D&D 5E Rebalanced Tyranny of Dragons Coming In January

According to Amazon a 'rebalanced' version of Tyranny of Dragons is being released by WotC in January. There's no indication if there's a new cover, but the "adventure has been rebalanced to be easier for a new Dungeon Master to run and a better play experience".

2019's Tyranny of Dragons combined 2014's Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat with errata and new cover art. It was originally produced for WotC by Kobold Press during the early period of 5E when adventures were outsourced to local companies run by ex-WotC employees, such as Kobold Press, Green Ronin and Sasquatch Game Studios. This will be the third version of these adventures.

Tyranny of Dragons combines and refines two action-packed Dungeons & Dragons adventures—Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat—into a single sweeping campaign. It also includes a gallery of concept art providing a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of an epic adventure spotlighting Tiamat, one of the most legendary foes in D&D.

• A wonderful re-introduction to 5th edition’s first published adventures for new fans
• Begins as a low-level adventure suitable for new players and evolves into an epic, sprawling campaign bringing players all the way from level 1 to level 15
• Adventure has been rebalanced to be easier for a new Dungeon Master to run and a better play experience.
• Book includes gallery of concept art spotlighting Tiamat, one of the most legendary foes in D&D

 

[Echohawk]

Tyranny of Dragons combines and refines two action-packed Dungeons & Dragons adventures—Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat—into a single sweeping campaign. It also includes a gallery of concept art providing a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of an epic adventure spotlighting Tiamat, one of the most legendary foes in D&D.

• A wonderful re-introduction to 5th edition’s first published adventures for new fans
• Begins as a low-level adventure suitable for new players and evolves into an epic, sprawling campaign bringing players all the way from level 1 to level 15
• Adventure has been rebalanced to be easier for a new Dungeon Master to run and a better play experience.
• Book includes gallery of concept art spotlighting Tiamat, one of the most legendary foes in D&D

Isn't that exactly the same blurb the 2019 release got? The release that until now was only available with the collectible Hydro74 cover? The release that already has an Appendix E: Concept Art? My guess is that the January release is just the existing version of Tyranny but with a normal cover.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This seems to be a re-release of the previous combo release, with another round of errata and maybe even other edits.

Which also tells me that WotC is very confident that 2024 DnD will be backwards compatible. There's no need to spend so many resources to release a very old product without compatibility

Adventures can be compatible with any edition. They have very few mechanical bits, after all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I didn't say it was new to include concept art.

I said, from the Dragonlance book forward it will be standard.

I hope it doesn't eat up too much page count. I've never really cared much about art.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The original first part (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) played badly - and not just because they hadn't figured out how to balance encounters (TBH, they haven't figured that out by 2022 either).
It was the literal railroad tour of the Sword Coast where nothing happened and no meaningful decisions could be made for weeks of play. I hated running this adventure, which would've been considered poorly designed even compared to the worst of the 2E era "read what the module writers want you to do and watch as important NPCs do the heavy lifting."

The type of issues you are talking about can't be fixed with a "re-balancing".

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Rebalanced to be easier for a new Dungeon Master to run and a better play experience" definitely suggests more than errata. My guess is the rules will be brought in line with other post-Tasha material, which per the designers has all been designed with forward compatibility in mind. And maybe some reorganization and/or supporting material for the "easier to run" part.

What rules? Adventures have very little in the way of mechanics.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What's the better choice? See that a book isn't up to today's standards, shrug, and reprint it anyway, knowing that in 2024, a huge new wave of players will be joining, along with a bunch of returning players who have been away for years -- or bring it up to today's standards?

If you are happy with the older version, don't buy the new one.

The better choice is new adventures.

 

[Von Ether]

It wouldn't hurt to provide guidelines for alternate locations if using the adventure in Eberron, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance.

 

[Smackpixi]

The original adventures were released, or finished, before 5e rules finalized, so they have always been a lil janky. And for some reason, never previously truly fixed for later printings. Calm down. That’s all this is. The clean up maybe will give some hints about future, but doubt it. These adventures just needed cleanup to be full 5e.

 

[JEB]

What rules? Adventures have very little in the way of mechanics.

Monster stat blocks and magic items. Of note, that could include a revamped Tiamat.

 

[JEB]

Isn't that exactly the same blurb the 2019 release got? The release that until now was only available with the collectible Hydro74 cover? The release that already has an Appendix E: Concept Art? My guess is that the January release is just the existing version of Tyranny but with a normal cover.

Doesn't look like it, no: Tyranny of Dragons | Dungeons & Dragons

 

[JEB]

These adventures just needed cleanup to be full 5e.

They already got that treatment with the 2019 compiled Tyranny of Dragons. It's still possible they're just directly reprinting that version, but the blurb makes it sound like more work has been done.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

The better choice is new adventures.

They are doing that too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Monster stat blocks and magic items. Of note, that could include a revamped Tiamat.

Are there monsters in that adventure that don't appear anywhere else? And what's different about magic items since 2014?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Are there monsters in that adventure that don't appear anywhere else? And what's different about magic items since 2014?

All adventures have had monsters and magic items exclusive to them so far.

 

[darjr]

The ISBNs are different, unless the one currently on Amazon is a placeholder number…. Maybe?

 

[MockingBird]

I completely agree with you. Yawning Portal was a very good seller for them, for what appears to be very little work.

Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, Scourge of the Sword Coast, and Dead in Thay could easily be reworked into its own single adventure (I believe the series was called "Dreams of the Red Wizards" or something like that. Personally, I thought the first two were much better adventures than Dead In Thay, which is what they used in TftYP (probably due to it being of an appropriate level for the space in the book).

I wouldn't mind seeing a 5e version of Guardmore Abbey, as well.

I never got to get my hands on Ghost of Dragonspear. I did play Scourge and it was fun. I didn't bother with Dead in Thay. I also have the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale adventures. I was hoping that was going to be the way they packaged adventures up. I liked that format with a custom DM screen and lore booklets.

 

[teitan]

I would really like to see Tales from the Yawning Portal reworked or -- better -- taken out of print and the individual adventures given a more in-depth treatment, either by WotC or as a Goodman Games OAR book. The Giants series, Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain in particular all deserve better.

I think Sunless Citadel should get an OAR or a Return to The Sunless Citadel myself, Giants should be done as part of a Queen of the Spiders OAR and would be perfect carry on for TOEE, Horrors and WPM should all be OARed.

 

[teitan]

Adventures can be compatible with any edition. They have very few mechanical bits, after all.

Not necessarily true. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, for example, a 3e to 3.5 conversion document was nearly as long as the adventure itself. The City of the Spider Queen for 3e Forgotten Realms the final chapter was essentially null & void due to rules changes in 3.5, requiring extensive reworking by the DM for conversion. Going from 1e to 3e was essentially plug and play, but 3.5 had so many changes from the default assumptions that it wasn’t so simple. 3e many of the assumptions about monster immunities were still the same while 3.5 reworked them.

4e was a whole other barrel of dwarves and a hobbit since it was a ground up rework of the entirety of the game. Where 3.x still operated on the same default concepts of older editions, particularly the BasicD&D assumptions as a base line with the advanced D&D assumptions reworked for cohesiveness, 4e remodeled everything like tearing down a house and rebuilding it and plug & play wasn’t so simple.

5e is very plug & play friendly though with OD&D-3.x and some elements of 4e.

 

[darjr]

Nerd Immersion notes that the old book is not listed in WotCs list of books.


Oh and then he goes on too incredibly cynical speculation…. Cheese.

 

[JEB]

Are there monsters in that adventure that don't appear anywhere else?

Ambush drakes, ice toads, various Cult of the Dragon minions, and a bunch of unique NPCs. Also two troll variants buried in the adventure text (four-armed trolls and scrags).

Two have only appeared here and in another pre-Tasha sourcebook: Ice trolls (a third text-buried variant, which got a full-fledged writeup in Icewind Dale) and Tiamat (also in Descent Into Avernus).

And what's different about magic items since 2014?

Nothing fundamental that I'm aware of, but they may wish to rebalance them anyway.