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

[jayoungr]

I just wanted to park a link here to the recent discussion thread on how (or whether) to try to incorporate Murder in Baldur's Gate with Hoard of the Dragon Queen:

Murder in Baldur's Gate: How Did It Go?

And [mention=32659] Charles Rampant,[/mention] not a necro at all! This is meant to be an ongoing thread for anyone interested in running the adventure. I just have been unable to keep up with the board much over the past few months.

 

[Sloblock]

cool, I bought MiBG and stole the locations and the flavour of the city, as I felt I didn't have time to do the adventure justice

 

[The Last Rogue]

Great thread. I just had to pop in because of a funny gameplay event that just happened. My players, including a Paladin(!), were so beaten down they didn't take up Cyanwrath on his challenge. And, one of them actually talked Nighthill into going. Obviously, Nighthill gets MURDERED.

My paladin player is immediately wracked with guilt...starts blaming everyone & thing (I drank too much, why did you guys talk me out of going out to do it, etc.) Hilarious. He's got a serious guilt complex now. Great for eventual Vengeance Paladin build, I suppose.

I have a lot more to say about my prep of this path and how its going, but, as this just happened, I felt compelled to share it.

 

[akr71]

^^ Wow, those are the stories that players talk about for a lifetime and why I love this game. My son, playing an monk/assassin (well, a ninja class I created for him) volunteered for the dual. Through some lucky crits on his part and horrible rolling on mine, he actually held his own for a while. One more hit and he would have had him down, but Cyanwrath's superior HP won out and the ninja was felled. My son was upset, but it made his revenge all the more sweeter in the Dragon Hatchery.

 

[jayoungr]

The moment my group still talks about is when our not-too-charismatic cleric of Bahamut converted that lone cultist who's left behind drunk in the dragon hatchery. I let him make a Persuasion check against the cultist's Wisdom roll. The player rolled a 4 for persuasion, so we figured the cleric's conversion attempt was to yell, "So you like dragons, do ya? Let me tell you something, Bahamut's much better than that f***ing b**** Tiamat!"

Then I rolled the cultist's Wisdom--a 2! The whole table burst out laughing as I described how he suddenly gasped in shocked recognition and replied, "You're right!" After that, he was very eager to help the PCs in their fight against "the cult that, until recently, I followed in my blindness." When last seen, he was training to become a priest of Bahamut in Scornubel. (A fuller write-up of the incident is here).

***

Combing through the last few pages of this board, I found some other threads relating to this adventure (at least tangentially) that may interest people. Links are below.

Greenest (some background on the town)
Leveling the Pet Baby Dragon (in case your players decide not to destroy the dragon hatchery)
Faerûn's Vendors: A Flexible Vendor System for Magic Consumables (for shopping)
Warlock Patron: Jotun (Could be fun if you use The Frozen Castlehttp://www.dmsguild.com/product/172527/Frozen-Castle--Expanding-Tyranny-of-Dragons with this adventure)
A Question about the Hunting Lodge (The elven armor trap)

 

[Portuguese D. Ace]

Hi guys!

I'm in need: as my party is approaching the end of HotDQ and I'm preparing in advance for the big finale, I'm facing two problems.

I read the AP, but I'm not sure how to handle the choice regarding the Castle. I'm quite sure they'll try to befriend the Cloud Giant, therefore they'll be able to hijack the flying castle. There's a passage, in the book, where it tells that the Cloud Giant will fly the Castle to the Spine of the World "because reasons that are explained in Rise of Tiamat". The problem is that, skimming through Rot book, I couldn't locate these "reasons".

I would like to give them a possibility to fly the Castle where they want (Waterdeep, possibily) or just give them a ride before the giant disappears. Also, it seems that the giant, flying north with the castle, brings the treasure with himself?!

2nd problem: the aforementioned treasure. the horrible horrible treasure. a lump sum - mainly made of copper - and nondescript and trivial treasure. Do you guys have a fix for this? Any suggestion on the BIG LOOT?

Thank you for your help.

 

[akr71]

I think the 'reason' was cut from the final version of RoT, but you can buy it from the DM's Guild - Frozen Castle.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/172...g-Tyranny-of-Dragons?term=frozen&test_epoch=0

Don't forget, that while the party may befriend the cloud giant, he is still a NE cloud giant. He may not be hostile toward the group, but definitely believes he knows better than a bunch of small folk. He probably does consider the wealth inside the castle to be his - it is his castle after all... though he would be more attracted to gems and magic than coins.

I would play it that the cloud giant is 'letting them live' while he heads north to consider his - and all of giant-kind's - next move. Do they join the war against the dragons? How best to mobilize a scattered people? If the party does not want to head to the Spine of the World, the best case scenario is to convince the giant to drop them off somewhere - hopefully stuffing their pockets and backpacks with as much loot as possible while he isn't looking.

Oh, and if you find the treasure lackluster, change it.

 

[Portuguese D. Ace]

I think the 'reason' was cut from the final version of RoT, but you can buy it from the DM's Guild - Frozen Castle.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/172...g-Tyranny-of-Dragons?term=frozen&test_epoch=0

Don't forget, that while the party may befriend the cloud giant, he is still a NE cloud giant. He may not be hostile toward the group, but definitely believes he knows better than a bunch of small folk. He probably does consider the wealth inside the castle to be his - it is his castle after all... though he would be more attracted to gems and magic than coins.

I would play it that the cloud giant is 'letting them live' while he heads north to consider his - and all of giant-kind's - next move. Do they join the war against the dragons? How best to mobilize a scattered people? If the party does not want to head to the Spine of the World, the best case scenario is to convince the giant to drop them off somewhere - hopefully stuffing their pockets and backpacks with as much loot as possible while he isn't looking.

Oh, and if you find the treasure lackluster, change it.

Thank you.

The alignment detail is a great suggestion that I completely overlooked.

 

[akr71]

Best of luck! Getting the stone giants on their side might also aid in having the cloud giant in a more compromising mood.

 

[Portuguese D. Ace]

Hi guys,
my players yesterday just finished Chapter 6, in a fun and surprisingly almost non-violent way.

My PCs infiltrated the Castle posing as cultists and managed to poison the cultists' food with diarrhea-inducing berries juice.

They were therefore asked to catalogue and bring part of the hoard down in the basement. There, our wizard left his pseudodragon familiar hiding for Borngrey to speak the password. Then, the same night, they stole a bunch of treasure and managed to sneak into the caves, where they destroyed Pharblex and his bullywugs.
They also buried them, via magic, making them difficult to find them.

Therefore, they left, via Draezir password, going to the hunting lodge.


They didn't bother messing with Borngrey, Azbara Jos or Rezmir: they are still alive and healty. Also, they don't know almost anything about my PCs' infiltration.

How should they behave, once they get that some of the treasure has been stolen and some bullywugs, including Pharblex, have disappeared?

I would like to have some advice on how should the baddies behave consistently.


Also: Is Naerytar/Hunting Lodge teleportation circle two ways?
I mean: via Draezir password (or something else) can my PCs go from the Hunting Lodge back to Castle Naerytar?
I don't think they can, but, I'm asking out of curiosity, and can't find any reference on the sourcebook.


Thank you!