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

 

[teitan]

Interesting. I always felt this one was unjustly dragged for an early edition adventure outsourced it had solid ideas.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm pretty sure they did that with 3.5e as well.

That tracks, though I don’t know since I didn’t follow 3/.5 at all after playing it a decent amount bc my friends were.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Well this interests me:

"Book includes gallery of concept art spotlighting Tiamat, one of the most legendary foes in D&D"

Most of the concept art was not of Tiamat.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

This makes sense to me. I always thought that the Tyranny of Dragons one-volume was going to replace HotD and RoT, but then both those books came back into print and ToD went out. Seems like it's time to reprint the two books, and they've decided to go for the one-volume again instead. I think this is a smart move, though I wonder what the MSRP will be. Will it be equal to the old one-volume at $50 USD, or will they knock it up? Its page count is higher than the current $50 books, but it's all old material. Could go either way.

 

[bedir than]

The latest print they did with both parts of the adventure with the nifty new cover already had the pretty nice gallery of concept art at the end (spoiler: its pretty awesome). As someone who loves sketch art, I wish it was the type of art we see in regular books (Princes of the Apocalypse also had a gallery at the end).

Starting with Dragonlance there's concept art as part of the standard book.

I'll search for the reply the artist sent me

 

[pukunui]

The latest print they did with both parts of the adventure with the nifty new cover already had the pretty nice gallery of concept art at the end (spoiler: its pretty awesome). As someone who loves sketch art, I wish it was the type of art we see in regular books (Princes of the Apocalypse also had a gallery at the end).

Quite a few of the adventures have included concept art now, but PotA was the first.

Interesting. I always felt this one was unjustly dragged for an early edition adventure outsourced it had solid ideas.

Agreed. I had a lot of fun running it, and my players really enjoyed it too. I would be happy to run it again.

Most of the concept art was not of Tiamat.

That suggests that to me that they are making more changes then!

Starting with Dragonlance there's concept art as part of the standard book.

They've included concept art well before the Dragonlance book. Not all of them but a fair few. The Avernus book is another example, for instance.

 

[bedir than]

Quite a few of the adventures have included concept art now, but PotA was the first.


Agreed. I had a lot of fun running it, and my players really enjoyed it too. I would be happy to run it again.


That suggests that to me that they are making more changes then!



They've included concept art well before the Dragonlance book. Not all of them but a fair few. The Avernus book is another example, for instance.

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

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

 

[Reynard]

So do you think those that bought ToD on a VTT platform will get the update for free?

 

[Retreater]

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."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I thought this happened already?

This is why you don't let kender have access to time travel devices, people.