Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos (D&D/MTG Adventure Book) (Dungeons & Dragons)

I will note upfront that I am no Magic: The Gathering player. I am reviewing this book purely as both a player and a DM.

Pros:
Setting: I love the idea of a magical college that isn't specifically for wizards. It could easily be a normal school that any person can go to. The variety of flavor going into each college and the characters within provide a decent amount of role play and exploration content within the university itself. There are lots of characters for NPC relationships.

Bestiary: As a DM, one of the first things I always look at with a new book is the bestiary and what new monsters there are (and/or if there are any previous monsters noted within). As far as I can tell, all of the stat blocks are new and exciting! (This is still day 1, so I haven't used any of them yet).

Relationships: While I still haven't ran this, as a DM I appreciate the way they setup or quantified the relationship system. It is fairly simple, but it is nice to see D&D finally have a more official way of looking at relationships between Pc's & NPC's.

But that is about where good things end.

Cons:
Physical book: Per usual, the printing is not always on point.

Owlin: This new race I feel is outmatched by the Fairy or Aarakocra races.

Spells: While the new spells will definitely prove useful in a plethora of ways, there are only 5 total new spells that are all level 2. This is very disappointing for a book created for a school setting that is based on a game called MAGIC.

Magic Items: Same comment here as the spells. For being a school of magic, there are only 11 new magic items 10 of which are uncommon rarity or lower. On top of that, 5 of them are just your school books that help you study. Yes, they could help you in theory. But using guidance is just as good - if not better. It also takes a while to find any reasonable combat based magic items past the typical potions & bag of holding.

Normal tems: There seems to be no general store for items, weapons, armor, gear, etc. And very few items can be found by going through the entire story. I understand this is a school and students aren't exactly going off into adventure. But still, a general store for components and the like would be great.

Tavern & Parties: This isn't a real con, but I feel like it was a clear miss on the writers part. The tavern should sell ale or strong mead and require some form of ID check. Allowing the more "creative" types to figure out how to get around the restrictions XD And there should be party events that affect one's studying/teating as well.

Summary: This book contains a decent amount of information on the setting of Strixhaven, but I wish there was more Magic based things (like items & spells & maybe even a way to make / test out potions). As a player, I wish there was more options for classes/races & spells. And as a DM, I wish there was more magical mysteries, magical items to give out, & more explicit ways for non-magic players to gain magical benefits from going to this school.

3/5

Good book but the little to no baseline information on the new race.

The Owlin has traits but does not have a baseline Height, Weight, Race Life Span, No Race Language other then Common + Choose One, Ability Scores, No Culture Structure For The Race.

This makes the only race option with little to no information to help a player to make a back story for a new character.

All the Owlin race information can be summarized in less than half a page.

The content is fine, but mine is upside down and backwards in the binding. Maybe it is supposed to be that way?

This book feels like a money grab pure and simple. the added content is thin. the included campaign in the book is real bare bones. the lore is non-existent. i was hoping to at least get a background on some oriq stuff to build a campaign on. they're supposed to be a whole organization at the school. instead you get 2 stat blocks and 4 paragraphs. at this point it feels like they are just putting out volume with no respect for quality.

I am so sick of these cross-brand books. It wouldn't be so bad if they released more books than 4 a year but wasting one of those on an MTG cross-over rather than bringing back what the diehard players actually want is ridiculous. Where is Planescape? Where is Darksun? Where is Spelljammer? Where is Birthright? Where is the Council of Wyrms?

I really wanted to like this product. I have been playing d and d for 45 years. But Strixhaven is plagued by a few key problems:

1) WoC has gone full Woke, and Strixhaven is an example of what happens when you mix politics and games. I won't say anything more (looks over shoulder for PC police).

2) They have blatantly copied Harry Potter / Hogwarts. Stealing other people's ideas and making money off them = not cool imo.

3) The incorporation of the author's cringy concept of college life is just....awkward.

4) This product continues 5e's charge toward less details, more fluff. D and D has for decades been a great game, combining the tactical challenge of a miniatures game with a bit of roleplaying thrown in. Now Strixhaven is here to show us how low the product has sunk.

Good product, but it is majorly geared towards DMs.

Player options are limited to 1 new race (which is underwhelming compared to other races: stealth, flying, and darkvision), 2 feats that really just replicate previous feats/abilities (the other "gain a spell and cast it once a day without using a spell slot" type of feat flavored for the colleges, and some familiar options similar to what a Warlock with the Pact of the Chain gets), and 5 backgrounds (one for each college).

For a DM, this book provides much, much more!

If you can pick this up on sale for half the MSRP price, its a good buy. If you are paying more than half price, it may not be worth your money - unless running exclusively in this setting for the provided adventure.

I definitely recommend reading it over in a store before purchasing or ordering to see if the material is right for you & your table!

This book is nearly worthless as it provides no additional content, just recycles nothing but artwork from the card game, no new spells or spellcasting mechanics, world building is vague and lacking real content, and overall feels like a cash grab rather than providing something with any actual worth or value other than looking good on a shelf.

Thankfully, my copy wasn't printed upside down. Although, I haven't had the chance to go through the entire book, because I was rather caught off guard by the red ink stains I found on several pages, so who knows, maybe I'll find an upside down page or two. It really sucks, because this was meant to be a gift, but given what I'm seeing in the other reviews, I'm not sure that ordering a new one would do me any good.

My son has been waiting for this book to come out and was super excited to receive it last night. However, the copy we received is backwards and upside down? Why?