D&D 5E Enhancing "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist"

Been thinking about this adventure some more and here's my latest high-level remix (with some hand-waving where necessary ).

Leading up to the adventure PCs have established a reputation of being a useful team of urban adventurers, taking on odd-jobs for various citizens (and the city guard where necessary). Players should roll up characters with backgrounds and attributes that lend themselves to that end.

Level 1: As a reward for their most recent job they've been given the title to Trollskull manor but as it's known to be (at least) haunted they'll have to clear it out in order to make use of it. So level 1 is simply moving into Trollskull manor and basically setting up shop. I'd have the PCs start in Trollskull Alley staring at the ramshackle building they now possess.

Level 2: They'll get a few other jobs that introduce the players to life in the city (see the various excellent supplements on DMs Guild) and perhaps gather a few useful contacts that will come into play later in the adventure.

Level 3: They are visited by Renaer Neverember and asked to retrieve a stolen family heirloom (the Stone of Golorr - he makes up some story about how it was found when construction started on the City of Neverwinter by some ancient relative, it's been in the family ever since but was recently stolen as part of a general robbery.) Really it's as in the book, the Stone contains the location of the dragon hoard and Neverember wants it back without making a big fuss. This part of the adventure remix requires delving into the underworld of Waterdeep and tracking down the Stone - this can end with one of the chase scenes if desired, but it's not connected to the villain. Simply a black marketeer who thinks some other ne'er-do-wells want to steal from him/her). In the middle of this adventure occurring the news comes out of a great robbery of the city coffers.

Level 4: When they complete the job they find Renaer distraught. His father has disappeared and no-one knows what's happened to him. (In reality your chosen villain in the adventure rightly believes that Neverember has something to do with the theft of the dragons and have abducted him to find out where they are. This section of the adventure is to rescue Neverember and recover the stolen dragons. Rescuing Neverember is somewhat straightforward as the villain has discovered that Neverember doesn't know the whereabouts (thanks to the mind wipe) so they want to release him and then spy on him anticipating that he (or one of his agents) eventually leads them to the vault. This ends Level 4 with the PCs finding the vault and then having the villain take the gold instead (thanks to bringing overwhelming force). The journey through the vault will need to be beefed up quite a bit to make it challenging for level 4 PCs.

Level 5: Neverember commissions the PCs to recover the gold from the villain and return it to the city coffers via a magical portal (that he had originally used to steal the dragons in the first place...). If they choose to tell the city watch that the villain has the trove, then (off camera) the city watch attempts to retrieve it but of course the villain denies it and deflects back to Neverember (who is starting to be sweated by the city so really needs the dragons returned!). The city watch of course isn't able to find the hidden dragons. So the mission becomes find where the dragons are being kept in the villains lair and return them to the city vault without the villain knowing (until it's over). I.e. a proper heist.

I'm just starting this.

A really cool adventure for embedding the group into a setting. And, it's going to be a springboard for DotMM, so, I'm going to drop all sorts of hints and goodies.

So far, haven't gotten much further than planning out renovating Trollskull manor. There's some fantastic stuff over on Reddit on this, so, I'm going to ... erm... use that for inspiration (ie steal and plageurize).

One thing for those playing this on Fantasy Grounds. The city maps that come with FG are garbage. The overall map is far too low resolution to be readable, and the split up maps aren't actually tagged, making finding any location a bloody great problem. I spent far, far too long trying to find where Old Xobblob's shop actually is.

Has anyone tagged all the locations from the module on a jpeg so I don't have to do the work? Or should I do it and share?

Jarlaxle

Jarlaxle's Master Attuner trait lets him attune to five magic items. However, he has *seven* magic items on his person that require attunement: bracer of flying daggers, cloak of invisibility, feather of diatryma summoning, hat of diguise, knave's eye patch, ring of truth telling, wand of web.

Would you allow him to cheat and attune to all of them at once, or would you actually bother to choose two that he isn't attuned to on any given day?

If the latter, I would probably have him not be attuned to the feather most of the time and probably the wand as well. I could see him swapping out the ring for the feather in preparation for the Day of Wonders parade. He might also swap out the bracer or ring for the wand if he thinks it would be more useful.

I can't see him ever de-attuning to the hat or the eye patch. Maybe the cloak.



EDIT: As an aside, I decided to give Jarlaxle the Actor feat (mainly to put my mind at ease about him impersonating Laeral) and also the Fancy Footwork swashbuckler feature, plus the Parry reaction. Just to make him even more of a dashing rogue!

I am really intrigued by Robus' remix of Dragon Heist. I'm a new DM (and a first time poster).

ROBUS, have you fleshed out these ideas at all or thought of any plot holes that might need attention. Just curious before I start my planning. Thanks, Krudler.

In my campaign, the Day of Wonders parade has already been and gone. So when the PCs cleared out the Xanathar Guild hideout in the sewers during the chapter 4 encounter chain, they decided to retrieve the mechanical beholder and take it to the temple of Gond.

Not knowing how big or heavy it was meant to be, we all agreed that it couldn't be life-size, as making it Large would mean it couldn't fit through any of the narrow doorways leading in and out of the cellar complex. I forget how they managed to get it out of the sewers, but they hired a cart to transport it across town.

I also have no idea how much it might be worth, so I said I'd get back to them on that. They've left it with the Gondar for now. They're not necessarily going to sell it, but they want to at least know a) what it's worth and b) what it does. (They were too nervous to test it, so they disabled it and thus don't know that it's essentially a glorified disco ball ... which could make for a fun addition to Trollskull Manor!)

Anyone got any thoughts they'd like to share on the subject?

EDIT: I think I will forego assigning a monetary value and have the Gondar offer a trade: either they keep the construct and owe the PCs a favor, or they repair it and give it back to the PCs, who will then owe the Gondar a favor.

Link to another thread on this board with quick tips for the adventure:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?656021-Give-Me-Your-Dragon-Heist-Tips

And a link to Jasper's writeups of running season 8 DDAL:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?653401-Jasper-Dms-Season-8-spoilers

Here's a little something for the ten day that the party will be fixing the Trollskull Tavern. Various visitors and the guild representatives and faction representatives.

If you are not staying in the city, I would get rid of Chapter 2 all together. With Mad Mage mega dungeon as the follow up adventure, Wizard's did the opposite of what they intended in awarding Trollskull Manor. It becomes totally irrelevant if you are following it up with Wizard's next Waterdeep adventure. So much of DH is about getting money to renovate that damned tavern but then who cares, it will never be key to them again. Wizard's ended up showing what a waste of energy it is creating a base if you don't know where you are going next.

I would have the PC's get an anonymous note saying something to the point of "I will be visiting you tomorrow, I have something I want you to keep safe. Meet me at "x" tomorrow AM. Then, kaboom, Fireball Chapter 3.

I dunno. My players have really glommed onto the manor. It's really focused their interest. And the notion that they have to gather up some cash to make a home really appeals to them. And, when it comes time to do Mad Mage, well, they are going to need somewhere to rest between adventures no? Sure, it's not the center of the campaign. It's not supposed to be.

But, what it is is a FANTASTIC way to ground the group into the setting. Meeting a bajillion NPC's, connecting to all sorts of information groups that sort of thing. I mean, imagine the PC's, going through Mad Mage, want to find other adventurers who have made the trip. What better way than to talk to their Innkeeper's Association buddies and find them?

Granted, it appears that my group wants to turn the manor into a ... ummm... well the Waterdavian term is Festhall. So, well, there's that.

Hussar said:

Granted, it appears that my group wants to turn the manor into a ... ummm... well the Waterdavian term is Festhall. So, well, there's that.

Click to expand...

Would that be one of those Festhalls with the red lamps out front?...

I don't know if my players are going to go all in on chapter 2, but I did inform them to be thinking in their backstory about a reason that each of their characters want to make a name for themselves or become established in the city, so they're primed for it.