D&D 5E D&D Encounters: Hoard of the Dragon Queen (spoilers, complete! 18 sessions)

[MerricB]

Pharblex Splattergoo and Bog Luck: the spirit of Douglas Adams lives on.

Curious as to your material. Are you running this "out of the book" with the various vignettes basically spelled out there (and then there was an inn with assassins disguised as nobles...). Are you only using part of it? Does it give some scope for options or improvisation?

I'm basically running it based on the book - the inn encounter is there, for instance - but I've got a lot of freedom to add extra encounters, change things around and suchlike. Most of the road trip is presented as a set of 12 "random" encounters, of which I chose some to run rather than doing it randomly, and then saw what the players would do from there.

Castle Naerytar has a lot of background information on the relationship between the lizardfolk, bullywugs and cultists, which I only touched on in my run-through... different groups can approach this in very different ways. (It's entirely possible to pose as cultists, for instance).

Cheers!

 

[TerraDave]

We have touched on this before...but they have clearly moved far from how encounters used to be run just a few years ago.

This would seem like a bigger challenge for the DM, though I guess there is less pressure on big set piece battles. Do you think this is a problem, or DMs would welcome the wider ranging action that is closer to a typical home game (if that makes sense)?

 

[MerricB]

We have touched on this before...but they have clearly moved far from how encounters used to be run just a few years ago.

This would seem like a bigger challenge for the DM, though I guess there is less pressure on big set piece battles. Do you think this is a problem, or DMs would welcome the wider ranging action that is closer to a typical home game (if that makes sense)?

Strictly speaking, I'm not running Encounters any more - that was only the first three levels.

I love being more in a home-campaign feel for the adventure, as do my players. The serious players that come each week really, really like being able to keep their characters and advance all the way to 15th level.

However, we do miss the casual nature of the old Encounters program. There are other players that can't make every week, and the ongoing story really makes it hard for them. What I'd really like is an alternative program of lots of one-session adventures (similar, perhaps, to the 1-hour adventures from Defiance in Phlan) that we could also run for casual players. It's a lot harder to integrate new players.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

We did a reconfiguration of the tables this session to account for players who have dropped out. There is one fewer table now; our numbers are generally stable around 30 players each week, which seems more sustainable into the future. My own table is nominally at six players, although Lewis couldn’t make this session so we only had five players this session.

My table is the furthest advanced of any at our store and, this session, we progressed into Episode 7. (The other tables are spread between Episodes 5 and 6).

This episode is unusual. The characters entered the portal at Castle Naerytar and emerged near a hunting lodge in an unidentified forest in the mountains – not in the black dragon lair, which they greatly feared would be the case!

They cautiously approached the lodge, but there were no cultists on guard and so they were able to enter it unobserved. The guard post was unattended, but the party’s entrance wasn’t completely unobserved: Gargoyles watched the main hall! The gargoyles weren’t attacking visitors who weren’t holding bared steel, however, so the party could pass undisturbed.

In fact, the ground floor had no cultists, only a few servants who were busy in a noisy kitchen. The group observed the kitchen without drawing attention to themselves, and chose to bypass it. Instead they ended up in a parlour, where their curiosity triggered an attack by a helmed horror, one of the more iconic magical constructs of the Forgotten Realms. It was a bit challenging to face, but the group were too far from the cultists on the upper level to raise any alarm. Another parlour held various trophies; my players were about to leave when Josh started looking in the mouths of the stuffed heads on the walls. No, they didn’t attack him – instead he found treasure: a pair of potions of healing. He was very pleased with his find.

The group headed upstairs, where they discovered a number of bedchambers. Most were empty, but the last was the bedchamber of the head cultist. They immediately investigated a chest near the foot of the bed, only to find it locked. The group is completely without the services of a knock spell (something that Jesse, who is playing a bard, is realising would make things a lot easier). They also don’t have a rogue, but they do have one player who is proficient with thieves’ tools – he rolled really well and the group were able to take the items from the chest, including a set of magical chain armour. (I don’t know if anyone is using it, though!)

The next room they explored turned out to be a barracks; one sleeping guard there was roused by their entry and called out an alarm. It was at that point that Talis the White, leader of the cultists in the lodge, confronted them.

Talis did not immediately attack, and what could have been a dangerous combat turned into a negotiation session (a parlay, if you will). Talis saw the party as useful tools for improving his position in the cult and causing great embarrassment (and perhaps worse) for Rezmir, her superior. Luckily for Talis, the group were more than happy to sow discord in the cult, especially if it meant stopping the Greenest shipment from reaching the Hoard the cultists had been accumulating.

Talis was able to give the players directions to the great flying castle that the cultists would be using to transport the treasure, along with passwords and a banner to aid them in their infiltration. The party happily accepted, assuring Talis that they’d cause a lot of trouble for Rezmir. Talis then entertained them in the lodge before they left on the next morning for the village of Parnest, and the flying castle there!

This was quite a short session, but as the final episode of the adventure looks like it will be massive, I was happy to pause things here. The group had engaged in very little combat, but they’d gained the aid of Talis the White and they’d find that invaluable. I’ll be interested to discover how other groups approached this episode. Did you fight your way through? Or did you negotiate?

 

[MerricB]

This is the third-last session report on Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Yes, my group has actually finished the adventure, but I’m a few weeks behind in writing session reports. I’ll catch up this week, so I’m all ready to report on The Rise of Tiamat when we begin that in the very near future.

The last session had seen the group gain as an ally a renegade cult member, who gave them the information they needed to sneak aboard the flying castle that the Cult of the Dragon were using to transport the treasure. Disguising themselves as cultists, they made their way into the Village of Parnast, near which the castle was currently “parked”.

The group were not interested at all in investigating the village, instead – after getting directions – moving directly to the castle. And what a castle it was! Spires of stone and ice lifted up to the sky, the castle sitting in a broad ravine near the castle. It wasn’t in the best of the repair, and was thousands of years old, but it would serve the cult well. A few last wagons with supplies (and treasure) moved into the castle as the players entered, their disguises working well. Now, at last, they could discover what they were up against!

The players were quite impressive this session as they spent it exploring the castle rather than getting into fights. Having good intelligence is really important in a situation like this, because the party were quite outnumbered. The castle was dominated by two great courtyards, one above the other, with a number of buildings around the outskirts of the courtyards. The buildings on the lower level had been taken over by the cult, and the group discovered the location of the barracks, the stables (with wyverns!), the kitchens (with kobolds!), and the rooms used by the cult leaders. They were unable to pick the lock on Rezmir’s chambers, which is possibly quite as well as she was inside at the time, and they also disturbed two Red Wizards deep in conversation, including their “friend” from the caravan, before excusing themselves and withdrawing. Luckily for them, the group were well disguised enough that he didn’t recognise them!

An open chamber containing a pair of stone giants performing some sort of ritual was avoided by the party. Things were already problematic enough!

The players, having explored the lower level, now made their way to the upper courtyard. There they were confronted by a number of ogre guards who served the cloud giant that ruled the castle, Blagothkus. The group were quick-thinking enough to not mortally offend the ogres, and were escorted to the cloud giant. Blagothkus was not in a good mood, and he was really not happy with the cultists aboard the castle. This was actually not the best situation for the group, who were currently impersonating cultists! They were very restrained and very respectful and somehow managed to get out of the interview without killing anyone or being killed. This was a great triumph.

Except, in the terms of the adventure, it wasn’t. Blagothkus could actually be a pretty good ally for the group, but the group didn’t pick up on his disdain for the cultists and instead just concentrated on not offending him. Without his help, the rest of the adventure would be really, really difficult, but the party was still alive so we’ll take that as a success.

Slipping away from the ogres, the group explored a crumbling tower to discover the lair of a vampire (another of the cultists), who was guarded by two vampire spawn. They quickly retreated, and discovered one more door that was impossible to open. Without the use of a knock spell, they were unable to proceed further.

Their last business of the day was entering the icy tunnels beneath the castle, where the group discovered the hoard that was being transported to the main base of operations of the cult. There was just one problem: a large white dragon was guarding it. Danielle’s rogue (Vanilla) flattered the dragon outrageously, and the group made their way back to the main castle, where they would rest before actually beginning their attempt to take over the castle.

Oh, and at some time during their explorations, the castle had taken off. It was now heading south, towards the heart of the cult’s activity. The stage was set for the final part of Hoard of the Dragon Queen!

 

[Nemio]

Thanks for taking the time to write this
I'm curious about what they will do next.

 

[MerricB]

Having thoroughly scouted most of the castle last session, the group now prepared to cause as much trouble for the cult as they did. Between sessions, I allowed some retooling of the characters, in particular with their spell lists, as the group was finding that some of their spells were proving far less effective than they needed to be. The most relevant change was that the group now had the knock spell, which allowed them access to the last of the towers – the control tower, which had the magical devices that allowed the steering of the castle.

The knock spell in 5E is actually quite loud, which meant that all the ogres in the upper courtyard heard the spell and came to investigate, which, of course, led to a battle. Various fire magic spells got thrown around by Ice (Danielle’s Sorcerer), which made me quite aware of how poor the spell selection is for ice-using sorcerers in the game at present. Once all the ogres were dead, the group were able to properly explore the tower, where they found all the devices used to control the tower. More importantly, they discovered the ghost of Blagothkus’s wife.

This allowed me to point out that the cloud giant ruler of the flying castle was not actually happy with the cult, and so, when he came marching up to the tower with the rest of his ogres, the party were able (aided by some excellent Charisma checks) to persuade him that they weren’t cultists after all and that he’d be able to regain his castle if they teamed up with him.

(As for the dead ogres, no-one really cared about them).

Before they took on the cultists, the group returned to the vampire’s tower, defeated the vampire spawn guarding her coffin, and staked her. I ruled that she was still sleeping as it was day – I like to reward good planning, and this was the reward for all the scouting the group had done in the last session.

And then it was time to take out the cultists. Running big, complicated battles was not what I wanted to do here, especially as I’ve not been using miniatures in recent weeks. Instead, I simplified it to being the two Red Wizards, the leader of the cult and a couple of wyverns against the player characters and Blagothkus.

The players didn’t immediately scatter, which was a bit of a problem as it allowed one of the Red Wizards to launch a fireball at them, which almost killed Ice (she was 2 hit points away from instant death!) Jesse’s bard quickly revived her, but the spell-casters in the group found the resulting combat quite difficult, as the Red Wizards both had counterspells prepared, and with a lot of spell slots, most spells the players tried to cast were just countered. It gives a very, very different feel to 5E spell combat than in previous editions of D&D!

The major bonus for the group was having Blagothkus on their side. He was able to reach the Red Wizards and start taking them down, with Michael and Tim’s characters likewise causing problems.

As the Red Wizards fell, and Rezmir likewise, the wyverns began to enter the combat. They were particularly tricky to fight, as they spent a lot of time aloft and the group have quite a few characters without missile weapons. One of the twins eventually jumped onto the back of the wyvern (I think it was Michael), and was able to kill it. Unfortunately, this happened when it was still aloft, and he was dropped to zero hit points by the fall. Jesse treated his wounds, and the battle was done.

I hadn’t used Rezmir to her full extent by any means; and her more powerful items were not apparent in this battle. I wonder what had happened to them…

At this point, the group realised that Ice had wandered off sometime towards the end of the battle. A loud roar from a very large, angry white dragon in the caverns below gave the group some idea where she might have gone!

And this ended the penultimate session of Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

 

[MerricB]

“I want to pat you!”

That was what Ice told the surprised White Dragon, who suddenly was confronting a halfling sorcerer who really, really like dragons. As Ice was especially charming – aided by having advantage on Charisma checks against dragons – the white dragon, whose name was Glazrael, acquiesced and discovered it was rather nice. Then he took Ice for a ride outside the castle (to the stares of her bemused party members) before returning to his lair.

Then the rest of the adventurers came down, and after making some excuses, dragged Ice back up to the castle above.

The cultists were dead. Blagothkus was back in control of his castle, but there was still a white dragon in control of the hoard below, and Glazrael couldn’t be ignored for much longer. The castle was heading north again, and at some point Glazrael would notice, so the group and Blagothkus made their plans to take down the dragon.

Their plan was to have Ice distract the dragon while everyone else moved to positions where they could attack. Everyone agreed to this plan, and then rested overnight. (Just as well, Michael was on only a handful of hit points after falling off the wyvern earlier in the day).

Soon enough, they were back in the hoard chamber, and Ice began to distract Glazrael. Well, that’s what the rest of the characters thought she was doing, but instead she was pleading with Glazrael to leave, because otherwise her friends would kill him. Tim’s monk did speak draconic, and was not impressed by the dracophilia displayed by the halfling. In fact, there was every chance that Ice could persuade Glazrael, but when her two d20s came up showing a “1” and a “2”, I knew the dragon would be fighting the group.

They probably would have all died if not for Blagothkus. Having a cloud giant on their side was really, really important – as was the group spreading out to fight the dragon. Ice continued to try to persuade Glazrael to flee, but her next attempt was a “2” and a “3”, as the dice gods said “FIGHT!” So they did. Michael, replicating his trick with the wyvern, jumped on Glazrael’s back. A couple of rounds later he was thrown off, landing beside Blagothkus and one of the other characters, just in time for Glazrael to breathe frost over all of them. They survived – barely.

Eventually, the combined efforts of the group were enough to whittle Glazrael down to 3 hit points, and the dragon finally heeded Ice’s pleas to flee. But a magic missile spell on the fleeing dragon was enough to bring it down, and finally the last part of the Cult of the Dragon was purged from the castle. The group got really interested in the hoard, and especially the magic items. Permanent magic items have been few and far between during this adventure!

Blagothkus would drop them off near Waterdeep, but for now, they were happy at disrupting the plans of the Cult.

Next session… we begin The Rise of Tiamat!