D&D 5E Enhancing "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist"

[pukunui]

Rereading the autumn quest chain and a few things have popped out:

1) When the PCs first meet Jarlaxle masquerading as Laeral, the book says that if they see through the disguise, the drow tells them honestly that he will be giving the money back to Waterdeep. While that's not the whole truth, he isn't lying either, so what if the PCs take him at his word and decide to help him? That kind of puts an end to most of the quest chain right there.

Yes, they'd still have to go interrogate Fenerus and find out where the real stone is, but they wouldn't end up chasing drow gunslingers across the rooftops, which is a big part of the fun of that chain. I suppose I could do what the book suggests at that point and switch the main villain without switching the season.

As an aside, it appears that Jarlaxle is relying on his hat of disguise to make him look like Laeral. But the hat only lets you alter your physical appearance, as per the disguise self spell, so how is Jarlaxle disguising his voice? I guess he's just really good at making himself sound like a woman ...

2) Later in the quest chain, when the PCs are supposed to be finding a way to talk to Fenerus at the courthouse, it gives the option of having the PCs gain an audience with the real Laeral. Since the PCs will think they've already been dealing with her, surely that will come up, and she'll discover that someone has been impersonating her. Yet no mention of this possibility is made in the text. I'd imagine she'd be pretty miffed and/or angry and at the very least ask the PCs to find out who it is (if she's too busy to do it herself).

 

[robus]

I've been continuing to think about how to remix this adventure to have a heist finale and this is my current thoughts:

The adventure plays out as written (with whatever tweaks as necessary to enhance/streamline the plot), until the adventurers reach the vault of dragons. There, once they think victory is at hand, the villain that has also been searching for the dragons appears (they've been spying on the adventurers in some way so that they'll lead the way - it would be cool if there is some item the adventurers were given early in the adventure that was actually a spying device ). Anyway, the adventurers are captured and the loot stolen. They are released, bruised but otherwise mostly unharmed once the loot has been secured by the villain (it takes a little while to transport the ill-gotten gains). Perhaps they've been left with a dragon apiece for their trouble?

Once the adventurers return to their base an NPC (Laeral Silverhand?) seeks them out offering them a way to get revenge on the villain (and retrieve the hoard). The plan is for the adventurers to take a Portable Hole provided by the NPC into the villains lair and transfer the gold to Castle Waterdeep's treasury (where the other end of the hole is connected). The PCs can also jump through the hole to effect their escape.

For Xanathar, the loot has been stashed in the Secret Room (X36). (And of course Xanathar knows about it , your choice if the explosives are still there...)

For the Cassalantars, the loot is either in the Secret Vault (C29) in the cellar, or if you want a bigger challenge ( ) in the Secret Vestry, (room A6) in the Temple of Asmodeus

For Jarlaxle, it has to be on the Marpenoth, but there's no obvious location. My suggestion, the table in Dining Room (room U9) lifts up to reveal stairs down into a tight storage hold where the loot has been laid as ballast in the submarine.

For Manshoon, it also has no obvious place so I suggest a secret room hidden behind a bookcase in the Library, room E9.

If anyone has a better suggestion for extracting the weighty hoard from these lairs I'm all ears. I think the PCs should also have some scroll that will create an illusion that the loot is untouched so that the villain (if they check) believe that everything is OK.

The PCs can learn of the outrage when the ruse is discovered as a little postscript to the adventure, where some gossip regales the bar with a hilarious tale of the villain trying to use an illusory hoard to curry favor with the city elites. If your PCs have adopted a name perhaps the villain was heard to curse them by name?

Anyway, that seems like it could work.

 

[pukunui]

Anyway, the adventurers are captured and the loot stolen.

How do you pull this off in a way that doesn't upset the players? In my experience, players hate having their agency taken away like this. (Mine grumbled when I read the bit at the beginning of the book about handwaving their PCs getting arrested.)

 

[robus]

How do you pull this off in a way that doesn't upset the players? In my experience, players hate having their agency taken away like this. (Mine grumbled when I read the bit at the beginning of the book about handwaving their PCs getting arrested.)

I agree that it would be tricky to pull off smoothly, but the world doesn’t stop functioning around the PCs. These villains are tough so I think it could be foreshadowed that their ability to beat the villains to the loot *and* get away with would be pretty amazing. Of course they could desire to fight to the death, so it would be best to indicate that the odds are overwhelming, and if they fight they are quickly reduced to 0 hp and captured by the overwhelming force brought by the villain.

Fortunately the vault itself is not much of a challenge, so the players are probably going to be thinking that was a bit easy for the finale?

 

[pukunui]

What if the PCs have a powerful ally like Laeral with them when they go to the vault?

 

[robus]

What if the PCs have a powerful ally like Laeral with them when they go to the vault?

She’s the villain’s accomplice and they’re going to split the loot? So now it’s not only stealing the loot back but also proving that she’s a baddie? This is one scenario where Volo might come in handy...

 

[pukunui]

Maybe? I'd be hesitant to do that with Laeral specifically, but it could potentially work with somebody else.

 

[Guest 6801328]

How do you pull this off in a way that doesn't upset the players? In my experience, players hate having their agency taken away like this. (Mine grumbled when I read the bit at the beginning of the book about handwaving their PCs getting arrested.)

Beat them in combat, but instead of a TPK they eventually wake up. Captive.

 

[robus]

Maybe? I'd be hesitant to do that with Laeral specifically, but it could potentially work with somebody else.

Yeah, I’m not sure what exactly would happen there, but, really, you have to hold these ideas loosely if it turns out the original ending concept isn’t going to fly then fine. But it’s nice to have some surprises conceptualized...

 

[robus]

Updated the collection of DMs Guild publications related to Dragon Heist. Now with review stars! (where applicable )

Edit: And added the DND Beyond posts that are related

Edit, edit: And if you've downloaded something from DMs Guild and see it has no stars (or the star rating seems off), go and give it at least a star rating and hopefully a review too!