My Tyranny of Dragons - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

I thought some people might appreciate seeing how I've modified the Tyranny of Dragons modules for my campaign. Although I disagree with the assessment that these adventures are poorly designed, they do contain some flaws, as all adventures do. There is also the standard expectation that any adventure will be customized to suit the needs of your group. With that in mind, here are the changes/fixes I've made to the adventures so far:

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 pukunui Jul 19, 2015 21:45:41	Hi folks, I thought some people might appreciate seeing how I've modified the Tyranny of Dragons modules for my campaign. Although I disagree with the assessment that these adventures are poorly designed, they do contain some flaws, as all adventures do. There is also the standard expectation that any adventure will be customized to suit the needs of your group. With that in mind, here are the changes/fixes I've made to the adventures so far: HOARD OF THE DRAGON QUEEN Episode 1: Greenest in Flames Episode 1: Greenest in Flames I had the PCs start at 3rd level instead of 1st. I also started the adventure with the PCs already in Greenest. They had congregated at the inn, which I determined was the walled building in the northwest corner of the town map. The barkeep was a retired adventurer nicknamed "Patchy" (who happened to be the brother of Governor Nighthill). I had him question the PCs as a means to get the players to introduce their characters to each other. As Patchy was telling them a story about fighting a dragon, something big and heavy wooshed overhead, followed by a loud crackle of lightning and an explosion from somewhere else in the town. One of the PCs is a dragon scholar, so he was able to recognize that the town was under attack by a blue dragon - a fact confirmed by Patchy, who grabbed his magic glowing mace and asked them to help him distract the dragon so the townsfolk could get to the keep. Before the PCs could respond, however, there was a commotion outside front of the inn. Looking out the windows, they saw a local family (the Swifts) being chased by kobolds. The PCs had to choose whether to accompany Patchy on his seemingly suicidal mission or go and help the family. They chose the family. Patchy tossed them his old bag of holding - filled with potions and old socks - and headed out the back door to get his horse. Patchy's glowing mace managed to catch Lennithon's attention, and Patchy rode off across the Greenfields. Later during the raid, I had Lennithon drop Patchy into the keep as he returned. As he lay dying, Patchy told the PCs to "earn this". Given the relatively small size of Greenest, I felt that the raid was spread out over too much time. I had also reduced the length of a short rest to 20 minutes, so I chose to have each mission eat up only 30 minutes rather an a whole hour. I skipped the Sally Port mission. After the initial Seek the Keep mission, I ran the Sanctuary mission. After that, the PCs took a short rest - and got some healing from the Chauntean priests they'd rescued. Then I ran the Prisoners, Dragon Attack, Save the Mill, and Half-Dragon Champion missions, in that order. The raid was over by 2am instead of 4am, giving the PCs a little more time to rest. I put a ballista on top of the keep tower so the PCs could fire it at the dragon during his attack. Unfortunately for them, it drew his attention and he destroyed it (and nearly destroyed them too). The wizard PC managed to drive him off with a few well-aimed catapult spells, though. When the PCs went to scout the mill and saw that it appeared to be an ambush, they returned to the keep to warn the governor. They asked him for reinforcements to help secure it, and so I gave them a few NPC guards - who proved to have better luck handling the would-be assassins than the PCs did! We joked that if the PCs all died, the players would have to start playing the guards instead.
#2 pukunui Jul 19, 2015 21:46:47	Reserved for The Rise of Tiamat.
#3 dave2008 Jul 21, 2015 23:42:01	Thank you that is very helpful. Always good to hear how someone customizes an adventure.
#4 pukunui Jul 22, 2015 1:44:16	dave2008 wrote:
#5 Aerodus Jul 23, 2015 7:09:47	Ooo, I like that you put the prisoners in the pit. I think I will use that tomorrow when we finish Episode 3 (hopefully). Thanks for the great idea. My players also avoided interacting with the camp by waiting until nightfall to send in the sneaky Warlock and Bard (no Rogues, surprisingly), while hoping to provide them cover from the ridges. P.S. I have a HUGE party of 10 players, and I have done very little to adapt the adventure to a party that size, so I can see where people would gripe about this being too hard for a normal party of 4. My changes have been mostly cosmetic/motivational.
#6 pukunui Jul 23, 2015 13:39:43	Aerodus wrote:
#7 BRJN Jul 24, 2015 17:47:10	pukunui wrote:
#8 joeburgos Jul 25, 2015 11:22:11	This is good stuff Pukunui, Im running HotDQ for a group at my FLGS, they are a small group, but loving the module alot.
#9 pukunui Sep 14, 2015 1:09:16	Finally got to play another session this past weekend. Had to wait about a month while two of the players were overseas. I've updated the OP to include the additional content I put into the first part of Episode 4, after my players voted to take the "scenic route" to Elturel. I was fine with that, as having them go through Berdusk and Scornubel gave me an opportunity to show them a bit more of the Realms, which is a large part of what Episode 4 is about. That being said, I'm not entirely sure why Scornubel gets the extra big font treatment on the official map. Seems like a fairly forgettable place to me. Berdusk is a much more interesting place. I know that it used to be the home of the Harpers, with Twilight Hall being their headquarters and the city's ruler being one of their leaders, but supposedly they disbanded after the Spellplague only to reform in the Silver Marches, but then Leosin is a Harper and the adventure states that he's from Berdusk, so I wonder if maybe WotC is planning on having the Harpers return to Twilight Hall. I guess we'll have to wait and see if there's anything about it in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. I didn't mention Twilight Hall to my players (even though one of the PCs did end up going to the temple of Deneir [aka "Twilight Hall"] to buy some healing potions). I'm thinking of having Leosin make a comment about it when they meet up with him again next session.

Episode 1: Greenest in Flames

I had the PCs start at 3rd level instead of 1st.
I also started the adventure with the PCs already in Greenest. They had congregated at the inn, which I determined was the walled building in the northwest corner of the town map. The barkeep was a retired adventurer nicknamed "Patchy" (who happened to be the brother of Governor Nighthill). I had him question the PCs as a means to get the players to introduce their characters to each other. As Patchy was telling them a story about fighting a dragon, something big and heavy wooshed overhead, followed by a loud crackle of lightning and an explosion from somewhere else in the town. One of the PCs is a dragon scholar, so he was able to recognize that the town was under attack by a blue dragon - a fact confirmed by Patchy, who grabbed his magic glowing mace and asked them to help him distract the dragon so the townsfolk could get to the keep.

Before the PCs could respond, however, there was a commotion outside front of the inn. Looking out the windows, they saw a local family (the Swifts) being chased by kobolds. The PCs had to choose whether to accompany Patchy on his seemingly suicidal mission or go and help the family. They chose the family. Patchy tossed them his old bag of holding - filled with potions and old socks - and headed out the back door to get his horse.

Patchy's glowing mace managed to catch Lennithon's attention, and Patchy rode off across the Greenfields. Later during the raid, I had Lennithon drop Patchy into the keep as he returned. As he lay dying, Patchy told the PCs to "earn this".
Given the relatively small size of Greenest, I felt that the raid was spread out over too much time. I had also reduced the length of a short rest to 20 minutes, so I chose to have each mission eat up only 30 minutes rather an a whole hour. I skipped the Sally Port mission. After the initial Seek the Keep mission, I ran the Sanctuary mission. After that, the PCs took a short rest - and got some healing from the Chauntean priests they'd rescued. Then I ran the Prisoners, Dragon Attack, Save the Mill, and Half-Dragon Champion missions, in that order. The raid was over by 2am instead of 4am, giving the PCs a little more time to rest.
I put a ballista on top of the keep tower so the PCs could fire it at the dragon during his attack. Unfortunately for them, it drew his attention and he destroyed it (and nearly destroyed them too). The wizard PC managed to drive him off with a few well-aimed catapult spells, though.
When the PCs went to scout the mill and saw that it appeared to be an ambush, they returned to the keep to warn the governor. They asked him for reinforcements to help secure it, and so I gave them a few NPC guards - who proved to have better luck handling the would-be assassins than the PCs did! We joked that if the PCs all died, the players would have to start playing the guards instead.