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Enhancing "Rise of Tiamat" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)
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<blockquote data-quote="GuardianLurker" data-source="post: 6737862" data-attributes="member: 786"><p>More additional thoughts:</p><p></p><p>1) Your players may want to bring the Giants into the Alliance; it's mentioned as a throw-away at the beginning of the module, and the finale assumes the giants are involved, but it isn't detailed. If you're sticking to Faerun canon, a Jotunmoot to match the Dragon's Council (in RoT:Ep6) would include Ettins, Hill Giants, Stone Giants, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, and Storm Giants. If you chose to include this, make sure to include some concession-enabling events/things in HotDQ.</p><p></p><p>2) Speaking of Ep. 6 - as written its a little easy. Or more accurately, written on the assumption that the PCs won't ever do anything to annoy the dragons and harm the negotiations. They will - that's what PCs do. So make sure to include notes on what you think would worsen the dragons attitude *during* negotiations, not just at the start.</p><p></p><p>2a) Also, as written, the adventure assumes the encounters will be *entirely* RP. This isn't entirely unfair, but it is a little unwise for a general-purpose audience. If you want to include mechanical backup, I'd suggest adding an additional attitude between Neutral and Friendly (I used "Receptive"). And set Persuasion DCs for transitioning between states. I used: Unfriendly -> DC 25 -> Cautious -> DC 20 -> Neutral -> DC 20 Receptive -> DC 25 -> Friendly, with a backslide option of "when the characters fail a check by 15 or more."</p><p></p><p>3) One of the major complaints is that outcomes are locked in. This is usually justified as a time-related issue ("You were to late to prevent..."). So fix this by rewarding quick resolutions. And contrariwise, (slightly) penalizing laggards. (I say slightly because most of the obvious penalties are those baked-in outcomes you'd be working to correct.) Which of course means you need a standard to compare against. As a rough-order-of-magnitude, I suggest 2 weeks per episode, and allow for breaks in-between, but calculating actual time required isn't difficult.</p><p></p><p>Where this will make the biggest difference is in the finale - Did the characters move fast enough to prevent the start of the ritual? The summoning the Temple? Were they too late to prevent the summoning of Tiamat? etc.</p><p></p><p>4) Those "side-adventures" mentioned early in the book are what you need to use to bring out the flavor and background details, to convert the AP from a series of disjointed missions/dungeoncrawls. Do NOT neglect them. Detail them, insert them into the plot. I'd argue they are actually more important than the "Cult Attacks" to the success of the AP.</p><p></p><p>Edit:</p><p>5) The Arcane Brotherhood isn't a bad substitute for the Red Wizards of Thay, if your players would be uncomfortable with that alliance (and deservedly so). Develop a replacement for Ep. 8 if you do. Based on the AB's goals/interests, it would probably be some kind of "fetch" quest.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GuardianLurker, post: 6737862, member: 786"] More additional thoughts: 1) Your players may want to bring the Giants into the Alliance; it's mentioned as a throw-away at the beginning of the module, and the finale assumes the giants are involved, but it isn't detailed. If you're sticking to Faerun canon, a Jotunmoot to match the Dragon's Council (in RoT:Ep6) would include Ettins, Hill Giants, Stone Giants, Fire Giants, Frost Giants, and Storm Giants. If you chose to include this, make sure to include some concession-enabling events/things in HotDQ. 2) Speaking of Ep. 6 - as written its a little easy. Or more accurately, written on the assumption that the PCs won't ever do anything to annoy the dragons and harm the negotiations. They will - that's what PCs do. So make sure to include notes on what you think would worsen the dragons attitude *during* negotiations, not just at the start. 2a) Also, as written, the adventure assumes the encounters will be *entirely* RP. This isn't entirely unfair, but it is a little unwise for a general-purpose audience. If you want to include mechanical backup, I'd suggest adding an additional attitude between Neutral and Friendly (I used "Receptive"). And set Persuasion DCs for transitioning between states. I used: Unfriendly -> DC 25 -> Cautious -> DC 20 -> Neutral -> DC 20 Receptive -> DC 25 -> Friendly, with a backslide option of "when the characters fail a check by 15 or more." 3) One of the major complaints is that outcomes are locked in. This is usually justified as a time-related issue ("You were to late to prevent..."). So fix this by rewarding quick resolutions. And contrariwise, (slightly) penalizing laggards. (I say slightly because most of the obvious penalties are those baked-in outcomes you'd be working to correct.) Which of course means you need a standard to compare against. As a rough-order-of-magnitude, I suggest 2 weeks per episode, and allow for breaks in-between, but calculating actual time required isn't difficult. Where this will make the biggest difference is in the finale - Did the characters move fast enough to prevent the start of the ritual? The summoning the Temple? Were they too late to prevent the summoning of Tiamat? etc. 4) Those "side-adventures" mentioned early in the book are what you need to use to bring out the flavor and background details, to convert the AP from a series of disjointed missions/dungeoncrawls. Do NOT neglect them. Detail them, insert them into the plot. I'd argue they are actually more important than the "Cult Attacks" to the success of the AP. Edit: 5) The Arcane Brotherhood isn't a bad substitute for the Red Wizards of Thay, if your players would be uncomfortable with that alliance (and deservedly so). Develop a replacement for Ep. 8 if you do. Based on the AB's goals/interests, it would probably be some kind of "fetch" quest. [/QUOTE]
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