Want to take a look inside the upcoming boxed set, Heroes of the Borderlands? D&D Beyond has a preview of a big new piece.
Heroes of the Borderlands, D&D’s big new starter box, is due to release in just under two weeks—September 16th—and it is set to be the biggest starter set ever. Part of that is the sheer variety of physical components in the box. It’s as much a board game as it is an RPG. On purpose, mind you.
One of the goals of the boxed set is to make D&D as accessible as possible to new players. To that end, there are a number of physical components to take the edge off, as it were. And the folks at D&D Beyond have shown off what you can expect from one of the biggest/most important pieces of Heroes of the Borderlands: the Class Boards.
Heroes of the Borderlands – Class Boards Preview
Okay, first things first, what the heck is a class board? In a nutshell, it’s a replacement for a character sheet that spells out exactly what each element is instead of relying on you remembering what you leafed through in the quickstart manual. They’re tailored to class (and as you’ll see later, subclass) and have much of the most readily available info up front and visible.
And, they make use of physical components—in this case, tokens and cards—to help you keep track of things like “what armor am I wearing” or “concentrating on a spell”. They also help reframe the idea of spell slots/spell levels, which is a perennial burden for anyone teaching someone new about D&D. 1st level spells vs. 1st level characters vs. cantrips are always where people stumble the most. But, look at this image from D&D Beyond:
A few things immediately jump out. First and foremost, the simplification of attributes and their modifiers. At least on the Heroes of the Borderland Class Boards, you won’t have to worry about which number is the important one. Which, again, if you’ve had a complete newbie at your table, is a struggle you’ll know well. “Roll a Charisma check” often leads to a discussion about how yes, your Bard has a 16 Charisma but you’re actually only adding +3.
Funnily enough, this is a move that many other systems have already embraced. Daggerheart is perhaps the most recent game. But it’s a tradition that goes back to at least 3rd Edition and the rise of Silhouette, which again, just stripped character stats down to the relevant modifier. All you really need to know is “this stat has +3″—at least for the first three levels.
Once you get to higher levels, more information becomes necessary. Especially in the 2024 rules. Ironically enough the 5.5E ruleset makes more use of granular attribute numbers – because most of the general feats now come with an extra +1. So the common play is to try and start with a 17 in a stat to hit 18 by 4th-level. But you only get to 3rd-level in Heroes of the Borderlands, so that just doesn’t come up, really.
Board of Playing a 1st-level Hero? Level Up With Choices
Of course, you do get to level up. And you get to make a few different choices as well. As you saw in the first picture of the Cleric Board from D&D Beyond, every board has places to keep track of all the things that are likely to change. There’s a slot for an “armor” card, a place for a weapon, and a place to keep “power tokens” to keep track of your spell slots. There’s even a sideboard that lets you keep track of things like your species and background.
And you can see all of that in action when you level up. Again, having the physical component makes it easy—all you have to do is flip over the board and bam, you’ve hit 2nd-level. Need more hit points? Just grab more HP tokens. Put more Power Tokens in your new spell slots and even unlock your Channel Divinity.
I do think it’s a little strange that they don’t have a spot on this board for this particular Cleric’s bread and butter—the Sacred Flame cantrip—which is going to be more useful than the Mace. But perhaps that’s in the hand of spell cards that you’ll get, also included in the box.
But you can see where the upgrades come into play. Even moreso when you take a look at the shift to level 3. Moving to 3rd-level is probably the biggest change—you get a new level of spells, as well as a choice of subclass. But as you can see, there are specialized subclass boards as well. In the D&D Beyond article, we learn that there’s one for Life Domain and one for Light Domain.
Here we get a look at the Life Domain Cleric board. You can see the Chain Shirt has een replaced with Breastplate, Spiritual Weapon is on display—and it signals the use of a token you’ll reach for whenever you cast the spell. You also get your level 2 spell slots with their own row of power tokens.
All told, the physical elements seem pretty straightforward. I imagine it will speed up play once you get everything set up because you’ll have the tactile stuff to play with. It’s nothing new—people have made spell counters and other character trackers for years now. You can find all sorts of tactile accessories to physically represent your special little guy at the tabletop. But having a bunch in one big box for newbies feels like it might help people “get it” faster and maybe even set a good precedent.
At any rate, this is only part of the box! Look for more as we get closer to release date.
Heroes of the Borderlands releases September 16th!
Don’t Miss:
Read more at this site