Can you continue to review the modules. Really interesting to hear your thoughts

During the travel section, just skip time. The only important bits are the two people who join the wagon train mid journey and the event that happens shortly after that. It's not worth boring players with a bunch of rolls for random encounters and bogging things down with a bunch of "You're on the road, and walking, and walking, and you're walking, walking some more." Just spend a few minutes on the parts that are scripted, jump through the journey in a session or less and get to the Castle.

@brandenharvey9817

Жыл бұрын

I let my players go day by day as they roleplayed with the rest of the caravan and tried to figure stuff out. They had a lot of fun.

Really appreciate that you note that there is a bit of work necessary to make this book run well; thankfully folks have been pretty generous with their advice. I'm glad that I held onto my old FR stuff.

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

Yes, one the of the best parts of HOTDQ is that so many people have run the module and created expansion content or hacks to improve and customize it. There is a solid, classic template in the module that just takes a bit of work to get running perfectly. Diito on the old FR books, mine are also living out a nice "second life" in 5e! -- monty

I think the long travel slog is important to break up action and high intensity. Players need to understand, through the DM, that thAt portion of the module is meant to be a change a pace.

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

It absolutely is a change of pace from the high action of the chapters surrounding it. It can absolutely be a refreshing change and give the party some needed "downtime", but the player's actually don't have a lot of freedom during this part of the module. Like any travel sequence, it's important to gauge your players. Some will love spending an entire session exploring the travel spots, others will be chomping at the bit to get back into the action. Make the best call for your group!

This was a great review great for an aspiring DM to know how easy or difficult it may be. I’d love to see you guys tackle Decent into Avernus & Out of the Abyss

Thiswas my groups first major story. My DM bridged the end of LMoP into Tyranny of Dragons (HotDQ & RoT). After we completed LMoP @ lvl 5, we continued w/ our same characters into Tyranny of Dragons starting HotDQ @ lvl 5. My DM put in MANY side quests, ran the Frozen Castle supplement which is a story that happens in between HotDQ & RoT, then we finished off into RoT. Our characters had unique backstories & our DM did A LOT of homebrewing pulling things from Pathfinder, Critical Role, & other modules to really flesh out this 2 part story. The 2 modules just by themselves is a lvl 1-15 campaign. But, w/ all the extra stuff my DM did and starting out this whole story w/ LMoP, we actually got to max lvl @ 20! Because our group is small, me and another player actually ran 2 full characters and they all survived the end of the story. So, I have a lvl 20 Multiclassed Ranger 11/Rouge 9 & a lvl 20 Fighter Gunslinger (orig. Pathfinder class), but Matt Mercer made it 5e compatible. W/ all that we did, it took us about 18 months to get through everything! Just to add in, he also included the Heralds of Tiamat (basically Tiamat's children who are are SUPER STRONG Chromatic Dragons), & also Arkan the Cruel, Paladin of Tiamat! (This guy was a bitch to fight...twice!) It was LONG & TIRING, but boy was it an EPIC STORY!

Would love to see a review on curse of strahd, and seeing your guys’ thought on it. I ran it and had a great time. I also think it would be good if you could touch on the major villain from each module(strahd, the spider, acererak and detail how you would RP them and tips and tricks for them.

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

We are hoping to review CoS as soon as we can get around to running it :) Kelly wants to play it desperately, so we don't want to spoil the module for him. We might end up just running Castle Ravenloft itself. We touched on some roleplaying ideas for villains in our Five Spells for Villains videos, but revisiting villains with an eye towards roleplaying iconic villains in the modules is a great idea.

I'd love more details on what specifically you'd to to improve this campaign

Awesome review and great advice. I'm DMing this right now and we're at chapter 6. I should've done more research, because I tried to run the middle part just like the book suggested, and we spent 3 irl months just on a travel sequence, and it just dragged on and on. I'm going to take your advice and work the Black Dragon in to my campaign. Thinking of also elaborating on that observatory on top of the castle, and perhaps incorporating the astrologer specters the book mentioned into some sort of engaging side quest. This is my first DM experience ever, and I'm finally realizing that now that I know how my group plays, I need to bend and even break this module to fit the group better. Thanks again! Cheers~

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

Good luck with the rest of the campaign! Ultimately, knowing your players the most important skill a DM can develop. It takes time, especially with a new group. Glad to hear you're finding your stride!

@TrackerRoo

5 жыл бұрын

We spent one session on the travel to Baldur's Gate, then breezed through the trip to Waterdeep in the first few minutes of the following session. The only bits that need to happen are the two who join mid journey and the event that happens shortly after that. It's not worth wasting a bunch of time rolling for random events and bogging down something that should just be a loading screen.

My first experience with 5e was as a player, experiencing Tyranny of Dragons with intermixed Storm King's Thunder, made it feel so immersive that the giants we were helping inevitably showed up for the big final fight with Tiamat.

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

Connecting SKT and Tyranny of Dragons is a REALLY great combination for a truly epic, world-spanning campaign. Sounds like you DM nailed it!

Awesome review!

What's good, what's bad, what can be improved or what will be needed, I think this is a solid review and wouldn't mind seeing more :D Great stuff, Dudes!

Haven't even touched this module but always wanted to try it out. Happy thanksgiving dudes!

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

Hundred Years Boar you as well man! The module is a lot of fun but requires some work from the DM. I’m thinking of writing a guide of hints and tips that I used to run it.

@HundredYearsBoar

6 жыл бұрын

I find I usually stray from the intended story but use the frame work. I might be stuck in a town>dungeon>town>dungeon rut. Would be interested to hear how the dudes mix it up!

@codyjones3720

4 жыл бұрын

@@DungeonDudes I'm about to try and run this and would LOVE a guild to help me keep it fun and fill holes in a fantastic way.

We ran this campaign and I agree with the ending being quite tough. We were a 6 player party and by the end, Half the party was dead (cleric, barbarian and ranger). The other three (Fighter who was consious and sorcerer and druid who were unconsious) barely managed to escape the castle falling down on us by using the wyvern mounts we used to get up there. It was definitly a very memorable moment though.

Thank you for the review, it was really informative

Really enjoyed this video. Would love to know some of the other articles and stuff you read while preparing this campaign as I am currently running it and always looking for more inspiration. For anyone else wanting to run this, definitely do some extra research and don't be afraid to change up the story. I'm actually running this currently with some close friends and my younger brother. I really love the RP aspects of the campaign but one of my friends is more of just wanting to hack and slash (which is kinda funny cause she's really new to the whole RPG and most of the other players are guys who are like trying to have conversations with everyone and shes just looking for orcs to maul) so with the long road middle section we're currently on our 3rd session (should finish it up this session hopefully lol) of them slugging their way through it. I actually used one of the encounters to introduce a kind of "helper" of the god Hephaestus (wanted him to be one of the FR gods cause why not lol) who then gave the players "legendary" weapons from a whole slew of FR gods such as Bahamut, Mielikki, and the Queen of Air and Darkness (one of my players is a warlock who took a pact with a Fae creature and he's rather new so didn't know to look up and specify which Fae creature lol). Essentially as the players level up and fulfill heroic events their weapons will "awaken" (stole the idea from Matt Mercer and Critical Role) and become more powerful. Another one of the encounters with the golden stag, I turned into a fight with a Medusa instead of using the books suggestions, which really worked out well cause the girl playing her druid was the "sole survivor" so to speak, the rest were either turned to stone or knocked unconscious. I then had an in game reasoning for the ones turned to stone to be brought back to life. Read and prep the sessions and as you're going through the campaign think "Am I going to have fun DM'ing this scenario" if so make it fun and your players will have a blast. If you feel like its not fun to do then change it up and make something else happen. Don't just do it cause its in the campaign.

I love this campaign! First campaign I ever played. Good memories

More of these please

I would like to run the campaign, your advice is pretty good and sensible. Do you have any links to the on line discussions/comments on the campaign you mentiond in your review?

Thank you for your videos.

I like this, good concept, you start out in a town that's being overloaded by a cult, fighting with cultists, a duel with a half dragon and a blue dragon flying overhead. Ten years ago I was in a church and if I would put it into a dnd session I'd havi it like that lol

one of the best things a gm can probably do with an overwhelmingly difficult encounter is creatively spin it into a theatrical encounter rather than a typical combat encounter.

Just want to say we just finished the 1st book tonigbt!. Started it 3 years ago on new years Haha we play once a week mostly but more often then not we play 2 times a month.

Do you have any links to these swaths of information

When you guys says "The Dungeon Dudes" I can't help but think of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure Lolz

@jasonmountain4643

4 жыл бұрын

Omegaroth666 I think that’s what their going for. Even with the intro music.

@Omegaroth666

4 жыл бұрын

Seems probable.

As always this is a great and useful video. Do you have one for Rise of Tiamat? I am running that one and would be great to know what you think about it and what you did to improve it. Thanks!!!

Hey guys just found this review (awesome by the way), would you recommend this as a follow up to Lost Mines? I'm a newish DM for a small party and we are finishing up LMOP. Will this be an easy transition? Looking to probably use same characters as well. Thanks and keep the vids coming!

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Absolutely. It's a fairly easy transition, especially if you foreshadow it by using the Cult of the Dragon in Thundertree. The most important choice is deciding if you want to have the Cult of the Dragon attack Phandalin. If you do, this can replace the attack on Greenest altogether. If you are running the game in the Forgotten Realms, Phandalin is much, much closer to Neverwinter than Greenest, so this cuts down the caravan chapter quite considerably. Your players will be a bit tougher at the start, which will help if you have a smaller group. You still might need add or replace some tougher monsters during the early chapters (chapters 1 to 5). I'd also read through it and run only the parts of these chapters you think look really fun (or your players want to explore), and skip/ shorten the rest. Hope that helps! Sounds like you'll have an awesome campaign.

@coreyl6221

6 жыл бұрын

Dungeon Dudes Great ideas. Thanks much!!!

@lennartbauer9418

4 жыл бұрын

I hope i am not too late here, but i can not recommend this for a newly DM by any means. I ran this as a new DM quite some time ago and it was brutal and abolutely stressful to run, because it gives very very little information about literally everything. You have to be prepared to rewrite story hooks, invent NPCs completely or at least overhaul the existing ones that offer no background at all, rewrite and invent side quests and do a hell lot of research about specific monsters, places, races and cities. I am pretty sure there are better official adventures out there and from my experience it is even less work to design a whole campaign all by yourself instead of trying to repair this pile of shit adventure.

Are you guys going to review rise of Tiamat, also I would love to see something on the storm kings thunder as well

I'm gonna buy this next payday, thanks dyde

Hey both. A bit slow to the party but I really enjoy your content. really like the style. Thanks chaps!

Enjoying all your informative videos, keep it up. Kind of a noob question, should I tell my party we are running this campaign, or just run it. I am worried that if they know we are going to run both the will front load their new characters for facing dragons.

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you! This is a great question. In my experience, it is best to be honest and open with your players that you are running a module or a major adventure path. These days, it's quite easy for players to encounter spoilers on the internet since the modules come up so often in casual discussion, and knowing they're playing a module helps your players avoid spoilers. That said, I use material from old modules or small adventures all the time and don't tell my players. That said, it's important that your players know that you still have the absolute authority to change the module in any way. If one of your players cheats by reading the module, you'll have to decide if that's a dealbreaker for you or not. Finally, if the players create characters with an interest in dragon-slaying, they might actually play into the campaign nicely. The module has a great section at the back on how to hook character backstories into the campaign's theme if you need ideas. -- monty

@whiterave6115

6 жыл бұрын

Great thanks

@alzaronwayne5255

6 жыл бұрын

I actually worried about this as well. Especially when two of my players decided to run homebrew classes, one is a Dragon Knight and one is a Dragon Rider......we have like two dragons in the party which is riddikulus lol but just means I get to throw harder stuff at them. I'd say let them front load and make it harder. It's always easier to beef up monsters in the middle of battle than it is to nerf them cause you're one round from a TPK. Also by not telling them you could run into a situation like a Ranger in Out of the Abyss with a favored terrain of forest that is absolutely useless to them.

Extremely Awesome Review as always. You Two guys are Legends in the D & D Review Business.....👽👽👻😉

Ah man, you should bring back that intro on your videos nowadays ❤️

You are very generous with your review...

If you come from LMoP what level/chapter would you start at?

First module I was ran through when I started playing dnd. The dm who was my childhood best friends step dad was amazing and now I'm running it for my next players. Can't wait

If you'd like to run Rise of Tiamat but are looking for an alternative starting campaign for your players, or maybe you're a new DM and Hoard of the Dragon Queen has you lost, here's something that might help. It's what I'm currently running... I picked up both the Essentials Kit and the Starter Kit as a first time DM to run for some first time players. I'm running Dragon of Icespire Peak as our primary campaign story. But I'm pulling a few encounters from Lost Mine of Phandelver and adding them to the Icespire Peak story. Mainly, the Thundertree and Redbrand encounters. This requires a little customization but the end result should make for a cohesive story that ties things together well and leads into Rise of Tiamat nicely. First, with regards to the Redbrand encounter, I've removed the black spider completely and replaced him with the dragon cultist leader from Thundertree, Favric. Glasstaff is still in the Redbrand encounter like normal but now he's been hired by Favric who wants the Redbrands to keep adventurers out of Phandalin for fear they may kill the dragons and ruin his plans. Favric also wants the Redbrands to secure their hold on the mining town so he can gather resources to use to bribe the dragons with. Keep the letter to Glasstaff that the players find, but make a couple of minor changes to fit the new narrative. Obviously, it's from Favric now, not the spider. Have him say that they may be working for the Zhentarim instead of the dwarves, and he wants any information that they may have concerning the dragons. You can type this letter out and hand it to your players when they find it. Grab a Tyranny of Dragons or Tiamat logo off the internet and place it at the bottom next to the mysterious "F" signature. Once they finally meet Favric, it should click. Favric himself becomes a slightly tougher mini-boss fight, with a few extra hit points and a multi attack added. Optional is to give him a magic sword that does an extra 1d6 damage of a dragon breath type. Just be careful not to make him too strong, he should be a challenge but he shouldn't be able to wipe your party by himself. Venomfang and Cryovain have both come to the area after being driven out by larger dragons from the increased activity. They do not like each other and are competing for this territory. Favric hopes to strike an alliance with both, but will settle for one. Venomfang tries to convince the players to get rid of Cryovain for him, with the intention of killing them after. If they kill Cryovain first and then fight Venomfang, the green dragon can still fly away after being reduced to half HP, realizing the party is too strong and living to fight another day. He can always reappear later. You can also add in the Wyvern Tor encounter and link it with the Butterskull Ranch encounter, having the orcs that attack the ranch come from the Wyvern Tor camp. The orcs are in Wyvern Tor because Cryovain has driven them down from the mountains. The anchorites are upset that Venomfang has taken up residence near the forest, and so their activities have increased as they work their dark magic to find a way to get him to leave. These changes and additions should add a little more depth to the standard Dragon of Icespire Peak story, and still tie in nicely with the Rise of Tiamat module. It introduces the Cult of the Dragon and makes them a more prominent player in the story than the Lost Mine of Phandelver does. Your party will have started off in a small town, built up their reputation, and then the council from Waterdeep summons them after hearing of their exploits, picking up from that point of the story where another band of adventurers died in the process of completing the events in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Now your party has to finish what they started.

Any plans on reviewing the Rise of Tiamat?

Player question. Considering it’s against dragons is featherfall a safe bet? Or if not should I just take expeditious retreat for my E Knight? I just want to be useful. Being able to either save the party from a rare tpk or being able to bonus action dash to get to protect my weaker caster and healer?

Did you guys review ride of Tiamat?

I've ran HotDQ twice now. I completely agree with you on the degree of difficulty and lack of seemingly useful info in the module. Luckily my DMing style incorporates a lot of improv because my players tend to run in random directions. My wife has been a player in both times and after starting RoT, she didn't even realise that I had run the same module twice in a row. (Over a year in between campaigns though) Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing...

What I did when a ran that scenario is I let the players realize that there is a balista that they can use w/c can drive the dragon away.

I'm starting this campaign in January and have altered it's timeline by a few years so that it can coincide with the "Murder in Baldur's Gate" adventure. My plan is to have the Second Sundering as the larger backdrop to what will be a campaign that goes beyond the "Rise of Tiamat."

My crew is running this story currently and I am enjoying it as a DM. It doesn't overwhelm you with colour by numbers and expects the DM to be a storyteller. So far I've changed lots; like my group was just a small muscle for hire group asked to escort a caravan to Greenest after delivery they went to the market to look for supplies when the alarm was sounded, and the game really started with them running to the keep for safety. Other things i did, the hidden tunnel I turned into a sorta maze puzzle with 2 planks and twisty passage that when they screwed up could fall in decade old sewer waste rolling CON and taking minor damage if failed. And the dragon got bored attacking, and enjoyed riddles so instead of the RAW, there was 2 rounds of combat (to reinforce that he's deadly) then he landed and proposed that if they could solve his riddle they are worth not killing and that he would leave, when they solved it, he told them that the cult actually blackmailed him and stole his eggs, and he offered them gold if they could find them (chapter 3 hint hint).

I am getting ready to take a Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign into Rise of Tiamat. The main thing I am trying to figure out is how to get them access to the giant castle. I want them to have the option to get the giants on their side even though they are coming from a different campaign.

Will Rise if Tiamat be just as good if I did not play this campaign first?

You guys should do princes of the apocalypse

I chose this as my first ever campaign to DM after watching another one of your videos ranking the campaigns! And you're not wrong about Chapter 4 being too long. This is where I currently am. I'm using chapter 4 to give players some personal backstory beats and then already told them that we'd be treating it like downtown. You're also correct about the bad guys just being dropped in. I read ahead and actually decided that some of the early bad guys are the ones that are going to replace the dropped in ones. My players already hate the cult as a whole so anyone that is involved is a bad guy worthy of hate. My sympathies at all.

I'm planning to run this module with Rise of Tiamat. I will change the chapter 4 with a cargo ship travel from Baldur's gate to Waterdeep, where the PC will be atacked by a pirate ship of Lizardfolks under the orders of a Githyanki collecting teasure for the Tiamat resurrection and some other sidequest contained in GoS book. I recomend to use Dragons Heist and Descent into Avernus to give flavor to Waterdeep and Baldurs Gate. Greetings from Mexico!

Will you be doing a review for the Rise of Tiamat also?

@DungeonDudes

5 жыл бұрын

Yes. In fact, Kelly still running the final chapters of Rise of Tiamat, so we'll be able to offer a first-hand account of the campaign in play.

@dandanfx

5 жыл бұрын

I am glad to hear that. Amazing review.

I added in some ballistas on top of the keep during the Dragon attack on it to give the players a sense of: "Hey this Dragon is a big threat and really scary - but you're not defenseless" Also Cyanwrath was amazing and my party pretty much got into a huge brawl in the cabin with Talis instead of working with them. We had a Wildmage Sorcerer who attempted casting a spell with a somatic component and rolled badly on a stealth check to do so (right in front of Talis) so we got into a huge brawl with the 4 armed Troll and shit was crazy. Almost resulted in a TPK

@targetedandfiring4336

4 жыл бұрын

Also my character's backstories were interwoven into the campaign. And I also used the Dragon. (And I also used the revolt - although I didnt use the one recommended by the group) My Lizardfolk Barbarian backstory was that he was a prince of a Lizardfolk clan deep within a swamp. So while the players were tracking the cult through the swamp I had the Black Dragon appear to them and present them an opportunity - safe travel through the swamp in exchange for slaying the Bullywug leader and disrupting their hierarchy so the Black Dragon could feast on them again. It helped that I wove it in so that the Black Dragon was seen as a god by the Lizardfolk of the swamp and that my player's characters father had been the leader that had been slain when the Bullywugs first allied with the cult. We ended up turning the Castle Siege into a rebellion where the characters successfully sneaked into the castlle in the guise of cultists and then took over the castle from the inside out - releasing Giant Lizards, killing the Bullywugs while they slept, it was mayhem. One of several sessions that I greatly enjoyed.

Hey guys I love your show. I'm running this module for my players right now and we're still at the beginning, but I've already decided that I'm going to cut out the on the road sequence. There is just no way my players are going to travel hundreds of miles next to tons and tons of treasure and not try to get it.I know they're just going to get frustrated so I'm going to skip it entirely and have the treasure magically transported to the next destination.

Hi, did you stream your playthrough?

I know this video was published AGES ago, but any chance you guys could add links to the sources you found most useful for HOTDQ? Like the swamp and the black dragon? Other awesome ideas for fleshing out the story a little more?

@RavingNutter

4 жыл бұрын

Can't speak for the DDs, but I've found Courtney Campbell's articles, as well as his linked articles, very helpful while prepping for HotDQ hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/p/hoard-of-dragon-queen-index.html

I actually plan to go into the tyranny of dragons storyline after dragon of icespire peak

Hey guys i know this is a year old but I am a new DM. I ran my first one shot last night and it went decent but we started talking about doing a campaign. They are keen on doing this module because they all like the dragons aspect and so do i. But after watching this and reading reviews im little nervous as a new dm about it as he said you did alot of improvising and stuff for this campaign any tips or any sources to help me prepare for this would be great.

I'm definitely putting my buds (who have never played) through icespire peak and then curse of strahd and after that hoard of the dragon queen and then rise of tiamat. got any other spooky scary ones for halloween (Halloween is when I estimate we'll be done with the other ones.

get the updated version in which both books are combined some of the things have been dealt with

Of course I chose this as my first campaign I've ever ran! I'm a first time DM and I chose one of the ones that requires the most work from the sounds of it. Guess I better get reading

@alfredobelloni3258

2 жыл бұрын

How did it go? xD

@ianalexavier5972

2 жыл бұрын

@@alfredobelloni3258 it's not finished but what I am basically doing is since no one dm can get their party to do what the story wants them to do, I basically just took the important parts of the campaign and ditched everything else and are having the party encounter the people. (Also cause I'm lazy and don't like reading cause I have dyslexia and focusing issues) so ya long story short, could be better but also not complaining lol

Are you going to review the sequel of this sometime?

@DungeonDudes

5 жыл бұрын

Yes! Kelly is running Rise of Tiamat now, and his players are racing towards the conclusion. Not sure how soon they'll wrap up, but the plan is to get Kelly's full and complete review once he's wrapped the campaign.

@komishisei6643

5 жыл бұрын

Dungeon Dudes awesome! Looking forward to hearing the outcome!

Hey guys! I'm a new french DM of D&D with new players :-) Would you recommand this campain for a first module after the initiation kit? If not, which module would you recommand? Thank you, and sorry for my eventually bad english

@0nIXmatic

2 жыл бұрын

Late reply but u should get this, if not get the essentials kit since the essentials kit ties in easily with the starter set

I agree with you 100% regarding Episode 8, that is just insane. Going through the main gate will pretty much kill you. There are also many small mistakes, like "players gain a surprise round", and the insanely high DC 70 Strength (Athletics) check, see the page 82 for details. Consider yourself a 20th level barbarian, +6 proficiency and +7 Strength modifier, even if you roll a 20, you're getting nowhere near that DC. Now there's more, consider you are a CR 30 monster, with +9 proficiency and +10 Strength modifier. Guess it, your maximum roll will be 39, a little higher than half the DC. Now, imagine you are a CR 30 rogue monster with Athletics expertise, +18 proficiency, +10 Strength, 20 on the die, total 48, not even close. hahahaha. I guess that was written after a rule in which advantage allowed you to add both results, instead of choosing higher, and you could get multiple advantages on one roll, but I hope that was just a typo.

LOVE the "openness" of the module, where you either "invent" (make up) or do previously own the cities, material etc. That - to me at least- gives it a lot more "value" both to the module itself and to previous material!!! Awesome!

Wow you guys have gotten so much more comfortable you look nervous

Thank you

Nobody puts Monty behind a screen of Castle Naerytar. Or in a corner...

IM SO HAPPY THEY SAID USE IT AS A SKELETON CUS IM CUNSTRUCTING MY OWN STORY USING IT HERE AND THERE FOR MY BIG BAD INSTEAD

I personally dislike the first chapter if you can't get players to go into the city of Greenest to help out and fight or if they just sit there and refuse to get involved. I altered the Blue Dragon to one that was younger, but still a challenge and one who still got away. The Dragon Hatchery was fun to do as a classic Dungeon Crawl. We're on Chapter 4 and yeah, that really takes reading the chapter, picking the events you want, lining them up for a story. I know from my days of DMing Eberron in 3.5, there was a term used called "Red Lining" for travel like in any of the Indiana Jones movies and have the "random events" already set to go, so that "part way through the morning of the 3rd day, you come to this." And my better scenes have been those I added to fit my narrative.

We were all so young and innocent in the Before Times.

*meant to be cloak and dagger* me and the warforged: *i set fire to the camp while he aggros the entire cultists*

could you play this as a cult member?

@DungeonDudes

6 жыл бұрын

ryan rhino one of the background options presented in the back of the campaign module is to play as a former member of the cult of dragon who was unhappy with their new direction. There are a few options you could use to make it make sense.

The what Coast ?!? LOL

We fought the blue dragon at level 2 and almost killed it

lol my players also nearly wiped at the assassins in the inn encounter and i as DM had to fudge some rolls so that there was no TPK in a f*cking pointless sidequest.

Random person: "For a game called DUNGEONS and DRAGONS, there aren't very many dragons." D&D creator: "Quick, create a module full of nothing BUT dragons!"

I like this, guy becomes a crossdresser, the dragon queen lol

I have to say that i unfortunately absolutely agree with your thoughts about the adventure. I ran it as my first ever campaign as DM. Therefore i had close to zero knowledge about the world of DnD and the Sword Coast in particular not to mention the cities, deities, races, factions, regions, monsters etc etc. And i have to say: This adventure was an absolute pain in the a** for me to run because it took me hours of hours of research IN ADDITION to the preparation you have to do anyway. As my party reached Waterdeep i spend approx. 4 hours and read through all of the cities lore to give my players at least a tiny bit of information about where the f*ck they actually are. The section about waterdeep is an atrocity for an official source book. It literally has not a single sentence, not even ONE, about what kind of city waterdeep is. NOT A SINGLE BIT OF INFORMATION. It is literally "You reach Waterdeep. You go and find your guy. You get hired by guy. You leave Waterdeep." Thats it. And this is not the only section that has this kind of problems. I also had the same problem as you about the mid-adventure where you're caravan'ing for month and have to do absolutely pointless sidequests for a caravan that no one even cares about because it is so replaceable and every player knows that you'll ditch it in the next big city anyways. The campaign itself also offers zero tension from the mainquest and the villains. All you get is a classic "never-show-up"-villain, but you never even feel real danger coming from the cult because the world outside of the starting area and some secret orders in the book don't seem to care even a single bit about the cult and what they are doing. The impact of the cults actions on the whole sword cult seems to be minimal at best. The whole adventure would have been better if it would play in the lowest tier of play, where youre the local hero that has to stop the cult in a certain area which is HIGHLY affected by the cults actions instead of the whole sword coast which doesnt seem to care. That way, the adventurers could save some city or region they acutally care about because they spend more time at a specific spot there and get to know important NPCs and the inhabitants of that area and they would actually FEEL the danger coming from that cult and the need to protect the city/region that they grew accustomed to. Afterwards they could find some hints about this and that that lead to the second part of the tyranny of dragons. As easy as that. But no, i had to rewrite huge parts of the story, especially basically every side quest and parts of the story hooks that are mostly like: "Hey boyZ, there is a cult and its VEEEEEEEEEEERY bad. It's not really doing anything except raiding some villages that you dont care about that are somewhere between here and narnia and actually no one really knows stuff about them, but i am sure they are REALLY bad. Can you stop them? PLZ PLZ PLZ" TLDR: This campaign is NOT plug-and-play. It is NOT its money. You have to do a shitload of work to do research and tailor it to your players characters. The plot hooks are downright dogshit. It offers close to ZERO background information about NPCs, cities, regions etc. And it has absolute faceless villians that you have to overhaul to over at least some tension. The beginning is kinda cool though. Dont buy it. Its literally less work to just create your own campaign.

Round 2 grapple restrained by enlarged dwarf and dragon didnt see round 3. Oops.

HotDQ, aka, get wrecked pros.

I really wish you guys would do more of these individual campaign reviews. Aside from your "Reviewing Every Official Adventure" and one or two other creators' videos, everything I find is either way too long or way too short.

The hatchery almost killed my party multiple times and made us stop the campaign and do something else. You need to rebalance almost all the fights

I had a terrible experience with this module. Mostly because of the gm disliking my character in general and him expecting my character to fight to the death. I had come into the campaign a few sessioms after it started so I was introduced as somepne hired to do some investigation. I get one-shot by the big bad because the gm specifically had it out for my character he made an npc act out of character to breath weapon me and another pc who was unlucky. My character retreats because the party clearly cant handle the threat. In the end it felt more gm vs pc than nuetral gm and unfortunate dice ir dumb pc decisions.

There is some questionable parts in HOTDQ

Before the Player's Handbook was released! (Well, they were released on the same day, but still.)

Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of hate for this module as a whole

We spent a couple of sessions on the travel sequence. We finally reach Waterdeep, and there is nothing to do there. No, off to your next travel sequence. So fucking boring and my DM never asks how we players feel about the campaign either

Sadly all of the published adventures so far have been a hot mess. You cannot play them straight from the book, and it takes a LOT of work by the DM to fix the issues, fill in the gaps, and make it make sense to the players. I would have preferred a book of ideas without the silly complexity of the convoluted plots.

Hy, we should do some sort of colab!

Or just don’t buy big money adventure modules that you have to completely re-write to run it at the table 🤷‍♂️ I haven’t gotten a chance to do it but hope to write my review. Definitely an “F-“ on a big money adventure module. Just terrible, and really painful for a DM.

It's an excellent module except that every part of it is bad. The combat is uninteresting and unbalanced, the exploration is dragged out or empty, and the RP is bland and uninteresting. If you remove large parts of the combat and exploration and replace it with better combat, exploration and RP, it becomes a good module. Not having played it, but having seen several reviews, it seem like a terrible module with almost no redeeming qualities. Kelly describes having had to change sooo much about it. I believe that if the Dungeon Dudes made the video today, they would've had the courage or insight to bash it.