This article contains major spoilers for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is the sort of adventure designed with replayability in mind. Its low-level range and short playtime (only about 10 sessions or so), coupled with its multiplicity of potential villains makes it rife for second, third, even fourth playthroughs. This is great for Dungeon Masters who have several different groups that they want to run this adventure for, because it allows them to run it over and over again without getting bored. But it’s also a boon to groups who finish the adventure and, several months or years later, want to play it again! Maybe it’s the same DM running the game for a similar group of players, or maybe one of your group’s players wants to try DMing for the first time with a familiar adventure.
Dragon Heist’s four villains definitely gives the book a certain amount of replay value, but this is concentrated primarily in Chapter 4: Dragon Season, the chapter in which the characters chase down the Stone of Golorr, and Chapters 5 through 8, the villains’ lairs. This leaves Chapters 1 through 3 largely the same, which makes for a very slow start.
A veteran Dungeon Master can hand-craft enough new material from scratch to make repeat playthroughs feel fresh, but DMs without a lot of free time, DMs who haven’t run a game before, or DMs who don’t have a lot of confidence in their own skills could all use a starting point. Here are some suggestions for how to modify the opening chapters of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist to give your group an instantly engaging new adventure.
Remixing Chapter 1: A Friend in Need
Chapter 1 is easily the most important part of this adventure to alter when starting a new Dragon Heist campaign. Obviously, this chapter is the first part of the story your players will experience, so it needs to hook them. Its content needs to shout in their faces: “This is a brand-new story!”
The introductory chapter of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist puts a lot of emphasis on the gang war between the Xanathar Guild and the Zhentarim—with a special focus on the Xanathar Guild. This works great if Xanathar is your game’s primary villain, and it still works fine if Manshoon is your villain, but it’s a bit weak otherwise. You could change the Xanathar henchmen to Asmodeus cultists and the Zhentarim goons to Bregan D’aerthe pirates to mix things up a little, but I highly recommend creating an all-new scenario to make it clear that this is a new adventure with new villains.
Your new introductory scenario should take place in a specific location or locations, based on which villain or villains you’re setting up as the main antagonists. This sets up this location as important to the story at large, and makes it clear that the characters are on the right path when they return there later in the adventure.
- Cassalanters. The Cassalanters’ cult of Asmodeus should have a base of operations in or near the Sea Ward, but with no obvious ties to any one noble villa—especially not Cassalanter Villa! This makes it clear that this cult is one of means, while preserving the mystery of who’s pulling the strings.
- Jarlaxle. The Bregan D’aerthe should have a hidden base of operations somewhere in the Dock Ward, perhaps in a dive bar like the one in the original chapter 1. The drow involved take great care to maintain their human disguises, but should probably lose them by the end of the adventure so that the characters know dark elves are involved. This scenario should never let on that the Sea Maiden’s Faire is involved, only that seafaring drow are causing trouble.
- Manshoon. Manshoon's base of operations is in Kolat Towers within the Trades Ward. This vast market district is also a great place for underhanded Zhentarim activity. Since the Kolat Towers are impregnable without specific magic, you can integrate them as an ominous landmark that will stick in the players’ minds in the otherwise unremarkable Trades Ward.
- Xanathar. The original chapter 1 wisely sets the confrontation with the Xanathar Guild in a minor hideout in the Waterdeep sewers. I would recommend keeping the sewer locale if you intend to create a new Xanathar-focused start for this adventure.
Remixing Chapter 2: Trollskull Alley
Fortunately, it doesn’t take too much to make this chapter feel new. I personally love the NPCs in this chapter enough to keep them the same, and have the player characters create different relationships with them. Likewise, the myriad faction missions in this chapter allow you to completely change up the sidequests you offer your party as they settle in. Just make sure that your characters don’t overlap with their old factions too much—but even if they do, you can just pilfer missions from other factions and change a few details around to make them fit a different faction.
Remixing Chapter 3: Fireball
This is easily the most difficult chapter to take apart and put back together again, for the simple fact that mysteries are hard to write for D&D, and even harder to run. One simple way is to keep all the main events in place, but replace all the major characters with different ones. Dalakhar and the plot with Lord Neverember can remain the same, but swap out the meeting with Zardoz Zord for a meeting with Manshoon, the Xanathar, or the Cassalanters. Swap out the Gralhunds for another group of nobles; it could be exciting to stealthily make you way through the villa of a group of Harper-aligned nobles like Lady Remalia Haventree, in search of a nimblewright that has taken stock in the old halfling adage “the closer we are from danger, the farther we are from harm.”
If you want to completely rewrite this chapter from scratch, you’ll want to go back to storytelling 101. Since mysteries are hard to pull off well in D&D, you want to give your players a very clear structure for their minds to latch onto. Think of a three-act structure; the fireball and the initial sleuthing is the first act, the search for the perp is act two, and then cornering the perp is act three.
Zooming in to the finer details, your best bet is to completely change the main players of this mystery. Get rid of the forced meeting with Zardoz Zord, eliminate the Gralhunds and the nimblewrights, and even consider getting rid of Dalakhar and replacing him with a more beloved NPC. If the characters are part of the Lords’ Alliance, maybe Jalester Silvermane wanted to give them the Stone of Golorr, but his enemies caught up with him just as he was turning the corner into Trollskull Alley. If you cut the Gralhund Villa invasion, you could modify one part of the Stone of Golorr hunt from Chapter 4 to suit your needs.
Speaking of which, your needs for this chapter will be completely different from everyone else’s. Think of your players. If they like mystery, give them mystery. If they like straightforward action, make sure the clues are straightforward; maybe even have Barnibus Blastwind and Saeth Cromley take charge of the investigation and have them hire the characters as “off the books” muscle.
Remixing the Vault of Dragons
Fortunately, Chapter 4: Dragon Season and the villain lairs in Chapters 5 through 8 were all designed with replayability in mind, so they don’t require any legwork on your part. The Vault of Dragons, however, could use some punching up. The easiest way of doing this is to swap the vault out for another one-shot dungeon from the DMs Guild or from a third-party publisher like Kobold Press.
If you really want to get your hands dirty and make a brand new dungeon, you need to understand the purpose of the Vault of Dragons. It’s a very short and linear dungeon purposefully designed to build hype for the upcoming climax at the depths of the vault. Its difficulty is really rather low, so as not to kill the characters prematurely and give them a wilted anticlimax. With this in mind, a simple Five-Room Dungeon should do the trick.
See this Advice in Action!
My friend Will Doyle and my fellow Dragon Heist co-author James Introcaso recently collaborated on Dragon Heist: Forgotten Tales, a book with the express purpose of making it more fun to replay this adventure. If you found the advice in this article helpful, but want to see these ideas put into practice, complete with maps, art, and professional-level writing, you should check out Forgotten Tales on the DMs Guild! It includes:
- A new Chapter 1 that focuses on the competing goals of the Bregan D’aerthe and the Cult of Asmodeus, instead of the gang war between the Zhentarim and the Xanathar Guild.
- A guide to remixing Chapter 3 and providing a new villain behind the fireball attack in Trollskull Alley. Rather than the Zhentarim-backed Gralhund family, this chapter focuses on a Bregan D’aerthe deserter.
- A completely new Vault of Dragons dungeon filled with puzzles and traps that will surprise even seasoned Dragon Heist
- A bank heist that replaces the Vault of Dragon entirely, allowing Dragon Heist to truly end with an Oceans 11-style bank heist!
What would you do to remix Waterdeep: Dragon Heist to make it even more replayable? Sound off in the comments!
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their prophetic kittens Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
I'm so glad that this exists. As a DM for this module, I did research for all of the villains before eventually deciding to go with the Casslanters instead of Jarlaxle. BUT it allows one of the players from the game to DM and read these articles as well as the Dragon Heist Forgotten Tales to allow me, the DM who ran the module, to be a player in the same module, but still be surprised at the events and not know what's going to happen, as well as players of a 2nd playthough. Good stuff!
Running it as we speak. Loving it so far, although I went a little strong near the start and the kenku actually decimated the party due to a surprise round (learned the hard way surprise rounds for villains should he reserved for player lv 3+). When I finish the campaign, we'll do dungeon of the mad mage. It'll be interesting to see if the players love the module enough to do it again.
I'm hoping to run it over and over as a Waterdeep maxi-campaign, with the same characters. You start in the Summer with the Cassalanters. However that ends up, the Zhent/Xanathar War is still going on, but now the fight has taken on a life of its own. The search for the gold isn't a driving force anymore, it's just a cycle of revenge killings.
Early in the Autumn, Aurinax shows up at Trollskull Manor and wants to hire the characters. The Xanathar Guild has stolen the Dragonstaff. They go back to the Xanathar hideout that they knew about. It has been reinforced for 5-6th level characters and they end up fighting the new boss: Nar'l Xibrindas and his grell minder. He's been trying to play Xanathar and Bregan D'Earthe against each other, since he's aware that Jarlaxle wants the Dragonstaff. This excursion takes the place of the Gralhund Villa scene and Nar'l points the party to Fenerus. This starts the Dragon Season chase (the Jarlaxle-in-disguise bit stays in - Jarlaxle suspected Nar'l and has been watching). Just replace the Stone of Golorr with the Dragonstaff. After Mistshore, go straight to Jarlaxle's flotilla, which the characters must infiltrate to steal the staff.
Next, you do Manshoon. The characters are 7-8th level now, and better able to take on the Doom Raiders, if not Manshoon himself. Vincent Trench, P.I. shows up on their doorstep, dying with a dagger of curious design in his back. Before he can be healed, he thrusts a scrap of paper into someone's hand and melts away, back to hell. His final words: “Find Thrakkus.” The paper is a piece of the ledger found in E13. A blood trail leads back to Trench's office, which is being searched by Ziraj the Hunter. The Zhentarim was already reeling from the war with the Xanathar and the crackdown following the Gralhund Villa Massacre. Then Trench stole the ledger and they now they have to get it back or lose everything. The chase ends when they find the teleport circle into Kolat Towers. There are a half-dozen ways this could end.
Then finally, by this point, the roughly 9th level characters are a known commodity in Waterdeep and Silverhand just asks them to finish the job by taking on the Xanathar. Either the chase can be about the location to the entrance to Xanathar’s lair, or maybe the location of a new lair if they already know about that one (maybe he took over the Vault of Dragons and they need to find new spell keys).
There are a few cosmetic changes here and there that need to be made, but I think it can work and hopefully greater familiarity will help build a richer cast of NPCs and everything. We’ll see how it goes.
Thanks!
I would really focus on the city. Add a few extra optional storylines that the players may get into if the want, or if they encounter them. Let them explore the city, generate a bunch of random NPCs they can talk to. Maybe some old woman hears about the whole Floon business, and contacts the players for help finding someone missing (her son, if you are fond of cliches). Or maybe someone tries to frame the players, and the rakshasa Private eye down the street follows that false lead, and now needs help. Maybe a shady cult of demons are planning to assassinate the Cassalanters for hitherto unknown reasons (to the players), or some other group is plotting to assassinate Laeral Silvarhand or Vajra Safahr.
I am currently running Dragon Heist with all four factions active and looking for the Stone of Golorr. It's a pretty tangled web, but it's the sort of adventure my players are really excited about. Here's how I'm doing it:
Xanathar is the 'main villain' as outlined in the book.
The Cassalanters are both pursuing the stone and finding another source of gold: they've installed themselves as patrons of the temple of Tymora (there's a cleric of Tymora in the party) with the help of some of Bonnie's disreputable doppelgängers, and are bleeding the temple dry. I decided that this would take place in the summer, so the Founders' Day plot will happen, using gold taken from the temple over the years since Osvaldo was transformed.
Jarlaxle is the trickiest. The party's bard has had some Sea Maiden's Faire-adjacent gigs, and after witnessing the letter drop to Laeral she has brought him onside to discover Jarlaxle's true intentions. The Jarlaxle plot will continue into post-Dragon Heist homebrew.
Manshoon's plot is tied in to the stories of three PCs, a rogue, a paladin, and a warlock. The warlock's patron is the aboleth Golorr, who I've built some backstory for. The warlock finds himself working for the Doom Raiders and hunting down their rivals. The rogue is seeking a a personal artifact that can be traced to the Zhents. The paladin has ancestral allegiance to the Margaster family, and I have replaced Lady Gondafrey with a Margaster son, lost a decade ago.
It's a lot of balls too keep in the air, but it suits me and my players, and I'm always pleasantly surprised by the synergies between the different threads.
This can work amazingly well if you end up throwing the Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Since it is a humongous dungeon, it can hold some after-effects or hide runaways from your previous events.
Bringing Dungeon of the Mad Mage into it also opens the avenue that the alternate seasons for Dragon Heist happen in Alterdeep.
I like this.
Honestly, you know what would be really helpful; a collection of quests players can do around Waterdeep in Chapter 2 to help them raise money to renovate Trollskull Manor. I've been writing up as many as I can but my players want to get a lot of gold for this project so I need lots of quests that take up maybe half a session to one session. Haven't found much on DM's Guild, though it has been a minute since I last looked. If anyone knows any good resources for this though, let me know! I did have them do the Blue Alley dungeon which they all really enjoyed and I'm thinking Goblin Dungeon next week but I was hoping for more investigation based quests they could do around the city that maybe tie into the overall plot.
This isn't exactly it, but have you checked out Waterdeep: City Encounters? Another good Guild Adepts book that my coauthor James Introcaso worked on.
My party ended up with a noble patron. Basically, he fronted the money for the renovation in exchange for 35% of the profits until the loan was paid off (If there was no profit that week, the party had to pay 10 gold to the patron.), and then 10% of the profits thereafter. My party ended up offering him three times the amount he fronted to buy him out finally...
I've been working on a fun Ravnica remix. I converted the 5 allied factions and 4 villains to their respective guilds, for example changing emerald conclave to selesina, changed the location. The plan is to run thru one villain and then using the unique maps and monsters in the guild masters guide, and the unused side events to boost the campaign size to level 20.
You are a flame of knowledge in the darkness of stupidity
My solution for this was to have Broxley offer the players a loan with monthly payments and interest so they could jump on it right away. This gives them breathing room to join a faction and earn gold while pursuing personal interests that I tie in while we wait for the main plot to kick in during chapter 3.