Review: D&D Essentials Kit

TLDR Summary: The D&D Essentials Kit is essential for your D&D collection... but wait until September if possible.

If you haven't read my preview, you might not know that the D&D Essentials Kit is also set in Phandalin and can be used alongside the adventure in the Starter Set. However, it also stands completely on its own as an introductory box set for new DM's. The adventure within is independent of events occurring in Lost Mine of Phandelver.

Included in the D&D Essentials Kit is

• 64 page "Essentials" rule book (including character generation)
• Dragon of Icespire Peak, a new adventure by Chris Perkins
• 4 panel landscape DM screen
• Double sided poster map with the town of Phandalin on one side and the local region of the Sword Coast on the reverse.
• Quest cards, NPC cards, Magic Item cards, cards, cards, cards...
• Red crystal dice set with 2d20 and 4d6
• Blank character sheets
• Includes a key to unlock the adventure content on D&D Beyond and a 50% discount on the digital Player's Handbook.

D&D Beyond: Impressions, Pricing, and Licensing

Just in the past couple weeks, Curse officially launched D&D Beyond and published all of the pricing arrangements for the service. This is not a full review, but just a few impressions on the tool, the pricing and Wizard's content licensing.

First, the Good

As a product, D&D Beyond is slick. The interface is reasonably easy to pick up (the search features could use some minor improvements for usability, but that's mostly nit-picking). All in all, it’s a well polished reference engine. 

All of the content from the SRD and adventure supplement PDFs (as published on the Wizards.com web site) are also included for free. For instance, Snilloc’s Snowball Swarm and other spells from the Princes of the Apocalypse player PDF is included in the free tier. As a player, you also get 6 unlocked character slots for free.