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Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Famed explorer Volothamp Geddarm needs you to complete a simple quest. Thus begins a mad romp through the wards of Waterdeep as you uncover a villainous plot involving some of the city’s most influential figures.
A grand urban caper awaits you. Pit your skill and bravado against villains the likes of which you’ve never faced before, and let the dragon hunt begin!
A grand urban caper awaits you. Pit your skill and bravado against villains the likes of which you’ve never faced before, and let the dragon hunt begin!
224 pages, Hardcover
First published September 18, 2018
80 people are currently reading
816 people want to read
About the author
Wizards of the Coast
429 books429 followersWizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
January 1, 2019
4-4.5 stars! Though it's not exactly a novel, I'm counting this as my first book of 2019! The artwork scattered throughout is absolutely gorgeous and the story seems like it's going to be a blast to experience as an actual campaign. Can't wait to play through it with friends!
September 21, 2018
Really looking forward to running this, and also stealing bits from it for my home campaign. There's what has been talked about a lot, the four different villains and ways that the story can go, but there's also just a fun lot about how to build a city. It's much more of a sandbox campaign than many others that I've read— starts in a very specific way, ends in one of several specific ways— but TONS of ways the middle can go, depending on what the characters are interested in. Want to focus on running a business? You can do that. Want to rise in your faction? Here's a bunch of ways to do that (and also factions are interesting for the first time for me in this book). Want to wander around town talking to random people and gawking at parades? You can do that. There's a ton of ways to reward characters that aren't necessarily XP or Gold too, which is fascinating and I think will help slow down the level escalator in early game.
So yeah, the adventure itself is cool and I totally want to run it, but it also I think works as quite a good instructional in how to build a city, and how to make early levels of the game interesting and feel meaningful, which is even more valuable.
So yeah, the adventure itself is cool and I totally want to run it, but it also I think works as quite a good instructional in how to build a city, and how to make early levels of the game interesting and feel meaningful, which is even more valuable.
March 21, 2024
I was lucky enough to receive Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for Christmas. Having read it cover to cover and run the first two chapters, I thought I’d write a review for it. This will work like all my other reviews, but this time I’ll do something extra: something for Worldbuilder DMs and something for Writers.
Waterdeep (also known as the City of Splendours) is a sprawling urban setting. There is little room for exploring the wilderness or trekking through the mountainside. In this adventure, heroes are faced with cobbled streets, seasonal festivals, business rivals, and Waterdeep’s criminal underbelly. Street smarts and a knowledge of who’s who amongst the city’s inhabitants might serve the heroes better than a warhammer or a fireball (shhh…foreshadowing).
As the DM, you are given a choice of four/five amazing villains that are each tied to a season. This gives the adventure great replayability and malleability.
After the PCs get acquainted with some of the citizens of Waterdeep, they are given a tavern. This not only gives them a steak in what is happening in the wider city, it inadvertently puts them in the crossfire of a gang war.
Soon the heroes will be chasing down the Stone of Golorr – a magical item that knows the location of a gargantuan stack of gold.
Dragon Heist is a what it says on the cover – a gold old heist. Players will have to outwit the denizens of the underworld to either claim the gold for themselves or keep it out of the hands of evil.
Opinion
This is a great adventure! There is enough room for your own creativity (this might be a con to some) plus some truly amazingly written characters. I love Waterdeep. In this offering, we get to see a lot of it and players are encouraged to go out and effect things (for good or ill).
There is so much in this (relatively) slim publication that won’t be used during the adventure. I – in fact – like this. It gives you a lot of material to repurpose for the campaign going forward. Even the villains you don’t use can pop up somewhere else. The villain bases are particularly useful too, as they can feature again once your party are strong enough.
The right amount of humour and darkness makes for a rich experience. There is a lot of good to be found from players, DMs, and writers.
Cons
Compared to the other official 5e adventures, Dragon Heist is relatively short. Granted, the scope of the adventure is only from levels 1 to 5, there is a lot of it that is left to the DM’s imagination. As a writer and a worldbuilder, I love this – it gives me room for my own creations and – most importantly – allows me to put up things that my players find entertaining.
But I name this as a con because this might be a challenge for new DMs. This is especially apparent in Chapter 2 where the players are tasked with fixing up a tavern. They can join factions, certainly, but this is a bit of a strain on new players who aren’t accustomed to the lore. I found myself throwing NPCs at my table of newbies to hook them into joining a faction – something that was more of an annoyance than anything else. Again, this is down to the players and your DMing style.
If your players are interested in running the business (as mine were), you won’t find a lot of help in the book. There are expenses tables and guild NPC suggestions, but that’s about it. The rest is up to you. Either the DM or the players will find this tiresome.
I suggest supplementing this chapter with content from the DM’s Guild (there’s a lot of great things there) or running with a character quest or something. I don’t recommend skipping this chapter, because it is here that you should forge a bond between the PCs and Waterdeep.
Potentially Offensive Content
Dungeons & Dragons materials are usually free of offensive content. Of course, this can change at the table and depends heavily on the people around it. Be that as it may, because of the nature of most table-top RPGs, descriptions of violence are part of the experience.
Pros
It is a breath of fresh air. Dragon Heist is not a dungeon crawl or a wilderness survival encounter. This urban adventure takes place in a single location that players will become familiar with. This will – with some luck – give them a sense of belonging. They might develop relationships with certain NPCs and become invested in their successes or failures.
This investment is what every DM wants from their players. If they care about the world their characters inhabit, they will want to keep coming back.
The villains are fantastically memorable. Regardless of who you pick (you have choice of four or five) as the main BBEG your players will remember their encounters with them.
There are many other great things in this publication – from Xanathar’s fish problem to the amazing art and maps. There really is something for everyone here.
For the Worldbuilder
For the worldbuilder, page 163-188 is a godsend. It is a delightfully written description of all things Waterdeep – from festivals to taxes. There are great examples here for building your own quirky, fantasy metropolis. Whether it is for your own campaign or for your sprawling fantasy epic, Volo’s Waterdeep Enchiridion may cover aspects that you haven’t thought of.
Note that this is not a full rundown of the ins and outs of designing a city – not at all. This, instead, is a history that gives texture to a fictional setting. This is the valuable thing about it. You aren’t given a dry, black-and-white table of ‘things in Waterdeep’ (this might be how you design a city, but it isn’t how you present a city).
Therein is the lesson.
The denizens of Waterdeep also add depth to this world. They aren’t merely filler for every citizen fulfils a role (whether for ill or good). This is something that you, as a worldbuilder, should not overlook: don’t forget the people.
Once you start answering questions like ‘why is he here?’, ‘what produce would this stall sell?’, or ‘where do alchemists get their ingredients?’ you start filling in blanks in your world that you didn’t even know existed. Aspects of the world can emerge this way – and so can stories. For example, a dingy corner shop sells rare magical items – how did they acquire these? – they must be fencing for the criminal underground – perhaps the owner is trying to go straight – perhaps he got himself killed now his daughter runs the place – someone is investigating his murder – the city needs a watch or police service – etc.
For the Writer
As stated under Pros, Dragon Heist makes players invested in the city of Waterdeep. It does this by familiarising them with the wards of the city, the locals, and the web of intrigue that connects them. The citizens of Waterdeep are humanised: you discover what they want, or fear and you begin to care.
This is what a writer should take away from this: make readers care.
DMing Dragon Heist gives writers an opportunity to ‘test out’ characters. To see what kinds of characters your players care about. Or which villains they love to hate.
D&D – as I see it – is a testing ground for characters. Not so much for stories, because a campaign ought to be a PC’s story, not the DM’s.
The antagonists in Dragon Heist teach us writers another thing: make your villains worth it. You see, your job as the DM is to make your players feel like heroes – and there’s no better way to do that than giving them a horrible bad guy to play off. Heroism doesn’t come from doing ‘good stuff’ for the sake of it; it comes from beating or being better than the villains.
This can carry over to your writing too: your hero can only be as good as your villain is bad.
Waterdeep (also known as the City of Splendours) is a sprawling urban setting. There is little room for exploring the wilderness or trekking through the mountainside. In this adventure, heroes are faced with cobbled streets, seasonal festivals, business rivals, and Waterdeep’s criminal underbelly. Street smarts and a knowledge of who’s who amongst the city’s inhabitants might serve the heroes better than a warhammer or a fireball (shhh…foreshadowing).
As the DM, you are given a choice of four/five amazing villains that are each tied to a season. This gives the adventure great replayability and malleability.
After the PCs get acquainted with some of the citizens of Waterdeep, they are given a tavern. This not only gives them a steak in what is happening in the wider city, it inadvertently puts them in the crossfire of a gang war.
Soon the heroes will be chasing down the Stone of Golorr – a magical item that knows the location of a gargantuan stack of gold.
Dragon Heist is a what it says on the cover – a gold old heist. Players will have to outwit the denizens of the underworld to either claim the gold for themselves or keep it out of the hands of evil.
Opinion
This is a great adventure! There is enough room for your own creativity (this might be a con to some) plus some truly amazingly written characters. I love Waterdeep. In this offering, we get to see a lot of it and players are encouraged to go out and effect things (for good or ill).
There is so much in this (relatively) slim publication that won’t be used during the adventure. I – in fact – like this. It gives you a lot of material to repurpose for the campaign going forward. Even the villains you don’t use can pop up somewhere else. The villain bases are particularly useful too, as they can feature again once your party are strong enough.
The right amount of humour and darkness makes for a rich experience. There is a lot of good to be found from players, DMs, and writers.
Cons
Compared to the other official 5e adventures, Dragon Heist is relatively short. Granted, the scope of the adventure is only from levels 1 to 5, there is a lot of it that is left to the DM’s imagination. As a writer and a worldbuilder, I love this – it gives me room for my own creations and – most importantly – allows me to put up things that my players find entertaining.
But I name this as a con because this might be a challenge for new DMs. This is especially apparent in Chapter 2 where the players are tasked with fixing up a tavern. They can join factions, certainly, but this is a bit of a strain on new players who aren’t accustomed to the lore. I found myself throwing NPCs at my table of newbies to hook them into joining a faction – something that was more of an annoyance than anything else. Again, this is down to the players and your DMing style.
If your players are interested in running the business (as mine were), you won’t find a lot of help in the book. There are expenses tables and guild NPC suggestions, but that’s about it. The rest is up to you. Either the DM or the players will find this tiresome.
I suggest supplementing this chapter with content from the DM’s Guild (there’s a lot of great things there) or running with a character quest or something. I don’t recommend skipping this chapter, because it is here that you should forge a bond between the PCs and Waterdeep.
Potentially Offensive Content
Dungeons & Dragons materials are usually free of offensive content. Of course, this can change at the table and depends heavily on the people around it. Be that as it may, because of the nature of most table-top RPGs, descriptions of violence are part of the experience.
Pros
It is a breath of fresh air. Dragon Heist is not a dungeon crawl or a wilderness survival encounter. This urban adventure takes place in a single location that players will become familiar with. This will – with some luck – give them a sense of belonging. They might develop relationships with certain NPCs and become invested in their successes or failures.
This investment is what every DM wants from their players. If they care about the world their characters inhabit, they will want to keep coming back.
The villains are fantastically memorable. Regardless of who you pick (you have choice of four or five) as the main BBEG your players will remember their encounters with them.
There are many other great things in this publication – from Xanathar’s fish problem to the amazing art and maps. There really is something for everyone here.
For the Worldbuilder
For the worldbuilder, page 163-188 is a godsend. It is a delightfully written description of all things Waterdeep – from festivals to taxes. There are great examples here for building your own quirky, fantasy metropolis. Whether it is for your own campaign or for your sprawling fantasy epic, Volo’s Waterdeep Enchiridion may cover aspects that you haven’t thought of.
Note that this is not a full rundown of the ins and outs of designing a city – not at all. This, instead, is a history that gives texture to a fictional setting. This is the valuable thing about it. You aren’t given a dry, black-and-white table of ‘things in Waterdeep’ (this might be how you design a city, but it isn’t how you present a city).
Therein is the lesson.
The denizens of Waterdeep also add depth to this world. They aren’t merely filler for every citizen fulfils a role (whether for ill or good). This is something that you, as a worldbuilder, should not overlook: don’t forget the people.
Once you start answering questions like ‘why is he here?’, ‘what produce would this stall sell?’, or ‘where do alchemists get their ingredients?’ you start filling in blanks in your world that you didn’t even know existed. Aspects of the world can emerge this way – and so can stories. For example, a dingy corner shop sells rare magical items – how did they acquire these? – they must be fencing for the criminal underground – perhaps the owner is trying to go straight – perhaps he got himself killed now his daughter runs the place – someone is investigating his murder – the city needs a watch or police service – etc.
For the Writer
As stated under Pros, Dragon Heist makes players invested in the city of Waterdeep. It does this by familiarising them with the wards of the city, the locals, and the web of intrigue that connects them. The citizens of Waterdeep are humanised: you discover what they want, or fear and you begin to care.
This is what a writer should take away from this: make readers care.
DMing Dragon Heist gives writers an opportunity to ‘test out’ characters. To see what kinds of characters your players care about. Or which villains they love to hate.
D&D – as I see it – is a testing ground for characters. Not so much for stories, because a campaign ought to be a PC’s story, not the DM’s.
The antagonists in Dragon Heist teach us writers another thing: make your villains worth it. You see, your job as the DM is to make your players feel like heroes – and there’s no better way to do that than giving them a horrible bad guy to play off. Heroism doesn’t come from doing ‘good stuff’ for the sake of it; it comes from beating or being better than the villains.
This can carry over to your writing too: your hero can only be as good as your villain is bad.
November 25, 2018
This is the first adventure I’m running as a DM, but I definitely like the way this was laid out compared to some of the other books I’ve seen on the market. There are some small things that confused me or I felt could have been better explained, but I think a lot of that is more due to my inexperience rather than a fault of the book’s. My only real complaint is that Chapter Two is so loosely put together. I wish the faction missions and whatnot could have sprinkled throughout the other chapters rather than shoved right into that one section near the beginning and kinda grinding the pacing to a halt, meaning it required a lot out of tinkering on my end. Other than that one part, I love the multiple paths/villains and the general concept. I will definitely use a lot of the content in the book, and some of the general ideas put forth in it.
June 23, 2019
I really enjoyed this campaign book. First, it provides a modular campaign, which means that if you run it more than once, you can try something different as a DM. Depending on which season you choose to play in, the villain is different, and the villains really change the flavor of the story.
Another thing that I appreciated is that this book illustrates how you can reuse locations. There are a fixed number of locations provided in this book, but they are used differently and in a different order depending on which villain you're playing with. That taught me that I don't need to plan each location or encounter from scratch as a DM. Instead, you can reuse an old map and rewrite the flavor text and populate it with different NPCs or monsters. What a time saver!
Another thing that I appreciated is that this book illustrates how you can reuse locations. There are a fixed number of locations provided in this book, but they are used differently and in a different order depending on which villain you're playing with. That taught me that I don't need to plan each location or encounter from scratch as a DM. Instead, you can reuse an old map and rewrite the flavor text and populate it with different NPCs or monsters. What a time saver!
January 17, 2019
In terms of re-playability, this is one of the better adventures that Wizards has released. The main part of the plot can be played through several times, using a different villain each time, which will produce a different experience for the players each time. However, if you only play through the adventure once, about half the book will be unused.
This also functions as a great reference work for how large cities can work in D&D, and there is a lot of very useful information for any Forgotten Realms campaign where Waterdeep features prominently.
This also functions as a great reference work for how large cities can work in D&D, and there is a lot of very useful information for any Forgotten Realms campaign where Waterdeep features prominently.
January 16, 2020
A really enjoyable campaign which has some variety in terms of problem solving, mystery, and non-combat based encounters for players to solve. I thought it was a fun departure from the adventures of my youth that were very hack-and-slash dungeon-based fare. Although there are option for multiple endings, certain parts of the story will not change, and it doesn’t make it really conducive to subsequent play throughs, because the mystery portion will always be the same without some significant investment of time by the dungeon master.
August 2, 2023
Its a fun adventure
February 7, 2019
I've read through this seeral times as I'm actually running the game. It's awesome. I'm sure I'll be reading a lot more before we're finished too!
November 18, 2021
This was my first time running a D&D campaign using a campaign book like this instead of homebrew, and I've been enjoying it so much so far! After several months of weekly sessions, we've just wrapped up chapter two and are about to start chapter three. There's so much content in this book that chapter two could have easily lasted us several more months if we'd wanted it to. This book has a great amount of flexibility, allowing both the GM and the players to take the routes that interest them. I'm eager to see where the next few chapters will take us, and so far I'd definitely recommend this book for people who are excited to play around in an urban, domestic D&D setting. (Your players get to own, renovate and run a bar!)
February 9, 2020
Definitely well put together, love the flow, and looking forward to using this as my entry into DMing for 5e specifically.
April 21, 2022
Хороший городской кампейн из которого можно почерпнуть много идей для своих городских приключений
June 26, 2022
Although the ideas presented on this campaign are really good, it improves greatly with The Alexandrian's remix.
January 3, 2023
My friends loved this, they killed two of the main villains by crushing them with a roof. Good times.
July 22, 2024
Finished this adventure tonight! Had a great time but the way chapters were organised made it a bit messy. Important thing is that the players definitely had fun and wished the campaign was longer.
August 18, 2025
I loved this adventure! My first time playing dnd
Read
November 9, 2022Might be my favourite module
December 7, 2019
Some stuff I loved about this campaign, some other stuff I hated.
Wouldn't recommend it for beginner DMs or beginner players.
Wouldn't recommend it for beginner DMs or beginner players.
September 27, 2018
It's not perfect, but it's very, very good.
This adventure is the best I've seen from Wizards of the Coast in terms of DM ease-of-use. I'm coming to this from Princes of the Apocalypse, which is a royal mess, and this is a breath of fresh air. While PotA requires massive amounts of page flipping simply to find the basic storyline and What's Happening, Dragon Heist instead includes everything the DM needs to know up front. If you're good at improvisation at the table, you truly could read the first chapter to get the main ideas and invent the rest on the fly.
That being said, there is plenty here to run with and you won't run out of content. The adventure is presented flexibly enough that you can modify it on the fly, but with enough information that you don't have to.
You like flowcharts? There are flowcharts.
Encounter maps? Lots of those (older style, not like the Mike Schley maps you might be used to if you've only played hardcover 5e adventures).
Encounter variety? Check.
Factions are useful, relevant and interesting; NPCs have personalities and motivations (though modern politics seeps its way into them); players have freedom to explore; villains are interesting; and the adventure is highly replayable.
Finally, you get Waterdeep. The City of Splendors. Personally, I'm coming to the adventure with very little prior lore knowledge. But there's enough background information presented here that I can see it being quite easy to make the city real and unique at the table.
In all, it's an introductory adventure that contains an incredible amount of useful and easy-to-use information for the DM. If your players are interested in an urban intrigue roleplay-heavy campaign, give it a shot.
This adventure is the best I've seen from Wizards of the Coast in terms of DM ease-of-use. I'm coming to this from Princes of the Apocalypse, which is a royal mess, and this is a breath of fresh air. While PotA requires massive amounts of page flipping simply to find the basic storyline and What's Happening, Dragon Heist instead includes everything the DM needs to know up front. If you're good at improvisation at the table, you truly could read the first chapter to get the main ideas and invent the rest on the fly.
That being said, there is plenty here to run with and you won't run out of content. The adventure is presented flexibly enough that you can modify it on the fly, but with enough information that you don't have to.
You like flowcharts? There are flowcharts.
Encounter maps? Lots of those (older style, not like the Mike Schley maps you might be used to if you've only played hardcover 5e adventures).
Encounter variety? Check.
Factions are useful, relevant and interesting; NPCs have personalities and motivations (though modern politics seeps its way into them); players have freedom to explore; villains are interesting; and the adventure is highly replayable.
Finally, you get Waterdeep. The City of Splendors. Personally, I'm coming to the adventure with very little prior lore knowledge. But there's enough background information presented here that I can see it being quite easy to make the city real and unique at the table.
In all, it's an introductory adventure that contains an incredible amount of useful and easy-to-use information for the DM. If your players are interested in an urban intrigue roleplay-heavy campaign, give it a shot.
July 7, 2020
I've gone through Waterdeep: Dragon Heist a whopping three times - first as a player and twice as a DM, where I ran it for two different groups over the course of a year. In a nutshell, let me say that while this book certainly can offer oodles of hours of adventure (like most D&D products), it isn't really the fantasy version of Ocean's Eleven that it was promoted as. Frankly, Dragon Heist is kind of a mess, there's no actual "heist" in the book (more like a scavenger hunt), and while this IS a wonderful resource on Waterdeep for Forgotten Realms fans who want to know more about the City of Splendors, it requires an awful lot of work on the part of the Dungeon Master to get running. In my opinion, the book only has one chapter (the first) that can be run without a prodigious amount of DM hacking. The other chapters present a so-called "toolbox" for urban encounters that are slapdash, lacking connective tissue and filled with red herrings and lots of NPCs with overly long names. When I played this, we spent multiple sessions wasting time chasing these red herrings, and when I DMed this book, I stripped all of this fat aside, used maybe 50% of the material as written and revised the rest. In fact, there's an excellent revision of Dragon Heist out there done by Justin Alexander, and pretty much every DM who's run this on Reddit recommends that you just Google "Dragon Heist Alexandrian Remix" and save yourself a lot of headaches. I recommend the same.
May 23, 2021
I initially thought this might be underwhelming as it was advertised as an intro to Dungeons of the Mad Mage and only went up to level 5 characters. But this includes 4 different paths of the main story, each keyed to one of the four seasons and each featuring a different main villain. As additional content, each of the villains have their own lair to explore. While it might not be replayable as a player character, a DM could get more life out of this running it multiple times or using whole chapters in other campaigns.
This book also delves deeply into the history of Waterdeep and has stats for many of its leading citizens, such as Mirt the Moneylender, Laerel Silverhand, and Durnan of the Yawning Portal.
The adventure itself is fun, offering an open sandbox. Players can establish their own business as a base of operations as they go about investigating missing persons, chasing rumors of riches, and thwarting the various factions operating in Waterdeep.
Overall, this was a clever design packed full of information and ideas. This is a great starting point for any adventure, not limited to the pairing with Dungeons of the Mad Mage.
This book also delves deeply into the history of Waterdeep and has stats for many of its leading citizens, such as Mirt the Moneylender, Laerel Silverhand, and Durnan of the Yawning Portal.
The adventure itself is fun, offering an open sandbox. Players can establish their own business as a base of operations as they go about investigating missing persons, chasing rumors of riches, and thwarting the various factions operating in Waterdeep.
Overall, this was a clever design packed full of information and ideas. This is a great starting point for any adventure, not limited to the pairing with Dungeons of the Mad Mage.
July 29, 2019
This ultimately disappointed. I am sure part of it comes from my overall bias against the high magic of Forgotten Realms, but I was hoping for more sleuthing, more capers, and more city-adventure-related material than just a series of linear adventures, depending on the villain.
April 14, 2019
Just doesn't have the depth that I like in an adventure. Some interesting magic items and characters. The maps are great.
December 31, 2019
As someone who has read a great many books relating to tabletop role playing games, I am always intrigued when someone attempts to do something different, and this complex campaign does manage to present a compelling gameplay experience in part by offering a lot of options to players (and Gamemasters) as to how they want to take on the quest to recover half a million dragon coins (suitable loot for any party looking to make a splash) in the face of plenty of opposition. This particular scenario offers a hook for early characters who are interested in becoming powerful figures within Waterdeep, a massive and complex city where there are a lot of criminal as well as governmental influences, making it a fantasy version of a city like Paris or New York or Bangkok in terms of having a seedy underbelly and lots of conflict and intrigue. I happen to admit that I found this particular scenario very interesting and also thought that the book did a good job at providing several different ways that the scenario could turn out based on how the characters act and who they befriend and who they choose to antagonize, all of which makes for compelling gameplay.
This book is a bit more than 200 pages long, and it begins with a pronunciation guide and an introduction that gives the story overview and comments on how the villain and season for this adventure can vary with four different possibilities. After that the first chapter starts with a friend in need, which provides the hook for the characters to get involved in the heist mystery (1), and then open their own business and see about joining or leveling up with various factions (2). After that there is a deadly fireball that leads to more questions as it appears that some very shady characters have been killed (3) and some loose ends are waiting to be discovered. After this we come to the point where four possible combinations diverge based on what season/villain is chosen (4), all of which lead to various encounters that vary based on the season in the order they are encountered. The next four chapters provide specific information based on the season chosen, with spring (5), summer (6), fall (7), and winter (8) taken up consecutively, each of them with their own villain and their own special events and locations. After that there is a discussion of a guide to Waterdeep by Volo (9) and three appendices that include magic items, monsters and NPCs and handouts.
I happen to admit that this is a scenario I would be happy to play or GM, not least because it offers considerable replay value and also can fit in nicely for those campaigns that have a seasonal feel to them. Also, there are a lot of ways that this particular scenario can help a party out--both by giving a lot of reputation in important factions (like the Harpers and Lord's Alliance) as well as by providing enough start-up cash to make all kinds of purchases possible, and even allowing for the ownership of businesses and property for characters, all of which makes this the sort of heist adventure that a lot of people will want to get in on. This is, indeed, precisely the sort of adventure that would be easy to see turned into a movie that demonstrates the cinematic scope of the D&D universe, and of Waterdeep in particular. And as someone who greatly appreciates gaming adventures that have cinematic scope [1], this is definitely something I appreciate and something that I think would be appealing to a great many other readers and role playing gamers as well.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
This book is a bit more than 200 pages long, and it begins with a pronunciation guide and an introduction that gives the story overview and comments on how the villain and season for this adventure can vary with four different possibilities. After that the first chapter starts with a friend in need, which provides the hook for the characters to get involved in the heist mystery (1), and then open their own business and see about joining or leveling up with various factions (2). After that there is a deadly fireball that leads to more questions as it appears that some very shady characters have been killed (3) and some loose ends are waiting to be discovered. After this we come to the point where four possible combinations diverge based on what season/villain is chosen (4), all of which lead to various encounters that vary based on the season in the order they are encountered. The next four chapters provide specific information based on the season chosen, with spring (5), summer (6), fall (7), and winter (8) taken up consecutively, each of them with their own villain and their own special events and locations. After that there is a discussion of a guide to Waterdeep by Volo (9) and three appendices that include magic items, monsters and NPCs and handouts.
I happen to admit that this is a scenario I would be happy to play or GM, not least because it offers considerable replay value and also can fit in nicely for those campaigns that have a seasonal feel to them. Also, there are a lot of ways that this particular scenario can help a party out--both by giving a lot of reputation in important factions (like the Harpers and Lord's Alliance) as well as by providing enough start-up cash to make all kinds of purchases possible, and even allowing for the ownership of businesses and property for characters, all of which makes this the sort of heist adventure that a lot of people will want to get in on. This is, indeed, precisely the sort of adventure that would be easy to see turned into a movie that demonstrates the cinematic scope of the D&D universe, and of Waterdeep in particular. And as someone who greatly appreciates gaming adventures that have cinematic scope [1], this is definitely something I appreciate and something that I think would be appealing to a great many other readers and role playing gamers as well.
[1] See, for example:
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2019...
Read
June 13, 2021The book sets out Waterdeep as a location, and it's, you know, a pretty standard high fantasy city, bursting at the seams with schemes and factions and people. The diagram of named customers at the Yawning Portal is frankly ridiculous. There's an in-character account of the city and its details as well, which is very long and not important and I did not read it. Chapter 1 gives you a standard bit of introductory questing, nothing special, but the players are rewarded with a house, after which the adventure becomes... entirely open? Astoundingly so, really. There are seven factions that can approach you for recruitment, who all have four quests each. That's not to mention all the shenanigans you could get embroiled in by reopening the tavern on the ground floor of your new house. You could spend so many damn sessions in this chapter. None of it's bad, but if you want plot, there simply isn't any here; it's pure sandbox stuff, making your own choices and building connections. Of course, this might be exactly what you want.
When you've had enough of this meandering about, however, you can detonate a fireball to start the next section of the story. This then involves the hunt for a sentient artifact that knows the location of a huge treasure vault, trying to grab it before your chosen villain does. There's an absolute gem of poor game design in here: "If the characters obtain the stone earlier than expected, it proves uncooperative and tries to separate itself from the party as quickly as possible, refusing to share any knowledge with characters in the meantime." I mean, for god's sake. Some players talk about railroading like it's the bloody bogeyman, and that's silly; this, on the other hand, is just fully that bogeyman. I don't think there's any universe in which you can explain that to a player and have them be okay with it.
That said, the investigation eventually leads to what the book calls an encounter chain and this... is pretty cool actually. Ten encounters, each with four variations for the seasons/villains you've chosen, and all of which can be linked together in pretty much any order, which results in an amount of possible different combinations that's so high I'm not going to bother to calculate it. There are even handy flowcharts! The encounters themselves are all solid, and would maintain a good sense of momentum as the players get closer and closer to retrieving the stone, and with it, head down into the vault and find the gold. I'd also forgotten that the DMG gives guidelines for running a chase, basically like a quicktime event, and here there's additional complications for running a rooftop chase, objectively the best kind of chase.
And that's really the end of the adventure. The remaining four chapters deal with the various lairs of the various villains. It'd be possible to complete the entire module without ever entering any of these locations, but a clever DM will find reasons to sprinkle them throughout, potentially back in that sandbox section. Each comes with its own potential for special events; the Founders' Day feast at the Cassalanter's estate would be a lot of fun, as would anything involving Jarlaxle's submarine.
Nothing remotely resembling a heist occurs at any point, but overall it's a mixed bag of content. There's a lot of balls in the air, and it'd be a good deal of work to keep track of every faction, NPC, and plot development as things roll forward. But the whole thing is built with malleability and customisation in mind, and a group willing to put in the work could have a great time really sinking into this setting and adventure.
(Zero percent chance you'll catch me reading Dungeon of the Mad Mage though, that many dungeon maps in one book would send me catatonic)
When you've had enough of this meandering about, however, you can detonate a fireball to start the next section of the story. This then involves the hunt for a sentient artifact that knows the location of a huge treasure vault, trying to grab it before your chosen villain does. There's an absolute gem of poor game design in here: "If the characters obtain the stone earlier than expected, it proves uncooperative and tries to separate itself from the party as quickly as possible, refusing to share any knowledge with characters in the meantime." I mean, for god's sake. Some players talk about railroading like it's the bloody bogeyman, and that's silly; this, on the other hand, is just fully that bogeyman. I don't think there's any universe in which you can explain that to a player and have them be okay with it.
That said, the investigation eventually leads to what the book calls an encounter chain and this... is pretty cool actually. Ten encounters, each with four variations for the seasons/villains you've chosen, and all of which can be linked together in pretty much any order, which results in an amount of possible different combinations that's so high I'm not going to bother to calculate it. There are even handy flowcharts! The encounters themselves are all solid, and would maintain a good sense of momentum as the players get closer and closer to retrieving the stone, and with it, head down into the vault and find the gold. I'd also forgotten that the DMG gives guidelines for running a chase, basically like a quicktime event, and here there's additional complications for running a rooftop chase, objectively the best kind of chase.
And that's really the end of the adventure. The remaining four chapters deal with the various lairs of the various villains. It'd be possible to complete the entire module without ever entering any of these locations, but a clever DM will find reasons to sprinkle them throughout, potentially back in that sandbox section. Each comes with its own potential for special events; the Founders' Day feast at the Cassalanter's estate would be a lot of fun, as would anything involving Jarlaxle's submarine.
Nothing remotely resembling a heist occurs at any point, but overall it's a mixed bag of content. There's a lot of balls in the air, and it'd be a good deal of work to keep track of every faction, NPC, and plot development as things roll forward. But the whole thing is built with malleability and customisation in mind, and a group willing to put in the work could have a great time really sinking into this setting and adventure.
(Zero percent chance you'll catch me reading Dungeon of the Mad Mage though, that many dungeon maps in one book would send me catatonic)
August 5, 2021
I DM'd Dragon Heist in a weekly from November, 2020 to March, 2021 through Roll20. I started this with three different groups (random players from the internet). Two of the groups dropped and one "finished" the game.
Dragon Heist is a Module or D&D5e. It is a city based adventure, revolving around the hunt for a secret treasure hidden in the city of Waterdeep. It goes from lvl 1 to lvl 5, and has a gimmick that is "replayable" due to the "season's villain" setup. What this means is that there are four villains to choose from, and who you choose affects some story elements (specifically lvl 4 and lvl 5), and can color the style of the game (i.e. combat orientated vs RP orientated).
Positives:
* Game has well written villains. If you don't like one villain, feel free to use a different one.
* Pretty good introduction to the story, and critical path feels pretty solid.
* The story is pretty tight, and if the players bite, the story paces itself.
* Great abstract maps. These maps can be used for many scenes outside of it's planned session.
Negatives:
* The beginning is slow. Combat is spaced very far apart, focusing on large fights that can be swingy (especially for the first level).
* Establishing yourself in the city is something that the DM will need to take in hand in order to feel "honest." The book has a fun intro to the city, but lacks any real complexity caused by it. There are no random encounters for the city, though there are some "guild quests" and "tavern quests" that can fill in the hustle and bustle of the city.
* Despite the game there is no real heist.
* Money doesn't really mean anything, so the rewards (including the end goal) was uninspiring.
Personal review:
This was the first module that I DM'd. I had a little experience DMing before, but had never used a module and wasn't really solid on the rules. I created three groups to start this, using random people from the internet. The idea was that a handful of people would drop. I would run this book with different villains for different groups, and learn how to be a DM while not having to prepare too much different between the groups. This was a decent idea, but it didn't really work, mostly because three games a week is a lot, especially as they began to diverge. I wouldn't recommend that.
Now, using the book as intended I found it pretty good. The game was about 16 sessions (3-4 hours per session), of those about 7 of those were off book (we went off book at chapter 4, and I had two sessions in level 2 where I established the city and two one-off adventures due to scheduling issues). Even when I went off book, I used the book for inspiration to develop some of the surrounding characters.
If I had to give advice to people planning to run this, I have two pieces of advice:
1) Brainstorm ways to make your city come to life. As written, there are places in the city that are fully developed, but the city itself if strangely empty.
2) I recommend reading every encounter in the encounter chain (Lvl 4). This idea is really cool, as it consists of a bunch of small encounters that can be pieced together. I highly recommend reading through every encounter that takes place on your path. Some are going to be more interesting than others, and small details can help color the world no matter what path you decide to go down.
I really enjoy this book. I'm not really into stories that have high stakes and where "heroes" are defined by the weight of dead bodies they accumulated. This campaign was great for me. It gave me a small time story to hang both my ideas and my character's backstories. It created a very insular group that had a very strong dynamic. They loved running the tavern, but not so much the treasure hunt...
Dragon Heist is a Module or D&D5e. It is a city based adventure, revolving around the hunt for a secret treasure hidden in the city of Waterdeep. It goes from lvl 1 to lvl 5, and has a gimmick that is "replayable" due to the "season's villain" setup. What this means is that there are four villains to choose from, and who you choose affects some story elements (specifically lvl 4 and lvl 5), and can color the style of the game (i.e. combat orientated vs RP orientated).
Positives:
* Game has well written villains. If you don't like one villain, feel free to use a different one.
* Pretty good introduction to the story, and critical path feels pretty solid.
* The story is pretty tight, and if the players bite, the story paces itself.
* Great abstract maps. These maps can be used for many scenes outside of it's planned session.
Negatives:
* The beginning is slow. Combat is spaced very far apart, focusing on large fights that can be swingy (especially for the first level).
* Establishing yourself in the city is something that the DM will need to take in hand in order to feel "honest." The book has a fun intro to the city, but lacks any real complexity caused by it. There are no random encounters for the city, though there are some "guild quests" and "tavern quests" that can fill in the hustle and bustle of the city.
* Despite the game there is no real heist.
* Money doesn't really mean anything, so the rewards (including the end goal) was uninspiring.
Personal review:
This was the first module that I DM'd. I had a little experience DMing before, but had never used a module and wasn't really solid on the rules. I created three groups to start this, using random people from the internet. The idea was that a handful of people would drop. I would run this book with different villains for different groups, and learn how to be a DM while not having to prepare too much different between the groups. This was a decent idea, but it didn't really work, mostly because three games a week is a lot, especially as they began to diverge. I wouldn't recommend that.
Now, using the book as intended I found it pretty good. The game was about 16 sessions (3-4 hours per session), of those about 7 of those were off book (we went off book at chapter 4, and I had two sessions in level 2 where I established the city and two one-off adventures due to scheduling issues). Even when I went off book, I used the book for inspiration to develop some of the surrounding characters.
If I had to give advice to people planning to run this, I have two pieces of advice:
1) Brainstorm ways to make your city come to life. As written, there are places in the city that are fully developed, but the city itself if strangely empty.
2) I recommend reading every encounter in the encounter chain (Lvl 4). This idea is really cool, as it consists of a bunch of small encounters that can be pieced together. I highly recommend reading through every encounter that takes place on your path. Some are going to be more interesting than others, and small details can help color the world no matter what path you decide to go down.
I really enjoy this book. I'm not really into stories that have high stakes and where "heroes" are defined by the weight of dead bodies they accumulated. This campaign was great for me. It gave me a small time story to hang both my ideas and my character's backstories. It created a very insular group that had a very strong dynamic. They loved running the tavern, but not so much the treasure hunt...
March 12, 2023
Welcome to Waterdeep, grandest city on the Swordcoast!
This book is advertised as an adventure module for D&D 5E, but it's actually a lore book about the setting for the adventure, Waterdeep. This is a good thing. This is why.
The story takes place in the city of Waterdeep and is set up for new characters, those just starting their careers as adventurers. This starting adventure provides them with a home base in the city, invitations to the various Factions, and many things to do other than the Dragon Heist. Indeed, the "main story" as it were, doesn't start until chapter 3 and is only truly focused on during chapter 4. There are a total of eight chapters. The Dragon Heist is clearly not the focus of the book.
No, the focus of the book is clearly establishing Water Deep as a city of adventure and providing the Game Master with the tools to tell their own story.
The first chapter is a rescue mission tangentially related to the Dragon Heist. It gets the party involved with some of the city's residents, earns them some fame/credibility as adventurers, and rewards them with a home base. This is not just a house but a tavern. It is a place of business, which is then connected to other businesses and guilds. It is the start of adventures. As the saying goes, "You All Meet in an Inn".
The second chapter focuses in on these connections. It speaks of how the guilds operate in relation to the tavern. It speaks of the tavern's neighbors, shop owners forming a self-contained community. It speaks of the Factions, and how one or more of them seek to recruit one or more members of the player party. It speaks of the missions those who accept such an invitation can go on. Even the start of chapter 3 speaks of how the player party only gets involved in the main plot because of how this plot impacts this web of connections.
Four chapters are given over to describing the lairs of the various villains. The book outright states that going to any of them is purely optional, and likely only to happen if the player party fails at some scripted encounter in chapter 4. So, there are four dungeons fully described with maps and treasures and thugs primarily included to sketch out a villain's organization.
The final main chapter is a tour guide of the city. Literally, it is framed as something written for an in-universe reader. It describes the city's history, layout of its wards, guild system, law code, methods of moving around, and even tourist traps. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Dragon Heist. It is just here to further flesh out the city. Which is just as well, because the Dragon Heist is pretty lame as written.
Chapter 4 is the only chapter solely focused on the Dragon Heist. It is comprised of a series of scripted encounters where the player party scrambles to acquire the Macguffin before the villain does. There are 4 villains to choose from, and each villain has its own encounter sequence. Which is great for replay value, theoretically at least. Reading through it, I felt it relies on rail-roading to stay on track. One scene says the player party gets arrested, just arrested, like Cutscene Impotence in a video game. The book even suggests corrective measures if the player party gets the Macguffin too quickly.
The artwork is fantastic. It looks great. It shows the many sides of Waterdeep in all its seasons. Occasionally, I came across two-page full spreads of a given scene. A pleasant surprise indeed.
If this were an actual lore book instead of an adventure module, I'd give it full marks. Because the adventure itself is lack-luster and rail-roady, it loses points.
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Dungeon and Dragons module - Dragon Heist" a B+
This book is advertised as an adventure module for D&D 5E, but it's actually a lore book about the setting for the adventure, Waterdeep. This is a good thing. This is why.
The story takes place in the city of Waterdeep and is set up for new characters, those just starting their careers as adventurers. This starting adventure provides them with a home base in the city, invitations to the various Factions, and many things to do other than the Dragon Heist. Indeed, the "main story" as it were, doesn't start until chapter 3 and is only truly focused on during chapter 4. There are a total of eight chapters. The Dragon Heist is clearly not the focus of the book.
No, the focus of the book is clearly establishing Water Deep as a city of adventure and providing the Game Master with the tools to tell their own story.
The first chapter is a rescue mission tangentially related to the Dragon Heist. It gets the party involved with some of the city's residents, earns them some fame/credibility as adventurers, and rewards them with a home base. This is not just a house but a tavern. It is a place of business, which is then connected to other businesses and guilds. It is the start of adventures. As the saying goes, "You All Meet in an Inn".
The second chapter focuses in on these connections. It speaks of how the guilds operate in relation to the tavern. It speaks of the tavern's neighbors, shop owners forming a self-contained community. It speaks of the Factions, and how one or more of them seek to recruit one or more members of the player party. It speaks of the missions those who accept such an invitation can go on. Even the start of chapter 3 speaks of how the player party only gets involved in the main plot because of how this plot impacts this web of connections.
Four chapters are given over to describing the lairs of the various villains. The book outright states that going to any of them is purely optional, and likely only to happen if the player party fails at some scripted encounter in chapter 4. So, there are four dungeons fully described with maps and treasures and thugs primarily included to sketch out a villain's organization.
The final main chapter is a tour guide of the city. Literally, it is framed as something written for an in-universe reader. It describes the city's history, layout of its wards, guild system, law code, methods of moving around, and even tourist traps. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Dragon Heist. It is just here to further flesh out the city. Which is just as well, because the Dragon Heist is pretty lame as written.
Chapter 4 is the only chapter solely focused on the Dragon Heist. It is comprised of a series of scripted encounters where the player party scrambles to acquire the Macguffin before the villain does. There are 4 villains to choose from, and each villain has its own encounter sequence. Which is great for replay value, theoretically at least. Reading through it, I felt it relies on rail-roading to stay on track. One scene says the player party gets arrested, just arrested, like Cutscene Impotence in a video game. The book even suggests corrective measures if the player party gets the Macguffin too quickly.
The artwork is fantastic. It looks great. It shows the many sides of Waterdeep in all its seasons. Occasionally, I came across two-page full spreads of a given scene. A pleasant surprise indeed.
If this were an actual lore book instead of an adventure module, I'd give it full marks. Because the adventure itself is lack-luster and rail-roady, it loses points.
Trickster Eric Novels gives "Dungeon and Dragons module - Dragon Heist" a B+
January 25, 2021
The first official D&D adventure published for 5e that I had no interest in running.
What I liked
-The joining factions section along with each of the faction's mission tables were great and are a great reference for missions said factions might give in other campaigns.
- Chapters 5-> 8 have some amazing dungeons/enemy faction headquarters laid out for DMs to pluck up and put into their own campaigns. I personally used the Xanathar hideout from chapter 5 for my own campaign!
-The encounter flow design of this campaign in chapter 4 is a great idea and template for DM's to design similar style adventures.
-The special events for each season are fun and much needed due to the lack of random encounters or any other "filler" content in this adventure. I wish there was more than ~1/2 page of these per season and closer to 2 pages.
-Searching for the "vault keys" throughout the city is a great takeoff point for the DM to add his own homebrew dungeons/encounters to the campaign.
What I didn't like
-No random encounter table for Waterdeep.
-Minimal extra locations to visit that are not story related.
-The book does the absolute minimum to help cut the prep for the DM to truly create the experience of a bustling metropolis fantasy city. Theres an entire chapter dedicated to flavor and how the city works etc. BUT translates practically none of this flavor into mechanics for the DM to use. If someone wanted a good reference for Waterdeep I would still recommend 3.5e's City of Splendors: Waterdeep over this book any day.
-Only 1 of the best 4 chapters (chapter 5->8) of this adventure MIGHT be used if "ran as written". I'm usually ok with 10->20% of content of an adventure being missed/skipped but this is literally ~60 pages of a ~140 page adventure not being run and then an extra 20 pages that might not be run.
-The final dungeon is boring and short (9 rooms ~4 pages not including artwork)
Summary
A disappointing soucebook for Waterdeep in D&D 5e, a short mediocre adventure that doesn't even showcase it's best parts in one playthrough and an adventure that promotes replayability when most people don't even have the time to play through just one D&D module.
February 20, 2025
A wonderful city based campaign with a cast of hundreds!!!
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist by Wizards RPG Team is a campaign adventure designed to see characters go from level 1 to 5 with a malleable plot structure, so someone playing it will never get the same game…
Dragon Heist is ostensibly a mega plot to find a dragon horde of gold…but the massive plot variety comes in how the characters get there.
With dozens of plot threads (some major, though many just tied to lower risk elements) to entertain you players, the adventure is almost entirely set in the city of Waterdeep.
While the campaign hi lights a few major important locations in the history of waterdeep, it also introduces a number of new minor locations where the players can make their mark…each with their own related NPCs they may or may not get involved in.
Meanwhile, the baddies in the campaign are negotiable…as are various faction politics. They give the Gamemaster a lot of leeway in the direction they want to do..with handy flowcharts showing what they might want to do depending on who they want “the big boss” to be (as well as the related mini bosses and minions depending).
Even better…the book comes with a map of waterdeep that is handy, as well as an in universe guide written by a notable dnd NPC.
The book is helpful for those either visiting waterdeep for the first time or those who have lived their all their lives…offering something for both new and experienced players to explore (which I really appreciated).
Several events (many optional) are also presented as part of the campaign…and it once again lies on the HM to decide what to us.
The versatility of this lengthy adventure means you could easily run multiple groups through certain chapters and have wildly different encounters occur (though the opening chapter is relatively fixed as far as storytelling goes).
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist by Wizards RPG Team is a campaign adventure designed to see characters go from level 1 to 5 with a malleable plot structure, so someone playing it will never get the same game…
Dragon Heist is ostensibly a mega plot to find a dragon horde of gold…but the massive plot variety comes in how the characters get there.
With dozens of plot threads (some major, though many just tied to lower risk elements) to entertain you players, the adventure is almost entirely set in the city of Waterdeep.
While the campaign hi lights a few major important locations in the history of waterdeep, it also introduces a number of new minor locations where the players can make their mark…each with their own related NPCs they may or may not get involved in.
Meanwhile, the baddies in the campaign are negotiable…as are various faction politics. They give the Gamemaster a lot of leeway in the direction they want to do..with handy flowcharts showing what they might want to do depending on who they want “the big boss” to be (as well as the related mini bosses and minions depending).
Even better…the book comes with a map of waterdeep that is handy, as well as an in universe guide written by a notable dnd NPC.
The book is helpful for those either visiting waterdeep for the first time or those who have lived their all their lives…offering something for both new and experienced players to explore (which I really appreciated).
Several events (many optional) are also presented as part of the campaign…and it once again lies on the HM to decide what to us.
The versatility of this lengthy adventure means you could easily run multiple groups through certain chapters and have wildly different encounters occur (though the opening chapter is relatively fixed as far as storytelling goes).
January 9, 2019
An uneven module that ultimately succeeds more on the strengths of it's individual parts than as a cohesive whole.
I'd be hard-pressed to run this out of the box. There is too much railroading in the early going, and none of it all that interesting. I did really like the down time activities that coincided with the tavern the players can own, however.
What's here is a great primer for a city-centric campaign, in Waterdeep or otherwise. The four villains are each well drawn, with intriguing motivations and plenty of plot hooks. Alas, each is kept rather separate from the others. I have a mind to rewrite this so that all of the villains are active participants in the heist, with the players swept up in the chaos.
Alas, the 'heist' is a complete misnomer. There is nothing quite so imaginative here; retrieving the gold ultimately amounts to some light dungeon delving and then convincing the treasure's guardian that they should be entrusted with the gold. Huge misstep.
More discouraging than that, there is no scenario in which the players can really keep the money. As written, they will be hunted down if they run off with the treasure. Seems a poor way to reward ingenuity and courage. I'd rather drown the players in gold and make them appreciate the problems such wealth brings.
On the whole, some brilliant bits (villains and their lairs, city elements, some of the set piece encounters) constrained by a plot that is a bit pedestrian. Definitely worth a buy though.
I'd be hard-pressed to run this out of the box. There is too much railroading in the early going, and none of it all that interesting. I did really like the down time activities that coincided with the tavern the players can own, however.
What's here is a great primer for a city-centric campaign, in Waterdeep or otherwise. The four villains are each well drawn, with intriguing motivations and plenty of plot hooks. Alas, each is kept rather separate from the others. I have a mind to rewrite this so that all of the villains are active participants in the heist, with the players swept up in the chaos.
Alas, the 'heist' is a complete misnomer. There is nothing quite so imaginative here; retrieving the gold ultimately amounts to some light dungeon delving and then convincing the treasure's guardian that they should be entrusted with the gold. Huge misstep.
More discouraging than that, there is no scenario in which the players can really keep the money. As written, they will be hunted down if they run off with the treasure. Seems a poor way to reward ingenuity and courage. I'd rather drown the players in gold and make them appreciate the problems such wealth brings.
On the whole, some brilliant bits (villains and their lairs, city elements, some of the set piece encounters) constrained by a plot that is a bit pedestrian. Definitely worth a buy though.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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