D&D 5E CoS: Thoughts on starting at level 1 with Death House or level 3 on main adventure?

[Daern]

Great write-ups, great discussion. I ran the house part of Death House last night (dungeon next week). They found the secret room with the Deed to the Windmill, and a character was possessed by Thorn. It makes me think of a possible scenario in which the characters roll up to the Old Bonegrinder and demand it as their rightful property.
My question is this: Given that Barovia is a law abiding land and hags may well follow the logic of fairy law... what might Morganthe and her sisters make of this demand? Would they demand to have it authenticated? Would they demand proof of identity, that is, the soul of Thorn? Would they demand arbitration? Perhaps from Strahd himself? What if the vampire came down and ruled that as long as the living vessel housing the soul of the individual named in the document is in possession of the physical document, than he or she is indeed the rightful owner of the windmill. In that case, the individual had better look out for thieves and hag assassins!

 

[Lancelot]

You did two things, in my opinion, that made this not be a TPK. First, none of the other reasons mattered as much as this one. "Not playing the monsters optimally"...

Oh, I totally agree.

Played optimally, Old Bonegrinder is a TPK for any group of 3rd level characters, virtually guaranteed. Heck, I think it's a TPK for 4th and 5th level characters (played truly optimally). If the party doesn't have magic or silvered weapons, they have to chew through (effective) 700-odd HP of high-AC hags, with the added "fun" of magic resistance and counterspells. Meanwhile, at a minimum, they're soaking up 30+ damage from magic missiles every round... and almost certainly a lot worse from the coven spells.

An inexperienced DM who picks up Curse of Strahd and just plays the hags as written is going to tear a typical party in half, which is why it's a bit of a shame there isn't a side-bar explaining alternate approaches to the encounter. An experienced DM knows how to modify a combat encounter on the fly to reduce lethality for the group, or provide appropriate thematic warning that this is a situation where the party must come up with a non-combat approach (or die!). It'd be nice to see that sort of guidance, maybe with some worked examples, in the text of the module. But, I guess, word constraints come into play. There isn't a lot of filler in Curse of Strahd. It may "only" be a 1st-10th level module, but oddly it feels even more content-packed to me than Princes of the Apocalypse or Out of the Abyss.

Truth be told, there are a lot of very dangerous encounters in this campaign. The Amber Temple has some very nasty stuff, as does Castle Ravenloft itself. Heck, the Abbot in Krezk is going to cause some players to "drop bricks". He's rocking an average 50 damage per round from his melee attacks, and they could be bumping into him at 4th or 5th level. The warlock in my group is running Constitution 10 (yeah, I know...), so he'll have 23 hp at 4th level. If he gets into a scrap with the abbot, he'll be back-door'ed from max hp on an average round. If the abbot scores a crit on one of his two attacks, his average 47 damage from that one hit is taking out anyone in my group from max hp. Scary stuff for 4th-5th level PCs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

An inexperienced DM who picks up Curse of Strahd and just plays the hags as written is going to tear a typical party in half, which is why it's a bit of a shame there isn't a side-bar explaining alternate approaches to the encounter.

Actually... I kind of see this as a positive.

We've reached the point in gaming where we players almost reflexively think now that the game needs to be balanced across the board so that anyone can run it without causing major disruption or extremely volatile effects. In fact, that was one of the hallmarks of 4E... the game was designed such that almost anyone could start DMing it and just by following the ground rules avoid making those kinds of massive mistakes and incidents that cause new players to run for the hills. Which, at the time I was all in favor of, as it made DMing a much more viable job for some players to pick up, resulting in more DMs jumping into the pool.

But now... the new edition had widened the possibility of diverse results based upon DM action, and thus both DMs and players have to be much more vigilant with the game. They can't just bust down the door, attack the monsters and collect the loot, expecting the game to keep them at arms-length from long-term consequences anymore. Which again...I think in this point in gaming and D&D history is probably the right call. Now the game sometimes sets things up such that both players and DMs are going to learn hard lessons. We had that in Hoard of the Dragon Queen with the Adult Blue Dragon arriving in Chapter 1... and we have it in spades here in Ravenloft with pretty much everything. Attacking everything in sight and expending to not only survive but also thrive is no longer the default approach to the game.

So I gotta say... if ever there was an adventure location that was primed to teach new players and new DMs that the standard call-and-response of "break down door, kill monster, take stuff" is NOT the default way every campaign is to be run and played... Ravenloft is *definitely* the place to use. Because at the end of the day, the legend of Barovia is only going to grow as new players experience just how much of a grinder the lands are as they get stomped upon time and time again when they just try and bum-rush every encounter without consideration or forethought.

That's how we learned about the legend back in '83... and now its time for the new generation to learn about it too.

 

[jayoungr]

Is a likely TPK a bad thing in a horror setting?

 

[Delazar]

I experienced Death House as a player, and it was brutal. We were a party of 3 (fighter, druid, and bard) and the encounter with the 5 shadows completely destroyed us. I was the only survivor (fighter), thanks to using my action surge to DASH away. As a I reached the attic, and then went for the stairs, the House tried to kill me!

I managed to jump out of a window from the second floor, going unconscious. Luckily I succeeded in my Death Saves, and woke up a few hours later.Since we put to rest the ghosts of the kids, I considered it a victory, and went away. Damn house...