r/WaterdeepDragonHeist

Hi, I'm running WDH for the very first time, obv (cause of my lazy ass and lack of free time) I didn't read the whole thing, but I read a bit ahead of what I need per session. I did read though a lot of reviews and summeries of the module. Now I'm at chapter two and I'm starting to see the first not so great parts.

The factions thing is not really what my players like, they like the fight aspect, the RP aspect but this is kinda an in-between. Cause I know that my PCs don't really have a reason to enter any faction expect for maybe one out of five of them. And to be fair... I personally don't really like the idea of very small tasks where nothing really exciting happens and is mostly some random check or boring, I wanted it to be a very active campaign.

And so I thought to maybe create a series of "half shots" mini missions with a little fight etc. all coming from the neighbors asking for help at the new group of adventurers. And then every session give them the opportunity to do some simple tasks for the factions for the ones that are interested.

And so it comes to where I ask for your advice:

1. Am I the only one finding Chapter 2 kinda boring?

2. What do you think about this idea?

3. Do you have any incipit or resource with such mini "ordinary" quests?

And at last, I've seen many say that if you don't get factions help, the end is almost certainly a tpk and that the dragon not being the final boss is anticlimactic.

So I was, for once, looking ahead at what I could do, maybe instead of them going in just to come outside defited, adding a "dragon tranquilizer" or other mcguffen that would take out the dragon and give it to the "BBEG" and have my players fight them in the vault with the dragon out of the game or right before entering it.

1. Do you think this could work?

2. Do you have ideas for the mcguffen? I was thinking a thing to make it sleep and one to exile it, but the legendary resistances maybe a problem...

So before going into WDH I'm doing a prologue arc which culminates in the party fighting a young black dragon. My plan was for them to fight it in a fortress in which case they'd have lots of support but they chose to go fight it in its lair, meaning it has lair actions and homefield advantage.
I've tried helping them by giving them a coalition of every major NPC (in total ~9 people) but I'm like super sure that they'll all die horribly cause it's a fricken dragon in its lair.

I don't wanna chicken out cause Dragons are half the game's name, but I also don't wanna kill my party's characters cause they love them and have drawn art, so I was wondering:

What would be a way to have a party diegetically find themselves resurrected that also segwaes nicely into the story?

Hi all!

I am getting ready to run my first ever Module being Dragonheist.

My main concern is I am stuck between if I should run Alexandrian remix or not.

Would you reccomend sticking to the basics if it's my first module? I have run plenty of homebrew campaigns before.
I find the alexandrian site rundown a little hard to follow- I am not sure if i am just meant to cross reference the entire module with this version or what? Would love to hear some advice!

I’m DMing for the first time with this campaign and we’ve made it to the manor, but my party is not interested at all in making it into a tavern. They are very interested in 2 things:
- class warfare (one of my party members is an urchin who wants to stick it to the wealthy and the guilds?)
- creating a tavern bouncer academy

Yes, that second one is not a typo. They are at level 2 and given these…themes? I want to do one more session to get them to level 3 and kick off fireball. I have story ideas, but I’m struggling how to turn it into interactive session ideas. Here’s what I have so far:

- they have made enemies with the Zhents, so I’m thinking a wererat raid
- IF they decide to spare any of the were rats, they can recruit them into their bouncer academy. (There is one other NPC that I’m planning to bring back as well)
- something around the bouncer academy? This is where I’m getting stuck…I want them to do some work to make a curriculum but how do I gamify this? Is this a good idea?

They have kept in touch with Renear and have gotten in with Mirt and the Harpers. I tried to spin Lif into a Mother mirthkettle side quest, but since they have refused the tavern rehab, thats kinda died, but could get picked up again another way? Haven’t introduced the Bregan D’arthe or the Casselanters but could? My party is not great remembering all the factions so thats a factor. Let me know what you all think or what ideas you have!!

Short: Thoughts on the mechanic? Balancing concerns? Would you use this as a player to say: Learn about the weaknesses of a Blue Dragon before planning to attack one its lair instead of a single Investigation Check that gives you a failure or dead end?

Long: I am running Waterdeep Dragon Heist and have a player who is playing a Financial Investigator working for the Bank of Cassalanter to investigate the missing gold coins. We wanted to make the character feel more 'investigative' outside the player's actions and roleplay alone so I created this Investigation Process mechanic.

The player will spend downtime investigating their current interest (but cannot supersede the core story flow for the missing dragons of course) and at the end of the day roll an Investigation Check. They will make progress on their research and once they complete that research be rewarded with their discovery.

It also takes some of the pressure off of me as a DM to, in the moment, come up with an answer to "Do I find my answer with a 16 Investigation Check?". Because now I can say "You have found a significant lead and will start the next day knowing exactly where to pickup from. You're closing in on an answer." Then between now and next session I can plan out what answer to give them haha

I'm looking for some feedback on balancing of the affects and rolls. I'm also curious to know if anyone has tried something like this or would use something like this? We are currently level 3 and this campaign is expected to end around level 8.

https://preview.redd.it/yc3l0id1nl1h1.png?width=699&format=png&auto=webp&s=8ad04fb50b35ae9160aa7067ed8387373c89b983

Hi,

Ok, I'll admit, the title is simplifying my question/doubts/insecurities a bit. I'm looking for advice and/or experience.

I'll start with the actual example but it goes further than that.

My players just rescued Floon and in next session they will reunite him with Volo, Volo gives them the ownership as payment. What if my players don't accept this? Do I then skip the visit to the Alley and ask my players what they want to do? And what if (hypothetically) they say we want to visit Old Xoblob again, or go down the Yawning Portal. That's not in the module but on the other hand, I don't wanna railroad them or say "no, you cant".

A second (greater) question is: Do I just skip downtime activities when playing at the table? When I skip some in-game time, it feels like I'm playing for my players PC's. When I don't skip it, they are more or less in waiting-mode. For example, how to skip 'a week of renovating the Manor', if my players decide to restore it after accepting it from Volo.

Help! It feels like I'm stuck and/or overpreparing. I'm now reading The Return of the Lazy DM but it feels like I can't give my players the best session ever, every time even though I want to give that.

Gr and thanks in advance!

I recently ran my first session of this adventure. Our party of 3 characters (all light armor/d8 classes) made it to the Zhentarim warehouse. The kenku brought everyone down to 3 HP or less in one round. The party surrendered and tried to talk their way out. Unsuccessfully, so I had the city watch arrive to take care of the situation.

Now I'm prepping the next session where they'll go into the sewers. I gave them an early level 2, as I simply didn't see them surviving the Intellect Devourer and the orc wizard otherwise. But still I'm considering having Renaer join them to add some punching power (although he would very much outshine the party, his stat block as written is pretty powerful).

After they finish chapter 1 I plan to have them start on the first Zhentarim faction mission. But that involves fighting a CR 4 Drow Gunslinger at level 2. That again seems very deadly. The average damage on his pistol attack would down each character instantly from full health. Or roll a bit higher to just outright kill any character from half health.

So is it just me, or are the first and second level encounters extremely deadly? I know the party shouldn't try to win every fight, but it now seems like fighting is rarely an option. What's your experience with combat in the early parts? Did you pull punches or otherwise help your party out?

So, I am expanding on dragon heist and want to make it possible to get my players to level 10 by expanding the plotlines and really growing the homebrew element of it. My plan is to have Casslanters as the central villain in the first act for levels 1 to 3, scaling them down to basically act as the baddies for the party to grow a rep in the city by contending with corrupt nobles. The Xanthar and Jarlaxle for the 2nd act for levels 4-6, which would be the dragon heist focus and gathering the eyes of galorr. Zhentarim would still play a role here, but they are on the defensive and are more focused ln a greater plot going on in the background. My final act would be levels 7-10, and deals with the actions of the party as they contend with Manshoons goals to usurp Laurel and become a new leader of Waterdeep from the chaos from the previous two acts.

An idea I wanted to explore is the Clone manshoon basically leading these previous villains as a disillusioned clone, wanting to bring chaos to the city after coming to the conclusion his life doesnt matter after facing Halaster Blackcloak. The real manshoon and the Black Network, which is my idea of separating them from the Zhents under the Clone, are wanting to maximize this chaos to seize control of the city and bring order to it. For character reference, the real Manshoon im inspired by Doctor Doom meets Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders, while the Clone has Joker meets Ras Al Ghoul from the Dark Knight, a hybrid of chaos yet intent on bringing the world down around him because he knows how it was built.

I was wondering if this sounds like a reasonable escalation of a final act, since Manshoon seems the most dangerous of the foes and it would give him an interesting buildup of seeing dual natured villain? I also was toying with the idea real Manshoon can use the party's actions against them, forcing them underground and turning them into vigilantes like from the Daredevil tv show and similar media.

There are other factors i aim to throw in this final act, such as a Black Oblesik connecting to a grander 10-20 campaign. There is an agent of Vecna who may be pulling the strings the whole time, alongside a time dragon since they sound cool and Manshoon actually has a draconic daughter but its not disclosed what species. Lastly, dagult neverember himself gets involved, since I thought it be cool Manshoon has an hidden contract with Dagult due to them both being ambitious figureheads more intent on order then being moral.

Hello!
I'm a first time DM (player for a ~6 years) who has decided, perhaps unwisely, to try Waterdeep Dragon Heist as my first campaign. This is with a group (5 players) I have been playing with for about 2 years, so I know them well and their play styles. I'm still trying to read through the 2024 DMG and the WDH module, but my players have already started making their characters, which is great! BUT, I don't know if I am saying yes to too many things.

Here's what my players have so far (subject to change):

• Player 1 (relaxed player) - Paladin
• Player 2 (relaxed player) - Rogue gnome who is secretly a child
• Player 3 (RP-heavy player) - Fighter human who is retired spy so would multiclass in rogue when they level up
• Player 4 (RP-heavy player) - Barbarian human (or orc) who also suffers from lychanthropy
• Player 5 (RP-heavy player, previous DM) - Artificer gnome with a firearm at level 1

There have been a few things I've said no to (e.g. Player 5 asking if they could be a judge and high up in the legal system in the town they were in, I asked if they could more be a council member from their small gnomish town), but whenever I hear their ideas, I think "hell yeah! I want to see that!"

They all know they're starting at level 1, but I just wanted to start a discussion. Am I in over my head with this? Are there major red flags with the list above experienced DMs foresee with this campaign. I don't even know what month to start the campaign in! I think Spring and then see which villain they hate the most, but could that cause problems later on?

TL,DR: Please can I have some advice for running this campaign as a new DM? Thanks!

My players are going to be headed to Neverwinter eventually. I know I could try to just get them to go to Waterdeep or just use Waterdeep itself and just change the name, but I like Neverwinter as a setting a lot and find it more compelling than Waterdeep.

What I’m thinking is keeping the Cassalanters (changed to worshipping Tiamat for a player’s backstory, they’d have a winter home in Neverwinter thanks to the river and use that as their cover story). I’d also keep Manshoon, who wants to gain control of Neverwinter while it’s in this vulnerable growing stage.

I’m cutting out Xanathar and probably Jarlaxle because I don’t want there to be too many faction because I’ll be adding a few more Neverwinter specific ones. Of course we have Neverember, who is trying to find the stone so he can a locate the gold (it’s in Neverwinter). He wants this gold to fund imperial pursuits to expand into the surrounding region. There’s also the Son’s of Alagondar, specifically the extremists who want to fund a rebellion that will put who they believe as a true heir on the throne.

I’ll have a few more smaller factions but those are the four major ones. I’ll be using aspects of the Alexandrian Remix, and level it up a bit since my players will be level 6. Do y’all have any advice?