Dungeons & Dragons Tyranny of Dragons (D&D Adventure Book Combines Hoard of The Dragon Queen + The Rise of Tiamat)

I was super excited to get this book, and even more excited to hear that the adventures had been adjusted and rebalanced to help newer DMs. The cover is incredible and really speaks to the stakes of the adventure. I love the addition of concept art and locations in the back of the books, but I believe some or all of it appeared in the older reprint of the adventures. As for he balanced/updated adventures... I can't really tell a difference. I mainly bought this book as Rise of Tiamat has been out of print for quite a while. I would have to pull out the original Hoard of the Dragon queen and closely examine each book to notice differences. I can say that from what I've read, most of the text is word for word from the previous adventures. I didn't dig deeply into the encounters, but they look very similar as well.So... the big takeaway. If you are an experienced DM and lucky enough to have these books on their own already, I would not recommend picking this up. You aren't getting enough new content to justify a purchase. HOWEVER... if you are a new DM (or one of us who weren't so lucky as to pick these books up sooner), THIS IS A MUST HAVE. The art looks incredible. The pages have been changed from the thicker, heavier pages of the original modules to match the quality of recent material. There are additions meant to direct newer Dungeon Masters and prepare them for running a pre-written module, similar to the adventures in the starter kit.These adventures were the first published material for 5th addition, and with this updating (and a little elbow grease from a hard-working DM), this could be an unforgettable campaign for your party.

Excellent D&D book. My son loved it as a Christmas present. He loves running D&D campaigns and was thrilled to get this one. Highly Recommend for any D&D Enthusiast.

This book arrived in perfect condition. A++

My son and I love this story line for D&D. It has wonderful art and I priced great for D&D. It has great stories with a great pace.

So before I get started, I am not going to be talking about anything other than the product here. There are a lot of factors when buying a product from a company, I leave it up to you to make your determination on whether WotC or Hasbro deserve your business in general/on principle. My score is going to be completely based on what you are getting if you decide to buy Tyranny of Dragons.So what is this product? It is a reprinting of two separate adventure books (Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat) that were ultimately part of an overarching campaign. (You could run either independent of the other, but they were the same story line.) In addition to having all the original content from these two works, you have a section giving an overview of the whole campaign, the various factions and their goals, and a few optional content ideas that you might work into your campaign. Additionally, you get an appendix filled with several artist concept art/inspired by art from the campaign. (This is nice but does not strictly impact the game play in any necessary way.)So the good:It is good to see both of these campaigns republished. Further it is good to finally have them together in one book so that a GM doesn't have to be swapping between two books for references. The overview does a decent job of preparing you for being able to run the whole thing from the get go, knowing what some of the events and players that pop up in the Horde section mean for the Rise section.The binding and print is solid, very few (if any) errors. Some of the maps could have used bigger printouts, but they were sticking to reprinting as was originally published to a degree.The campaign does its best to not be too railroady. There are some segments that will happen. There are some events that cannot be changed. But there are others that the player can have some meaningful impacts on the mandatory events. That said....The cons: The transition between the two campaigns was, is, and (without your interference) always will be janky at best. Without going too heavily into spoilers, the scene of your final showdown in Hoard has a chance of being destroyed or being made useful, with a lot more of the paths leading to destruction to be entirely fair. But then Rise starts off entirely elsewhere, and there are very little references to the location again (seemingly it only becomes an afterthought in the second AP's climax... oh yeah, if this place still exists, it might be useful). This transition is not made any smoother in this publication, despite having the opportunity to do so. It is similar with other plot hooks from the first half of the overarching campaign. And I get it, there originally was no way to know if the DM picking up Rise had the chance to run Hoard previously. But come on, they are both in this book now... act like it.And on the topic, while the appendix with all the art was nice, it would probably have been of more use to have all the campaign maps accumulated toward the back in an appendix. They did this with items and major monsters/campaign specific goons, it would not have been that much harder to do in my opinion.So, aside from these missed opportunities to make the campaigns feel more cohesive, the product is overall a good one. A solid 4/5.

Great buy! We are so excited to start this new campaign. Book came in perfect condition.

Great adventure and marvelous world-building! Includes both metallic and Chromatic dragons - and TIAMAT!

A great supplement for my Dungeons and Dragons 5e resources. Written well, a great addition to any TTRPG gaming library. Would suggest for and DM looking to add to their palette of options for game night.