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

[S'mon]

Has anybody tried to extend this adventure past the final battle? For instance, having to enter the 9 Hells in order to kill Tiamet once and for all? For all I know, once we actually get to that point, we will be ready for a new adventure, but my players have expressed interest in actually leveling their characters to maximum potential -- yet there don't seem to be any adventures that go that far.

The last episode of 4e Scales of War AP concerns killing Tiamat in her home, so you could look at that. Should be on dmsguild I think?

 

[jayoungr]

Has anybody tried to extend this adventure past the final battle? For instance, having to enter the 9 Hells in order to kill Tiamet once and for all? For all I know, once we actually get to that point, we will be ready for a new adventure, but my players have expressed interest in actually leveling their characters to maximum potential -- yet there don't seem to be any adventures that go that far.

The last episode of 4e Scales of War AP concerns killing Tiamat in her home, so you could look at that. Should be on dmsguild I think?

I tacked on the last five adventures of Scales of War (after running Palace of the Red Pasha as an immediate follow-up). The overall plot arc went like this: After being thwarted at being able to enter Faerun, and with the help of some rebel devils, Tiamat gained the services of a lich who devised a spell that would allow her to summon Bahamut to the Nine Hells. She then killed him and absorbed (most of) his essence, allowing herself to manifest outside of her prison. The PCs had to resurrect Bahamut, but he came back in a weakened state because Tiamat had absorbed so much of his essence. So they also had to obtain a magical artifact, the Arrow of Fate. When they fought Tiamat for the final time, it wasn't to kill her but to shoot her with the Arrow of Fate, releasing Bahamut's strength back to himself and making her unable to manifest outside the Nine Hells again, so effectively re-imprisoning her. (I'm just not a fan of god-killing campaigns; makes the gods seem way too small, IMVHO.)

There's an ongoing 5E conversion of "Scales of War" at this blog: Scales of War in 5E . I had to do the last few adventure conversions myself, though, as I got ahead of the blog. For the final adventure, instead of regular chromatic ancient dragons, I used what my players called "off-brand dragons" from a variety of third-party sources, notably the Tome of Beasts. I cut out the whole "brood mother" thing because it didn't make sense with how I'd reworked the plot and made them Tiamat's consorts instead.

"Last Breath of the Dragon Queen" (the final adventure of the series) is in Dungeon magazine, issue 175. I started my sequence (after a bridging adventure) with Grasp of the Mantled Citadel, which is in Dungeon 171.

***

I've also talked to someone who re-worked The Doomvault Tales from the Yawning Portal) as a high-level dungeon and made that the gateway to killing Tiamat, but I don't have many details on that.

 

[robus]

Has anybody tried to extend this adventure past the final battle? For instance, having to enter the 9 Hells in order to kill Tiamet once and for all? For all I know, once we actually get to that point, we will be ready for a new adventure, but my players have expressed interest in actually leveling their characters to maximum potential -- yet there don't seem to be any adventures that go that far.

My campaign continued past the end of ToD by reworking Out of the Abyss as a high level adventure (16-20) where the PCs have to combat various demon lords rampaging around the underdark. It looked fine on paper but it's actually turned into a bit of a monotonous slog - it turns out there's not a lot of variety in the underdark and each community they encounter is kind of similarly messed up by the demonic urges. They're at level 19 right now and we're looking at the final conflict in Menzoberranzan so it should be over soon... Unless the wizard does good on his threat to wish it all away and we do a hard shift to another climax entirely!

 

[The Green Hermit]

Thanks. I'll have to look a bit deeper. I can find lots of discussions about it, but not the actual AP.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I tacked on the last five adventures of Scales of War (after running Palace of the Red Pasha as an immediate follow-up). The overall plot arc went like this: After being thwarted at being able to enter Faerun, and with the help of some rebel devils, Tiamat gained the services of a lich who devised a spell that would allow her to summon Bahamut to the Nine Hells. She then killed him and absorbed (most of) his essence, allowing herself to manifest outside of her prison. The PCs had to resurrect Bahamut, but he came back in a weakened state because Tiamat had absorbed so much of his essence. So they also had to obtain a magical artifact, the Arrow of Fate. When they fought Tiamat for the final time, it wasn't to kill her but to shoot her with the Arrow of Fate, releasing Bahamut's strength back to himself and making her unable to manifest outside the Nine Hells again, so effectively re-imprisoning her. (I'm just not a fan of god-killing campaigns; makes the gods seem way too small, IMVHO.)

There's an ongoing 5E conversion of "Scales of War" at this blog: https://5escalesofwar.wordpress.com/ . I had to do the last few adventure conversions myself, though, as I got ahead of the blog. For the final adventure, instead of regular chromatic ancient dragons, I used what my players called "off-brand dragons" from a variety of third-party sources, notably the Tome of Beasts. I cut out the whole "brood mother" thing because it didn't make sense with how I'd reworked the plot.

"Last Breath of the Dragon Queen" (the final adventure of the series) is in Dungeon magazine, issue 175. I started my sequence (after a bridging adventure) with Grasp of the Mantled Citadel, which is in Dungeon 171.

***

I've also talked to someone who re-worked The Doomvault Tales from the Yawning Portal) as a high-level dungeon and made that the gateway to killing Tiamat, but I don't have many details on that.

Thank you. This was just what I needed.

 

[jayoungr]

Thanks. I'll have to look a bit deeper. I can find lots of discussions about it, but not the actual AP.

You also might be interested in this thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...of-Dragons-(OR-What-to-do-with-15-level-PCs-)

 

[The Green Hermit]

Thanks!

 

[The Green Hermit]

One of our kids is leaving (we foster, so this is a semi-common occurence) and the other kids decided that meant we should end Lost Mines and get started on this new campaign. They also decided we needed to continue to top level if we could, so I bought Red Pasha and The Scales of War. Let's just say that my printer is not too happy with me and made me go buy more ink today.

And yes, I know I could have left them in PDF form, but it's easier for me to print them out and put them in a binder, especially the Scales of War episodes.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Since we have decided to play through Scales of War, Bahamat's avatar is going to pop up here and there throughout the campaign, including right before the players enter Greenest. (Characters are going to be drawn to his campfire, even though they have been travelling solo.) Also, since one of my players has the Gold Dragon background, she is eventually going to discover that she is actually one of Bahamat's canaries.

I was sort of hoping that one of them would get the Talis as best friend background, because one of them has Talis killing her family and she is out for revenge, but the dice didn't play along.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I just bought two books about faith & religion in the Forgotten Realms. Hopefully those will help me plant tidbits here and there for the cult.