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

 

[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.