Check out today's sponsor, Dscryb!: www.dscryb.com/nerdimmersion Use the code NERDIMMERSION at checkout get 10% off a subscription! 🦇 Pickup a copy of Van Richten's for yourself (affiliate link): amzn.to/2ZIbayL 🦇 Top 10 Things to Know Before Buying Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft" 10. Cyre 1313, The Mourning Rail is an Eberron Domain of Dread 02:54 9. No "real" Appendix/Index 03:37 8. Only 1 new magic item 04:07 7. "Other Domains" are just small information blurbs 04:45 6. No stats for The Bagman 06:02 5. No stats for the Darklords* 07:18 4. Updates to Subclasses while minor, are impactful 09:12 3. The Adventure is for levels 1-3 10:31 2. No dual typing/updates to Gothic Lineages 11:09 1. Chapter 4, the Horror Toolkit, is the best part 11:59
The bagman actually does have stats! Its used as an example for building your own horror monster. Its more or less a troll with the amorphous, grappler and alien mind traits. EDIT: In case you see this, Ted, it's on page 225
Mistfactor Press is creating a book with stats for every darklord. The current count is 105. The book will also have magic items and a bestiary. We've been working on it for while and hopefully it'll be out in a few months.
You make good point with higher levels in a horror setting. I have been running Ravenloft since the early 90s and almost always cap my campaign out at level 10. I also keep the magic items at an extreme limit and tend to lean into wondrous items to force the players to rely on wits and ingenuity rather than just over powering gear to solve problems.
At around 11:29. Ted is talking about how he likes the changes to the gothic lineages and he keeps looking in the corner. The reason he is looking in the corner is because Jeremy Crawford is just off screen pointing a gun to Ted to make sure Ted says good things about the book.
Why are these books just going down in quality so hard now? Is it really so much more time, effort, and money to just add a fucking proper appendix? If you're going to have all these things in the book and their statblocks anyway, instead of putting them on a random page, just stick them in the back of the book. But I guess since they don't even have statblocks..... I was excited about the whole more books thing, but that is winding down now.
from the sound of it the dnd team really played the dark domains parts. the domains was the biggest draw for me to buy the book. damn, i will wait for more content before buying it. id rather they just make a few dread domains and properly fill them out rather then 20+ domains with just short blurbs.
You know, Ravenloft in 2E had no problem instilling that sense of horror in the setting, regardless of the PC's level. The books gave you rules for how to make monsters more interesting and challenging, physically, but the setting was really all about the narrative. Ravenloft used to be an investigation and mystery focused setting, wherein combat was discouraged and mood could trump rules. Everything I've seen has suggested that this new approach to Ravenloft has largely forgotten the lessons of 2E and decided to make this more of an action setting with horror elements. The Survivor rules sound interesting, at least.
I was very on the fence about this book, but between you and Todd Kenreck’s coverage I’m starting to see ways to use this book outside of a horror focused setting.
I found it kinda hard to get through, honestly. I came here ready for some quick-fire bullet points, so the slow-burn descriptive text and sponsor was just a brick wall for my momentum.
Looking forward to reading that Survival portion. You’re take on playing the ‘Survivor’ part and then start the level one class is an awesome idea Great review and content thank you
Well the Monster Manual is one of the 3 core books and it's anticipated that everyone has that. So you can just use that if you want, but if you want to use the "truest" version of Strahd, you'd need to find his Curse of Strahd stat block. Though there are many "improved" or "revamped" versions of his stat blocks online
Unpopular Opinion: Darklords not having statblocks can be a good thing because a major flaw in DnD horror has always been the "If it bleeds we can kill it and everything bleeds"-deal that comes with being a fantasy game about legendary heroes. If it has a statblock, it will die. Let Darklords be the sinister overlords they cannot hope to confront, it's like giving a statblock to Asmodeus, IMO.
I must say, i was really looking forward to this book and right now i am kind of disappointed, might not even get it after all. If they make a follow-up adventure book (something similar to candlekeep mysteries, adventures for some of the domains of dread) then i.would like this book a lot more
I'm gonna just come out and say it: it sounds like they spent 3 pages shooting out lazy concept pitches *specifically* so they could say they had 30. Just say 8 and use those pages for even just a Bagman statblock and an index, and you'd honestly have a much better final product. EDIT NOW THAT I HAVE READ THE BOOK MYSELF I retract part of my initial statement, but stand by my claim that this was misleading marketing. Most of the other domains are good story seeds that definitely deserved to be in the book. Cyre 1313, Invidia, and Odaire are places I REALLY want to take my players to. However, I still have serious issue with their prominent place in the marketing, because pitching them as 30 worlds is a bit of a "lie through the truth." They are simply not the reason you should buy this book. I also really like the way the Bagman was implemented as an example of how to twist a classic monster into a new thing, but it should have been advertised as such, rather than as the new creature that Dragon+ stated it would be (based on the article talking about it's new stats, I personally theorize that the Bagman *was* intended as a standalone monster, but was cut late in development for some reason). TL;DR, it's a great book, but not for the reasons the marketing tells you.
The Survivor section reminds me of a combination of NPC classes from 3.X and the d20 Modern Basic Classes. The Survivor Talents bit seems like it was pulled directly from d20 Modern. As someone who has wanted a 5e version of d20 Modern, I think this may allow me to run an Urban Arcana or Shadow Chasers game again!
Half way through the video and it sounds like wizards of the coast have been really lazy with this book. 1 magic item, missing loads of stat blocks, no appendix. I'm really starting to prefer third party content like stuff from kobold press, nord gaming or MCDM.
I admit that I have been feeling its high time to me start limit my purchases of wotc books even I might not juse candlekeep stuff is feeling just lack cluster filler content for past two releases. 3 party content seem to start to offer far ore interesting and creative material to fill in 5e.
@@FrostWolfPack exactly my feeling. Check out 'ultimate bestiary revenge of the horde'. Its a fantastic book for fleshing out those lower level enemies like goblins, kobolds, orcs etc. Gives loads of really fun lore as well as loads of stat blocks for each creature so you can keep them interesting and challenging as your players level.
The bag man does not have a state block, that does not mean you can't fight it. It can be an evil creature killing people, when the players find out it is the bag man, they then have to preform a ritual to banish it. It's best used in an investigation adventure, find out what's killing people before everyone dies.
I'm playing a reborn bladesinger who was a drow, but then his soul was put into the body of the human adventurer he killed by splitting his face open. Got a nasty stitching scar that if it comes undone will result in his skin and face separating. The amnesia part is great, because without most of his drow past reinforcing his evil alignment, he's a really chill dude if not a bit macabre.
With you on the planescape but I think they could do dragonlance really well. Spelljammer probably could work also. They probably would add more punk to it
Hey so I'm running CoS for the first time, and I've heard a lot of bad talk about Death House. In your opinion Ted, would the adventure listed in VRGtE function as a good substitute for Death House? Or would it not fit in the village of Barovia?
I'd have to read through it more to give you a true answer. I do love The Death House. If you want to see how it went for us, check it out here: ua-cam.com/play/PLctLmxHQvM3qaNkbU0gjIWW8z4-UNCPcW.html episodes 4-8 I think are Death House specific, but the intro/character stuff for the party is in 1-3
Yeah.... there are a few real bummers here. Stats for the dark lords was a must. And considering how they were advertising how many realms they had, and several are just blurbs is disappointing. But, they must have wanted to keep this at Campaign size book rather than Icewind Dale size book.
Some of the things on your list kinda make me not want to purchase it....I was hoping to use parts of the book for my campaign once my group finished candlekeep but without dread lords not sure what can really challenge a level 16 party
you can always reskin dyrrn for other aberration, niv-mizzet for dragons or choose any of the millions of demonlords to get your darklord fix lol though at this lvl i'd be throwing multiple spellcasters at my party for big encounters
Jokes on you Ted I already pre-ordered. I'm just kidding, I love your content and this was still helpful as it let me know essentially what's in the book.
I would like to point out that they did basically the same thing with Xanathar, Slarkrethel, and Klauth by taking the generic monster and adding on to it. Xanathar is just a Beholder with 3 magic rings, Slarkrethel is a Kraken who has Spellcasting and has Legendary Resistance, and Klauth is a Red Dragon with 2 magic wands and a magic ring in addition to having Spellcasting.
Wow, it sounds like this book has more in the way of flavor than it does substance. So many things with no stats, one re-skinned magical item, etc. Guess I'll wait for a buddy to buy this and read it like I would a novel. Bummer.
@@Lycaon1765 You're kinder than I am. I don't buy WotC products anymore, and wont resume doing so until the creative content improves and the socio-political bias is removed. Almost everything I have from 2E backward was of much better quality, viewpoint-neutral, and conversion is no big deal.
@@spaceranger7683 YE I am feeling that right now WotC content is been droping allot of guality and filled bit too much semi juseless political views. 3 party content I had recently ofers far more than wizards stuff resently.
Awesome video, I'm real excited for Van Richten's now. I feel like that Survivor section could be really good for a one-shot or a short, maybe 4-5 session campaign, I would love to run something like that with my group. Feels like it would get a bit tedious if you went for too long though.
The art for Vladeska Drakov has her warring leather armor similar to WH40K with the Blood Ravens. Run Falkovnia as a Warhammer style setting. It’s Interesting with the universes beyond and MTG commander decks with WH40K. Not sure I’m the first to notice, but everyone should know!
Damn this sounds like they really dropped the ball here. No stat blocks for the main villains of each domain is just unacceptable in my opinion. This just feels wrong and almost like it was falsely advertised.
Wasn't theros super good tho? I mean it had a whole fucking system for piety when previously we had only a paragraph explaining it. And 10+ examples of gods and their piety rewards. As well as monsters (idk if it had an appendix, but I believe it did) WITH statblocks. And maps, more character options, etc. This book has basically nothing other than lore and a few custom lineages 🤮
@@Lycaon1765 right. Maybe “bad Theros” is a better description. But you point out exactly what I mean. Theros gave robust systems and details (and stat blocks) for a different campaign setting and this... ISNT any of that. Except perhaps the fear/stress system.
I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the dark lords but I will say that Strahds original “stat block” was just a vampire spellcaster with minor changes, so I’m not sure what people were expecting.
WOTC has no excuse for this book’s quality and quantity (or lack thereof). No Dark Lords stats? No new magic items? Reskins? This is honestly greedy and lazy. Do they think we won’t notice this shit? This massive drop off that’s been happening over these last few years? This is pathetic. The third party supplements and homebrew is what is keeping 5e afloat at this point. I cannot imagine how shitty the Dark Sun campaign setting would be under their management considering what they’ve done with psionics and Ravenloft. I’m going to switch over to *Last Arc: Tactics Analogue* once it has come out. Link to the official playtest server: discord.gg/BmYxs5sE
I was highly anticipating this book because I’m running a shadowfell game soon. Hearing how lazy and without substance this book is has completely changed my mind.
Chapter 4 sounds like a tonne of fun. Shame about no Dread Lord stat blocks, and shame no Bagman stat block! But I'm definitely gunna use Chapter 4 for my character in another campaign!!!
There is actually bagman stats, there's just no bagman stat _block._ It's detailed on page 225 - it's a troll with the grappler trait from mimics, the amorphous trait from the black pudding, and the new alien mind trait.
I am feeling I am not going to by this book for one chapters content. I got the feeling that here is not really much really good amount of stuff to be jused in own games. Hell even some of the more resent adventures has more something juse full.
@@FrostWolfPack Don't know what you mean. The book has 2 subclasses, 3 races/lineages, new mechanics for horror games, an entire bestiary, and an adventure for low-level characters. That's a lot. But also remember that it's a setting book. It's made for people running the setting. If you don't have an interest in running Ravenloft, then yeah, you're not going to get much out of it.
@@paradoxxis8612 Part of its is the page count. If I am going to juse maybe 2-3 chapters or those acsualy offers desent idea content. I feel the books is not going to offer more than maybe the chapter of how to play horror and some beast. Even I am often after lore what was explained 30 dark realms but over half of them are nomuch than small paragraf of text. Loses my interest qiute bit.
yeah guess this shock mount is also mount and no shock. Time to switch or reattach the mic to the wall. I'm trying to cut out as much as I can with UA-cam editing. We'll see how that goes.
So as a review channel, how are you not compromised by receiving a free, preview copy from a corporate interest? Sounds like a jumbled, lazily written, mess.
Hard to tell, but it sounds less crunchy than Theros, Ravnica and Wildmount were. Those unlocked some nice creatures and items in my D&D Beyond. So, no stat block for the dark lords. How is the general bestiary. The TOC seems to indicate that there may be a decent inventory in there.
The Nosferatu is a solid CR 8. It has Sunlight Hypersensitivity, Spider Climb, and Regeneration. It can make 2 claw swipes and a bite; the bite drains HP like a Vampire's does. The Nosferatu can also regurgitate blood in a 15 foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 16 Con save or take 4d8 Necrotic Damage and be unable to gain hit points for 1 minute. On a success it takes half damage and suffers no additional effects.
Well this is upsetting. Instead of asking for surveys for just UAs they need to start surveying how people feel about how the quality of content is going down hill. There's to many die hard fans of dnd to not buy.
is the rumor true? I heard WOTC are taking out the sleep spell from all past, current and future editions of Dungeons and Dragons. This is to force everyone to stay woke.
"Top 10 Things to Know Before Buying Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft" Besides your top 10, they changed the gender of 3 Darklords (woke), removed the darklords Lord Soth and Adam (bad change), renamed a domain to be woke, changed the picture of darklord Ankhtepot to be woke, the lands are not connected anymore (very lazy and poor writing), removed many Domains and did not even mention them (very lazy and poor writing), and earlier they made the Vistani woke already. And Im sure I missed a lot. How about NOT buying Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft? This book is rubbish and doesnt deserve to be called Ravenloft.
@@videogollumer There is only one official 3e Dragonlance book, the Dragonlance campaign setting, and there is not anything about an escape by Lord Soth from Ravenloft in that one.
Check out today's sponsor, Dscryb!: www.dscryb.com/nerdimmersion
Use the code NERDIMMERSION at checkout get 10% off a subscription!
🦇 Pickup a copy of Van Richten's for yourself (affiliate link): amzn.to/2ZIbayL 🦇
Top 10 Things to Know Before Buying Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft"
10. Cyre 1313, The Mourning Rail is an Eberron Domain of Dread 02:54
9. No "real" Appendix/Index 03:37
8. Only 1 new magic item 04:07
7. "Other Domains" are just small information blurbs 04:45
6. No stats for The Bagman 06:02
5. No stats for the Darklords* 07:18
4. Updates to Subclasses while minor, are impactful 09:12
3. The Adventure is for levels 1-3 10:31
2. No dual typing/updates to Gothic Lineages 11:09
1. Chapter 4, the Horror Toolkit, is the best part 11:59
Hey, looks like you got the time stamps jumbled for number 3 and number 4, love your stuff!!
@@nedal22 fixed!
@@NerdImmersion Thank you :)
Can someone drop a link to Ted's Bagman video please, I can't find it.
@@Undeadking42o ua-cam.com/video/-SVHFrNgxHg/v-deo.html
The bagman actually does have stats! Its used as an example for building your own horror monster. Its more or less a troll with the amorphous, grappler and alien mind traits.
EDIT: In case you see this, Ted, it's on page 225
A lot of reviewers have missed this.
@@SadBoi_1066 The reason is that it's not given a proper _statblock,_ just saying "take a troll and add this."
Dave Strider to the rescue
Mistfactor Press is creating a book with stats for every darklord. The current count is 105. The book will also have magic items and a bestiary. We've been working on it for while and hopefully it'll be out in a few months.
You know you’re doing a bad job when third party products are more professional.
@@theatheistbear3117 Calling this book a “bad job” is ridiculous when you see what else is in this book.
@@BryantR372 it's a trash reboot of a fantastic campaign setting.
@@midnightgreen8319 Agreed
You make good point with higher levels in a horror setting. I have been running Ravenloft since the early 90s and almost always cap my campaign out at level 10. I also keep the magic items at an extreme limit and tend to lean into wondrous items to force the players to rely on wits and ingenuity rather than just over powering gear to solve problems.
At around 11:29. Ted is talking about how he likes the changes to the gothic lineages and he keeps looking in the corner. The reason he is looking in the corner is because Jeremy Crawford is just off screen pointing a gun to Ted to make sure Ted says good things about the book.
Oh, hush!
Why are these books just going down in quality so hard now? Is it really so much more time, effort, and money to just add a fucking proper appendix? If you're going to have all these things in the book and their statblocks anyway, instead of putting them on a random page, just stick them in the back of the book.
But I guess since they don't even have statblocks.....
I was excited about the whole more books thing, but that is winding down now.
Ted is making me save money for about 4 years now. Love you man! Cheers xp
I can't wait to live out my Warcraft Death Knight fantasies as a Reborn Undead Warlock!
Love your miniatures man. Any chance you’re planning some minis to go along with the book release?
@@ungabungacaveman9021 I got a lil' something planned for it in June :)
from the sound of it the dnd team really played the dark domains parts. the domains was the biggest draw for me to buy the book. damn, i will wait for more content before buying it.
id rather they just make a few dread domains and properly fill them out rather then 20+ domains with just short blurbs.
There are domains that are spelt out, but its 17 of the total 30+ domains
Search out the 2nd edition Domain guides. They are much better.
You know, Ravenloft in 2E had no problem instilling that sense of horror in the setting, regardless of the PC's level. The books gave you rules for how to make monsters more interesting and challenging, physically, but the setting was really all about the narrative. Ravenloft used to be an investigation and mystery focused setting, wherein combat was discouraged and mood could trump rules. Everything I've seen has suggested that this new approach to Ravenloft has largely forgotten the lessons of 2E and decided to make this more of an action setting with horror elements. The Survivor rules sound interesting, at least.
I was very on the fence about this book, but between you and Todd Kenreck’s coverage I’m starting to see ways to use this book outside of a horror focused setting.
I'd watch a series of videos of Ted reading out cool descriptive text
Double the price with some haunting music in the background. Would be awesome
noted
A top 10 or any other video with another dscryb sponsor would be so cool! I loved the top 10 where Ted did a few select monster descriptions
I found it kinda hard to get through, honestly. I came here ready for some quick-fire bullet points, so the slow-burn descriptive text and sponsor was just a brick wall for my momentum.
Looking forward to reading that Survival portion. You’re take on playing the ‘Survivor’ part and then start the level one class is an awesome idea
Great review and content thank you
Recently found your channel and been loving the back log of videos. Looking forward to more content.
welcome! Yeah there's something like 1800+ videos on the channel, thought not 100% of them are about D&D
No dark lord stats is a bit of a bummer. Still plan to terrify my party with the bag man.
IKR? The Dark Lords *are* their realms. Not including them is like not including psionics in *Dark Sun* or the Sorcerer-Kings.
They have stats but it just basic stats like use the mummy lord stat block...
@@theeye8276 unique stat blocks are always better
So instead of an index to find what I am looking for in the book, I have to use a ouija board to find where things are mentioned in the book?
Doesn't "Use stats from another book" mean "Go buy another book to use this book"?
Well the Monster Manual is one of the 3 core books and it's anticipated that everyone has that. So you can just use that if you want, but if you want to use the "truest" version of Strahd, you'd need to find his Curse of Strahd stat block. Though there are many "improved" or "revamped" versions of his stat blocks online
@@NerdImmersion reVAMPed...
@@NerdImmersion Yeah, a new one pops up on the Curse of Strahd subreddit every other week lol
just google "(name of stat block) 5etools", my dude
Thank you for making this vid. now I have fewer reasons to want to buy it.
Unpopular Opinion: Darklords not having statblocks can be a good thing because a major flaw in DnD horror has always been the "If it bleeds we can kill it and everything bleeds"-deal that comes with being a fantasy game about legendary heroes. If it has a statblock, it will die.
Let Darklords be the sinister overlords they cannot hope to confront, it's like giving a statblock to Asmodeus, IMO.
I must say, i was really looking forward to this book and right now i am kind of disappointed, might not even get it after all. If they make a follow-up adventure book (something similar to candlekeep mysteries, adventures for some of the domains of dread) then i.would like this book a lot more
I'm gonna just come out and say it: it sounds like they spent 3 pages shooting out lazy concept pitches *specifically* so they could say they had 30. Just say 8 and use those pages for even just a Bagman statblock and an index, and you'd honestly have a much better final product.
EDIT NOW THAT I HAVE READ THE BOOK MYSELF
I retract part of my initial statement, but stand by my claim that this was misleading marketing. Most of the other domains are good story seeds that definitely deserved to be in the book. Cyre 1313, Invidia, and Odaire are places I REALLY want to take my players to. However, I still have serious issue with their prominent place in the marketing, because pitching them as 30 worlds is a bit of a "lie through the truth." They are simply not the reason you should buy this book. I also really like the way the Bagman was implemented as an example of how to twist a classic monster into a new thing, but it should have been advertised as such, rather than as the new creature that Dragon+ stated it would be (based on the article talking about it's new stats, I personally theorize that the Bagman *was* intended as a standalone monster, but was cut late in development for some reason). TL;DR, it's a great book, but not for the reasons the marketing tells you.
Honestly as long as we're given info on how each Darklord should act and how to RP them not having statblocks for them isn't a big deal.
The Survivor section reminds me of a combination of NPC classes from 3.X and the d20 Modern Basic Classes. The Survivor Talents bit seems like it was pulled directly from d20 Modern. As someone who has wanted a 5e version of d20 Modern, I think this may allow me to run an Urban Arcana or Shadow Chasers game again!
It instantly reminded me of the basic classes, so I'd say that's a solid comparison!
Half way through the video and it sounds like wizards of the coast have been really lazy with this book. 1 magic item, missing loads of stat blocks, no appendix. I'm really starting to prefer third party content like stuff from kobold press, nord gaming or MCDM.
I’ve been preferring third party for a long time. WOTC’s output is mediocre at best IMHO.
I think the same.
I admit that I have been feeling its high time to me start limit my purchases of wotc books even I might not juse candlekeep stuff is feeling just lack cluster filler content for past two releases.
3 party content seem to start to offer far ore interesting and creative material to fill in 5e.
@@FrostWolfPack exactly my feeling. Check out 'ultimate bestiary revenge of the horde'. Its a fantastic book for fleshing out those lower level enemies like goblins, kobolds, orcs etc. Gives loads of really fun lore as well as loads of stat blocks for each creature so you can keep them interesting and challenging as your players level.
@@benry007 Hehee its all ready in my collection and it is great source book to juse.
Looking forward to see what they did with the subclasses!
Cool they included a Luigi board at the end of the book
Please say this is a reference to that video and not a typo XD
@@maybevoldemort8995 it's how to talk to ghosts, u and some friends put their hands on the Luigi Board and the ghost will guide u all to talk to u
The bag man does not have a state block, that does not mean you can't fight it. It can be an evil creature killing people, when the players find out it is the bag man, they then have to preform a ritual to banish it. It's best used in an investigation adventure, find out what's killing people before everyone dies.
I'm playing a reborn bladesinger who was a drow, but then his soul was put into the body of the human adventurer he killed by splitting his face open. Got a nasty stitching scar that if it comes undone will result in his skin and face separating. The amnesia part is great, because without most of his drow past reinforcing his evil alignment, he's a really chill dude if not a bit macabre.
Sounds pretty lackluster. Has me hoping they don't do planescape, spelljammer or dragonlance.
With you on the planescape but I think they could do dragonlance really well. Spelljammer probably could work also. They probably would add more punk to it
I am with you and hope they do not touch any of the older settings.
Hey so I'm running CoS for the first time, and I've heard a lot of bad talk about Death House. In your opinion Ted, would the adventure listed in VRGtE function as a good substitute for Death House? Or would it not fit in the village of Barovia?
I'd have to read through it more to give you a true answer. I do love The Death House. If you want to see how it went for us, check it out here: ua-cam.com/play/PLctLmxHQvM3qaNkbU0gjIWW8z4-UNCPcW.html episodes 4-8 I think are Death House specific, but the intro/character stuff for the party is in 1-3
@@NerdImmersion Awesome, cheers man.
Yeah.... there are a few real bummers here. Stats for the dark lords was a must. And considering how they were advertising how many realms they had, and several are just blurbs is disappointing. But, they must have wanted to keep this at Campaign size book rather than Icewind Dale size book.
Thanks for the info, you just saved me $40.00. Thumb's Up!!!!!
Some of the things on your list kinda make me not want to purchase it....I was hoping to use parts of the book for my campaign once my group finished candlekeep but without dread lords not sure what can really challenge a level 16 party
you can always reskin dyrrn for other aberration, niv-mizzet for dragons or choose any of the millions of demonlords to get your darklord fix lol
though at this lvl i'd be throwing multiple spellcasters at my party for big encounters
Jokes on you Ted I already pre-ordered.
I'm just kidding, I love your content and this was still helpful as it let me know essentially what's in the book.
I would like to point out that they did basically the same thing with Xanathar, Slarkrethel, and Klauth by taking the generic monster and adding on to it. Xanathar is just a Beholder with 3 magic rings, Slarkrethel is a Kraken who has Spellcasting and has Legendary Resistance, and Klauth is a Red Dragon with 2 magic wands and a magic ring in addition to having Spellcasting.
Can't believe they left out Sithicus. I'm going to buy it anyway, but I'm wary as far as how much this panders to new fans vs. old fans
We were all so hyped for this book.
Reveal: no stat blocks for dark lords, lazy descriptions on domains. Idk anymore about this book.
Wow, it sounds like this book has more in the way of flavor than it does substance. So many things with no stats, one re-skinned magical item, etc. Guess I'll wait for a buddy to buy this and read it like I would a novel. Bummer.
I'll just wait for a sale
@@Lycaon1765 You're kinder than I am. I don't buy WotC products anymore, and wont resume doing so until the creative content improves and the socio-political bias is removed. Almost everything I have from 2E backward was of much better quality, viewpoint-neutral, and conversion is no big deal.
@@spaceranger7683 YE I am feeling that right now WotC content is been droping allot of guality and filled bit too much semi juseless political views.
3 party content I had recently ofers far more than wizards stuff resently.
Awesome video, I'm real excited for Van Richten's now.
I feel like that Survivor section could be really good for a one-shot or a short, maybe 4-5 session campaign, I would love to run something like that with my group. Feels like it would get a bit tedious if you went for too long though.
The art for Vladeska Drakov has her warring leather armor similar to WH40K with the Blood Ravens. Run Falkovnia as a Warhammer style setting. It’s Interesting with the universes beyond and MTG commander decks with WH40K. Not sure I’m the first to notice, but everyone should know!
Damn this sounds like they really dropped the ball here. No stat blocks for the main villains of each domain is just unacceptable in my opinion. This just feels wrong and almost like it was falsely advertised.
Wizards has been getting lazier and lazier as 5e has gone on.
Looking forward to survivor rules.
Is this just.... worse Theros? Edit: or bad Theros?
Don’t get me wrong, I really came around on Theros - maybe I’ll do that here.
But this sounds to lack all the things that made Theros GOOD.
Wasn't theros super good tho?
I mean it had a whole fucking system for piety when previously we had only a paragraph explaining it. And 10+ examples of gods and their piety rewards. As well as monsters (idk if it had an appendix, but I believe it did) WITH statblocks. And maps, more character options, etc.
This book has basically nothing other than lore and a few custom lineages 🤮
@@Lycaon1765 right. Maybe “bad Theros” is a better description. But you point out exactly what I mean. Theros gave robust systems and details (and stat blocks) for a different campaign setting and this... ISNT any of that. Except perhaps the fear/stress system.
Not having Stat blocks seems really lazy to me
Honestly, it's a shame that they didn't update the Undying Warlock in this book. It would have been the perfect time to. Oh well
I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the dark lords but I will say that Strahds original “stat block” was just a vampire spellcaster with minor changes, so I’m not sure what people were expecting.
Gonna give this a miss.....it mainly look s like fluff and poor fluff at that.
WOTC has no excuse for this book’s quality and quantity (or lack thereof). No Dark Lords stats? No new magic items? Reskins? This is honestly greedy and lazy. Do they think we won’t notice this shit? This massive drop off that’s been happening over these last few years? This is pathetic. The third party supplements and homebrew is what is keeping 5e afloat at this point. I cannot imagine how shitty the Dark Sun campaign setting would be under their management considering what they’ve done with psionics and Ravenloft.
I’m going to switch over to *Last Arc: Tactics Analogue* once it has come out. Link to the official playtest server: discord.gg/BmYxs5sE
Didnt even get a notification for this one
Vampire undead warlock/shadow sorcerer here I come
hm lots of bummers actually ... no index bother me the most ... not excusable nowadays
The Mistfactor press book is going to be so much better folks.
man, wizards really missed the ball by not giving us stat blocks for at least the dark lord's...grim hollow showin them up again
WTF? The BBEGs don’t get their stat blocks? Well that is pathetic.
Even the dark lord has the stat blocks they will come back its their stich. Not giving them or just ''juse this from mm'' is extra lazy.
I was highly anticipating this book because I’m running a shadowfell game soon. Hearing how lazy and without substance this book is has completely changed my mind.
Have you looked at a flip through?
Wizards are getting lazy
We were excited for more books, but it turns out we're just fools.
Ye got the feeling too too much OOooh look the cool stuff we make and its wery panlkake like.
#1 it's a lot for something you may never end up running.
No stats for the dark lords? How odd.
Might just be me, but I’m really not into this book, just the subclasses. Probable gonna be a skip for me.
Dark gifts are cool
Looking forward to this one.
Chapter 4 sounds like a tonne of fun. Shame about no Dread Lord stat blocks, and shame no Bagman stat block! But I'm definitely gunna use Chapter 4 for my character in another campaign!!!
There is actually bagman stats, there's just no bagman stat _block._ It's detailed on page 225 - it's a troll with the grappler trait from mimics, the amorphous trait from the black pudding, and the new alien mind trait.
@@paradoxxis8612 Oh. Sounds easy to make a stat block for it...? Wth?
I am feeling I am not going to by this book for one chapters content. I got the feeling that here is not really much really good amount of stuff to be jused in own games.
Hell even some of the more resent adventures has more something juse full.
@@FrostWolfPack Don't know what you mean. The book has 2 subclasses, 3 races/lineages, new mechanics for horror games, an entire bestiary, and an adventure for low-level characters. That's a lot.
But also remember that it's a setting book. It's made for people running the setting. If you don't have an interest in running Ravenloft, then yeah, you're not going to get much out of it.
@@paradoxxis8612 Part of its is the page count.
If I am going to juse maybe 2-3 chapters or those acsualy offers desent idea content. I feel the books is not going to offer more than maybe the chapter of how to play horror and some beast. Even I am often after lore what was explained 30 dark realms but over half of them are nomuch than small paragraf of text. Loses my interest qiute bit.
Honestly this book sounds really cool, I’m kinda bummed about some parts but I’m sure the pros will overshadow the cons
The 2nd edition version was so great. This seems terrible for a number of reasons.
Where is lycanthropy?
In Grim hollow world book
9 ads in a 16 minute video, holy crap...
The #4 and #3 in the description need to be switched
I definitely fixed that, so it should be all good
*thump* *thuuuump*
"Thanks for watching"
"Thump*
yeah guess this shock mount is also mount and no shock. Time to switch or reattach the mic to the wall. I'm trying to cut out as much as I can with UA-cam editing. We'll see how that goes.
So as a review channel, how are you not compromised by receiving a free, preview copy from a corporate interest?
Sounds like a jumbled, lazily written, mess.
Hard to tell, but it sounds less crunchy than Theros, Ravnica and Wildmount were. Those unlocked some nice creatures and items in my D&D Beyond.
So, no stat block for the dark lords. How is the general bestiary. The TOC seems to indicate that there may be a decent inventory in there.
The Nosferatu is a solid CR 8. It has Sunlight Hypersensitivity, Spider Climb, and Regeneration. It can make 2 claw swipes and a bite; the bite drains HP like a Vampire's does. The Nosferatu can also regurgitate blood in a 15 foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 16 Con save or take 4d8 Necrotic Damage and be unable to gain hit points for 1 minute. On a success it takes half damage and suffers no additional effects.
Well this is upsetting. Instead of asking for surveys for just UAs they need to start surveying how people feel about how the quality of content is going down hill. There's to many die hard fans of dnd to not buy.
is the rumor true? I heard WOTC are taking out the sleep spell from all past, current and future editions of Dungeons and Dragons. This is to force everyone to stay woke.
Aaaaaand i already bought it lol
WOTC is so lazy now with their books it's disgusting
After seeing other reviews on Wokenloft. I'm done.
when I heard that half the book was how to run gothic horror, I knew it would be a lazy cash grab.
"Top 10 Things to Know Before Buying Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft"
Besides your top 10, they changed the gender of 3 Darklords (woke), removed the darklords Lord Soth and Adam (bad change), renamed a domain to be woke, changed the picture of darklord Ankhtepot to be woke, the lands are not connected anymore (very lazy and poor writing), removed many Domains and did not even mention them (very lazy and poor writing), and earlier they made the Vistani woke already. And Im sure I missed a lot.
How about NOT buying Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft? This book is rubbish and doesnt deserve to be called Ravenloft.
Soth is from Dragonlance! He was imprisoned in Ravenloft during 2e but escaped in 3e!
@@videogollumer Yes, but 3e Ravenloft was made by a third party so not canon and they did include an Eberron domain in this 5e book.
@@seppa193 But Dragonlance was still an official in 3e! Soth is from there; he returned there!
@@videogollumer There is only one official 3e Dragonlance book, the Dragonlance campaign setting, and there is not anything about an escape by Lord Soth from Ravenloft in that one.
@@seppa193 The Novels were still going on, though; he appeared in Dragon of a Vanished Moon!
"No stats for the Dark Lords" then goes into the stats for Dark Lords.
All these are things we can comfortably learn from the book. We don't need to know them in advance. Your clickbait is showing.
As someone who wasn't planning to get this book, the video cemented that decision, it sounds like there's nothing of value in the book.