Tyranny of Dragons: Drop a castle on it?

[Alejandro]

So, our group is about to attempt the very end of Tyranny of Dragons. We're supposed to get to and kill the Cult's archmage leader. We have amassed our army and resources, which includes the flying castle from Hoard of the Dragon Queen. It's currently floating just outside Waterdeep.

We had the idea of actually dropping the castle itself on the temple of Tiamat, for maximum enemy annihilation. The problem we have is, we'd have to fly the castle there first, with many hostile, enemy dragons in the way.

Any suggestions on ways we could magically transport the entire flying castle from one place to another? :D

[Mr Adventurer]

No - but Control Weather or similar might give it cover to get there itself.

[RulesJD]

So, our group is about to attempt the very end of Tyranny of Dragons. We're supposed to get to and kill the Cult's archmage leader. We have amassed our army and resources, which includes the flying castle from Hoard of the Dragon Queen. It's currently floating just outside Waterdeep.

We had the idea of actually dropping the castle itself on the temple of Tiamat, for maximum enemy annihilation. The problem we have is, we'd have to fly the castle there first, with many hostile, enemy dragons in the way.

Any suggestions on ways we could magically transport the entire flying castle from one place to another? :D

1. If you actually read the rules, you don't actually control the castle. The Cloud Giant does, and he wouldn't let it be used like that (for a variety of reasons your DM should know).

2. The book actually describes what the castle does during the big o'l fight.

Obviously you're DM is free to do whatever they want, but by the book, it already kind of has its purpose laid out.

[Alejandro]

1. If you actually read the rules, you don't actually control the castle. The Cloud Giant does, and he wouldn't let it be used like that (for a variety of reasons your DM should know).

2. The book actually describes what the castle does during the big o'l fight.

Obviously you're DM is free to do whatever they want, but by the book, it already kind of has its purpose laid out.

Our GM threw out a lot of HotDQ after it became apparent it wasn't actually written or balanced very well, and did many things differently since.

[RulesJD]

Our GM threw out a lot of HotDQ after it became apparent it wasn't actually written or balanced very well, and did many things differently since.

In that case....

Look at the controls for the Sky Reach Castle. Among other things it can have a billowing cloud around it. It can also fly up several thousand feet into the air.

Basically just wait for a storm to pass through (or take a high level spell caster and conjure a storm/Control Weather spell) fly over the target and poof, drop it. Fairly simple.

[Alejandro]

In that case....

Look at the controls for the Sky Reach Castle. Among other things it can have a billowing cloud around it. It can also fly up several thousand feet into the air.

Basically just wait for a storm to pass through (or take a high level spell caster and conjure a storm/Control Weather spell) fly over the target and poof, drop it. Fairly simple.

From what I understand from the GM, the issue is enemy dragons destroying the castle before it ever got there.

[Coffee_Dragon]

If the DM is dubious about using the castle this way, I'm not sure it's the best idea to go on the internet and ask for a plan that they will have no choice but to allow. Or do you run some kind of Campaign As War playstyle where the DM and players try to outwit each other on a meta level?

[Safety Sword]

The best use for the castle is probably to BE attacked by dragons.

Set distraction to MAXIMUM!

If you've ever read any of the old Dragonlance books you know that a flying castle is by no means invincible. Even kender can capture them. :smallbiggrin:

[Alejandro]

The best use for the castle is probably to BE attacked by dragons.

Set distraction to MAXIMUM!

If you've ever read any of the old Dragonlance books you know that a flying castle is by no means invincible. Even kender can capture them. :smallbiggrin:

Perhaps we can put an extremely shiny gold lure on it and get dragons battering against it like moths on a lamp. :)

[NecroDancer]

If you can pull this off pls post a thread telling us the story.

[Sir cryosin]

Your plan will fail. And not because of the dragons. Going with your plan would be a bad play. Spoiler this is somewhat of a spoiler so be warned. This part of the campaign is ment to have your party infiltrate into the final locate. While your allies fightes the dragon cults and dragons army. I want to say more but I shouldn't.

[Telok]

The last dungeon of the adventure is written under the assumption that the PCs will walk into the dungeon and then go around trying to kill enough bad guys before a timer runs out. The writers made no effort to consider that the players might want to use any of the resources built up during the adventure, allied monsters, allied npc spellcasters, the flying castle, some of the army of npc knights, etc. These are all hand waved away with "busy fighting outside". Likewise arriving early, sneaking in disguised as cultists, assassination, and aerial insertion by dragon are not options in the text.

Personally I'd think that just loading the castle up with giants and archers and barrels of poison, flying there killing dragons the whole way, and ramming the target into rubble sounds fine. The bounded accuracy is your friend here, with enough archers and enough poisoned arrows most dragons should fall in a couple of rounds. Alternately try to hire as many warlocks, wizards, and sorcerers as possible to push the dragons away and Magic Missile them to death.

[RulesJD]

The last dungeon of the adventure is written under the assumption that the PCs will walk into the dungeon and then go around trying to kill enough bad guys before a timer runs out. The writers made no effort to consider that the players might want to use any of the resources built up during the adventure, allied monsters, allied npc spellcasters, the flying castle, some of the army of npc knights, etc. These are all hand waved away with "busy fighting outside". Likewise arriving early, sneaking in disguised as cultists, assassination, and aerial insertion by dragon are not options in the text.

Personally I'd think that just loading the castle up with giants and archers and barrels of poison, flying there killing dragons the whole way, and ramming the target into rubble sounds fine. The bounded accuracy is your friend here, with enough archers and enough poisoned arrows most dragons should fall in a couple of rounds. Alternately try to hire as many warlocks, wizards, and sorcerers as possible to push the dragons away and Magic Missile them to death.

SPOILERS:

1. Players don't control the castle. The Cloud Giant (via his wife) wife does. Under no circumstances would he allow her spirit to be killed except to exact revenge on those who tried to take over the castle (Chapter 8 of HotDQ).

2. The Cult definitely has many Wizards working for them (the final battle requires you to destroy a group of them before Tiamat is summoned) and potentially the Red Wizards of Thay.

3. Archers have a finite range compared to Adult Dragon's ability to move (remember Legendary Actions). Having Dragons approach from below (where the Archers can't hit them) and poof, Dragons in breath weapon range.

Dropping the castle on the area from on high does sound like a cool idea (the book even accounts for massive damage to the summoning area via Earthquake spell) but wouldn't work by RAW. Even if the DM allows it, you'd still have to convince the cloud giant to sacrifice his wife's spirit. Lastly, there's no guarantee that the castle would destroy everything.

Oh, and

4. There's a metric ton of innocent people in the caldera. Dropping the castle = killing hundreds of innocent people.

[Telok]

SPOILERS:

I did note that the book makes no attempt to to allow for anything beyond the hero's walking in and fighting their way through, and there's definitely little to no discussion about doing anything cool or awesome beyond PCs fighting people in rooms.

You'll also note that I never advocated destroying the castle. There are ways mentioned in the books (I think in the first half of the adventure path) to use the castle even if the primary giant is dead. Readied actions and flying too low are prefectly acceptable options to annoy the dragons. And the PCs don't know about the sacrifices ahead of time, although I could be wrong about that since it's been a while since I read the adventure.

Conclusion: The adventure is written for "heroes walk through the dungeon and kill stuff along the way before the timer runs out" with no real written options for any other solution. Since the OP's DM thought the first half of the adventure was less than stellar and changed stuff the plan of "Flying Attack Castle" is awesome enough to be worth a shot.

If choosing to ram the bad guys with a flying castle over yet another dungeon is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[Safety Sword]

Sometimes DMs need to earn their stripes and go out of the scope of the adventure to make awesome ideas happen.


If you intended to fly a castle into the bad guy ritual in my game and I didn't know how that worked I'd get to the end of the session and go and work on that.

It's not something I would want to try and work out on the fly because epic battles and ideas require planning.

[RaynorReynolds]

Our GM threw out a lot of HotDQ after it became apparent it wasn't actually written or balanced very well, and did many things differently since.

He thought it wasnt balanced well so he gave you a flying castle?.....

I would just leave the castle and sneak in on foot.