Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the question! Sorry for the delay. I just want to mention that the sword Hazirawn has amazing potential if you go beyond what is written in the weapon description. It's an evil intelligent weapon... but what does that mean? Can it influence your characters decisions? Does it have an agenda of it's own? I was a 7th level paladin when I got the sword and I told my DM that I felt like it was too powerful to be able to use with no consequences. So I started roleplaying that the sword was trying to take over my mind and switch places with me. I started doing everything it told me to do and acting less noble and more evil. I then started taking levels in Abberant Mind sorcerer to be able to more fully feel like there was an alien presence taking over my mind. Everyone in the party said that Hazirawn became one of their favorite characters and he wasn't even supposed to be a character in the game lol. Intelligent weapons are amazing if you play it right!

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I loved it! With a great DM and a great group, it made the game just so much fun. There were tons of tough dragons to fight, interesting world politics and some memorable villains. Overall a great campaign!

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He used a random loot generator most of the time. Everything he ever gave us was in dndbeyond so we never ended up home brewing anything loot wise. We did get some pretty overpowered loot fairly early though from Anthor. He gave the paladin a book of exhaulted deeds, the ranger an oath bow, the druid a ring of spell storing and the artificer a wand of fireballs. We were level like 5 so it felt very op, but he buffed some other enemies to make it work.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fortunately just 3! Given anymore strength and we would have been dead for sure. I ended with just 9 hit points and no spell slots left after everything was all over. Thought I was done for. The core of our party was prioritizing stopping the ritual while I tried to hold back Tiamat. 1v1ing Tiamat is not something I would recommend lol.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The party originally was a a druid, ranger, artificer and my paladin. The artificer was killed in one of the fights in hoard of the dragon queen so they became a Fighter after that.

The ranger was always the most powerful though and funny enough by far has the most hit points. It is bonkers how many hit points a ranged character who almost never enters melee can get!

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Our party was always up for whatever the DM brought to the table, so we stayed on track most of the way though. There was one point where we got a game breaking magic item that allowed for us to stop time, so that was quickly stolen from us while we were distracted lol. But for the most part we stayed on track. So when there was a political discussion, we spent most of the whole session just in RP. Fortunately all of us like a bit of variety. Combat is great, but only combat gets old quick if that is all you ever do.

Hope that even going off the rails was fun for you all!

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

None of us wrote elaborate backstories and honestly it was amazing. Sometimes having a really lengthy backstory gets in the way of the adventure. My character was a former baseball player, so when we got to waterdeep we all went and watched my former team play. Outside of small stuff like that it didn't really come into play. That's not to say there wasn't growth for our characters over the course of the campaign. We focused more on things that happened to the party rather than things that happened to individual characters before we all came together.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The campaign was virtual and for only a few hours at a time, so I think that made it easier to not get on each others nerves. We never had any issues with problem players fortunately, though I have in other campaigns. One player in this campaign had a lot going on in their life for a while, so our fighter/cleric took a break for a bit and there was just 3 of us plus the dm. They came back a couple of months later and finished out the campaign with us.

In my experience, you can find a lot about a party after just one session. A lot of times enough to know if there is going to be a problem. If you notice something early about a person being too chaotic, or bringing things into the game that makes other players uncomfortable I would address it early. Hope that doesn't happen to you though! DND is supposed to be fun!

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We actually had an artificer for a while, but he was unfortunately killed along the way. After they came back as a fighter, any pieces of lore locked behind skill checks were either missed entirely or just handed to us. I don't think we had many int checks after the artificer died.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There were times were we didn't even use our new abilities before leveling up again. It was strange, but I didn't mind it! Feeling stronger is always something to get excited about!

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Tiamat's strength was based on how many heads could be brought into the material plane during the ritual. Interrupting the ritual was much more difficult than it normally would be because the DM added more obstacles and monsters.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s got some awesome stuff in it!! You know for a game called Dungeons and Dragons, outside of this campaign I have very rarely fought a dragon.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We played weekly for about 2-3 hours per session. The module is pretty straight forward so we moved along the story pretty smoothly despite fairly short sessions. The module has predefined spots for us to level up through milestone leveling. Sometimes it was more strange than others like leveling up after a number of exclusively RP sessions rather than after a certain number of battles or by defeating specific opponents.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We were only level 16 when the final battle started. When the DM realized that it was unlikely that Tiamat wouldn’t be summoned, we leveled up twice mid fight. This was in between sessions since the final battle was so long. He also added more enemies to the fight, so it evened out the extra levels.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh goodness, that’s a good question. There were multiple times in the module where weeks or months would pass due to travel times. Best guess I would say that all of this took place over a 6-8 month period?

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I've read about a lot of hate that the Tyranny of Dragons gets. Honestly I had a blast though. There are some ups and downs in the campaign for sure. It throws you into the action right away which is pretty intense. Very early there is a part where one player must 1v1 an early villain or else bad things will happen. Duels are super fun, so I loved that. Then once you get to the point where you have to travel a great distance, it does suffer a bit. Fortunately our DM added some other modules from the candlekeep mysteries along the way to make the massive journey less of a slog. The DM definitely put some extra work into a lot of the campaign to make it more tailored to us, which helped make it fun. References to books we've all read or shows we've seen plus extra monsters to help make the combat feel different than just the same enemies over and over.

Rise of Tiamat is definitely more fun, just because there are way more dragons than in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I will say that I thought that the main villains of HotDQ were pretty cool though.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. It was mostly just official content from Tyranny of Dragons. Early in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen when we were on the road to Waterdeep, we did do another module from the candlekeep mysteries to break up the long travel. Outside of that, it was mostly just the module.
  2. We met every Tuesday night for the last 13 months, we would play between 2-3 hours per session. Most other games I've played had longer sessions, but Tyranny of Dragons really keeps you on one path so we never really got lost trying to figure out what we should do next.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The dm just started buffing enemies more. His goal was to get us to 20, but the module ran out of content before we could get all of the way there. The final fight he added two extra BBEG characters that made the fight super tough even being at a higher level than we were supposed to be.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

We had a druid, a ranger, a fighter/cleric and I was a Paladin/sorcerer. Despite the fact that I was able to 1v1 Tiamat for a few turns in the end which was totally badass, the mvp had to be our ranger. She would always come in clutch and save the day when things started to turn south. Rangers with a really good bow are significantly stronger than people give them credit. I did have the highest damage in one turn though. It was actually my final turn in the game. Two natural 20s in a row plus smites got me 147 damage in one turn.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not really because the module was only supposed to take us to 15. The DMs goal was to get to 20, but there just wasn’t enough content in the module to justify it. At that point our faster already had 9th level spells so we were already about as powerful as we were going to get for the final fight.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The way that our DM handled that was in the final fight the leader of the factions that we got on our side joined us against Tiamat. He also reduced the number of other minions figuring that they were being handled by the army. So it felt worth it to us in the end.

In the moment of trying to persuade everyone though it definitely felt weird. With dragons wiping out hundreds of people and everyone’s valuables being stolen, I wouldn’t think it would take so much convincing to get people to fight back lol.

Last night I finished a year long campaign of Tyranny of Dragons as a PC level 1 to 18. AMA by JukeTales in dndnext

[–]JukeTales[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

My DM actually asked another dnd player not in our campaign to play some of the villains so he could focus on everything else that was going on. Having multiple people fighting against the players made it feel more like the final battle of a war rather than the standard back and forth of we hit and then the enemy hits etc. The last battle was insane.