The Rise of Tiamat (Rise) is the sequel to Hoard of the Dragon Queen (Hoard), concluding the epic "save the world" campaign begun there.

As before, it's difficult to review something like this without spoilers, so a quick review before moving on to something more thorough:

As a product, The Rise of Tiamat is not nearly so good as Hoard of the Dragon Queen. There are plenty of nice ideas here, but significant flaws in the beginning and end of the campaign, combined with wide swaths of adventuring that are left to the devices of the DM, make this a very uneven product. Hoard might become iconic for 5e, but people need to agree on the icons. Rise has so much dependent upon the DM that two groups could play through this book and only agree on roughly 50% of what the adventures entail.

Thus, if the DM is prepared to put some work into it (4 hours, minimum, and that would still leave gaps), there's a solid campaign here. If the DM wants to just go with what is actually in the books, there's a barely functional sequence of adventures here that will often leave players wondering why they're bothering to save a world nobody seems to care much about.

Leaving so much of the campaign vague is actually rather understandable. It's been a truism of D&D that higher levels are acquired much more slowly than lower levels. Hoard is for levels 1-7, while Rise is for levels 8-15, but both books have the same page count. Thus, the DM will need to add many of "his own pages" to the make those high levels feel as hard-earned as they've always been in D&D. WotC could have made a book as thorough as Hoard, but that would triple the page count (and the price) of the book, which I guess just wasn't an option.

Ultimately, then, I rate this book a 6 (not very good overall, but plenty of good ideas to mine), but I imagine the campaign for most players will rate as 8 (or even better), as most DMs will see enough goodness here to be motivated to polish the rough spots into a shining campaign.


So, let's do the blow by blow in a more thorough review:

Episode 1, Council of Waterdeep really highlights the issues with this book. While in the previous book, "episode" referred to an adventure or linked series of adventures that players eventually finished, The Council of Waterdeep will be returned to again and again. The basic idea of this episode is players get their marching orders from a group of faction leaders. Players get the quest, complete the quest, and return to Episode 1 for more quests.

In itself this isn't so bad, laying out clear paths for the players to follow, but there's supposed to be a mini-game here, where the heroes try to complete the quests in a way to appease the factions. The reward for appeasement? The faction will send troops for the big battle at the end. There are rules, sort of, for "scoring sessions" with the Council, and even a scorecard to keep track, but unless the players go out of their way to burn down villages, torture nuns, or otherwise engage in ridiculous behavior on a regular basis, they'll make all the factions happy.

It would be good if this mattered, but I'm getting ahead of myself complaining of such a thing. DMs that want to do the extra work of roleplaying a dozen different faction leaders might enjoy this, but it's a monumental challenge, because they're all in the same room at the same time (I've run other adventures with many very distinct NPCs, and it helps quite a bit if you only have to keep track of two or three in any single encounter).

Bottom line, these Councils (there are four) can play out very differently from one table to the next, although I suspect most DMs will simply revert to the simplest possible "the Council thinks you should do this next" and run with that.

Episode 2: The Sea of Moving Ice is perhaps the strongest adventure of the book. I do complain about something, however: both this, and the previous adventure will pit the players against a white dragon in an icy lair...considering there is no (named) red dragon in any of the adventures, this is a strange design decision (for what it's worth, I would have rewritten the last adventure of the previous book to have a red dragon, because this adventure is perfect for a white dragon). The big red dragon has been iconic for D&D since the game hit the market decades ago...it's a goofy omission.

The first thing that sets this adventure apart is the old school start. Many of the early famous Dungeons and Dragons adventures make the heroes actually travel to, and find, the dungeon. Most modern adventures (influenced, likely, by computer games) have adventurers taking 30 second walks from the tavern to the dungeon entrance...but the journey really should be part of the adventure, and that's what happens here. The players will spend considerable game time just finding the dragon's lair, and it works well.

Characters are around 8th level, borderline superheroes, for this adventure, but I'm not convinced WotC really thought much about character abilities at this level. It really shows up in the spells the players can (and will) have. For example, Wizard Eye (level 4 spell) basically means players can map out any dungeon automatically, and that includes knowing about most of the monsters in the dungeon; various other spells can dramatically influence the game, and there's no real "what if" section to cover some of the highlights of likely superheroic actions.

Anyway, the players travel by boat to the far north, where they'll eventually find a glacier controlled by a white dragon, with various factions under its thumb. One of those factions is a human village; it's kind of sad watching guys in furs and wielding pointy sticks get slaughtered by the awesome power of level 8 characters...but that really seems to be the most likely result, diplomacy is a distant option here. Further in, the players will encounter kobolds, trolls, and giant snow toads (I'm not kidding), as well as what they're looking for, and the white dragon. It's all laid out well enough, and has several interesting fights, although no real mention of any counter-tactics that the dragon should use if the party decides to take a long rest or three.

Players will be 9th level at the end of this adventure.

Again, the "milestone" method of gaining levels is used in Rise, although it's not as hard and fast as in Hoard; players are expected to make level 14 or 15 by the end of the book, with when to gain levels subject to DM fiat.

Players head back to the Council, and are sent on to Episodes 3-and-4.

Episodes 3-and-4 are literally kept in the same section, although the adventures here could easily be separated by a thousand miles and a month of game time. Each adventure is "suggested" by the council, tracking down a wyrmspeaker and a green dragon, respectively.

The wyrmspeaker adventure is nearly as good as Episode 2. The heroes investigate a tomb of a mummy lord, and even with the dungeon laid out in detail, there are several ways it can go, depending on whether the players cooperate with the mummy lord, and/or try to activate a magical pool there (not easy, since the mummy lord's lair abilities turn water to dust).

In between Episodes 3-and-4 will be part of Episode 5, probably, and likely part of Episode 1; apologies if this review is disorganized, but such reflects the strange organization of the book, which would have been far better off with at least making an attempt at ordering the adventures and events in the book chronologically.

Episode 4 is far weaker, as the players go to the elven woods to track down a green dragon. Again, the writers don't really seem to understand character capabilities at this level (which will be around 9). Raising the dead is quite possible now, among other strong abilities that can easily wreck strategies that don't account for them. Players are supposed to role-play figuring out where the dragon is, but there are a few "I win" spells that can accomplish the task pretty easily.

The dragon's lair is pretty...odd. There are lots of elves and elf nobles around to be slaughtered, as well as some other hopelessly outclassed (for the character's level) monsters. The dragon itself is a menace (if the characters elect to not prepare themselves against its breath attack), and, as always, there's very little treasure here.

Episode 5 is a sequence of ambushes by the Cultists, and the events here can take place during most any other Episode. The first attack is relatively feeble, the second is serious, and the third should have a good chance of killing the entire party. The DM is supposed to create and run these encounters, according to rough guidelines, but this is a very complicated affair (to give some idea of how this works, I had to keep four different books open, Rise of Tiamat and all three core rulebooks, with about a score of bookmarks, flipping to each one several times for each character's action, to run these combats, keeping track of various different monster stats, monster abilities, and spells).

Yes, the third attack could be a "total party kill." This is fine, since The Council will simply resurrect all the heroes, free of charge. I grant the Cultists aren't the sharpest fangs in the maw, but, again, the game world should really reflect that raise dead and resurrection are things that really happen, and Cultists should take some credible steps to keep it from happening to the heroes that the Cult went through a great deal of trouble to kill. At the very least, they'd feed the bodies to their dragons or something.

The "no treasure" thing of this campaign makes sense—it's all going to Tiamat. Not understanding how possible it is for the dead to come back to life, doesn't make sense. A high level campaign really needs to make some allowances for high level abilities.

Episode 6, Metallic Dragons Arise is classic "do what you as the DM feel like doing" adventuring. The players go to get the metallic dragons on their side. This can be an easy trip (riding a silver dragon) or a hard journey, if the DM wants. The metallic dragons can send the players on quests...or just give in, if the DM wants. Ultimately, the players will get the dragons on their side, although whether this even matters is, of course, up to the DM. So, there's a fun idea here, but these pages could just as easily be blank for all the chance that players with one DM will recognize how this part of the adventure ran with a different DM.

Episode 7 is a great high level adventure, mainly through a great puzzle at the beginning. At this point, characters are around 12th level, and can have awesome spell abilities. Most of this is completely shut down in a magical maze that prevents pretty much all abilities from working; the players have no choice but to stop looking at the powers on their character sheets and instead look at what's going on in the game. The maze puzzle is great, solvable without being impossible, and allows for the players to make many mistakes trying to figure it out.

At the end of the maze is a tower; not quite as exciting, and, again, the authors really didn't account for players taking long rests from time to time, so these fights can be pretty trivial...or not.

When the players leave the tower, and the magical maze, they see yet another attack by the cultists...but players can avoid this entirely by just staying in the maze (possibility even teleporting the whole party out, the arbitrary rules aren't so clear on this point).

Still, if you don't mind lots of arbitrary "you can't do this because...Gygax!" rulings, this is a pretty good adventure. And, realize, this is about the only way to "fairly" challenge characters at this level.

Episode 8 is a Mission to Thay, to ask the dark wizards there for help against the Cult. It's a two page Episode, and will likely just annoy players. It...really doesn't matter what happens here, but at least only two pages are wasted on this. Players can get a neat reward, but the reward will not help them in any way in the campaign (well, technically, it'll help them beat a weak monster later, but they really don't need the help as most every character can defeat the monster single-handedly in a round or two).

Episode 9 is the grand finale...and there's plenty of disappointment here. Hey, remember all those factions the players ran around trying to satisfy, so they'd support them at the final battle? Well, this is it...and there are no rules or indications of roughly (never mind exactly) how any faction that does/doesn't help will affect things here. There's nothing beyond a list of possible "assets" that can be pitted against the forces of the Cult or how pitting one asset would be different than another. Thay, incidentally, isn't even on the list of possible assets (like I said, those were wasted pages...).
So, it's totally up to the DM to make up something regarding the big battle...the DM can't handwave it into a slaughter of the cultists, however, because of what the players are supposed to be doing during the battle.
It turns out the players won't even be involved in all those theoretical forces doing, theoretically, something. Instead, they're avoiding the whole thing and sneaking into the main complex to stop the Cultists from summoning Tiamat. If the players somehow fail to stop the ritual (they'll have 10 rounds, where they'll likely take lots of damage from hostile spellcasters), they'll have to fight Tiamat, probably dying from a flood of her various breath weapons....gee, wouldn't it be nice to have some of those assets actually come to the complex and help the players? (This is what I'll be doing in my campaign.)

Curiously, while the campaign mentions the world is basically doomed if the players fail, it says almost nothing about success...seriously, the heroes have gone the whole campaign without much in the way of treasure, some actual rewards here would be nice, especially since the players will likely retire after this anyway.

Conclusion:

Overall, The Rise of Tiamat is a fairly flawed adventure book. Mercifully, many of these flaws can be fixed by a skilled DM, and if you approach this book as "a somewhat rough outline of the conclusion of an epic campaign," you'll be pretty satisfied. On the other hand, if you approach this as "a complete campaign for high level characters to save the world," and this is a fair approach considering Hoard of the Dragon Queen, you're in for some major disappointment.

Quote from: Doom;857909Episode 2:I do complain about something, however: both this, and the previous adventure will pit the players against a white dragon in an icy lair...considering there is no (named) red dragon in any of the adventures, this is a strange design decision

Most modern adventures (influenced, likely, by computer games) have adventurers taking 30 second walks from the tavern to the dungeon entrance...but the journey really should be part of the adventure, and that's what happens here.

Characters are around 8th level, borderline superheroes, for this adventure, but I'm not convinced WotC really thought much about character abilities at this level. It really shows up in the spells the players can (and will) have.

Again, the "milestone" method of gaining levels is used in Rise

The "no treasure" thing of this campaign makes sense—it's all going to Tiamat. Not understanding how possible it is for the dead to come back to life, doesn't make sense. A high level campaign really needs to make some allowances for high level abilities.

1: Yeah this bugged me too as a DM.

2: This was one of the thing older PC RPGs got right. You had to usually slog all over the place to get anything done. The SSI D&D games had this built in. wilderness travel and just stumbling on locations sometimes.

3: I disagree here. The PC are never guaranteed spells. Moreso in Hoard and Rise where coming across scrolls oe anything to scrib off of is few and far between. In the campaign I am running the wizard of the group did not even find any new spells till level 7 due to how the adventures are structured. And no one has found Wizard Eye yet and not even through any doing of my own.

4: The milestone method is optional. Using it though will probably slow down the PCs level advancement by a level or two depending on what they did.

5: According to the writers they were keeping magic items low following 5es de-emphasis on magic item proliferation. The idea was it was better to put too few items in and let the DM add more if he wanted than to put too many in. Personally I like the lower emphasis.
As for raise and such. As per 5es rules. Just because you cast it doesnt mean they will come back. They might not want to. Might not be allowed to. No body to raise. Dont have a cleric in the group.(which is my current group.)

x: oh yeah its got alot of flaws. Especially the ending. Like there is supposed to be a product placement add for "go play Attack Wing then come back." or something got cut. WOTC did edit these after they were sent in from Kobold.

My players never found any new spells either. But, when you gain a level, you get to *pick* 1 or 2 new spells, for most classes and levels. Did you really have level 7 wizards still casting only level 1 spells because they never found any new ones? Man, that's brutal, I know my players would complain about that, and I'd be inclined to see their point.


>>4: The milestone method is optional. Using it though will probably slow down the PCs level advancement by a level or two depending on what they did.<<

Oh, sure, it's optional, like everything else in the game is optional. But, as you indicate, it's what you used, and you're only guessing that it might slow them down a level. I conjecture they'll have a few less levels if you go by awarding EP. And, of course, you really can't use EP, as you say, because it depends on what the characters do...and what they do can vary quite wildly from one table to the next. So, ultimately you either use the milestone method...or you make up EP awards so characters line up with the milestones, meaning you may as well just use the milestone method.

>>As for raise and such. As per 5es rules. Just because you cast it doesnt mean they will come back. They might not want to. Might not be allowed to. No body to raise. Dont have a cleric in the group.(which is my current group.)<<

You really think the players won't come back? Why don't they just walk away from the table, then? If the whole group is dead, having a cleric in the group won't help much; but the book specifically says the Council will get them raised...that rather implies somebody is around to do it, and that the Cultists are really going to leave the bodies.

Quote from: Doom;858038>>4: The milestone method is optional. Using it though will probably slow down the PCs level advancement by a level or two depending on what they did.<<

Oh, sure, it's optional, like everything else in the game is optional. But, as you indicate, it's what you used, and you're only guessing that it might slow them down a level.

Um. No. I meant that we used the EXP system and the PCs ARE higher level than if they had been using the Milestone method.

Well, my bad...but the facts remain.

Quote from: Doom;858741Well, my bad...but the facts remain.

Yeah, the fact that using the milestone system is both optional and slows down levelling.

Mind you. Considering the meteoric rate you level up in 5e. A little slow-down is not necessarily a bad thing.

On the other hand. At a guess Id say the PCs will hit close to level 20 by the end of the whole campaign. Which considering you just beat up Tiamat. Is a nice cap on the tale.

Uh, no, that's not what I wrote. To clarify, again: all things in the game are optional, it is true, but under this assumption, whether characters characters are 1st level, 20th level, or 1,000th level by the end of the campaign is strictly by DM fiat.

Now, if a DM really wants to go by the numbers that are actually in the book, carefully adding up, carefully dividing out, then you'll probably end up below the recommended levels. But, it completely depends on anything the players do after that point so the DM probably will just look at the milestone method recommended levels, and change his EP award to reflect what the players will have regardless.

Let's take an example. By the milestone method, characters gain a level at the end of each adventure in Episode 3-and-4.

Now, if a fool DM wanted to add up EP, he'd see that the EP for killing everything killed (by my players, and they killed alot) in Episode 3 is  24,200. Do note that the actual EP is at no point listed anywhere in this episode, so this "optional" method (I'm calling the mosaic chimera a chimera, since this monster isn't in the MM) is really not intended, and only exists because everything in a RPG should be considered as optional.

So, 24,200 for the whole adventure. To go from 9th to 10th level, you need 16,000 EP. A typical party of 4 won't even be close to leveling here, as they'll get around 6,000 EP from the adventure. Now you can counter with "but it's optional to use a party of that size, a single character solo'ing the entire adventure would totally get the level!", and I concede that's every bit as legitimate as saying the "milestone method is optional" here. Even if you throw in "the first attack" from the Cult Strikes Back (episode 5), a single hard encounter isn't going to be enough, as that will be only another 1,900 EP per character. Heck, throw in a deadly encounter (the second from episode 5, at worst), and that's another 2,800 EP per character. Still not enough.

But, realistically, a DM probably won't flip back and forth through the main rulebooks trying to add up all the ep that isn't generally listed anywhere in Rise of Tiamat.

But, characters gain a level by the milestone method.

Let's continue the optional idiocy method by looking at episode 4, which has even less in it than episode 3. I'll assume all the elves are slaughtered, to help this out a bit. The dragon will almost certainly escape, and probably Neronvain; I'll just say 5,000 ep for Neronvain.

So, episode 4 totals out to 17,055 EP.

So, let's summarize: episodes 3 and 4 and 5 all put together, don't have enough EP for a single level (a bit over half a level, in fact), but should merit 2 levels by the milestone method. The only thing accomplished by the EP method is a huge waste of time for the DM; if doing so in this optional method for the whole campaign amused you, good on you!

But the facts as I wrote above still remain. Yes, you can use any optional system your heart desires, but, as PAGE 6 OF THE RISE OF TIAMAT EXPLICITLY SAYS, the adventure is "designed around the milestone system of advancement." Now, you can certainly take a pen and scratch out those words in your book, I guess...but the facts remain.

I hope this helps you to understand what I'm saying here.

Edit: And...wow, you really are the Feckless Wonder in the reply you give to this post. Three characters will increase the EP per character by 33%. Seeing as we're below half, it won't make a difference, still too low, because of math. You may wish to familiarize yourself with the concept of math, it really helps in calculations.

I am running a group of 3. Hence why they are levelling better. I think with 4 theyd be about at the milestone ranges depending on if they triggered any of the bonus exp or not. The current group missed a few but are still in the lead.