This is the D&D Essentials Kit box set. I am a bit less psyched about this. Gonna be honest, it literally stinks. Like, bad. I think it is the ink, but I actually had to let it air out before I took a closer look.
What’s in the box? A lot of dice (the standard set of 7, plus an extra D20 and 3 extra D6), a rulebook that covers character creation and advancement through 6th level, an introductory adventure called Dragon of Icespire Peak, a screen, some character sheets, a deck of reference cards (including status effect flash cards, which I like a lot), a little fold-up box to keep the cards in and a poster map (that old chestnut) of the Sword Coast.
The rule book is what you’d expect, though aside of new art, the layout is pretty dense and no frills. The adventure is a nice little sandbox. A white dragon has taken up residence in the region and upset the local balance, forcing a number of other monsters to come into conflict in various ways with a mining town. Each of the dozen+ mini-scenarios is tied to a different local area of interest, so by the end of the book, players will have thoroughly explored a nicely developed region. I like it overall – it has a good variety that will put new players through a broad range of standard D&D situations.
All told, I’d say this is better than the old Starter Set (though I honestly don’t remember much about the adventure included in that box). It is certainly more robust in the variety and quality of its contents, which is reflected in its (still reasonable) price of $25. It doesn’t seem like they are going to phase out the Starter Set, so I don’t know why they felt the need to have two entry level boxes on the market (when confronted by both on store shelves, which does the novice buy?). This strikes me as a very 2E strategy – TSR put out countless beginner sets, most of which met with lukewarm responses.
We’ll have to see how well this one does. It is on sale exclusively at Target now, and will see general release on September 3.
