Adventurer's League Season 1, Part 6

ll right Game Fans, we’re back with another look at the first season of Dungeons and Dragons organized play, The Tyranny of Dragons.  We are looking at this from the perspective of participating in the Adventurer’s League organized play campaign, so we’ll focus on it from that and go from there.    Today we’re going to check out DDEX 1-10 Tyranny in Phlan, and DDEX 1-11 Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer’s Isle

Now we have a teeny bit of an issue  with these two adventures.  If you’ve been playing Adventurer’s League faithfully, and have completed the prior nine adventurers in order, you should have somewhere between 3250 and 4100 experience points.  Unfortunately, you need to have at least 6,500 experience points to achieve level 5 and be able to participate in these two adventures.  
You have three main options to handle this.  First, you can use the catching up rules from the player’s guide.  This will cost you twenty of your stored up Downtime Days and puts you at the starting point of level 5.  Another option involves picking up home play sessions and Encounters activities to pad your experience totals.  The last option would be to run sessions yourself, and apply the DM rewards to the character you plan on playing.  

Whichever way you choose to resolve this, you’re going to need to do some work to be ready to play this adventure.  

DDEX 1-10 Tyranny in Phlan

Tyranny in Phlan is the tenth adventure in the Tyranny of Dragons season for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition.  Things are about to go from bad to worse in the city of Phlan. The Maimed Virulence has come and Phlan will suffer.  Can our brave adventurers save the city in time?

This adventure is written for characters between levels 5 and 10, (and if you’ve read the other articles in this series) Adventurer’s League puts this as a hard cap (so you’ll have to find something else for your lower level hero to do).  Adventurer’s League is for a group of three to seven players, with five being the optimal number.  Remember, now that the player characters are 5th level, they’re going to have to keep track of their own means of raising dead party members.

Now that we’ve got the number crunching out of the way, let’s talk about the story you’re looking at. Phlan is about to suffer in ways that have never been imagined.  The Maimed Virulence, an ancient green dragon, has come to Phlan and the adventurers have to race against time to save important people before the city ends up ruined beyond hope.

This adventure has a lot of moving parts, so make sure you read it more than once if you’re running it.  It starts off in the Laughing Goblin Inn with some social interactions involving some old faces.  Rumors of corruption within the Black Fists have prompted one of their number to launch an investigation into the circumstances of one of their upcoming cases.  She’s offering a reward if you can dig into the mystery for her, so there’s that.  

Part 1:  The Coming of the Maimed Virulence

Shit’s about to get real.  What starts the day off as another investigation mystery gets dropped on its head repeatedly as The Maimed Virulence (and his minions) arrives.  The Laughing Goblin is besieged by bad guys, and adventurers will have to hurry to save innocent townsfolk.  Here’s hoping they’re ready.

This part of the adventure does an excellent job of setting the tone for the rest of the day.  Everything’s going to pot in a very short amount of time, and Heroes are going to have make decisions to save as many people as they can.  The prisoners they’ve allready rescued can give them some ideas on where to go next, but keep in mind as a DM that the rest of the adventure doesn’t follow a strict linear structure, and the players can technically skip around to the objectives they want to pursue.  There is a special mission available at the end of this part to Lord’s Alliance members that are at least rank 2.  I’m going to cover the rest of the adventures in sequential order, even though they do not necessarily follow that pattern.  

Part 2: Making Ready

The second portion of this adventure is a follow up to several different plot elements that the players discover in part 1.  There are several different directions that the players can go with this part of the adventure.  Each lead that they follow is going to give them a legup for the next section, but a particularly bull headed party could try to skip ahead, or take off after they’ve gotten their first clue.  If you think they can handle it, let them.  The next section of the adventure could be rough without details, but they aren’t essential to the story.  

Making Ready gives the players all the tools they need to prepare for the next parts of the story.  There are several different encounters that involve reconnecting with old NPCs they’ve met in the previous 9 adventures, and using those connections to move around the city, acquire supplies, and a variety of other options.  

Part 3: Unwanted Attention

This part of the adventure is actually a reaction to the players making moves.  On the way to either of their destinations into part 4 or 5, they attract the attention of the minions of the Maimed Virulence.  This is a pretty straightforward fight, but it introduces a new idea for most new players of D & D.  Monster Agency, or the idea that the monsters may not wait around for you to show up and kill them.  The look on the face of new players the first time the monsters actually come looking for them can be pretty priceless.  

This isn’t a traditionally long battle, but it should be a clue to the players that time is a limited resource for the first time in their experiences, and that they need to be careful when they’re moving about the streets of Phlan.  

Part 4:  The Stojanow Gate

This is technically an optional objective, but i can’t see most adventuring parties skipping out on it.  The last surviving loyalist Black Fists have decided that they must free the Lord Regent of Phlan from his own jails, but they need a little help from some well meaning adventurers.  This is a tricky combat encounter, and players who aren’t thinking critically and aren’t making good choices can be swiftly overwhelmed by the Tears of Virulence (the goon squad for the Green Dragon).  Though not the first jailbreak we’ve encountered this season, this one has a lot more riding on it.  Characters of the Harper Faction can pick up a special mission near the end of this part, so keep your eyes peeled and be ready.

Part 5:Flight from Phlan!

This part is a little less structured than the previous parts, because it depends a lot on what the players opted to do in part 2 and part 4.  Regardless of the direction the players take, they have a confrontation with one of the most serious combat encounters we’ve seen so far in the season.  Character survival is not guaranteed, and it’s possible that they lose the npcs they are trying to escape the city with.  The DM needs to be on his toes with all of the moving parts of these combat encounters and be ready to adjust on the fly.  

Aftermath:  So as a character in the adventurer’s league, you have three primary rewards you’re aiming for, and the occasional extra bit of stuff.  Let’s go over your Downtime Days, your Experience Points, Your Gold Pieces, and your renown.    If you’re not playing in an Adventurer’s League group, you don’t need to track these on your log sheet, but keep an eye on your numbers.

• Experience Points:  Experience points for this adventure will vary depending on the path you take through it.  The minimum amount of experience you’ll earn for this expedition is 3,000 experience points, while the maximum is 4,000 points.  If you’ve just hit 5th level from using any of the options we’ve mentioned above, this means that you should be sitting at somewhere between 9,500 and 10,500 experience points.  Since you need 14,000 to hit level 6, you’re around halfway there.  
• Gold Pieces:  This ones’ a little trickier, because GP is calculated based off of the number of players at a table.  There’s enough treasure available that you should certainly be able to pick up some extra supplies or replace ones that you expended during the adventure.  Keep an eye out for any handy magical items that may show up.  There are a few that can show up in this adventure, and one of them is a permanent magic item.  
• Downtime Days:  This one’s easy.  Everyone gets 10 downtime days for playing through this adventure.  If this is your tenth Tyranny of Dragons adventure, (and you’re playing them in order) you should have 105 downtime days.  If you’ve used the catching up option to reach level 5, you’ll have 85 days left
• Renown:  Everybody should earn a point of renown if you are a member of a faction.  Depending on your actions and your faction, you can also gain an additional point of renown.  The Harpers and the Lord’s Alliance both offer special missions in this adventure for characters belonging to that faction.  

So now that you’ve completed Tyranny in Phlan, check your character, level up if you need to, pick up additional gear and get ready for the next adventure.

DDEX1-11 Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer’s Isle

Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer’s Isle is the eleventh adventure in the Tyranny of Dragons season for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.  Dark Magic stirs in a place long abandoned.  Sinister eyes and ambitions now seek to own this magic for their own ends.  What will a party of adventurers do?

This adventure is written for characters between levels 5 and 10, (and if you’ve read the other articles in this series) Adventurer’s League puts this as a hard cap (so you’ll have to find something else for your lower level hero to do).  Adventurer’s League is for a group of three to seven players, with five being the optimal number.  Remember, now that the player characters are 5th level, they’re going to have to keep track of their own means of raising dead party members.

This adventure is one of the first to acknowledge that it may be a little too long to run as a single, continuous session, so after the first two parts, a break is optional, but suggested.  You can easily play out this adventure in two weeks without having to rush through things.

Part 1:  No Small Task

The city of Phlan is under siege by the forces of the Maimed Virulence, and it’s a situation that’s escalating quickly.  Resistance groups are forming to oppose the Tyranny of Dragons, and now a task emerges that requires a trip outside the city.  This portion of the adventure  gives the players a lot of background information on the adventure site and should get them ready for the next part.  

This a return to the style of previous adventures where the players end up getting the lowdown on the adventure site, gear up to travel to that site, and get underway.  Some interesting people to interact with, and some travel that needs to get accomplished.  The party again has two primary ways of reaching the site, each of which has some combat options along the route.  

Part 2: The Maze

As suggested by the title of this adventure, there is in fact a mysterious island with a pyramid on it.  Unfortunately, it has a magical maze surrounding it that players will have to navigate before they can discover the super awesome secrets inside of it.  This map is a non-linear teleportation puzzle that’s going to make life interesting for the players.  Remember, they are on a clock in order to make their return trip deadline, so they can’t spend too long exploring and sleeping.  Read through this part a couple of times so you understand how the interactions in locations are supposed to work and you can tailor the encounters to your party.

This is where you can break the adventure into two sessions, as the players finally finish getting through the maze and ready to enter the pyramid.  

Part 3: The Second Level

There are multiple entrances into this part of the adventure, and each one will help shape your party’s encounter with the things inside the pyramid.  Warring factions are fighting over the pyramid and its dark magic, and the players can use this to their advantage in a couple of places.  Remember, the different entrance choices impact the order monsters are encountered and the combats that will break out.  You’ll want to read this one a couple of different times to make sure you understand how these things interact.

Part 4:  To the Top!

After a stirring series of monster interactions with the folks on the second level, the adventurers have managed to get into the top of the pyramid.  There’s a brilliant set piece battle involving a magic portal, and a whole host of interesting things to encounter in the top.  Enjoy this section, you’ve earned some thrilling, bone rattling combat.  Once the players have solved the magical portal crisis, they’ve finished the adventure and are ready to return home to Phlan.

Aftermath:

So as a character in the adventurer’s league, you have three primary rewards you’re aiming for, and the occasional extra bit of stuff.  Let’s go over your Downtime Days, your Experience Points, Your Gold Pieces, and your renown.  If you’re not playing in an Adventurer’s League group, you don’t need to track these on your log sheet, but keep an eye on your numbers. (If you’re playing Adventurer’s League, you might be starting your third log sheet, if you don’t have one, ask the DM)

• Experience Points:  Experience points for this adventure will vary depending on the path you take through it.  The minimum amount of experience you’ll earn for this expedition is 6,000 experience points, while the maximum is 10,000 points.  If you’ve just hit 5th level from using any of the options we’ve mentioned above, this means that you should be sitting at somewhere between 12,500 and 16,500 experience points.  Since you need 14,000 to hit level 6, you could have just crossed that threshold to level 6, or you’re awfully close.  If you’re continuing from Tyranny in Phlan, those numbers are more like 15,000 and 20,500, which is well into sixth level but not quite at 7th level yet.
• Gold Pieces:  This one’s a little trickier, because GP is calculated based off of the number of players at a table.  There’s enough treasure available that you should certainly be able to pick up some extra supplies or replace ones that you expended during the adventure.  Keep an eye out for any handy magical items that may show up.
• Downtime Days:  This one’s easy.  Everyone gets 20 downtime days for playing through this adventure.  If this is your eleventh Tyranny of Dragons adventure, (and you’re playing them in order) you should have 125 downtime days.  If you used the catching up option to hit level 5, then you’re at 105 days.
• Renown:  Everybody should earn a point of renown, and if you completed a secret mission for a faction you may be a member of, you’ll get an additional point.

So now that you’ve completed Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer’s Isle, check your character, level up if you need to, pick up additional gear and get ready for the next adventure.

Those are two adventures for this week, check back next week for a look at DDEX1-12 Raiders of the Twilight Marsh, and DDEX 1-13 Pool of Radius Resurgent.

Game on, Game Fans.