Hoard of the Dragon Queen 5eWolfgang Baur & Steve Winter. ELevels 1- 7. In an audacious bid for power the Cult of the Dragon, along with its dragon allies and the Red Wizards of Thay, seek to bring Tiamat from her prison in the Nine Hells to Faerun. To this end, they are sweeping from town to town, laying waste to all those who oppose them and gathering a hoard of riches for their dread queen. The threat of annihilation has become so dire that groups as disparate as the Harpers and Zhentarim are banding together in the fight against the cult. Never before has the need for heroes been so desperate. This is an 8- episode adventure that is, generally, not very good.
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It’s not the episodic nature, that I can accept. WOTC wants to run D& D at game stores every week and to do that they need episodic content. The American Legion is the nation’s largest wartime veterans service organization aimed at advocating patriotism across the U.S.
Through diverse programs and member. Wolfgang Baur & Steve Winter WOTC D&D 5E Levels 1-7. In an audacious bid for power the Cult of the Dragon, along with its dragon allies and the Red Wizards of Thay. Notable Generals and Others. Historical facts about Generals, other distinguished soldiers (from privates on up), and civilians who made a difference. I might quibble that they could do better at the episodic nature and making it feel less railroad, but I get it.
No, the adventure is of lower quality because it feels like a 4e episodic adventure. Here’s a monster. A potentially exciting and dynamic environment is introduced! And then they screw it up with the details or lack thereof. As a DM & player you have a lot choices in what system you play and which of the tens of thousands of published adventures you play. There is no reason to play this except for “it’s what everyone else is playing at the game store on Wednesday night.” That’s a shame. I see a few major issues with the adventure.
First, it’s generic. It’s very non- specific, so much so that it seems like the designers are actually afraid of offering details. They will provide reams of data on the over- arching story and plot but then when you get to the actual adventure there are words like “throw a couple of encounters at the players” with nothing else present. Or they clearly have an idea of how the adventure should proceed, like with the lizard man allies in episode 6, but are terrified of being accused of railroading.
This extends to the descriptions, which are almost universally uninspiring. They feel flat and boring. The magic items are generic “ 1 sword”, and the titular HOARD of the Dragon Queen is actually abstracted most of the adventure. The text does not inspire you, the DM, and that may be the most important sin. It is very rare for me to complain in a review about formatting I care much more about the content and the imagination present in the adventure, but this time I feel I need to. They have chosen a very conversational style that contributes to a Wall of Text issue.
There is not enough use of offsets and bullet lists and the like to allow the DM to reference important information quickly. This conversational style confusion tends to mix with some some poor choices for organization of text. In episode 8, for example, the first part involves getting in to the castle, but this information is scattered throughout the text of the first part.
Three ARE issues with railroad, with lack of player agency, with villain monologues and “pass a skill roll if you want to go on the adventure”, but these are minor and more easily fixed, both by the DM and by the designers in the next adventure. Episode 1 – Town under Siege. While pursuing the most generic hook known to man: caravan guard. In the first 2 D& D products that’s twice now that it’s been used. Time to maybe branch out and try a hook with some life to it? And both times it’s been a complete throwaway. The hook is literally “maybe the players are caravan guards.” That’s pretty lame.
So lame that it makes me think they are pushing some kind of agenda. Idle speculation is idle though; in the end the hook is lame and reflects badly but accurately foretells what it to come. Generic Lameness. You come upon a town being looted by monsters!
Mercenaries, kobolds, and a dragon zoom about through the streets! You’re then presented with 8 little encounters to run, one of which should be done first. The first is a family being chased by kobolds. The goal is to rescue the family and then they’ll tell you to take them to the central keep, where in you can pick up the rest of the missions.
The kobolds ignore you, thinking you are their allies. If you escort the family to the keep then you are the last ones through before the gate is barred right before the keep is surrounded by enemy forces. It all smacks me as a little forced. Look, yeah, I know why.
You want to give the players missions to do. But there should be LOTS of ways to do that without forcing them in to the keep and setting up some kind of EPIC MOMENT when the gates are barred behind you.
What about the same thing in the church? Or a family in a cellar? Or any of a dozen other things that could have been added?
But no, rather than the thing being run as a dynamic environment with brief suggestions it instead has to be run as a railroad. Like I said earlier, I could quibble with the nature of how the episodes are done, and make comments on how they could be less railroady but ok, I guess I just did. The GENERIC content though is what breaks this. There is something that quite literally looks like a skill challenge.
To sneak through town you need to make stealth checks. For every two you have a random encounter. Ok, that’s not bad. It even makes sense! But then the encounters ug! That’s what passes for CREATIVE CONTENT from Wolfgang & Winter.
You get exactly one interesting option: 1d. That’s something a DM can work with. But just a generic list of monsters? Why the hell did they even both?
Give the thing some life! How about those 6 kobolds have a wagon piled high with bed frame and dressers?
Of the bandits are rolling some kegs of ale down the road? It wouldn’t kill you to add a single sentence each and it would do WONDERS to help bring the scenes to life. This same thing is the problem with the rest of the first episode. The encounters are presented as generically as possible.
Yes, the DM must bring the encounter to life, we all know and accept that. But the designers job is to give the DM the tools to do that. To help them. This don’t do that. The vast majority of the text is spent on bullshit superfluous text instead of communicating an evocative and dynamic encounter. The Cult of the Dragon led by d. KJSDFKHD KDFgwk.
DGF the high K: WDH: KE: H of K@WGKEGKE@ is ” Ug! How about instead you tell me that the encounter with the dudes at the stream bank has them about to drown a group of townsfolk? That would be cool! That create something to work with!
The issues extends to the maps, or lack thereof. The church, mill, stream bank, are all supposed to be exciting encounter locations.
I can understand not want to enable the tactical boardgames crowd, but it wouldn’t kill you to provide a small map of the environment with some interesting shit on it for the players to key off of. Reeds to hide behind!
Slippery bank! Steep dropoff!
Pile of hay, smoldering! If you put “the party will encounter 3 groups of kobolds on the way to the inn” in the adventure then that is exactly what is going to happen in AP.
The asshat DM is going to say “ok, you encounter kobolds, Roll init” and then they are going to say it twice more. I know the rules can’t cure stupid, or a bad DM, but you can at least give the tool something to work with. You encounter a group of kobolds rolling ale barrels down the road.” That provides SO many more options! You get glimpses every now and then that they are trying.
The Governor, wounded, trying to marshall a desperate defense but it’s just a glimpse and then it’s gone. Rather than coming across as a desperate town under siege with a beleaguered leader instead you get generic- ville, population YOU. I don’t get it. Standards & Practices maybe?
I’m not asking for full on gore mode but there’s hardly any flavor here at all. Oh, wait, wait, I forgot. Governor MORON gets pissy at you if you’ve done something that caused the death of one of the townsfolk.
The Warrior's Code of Honor(Click the image for more detail.)By Paul R. As a combat veteran wounded in one of America’s wars, I offer to speak for those who cannot. Were the mouths of my fallen combat friends not stopped with dust, they would testify that life revolves around honor. In war it is understood that you give your word of honor to do your duty to stand and fight instead of running away and deserting your friends.
When you keep your word despite desperately desiring to flee the screaming hell all around, you earn honor. Earning honor under fire changes who you are. The blast- furnace of battle burns away impurities encrusting your soul. The white- hot forge of combat hammers you into a purified, hardened warrior willing to die rather than break your word to friends – your honor.
Combat is scary but exciting. You never feel so alive as when being shot at without result. You never feel so triumphant as when shooting back – with result. You never feel love so pure as that burned into your heart by friends willing to die to keep their word to you.
The biggest sadness of your life is to see friends falling. The biggest surprise of your life is to survive the war. Although still alive on the outside, you are dead inside – shot thru the heart with nonsensical guilt for living while friends died. The biggest lie of your life torments you that you could have done something more, different, to save them. Their faces are the tombstones in your weeping eyes, their souls shine the true camaraderie you search for the rest of your life but never find.
You live a different world now. You always will.
Your world is about waking up night after night screaming, back in battle. Your world is about your best friend bleeding to death in your arms, howling in pain for you to kill him. Your world is about shooting so many enemies the gun turns red and jams, letting the enemy grab you. Your world is about struggling hand- to- hand for one more breath of life. You never speak of your world. Those who have seen combat do not talk about it.
Those who talk about it have not seen combat. You come home but a grim ghost of he who so lightheartedly went off to war.
But home no longer exists. That world shattered like a mirror the first time you were shot at. The splintering glass of everything you knew fell at your feet, revealing what was standing behind the mirror – grinning Death – and you are face to face, nose to nose with it! The shock was so great that the boy you were died of fright.
He was replaced by a stranger who slipped into your body, a MAN from the Warrior’s World. In that savage place you give your word of honor to dance with Death instead of running away from it. This suicidal waltz is known as: “Doing your duty.”You did your duty, survived the dance, and returned home. But not all of you came back to the civilian world. Your heart and mind are still in the Warrior’s World, as far away from the civilian world as Mars. They will always be in the Warrior’s World.
They will never leave, they are buried there. In that far off hallowed home of honor, life is about keeping your word. Back in the civilian world, however, people have no idea that life is about keeping your word of honor. They think life is about ballgames, backyards, barbecues, babies and business.
Your earning honor under fire; Your blood sacrifice; Your loss of serenity/peace of mind in the hard blast- furnace of battle; bought and paid for their freedom to indulge in this kind of soft civilian thinking. The distance between the two worlds is as far as Mars from Earth. This is why, when you come home, you feel like an outsider, a visitor from another planet. Friends try to bridge the gaping gap between you.
It is useless. They may as well look up at the sky and try to talk to a Martian as talk to you. Words fall like bricks between you. Serving with Warriors who died proving their word has made prewar friends seem too un- tested to be trusted – thus they are now mere acquaintances. The brutal truth is that earning honor in the white- hot forge of combat hammered the soft civilian you into a hardened Warrior accustomed to dancing the suicidal “Doing your duty” waltz with Death.
This unspeakable, indescribable, life changing experience picked you up like a whirlwind and hurled you so far away from home that when you come back you feel like a stranger in your own home town, a visitor from another world, alone in a crowd of those you once knew. The only time you do not feel alone is when with another combat veteran. Only he understands that keeping your word, your honor, whilst standing face to face with Death gives meaning and purpose to life. Only he understands that your terrifying — but thrilling — dance with Death has made your old world of backyards, barbecues and ballgames deadly dull. Only he understands that your way of being due to combat- damaged emotions is not un- usual, but the usual and you are OK, you are NORMAL for what you have been thru — repeat NORMAL! There are countless hidden costs of combat that Warriors pay. One is adrenaline addiction.
Most combat veterans – including this writer – feel that war was the high point of our lives, and emotionally, life has been downhill ever since. This is because we came home adrenaline junkies.
This was not our idea, we got that way doing our duty in combat situations such as: Crouching in a foxhole waiting for attacking enemy soldiers to get close enough for you to start shooting; Hugging the ground, waiting for the signal to leap up and attack the enemy; Sneaking along on a combat patrol out in no man’s land, seeking a gunfight; Suddenly realizing that you are walking in the middle of a mine field. Circumstances like these skyrocket your feelings of aliveness far above and beyond civilian life: Never have you felt so terrified – yet so thrilled; Never have you seen sky so blue, grass so green, breathed air so sweet, etc.; because waltzing with Death makes you feel stratospheric aliveness from being filled to the brim with adrenaline — pressed down and running over! This unforgettable experience of being sky- high on aliveness/adrenaline is why you come home basically “thrill- crazy” – that is, to use a slang expression, you do things now that you once thought were “crazy” in order to obtain thrills/excitement. To say this another way, after the indescribable, life- changing thrill of being shot at without result — you now have a compulsive, compelling craving for similar profound stirring of your thoughts or emotions — read: thrills/excitement/aliveness from danger.
(This is a description of being addicted to adrenaline). QUESTION: Do you know that you are suffering from adrenaline poisoning and have become an adrenaline addict/junkie? ANSWER: No you do not, because being wacked- out on it 2. You do not think anything is wrong with being constantly high as a kite on adrenaline because it is not un- usual but the usual – the common everyday condition you are in when fighting for your life. Then you come home where the addictive, euphoric rush of aliveness/adrenaline hardly ever happens in the normal course of events.
You miss being sky- high on it and find normal boring. You hunger for your “fix” of thrills/excitement/danger like an addict hungers for his “fix” of heroin. Then what often happens? “Quick — pass me the bottle, drug, motorcycle, fast car, thrill- drive, drag race, speedboat, airplane, parachute, extreme sport, rock climbing, big game hunt, fist fight, knife fight, gun fight, etc.”Being poisoned by adrenaline is bad enough, but it gets worse. Another of the countless hidden costs of combat is the dirty little secret that no one talks about — which is — most combat veterans, including this writer, come home unable to feel our feelings. It works like this. New Music News, Reviews, Pictures, and Videos.
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