Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer: Everything You Need to Know
Last Updated on October 6, 2023 by VoltorRWH
Thinking about picking up a subscription to Hachette Partworks’ latest magazine but after more information? Check out our Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer: Everything You Need to Know for our insider scoop!
Please Note: This site uses affiliate links. Our Affiliate Partners are shown below
(Affiliate links will result in compensation to the site on qualifying purchases)
Click this link & buy your hobby stuff from Element Games for the UK & Europe to support FauxHammer.com – Use Code “FAUX2768” at the checkout for double reward points.
Our Affiliates / Hobby Stores
- UK: Element Games, The Outpost, Wayland Games, Mighty Lancer, Goblin Gaming, Forbidden Planet, Model Scenery Supplies, eBay, Amazon
- US/Canada: MTechCave, GameKastle, eBay (US), eBay (CA), Amazon
- Germany: Taschengelddieb
- Europe: eBay (DE), eBay (FR), eBay (ES), eBay (IT), Amazon
- Australia: eBay, Amazon
- Global: RedGrass Games, Warcolours
- 3D Printers: Phrozen 3D, Elegoo, Anycubic
FauxHammer – Latest Video on YouTube
Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer: Everything You Need to Know – Introduction
Since announcing the return of Hachette Partworks’ Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer magazine a few weeks back, we’ve been inundated with comments, questions, queries and correspondence regarding the magazine and various aspects of the subscription. How many issues will it run to? What will a subscription include? Is there a premium option?
Up until now, we haven’t been in a position to answer a lot of these questions (a lot of the time, we haven’t had the info ourselves!). However, we’ve very recently been in touch with the guys over at Hachette who have given us a whole heap of info to share with you all.
Read on for the full scoop!
Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer: Everything You Need to Know – Your Questions Answered!
So, here we go: answers to some of the most common questions and misconceptions we’ve seen scattered across the ‘net. If you have any more, make sure you stick ’em in the comments below and we’ll see if we can get them answered and added to this list.
How Many Issues Are There?
80.
Yup, 80. That is now confirmed, straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Just like regular FauxHammer.com readers will know, the hugely successful Warhammer partworks collections – Stormbringer, Imperium, Mortal Realms, Conquest – have all run (or are in the process of running to) 80 issues – with the exception of Imperium that was so hugely popular, it ran to 90.
It’s still early days, so there’s no word yet on whether or not D&D Adventurer commands quite the numbers to warrant a collection extension – but if we hear more, we’ll let you know.
What Comes With the Magazine?
We all thought it when the trial issues came out last year, and we can now confirm: it’s not just 80 sets of plain dice!
Well, yes, obviously there are going to be some dice, but you won’t just be getting the same swirly-whirly plastic in slightly different colours each week. No, readers, there’s all sort of dice on offer, including oversized dice (such as the large d20 in issue 4), glow in the dark dice in issue 7, metal dice in issue 10, and dice with axes in the middle in issue 17 (we’re assuming it’s a tiny axe in a regular-sized die, not a regular sized axe in a giant die – though I’d have been well up for the latter, but the first one will fit in my dice tray better I guess).
Oh, and we’ve got pictures of a bunch of them.
…Including the axe-filled ones!
There’s far more of these to come, too.
Including these, what we think, are quite possibly the metal dice (but we’re not sure, so don’t quote us on that).
And, of course, there’s way more included across the course of the subscription than dice. We’ve been very reliably informed that across the issues, buyers will see:
- High-quality card maps for each adventure
- 2D miniatures featuring exclusive collection characters – produced by WizKids
- Extra booklets covering additional information, making a quick reference guide (combat booklet, spells booklet, etc.)
- Pre-made character sheets, for multiple characters, who level up throughout the collection
- Inspiration tokens
- More!
What’s more, we’ve also got some more photos of a few of these goodies! Here are the Inspiration tokens:
And here are the minis.
Now, any FauxHammer reader will likely have a qualm with the above being called “miniatures” – because they aren’t really, certainly not in the same way as the products we usually cover. It’d be more accurate to call these “standees” as oppose to miniatures (but, on the flipside, you could always argue that standees are just a type of miniature – but that’s not something we have time to get into here!).
Ultimately, they serve their purpose: it looks like buyers will get tabletop-scale, accurate representations of some of the creatures they will be encountering throughout the course of the magazine’s run – which, nonetheless, make for a useful playing aid. D&D is also full of weird and wonderful creatures, and simply being able to show everyone what a displacer beast is by way of a token instead of trying to describe a six-legged, blue panther with shoulder-tentacles will likely come as a relief to some would-be DMs.
Are there any Freebies?
There are indeed!
Should you subscribe via Hachette, your first delivery gets you a D&D Adventurer Dice Tray (and, a free copy of Issue 2). Your third gets you a binder to keep all your magazines in. Your fifth gets you a DM screen, and your seventh delivery gets you a dice jail – you know, for when your dice have really let you down.
According to Hachette’s website, however, these subscriber gifts are a limited-time things, and won’t be available forever. If you want them, you’ll need to act fast.
Are There Any Exclusive Characters or Adventures?
Yup!
Currently, there are 7 completely brand-new adventures planned spanning the 80 issues. These Adventures are each made up of 11 or 12 individual encounters that span the Forgotten Realms, so by the end of each adventure you’ll have a full understanding of everything that’s been going on – from the locations you’ve played in to the overarching adventure itself.
If you’re stuck as to what to play, you needn’t worry. There are currently 12 exclusive characters planned for the full collection, covering all the core classes. Thanks to both D&D’s ruleset, as well as the folks at Hachette’s clever planning, players can choose how they would like to play: you will be able to either stick with your original characters across all adventures and will receive full guidance on how each of these characters will level up (to level 5), or chop and change as you wish.
Levelling up also comes at a fairly regular rate. Characters first level up to level 2 in issue 6. After that, further level-ups happen approx. every 15 issues.
Who is D&D Adventurer For?
Most issues of the collection will contain information and advice for both players and DMs, so irrespective of your experience level there’ll be plenty of stuff for you to sink your teeth into. For DMs in particular, after issue 9 you will find a lot of DM-focused articles within the magazine as content continues to expand and some of the training wheels start to come off. As such, the encounters and articles within each magazine should therefore appeal to both sides of the DM’s screen – whether you’re a player or running the session, there’ll be stuff for you. The encounters across the collection will include tips on running the game, and you can also find “DM Top Tips” with other articles too.
New players will enjoy the benefits of step-by-step guides on how to play D&D, from information on how to run an encounter as a DM, how the game works and how the characters work, to what all the different dice do. Magazines come with clear instructions, hints and tips to get you started – and given all the gear that comes with each issue, your dice, pre-made characters, and all your visual aids will help kick-start your experience.
Existing players will get to enjoy brand-new and exclusive adventures and characters, the likes of which they won’t have seen before. Some issues will also include additional encounter points for those who want to extend their gaming time and beef up the challenge. You’ll also be able to take a deep dive into the lore of the Forgotten Realms, which will help existing DMs and players continue to grow their own characters and campaigns to new heights.
How do I Subscribe?
There are currently a couple of ways to subscribe to D&D Adventurer that we’ve listed below. In the past, there has also been the “Forbidden Planet Method”, which you can read more about over on our Warhammer Imperium Magazine Contents List, but we’re not sure if this one works for D&D Adventurer yet.
Option 1: Directly with Hachette
The first, most obvious, and likely the easiest way for you to get your hands on your copies of D&D Adventurer is to subscribe directly with Hachette by clicking the big yellow “SUBSCRIBE NOW” bar on their website. With this method, you will be sent 4 issues every 4 weeks and will be charged around the same time that the issues dispatch.
You’ll be put on one of several delivery schedules that are, as far as we can tell, determined by the time at which you subscribe, and will receive your deliveries at the same time every month.
Of course, subscribing with Hachette also ensures you get the exclusive free gifts available throughout the collection.
Option 2: Via your Local Newsagent
The next option available for you is to subscribe via your local news agent. Your newsagent will manage your subscription for you, and you simply need to collect your issue from them every week.
In the past, this method can have its’s drawbacks. Make sure you trust your newsagent – during previous Warhammer collections, we were been told by our readers that some newsagents claimed did not get copies of certain high-demand issues (you know, the ones that then turned up in droves on eBay).
By subscribing at your “trusted” newsagent, you are also unlikely to get the extras that Hachette provides in deliveries, nor will you get the binders which you are charged extra for. However, this is not a certain thing, as in the past we have had reports on our Facebook groups that some newsagents have provided binders.
Option 3: The Forbidden Planet Method.
This is one we strongly recommend you try out – and one that’s been growing in popularity since it started being used for the Warhammer partworks subscription.
Subscribing with (or really just buying directly from) Forbidden Planet will get your issues delivered to your door weekly rather than every 4 weeks. You will be charged weekly for your purchases, and you can pick and choose the issues and quantities you like, offering you more control over what issues you receive. Perhaps you’d like to net extra D&D Adventurer Dice Tins from Issue 1 to give to your party. Perhaps you like the look of that extra-large dice in Issue 4 and want to grab an extra one.
There is a postage cost. One or two issues will cost £2.25, 3 will cost £2.95, and four or more more will cost £5.95 – but that’s the absolute cap. If you order 4 issues or 400 issues so long as the total quantity of issues in a single order is 4 or more, the postage cost will never rise above £5.95 – see below.
As such, the more issues you order in one go, the less and less the postage cost matters – the issues purchased from Forbidden Planet are 17p cheaper than advertised RRP, so if you order in bulk each time (you’re looking at around 35 issues, but given that the collection is running to 80 issues that shouldn’t be too hard to do), you will break even. Order more in a single order and you are saving money.
When the first issue of the order is dispatched, you are charged for the issue and the full £5.95 cost of postage for your whole order. After that you never pay postage again and just pay for the issues weekly until that order is complete.
See? Easy peasy. Head over to Forbidden Planet to see what they have on offer right now!
Is there a Premium Subscription?
Coming as no surprise to anyone familiar with Hachette’s subscriber model from previous collections, D&D Adventure is offering a Premium Subscription.
For an additional £1.25 per issue, subscribers (and this is a subscriber-only offer) will receive a set of 5 exclusively designed silver coins featuring artwork of the characters from the collection, plus a custom-made display frame.
According to Hachette’s D&D Adventurer website, “each 38.6mm coin is made of a high-quality cupronickel material and will create the perfect display as you play through your D&D Adventurer encounters!”
It’s not, perhaps, what you might be expecting – especially if you’ve happened across D&D Adventurer via FauxHammer.com and our previous Partworks coverage, where Premium subscriptions tend to have included bucketloads of additional Warhammer miniatures. We can see the appeal – using a silvery coin by way of a character token is a huge flex on the rest of your adventuring party, but we’re still a little on the fence about this.
Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer: Everything You Need to Know – Final Thoughts
D&D Adventurer is going to be very different to any of the previous partworks collections that we’ve covered here at FauxHammer.com – that much is plain to see from the outset.
Dungeons & Dragons is a very different game to Warhammer, with an emphasis on pen and paper exploits, player creativity and the theatre of the mind. Whilst the value of your Warhammer partworks collections is largely found in the models, paints and tools that come across the collection, the value of D&D Adventurer – whilst also embodied in the exclusive goodies, such as dice – is very much intrinsically tied to the written content within the magazines. Good-quality pre-written adventures, exclusive scenarios, and stories you can bring to your gaming group (or use as bait when setting one up), are the bread and butter of Dungeons & Dragons, and you can’t be without them.
As such, we’re super interested to see how the rest of this collection shapes up. Of course, we’ll let you know as soon as we learn anything else about this subscription!
Let us know what you think of everything so far – we’d love your thoughts. Got any questions yourself? Leave them in the comments and we’ll see if we can find some answers for you.
Please Note: This site uses affiliate links. Our Affiliate Partners are shown below
(Affiliate links will result in compensation to the site on qualifying purchases)
Click this link & buy your hobby stuff from Element Games for the UK & Europe to support FauxHammer.com – Use Code “FAUX2768” at the checkout for double reward points.
Our Affiliates / Hobby Stores
- UK: Element Games, The Outpost, Wayland Games, Mighty Lancer, Goblin Gaming, Forbidden Planet, Model Scenery Supplies, eBay, Amazon
- US/Canada: MTechCave, GameKastle, eBay (US), eBay (CA), Amazon
- Germany: Taschengelddieb
- Europe: eBay (DE), eBay (FR), eBay (ES), eBay (IT), Amazon
- Australia: eBay, Amazon
- Global: RedGrass Games, Warcolours
- 3D Printers: Phrozen 3D, Elegoo, Anycubic
English (UK) 
Deutsch 
Français 
Italiano 
Español 
I wonder how this fits with One D&D? Reading through the first couple of issues, it looks like the rules are fifth edition, but they use the newer term species rather than race.