D&D 5E Enhancing "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

[Torgaard]

So far we've only made it through Episode 1. Literally finished it last weekend. Here's my comments I guess...

• Healing - Think about dishing out a few Potions of Healing before the adventure gets rolling. Dunno if I'd say "Everybody should get two!" or anything, but you should probably hand out a few. Maybe to the Cleric? Or maybe be ready to dish out a few more here and there if the need arises (though that could get risky, because they might have to survive an encounter to acquire the items that could save them). Maybe from the the Governor or Escobert the Red, once the party reaches the keep. Even through it does state Nighthill will offer them a pot or two, I don't think he offers until after the dust has settled. Why all this Potion of Healing talk? Episode 1 only takes place in the span of like 6 hours. If you have them run down just a couple of the suggested missions, then factor in a random encounter or two, the party might end up having 3-5 combat encounters in the 3-5 hours that the episode runs. If they want to save villagers, capture cultists, etc - they definitely won't get to take a long rest. Frankly, I had a hard time trying to justifying a short rest. People are dyin' out there, man! This is a raid. This is happening - right - now. It's really kinda "Go-go-go!", or at least that's how I saw it. If they're anything like the players in my campaign, if your spellcasters don't expend all their spell slots in the first encounter, I'd frankly be stunned if they hadn't by the time the 2nd or 3rd one roles around. By that point, they will be scairt. Outta healing and starin' down the barrel of another encounter or two. Now, for the record: this did create alot of really juicy suspense for the party, and I have to admit I enjoyed myself a little too much making them squirm. :>
• Missions I Ran in Episode 1 - (1) "Seek the Keep" (2) A random encounter while the party rescued more villagers. (3) A sort of half small encounter, half theatrical encounter when I morphed the "Half-dragon Champion" encounter into a final run to the keep by the party with their rescued villagers where the half-dragon and a small armor of cultists almost reach them before they can reach the keep. (3) "The Old Tunnel" with its encounter. (4) "Prisoners" was completed with the Old Tunnel encounter, plus I merged it into (5) another encounter where (on the fly, I made up) a group of kobolds chasing a young girl who was fleeing towards the keep, the party rescued her, and she told them she'd first tried to reach the Temple of Chauntea but it was being besieged by cultists who were "Trying to burn it down right now! You must help them!". Which led to (5) the "Sanctuary" encounter. After the party rescued the people in the Sanctuary mission, it was on to (6) the "Dragon Attack". That was it. By then, the party had nuthin' left. Spells slots were gone, Potions of Healing were gone, Heal Kits couldn't be used on anybody anymore, and frankly the party was a frazzled and jittery group who were possibly gonna walk away with like PTSD.
• Missions I Skipped in Episode 1 - "The Sally Port", because it made sense to run it middle-late part of the night, sometime after "The Old Tunnel", but by then the party was long out of spell slots so I chose not to run it. "Save the Mill" I just flatout skipped, because again: the party was almost completed drained of healing for most of the night. "Half-dragon Champion" because I pretty much hated the design of that encounter. As mentioned, I merged it into "Seek the Keep" and didn't actually have a fight with Cyanwrath (I wouldn't have let it happen, frankly).
• The Dragon - It worked as designed for the party that I ran through Episode 1, though it should be pointed out that I made it relatively clear when describing what they saw in "Greenest in Flames", that it didn't see the party. That while they did just witness an actual adult blue dragon blasting away at this small village, that not long after it makes its little strafing run, it kinda disappears into the smoke, and the night (the sun is just setting). I then waiting until they were like right on the edge of town, and just about to begin "Seek the Keep" before I started describing how they could hear the roar of the dragon in the distance, and that they hear the detonation of another lightning attack (probably on the other side of town), etc. I then dropped a bit of background flavor here and there, where they'd be constantly looking over their shoulder, swearing they just saw some huge shape fly by overhead through the smoke, but it's too dark to tell, stuff like that. Building suspense basically, but never actually letting them see the dragon (until the "Dragon Attack" scene).

 

[jayoungr]

I found this Reddit post where someone has tried homebrewing young green slaads to replace the assassins in "No Room at the Inn." (That encounter was originally written with slaads, but then they were cut from the monster manual.)

Young Green Slaad

AC:16, HP:60, Shapechanger. Multiattack (2, Bite&Claw), CR:3 (700)

Bite (+4 to hit, 1d8+3)

Claw (+5 to hit, 1d6+3)

 

[Tommy Brownell]

I found this Reddit post where someone has tried homebrewing young green slaads to replace the assassins in "No Room at the Inn." (That encounter was originally written with slaads, but then they were cut from the monster manual.)

Young Green Slaad

AC:16, HP:60, Shapechanger. Multiattack (2, Bite&Claw), CR:3 (700)

Bite (+4 to hit, 1d8+3)

Claw (+5 to hit, 1d6+3)

I don't have my books with me, but I'm preeeeeetty sure slaads are in the Monster Manual. It was just decided that Assassins were slightly less scary and lethal than Slaads.

 

[jayoungr]

I don't have my books with me, but I'm preeeeeetty sure slaads are in the Monster Manual. It was just decided that Assassins were slightly less scary and lethal than Slaads.

Adult slaads are in the Monster Manual. The encounter originally featured immature slaads more appropriate to the party's level. Steve Winters has explained the history of the adventure on the WotC forums (link):

Regarding the "No Room At the Inn" road encounter -- That encounter has a long, sad history. The original version was very different, because the villains were not assassins but young green slaads polymorphed into human form and out to cause trouble. Playtesters loved the original encounter because of the twist -- no one expected slaads in that situation.

But then young green slaads disappeared from the MM and we were instructed not to use them in this encounter. We cast around for alternatives and found no really good ones, but assassins were at least close to the slaads in power -- as they were then written. In hindsight, we probably should have dropped the encounter entirely and replaced it with something else, because making the villains into just a bunch of human a**holes took all the charm out of the situation. But it had been such a hit with playtesters, we hated to lose it.

The problem was compounded tenfold because, by the time monster stat blocks were finalized, assassins wound up significantly more powerful than the original slaads or even than assassins had been when they were chosen as the slaads' replacement. Thus, we wind up with the killer encounter described by the OP.

I recommend one of the following changes to fix it.

• Use veterans instead of assassins. They're still just a pack of jerks, but at least they won't TPK the caravan.
• Use doppelgangers instead, although that makes this encounter rather redundant with another.
• Use werewolves instead.
• Choose any other creatures you like in the challenge 3-5 range, select enough to make a tough encounter, and give them potions of polymorph, hats of disguise, or some other way to conceal their true identities until it's time for them to spring the surprise.

Any of those solutions would work, of course, but homebrewing young slaads is also an option!

 

[cmad1977]

I know that it's extremely nerd-uncool of me, but I'm really liking HotDq. The typos don't bother me as I can easily figure out what was intended. The 'railroad' issue is a non-factor as none of my players have had a problem with it. The 'difficulty' or danger of a TPK is frankly part of the fun. The heroes have had a hard time at moments, but with smart play have triumphed without me fudging rolls(which I'm willing to do, but haven't needed to). The opening sequence wasn't a problem because I made it clear, and to me it was clear in the text, that the dragon isn't just sitting on the edge of town blasting the castle, but strafing occasionally. And even the final fight with Cyanwrath clearly states that the player who faces him will be rescued by the townsfolk at the last minute.

My players seem to be having a blast and one of the thing that is surprising me is how effective the group is. Hunter ranger, assassin rogue, shadow monk, land Druid are the core and are handling things quite well.

I guess this was a little off topic, but all the nerd rage about tyranny of dragons has been bugging me a little as I find most of the criticism to be overwrought and at times hypocritical. Is the adventure a railroad or does it not provide enough guidance? To me it can't do both. And if people are afraid of the'work' that it takes to DM... Then don't. I'm certain it's far from perfect and I've changed parts as we've gone along to fit some of the character backgrounds... But that's just what you do.

 

[sobchak]

Completely agree with everything you said. No adventure is going to be perfect. You have to tweak it to suit your group, and your DMing style. I'm a player in HotDQ. Just finished chapter 3. Ever since I saw that massive dragon flying over Greenast and not laying waste to the town or raising the keep, I've been trying to unravel what is going on. Sure, it was an intimidating opening scene, but that only made it more fun. As a veteran player I knew there could not be design intent for the PC's to directly fight the blue dragon.

In our game the DM had the blue dragon return and "inspire" us to get the eggs held by the cult, rather than Leosin. And there is a drow faction courting us. But our DM is starting to go off the rails.

My best suggestions for the OP are the following:
1)Add a religious leader and/or merchant in the keep. Give the PC's someone else to interact with and get info. Also a way for players to get access to healing.
2)Make that dragon a talker. Don't miss out on the opportunity to mock those pathetic PC's. Potential for good RP, and perhaps PC's can learn something about the cult if they are clever
3)Read all the reviews and blogs about the raider camp. Put some thought into how you want to run it or it can turn out to be a confusing mess. Walking in to the camp as a player just did not make sense to me. Our group ran a number of raids against the cult. We took Izzek prisoner, very briefly, fought the duel with Cyanwrath, and Escobar the Red was in the camp as a double agent (and at the time we believed he was truly a traitor). Too many people recognized us for my PC to believe we could just walk in. Our DM even had undercover cultists watching the mercenaries when we infiltrated the camp. As a player, I really struggled with the camp.

 

[jayoungr]

I recently re-listened to the November-December episode of "Behind the DM Screen" (here). Mike Shea had some interesting comments on how he handled certain aspects of the adventure that don't seem to have made it onto his blog. I've transcribed his comments below (cleaning them up a bit to get rid of "like," "you know," interruptions, and things like that).

I actually threw in another thing that isn't in the adventure but helped me, and I'm hoping helped the players, and helped kind of centralize what's going on. I created this thing called the Council Quiet, a group of members of the five factions--it's actually four factions at this point, and then Jamna Gleamsilver, who's a Zhentarim, invites herself as the fifth member of the Council Quiet. Ontharr Frume is there for the Lords' Alliance, and Leosin Erlanthar is there as the representative of the Harpers. So each of these NPCs that the players have met are now together in Waterdeep as part of this council, and they're sort of deciding, "What are we going to do?" And the fun bit is, the party becomes part of the council, so they get a vote--they might even get the majority vote. So both groups [that I run for] got to decide, "Do we want the Zhentarim to join this group or not?" I had one group who said, "Uh, you know, we'll give them a trial basis," and the other group's like, "Oh yeah, they're fine."

So that was kind of a fun point, where they can say, "Here's what's really going on. The Cult of the Dragon is trying to resurrect Tiamat out of hell, and we want to stop that. There are five wyrmspeakers that are responsible for this, and we want to hunt down and kill the five wyrmspeakers and get their masks, because their masks are powerful. We want to start with Rezmir, who's the black wyrmspeaker that you guys have already seen, and find her through the trail of money that she's leaving, kill her and get the mask, and then find out who the other wyrmspeakers are and kill them too." So now it's a nice clean plot that can actually last through the entire next adventure.

I'm using [James] Intercaso's idea--let them go ahead and get the masks. The masks don't have to be this thing they can't actually get. They can be things they can get. Maybe they get them all, maybe they only get one or two, maybe they destroy them instead of keeping them--who knows what they'll do with them? But I think I've got a pretty good plan so the adventure can go forward regardless of what happens to the masks, yet they still have an impact on the game. If all five wyrmspeakers have all five masks and the party stopped and didn't get any of them, that means Tiamat's coming back at full power and she's going to kill them. For each mask they manage to either destroy or get rid of or whatever, she'll be a little weaker, until she's weak enough that they might actually be able to beat her. So I think that that's kind of a nice scaling way to have the masks have a big impact without being totally useless and without forcing them to go a certain way.

Now, all of the interesting bits about how certain wyrmspeakers are not necessarily loyal to the whole plan to resurrect Tiamat--that's all fine, and they'll still figure that out as they meet these wyrmspeakers. Then it's not boss fights one right after the other. One of them might be dead already. One of them might be betrayed. There could be all kinds of things going on with the wyrmspeakers at the same time. So I'm glad to have this sort of central moment now, before the big Waterdeep council occurs at beginning of Rise of Tiamat. Because right now, none of the leaders have any idea what's really going on; they don't really care. So they're not going to get involved. But they might have representatives who are like, "Yeah, we're a little worried about this." So that's why the Council Quiet sort of works.

 

[OpsKT]

First, go through and take notes on the chapter before running. Not everything is in a good location in the text for at-table use.

Second, it really helps to have printed out the supplement pages for the monsters ahead of time, or to have copied down the stats. Not having to flip really smooths it out.

Thirdly, remember that not all the encounters presented are mandatory.

That last part is very important for chapter 6. If you try to run that entire castle as is, you will drive yourself nuts.

 

[cmad1977]

That last part is very important for chapter 6. If you try to run that entire castle as is, you will drive yourself nuts.

Yeah, I see that episode turning into a chaotic brawl between bullywugs and lizard men with the heroes kind of slipping through in the confusion.

Of course my players may very well try to build a catapult to fling themselves onto the ramparts.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

I ran it close to as-is, and used my hacked Savage Worlds/Army of Darkness Mass Combat rules to great effect when it all went down.

Most of the group disguised themselves as Cultists and brought their wounded Dragonborn party member in as a "prisoner", so he could heal, then they began convincing the lizard folk that he was a god, and they took to calling him "The Thunder Lizard".

Whole thing ended in the PCs leading the Lizard Folk in a full blown takeover of the castle in the early morning hours.