Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

A common theme among the reviews is that, though a fun adventure, this is not for novice DMs. I agree with the assessment--This adventure has some wonderful, exotic elements--Xonthal's Tower, an encounter with the Red Wizards of Thay, etc.-- but it's also very burdensome for the DM. So, after having run it myself, I'd like to offer some suggestions on how to tame this beast. First, acquire a cheat-sheet for the Council members--one page that briefly summarizes all the council members--and distribute it to your players. I created my own, but I've since discovered that multiple DMs have shared their own council cheat-sheets online, and some of them are quite good. There's no way your pcs will be able to effectively role-play the council sessions without such an aide. Second, the encounter at Neronvain's stronghlod might require you (the DM) to run an ungodly amount of "monsters" in the battle, making over 20 attack rolls/round. Here, I would suggest that you assign each of your players a set of monsters to run. That way, they remain engaged since they're doing most of the dice-rolling, and you can focus on running the head hanchos, which will be burden enough. I would also recommend that you make many of the monsters in this encounter "minions," where one or two successful attack rolls will take them out. That way, you don't have to keep track of hit points for the minor combatants. Third, dramatically simplify the mechanics in the Red Wizard encounter. Do what works best for you, but keep it simple. There's a wonderful opportunity here for captivating role-playing that might be spoiled by burdensome mechanics. Fourth, despite all the emphasis on getting the council members to cooperate, their cooperation doesn't play much of a role in the finale, at least as the adventure is written. I would recommend that the full cooperation of council members does have a role in weakening Tiamat (see p. 88). In my game, the metallic dragons were able to hinder the Dragon Cult ritual by interfering with the human(oid) sacrifices, and other forces of the council were able to damage Tiamat's temple. These interruptions conferred the first two penalties on Tiamat found on p. 88. The pcs were then able to confer two more penalties on Tiamat before her arrival in the material plane. One final suggestion--The Tiamat mini is expensive, roughly $65, but it's really cool, and it adds a lot to the final encounter. In my group, we all split the cost and then threw dice for it at the end of the adventure. (The individual who won the mini, however, kindly gave it to me in gratitude for having run the adventure.) In any event, I'd recommend that you suggest the price-sharing/dice throwing strategy to your gamers. They'll probably accept the proposal with enthusiasm. Good luck, and have fun!