History TabletopGame / TyrannyOfDragons

* HopelessBossFight: The encounters with Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Lennithon in the first episode of Hoard are, as written, almost impossible to win. Lennithon can fly, has hundreds of hit points, and can easily one-shot an entire party of first-level characters with his breath weapon. The party is means to convince the dragon that raiding a village isn't worth his time rather than directly fight him. Cyanwrath is expected to be fought solo and can dish out enough damage to demolish all but the toughest first-level characters in one round. Both of them can be encountered again later in the campaign, at points when the players will be stronger and have a much higher chance of beating them.

* ObviousBeta: The module was being developed alongside 5E, but due to the changes made to the edition as it was developed, much of the modules' balancing is quite poor as the creators were going off of what they had at the time. This has given both ''Hoard of the Dragon Queen'' and ''Rise of Tiamat'' a reputation among the playerbase of ''D&D'' as NintendoHard. The first chapter in particular is cited as an EarlyGameHell, as the enemies are too strong for many level 1 characters, and many elements of the modules suffer from being designed counterintuitively to how the edition came out being. Modules after these two became much better balanced by comparison.

* WrongAssumption: After the party rescues Leosin Erlanthar, he says that he doesn't think the party needs to head back to the Cult's camp right away. Leosin is wrong about this; his presence and his educated guess that the Cult was going to hit Greenest next spooked the Wearers of Purple enough that they put their plan into motion early. By the time the party gets back to the camp, it's almost entirely empty.

* AcidAttack: Rezmir has the acid breath her black dragon ancestry, and she can also hurl magical "caustic bolts" at her enemies.

* AttackAnimal: The Cult makes heavy use of trained guard drakes and ambush drakes.

* CoupDeGrace: If Langdedrosa Cyanwrath wins the duel in the first episode of ''Hoard of the Dragon Queen'' (and he [[EarlyGameHell probably will]]), he will administer a final blow to his unconscious opponent. This will kill an NPC outright and inflict a death save failure to a player character.

* TheGhost: The Cult's blue wyrmspeaker, Galvan, is mentioned a few times but never actually appears in either module. He does not even have a stat block or a proper description.

* PurpleIsPowerful: The highest-ranking members of the Cult of the Dragon are the Wearers of Purple. They are often skilled warriors or powerful spellcasters.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To the classic ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'' series of modules, to the point adapting it to that setting has been very popular among the fans.

* AcidAttack: Rezmir has the acidic breath you'd expect from a half-black dragon, and she can also hurl magical "caustic bolts" at her enemies.

* AssassinOutclassin: By ''The Rise of Tiamat'', the Cult knows that the players represent the biggest threat to their plans. They will send specially prepared hit squads to take the party out, often striking in places where the players would normally feel safe or at times when they aren’t at their full strength. The player characters will need to fight for their lives if they want the campaign to continue.

* DragonHoard: The ritual to summon Tiamat requires the Cult to gather a hoard worthy of the Dragon Queen. To that end they have been raiding towns and communities throughout the Sword Coast, funneling the stolen plunder to the Cult's headquarters at the Well of Dragons. ''Hoard of the Dragon Queen'' has the players follow a large chunk of the plunder as it makes its way north, and will likely end with them doing something to keep that chunk out of the Cult's hands.

* EvilVersusOblivion: By ''The Rise of Tiamat'', the Zhentarim and the Red Wizards of Thay are both willing to join the other major factions of the Sword Coast in opposing the Cult of the Dragon. Both groups are unquestionably evil, but the Zhentarim want to rule the world and Szass Tam wants to keep ruling Thay. Neither group gets what they want if the Cult summons OmnicidalManiac Tiamat and she destroys human civilization, so they're willing to work with the heroes to prevent her return.

* FinalBoss: If the players fail to stop the summoning ritual, ''Tiamat herself'' will show up to deal with them. She is generally considered the strongest monster in the entire game, with a monstrous challenge rating ''30'', the same as [[TheJuggernaut the Tarrasque]], but with the additional benefit of being extremely intelligent, capable of advanced planning and manipulation, and having the benefits of all five chromatic dragon types.

* BroughtDownToBadass: If the ritual to summon Tiamat isn't stopped outright, Tiamat will show up as the FinalBoss. However, there are several things that the heroes can do to at least partially disrupt the summoning enough to weaken her, such as freeing the sacrifices or preventing her DragonHoard from reaching TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon. Each of these things reduces Tiamat's maximum health by 75 points each, and imposes other restrictions on her (like losing her immunity to most spells and reducing her Armor Class and attack power). Even with all of the restrictions in place, Tiamat is still far from an easy opponent, with hundreds of hit points and multiple powerful attacks. It just the penalties on Tiamat make the battle one the heroes can probably win as opposed to an outright slaughter.

* FinalBoss: If the players fail to stop the summoning ritual, [[spoiler:''Tiamat herself'' will show up to deal with them. She is generally considered the strongest monster in the entire game, with a monstrous challenge rating ''30'', the same as [[TheJuggernaut the Tarrasque]], but with the additional benefit of being extremely intelligent, capable of advanced planning and manipulation, and having the benefits of all five chromatic dragon types]].

The story begins with the adventurers arriving in the town of Greenest, only to find it under attack by an army of raiders accompanied by a blue dragon. After doing their part to fend the raiders off, the adventurers are then tasked with tracking down the raiders' camp to retrieve the townsfolk's stolen valuables and rescue some hostages. From there, they become embroiled in a struggle against the Cult of the Dragon, which is conducting these raids as part of a greater plan to summon the dragon goddess Tiamat into the Material Plane.

* EarlyGameHell: The first chapter of ''Hoard of the Dragon Queen'' can be rough. The players are all 1st level, they have few hit points, and they’re expected to deal with encounters that pit them against large groups of enemies who, while frail, can inflict a high amount of damage for that point in the game. Then there are the encounters with Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Lennithon. The former is a half-dragon fighter with 57 hit points, and his attacks (of which he can make two per turn, or four if he action surges) inflict enough damage to cripple or kill a 1st level character in one hit. The latter is an adult blue dragon who attacks exclusively with his breath weapon: most 1st level characters wouldn't survive that even if he rolled nothing but 1s and the character made their saving throw to halve the damage. The players aren't expected to win against either of them at this point, but even so they can still bring the campaign to a premature end.

* EnemyMine: Several of the allies you get for the finale of ''Rise of Tiamat'' include Giants, Metallic Dragons, Devils, and naturally the various mortal races and their factions, many of whom hate each other. Despite how much they hate each other, all of them agree that letting Tiamat be summoned is a ''bad idea'', and so join forces with the players to stop her.

* FinalBoss: If the players fail to stop the summoning ritual, [[spoiler:''Tiamat herself'' will show up to deal with them]]. She is generally considered the strongest monster in the entire game, with a monstrous challenge rating ''30'', the same as [[TheJuggernaut the Tarrasque]], but with the additional benefit of being extremely intelligent, capable of advanced planning and manipulation, and having the benefits of [[spoiler:all five chromatic dragon types]].

* TheMarvelousDeer: In ''Hoard'', the player characters might encounter a gold-furred stag while traveling from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep. The book offers three possibilities as to the stag's nature: a majestic but completely normal animal that the local farmers view as a bringer of good fortune; a mysterious fey entity that offers the characters cryptic advice and a +1 longbow before vanishing into thin air; and an ancient, cursed elf prince who turns into a stag whenever he leaves the ruins of his castle.

* NotWorthKilling: Lennithon, the blue dragon that attacks Greenest, can be convinced to leave the town and stop causing any more chaos by convincing him that the assault on the town isn't worth his time. If the players don't do this, Lennithon will eventually leave anyway because [[NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction fighting a bunch of peasants that just die to him over and over had gotten really old]].
* ObviousBeta: The module is well known for being this. It was being developed alongside 5E, but due to the changes made to the edition as it was developed, many of the modules balancing is quite poor as the creators were going off of what they had at the time. This can be seen in the first chapter, as the enemies encountered for level one characters are too strong for many characters, and many elements of the modules suffer from being designed counter intuitively to how the edition came out being. Modules after became much better balanced by comparison.

* PhysicalGod: The players will have to face Tiamat in physical form if they can't prevent Severin's summoning ritual. May the gods help them if she comes through the portal at full power, because she is one of the nastiest critters in all of 5th edition: a CR 30 monster with slightly less health than the Tarrasque, more uses of [[NoSell legendary resistance]], complete immunity to all spells of 6th level or lower, and the ability to inflict over 400 points of damage ''every round'' between her multiattack and legendary actions.

** A paranoid cultist stationed at Xonthal's Tower wants to defect and is offering the blue dragon mask in exchange for asylum. [[spoiler:The other cultists discover his treachery shortly before the party arrives; by the time the players get past all the tower's defenses and reach the defector, he will be dead. And the mask he died for, and which the party went through so much trouble to obtain? It's a fake.]]

* SquishyWizard: By the standards of cloud giants, Blagothkus is one. He has 138 hit points compared to the typical cloud giant's 200, lower Strength and Constitution scores, weaker saving throws, and less accurate melee attacks. In exchange, he has an arsenal of wizard spells that can inflict high amounts of damage. Mind you, he's still a ''giant'' with superhuman levels of strength and durability, so his squishiness is relative.

* ShaggyDogStory: Two episodes of ''The Rise of Tiamat'' turn out to be big wastes of time, either for the players or for the Cult itself.

* TheMarvelousDeer: In ''Hoard'', the player characters might encounter a gold-furred stag while traveling from Bladur's Gate to Waterdeep. The book offers three possibilities as to the stag's nature: a majestic but completely normal animal that the local farmers view as a bringer of good fortune; a mysterious fey entity that offers the characters cryptic advice and a +1 longbow before vanishing into thin air; and an ancient, cursed elf prince who turns into a stag whenever he leaves the ruins of his castle.

* NobleDemon: In the first episode of ''Hoard'', Langdedrosa Cyanwrath will offer to release some of the Cult's prisoners—specifically, a woman and her three children—if someone agrees to face him in single combat. If one of the players (or an NPC) takes him up on that offer, Cyanwrath keep his word no matter who wins.

* EvilVersusOblivion: By ''The Rise of Tiamat'', the Zhentarim and the Red Wizards of Thay are both willing to join the other major factions of the Sword Coast in opposing the Cult of the Dragon. Both groups are unquestionably evil, but the Zhentarim want to rule the world and Szass Tam wants to keep ruling Thay: neither group gets what they want if the Cult summons Tiamat and she destroys human civilization.

** Several members of the council of metallic dragons have a beef with some of the humanoid races. Protanther the gold dragon despises elves because they created the ''Dracorage mythal'', which drives dragons homicidally insane. Otaaryliakarnos the silver dragon resents dwarves because they killed her niece in one of their dragonmoots. The book outright says that any race the dragon's have issues with will cause them to be less likely help, and essentially demand an official apology from the player character's race for a past misdeed to get their aid.
* FightingAShadow: [[spoiler:Destroying Tiamat's physical form doesn't actually kill her: it just banishes her back to the Nine Hells.]]
* FinalBoss: If the players fail to stop the summoning ritual, [[spoiler:''Tiamat herself'' will show up to deal with them.]] She is generally considered the strongest monster in the entire game, with a monstrous challenge rating ''30'', the same as [[TheJuggernaut the Tarrasque]], but with the additional benefit of being extremely intelligent, capable of advanced planning and manipulation, and having the benefits of [[spoiler:all five chromatic dragon types]].

* HopelessBossFight: The encounters with Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Lennithon in the first episode of Hoard are, as written, almost impossible to win. Lennithon can fly, has hundreds of hit points, and can easily one-shot an entire party of 1st-level characters with his breath weapon, while Langdedrosa is expected to be fought solo and can dish out enough damage to demolish all but the toughest 1st-level characters in one round. Both of them can be encountered again later in the campaign, at points when the players will be stronger and have a much higher chance of beating them.
* HumanSacrifice: The ritual to summon Tiamat requires the sacrifice of hundreds if not thousands of lives. The Cult's raids are as much about capturing prisoners for this eventual mass sacrifice as about gathering treasure for the Dragon Queen's hoard.

* MundaneUtility: The Cult is using a summoned air elemental to blow the ''draakhorn'' 24/7.

* NobleDemon: In the first episode of ''Hoard'', Langdedrosa Cyanwrath will offer to release some of the Cult's prisoners—specifically, a woman and her three children—if someone agrees to face him in single combat. If one of the players (or an NPC) takes him up on that offer, he'll keep his word no matter who wins.

** [[spoiler:The wyrmspeaker Varram has lost the white dragon mask, so he travels to the Tomb of Diderius to consult the divination pool there in the hopes of finding the mask. He gets captured by the yuan-ti that have taken over the tomb and will likely end up dead or a prisoner of the players, but before that happened he managed to look at the pool… which showed him that the mask had already been found and reclaimed by other members of the Cult.]]
** [[spoiler:A paranoid cultist stationed at Xonthal's Tower wants to defect and is offering the blue dragon mask in exchange for asylum. The other cultists discover his treachery shortly before the party arrives; by the time the players get past all the tower's defenses and reach the defector, he will be dead. And the mask he died for, and which the party went through so much trouble to obtain? It's a well-made fake.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rise_of_tiamat_tvtropes.jpg]]

* HauntedCastle: The top floor of Castle Naerytar's northwest tower is haunted by half a dozen specters. They're content to stay in their room and ignore everything else going on in the castle, but if something intrudes upon their privacy, the enraged specters will emerge and attack everyone in sight.

* HedgeMaze: Xonthal’s Tower is surrounded by a magical hedge maze that distorts space. Navigating it is the only way to get into the tower, as it has no physical entrance. If the players don't figure out the trick to navigating the maze, they'll be wandering its trapped and monster-infested paths for quite a while.

* PoisonousPerson: The green wyrmspeaker Neronvain can create clouds of poisonous gas twice a day, and his physical and magical attacks all inflict poison damage. He is also immune to poison.