It's not just you. I've already responded to two different threads and have seen a third where people are complaining that it's a Sourcebook and not listed as an Adventure instead.
But I like the world setting, the structure provided, and I'm gonna use (and abuse) it for a few solo campaigns with friends.
My only mechanical concern is Silvery Barbs. It's too strong for 1st level.
Silvery Barbs is pretty broken yeah....if you made it a 2nd level spell I would say its more balanced.
If I thought that actually gave tier 4 play any sort of thought I would guess that it was to make wizards not have both this and shield as signature spells.
There are examples of lessons, of exams and of school related side quests. What were people expecting? Exactly the same kind of content but laid out with just charts and tables instead of as a campaign?
Use Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft as an example of a SOURCEBOOK vs. Strixhaven which in reality is an ADVENTURE BOOK. Look at the main differences between the books in bold as these are what take up the vast majority of the books.
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
3 races (lineages)
2 subclasses
2 backgrounds
8 dark gifts (feat like abilities)
How to create horror story campaigns
Huge number of different realms and areas to create these campaigns complete with background information, some maps but no fixed adventure
How to create your own domain
List of monsters for this type of campaign
Everything is laid out in a manner that is if you need this for the campaign go here, if you want this go here
Fixed Adventure levels 1-10... it literally has Running this Adventure and Advance to Level # as titles for the books sections.
Lists of Monster for the campaign setting
Yes can you scrap some of the material from an adventure book, but doing so takes reading through the whole book to even know what is there to scrap out. I did this for Decent Through Avernus but even that did a better job of allowing more free form adventure.
We get that it can be seen as an example. Nothing wrong with an example. Nobody would complain about it either if it weren't like 80% of the whole book. An example shouldn't even be 50% of a book.
From the description though:
"Characters can explore the setting over the course of four adventures, which can be played together or on their own. Each adventure describes an academic year filled with scholarly pursuits, campus shenanigans, exciting friendships, hidden dangers, and perhaps even romance. This book includes a poster map that shows Strixhaven’s campuses on one side and location maps on the other."
Sure. Don't label it as a sourcebook then. That is straight up not correct. It isn't even that it is an extra thrown in. It is the lion's share of the book. Straight up if they labelled this as an adventure I would have zero complaints. It isn't my style. I wouldn't grab it. But that is personal preference.
The campaign leading up to this has advertised a weird subclass thing that they removed (and refused preorder refunds after this change was made), and promised that a suitable replacement would be made. All these feels like the sorta thing a sourcebook has. What we got was significantly less than what was promised. There just isn't the material for it. And many people preordered before this description even appeared, and were DISALLOWED from refunding it after changes.
We get that it can be seen as an example. Nothing wrong with an example. Nobody would complain about it either if it weren't like 80% of the whole book. An example shouldn't even be 50% of a book.
From the description though:
"Characters can explore the setting over the course of four adventures, which can be played together or on their own. Each adventure describes an academic year filled with scholarly pursuits, campus shenanigans, exciting friendships, hidden dangers, and perhaps even romance. This book includes a poster map that shows Strixhaven’s campuses on one side and location maps on the other."
What if the DM didn't want to have all their players play teenage wizards?
What if the game they wanted to do was the PCs being invited into the school as outside investigators to try and solve mysterious issues that keep eluding Stirxhaven's best internal resources, and the team needs to do so against the backdrop of (and with minimal disruptions to) magical schoolwork?
What if Strixhaven was something a DM wanted to be a resource in a larger campaign world, where the PCs could engage the services of this magical university in a variety of ways?
What if a DM wanted to use Strixhaven as a sponsor/patron for an adventuring party journeying out to accomplish tasks beyond the school's walls, perhaps using the college's endless internecine strife as a means of generating conflicting plot leads the party has to choose how to resolve?
What if a DM wanted to do literally anything but run the one, single, rigid, unbending, inflexible adventure that comprises the lion's share of this "sourcebook" which is even less of a sourcebook than some adventure books such as Avernus or Icewind Dale are?
What if a player was hoping for cool source-y information and spent thirty doillars on this thing, only to realize that they cannot read eighty percent of their purchase without forever disqualifying themselves from being able to play any sort of Strixhaven game?
There are 47 new monsters, right? idk, I agree that if I bought a sourcebook I would want something a bit more focused - Tasha's is a great example of what I want in a sourcebook, lots of unique subclasses, some new spells, and a major change to racial ability score bonuses. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was great for the horror-focused additions - the lineages are AWESOME and it has a ton of material on the planes of dread settings, which are easy enough to draw inspiration from and pull over into any campaign. Strixhaven is I guess a sourcebook but that seems to be part of the problem, that Strixhaven as a book is a combination of small amounts of a bunch of stuff and though perhaps just as focused as VRGtR (on a wizarding world setting rather than horror campaign elements) it seems more anchored to its one specific setting. Like imo you could easily have any of the lineages or NPC's from VRGtR in any campaign but it might not make as much sense to have the feats and the backgrounds from Strixhaven in as broad an array of worlds/stories. For example, I have no doubt a low magic world could mix with Strixhaven - it could be quite interesting to have that contrast - but Strixhaven lends itself much more readily to a high-magic setting.
What I want from a sourcebook is stuff that will be universally usable, especially the character options. What Strixhaven delivers seems unfocused and restricted by comparison to other source books, as represented by so much of it's content being there just to support its other content. They made spells to support feats to support backgrounds, and half the monsters are related to the five schools, and no doubt these monsters support the adventures. If Strixhaven had focused on a variety of feat-granting backgrounds, including hedge-magic-like and non-magical ones, it might have made the backgrounds that grant the Strixhaven Initiate feat a bit more approachable/acceptable in a broader context. If it had focused on a big lot of magic-using, magic-resistant, and otherwise generally magic-related monsters that fit in any general setting, that could have been a nice addition. If it had infused character options with a variety of new spells to choose from, great. But what it did ends up leaning on itself so much it falls flat.
I think Silvery Barbs is not so OP as people make it out to be. But what I'm seeing about the fractal mascot - being a huge, ridable familiar that could provide the whole party with cover and teleport a character through walls and maybe even kill things like antman by phasing into them then expanding - is concerning. And I'm really against any class being able to so easily access magic from those backgrounds. I don't like being against things that makes players stronger, but accessing magic is like a huge deal. I don't look at feats like fey-touched lightly, they have an RP impact. Magic Initiate makes sense and is quite limited - I feel you kind of have to work to make it worthwhile. But it's like the Strixhaven Initiate feat is begging to be taken lightly - without even requiring a feat.
Honestly, I like the Strixhaven book. Don't crucify me just yet, however.
It's a smartly designed adventure module, that has some huge potential for mixing homebrew, or other books together like Candlekeep, maybe even Ravnica. This book was a buy from me as I really want to see more mtg content in this.
However, there's a caveat to all this.
I'm a DM. If I frame myself as a player, this is marketed as a source book, yet, there's barely any magical items, there's backgrounds which are seemingly OP and not likely to be allowed at the table barring an actual strixhaven campaign being run. Furthermore, there's five spells. It's likely that they're going easy on the spells in preparation for 5.5e, but.. This is only my guess. Silvery barbs is bringing up a discussion on it's own about how over the top it might be, too. Especially in a combat against one target.
Like 2/3rds of the book is purely for the dungeon master, if not more, some of the player features are just not likely to be allowed as while they suit the setting, they're definitely raising the specter of the power creep discussion.
Honestly, I think that this treads the line between a source book, and a adventure, but more heavily leans towards adventure. It's heavily intended for the DM. Players who purchase this will be underwhelmed by the few options that are offered, even before the realization that most tables will likely not allow these backgrounds without an actual strixhaven campaign being run.
Obviously there are other DM intended books in the source book categories, monster manuals, etc, but people who bought this to read about a new world such as the one illustrated in other source books are definitely going to be left wanting.
As a DM, I'm definitely a fan of this book, even if I wish more of the setting was laid out beyond the university. Some have brought up the huge potential for mixing with this though too, which I recognize. This is actually a great pro, in my opinion.
Perhaps there should be a delineation more so for who the book is actually aimed towards, though, if you wanted to market your book towards players for the increased sales, it wouldn't have hurt to sweeten the pot for them. Making certain things powerful though isn't quite what we had in mind, especially in lieu of quantity of player directed content.
It really should have been more marketed as an adventure module first, and source book second. That's what it just is.
There is a balance. Detail everything, and everything is set. Detail nothing and sure you have freedom but no … well anything. Direction. Starting points. Nothing. And the issue with this book is this. It tries to be too much with neither side having the substance it needs. It can’t be a sourcebook in truth with the extremely limited additions, and extremely location limited features and places.
and it doesn’t give the adventure the full attention it deserves. As such neither truly strike the right balance and expectations were managed terribly. This is the problem.
as for the whole, once things are written down it’s set, I don’t think a single game i have run hasn’t been changed. The written word is NOT law. But it sets the arena. And this arena has a lot of holes and feels very underwhelming and outside of literally running a game in strixhaven, very little can be used elsewhere without some heavy lifting
I'm mad about a lot of this book. I'm mad about the death of the most interesting subclasses in awhile, and I'm really mad about the absolute obliteration of probably my favorite race from the Folk of the Feywild UA. I don't so much mind the source/adventure stuff most people in here seem to be debating about, but I also DM more than I play, and I DM for my kids, so a relatively linear adventure set in a school suits my interest more than most.
Basically...everything that we didn't have details on before it came out (magic items, lore, adventure, monsters, NPCs) seems pretty good so far. I've only skimmed it, but I like what I see, though there's not enough of it. But the component pieces of the deconstructed subclasses we got (feats, backgrounds, spells) are all too strong for what they became, while simultaneously not being enough somehow, and the Owlin are embarrassingly dull. Just ninja Aarakocra with a limp. Everything we had a mechanical heads-up on before release (race, subclasses becoming feats/backgrounds/spells) is very off. Too strong, too weak, too little, too much.
I can (and have) go on at length about flight and the ways they destroyed Owlin, and how it's all idiotic, but I won't here. I'm also not generally one to scream about "power creep," as I largely run for my kids, and Rule Of Cool well outweighs any sense of "challenge" or "balance" for me, but all five of those new spells are absurdly good, with Silvery Barbs being outright broken, and these backgrounds and feats are friggin' bonkers. Sure, they seem to be "tied to the setting," but the book goes on at length about reflavoring and how you can easily use them for any magic school on any plane, so...they're really not tied to the setting. You can easily justify using them in any campaign, which is something the dragon-marked houses or Ravnican guilds didn't do.
I don't know, this book bugs me in a lot of ways. Like I said above, everything in it is either too much or not enough. It doesn't know what it wants to be or who it wants to please. And it's the first book in a while I have any real complaints about.
That said, real interested to see what errata it gets and what Strixhaven feedback does to change any other upcoming new books we don't know about yet. Sometimes you need a real bomb to shake things up.
Settings are almost entirely 'solely for the DM.' This is a sourcebook, not a 'cool toys players can make whatever they please with' book. It is themed and ordered.
Right here, this is where the foot goes in the mouth -> "A 'cool toys players can make whatever they please with' book" <-THIS! THIS RIGHT HERE IS WHAT MAKES A SOURCEBOOK A SOURCEBOOK! , to which you've just stated that this book isn't! Literally source books are meant to be "toys" that players (DMs) can make whatever they want... that is the ENTIRE point of a sourcebook.
How people can say Silvery Barbs isn't too much for a first level spell don't really realize what it can do....
It's chainable for one thing... So you can wait to see if the creature succeeds, then cast it, and if they succeed again another caster can use their reaction to force a second reroll.
Then on top of that you give an Ally ADV on attack/save/ability as well?
It's literally like Bardic inspiration but it's better because since it's a 1st level spell anyone can pick it up via feat or a dip very easily.
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“you can place Strixhaven wherever it best fits the needs of your campaign. … in the planar cosmopolis of Sigil”
Planescape confirmed!
And I’m only half joking.
If I thought that actually gave tier 4 play any sort of thought I would guess that it was to make wizards not have both this and shield as signature spells.
Use Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft as an example of a SOURCEBOOK vs. Strixhaven which in reality is an ADVENTURE BOOK. Look at the main differences between the books in bold as these are what take up the vast majority of the books.
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
Everything is laid out in a manner that is if you need this for the campaign go here, if you want this go here
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Strixhaven
Yes can you scrap some of the material from an adventure book, but doing so takes reading through the whole book to even know what is there to scrap out. I did this for Decent Through Avernus but even that did a better job of allowing more free form adventure.
This book was the perfect opportunity to release actual mechanics for PCs to make their own spells in-game. Shame they didn't think to do that.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU









Sure. Don't label it as a sourcebook then. That is straight up not correct. It isn't even that it is an extra thrown in. It is the lion's share of the book. Straight up if they labelled this as an adventure I would have zero complaints. It isn't my style. I wouldn't grab it. But that is personal preference.
The campaign leading up to this has advertised a weird subclass thing that they removed (and refused preorder refunds after this change was made), and promised that a suitable replacement would be made. All these feels like the sorta thing a sourcebook has. What we got was significantly less than what was promised. There just isn't the material for it. And many people preordered before this description even appeared, and were DISALLOWED from refunding it after changes.
What if the DM didn't want to have all their players play teenage wizards?
What if the game they wanted to do was the PCs being invited into the school as outside investigators to try and solve mysterious issues that keep eluding Stirxhaven's best internal resources, and the team needs to do so against the backdrop of (and with minimal disruptions to) magical schoolwork?
What if Strixhaven was something a DM wanted to be a resource in a larger campaign world, where the PCs could engage the services of this magical university in a variety of ways?
What if a DM wanted to use Strixhaven as a sponsor/patron for an adventuring party journeying out to accomplish tasks beyond the school's walls, perhaps using the college's endless internecine strife as a means of generating conflicting plot leads the party has to choose how to resolve?
What if a DM wanted to do literally anything but run the one, single, rigid, unbending, inflexible adventure that comprises the lion's share of this "sourcebook" which is even less of a sourcebook than some adventure books such as Avernus or Icewind Dale are?
What if a player was hoping for cool source-y information and spent thirty doillars on this thing, only to realize that they cannot read eighty percent of their purchase without forever disqualifying themselves from being able to play any sort of Strixhaven game?
What happens then?
Please do not contact or message me.
There are 47 new monsters, right? idk, I agree that if I bought a sourcebook I would want something a bit more focused - Tasha's is a great example of what I want in a sourcebook, lots of unique subclasses, some new spells, and a major change to racial ability score bonuses. Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was great for the horror-focused additions - the lineages are AWESOME and it has a ton of material on the planes of dread settings, which are easy enough to draw inspiration from and pull over into any campaign. Strixhaven is I guess a sourcebook but that seems to be part of the problem, that Strixhaven as a book is a combination of small amounts of a bunch of stuff and though perhaps just as focused as VRGtR (on a wizarding world setting rather than horror campaign elements) it seems more anchored to its one specific setting. Like imo you could easily have any of the lineages or NPC's from VRGtR in any campaign but it might not make as much sense to have the feats and the backgrounds from Strixhaven in as broad an array of worlds/stories. For example, I have no doubt a low magic world could mix with Strixhaven - it could be quite interesting to have that contrast - but Strixhaven lends itself much more readily to a high-magic setting.
What I want from a sourcebook is stuff that will be universally usable, especially the character options. What Strixhaven delivers seems unfocused and restricted by comparison to other source books, as represented by so much of it's content being there just to support its other content. They made spells to support feats to support backgrounds, and half the monsters are related to the five schools, and no doubt these monsters support the adventures. If Strixhaven had focused on a variety of feat-granting backgrounds, including hedge-magic-like and non-magical ones, it might have made the backgrounds that grant the Strixhaven Initiate feat a bit more approachable/acceptable in a broader context. If it had focused on a big lot of magic-using, magic-resistant, and otherwise generally magic-related monsters that fit in any general setting, that could have been a nice addition. If it had infused character options with a variety of new spells to choose from, great. But what it did ends up leaning on itself so much it falls flat.
I think Silvery Barbs is not so OP as people make it out to be. But what I'm seeing about the fractal mascot - being a huge, ridable familiar that could provide the whole party with cover and teleport a character through walls and maybe even kill things like antman by phasing into them then expanding - is concerning. And I'm really against any class being able to so easily access magic from those backgrounds. I don't like being against things that makes players stronger, but accessing magic is like a huge deal. I don't look at feats like fey-touched lightly, they have an RP impact. Magic Initiate makes sense and is quite limited - I feel you kind of have to work to make it worthwhile. But it's like the Strixhaven Initiate feat is begging to be taken lightly - without even requiring a feat.
I just realised that when you've gone through four years of University, you end up as a level 10. Wow. Someone is really proud of their degree.
Sometimes it feels like you're getting played with as a consumer - ngl.
Makes lot more sense as an adventure book and would have targeted a different group of people too.
Definitely glad I didn't preorder this one.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Honestly, I like the Strixhaven book. Don't crucify me just yet, however.
It's a smartly designed adventure module, that has some huge potential for mixing homebrew, or other books together like Candlekeep, maybe even Ravnica. This book was a buy from me as I really want to see more mtg content in this.
However, there's a caveat to all this.
I'm a DM. If I frame myself as a player, this is marketed as a source book, yet, there's barely any magical items, there's backgrounds which are seemingly OP and not likely to be allowed at the table barring an actual strixhaven campaign being run. Furthermore, there's five spells. It's likely that they're going easy on the spells in preparation for 5.5e, but.. This is only my guess. Silvery barbs is bringing up a discussion on it's own about how over the top it might be, too. Especially in a combat against one target.
Like 2/3rds of the book is purely for the dungeon master, if not more, some of the player features are just not likely to be allowed as while they suit the setting, they're definitely raising the specter of the power creep discussion.
Honestly, I think that this treads the line between a source book, and a adventure, but more heavily leans towards adventure. It's heavily intended for the DM. Players who purchase this will be underwhelmed by the few options that are offered, even before the realization that most tables will likely not allow these backgrounds without an actual strixhaven campaign being run.
Obviously there are other DM intended books in the source book categories, monster manuals, etc, but people who bought this to read about a new world such as the one illustrated in other source books are definitely going to be left wanting.
As a DM, I'm definitely a fan of this book, even if I wish more of the setting was laid out beyond the university. Some have brought up the huge potential for mixing with this though too, which I recognize. This is actually a great pro, in my opinion.
Perhaps there should be a delineation more so for who the book is actually aimed towards, though, if you wanted to market your book towards players for the increased sales, it wouldn't have hurt to sweeten the pot for them. Making certain things powerful though isn't quite what we had in mind, especially in lieu of quantity of player directed content.
It really should have been more marketed as an adventure module first, and source book second. That's what it just is.
There is a balance. Detail everything, and everything is set. Detail nothing and sure you have freedom but no … well anything. Direction. Starting points. Nothing. And the issue with this book is this. It tries to be too much with neither side having the substance it needs. It can’t be a sourcebook in truth with the extremely limited additions, and extremely location limited features and places.
and it doesn’t give the adventure the full attention it deserves. As such neither truly strike the right balance and expectations were managed terribly. This is the problem.
as for the whole, once things are written down it’s set, I don’t think a single game i have run hasn’t been changed. The written word is NOT law. But it sets the arena. And this arena has a lot of holes and feels very underwhelming and outside of literally running a game in strixhaven, very little can be used elsewhere without some heavy lifting
I'm mad about a lot of this book. I'm mad about the death of the most interesting subclasses in awhile, and I'm really mad about the absolute obliteration of probably my favorite race from the Folk of the Feywild UA. I don't so much mind the source/adventure stuff most people in here seem to be debating about, but I also DM more than I play, and I DM for my kids, so a relatively linear adventure set in a school suits my interest more than most.
Basically...everything that we didn't have details on before it came out (magic items, lore, adventure, monsters, NPCs) seems pretty good so far. I've only skimmed it, but I like what I see, though there's not enough of it. But the component pieces of the deconstructed subclasses we got (feats, backgrounds, spells) are all too strong for what they became, while simultaneously not being enough somehow, and the Owlin are embarrassingly dull. Just ninja Aarakocra with a limp. Everything we had a mechanical heads-up on before release (race, subclasses becoming feats/backgrounds/spells) is very off. Too strong, too weak, too little, too much.
I can (and have) go on at length about flight and the ways they destroyed Owlin, and how it's all idiotic, but I won't here. I'm also not generally one to scream about "power creep," as I largely run for my kids, and Rule Of Cool well outweighs any sense of "challenge" or "balance" for me, but all five of those new spells are absurdly good, with Silvery Barbs being outright broken, and these backgrounds and feats are friggin' bonkers. Sure, they seem to be "tied to the setting," but the book goes on at length about reflavoring and how you can easily use them for any magic school on any plane, so...they're really not tied to the setting. You can easily justify using them in any campaign, which is something the dragon-marked houses or Ravnican guilds didn't do.
I don't know, this book bugs me in a lot of ways. Like I said above, everything in it is either too much or not enough. It doesn't know what it wants to be or who it wants to please. And it's the first book in a while I have any real complaints about.
That said, real interested to see what errata it gets and what Strixhaven feedback does to change any other upcoming new books we don't know about yet. Sometimes you need a real bomb to shake things up.
Right here, this is where the foot goes in the mouth -> "A 'cool toys players can make whatever they please with' book" <-THIS! THIS RIGHT HERE IS WHAT MAKES A SOURCEBOOK A SOURCEBOOK! , to which you've just stated that this book isn't! Literally source books are meant to be "toys" that players (DMs) can make whatever they want... that is the ENTIRE point of a sourcebook.
How people can say Silvery Barbs isn't too much for a first level spell don't really realize what it can do....
It's chainable for one thing... So you can wait to see if the creature succeeds, then cast it, and if they succeed again another caster can use their reaction to force a second reroll.
Then on top of that you give an Ally ADV on attack/save/ability as well?
It's literally like Bardic inspiration but it's better because since it's a 1st level spell anyone can pick it up via feat or a dip very easily.