With the Essentials kit now out in the US of A, on a limited basis as a Target exclusive until 3rd September.

I think it was a good time to remind people interested in getting into the game that they don’t have to wait.

In a previous post I talked about using free resources from WotC and Matthew Colville to run a D&D night with a bunch of friends.

However with the emphasis of the Essentials kit being to take players the next step and play using characters they created. I thought it would be appropriate after there was a reminder shared on Twitter that there is a great free official resource that gives you some extra races you can use, to write this post linking to some sources of free adventures you can use for this next step.

Here is the link from the tweet Elemental Evil Player’s Companion.

So with that pdf and the free basic rules, you go from 4 races to 8. Plus more spells for druids and wizards to choose from.

But what are the players going to do with these new characters they have created? I’m assuming that you and your friends have already done the Colville adventure mentioned in the previous post. Now after spending time creating a character personal to them your players will want to spend more than a one shot with them. They will want a campaign!,

You can create your own but I’m going to assume that is something you want to do down the road. Well you could look on the DM’s Guild, and do a search for free adventures there. There are plenty to choose from.

This post links to some free Adventurers Guild adventures many suited to first level characters that are hosted on the WotC servers.

Another great source of encounters that could be turned into a mini campaign are the Encounters of the Week over on D&D Beyond. The post I’m linking to here is the 8th in a series of encounters that lead into the upcoming storyline adventure book Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus. At the bottom of the post are links to the other 7 posts and the order they are experienced. But there are many others there that can be strung together. I particularly like the 2 they did for Ghosts of Saltmarsh (here and here).

But the above just scratches the surface of what’s on offer out there. After my first session has run, my notes for that will be here. If you are desperate enough you could use them as well.

If an adventure mentions a monster and you don’t have the stats for it, google is your friend. It will usually give you a D&D Beyond result, so maybe look there first. Also on a side note you can access the basic rules on D&D Beyond for free that does give you access to more than the free pdf when it comes to classes and races. Well more in general. Add in the free Elemental Evil pdf above and you have a lot of choices for your players.

I hope this post was of use. I’m off to finish prepping for my first session.