Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set Misc. Supplies – July 15, 2014
- Print length96 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions9 x 2.25 x 11.5 inches
- PublisherWizards of the Coast
- Publication dateJuly 15, 2014
- ISBN-100786965592
- ISBN-13978-0786965595
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more
More items to explore
From the Publisher
Editorial Review
The Escapist
Introductory products are hard—they have to straddle quality, cost, fidelity, and approachability. They need to remain true to the rules while being easy to learn. They need to provide a good representation of what the product line is like while remaining an impulse buy. The D&D Starter Set does this well, with rules that can be grasped quickly balanced by a cost that's hard to argue with.
From the Designers
Get started playing Dungeons & Dragons with the Starter Set! Containing everything you need to leap into a D&D adventure, this boxed set is designed for five to six players, with one of you taking on the role of the game’s lead storyteller, the Dungeon Master.
Join thousands of other D&D players who have experienced the exciting adventure in the box: 'Lost Mine of Phandelver,' a 64-page booklet for the DM to read.
If you’d like to learn even more about D&D, the Starter Set is a perfect jumping-off point, leading next to the main Dungeons & Dragons books: the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide.
About Dungeons & Dragons
An innovator in providing contemporary fantasy entertainment, Dungeons & Dragons is the wellspring for the entire modern game industry, digital as well as tabletop. Fifth edition D&D draws from every prior edition to create a universally compelling play experience, and exemplifies the true spirit of a game that holds captive the hearts and minds of millions of players worldwide.
Highlights
- The set includes all the dice, spells, monsters, and magic items you need to play the adventure.
- D&D rules are distilled into a 32-page rulebook that’s focused on playing characters of levels 1–5.
- Choose one of these characters: a dwarf cleric, an elf wizard, a halfling rogue, or a noble fighter.
Inside the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set:
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
Five Ready-to-Play CharactersIn D&D, you create characters and play their roles in a story. Choose from a halfling rogue, seeking revenge against a traitorous ally. An elven wizard, called to duty by the god of knowledge—these five characters are ready for adventure, and great models for future characters. |
Six DiceIn-game outcomes are sometimes determined by chance. Does the ogre believe your outrageous bluff? Does your dagger pierce the dragon’s scales or merely scuff them? These six dice help decide. |
D&D RulebookIn D&D, the story is guided by your actions, and your actions are guided by the rules. 'I hurl the brazier of hot coals into the monster’s face,' a player says. What happens next is up to you, the Dungeon Master, and this book. |
Adventure Book: The Lost Mine of PhandelverThis book is for the Dungeon Master. As the Dungeon Master, you’re the game’s narrator and referee. You’ll play the roles of the monsters and villains your players encounter as they battle and plunder their way through Never winter. |
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLAYER’S HANDBOOK | MONSTER MANUAL | DUNGEON MASTER’S GUIDE | STARTER SET | |
| Get this to: | Learn to play D&D, create characters, expand your skills | Create monsters, discover lore to inspire your adventures, get guidelines for using monsters in-game | Run and modify your adventures, encounters, and campaigns, discover lore to inspire your stories | Learn to play D&D, join your first adventure, get pregenerated characters |
| Audience: | New & experienced players, new & experienced Dungeon Masters | New & experienced Dungeon Masters | New & experienced Dungeon Masters | New players & Dungeon Masters |
| Contents: | Walkthrough of building D&D characters / Rules for roleplaying and combat / Directory of 350+ spells with descriptions and illustrations | Guidelines for populating your adventures with iconic D&D monsters / 150+ monsters illustrated in vivid color / 400+ tables with rules for each monster / History and lore to inspire your adventures | Rules and inspiration for running your adventures / Guidelines for non-player character creation / 240+ magic items with desciptions, lore, and illustrations / Dozens of tables to inspire in-game outcomes | Adventure book with everything the Dungeon Master needs to get started / Rulebook for playing characters level 1–5 / 5 pregenerated characters, with character sheet / 6 dice |
Product details
- Publisher : Wizards of the Coast (July 15, 2014)
- Language : English
- Misc. Supplies : 96 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0786965592
- ISBN-13 : 978-0786965595
- Reading age : 12+ years, from customers
- Item Weight : 1.1 pounds
- Dimensions : 9 x 2.25 x 11.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #18,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in Puzzle & Game Reference (Books)
- #70 in Dungeons & Dragons Game
- #1,369 in Reference (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Videos
Videos for this product

2:26
Click to play video

Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set Unboxing
Random House
Videos for this product

8:06
Click to play video

Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set FULL REVIEW
Bob World Builder Store

About the author

An innovator in providing contemporary fantasy entertainment, Dungeons & Dragons is the wellspring for the entire modern game industry, digital as well as tabletop. Fifth edition D&D draws from every prior edition to create a universally compelling play experience, and exemplifies the true spirit of a game that holds captive the hearts and minds of millions of players worldwide.
Find more at: www.amazon.com/dnd
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
The Starter Set’s got a rulebook, the adventure Lost Mine of Phandelver, some character sheets (a few pregenerated characters AKA pregens and one blank sheet), and a set of dice (1 each of d4, d6, d8, d12 and d20 and 2 of the d10s, one of which has the double-digits marking it as a percentile die).
I could maybe argue about this set missing character creation, but…no. It’s perfect for the name Starter Set. Let’s take a deeper look.
Starter Set Rulebook
The Starter Set Rulebook is a 32-page instruction manual for playing Dungeons & Dragons. There aren’t any character creation rules in this rulebook; basic level advancement tips specific to the pregenerated characters are listed on the individual character sheets. Since pages 23-31 cover the spells available to Wizards and Clerics and page 32 is a summary of the Conditions, this book is a very slim, very concise rules reference for understanding the mechanics of D&D.
1. How to Play
The first chapter quickly explains what the D&D roleplaying experience is all about, featuring an example of play nicely mixed in with the descriptive text, then goes on to explain the dice used to play the game, how character abilities work, and the ability, skill, and saving throw checks that players will be making during play.
I won’t get into what D&D is — you should know if you’re here, or you’ll figure it out very quickly once you pick up the Starter Set or the Player’s Handbook, or if you watch Critical Role, or…well, let’s just leave it at that if you’re reading this review ??
How it plays, though, is something worth talking about, whether you are entirely new to D&D or just the 5th Edition of the game. Let’s break it down as simply as possible:
*Your character has six Ability Scores — Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma — rated 3-18 (with some potential exceptions), and a table tells you what the modifier is for each score (i.e. a score of 12-13 is a +1 modifier, 14-15 is a +2 modifier, etc.).
*Your character has a Race — elf, dwarf, human, or halfling — that provides those potential exceptions I just mentioned, increasing certain Ability Scores favored by that specific race, and thus also the modifier.
*Your character has a Class that tells you what sorts of skills and abilities they are especially good at. Their Level tells you how experienced they are in that class, and thus gives you an additional modifier that pertains to those class skills and abilities called the Proficiency Bonus.
*Whenever you need to roll a “check” — rolling a die to see if you use a skill or ability successfully or not — you roll 1d20 and add the Ability and Proficiency modifiers to the roll to get a result.
*The Dungeon Master has a difficulty class (DC) set — very easy is 5, easy is 10, medium is 15, hard is 20, very hard 25, and nearly impossible 30 — and if the result beats that number, you succeed. (The DC is often set by existing conditions in the rules or for a monster, so the DM is rarely just pulling this number out of his or her butt.)
Pretty simple.
Best of all, D&D sums up beneficial or detrimental circumstances — darkness, getting sand kicked into your eyes, special combat maneuvers that set you up to surprise or double-team an opponent with the help of an ally, ambushing opponents from a hiding spot — through advantage (rolling a second d20 and taking the better result) or disadvantage (rolling a second d20 and taking the worse result). You can’t have both advantage and disadvantage (they negate each other), and getting multiple sources of either doesn’t “stack” in some way: you either have advantage, disadvantage, or you roll straight-up, that’s it.
The various Skills are technically available to everyone, but your class (and maybe your race) and your Background (which is sort of like a former occupation, already filled in for the pregenerated characters) tells you which ones you are better at. You also have Saving Throws, which are just ability checks that represent reflexive defenses against certain types of attacks, traps, spells, or environmental factors like poison gas, falling off the edge of a cliff, or the like.
All of that may sound complicated, but really you’re just getting a list of things you are cool at, and the Proficiency Bonus you add to any rolls is the same for every character at every level (+2 up through level 4, +3 at level 5, and so on up to level 20, which doesn’t appear in this Starter Set anyway). The only true variable here is your Ability modifiers and whether or not you are actually Proficient in a given skill or saving throw.
For reference, the skills (and the Ability Score modifier you’d add to rolls using them) are:
*Athletics (based on Strength)
*Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth (all based on Dexterity)
*Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion (Intelligence)
*Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, and Survival (Wisdom)
*Deception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion (Charisma)
Constitution doesn’t get any skills, probably in some small part due to the fact that it forms the basis of some other traits, like a character’s Hit Points, or HP (how much damage they can take before being knocked out and potentially dying), and comes up as a saving throw quite often against things like poison, many spells, and a special check by spellcasters called a Concentration check that allows them to keep a spell effect in play even if they are getting beat on.
For those of you that have upgraded to the full Player’s Handbook, you’ll find that this chapter is an abbreviated version of the Introduction, followed by the Using Ability Scores chapter. The example of play is ever-so-slightly different in wording from the PHB, showing that it may have been an early edit, but otherwise this is almost a word-for-word reproduction.
2. Combat
The chapter on combat covers one of the most common occurrences in the Dungeons & Dragons game: a battle of wits and skill against opponents, often monstrous in nature, where you employ weapons — swords, axes, bows — and spells against them, and they try to get around your armor and shield (if any) or magical defenses to damage you. The rules are clearly spelled out, showing how the combat round works, how order (Initiative) is established so you know who goes when, and all the permutations attacks and damage available to all, as well as covering various special abilities and how they interact with all of this. In a quick 5 pages, you have everything you need to understand and run combat that can be both tactical and narrative.
Combat really boils down to ability checks like above, but instead of using skills you utilize the Proficiency Bonus you receive from being skilled with certain weapons or spells you employ. A character or monster’s Armor Class (AC) is the difficulty class for the rolls to determine if you hit them (or in some cases, like lots of spells, the opponent rolls a saving throw to avoid the spell’s effects). AC is often determined by armor, whether or not you have a shield equipped, and your Dexterity modifier, though spells, magic items, and the natural hide of some monsters can all modify it.
It should be noted that characters and monsters/Nonplayer Characters (NPCs) die a little differently. When a monster or NPC hits zero (0) hit points, they are dead, unless a DM (rarely) wants to make the call that a particularly dramatically important one follows the rules for Player Characters (PCs). For the PCs, they die at zero hit points only if there is damage leftover that equals or exceeds their hit point maximum. Otherwise, they go unconscious, and if the opponent was trying to kill them, they begin making a special saving throw called a Death Saving Throw on their following turn (unless they are healed of course!). This saving throw doesn’t get the usual Ability Score or Proficiency modifiers: it’s a straight d20 roll vs. a DC of 10, and you tally successes and failures each round until you get either 3 successes (you stabilize and are just out cold until healed) or 3 failures (grab a new character sheet, because your PC is dead!).
The only thing missing is taking the tactical nature of combat to the next level by adding a battle map or using a grid and miniatures to establish positioning, but the nature of the rules themselves — everything is measured in feet, most grids conform to 1? squares = 5 feet — sets players and DMs up to easily integrate those things without any loss of fidelity in the rules.
If you have the PHB, you’ll find this chapter is a word-for-word reproduction of the combat chapter. The only things the PHB adds are additional sidebars that elaborate on the using grids, describing actions and damage, more depth regarding interacting with objects during combat, and improvising actions. Basically, you get some pro tips and some expanded guidelines, but you’re only missing rules on mounted and underwater combat with the Starter Set (which are pretty easy to extrapolate from the system anyway).
3. Adventuring
The chapter on adventuring in the D&D game covers travel — a risky prospect in a world of fantasy monsters! — healing, experience rewards that boost your character’s ability by leveling them up (this covers Levels 1 through 5), and adventuring gear, including arms and armor. These may seem like disparate topics, but they show that the D&D game is not just one about killing monsters with karate kicks and maybe spells: it’s about being prepared to cross wild country to find new dungeons to loot, resting and restocking your gear so you can take on the next dragon.
This chapter pulls from Adventuring, Equipment, and a little from the Step-by-Step Characters (specifically Beyond 1st Level) chapters of the PHB. The text is pretty much verbatim, but it does skimp on deeper environmental/survival rules, the particulars of detailed overland movement (foraging, forced march, using mounts and vehicles), and that’s about it.
4. Spellcasting
This chapter covers the rules of casting spells and how the mechanics within spell statblocks work. Unlike some games, there’s never really a “check to see whether or not you cast the spell” because in D&D you pretty much just say it and it happens. However, the mechanics of each spell — the descriptions of which take up pages 24-31 — are pretty detailed in how a spell works.
For example, casting a spell like bless is going to effect three of your allies within 30 feet of you, and grants them +1d4 added to their attack rolls to hit an opponent or their saving throws to avoid some detrimental effect cast upon them. This benefit lasts as long as you concentrate on a spell up to 1 minute, so as long as you don’t cast a different “concentration” spell, or pass a check whenever you take damage, or avoid getting killed or incapacitated, you can keep the spell’s effects going. Meanwhile, a spell like magic missile immediately fires darts of energy at up three opponents within 120 feet, dealing 1d4+1 force damage (a special type of damage) with each missile; there’s no attack roll to hit the opponent, unlike some other spells, or when using a weapon like a bow or a sword to attack.
This section is word-for-word from the Spellcasting chapter in the PHB, though once again the PHB features a few more sidebars (such as one about the Forgotten Realms’ Weave explanation for magical power) or additional explanatory pictures (such as for the areas of effect, which get a fun diagram in the PHB). The spells in the Starter Set are pretty much word-for-word from the PHB, too, though admittedly I didn’t check every single word to see if they might have been earlier edits.
Appendix: Conditions
Referred to in some spells and on the pregenerated character sheets under certain special abilities are things called Conditions, which are like a “rider effect” that you place onto an opponent (or rarely an ally) that invokes certain mechanical benefits or hindrances for that character so long as they are affected by the condition. For example, a character suffering from the Poisoned condition has disadvantage on all of their attack rolls and ability checks so long as they remain Poisoned.
The best part of this Appendix is that it takes up only the very last, back page of the Starter Set Rulebook, meaning that you just flip the book over and you’ve got a reference for every condition right there. This makes it extremely useful during play.
The PHB features an Appendix for the conditions, but it includes several funny illustrations depicting victims of each condition. Spreading it over multiple pages like that, however, reduces some of the utility compared to the presentation here in the Starter Set.
Lost Mine of Phandelver
The Lost Mine of Phandelver is an exceptional adventure that will take several sessions of play (practically a mini-campaign) to complete, and offers an excellent walk-through of what D&D is all about. There are plenty of opportunities for combat, roleplaying encounters with NPCs and monsters, exploration of wilderness areas (admittedly the weakest link in the adventure), and a heap of advice issued via sidebars for using stealth, bluffing, disguises, and other means of completing quests or defeating opponents without necessarily having to raise your swords or cast combat spells.
The adventure follows this simple outline:
*Introduction. The party is hired by a dwarf named Gundren to drive a wagon of goods from Neverwinter to Phandalin, where they’ll meet him and his bodyguard Sildar and offload the supplies so he can sell them in town.
*Part 1: Goblin Arrows. On their way, the party finds Gundren’s ride got jacked (i.e. his horse was killed) and they track Sildar down to a goblin hideout (the first of two); the goblins sold Gundren off to someone else.
*Part 2: Phandalin. The party heads to the town of Phandalin, and discovers a bunch of bullies have taken the place over. They dispense some Wild West justice and figure out that there are bigger stakes at play.
*Part 3: The Spider’s Web. The party roams around the wilderness completing sidequests and gathering information on their enemy, soon discovering that Gundren had a map to an abandoned mine at Wave Echo Cave, but his captor — The Black Spider — is planning to take control of it.
*Part 4: Wave Echo Cave. The party heads into Wave Echo Cave to save Gundren and stop The Black Spider, but finds the place is a haunted site, hostile to everybody.
The Good
While fairly linear, this adventure provides a simple framework that actually has a lot going on, and will test the party with encounters of all types. The free-roaming nature of Part 3: The Spider’s Web opens up some cool, varied side quests and plenty of opportunity for the players to gain Experience Points (XP) for story-related successes and roleplaying encounters, rather than combat and “kill everything in sight” style of play, often known as “kick in the door” style.
The advice throughout is awesomesauce. The core stuff you need to run the adventure as a Dungeon Master is presented throughout when and where appropriate, so it’s not like you just have a story and are told to tell it to the players; you have all the rules and tools you need to adjudicate gameplay, combat, and roleplaying encounters as they crop up. Some sidebars tell you things like What the Goblins Know so if goblins are captured and interrogated you aren’t at a loss to figure out how far into the adventure you should have read but didn’t before the session.
Some other great sidebars and bits of advice:
*NPC Party Members, which explains what to do if and when Sildar (or other NPCs) might join the party for short spurts.
*Various sidebars or sections detailing how to roleplay various NPCs, especially in Phandalin, which can be almost completely a roleplay area rather than a combat area.
*Developments for various sections detailing what happens if the players fail, use stealth or disguises, and other methods of handling alternative or off-the-wall tactics.
The Bad
You know who doesn’t get roleplay notes? Gundren, the main guy that hires the party and that is the impetus for the adventure. Same with a green dragon involved in one of the side quests, which is kinda messed up given that this is game of Dungeons & DRAGONS.
Although there is a metric ton of roleplay notes throughout, there are some rules from the Dungeon Master’s Guide for determining and modifying NPC attitude that are not in the Starter Set, so there’s a decent amount of DM fiat in any non-combat encounter. A dick DM is going to play their NPCs as dicks, and there’s no mechanics to guide them, just some (admittedly very, very solid) advice.
The freeform section of the adventure often sacrifices good exploration-based encounters and rules for “let’s just move it along.” This leads to a few encounters where the party might get in over the head without much advice for the DM to rein things in, or other areas where exploration involves a string of ability checks with no interesting consequences for failure, retrying, or taking loads of time. Random encounters have existed in D&D for years as a pacing mechanic, and it is all but ignored in this section.
These are very minor nitpicks: the adventure is very, very strong overall, and these issues are not going to break it. They are easily ignored or remedied with a bare minimum of work. (We’ve even talked at length about this in other articles; see the Resources section down below!)
Additional Content
The adventure book closes out with a sampling of critters from the Monster Manual featuring all the creatures and opposing NPCs that crop up in the adventure, and a short list of magic items that the party can come across in their journeys through the various encounter locations. I won’t go into great depth here about individual entries, but suffice it to say that this stuff gives you enough to build your own adventures if you want, and is a good sample of the lower-end of the power cur that you’ll find in the complete game via the real Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide. (…or the D&D Basic Rules, for that matter.)
Pregenerated Characters
The following pregenerated characters each have a character sheet in the Starter Set (race/background/class):
*Human Noble Fighter
*Hill dwarf Soldier Cleric
*Lightfoot halfling Criminal Rogue
*High elf Acolyte Wizard
*Human Folk hero Fighter
You get to fill in the gender and name, but the backstory, personality traits, and everything else is already filled in for you, complete with explanatory text for all their special abilities, so the lack of character creation info in the Starter Set Rulebook won’t hold you back.
The back of each sheet includes the backstory in full, a quick explanation of your race, class and background (both how they fit into the world of D&D as well as the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure), and enough info on leveling up your character to reach Level 5. Sample names are also listed, so you can just pick one and go.
Also included is a blank character sheet for photocopying in case you’ve got players itching to build their own character with the D&D Basic Rules or the full rules from the Player’s Handbook.
Form (5/5)
The D&D Starter Set comes in a cardboard box reminiscent of RPGs of yesteryear and board games of…all years? It’s sturdy, mine withstanding 5 sessions of constant use and then untold sessions being loaded down with the hardcover Player’s Handbook and plenty of print outs and looseleaf notes. One corner ripped after I dumped about 10 pounds of books on it by accident, but that’s it; not too shabby. If you plan to haul other books with this box, it’s great because of the extra room, but if you don’t plan to do so, it’s just gonna eat up that much more shelf space.
Why you’re not buying more D&D books to toss in it is beyond me, though.
The two books come on thick, glossy paper that’s very sturdy; they are stapled in the seams, so they aren’t exactly winning awards on the binding, but the sturdiness of the paper suggests this won’t really compromise them. In fact, this setup helps the books lay flat so you can oogle the amazing artwork, fantastic Mike Schley map work, and reference rules or adventure material without wrestling with the book. The books are well organized, the table of contents all you need for navigation (except maybe for a few sidebars), and the adventure gives you everything you need to understand up-front, so you’re not left wondering what the hell an adventure is, what this one is about, or any other major details, something later adventures (Out of the Abyss, I’m looking at you!) didn’t learn from.
Character Sheets
The character sheets are thick cardstock, and are also well laid out for easy referencing for the players. I could totally see using them as-is, but they are so nice I’d suggest photocopying them or just downloading the PDF and printing it out. Wizards has released more pregens through Dungeon Masters Guild, and I have a couple in my FREE STUFF! section.
The blank character sheet is the generic Adventurer’s League version (available here as well), and is on a glossy, thick paper similar to the rulebook and adventure, which makes it absolutely useless for daily use, but it’ll last forever, so you can photocopy the hell outta it for the rest of your natural life if that’s what you wanna do.
Dice
The dice are a solid blue color with white numbers that are large and easy to read. Mine didn’t roll particularly well, allowing my players to steamroll through Part 1: Goblin Arrows of Lost Mine of Phandelver, but them’s the breaks.
As I looked to get a group of adventures I gathered two friends (one who plays in my other campaign and one who has never played before but showed interest) and a random from my local city (Grand Rapids, MI) subreddit and to get ready we followed the standard dungeon from Matthew Colville’s youtube video #3 running your first dungeon to get to know their characters and to wet my feet in DMing. As I planned on getting my adventure ready I knew there were things I was missing. So I looked into and found the DND 5e Starter Set.
The Starter set comes in a cardboard box which is fairly large but can be doubled as a dice tray and has four main parts. A starter set rule book, a set of 6 dice, some generated character sheets, and Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure book. While on Amazon you can get it for under 14 dollars, if you get it from a local game shop it has an MSRP of $19.99.
Starter Set
As I had the Player’s Handbook already I just glanced over the rule book but it included the general rules for starting a game along with some of the spells for the classes of Wizards and Clerics. While this won’t be what you need to get to level 20 its great for starting off a game in the 5th Edition world. I gave it to one of my players as this is his first time playing and he’s the only one who does not have the core rule book, and it’ll let him understand some of the things beyond just his class.
The dice set includes six dice (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12 and D20) in a metallic blue solid color. I have still not opened my set as I already have gotten my set of dice and a random bag of dice to have extras. I noticed in the reviews on Amazon some people mentioned getting 2 D10, but mine did not include this. When I started I got a similar set with two d10 for about 5.99 for a local game shop just to put a price on what you’d pay for something similar to this. I honestly will probably just give these to my buddy who doesn’t have a set of dice, wait until we add another player who may not have some dice to use, or throw these in my bag of dice.
The Character sheets include two fighters, a rogue, a cleric, a wizard and a blank sheet to make your own hero. While my adventures did not use any of these sheets, they would be perfect for a new player. For the pre-gens they have everything they’d need to play the character up to level 5 with less customization then you would have using the Player’s Handbook (They pick your level three skills for the rogue and the fighters and the arcane tradition/domain for the wizard/cleric). The only thing I think these sheets are lacking is a spell sheet for the caster characters.
The final part to the starter set and the reason I bought this was for the adventure The Lost Mines of Phandelver. This is a 65 page book on an adventure bringing the characters to about 5th level. The adventure itself is broken in two 4 different parts; Goblin Arrows, Phandalin, The Spider’s Web and Wave Echo Cave. While I haven’t fully read (at this point of the review) I’ve read the first two parts and it’s fantastic. I’m very new to DMing, but this is perfect start. It starts off letting the characters move and understand the world around them, and brings them to a town where they can start to sandbox themselves into the adventure. For a DM it gives you help on how to roleplay the NPCs, what type of experience to give the players, descriptions on rooms and setting up scenes. This is the real meat of the starter set. If you don’t plan on running this I would recommend just getting the Players Handbook, The DMG and a set of dice and go from there.
Top reviews from other countries
Absolut empfehlenswert.
Paper and Pen Spiele sind "so tun als ob" wie die Phantasiespiele, die man als Kind im Kindergarten gespielt hat - bzw. wie interaktive PC-Abenteuerspiele. Eine Rahmenhandlung wird vorgegeben (man kann sich auch selbst eine Geschichte ausdenken) und die Spieler begeben sich unter Anleitung eines Game Masters in das Abenteuer. Die Würfel dienen dazu, vorhandene Fähigkeiten zu "evaluieren" - festzulegen, wie stark, schnell, gescheit, geschickt, überzeugend usw. - ein Charakter ist. Die Charakter-Sheets beschreiben die grundlegenden Charakterzüge einer Spielfigur und dessen Herkunft/Rasse und Klasse (Oger, Zwerg, Halbling, Elf, Mensch, Magier usw.) sowie seine Fähigkeiten und Begabungen.
Das Set ist hervorragend für den Einstieg. Mehr muss der Anfänger nicht haben.
Ganz klare Kaufempfehlung! Super
VENTAJAS:
- LA CAMPAÑA: No puedo resaltar suficientemente que este es el motivo por el que hay que comprar el producto. Es una campaña muy completa que tomará al menos una docena de horas en terminar.
- La campaña es perfecta para nuevos jugadores porque contiene una buena mezcla de combates y de interacciones sociales que irán incentivando a nuevos jugadores a hacer más roleplaying.
- Del mismo modo, no sólo aprenden los jugadores, sino también un DM que la vaya guiando aprenderá sobre todos los conceptos técnicos involucrados en guiar un campaña de D&D.
- Los jugadores predeterminados ayudan a entrar directo en el juego y vienen con contexto y guía de cómo nivelarlos.
- Las reglas básicas están bien estructuradas y en realidad no son tan "básicas" en que se comparan mucho con las reglas completas en los otros libros. Es decir, no tendrás que aprender de algún mecanismo oscuro o nuevo si continuas en otra campaña.
DESVENTAJAS:
- Los manuales son de buena calidad y tienen buen arte pero sólo son hojas con grapas.
- Como contraste en tener a los personajes pregenerados, no hay ninguna referencia de cómo crear uno.
- No hay ningún mapa externo al manual de la aventura ni vienen tokens. Esto no es realmente algo malo porque D&D se puede jugar perfectamente en la imaginación de los jugadores pero a veces los nuevos jugadores aprecian tener más elementos de un "típico juego de mesa" como un tablero y minifiguras. Si esto es muy importante para tí, te recomiendo comprar la caja de Pathfinder.
Ich spiele seit weit über 30 Jahren Rollenspiele (naja, mit Unterbrechungen und über Zeiten auch wenig), und ein Trupp totaler Neulinge will einfach mal PnP ausprobieren. Da mir DSA zu kompliziert war, wollte ich was anderes. DnD sprang mir ins Auge, habe ich vor 30 Jahren zuletzt gespielt. Also ab in den Laden und alle Regelbücher sowie ein Abenteuer für die 5. Edition gekauft.
Problem: Das waren über 1000 Seiten und völlig neu in dem System war das nicht zu bewältigen. Jedenfalls nicht in den 2 Wochen, die ich bis zur ersten Sitzung hatte. Auch nicht mit Querlesen.
Also die Box hier erstanden, und siehe da. Alles drin. Alle nötigen Regeln auf 32 Seiten, man versteht auf Anhieb alles. Und dazu 64 Seiten Abenteuer. Es ist ein ultra-klassisches Oldschool-Abenteuer, alles drin, um Anfänger zu begeistern. Es ist gut ausgearbeitet und verlangt nicht, dass der Spielleiter sich aus einem groben Rahmen gefälligst selbst sein Abenteuer zimmern soll. Es spielt in den Forgotten Realms in der Nähe von Neverwinter. Genau da, wo man hin will.
Ich habe jeden Spieler einen eigenen Helden erschaffen lassen nach dem großen Regelwerk. In der Box sind vorgefertigte Helden drin. Die kann man ohne weiteres nehmen, aber wir fanden eigene Charaktere doch noch etwas überlegen. Wenn man schon das große Regelwerk auch hat. War irgendein Wert unklar, haben wir einfach den von dem ähnlichsten vorgefertigten Charakter genommen. Funktionierte perfekt. Würfel sind übrigens auch noch dabei.
Der Spieleabend lief super, es wird wohl eine dauerhafte Gruppe draus.
Ich persönlich habe mich ziemlich in DnD verliebt, im Vergleich zu DSA ist alles tausendmal einfacher, schneller, wendiger. 10 Seiten Kampfregeln, und man vermisst nichts. Pro Angriff 2mal Würfeln, nicht bis zu 12mal mit so viel Rechnerei, dass man sich früher oder später wünscht, man dürfe bald mal wieder eine Steuererklärung abgeben. Außerdem ist das Feeling so herrlich Oldschool. Die Welt(en) ist/sind viel offener und nicht so zubetoniert. Man fühlt sich viel freier. Da werde ich viel Zeit mit verbringen.
Spieler als auch als Dungeon Master. Zweites am längsten und intensivsten sogar mit
vielen Rollenspielertreffs, wo ich große Gruppen leiten konnte.
Jetzt, 2017 wollte ich wieder einsteigen. Ich fand heraus, dass kaum einer mehr AD&D spielt, sondern
dass D&D 5e (fifth edition) das ist, was man spielen "muss". Ich habe mir für einige hundert € dafür alle
wesentlichen Bücher, Ergänzungen und Sets gekauft.
Nun wollte ich meine Familie ranführen (Frau und Kinder), ohne zu viel zu verlangen mit einem
direkten Einstieg ins Spiel. Genau das bietet das Starter-Set. Es bietet vorgefertigte Charaktere,
ein schönes Abenteuer mit spannenden Handlungen und Orten an der Sword Coast, von denen
man aus auch noch lange nach Beendigung dieses Abenteuers in weitere Geschichten starten
kann. Sehr schöne Karten und glaubhafte Non-Player-Charaktere ermöglichen den Spielern spannende
Interaktionen und Herausforderungen. Als Spielleiter macht es Spaß, die Welt um die Spieler
zum Leben zu erwecken und in die vielen Rollen zu schlüpfen.
Wem der Einstieg gefällt, der sollte sich danach die Basis Regelbücher besorgen (Players Handbook,
Monster Manual und Dungeon-Master Guide - die Bücher hießen auch damals schon so ...). Dann
kann es richtig los gehen. Lebenslanger Spielspaß ist garantiert.
We opted to use the pre-written character sheets as they have some hooks into the adventure. We also tweaked them, because the fighter could not bring herself to play a lawful good character, and the cleric did not want to be a dwarf. Fine. Done.
My biggest problem was trying to stay ahead of the action, so I could pay attention to what the adventurers were up to rather than spending all my time flipping pages from the map to the narrative to the monster stats and back. Plus we drew up maps on grid paper for the players to help them orient on their locations better.
So far we have had three sessions that go from noon to six on Sundays, and I expect we won't finish for another three sessions or more. We are all learning together and having fun: my husband, son-in-law, three grandchildren aged 15 to 22 and me. Oh, and we provide dinner and lots of snacks!
Seriously, this is a really great package and is a bargain at less than twenty dollars.

















