context and depth that they natively lack.

(I suspect this also means that the D&D Essentials Kit is a perfect companion to the Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk campaign, which remixes the material from Lost Mine of Phandelver, although I haven’t read that book yet.)

Of course, in actual practice, I’d still recommend that you’d be best served by make a number of small tweaks and modifications to contextualize, connect, and make relevant these adventures. (You could use Lost Mine of Phandelver as a model of how to do that, or check out articles like Using Revelation Lists.)

In the final analysis, the D&D Essentials Kit is a pretty solid introductory boxed set. I wish it was a little better, but I wouldn’t really hesitate giving it as a gift to someone discovering D&D for the first time. And at just $25, it’s not hard to justify grabbing a copy to supplement your Lost Mine of Phandelver, Phandelver and Below, or almost any Tier 1 campaign based out of a typical fantasy village.

Grade: B-

Rulebook Designer: Jeremy Crawford
Adventure Designer: Christopher Perkins
Additional Adventure Design: Richard Baker
Adventure Development: Ben Petrisor

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $24.95
Page Count: 128

FURTHER READING
Review: D&D Starter Set (2014)
Review: Dragons of Storm Wreck Isle (2022 Starter Set)

Buy Now!

With Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk arriving on bookshelves as we enter the twilight months of 5^th Edition in anticipation of the release of D&D 2024 / OneD&D / whatever we end up calling it, I thought it would be interesting to go all the way back to the beginning and take a peek at the D&D Starter Set first published in 2014.

But let’s start by going even further back and discussing the history of D&D introductory sets. (This is something I discuss in even more detail in Every Edition of D&D if you want to go on a real deep dive.)

D&D was originally published as a boxed set in 1974. In 1977, however, the product line bifurcated: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons would be published as a set of three hardcover books, while Dungeons & Dragons would be published in the boxed Basic Set. (This is why that version of the game is often called Basic D&D.)

In 1981, the Basic Set was revamped and an Expert Set was added as a supplement. In 1983, the Basic and Expert sets were revamped again, and the Companion, Master, and Immortals boxed sets were also added.

Now, here’s the key thing: Dungeons & Dragons was NOT the same game as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The Basic Set (and its supplements) were a complete, stand-alone game that even had its own campaign worlds and adventures.

Starting in 1991, this changed. The Basic D&D game remained distinct from AD&D for a while longer, but its rules were compiled into the Rules Cyclopedia. Later, after Wizards of the Coast bought D&D, they would end Basic D&D and drop the “Advanced” moniker from the 3^rd Edition of AD&D (now referred to simply as D&D). A multitude of Basic Sets, Introductions, First Quests, Starter Sets, Adventure Games, and Basic Games would continue to be published as boxed sets, but there was an important difference:

They weren’t complete games.

They were pay-to-preview ads for the Player’s Handbook, and they were usually designed accordingly: You bought them. You played them once. Then you threw them in the trash, bought the core rulebooks, and never touched them again.

I’ve talked in the past about the fact that I think this killed D&D’s gateway product and did an incredible amount of harm to the entire RPG industry. Personally, in my ideal world, D&D would be a game sold in a box, and when new players asked, “What do I need to play D&D?” you’d say, “You need the big box with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS on the cover.” Simple.

Obviously, we don’t live in that world. But this should give you a barometer for what my ideal Starter Set would look like: It would be a meaty, full-featured version of D&D. It would introduce complete neophytes to roleplaying games and teach them not only how to play, but also how to be a Dungeon Master. It would give a complete gaming experience, even if you never picked up the Player’s Handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide.

And if you bought it, you would absolutely not feel like you paid money to have someone tell you that you should buy something else.

OPENING THE BOX

So let’s crack this thing open.

What’s actually in the D&D Starter Set box is pretty barebones:

• The 32-page Starter Set Rulebook, which gives you all the rules for the game.
• The 64-page Lost Mine of Phandelver, which serves as an adventure book, monster manual, magic item vault, and index.
• Five pregen characters sheets.
• A set of dice.

Honestly, I think this barebones approach is okay. You don’t need a fancy gizmos and gadgets to play a roleplaying game. Would a poster map of the Phandalin region (where Lost Mines of Phandelver is set) have been a nice bit of highly practical bling that might have been wonderfully intriguing to a new player? Almost certainly.

But barebones here gives you an MSRP of $20, which is an absolutely fabulous price point. That puts the Starter Set in the territory of an impulse buy, and that was often even more true in actual practice. (I got my copy for $10.)

Nevertheless, there are a couple of things I will ding here: First, the included dice set only includes one d20 and one d6, which I think is inadequate for a game that includes advantage/disadvantage and the fireball spell.

Second, the two booklets would really benefit from cardstock covers. Instead, they’re just stapled paper and very flimsy.

THE RULEBOOK

The Starter Set Rulebook is very good.

The introduction it provides to RPGs — what they are, how they’re played, etc. — is workmanlike, but solid in its execution. More importantly this is a complete and fully functional rulebook. It’s not painfully incomplete. It doesn’t constantly tease with how the real rules are in another book. It’s a rock solid volume, and you could run a complete Tier 1 campaign with this rulebook with zero difficulty.

In fact, except for one thing that we’ll get to in just a moment, you could run multiple Tier 1 campaigns.

Combined with the magic items and monsters found in the companion volume, a DM has enough material that they could comfortably create their own campaign. I could even imagine someone skipping the Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide, grabbing a Monster Manual to give them more options for foes, and continuing to game happily for months or years or forever.

This is, in case I’m not being clear, a really fantastic achievement.

Unfortunately, as I hinted above, there are a couple gaping holes here that, in my opinion, stop this from being a total triumph.

First, there are no rules for character creation. Instead, players will need to pick one of the five pregen characters included in the boxed set. This is the truly crippling blow, and the only thing that truly limits the Starter Set.

Second, the books do a pretty good job of orienting first-time Dungeon Masters. There’s a lot of practical advice for how they can referee the session, make rulings, set up adventure hooks, narrate the action, play the monsters, and so forth. But the major oversight is that they never actually tell the DM how to run the dungeons included in the adventure book.

D&D actually has a long history of failing to do this (the 5^th Edition core rulebooks are actually worse!), but it’s ultimately kind of amusing when you realize that the Starter Set includes multiple, detailed explanations of exactly how boxed text is supposed to be used, but nothing on how dungeons are supposed to be used.

For example, at the beginning of the adventure they tell you:

• This is boxed text. You should read it.
• Here is a list of specific things you should do; including getting a marching order so that you know where the PCs are positioned when the goblins ambush them.
• When the goblins ambush them, this is the step-by-step guide for how combat should start and what you should be doing while running the combat.
• Here are several specific ways that the PCs can track the goblins back to their lair, and here’s a walk-thru of how you can resolve each one.

This is all great. Concrete, specific advice presented in a clear and highly usable format.

But then the PCs get to the goblins’ lair and… nothing.

To be clear, they do a fantastic job of presenting the dungeon:

• General Features
• What the Goblins Know (always love this)
• Keyed map
• And, of course, the keyed entries describing each room.

Again, these are all great.

But the step-by-step instructions for how you’re actually supposed to use this material? It just… stops. The designers obviously just assume that reading text out loud requires a detailed explanation, but how you run a dungeon is just a skill that everyone is born with.

Which is, of course, really silly.

But I digress. As I mentioned, this problem is a much larger and more systemic than the D&D Starter Set. It’s just particularly sad to see the ball getting dropped in an introductory product.

QUIBBLES & NITPICKS

Two more quick nitpicks before we do a proper dive into the adventure book.

First, Wizards of the Coast is allergic to referencing page numbers and I don’t get it. The “logic,” which they’ve explained from time to time, is that they don’t want to include, for example, a specific page number in the Monster Manual because it’s possible that they’ll revise the Monster Manual and the page numbers will change.

But in the 20+ years they’ve been eschewing page numbers, and I cannot emphasize this enough, they have never done this. The first time it might happen is next year.

It’s, frankly, dumb in general because it makes their books much, much harder to use than they need to be. And in the specific case of the D&D Starter Set it’s even dumber because this is a self-contained product. If you were to some day revise the Starter Set, you could just update the page references.

But because Wizards of the Coast is allergic to page numbers, brand new DMs will be cursed with needlessly flipping back and forth through the books, trying to figure out where specific sections are after the authors wave vaguely in their direction.

(I will give them partial credit for an Index that isn’t complete garbage.)

Second, the random encounter procedures for dungeons given in the Starter Set are kinda garbage. They give random encounter tables, but then instruct brand new DMs, “Make an encounter check whenever you feel like it. Or don’t. But you definitely should. But don’t make too many of them, because you’ll ruin your game. How many is too many? Eh. I dunno. You’ll figure it out. Maybe.”

I suspect this text may have originally been more closely tied to detailed dungeon procedures which were present in pre-5^th Edition D&D Next playtest material but removed from the game entirely at the eleventh hour. But this is, nonetheless, bad praxis, and even moreso in material you’re presenting to first-time DMs.

LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER

Which finally brings us to Lost Mine of Phandelver, the adventure book.

I’m not going to beat around the bush here: This is good.

It’s really, really good.

I’m pretty comfortable describing Lost Mine as the single best introductory adventure D&D has ever had, and I don’t think the competition is even close.

First, it’s not just an adventure. It’s an entire campaign. In just 50 pages, Lost Mine of Phandelver presents seven — seven! — different scenarios plus the lushly detailed village of Phandalin. (The other 14 pages in the booklet are devoted to the monster manual, magic item vault, and rules index.) I am completely blown away by this.

And it’s not just the amount of material presented here. This is a really good campaign, and it’s particularly excellent as an exemplar for new DMs figuring out how to make their own campaigns.

We can start by looking at the structure of the campaign:

• Lost Mine of Phandelver starts with the PCs on their way to the village of Phandalin.
• A simple ambush-based scenario hook pulls the PCs into a goblin lair called the Cragmaw Hideout. The initial encounter is a perfect kickoff for first-time players and DMs, starting with an intriguing enigma (dead horses lying in the road) before smoothly transitioning to a combat encounter featuring a simple, but meaningful tactical dilemma for the players.
• The Cragmaw dungeon itself is absolutely fantastic: It’s non-linear. It takes advantage of the third-dimension. The key is clear, clever, and features several really cool ideas (like the dams that the goblins can use to create a defensive flood). It repeatedly emphasizes the opportunity not only for combat, but also roleplaying and clever problem-solving. Everything here implicitly tells the players that their choices matter and teaches the DM how to actively respond to what the PCs are doing.
• The Cragmaw hideout also features multiple scenario hooks, giving the players several options to pursue.
• Whenever the PCs arrive in Phandalin (whether they head there immediately or after pursuing the scenario hooks from the Cragmaw hideout), the entire village is set up to deliver another half dozen or more scenario hooks to them. The result is that the players end up with an entire menu of scenario hooks to choose between, once against emphasizing that their choices matter.
• The individual scenarios are also interconnected, in a really beautiful node-based design that ultimately funnels the PCs into the campaign finale at Wave Echo Cave, which (a) has been foreshadowed since the very beginning of the campaign and (b) is another fantastic dungeon scenario with excellent non-linear design and multiple factions.

I really can’t emphasize just how great this is.

On top of this rock solid campaign frame, the individual adventures are, as I’ve already suggested, equally excellent. I’ve mentioned the strategically interesting non-linear design of the dungeons and the Three Clue Rule, but they also feature retreating foes, personalized magic items redolent with history and flavor, and a wonderfully varied cast of characters.

On top of all that, although I quibbled about the presentation of the random dungeon encounters, the random wilderness encounters are given a very effective procedure AND they’re linked to the scenarios, providing another level of interconnectivity in the campaign.

THE VERDICT

The Starter Set Rulebook is very good, but unfortunately flawed in a couple key ways.

That almost doesn’t matter, though, because I’d pay $20 for just Lost Mine of Phandelver in a heartbeat. And I’d do it even faster than that if I could.

Best introductory adventure for D&D ever published? Definitely.

Best adventure book of any kind published by Wizards of the Coast? Quite possibly.

Overall, the 1983 Basic Set probably remains the best introduction to D&D ever published. But if I’d been given Lost Mine of Phandelver when I was a first-time DM, it would have made me a much better DM than I was, and that’s something special. Even if you’re an experienced DM with years of play under your belt, it’s still a really enjoyable campaign that’s immaculate in its construction.

I really can’t recommend it highly enough.

Grade: A

• Lost Mine of Phandelver: A+

Lead Designers: Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford
Design Team: Christopher Perkins, James Wyatt, Rodney Thompson, Robert J. Schwalb, Peter Lee, Steve Townshend, Bruce R. Cordell
Adventure Designers: Richard Baker, Christopher Perkins

Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Cost: $19.95
Page Count: 96

D&D Beyond: Lost Mine of Phandelver (Free!)

FURTHER READING
Review: D&D Essentials Kit
Review: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (D&D Starter Set 2022)

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Go to Table of Contents

The Red Company of Goldsmiths is maintained as a small subsidiary of the Goldsmiths’ Guild (which, in turn, is largely controlled by the Ironworkers’ Guild). The Vladaams maintain it primarily to launder stolen funds and goods from their other enterprises.

Gold Strips: Suitable for crafting. Each strip is marked with the “V” sigil of the Vladaams (making them easily traceable).

Goldsmiths: Use artisan stats, Ptolus, p. 606.

• Proficiency (+2): Jeweler’s Tools
• Equipment: 1d10 x 1d10 gp, jeweler’s tools, Vladaam deot ring

Guildsman District
Gold Street – E9

AREA 1 – GOLDSMITHY

Gilted worktables with comfortable seats fill the room.

DAY: There’s roughly 8,000 gp worth of gold strips and 5,000 gp of jewelry in this room. 12 sets of jeweler’s tools.

NIGHT: The tools have been tidied away and the gold strips/jewelry moved to Area 2: Gold Safe.

SAFE DOOR (10-in. iron, to Area 2): AC 19, 300 hp, DC 24 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools). An alarm spell is keyed to Guildmaster Telidor.

SECRET DOOR: DC 30 Intelligence (Investigation) check. The wall is hollow and this section is designed to be unscrewed.

AREA 2 – GOLD SAFE

The safe contains 25 pp, 350 gp, and 1,300 sp. It also contains large, heavy stacks of gold strips totaling 32,000 gp in value.

NIGHT: An additional 8,000 gp in gold strips and 5,000 gp of jewelry (secured from Area 1).

DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation): There is a hidden compartment in the tiled steel floor of the safe. It holds a number of small, mimatched bags containing 3,116 gp, 43,457 sp, and 103,900 cp.

DM Background: This money flows in from all the illegal operations of the Vladaams. After being held here, it’s transferred from the Goldsmiths’ Guild to legitimate banks.

AREA 3 – GUILD GATHERING HALL

A long, heavy table of polished oak runs the length of this room. A chandelier of wrought gold and rubies, lit with continual flame, hangs from the ceiling (5,000 gp value).

AREA 4 – GUILDMASTER’S OFFICE

A tidy, well-sorted desk. A gold inkwell (worth 100 gp) stands on top of the desk.

DESK: Ordinary guild correspondence is neatly stacked in one drawer; blank parchment and quills in another. A third drawer holds a black velvet pouch containing 770 gp.

• DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation): One of the drawers has a false bottom. DC 20 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools) to open. It contains paperwork relating to the money laundering operations of the guild. There’s usually enough compromising material here to reveal 1d4+2 pieces of uncommon and 1d3 pieces of rare information from the Vladaam gather information tables.

AREA 5 – SMUGGLING HOLE

This appears to be a small, dusty, and forgotten room with a dirt floor.

DC 24 Intelligence (Investigation): Scraping away about a half inch of dirt reveals a trap door leading down to a tunnel which leads under the city wall and emerges about 500 feet away in a small copse of trees.

DM Background: This smuggling hole has not seen much use in recent years. (The Vladaams don’t want to attract unnecessary attention to a guild that’s very successfully laundering their money. But the Guildmaster and a few others in the guild are aware of its existence.)

GUILDMASTER TELIDOR

A striking woman with long black hair plaited with golden wire. She wears a beautiful golden necklace depicting a phoenix being consumed by flames formed from three large and several small red-gold tourmalines (3,000 gp). She also has a pair of matching bracelets, which are actually bracelets of friends (keyed to Navanna twice, Gattara once, Godfred once, Aliastar once, Marcus Corellius twice, and her two bodyguards).

Through her black market work and money laundering with the Vladaams, Telidor has become a very rich woman. As a result, over the past decade her social circle has rapidly escalated. And she likes it. Her ambition has led her to consider buying a familial share in House Abanar in order to raise her star even higher; the only thing holding her back is a fear of retaliation from the Vladaams.

Guildmaster Telidor: Use knight stats, MM p. 347, except she uses a cudgel (1d8+3 bludgeoning) and hand crossbow (1d6 piercing) for her attacks and she has Wisdom 15 (+2).

• Proficiency (+2): Jeweler’s Tools
• Equipment: bracelet of friends (x2), phoenix necklace (3,000 gp), diamond ring (250 gp), Vladaam deot ring
• Bracelet of Friends: This silver charm bracelet has four charms upon it when created. As a bonus action, the owner may designate one person known to them to be keyed to one charm. When a charm is grasped and the name of the keyed individual is spoken as an action, that person is called to the spot, along with their gear, as long as the owner and the called person are on the same plane. The keyed individual knows who is calling, and the bracelet functions only on willing travelers. Once a charm is activated, it disappears. Charms separated from the bracelet are worthless.

Telidor’s Bodyguards (Harla & Jarla): Female lizardfolk. Use gladiator stats, MM p. 348.

• Proficiency (+3): Perception, Stealth, Survival
• Equipment: flaming claw tips (Harla) / frost claw tips (Jarla), javelin of lightning (x2), potion of superior healing, Vladaam deot ring
• Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d6+4) piercing damage.
• Hold Breath. Lizardfolk can hold their breath for 15 minutes.
• Flaming Claw Tips: +1 to attacks and +2d6 fire damage.
• Frost Claw Tips: +1 to attacks and +2d6 cold damage.

Go to Part 13: Red Company of Magi