Is the latest venture into the mists of Ravenloft worth buying?
Ravenloft: The Horrors Within is the latest expansion to D&D 5.5e. Like the Faerun and Eberron books of the last year, it covers an entire setting, providing lore, character options and DM focused material for horror games and those set in the misty realms of Ravenloft.
I’ve been performing deep dive analyses on all aspects of the book. With that thorough understanding of the quality of the mechanics and other content, I’m ready to give my verdict on whether The Horrors Within will invoke squeals of delight or squeals of horror.
At a glance
- Mostly great updates for returning subclasses
- New subclasses are excellent and look like loads of fun
- Species options are solid and the Lupin adds brand new mechanics
- Lore is great, but mostly retreads paths already trodden by Van Richten’s Guide
- Monster stat blocks are mostly excellent, well created and fill a nice niche in the needs of horror encounters.
- Artwork is sublime!
- Feats don’t manage to be particularly inspiring
- Some Darklord stat blocks would have benefitted from more playtesting
- Adventure hooks are a bit uninspiring. Would have benefitted from a properly fleshed out adventure
4/5 – The Horrors Within is nearly an excellent expansion for D&D 2024 and sourcebook for the Ravenloft setting, but it stumbles in a few areas that prevent it achieving excellence. A lack of a fully fleshed out adventure (like House of Lament), some uninspiring feats and some mechanical missteps for key Darklord stat blocks hold it back from greatness.
But it is mostly, a really great book. Returning character options are better than they’ve ever been, new character options are genuinely unique, fun and flavourful, the lore is solid, the new stat blocks are mostly strong additions to your repertoire and the art is frighteningly good. If you can get past the odd flaw, this is very much a gem and the best expansion book for D&D 2024 so far.
What to expect from Ravenloft: The Horrors Within
| Contents | Ravenloft: The Horrors Within | Forge of the Artificer | Heroes of Faerun | Van Richten’s Guide to Everything |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pages | 288 | 112 | 192 | 256 |
| Species | 4 | 5 | 0 | 3 |
| Classes | 1 (D&D Beyond only) | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Subclasses | 7 | 5 | 8 | 2 |
| Backgrounds | 4 | 17 | 18 | 2 |
| Feats | 11 | 28 | 34 | 0 but 8 dark gifts |
| Spells | 0 | 1 | 19 | 0 |
| Magic items | 2 | 9 | 3 | 2 |
| Items | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0 |
| Monsters | 68 | 25 | 2 | 32 |
| Maps | 57 | 1 | 13 | 16 |
| One shots | 17 | 0 | 0 | 1 adventure |
In the table above, I’ve outlined what you can expect in the book itself and compared it with other releases including Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft and a couple of the more recent releases.
This is a bigger package than any of these. It does come with a bigger price tag, but comparatively, that seems reasonable.
There a bunch of other things that aren’t easily compared in a table including:
- Detailed coverage of 16 domains of dread
- Additional domains of dread covered in less detail
- Adventure ideas for each domain of dread
- 17 Darklords including stat blocks (the number of monsters includes Darklords in its number)
- 8 new bastion facilities
- A toolkit for building adventures in 10 different genres of horror
- If you purchase the digital version of the book on D&D Beyond, it will also give you access to the artificer class
When it comes to player options, The Horrors Within exceeds what Van Richten’s Guide gave us. It’s noticeable that it has 1 less subclass than Heroes of Faerun. It seems the intention was to include the hexblade in The Horror’s Within but it was cut as the playtests didn’t meet the quality standards they expect.
It’s also noteworthy that the book has more monster stat blocks than most releases giving a bigger horror toolkit than most. I think this makes sense as a setting like Faerun fits the standard setting the monster manual attempts to cater for anyway. For true horror settings, some different kinds of monsters help to flesh out the adventures there.
On the face of it, the book is jam packed with content and it feels much more so than with Heroes of Faerun or Forge of the Artificer before it. And that’s not just due to page count. But the real question is whether that content is any good…
How good is the content?
Returning subclasses are definitely improved
I didn’t give any of the subclasses less than a 3/5 for mechanical competence and that’s already a good sign. Subclasses like the college of spirits bard still has it’s issues with either randomness or action economy, but it’s improved significantly from its previous incarnation.
At the other end of the spectrum is the undead patron which really delivers on a satisfyingly resilient necromantic subclass.
While most of the improvements are good. There remains a few niggles. The shadow sorcerer’s beast of ill omen was weakened in some ways that felt unnecessary (though the beast and the subclass were buffed overall). The phantom rogue remains uneven in its power scaling and the grave domain cleric is a tad boring.
Most of these are niggles though and largely, the changes have been solid for the 5 returning subclasses.
Below are the returning subclasses and links to my guides on each:
- College of spirits bard
- Grave domain cleric
- Phantom rogue
- Shadow sorcery sorcerer
- Undead patron warlock
New subclasses are inventive and loads of fun
When it comes to new subclasses though, the designers have really excelled this time. There are 2 new subclasses in the hollow warden ranger and the reanimator artificer.
The hollow warden really delivers when it comes to a terrifying, melee focused ranger build that doesn’t rely on hunter’s mark for its build, opening up new gameplay approaches.
The reanimator is less mechanically tight, but in a good way. It focuses on a fun Dr Frankenstein style reviver and companion build. It’s still effective mechanically, but in odd and unusual ways that I think will just be loads of fun to play with.
This is a far cry from the uninspired cartographer subclass we endured in Wizards of the Coast’s previous release.
Species are solid
We get 3 returning species in the Dhampir, hexblood and reborn with the brand new lupin species too. It seemed like a weird omission to not have a lycanthropic species in Van Richten’s Guide so I’m glad to see that rectified.
Not a huge amount has changed for the returning species, though I’m glad they’ve removed the needlessly complex approach to lineages and changing from a lineage to a species. I think the Dhampir gets more streamlined by virtue of having its bite be an unarmed strike which creates some useful interactions.
The lupin is quite an interesting option as it’s built with shove/grapple mechanics in mind. Howl is also a pretty good debuff and none of this hits on existing species capabilities making it a nicely unique option.
Feats are thematic, but not enticing options
They do a lot to streamline the original dark gifts and make them into more accessible feats. Mechanically, they also strip back a lot of the bloat that existed in Van Richten’s Guide as well. My main problem here is players should be enticed by the power they grant, but they don’t even feel like better than average feats, just average feats with drawbacks which is hard to be enticed by. They’re heavy on vibes though, so if you just want something thematic, they deliver in this department.
The origin feats are at best, worse versions of existing feats. Again, you may like them for the theme of your build, but not necessarily for the mechanics.
The feats here aren’t bad, they just don’t excite me at all.
Darklords are mostly well-designed with some unfortunately notable blemishes
One of the important updates from our last Ravenloft book is the inclusion of Darklord stat blocks. These were missing from Van Richten’s Guide and were a very noticeable omission. The Horrors Within rectifies this with 17 Darklords to throw at your players.
Largely, the Darklords deliver on uniquely evil and interesting villains with satisfying stat blocks that cater for a range of levels of play. If only they hadn’t messed up a couple of the big ones!
Strahd has an inexplicably weak grapple, Cthulu seems lacking in the eldritch powers it is so well known for and Azalin Rex possesses broken levels of disabling powers that could easily nullify most parties every round.
It’s a shame these blemishes exist as they overshadow some genuinely fun and well-designed Darklords like Vladeska’s love for impaling (no I didn’t miss the reference either), Viktra’s dynamics with her constructs and Wilfred’s ghostly hit and run capabilities.
Many Darklords are also built with out of combat mechanics in mind too. Saidra can detect lies, Ebonbane could literally become your own weapon and Mother Lorinda might deceive with mimicry and illusions.
Monster stat blocks really stick the landing though
Despite the design missteps of the Darklords, the same can’t be said of the other monster stat blocks. As a general rule, these are tightly designed, interesting and give plenty of horror options to work with. There are also loads of them (51 to be precise if you exclude Darklords).
The relentless nightmare for example, absolutely terrifies me! That thing is very literally relentless, teleporting about and constantly striking at creatures. The fact that if it curses you, it can reform from your dreams is also a frightening prospect.
I also really liked Mordenheim’s monster as this hulking creation that can literally choke you to death while jumping around the battlefield, stomping on creatures.
Domain lore is varied and interesting
Each domain of dread has a unique take on the horror genre and the lore is well presented. It’s not as deep as in previous editions, but I’m not sure it needs to be. There’s enough there to flesh out an entire campaign with ideas and plot hooks.
If you already own Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, then this may seem a tad unsatisfying as it largely retreads the same ground here. We do get a few new/expanded domains like Sithicus, the Shadowlands and Innsmouth, but otherwise, this is basically the same lore we had before.
One handy clarification is how the domains and the mists operate. You get several options that you’re welcome to use for whatever fits your campaign. Different lore has suggested that domains of dread are entirely separate, others suggest they fit together like countries, so long as the mists are open between borders. The book clarifies that you can use these approaches however you see fit.
One shots and adventure ideas
This is a trend we’ve had so far in 5.5e where books give adventure outlines that are maybe half a page to a page long. These are fine for a basic idea. If I’m honest though, when I get together to play D&D, I want to enjoy a quality adventure. Sadly, these don’t cut the quality I’m looking for. At best, they form the inspiration for you to flesh out as a DM into something more substantial. At worst, they’re a somewhat basic adventure you can use when time is precious and you just need some filler.
I ran the House of Lament adventure in Van Richten’s Guide several years ago and it was an excellent tutorial into horror and mystery adventures (with a few tweaks to the ending). It’s a substantial story that I was able to insert into my campaign that the players loved. It runs in a somewhat similar way to Death House (form Curse of Strahd), both being excellent examples of how to create compelling horror adventures. I’d have much preferred something like this (or 5 if we can make wish lists). Instead, we get 17 insubstantial adventure ideas rather than 1 or 2 substantial adventures we can run from the book.
For me, this is probably the main disappointment in the book.
Art and design is a massive step up from Van Richten’s Guide
I compared the 2 Ravenloft books and the design is so much easier to read and browse through. It also just connects together really nicely. Background colours help merge the artwork and other elements so they no longer feel like they’re just slapped onto the page, but it’s all elegantly flowing together.
The artwork happens to be sublime too. This is consistently where Wizards of the Coast has been excelling in all its books, but the artwork is dripping with horrific and terrifying potential that already makes you think about encounters and adventures in these locations. Even the maps look more interesting with extra splashes of colour and detail.
Despite the consistency of artwork between releases, you can also tell that each publication comes with its own vibe. Eberron had a much more steampunk vibe, Heroes of Faerun used much more vibrant colours to embody it’s high fantasy setting whereas this has its own horrific style to it and each image really showcases the atmosphere and does so in different ways for different subgenres, domains and creature types. They’ve absolutely gone all out on the artwork here.
Overview
Largely, Ravenloft: The Horrors Within is a strong book with great monsters, subclasses, species, monsters, the inclusion of darklord stat blocks and lore. If you want horror-filled D&D, this is a great resource! Plus the art is sublime!
Sadly, it just doesn’t quite stick the landing on a few areas. Feats are a little uninspiring, some of the more important darklord stat blocks fall short under scrutiny and the adventure ideas are kind of basic. If they’d handed me another House of Lament or Death House to run, I might have looked past those other disappointments. Sadly, together, they lose the book a point. Despite that, it’s still a strong book and in my opinion, Wizards of the Coast’s best expansion to D&D 2024 so far.
I hope Wizards can work out how to tackle adventures soon as this has been a struggle for them over the last few years. It’s been a while since they managed to release an impressive adventure of substance. Otherwise, I really do recommend The Horrors within and there’s plenty for both DMs and players alike to enjoy.
4/5
