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

[pukunui]

This is starting to really bug me about WotC's adventures. They never reveal what an encounter was actually designed for (making one start to think that there was little to no consideration made, just went for what seemed cool... it can't really be that, but the fact that they're not willing to document the challenge, i.e. Easy, Medium, Hard, Deadly for 4 PCs at Level X, makes it appear that way).

Of course this encounter doesn't even fit into that range! So swap it out for a Spectator for a more appropriate challenge. But really what were they thinking?

Good points! It would be nice if they disclosed more of their thinking for the DM.

A spectator does seem like a more appropriate challenge for a 3rd level party ... That said, it occurred to me this morning that maybe they were expecting a single 3rd level PC to investigate rather than the whole party. A gazer would still be a ridiculously easy encounter for a single PC but the gazer might at least get the opportunity to actually do something before it dies.

 

[pukunui]

Although Istrid's description talks about her rates being comparable to those of the Cassalanters, it doesn't specify what any of their rates actually are.

Oops. The book *does* actually indicate what Istrid's rates are (on page 17, under "Zhentarim support comes in these ways"):

"Istrid offers loans of up to 2,500 gp with an interest rate of 10 percent per tenday."

[MENTION=6757]collin[/MENTION] [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oops. The book *does* actually indicate what Istrid's rates are (on page 17, under "Zhentarim support comes in these ways"):

"Istrid offers loans of up to 2,500 gp with an interest rate of 10 percent per tenday."

[MENTION=6757]collin[/MENTION] [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]

There we go.

 

[robus]

Can anyone give me a good reason as to why the doors to G16 in Gralhund Villa have been "thrown open" (page 55)? There's a battle raging just outside in G13. Do Yalah and Hrabbaz want a good look at the carnage? Do they want to know when the right time to close the doors are? Have they forgotten that the kids are cowering in G18?

Some things in this adventure really make you scratch your head!

 

[pukunui]

So during last night's session, two of the PCs joined the Zhentarim and dragged the others along on their nighttime foray to the Dock Ward in search of the elf killer. (The PCs are elf twins, so it's more than just a job. It's personal.)

Since I'd bought the Guild Adept "Waterdeep City Encounters" booklet, I decided to roll for a random encounter while they were out patrolling. I got the "Newsprint Seller" encounter, and went with the Sea Maidens Faire option, since it seemed to make the most sense.

First off, it says the faire is offering a three-for-two discount on entry plus free drinks. OK. The trouble is: the adventure itself never actually specifies if the Sea Maidens Faire is run from the ships. There are no hours of operation and certainly no prices listed anywhere!

I decided on the fly that people could pay to go and see the animals in their cages on the one boat, while they could join in a bit of a party with the performers and such on the other boat. Entry was one shard per person.

So far so good. But then they discovered the crew members' Elvish accents. They bothered one ship's captain about it, then the other, then finally Zardoz himself. The adventure never really offers any suggestions about what to do if the PCs ask about why all these humans have Elvish accents, so I wasn't really prepared for that line of questioning and couldn't come up with an answer. I ended up just having the ship captains - and Zardoz - stonewall/ignore/deflect.

When they were rowing out to see Zardoz, I had Zelifarn show up. He asks them to discretely ask about the submarine. How do you discretely ask about a submarine? They pretended that one of their number had fallen into the water while attempting to board the Eyecatcher and had noticed the submarine for themselves.

I again had Jarlaxle (as Zardoz, complete with Sean Connery accent) be evasive: it was just a "thing" he'd picked up in Lantan. When they asked if it was an underwater craft that for searching the shipwrecks at the bottom of the harbor (an idea that was in the forefront of the players' minds after Zelifarn had mentioned doing so himself), I had him just say "maybe".

As the players felt they weren't really getting anywhere with the Sea Maidens Faire crew, they decided to leave. I felt a bit bad about it, as I would've liked to have let them get somewhere with their questioning, but a) the adventure gives no guidance on this front and b) I couldn't come up with anything on my own on the fly.

In retrospect, I suppose I could have had Jarlaxle truthfully admit that his crew are all disguised male drow and that the reason they are disguised is because they're renegades and don't want their kin finding them. I don't suppose that would've caused any harm.

Anyone got any thoughts?

 

[robus]

So during last night's session, two of the PCs joined the Zhentarim and dragged the others along on their nighttime foray to the Dock Ward in search of the elf killer. (The PCs are elf twins, so it's more than just a job. It's personal.)

Since I'd bought the Guild Adept "Waterdeep City Encounters" booklet, I decided to roll for a random encounter while they were out patrolling. I got the "Newsprint Seller" encounter, and went with the Sea Maidens Faire option, since it seemed to make the most sense.

First off, it says the faire is offering a three-for-two discount on entry plus free drinks. OK. The trouble is: the adventure itself never actually specifies if the Sea Maidens Faire is run from the ships. There are no hours of operation and certainly no prices listed anywhere!

I would say that they take over the dock area beside the ship and set up the entertainments there - sort of a forebear of the amusement park piers of modern times:

So far so good. But then they discovered the crew members' Elvish accents. They bothered one ship's captain about it, then the other, then finally Zardoz himself. The adventure never really offers any suggestions about what to do if the PCs ask about why all these humans have Elvish accents, so I wasn't really prepared for that line of questioning and couldn't come up with an answer. I ended up just having the ship captains - and Zardoz - stonewall/ignore/deflect.

I would imagine faking a "human" accent would have to be part of the disguise for exactly the reason you propose. These fair runners are interacting a lot with regular people it would be an instant give away if they didn't disguise their accents. I would say they have really outrageous pirate-style accents. Arrgh!

When they were rowing out to see Zardoz, I had Zelifarn show up. He asks them to discretely ask about the submarine. How do you discretely ask about a submarine? They pretended that one of their number had fallen into the water while attempting to board the Eyecatcher and had noticed the submarine for themselves.

Yeah the submarine seems like something that should be left as a surprise discovery if (when?) they explore Jarlaxle flagship. Who is Zelifarn? I've not encountered him yet?

 

[robus]

So this adventure continues to puzzle me. I'm doing some in depth analysis (as part of a potential DMs Guild foray) and I see that on their way out of the vault the PCs are meant to be met by the villain's forces. My calculations put these at varying levels of deadly encounters (Jarlaxle's one being particularly deadly given his stats!). There's a good chance the PCs won't make it out of this final encounter (unless the "reinforcements ex machina" option is deployed, which kind of bugs me...) with the gold.

What's the puzzling bit is the Adventure Conclusion section. It suggests that the adventure could play out in several ways, depending on who gets the gold and what's done with the treasure. It then explores the options of the PCs Dying in the Vault or Removing the Gold. The obvious option that the villain beats the PCs and makes off with the gold (that would lead into one of the next 4 chapters!) is not discussed at all. And the next four chapters do nothing to help with smoothly leading the adventure on into retrieving the gold from the villains lair (or exposing the villain as the recipient of the gold)!

In fact the very first part of the Xanathar chapter has the beholder insisting that they help find the Stone of Golorr even though the characters should be level 5 before tackling his lair (and thus the Stone McGuffin already dealt with).

It all feels a bit half-baked...

 

[robus]

I would say that they take over the dock area beside the ship and set up the entertainments there - sort of a forebear of the amusement park piers of modern times:

Actually page 132 describes the ships as moored on either side of a pier so I think that it makes sense that the pier becomes part of the entertainment area. Perhaps some entertainments are restricted to being on the decks of the ships but others can be offloaded onto the pier to make an extended entertainment area. I imagine banners being hung between the masts of the two ships across the pier announcing the Sea Maidens Faire.

 

[pukunui]

I would say that they take over the dock area beside the ship and set up the entertainments there - sort of a forebear of the amusement park piers of modern times

Good thinking! Thanks.

I wish the adventure's authors had thought to include a sentence or two along those lines.

I would imagine faking a "human" accent would have to be part of the disguise for exactly the reason you propose. These fair runners are interacting a lot with regular people it would be an instant give away if they didn't disguise their accents. I would say they have really outrageous pirate-style accents. Arrgh!

You would think that, yes, but according to the adventure, they still have slight Elvish accents that the PCs can learn about, either by listening to the sailors themselves or by talking to the carnies. The accent thing is but one of a number of clues that the sailors are not human. But as I said, there doesn't appear to be any real consequence to the PCs finding out that the sailors are not what they appear to be.

They can destroy the figureheads, which causes the drow sailors to all hide belowdecks, in order to somehow hinder Jarlaxle's plans (although it's unclear how this hinders his plans, since even with the figureheads in operation, the drow can't leave the boats without revealing their true identities anyway), but that's about it.

Yeah the submarine seems like something that should be left as a surprise discovery if (when?) they explore Jarlaxle flagship. Who is Zelifarn? I've not encountered him yet?

Zelifarn is the young bronze dragon swimming around in the harbor. He is the subject of one of the Force Grey sidequests. There's also an optional event at the end of Jarlaxle's chapter ("A Friendly Dragon"), in which he meets the PCs as they are rowing out to Jarlaxle's ship and says he'll give them a chest he found in a shipwreck if they discretely find out about the "craft" attached to the underside of the Eyecatcher. That's the bit I ran the other night.

So this adventure continues to puzzle me ... It all feels a bit half-baked...

I'm beginning to regard it as a hot mess that is undeserving of the rave reviews it's been getting. It's got some real pacing issues, especially in chapter 2; the whole "run a tavern" thing seems like a distraction and doesn't really sit well with the overall theme of the adventure; and the ending is about as anticlimactic as it's possible to get.

There are also just tons of gaps where things don't make sense (e.g. Jarlaxle's hat of disguise might let him *look* like Laeral but it sure isn't going to make him *sound* like her ...) or don't quite line up (e.g. the Sea Maidens Faire ... is it an active faire or is everyone just hanging around on the ships waiting for something, like the Day of Wonders parade ...).

Ugh. I gave up on trying to continue my previous campaign because finding a suitable follow-up for 11th level PCs that had conquered the Tomb of Annihilation was looking like too much work, but I think this adventure is actually worse.

I wonder if this is because Perkins et al have been spending so much of time on Twitch that they're not leaving themselves enough time for QA.

 

[robus]

I'm beginning to regard it as a hot mess that is undeserving of the rave reviews it's been getting. It's got some real pacing issues, especially in chapter 2; the whole "run a tavern" thing seems like a distraction and doesn't really sit well with the overall theme of the adventure; and the ending is about as anticlimactic as it's possible to get.

There are also just tons of gaps where things don't make sense (e.g. Jarlaxle's hat of disguise might let him *look* like Laeral but it sure isn't going to make him *sound* like her ...) or don't quite line up (e.g. the Sea Maidens Faire ... is it an active faire or is everyone just hanging around on the ships waiting for something, like the Day of Wonders parade ...).

Ugh. I gave up on trying to continue my previous campaign because finding a suitable follow-up for 11th level PCs that had conquered the Tomb of Annihilation was looking like too much work, but I think this adventure is actually worse.

I wonder if this is because Perkins et al have been spending so much of time on Twitch that they're not leaving themselves enough time for QA.

I hear you. I don’t understand why they make such a hash of these adventures? We’re not looking for lots of open ends. If they want to provide that, then fine, just do a campaign setting. But these adventures are way to much work for the reward.

I’ve just done an in-depth study of Xanathar’s Lair and I don’t understand how a level 5 party is expected to survive. The encounters swing wildly from trivial to deadly with no obvious rest locations. Coming back another day is just inviting a TPK!