Heroes of the Borderlands Turns D&D Into a Tactile Beginner’s Dream — But the Adventure Falls Flat
Wizards of the Coast has released a new physical starter set reviving Gary Gygax’s 1979 module The Keep on the Borderlands. The Heroes of the Borderlands starter set simplifies parts of the 2024 D&D rules, bundles a range of tactile components, and goes on sale Sept. 16; it is available for preorder on Heroes of the Borderlands on D&D Beyond.
- What you get in the box
- Character creation and playmats
- Rules tweaks and tokens
- Adventure structure and DM notes
- Pricing and release details
What you get in the box
The physical starter set includes multiple printed components and game aids. Specifically, it ships with seven double-sided maps, a collection of monster, player, trap, and treasure tokens, player playmats, spell cards, and boxed booklets for the keep and the Caves of Chaos.
In addition, the set provides character sheets that let players choose class, species, and background, rather than only offering fully pregenerated characters.
Character creation and playmats
Rather than forcing fully pregenerated characters, Heroes of the Borderlands gives players choices. The box includes playmats for D&D’s four classic classes; each playmat lists ability modifiers, saving throws, skills, attacks, hit points, initiative, and class features with those values precalculated.
Moreover, the 2024 ruleset ties ability score bonuses to background choice, but the starter set removes the need for optimization by offering suggested species/background combos and by leaving choices easy to apply. Players can pick combinations such as halfling criminal for rogue or elf soldier for different traits.
Rules tweaks and tokens
The set simplifies the 2024 rule known as weapon mastery. Instead of tracking mastery choices that progress by level and can be swapped after a long rest, Heroes of the Borderlands grants mastery with whatever a qualifying class is wielding at the time.
Also, the set replaces numeric tracking with physical tokens: hit points and gold pieces are represented by tokens, and a single type of power token represents limited resources such as spell slots and class features like a fighter’s second wind. Spellcasters receive a deck of spell cards to show available spells.
Adventure structure and DM notes
The Keep on the Borderlands included in this set is presented as a bounded sandbox. The keep booklet contains NPC character cards with portraits, roleplaying suggestions, and rumor hooks that relate to the keep, the Caves of Chaos, and the wilderness in between.
However, the materials provide relatively few explicit mechanical or narrative links between the keep and the wider wilderness beyond rumors and a single mapping quest. The wilderness and Caves of Chaos sections contain many short encounters, some self-contained and some that expect a DM to supply additional context or consequences.
For example, the set includes encounters such as a kobold group with a stolen dragon egg and a range of small vignettes and combat encounters; the booklets do not always specify follow-up outcomes if players take unexpected actions, so DMs may need to fill those gaps during play.
Pricing and release details
Heroes on the Borderlands is priced at $49.99 for the physical starter set. A digital version is listed at $14.99, and a combined physical + digital bundle is offered at $54.99. The set’s release date is Sept. 16 and it is available to preorder on Heroes of the Borderlands on D&D Beyond.
