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

 

[MonsterEnvy]

up until now I have been assuming that 1D&D would be DM side back compatible, but if an adventure from early 5e needs updating how long before we get every adventure redone...

We don’t know for sure it’s being redone for One D&D.

 

[darjr]

Lol I just realized this may be a way WotC can have it’s cake and eat it to.

What if they missed all the speculation? How to get that while still announcing the new product schedule?

This.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We don’t know for sure it’s being redone for One D&D.

They've announced 6e, so any product they come out with from now on (really from Tasha's on) has to keep that in mind if they're pursuing a solid business plan.

 

[timbannock]

They've announced 6e, so any product they come out with from now on (really from Tasha's on) has to keep that in mind if they're pursuing a solid business plan.

Even the "end of edition" releases for 3e and 4e were clearly products they hoped would do big numbers in light of a new edition's announcement: big compilation books, or efforts for products that are sort of "evergreen" titles for that edition, or that don't depend a lot on edition. I think an adventure is an especially volatile release, so the chances that it's a "here's a peak at how we change rules/presentation for this new edition" indeed seem pretty high.

I think it's worth noting that doing an adventure like this one is also probably low effort in order to get it updated to whatever rules/presentation changes are coming in One D&D. Adventures in 5e have, in general, leveraged the core rules enough that it shouldn't be a big deal to update them with an edition meant to be "highly compatible," right?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They've announced 6e, so any product they come out with from now on (really from Tasha's on) has to keep that in mind if they're pursuing a solid business plan.

I actually really highly doubt that there will be anything at all 1D&D "preview"-like in this.

1) It's coming out in January. So SOON. Sooner than they will be ready with 1D&D.
2) It's already been done, with the one-volume special cover. This is probably only changed from that with a round of errata and a new cover.

The most I can possibly imagine them doing would be to update any monster statblocks in it to Monsters of the Multiverse style, but I wouldn't bet on that either.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I actually really highly doubt that there will be anything at all 1D&D "preview"-like in this.

1) It's coming out in January. So SOON. Sooner than they will be ready with 1D&D.
2) It's already been done, with the one-volume special cover. This is probably only changed from that with a round of errata and a new cover.

The most I can possibly imagine them doing would be to update any monster statblocks in it to Monsters of the Multiverse style, but I wouldn't bet on that either.

So there's no worthwhile reason to buy this then. At least as far as I'm concerned.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So there's no worthwhile reason to buy this then. At least as far as I'm concerned.

Makes sense. I think it will be more for people who don't already have their own copy (either never had it, or played it but didn't run it) and want to run it. If that's not you, then I doubt you'd have any need of it.

 

[Reynard]

Makes sense. I think it will be more for people who don't already have their own copy (either never had it, or played it but didn't run it) and want to run it. If that's not you, then I doubt you'd have any need of it.

It feels like they needed to reprint anyway so took an extra step. No big deal.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

There seem to be an awful lot of doomtubers about DnD these days. I'm not sure what that says, but it has decreased my viewing.

Partly it's algorithm, but partly it's that people who make a business out of commenting on D&D have a very different relationship with it than the rest of us.

When the last Star Wars movie came out the one bit of youtube commentary I found most telling about the general response, was James Rolfe (of AVGN fame) mentioning that he was done reviewing Star Wars movies, because he was tired of feeling obligation, usually falling around Christmas, to review something he just didn't care about that much anymore. To me, as a Star Wars viewer, Christmas releases meant that I got to see them for the first time together with my family, which varying underlying quality of the films aside helped make it always a fun event, but for him, having made his hobby his job it meant that he had to go to work when he wanted to be doing other things.

I'm not a tuber of any variety, but I do do a little bit of paid DM work, and I will say that it makes me much more resentful when looking at the playtests, because where other people might see interesting rule experiments they might try or ignore I see a bunch of arbitrary rule changes that, if adopted, I will be obligated to master and semi-obligated to incorporate into my game if I want to keep being able to market myself as a paid DM of the most current edition.

 

[overgeeked]

I wonder if this is just the start and we might see reworked versions of some of the other earlier adventures.

Sure. That's how 5.5 will stay backwards compatible with the modules...they'll just systematically rework the numbers in the modules to match 5.5.