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

 

[darjr]

He’s right about it not being there in the list of products in WotCs site.

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dnd.wizards.com

 

[darjr]

Looks like it’s still available on DnDBeyond as two books.

 

[JEB]

He’s right about it not being there in the list of products in WotCs site.

TTRPG Products & Accessories | Roleplaying Games | Dungeons & Dragons

Browse the latest TTRPG products, accessories, and board games from Dungeons & Dragons.

dnd.wizards.com

Yeah, I had to pull my link from the Internet Archive.

 

[JEB]

I suspect we won't see it here, but a revision of Tiamat that used the mythic rules from Theros would be neat.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Sunless Citadel is way outside of the range of stuff that Joseph Goodman is into (his stopping point appears to be about 1982 for TSR and 1980 for Judges Guild), but I agree that it'd be a great product to do a Return to, for WotC. Meepo needs to be as iconic in 5E as he was in 3E.

The others all seem like stuff Goodman would jump on for an OAR, if they were available to him, which I'm guessing they aren't. (Crypt of the Devil Lich is a big love letter to Tomb of Horrors and they took their time with the recenti-ish Kickstarter campaign to really polish and expand it even further, which suggests a real love of ToH, IMO.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

He's another one who's decided that the algorithm rewards him going gloom and doom and having lots of stills of him face-palming whatever WotC is doing. It's hard to take that kind of thing seriously.

I'd much rather a Mike Shea, who while he can be quite critical of works when he doesn't think they're up to snuff, heaps praise when it's due and makes it clear when something is a bad fit for him, rather than a bad product in general. (Also, Shea puts his money where his mouth is, with the excellent Lazy DM products. I haven't read any of his adventure material, but I'm guessing it's pretty solid as well -- or at least a good fit for my style of DMing.)

 

[dave2008]

It worked for Tales from the Yawning Portal to rework previous-to-5e adventures. I can see it being relatively cheap quick work (within reason) to spiff-up the best of the 5e adventures to keep them selling longer-term. Heck, I'd like to see some of the better pre-5e adventures get the Yawning Portal treatment (if they're too short for their own book).

I think it would be a great idea to refresh adventures in the current edition every 5-10 years. However, I would like it to be a true refresh where they look at playtest and feedback and think about how to really improve the adventure and not just update errata in the like. Really take advantage of the 1000s of people who have run the adventure to make real improvements. I think all adventures could use that really.

 

[dave2008]

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.

I think that is probably true - I'm just hoping for more Tiamat art! I know that is shock, but it is true

 

[dave2008]

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

They can be, but they can also be difficult to run without doing a fair bit of work. Encounter balance is the big one, but you have Fort, Reflex, Will saves in 3e & 4e, negative AC in 1e & 2e, different monster and PC HP assumptions, etc. 5e has good improvisation tools in the DMG so that you can run those on the fly, if your confident in doing that as a DM. However, IME a lot of DMs are not.

 

[dave2008]

The better choice is new adventures.

The better choice is new adventures and updating old ones. I don't think an update like this is impacting their new adventure time budget. Now, if they did more extensive updates like I would like to see, then that may take some time from new adventures (but then I would just like them to hire more people so they can do both).