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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sgtscott658" data-source="post: 6395150" data-attributes="member: 6777632">Hi-so I recently decided a about four months ago to give 5E a go. I had  picked up the Starter Kit from WotC and from there spent two months  gathering  up a group of players (People that I could tolerate and would not  annoy me). The Starter Kit was a nice intro into 5E but I did not play  the adventure within it, by the time I did have a group up and going,  both the 5E PHB and HotDQ were out. So with that said, I decided to run  HotDQ a 1 to 7th level campaign set in the forgotten realms. The  adventure is not bad but very railroad like IE trying to force the  players into situations that normally most would not be apt to attempt,  so as a DM I felt the adventure needed a bit of loosening up and a bit  more leeway for the players and less railroading. I do like like FR but for this new rule set I felt Greyhawk would be a better fit for me to DM this adventure, it is alot more sand boxy to add and change stuff within the Greyhawk campaign setting then it would be for the FR setting (plus I think most of my players know FR much better then I do <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />)Edit: from episode 6 Castle Naerytar onwards will take place in FR.Basically this adventure pits the players against the Dragon Cult, which  is looting area's of Greyhwak and to bring that loot to a central area  for the main bad guy to summon Tiamat from the 1st plane of Hell and to  do this the cult needs to gather as much loot as possible. The players  come into the picture by trying stop the ritual and get back the loot  for their patrons. Pretty simple and epic feeling adventure but some  parts needed serious work I felt to make it more palatable to both  players and me the DM. I did make a few changes in both the module (an adventure path actually,  AP's are episodic encounters kind of.) and my campaign. In my campaign I  set HotDQ in Greyhawk in the Village of Hommlet. In the module HotDQ,  many locations are set in the Forgotten Realms, but the FR just has to  much baggage and too many players know FR better then me. So Greyhawk  was my alternative choice to FR. Greyhawk is a more open campaign area  where you can add or take away what you like or dislike.As for house rules, I had a just a few, I'm old school D&D, so in my  campaign I ruled zero'ed teiflings (a Demonic P.C race in 5e) and  Dragonborn (another PC race in 5E), I also ruled that Paladins must be  Human and of Lawful alignment, no new age paladins in my campaign.  Another thing thast should be kept in mind is that 5E is a low powered  system IE no powerful magic and monsters tend to be weaker then previous  editions, so perspective DM's will have to bear this in mind when  playing 5E. As one person on another message board put it, a 20th level  cgaracter in 5E with a +3 sword is considered to be wheedling a relic.  Not very epic  but will see how this turns out.The characters in this campaign consist of: one rogue,  Human MaleCleric of Kord the Storm God Human maleCleric of(I forgot lol) Halfling Maleone fighter Human MaleEdit: Added new player playing a Human WarlockNPC ranger named Dolf. 1/2 HalfEpisode 1:Hommlet in FlamesIn HotDQ there are some very railroad like encounters and this I did not  like, I wanted the players to immerse themselves into the campaign and  get to know the NPC's in Hommlet before the proverbial ****  hit the  fan. Ya see in the module the players come upon a raid  in progress and  are attacked relentlessly by the raiders as they do certain missions  within the town, I did not like that and wanted to build up to a more  set piece battle. So I had it where the players arrived 3 days before  the battle occurred, giving them time to scout the lay of the land and  inter-act with their fellow NPC's/ characters.   This payed off because the players had both of best worlds Role playing and combat.The players do hear rumors of a vast Raiding army approaching, and get   sucked in to helping defend the Village of Hommlet from these raiders  which includes a young Blue Dragon. The Attack begins late in the Day on  St Crispens day, the village of Hommlet, even though they knew the  attack was imminent still celebrated the Feast of St Crispen. Once the  attack got under  way, the players helped the Druids of the Grove  (Cherry, Amber and Misty) defend against various incursions by both  Kobolds and Goblins (the players are at 3rd level), The Raiders take a  beating and but do manage to loot some areas of Hommlet and then the  raiders Retreat back. I know in the adventure the players are supposed to meet the blue dragon and run in fear of its awesomeness but I thought to myself, if I was a player, no matter what the rope might be, I would feel mighty low if the DM popped a blue dragon on me and there not I could do. Instead I had the blue dragon jut circle on high making sure what was looted was not carted off by stray kobolds or goblins.As for the fight with the Dragonborne dude, I nixed that, why would you go out and duel someone when your whole mission is to raid, kill and pillage?The Raiders did get a bloody nose but were also able to pillage parts of Hommlet, the steadfastness of both the players, the Druids Misty, Amber and Cherry, The Sherrif Owens of Hommlet and Byrnes Badgers along with many others helped save the day a little bit.Episode 2 Raider campI kind of changed things up a bit here, I wanted the players to decide if they wanted to go into the camp disguised or find another way in, they went the rout of looking for another way in, once more having a blue dragon in a low level adventure can put off players a bit.The players are then tasked to follow the Raiders to where there camp is  and try to get an idea of the raider's and report back to the Lord  Mayer Burns so he can dispatch a troop of mounted knights to deal with  the Raiding group. The players find that the Raiders have taken refuge  in an old abandoned Moat house, they do see the Blue Dragon in the court  yard but it is just relaxing and eating any stray kobold or goblin that  wonders near it. They do come across a secret passage in the  outlying woods and it leads into the tunnels underneath the Moathouse,  of course near the secret entrance in the tunnles are two troll's  guarding this access point to the rest of the area underneath the Moat  house.Episode 3 The Dragon Hatchery: The players along with Dolf, fight a bitter battle against the Troll's guarding the secret passage, much oil and fire was expended in this effort to lay low the troll guards. And it worked. The Rogue does discover a side cave entrance nearby which turns out to be where the trolls were keeping their valubles, some gold, a nice wand (wand of wonder) and a cursed amulate and of course the Rogue put the cursed amulate on..............While the players are trapsing through the tunnal's of the Moat house, the cultists above have prepared their wagon caravan and leave behind a group of cultists and their bosses to oversee the dragon hatchery. The players battle their way into the hatchery finding prisoners to weak to accompany the caravan left to be food for the dragon hatchery. The players do come across a Monk named Cain who was captured by these guys. He tells the players they need to destroy the hatchery and return to Hommlet, there he will give them the low down on this cult and what they can do to help. Not tooo railroady I think.As an aside, the Fungus room was alot of fun to run, as the players had to deal with violet fungus spores as they tried to get through the room and survive, which they did do, damn d20 dice lol. The players finally reach the main hatchery where they encounter Both Fruit loops a Monk for the Dragon cult and his aid Cyanwraith a  dark elf Fighter. (yes I changed him from a dragonborne to a dark elf) Once a bitter battle ensues and the players learn just cool monks are as Fruit Loops does flurry of blows and stunning attacks. Unfortunantly Cyanwraith gets his butt kicked by 3 straight d20 nat 20's from the Halflings crossbow and the Fighters longsword, the Cleric of Kord has a nice ability that when he takes damage so does his opponent. The Rogue does come close to death but does survive in the end. With both bosses taken out the players dispatch the hachery and head back to Hommlet.Will post the next part later in the week but so far we are having a blast.Scott</blockquote>

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