WotBS Faulty event in Adventure 4?

[emeraldbeacon]

While running through Adventure 4 (The Mad King's Banquet), I came across an element in the battle of Otharil Vale, that simply doesn't work in 5e. An invisible Androsphinx roars, sending troops scattering in fear... except for all the reasons they wouldn't:

• A creature under the "frightened" condition suffers no ill effects at all if the target of its fear is not visible.
• The most important elements of the line - the squads of soldiers - are immune to the frightened condition, and as such, wouldn't scatter anyway; only the various support units and commanders would be affected.

To that end, I ran the encounter with a visible androsphinx, but too high and moving too fast to stay with the fight. With a terrible run of luck, most of the other troops failed, offsetting the soldiers' immunity... but perhaps this section should be revisited in the 5e version.

 

[emeraldbeacon]

The two main recommendations I have for this particular version of the campaign...

1. The Androsphinx has to be visible. Maybe it waits until it's over Gallo's forces before it drops invisibility and roars, but if it's not visible, its fear effect has no teeth behind it. After that, it books it down the line and targets a new group... it simply hits the team's first because, like the catapults, Nina Glibglammer has targeted the PCs as notable threats to be dealt with.
2. Squads need to be reworked slightly, so they function a bit differently than swarms. I would recommend that they NOT be immune to charm and fear effects, but rather, that they be untargetable by non-AOE charm and fear effects. Essentially, something like this:

Squad (old). The squad can occupy another creature’s space and vice versa, and the squad can move through any opening large enough for a Medium humanoid. The squad can’t regain hit points or gain temporary hit points, and it has advantage on saving throws if the area affected does not cover at least half of the squad’s space.

Squad (new). The squad can occupy another creature’s space and vice versa, and the squad can move through any opening large enough for a Medium humanoid. The squad has advantage on all saving throws, unless the affected area of an effect covers at least half of the squad’s space. The squad can't regain hit points or gain temporary hit points, and they cannot be affected by charm or fear effects that do not affect an area.

 

[spinmd]

I also had the androsphinx visible but high in the air. I believe the roar had a 500ft range so the androsphinx was 350 feet up or something like that when I ran adventure 4.

I use the squad template from the Level Up Monstrous Menagerie for units of soldiers when required. That template has a similar trait to what you describe above. Example below.

Military Unit. The unit is comprised of 5 veteran Ragesian soldiers. If it is subjected to a spell, attack, or other effect that affects only one target, it takes any damage but ignores other effects. It can share its space with Medium or smaller creatures or objects. The unit can move through any opening large enough for one Medium creature without squeezing.