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

 

[DragonBelow]

....fool me once....

As much as I tell myself it's ok to use the alternate cover books at the table, I seem to have a strong reluctance to do so, and they just sit on my shelves. For this reason, I wouldn't mind a regular cover for this.

 

[Ghost2020]

As much as I tell myself it's ok to use the alternate cover books at the table. I seem to have a strong reluctance to do so, and they just sit on my shelves. For this reason, I wouldn't mind a regular cover for this.

Yes!!!
They sit on the shelf in a protective bag.
I'm also getting tired of storing things I can't or won't use at the table.

 

[darjr]

I think it's going to have the Rise of Tiamat art on the cover. Not sure.

If you go to this "media" page at wizards site you'll see a collection of wallpapers, one labeled Tyranny of Dragons with Rise's cover art.

Wallpaper & Media Gallery | Dungeons & Dragons

Browse images, art, and wallpapers from the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons!

dnd.wizards.com

https://images.ctfassets.net/swt2dsco9mfe/2Fz3lMJTrFYz5VwiZtnSIs/aade483b1d7ada301186a1fe01a0034c/Tiamat_1280x960.jpeg?w=411&h=231&fit=thumb&q=70&fm=avif

 

[JDR]

It happened last time.

Physical books?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think it's going to have the Rise of Tiamat art on the cover.

I think so too. I have nothing that says so for sure, but that's the art I see used to solicit it. I expect it will be a "regular" cover, a new layout of the Tiamat art, but with the Tyranny of Dragons logo (and a lot fatter).

I also don't expect it to be much different from the first one-volume. Speaking of which, I never got around to doing a side-by-side comparison between that (back before we sold out of it, long ago) and the original HotDQ to see what had changed.

Anyone know how drastically it was changed?

(I ran HotDQ back when it came out, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy on that one anyway, but I think I remember it pretty well...)

 

[Weiley31]

Anyone know how drastically it was changed?

(I ran HotDQ back when it came out, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy on that one anyway, but I think I remember it pretty well...)

I never had the original version, as I didn't start collecting 5E books until AFTER Tyranny of Dragons 2019 was released, but supposedly one of the main things that was reworked/adjust was pretty much how the opening act was handled.

A lot of people thought plopping down a Blue Dragon on top of the party during the opening sequence when the village gets under attack, was a bit of a "LOL, really WoTC? That's fair..."
(This was still under the premise you even start the module legit at Level 1.)

Then I recalled a lot of people on here going "Yeah why would my PCs just rush headfirst at a dragon in the middle of a village on fire? Please, I rather just do "........." instead and "yada yada yada."

Even if you treated such a sequence as an Opening Cutscene, there was still complaints about it.

But that, that's the same kind of complaining that people do when talking about Out of the Abyss and why would the PCs have any reason to go back and stop the Demon Lords. I mean, stopping them seems like that's the point of the whole thing as they will become unstoppable upon reaching the surface, but DND players gonna DND players and not fully buy in on the module, despite agreeing to play it

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It helps that my players trust that I'm trying to give them a fun adventure, and not just go "Mwahaha! I'm the DM, and I WIN!"

I actually ran it twice, once with my after-hours group (my regular players) and once with a group of customers at my store.

I may have outright said to one or both groups, if they balked at the blue dragon, "so don't fight the Blue Dragon." or something along those lines. At any rate, whether I reminded them that they don't have to fight every monster they see or not, both groups opted to impersonate mercenaries and went around town "looting" (while actually saving people).

After building trust with my players throughout that scene, I ended both groups by allowing them to drive the dragon away themselves, by risking shooting it with a ballista at the top of the tower. This was a really exciting scene for them, where they shot the dragon, tried to hide from it, while it landed on the roof of the tower, knocked the ballista to pieces with its tail, roared a warning (and I think killed one particularly stupid and annoying player in one group who didn't take the opportunity to cower or hide) and then flew off.

(In my mind, the conditions of the deal the dragon made with the cult did not include getting shot up, so the dragon figured he was done with this dumb "town terrorizing")

They got to take the credit for driving the dragon away, without having to fight it to (their) death.

If the new version explicitly talks DMs through something like that, then it's better than the original, which pretty much said, "The town's being assaulted by an adult blue dragon and a hundred mercenaries. Go get 'em level one PCs!"

And leaves it up to a smart DM to understand what that means.

 

[pukunui]

I think it's going to have the Rise of Tiamat art on the cover. Not sure.

If you go to this "media" page at wizards site you'll see a collection of wallpapers, one labeled Tyranny of Dragons with Rise's cover art.

Wallpaper & Media Gallery | Dungeons & Dragons

Browse images, art, and wallpapers from the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons!

dnd.wizards.com

https://images.ctfassets.net/swt2dsco9mfe/2Fz3lMJTrFYz5VwiZtnSIs/aade483b1d7ada301186a1fe01a0034c/Tiamat_1280x960.jpeg?w=411&h=231&fit=thumb&q=70&fm=avif

View attachment 268586

You might be right that it will have the RoT art as cover, but I'm fairly certain that wallpaper isn't new. (And yes, I mean the one with the Tyranny of Dragons logo on it.)

 

[darjr]

You might be right that it will have the RoT art as cover, but I'm fairly certain that wallpaper isn't new. (And yes, I mean the one with the Tyranny of Dragons logo on it.)

How ling has it been up? Do you think?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

How ling has it been up? Do you think?

I think it's been around since not long after Rise of Tiamat came out. So years and years. But they don't seem to be using it as placeholder art, but who knows?