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Message: <blockquote data-quote="vandaexpress" data-source="post: 6590745" data-attributes="member: 6790472">Other stuff:- If your party has more than 5 people or less than 4, take the time to rebalance the encounters by plugging the enemy CRs for each encounter into the table in the Dungeonmaster Guide to figure out the xp budget that was used. Adjust the budget based on your party size. In my case, this meant adding a few more enemies for some encounters.- The Hatchery's meat locker or empty vault might make a good place for the party to take a rest if needed. I put a sleeping cultist in the meat locker (like they did with the vault) to help illustrate the fact that the PCs can probably get away with resting there. If they get TPK'd in the hatchery or the camp, these also make good places for them to wake up as prisoners and escape. Put their weapons one of the rooms or something and sprinkle some CR 1/8 guards in between in small numbers. Or better yet, put their weapons ON the guards.- Remember the raid on Greenest takes place in dim lighting and to apply the necessary penalties to creatures without darkvision. Remember most of the cultists do not have darkvision, which should enable easier sneaking for the PCs.- Don't stress too much about including the caravan chapters if they don't seem to be interesting to you or your group. You can easily substitute pretty much any kind of challenge in the interim and then have Leosin contact the party and say he's got a lead to the Carnath roadhouse once they're ready, level wise.- I implemented the spellcasting as a service table from the adventurer league's handout, this provides the party with access to raise dead for 1,200gp, among other things, so long as they're in a major city. Given the chance of PC death, this seems smart.- I put a Kobold boss in the Hatchery (in the barracks) named Wyrmnugget. He's a wyrmpriest (basically a kobold with eldritch blast and bless). I wanted there to be a hierarchy amongst that portion of the cultist presence. Wyrmnugget can be encountered when infilitrating the raiders and can be manipulated into turning on the other cultists who have a tendency to abuse the Kobolds. Appealing to his delusions of grandeur is the way to do this. That being said, he is a coward. He might just take a simple bribe (or "offering") to leave the PCs alone.- I supplemented the raiders with Orc Mercenaries called the "Pale Ravagers", a minor faction. Use them to provide additional variety in the enemies at low levels. The Pale Ravagers are cooperating with the cult because the cult lets them get slaves during the raids on the towns. By the time the raider camp mission comes around, though, they've made a big nuisance of themselves with constant squabbles with the humanoid cultists. They can be used to create a distraction (brawl) during the infiltration mission. The Ravagers can continue to harry the party on the road to Baldur's Gate before the party squares off with their leader as an encounter on the road to Waterdeep. Use the Orc Warchief stats for the leader, eye of gruumsh or Orog for lieutenants.- If you use minis and have the coin, Gale Force 9 has produced excellent unpainted figs for some of the cult leaders, sandesyl, pharblex spattergoo, naergoth bladelord and Rath Modar. I purchased them and had them professionally painted for about $25 a piece. It's pricey, but worth it if you have the coin and want to bring maximum production value to the table. Alternatively, you can paint them yourself if you're handy with a brush (I'm not).- Consider throwing Galvan the Blue Wyrmspeaker into the adventure somewhere. Reskin Talis for his stats. Maybe give him some features from the blue dragon mask. He's got a picture and a background online, I'm guessing he was cut, which is a shame. You can never have too many villains. He has ties to the Red Wizards, so you can include him as part of the Azbara Jos or Rath Modar encounters if you think your party can handle it.- The stats for each of the dragon masks was posted online somewhere. Probably more relevant for RoT than HotDQ but you never know, especially if your PCs go off the rails.- I've read that Borngrey and Pharblex are underpowered (I'm just getting to Naerytar, so I haven't run them, but eyeballing the stats, I agree). Slyflourish recommends maxing up their HP and giving them an 18 or two to keep them from being pushovers. I agree with this decision and will implement it.- If the PCs botch the infiltration mission in the camp, set up a delayed timer where enemies show up really far away at the beginning of each round, with Mondath and Cyanwrath eventually arriving. This might allow the PCs enough time to free a few of the prisoners before booking it. Most of the cultists are confused about who is a spy and who is supposed to be there, lots of chaos means that rolling a natural one isn't going to automatically result in party capture immediately.- If you do the caravan mission, pick a few of the NPCs included and develop them to be long-term allies for the PCs. Consider including members of the Emerald Enclave, Lord's Alliance, etc. There is a noticeable paucity of allies after a certain point in HotDQ. It's helpful to fill out those ranks with friendlies, especially with faction allegiances, who can help advise and point the PCs in the right direction.- You can do what you want, but I chose to restrict the PCs from picking dragonborn as the module states that Rezmir causes quite a stir as a half-dragon. It seemed like the players would logically wonder why their dragonborn companion wasn't causing a similar stir. A DB would stand out on infiltration missions as well, which can be problematic or beneficial if the PCs develop the DB char as a major cultist. They'd be quick to accept him for his draconic bloodline, I'm sure.- Throw in as much dragon stuff in the character backgrounds as you want. Any character that has an interest in or a background relating to dragons will be MUCH easier to steer along the campaign, as they will want to learn more about all things dragon.- I gave one of the characters a draconic research guide as a treasure (it was made for him by the scribes he saved from the temple of bahamut). It makes a great piece of flavor for a wizard or sorcerer that likes dragons. Among other things, it allows the owner to reroll any failed intelligence check relating to dragons with advantage if he has at least 10 minutes to consult the book. Additionally, it gives him access to the dragon statblocks in the MM. It's resistant to the various elements used by dragons and functions as a scroll case. This is great flavor, but also really helps the PCs to draw interesting conclusions and learn things based on various draconic iconography that they might encounter in various cult lairs. You can combine it with another uncommon magic item if you choose. In my case, I made it function as a pearl of power when it's attuned, allow it to function as a spell focus, and have it radiate dim light for 10 feet when opened and delivers a small elemental shock when someone other than the owner tries to open it. Mechanically it's a pearl of power/scroll case/focus/skill enhancer. Not game breaking at all, but it's that player's favorite item in the game.</blockquote>

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