D&D 5E Lost Mines *SPOILERS* Thundertree comments...

[Bumamgar]

I am running Lost Mines for a 4 character party comprised of a Barbarian 3 (AC 21), Ranger 3 (AC 17), Wizard 3 (AC 18) and Monk 1/Cleric 2 (AC 22)

These characters are fairly well optimized in my opinion, none of them wear armor, the Wizard uses 4 charges from the Staff of Defense every day to give everyone Mage Armor for 8 hours, resulting in the characters all having pretty good AC.

The party just cleared Thundertree. After the second encounter with Twig Blights (AC 13, HP 4, +3 to hit, d4+1 dmg) it became very clear to me that these creatures were simply not a challenge for the party in any way. The party members are all +6 to +8 to hit with their primary weapons, so they hit the blights 75% of the time, with any hit being an auto-kill. Conversely, the blights at best have a 25% chance to hit the back-rank characters, or a 5-10% chance to hit the front-rank characters.

In other words, even as written with 6 - 8 blights in an encounter, it was a simple mowfest for the party, with the blights never once hitting the characters and simply dying in one blow.

After the first couple of encounters I simply ruled that the twig blights fled from the party to speed things along.

The dragon, of course, was no pushover. The party did succeed in driving it off, but the Monk/Cleric was killed outright from massive damage due to a failed save when the dragon used its breath weapon. The party traveled to Neverwinter where Sildar had brought Glasstaff to the Lord's Alliance for trial. Given the service the party had performed rescuing Sildar and freeing Phandalin from the Redcloaks and capturing (not slaying) all of them, Silder was able to convince a local priest to cast Raise Dead for a total of 700gp (500gp for the component + 200gp for the priest's time). The party understands this was a one-time deep discount due to the great service they had performed for the Lord's Alliance.

Anyway, my point is, Thundertree seems to be kind of odd. You've got a druid hanging out who could easily defeat the twig blights and zombies all by himself and you've got a tough dragon. The dragon was a memorable encounter, the rest of the town was a waste of time. There weren't any challenges suitable to drain the parties resources, so they were able to take on the dragon at full health with all spells / abilities available.

How did other DM's / parties handle Thundertree?

 

[Wolfskin]

When I ran Thundertree, the only enemies in the place were the dragon and the cultists- the rest of the monsters had been killed either by Reidoth or Venomfang. The rest of the encounters were IMO kinda boring, and we were short on time, so I rushed the party to the big challenge right away.

 

[fjw70]

I ran it it as more of an exploration area. The party mowed through zombies and twig blights but I am okay with them mowing through monsters sometimes. They left the dragon alone with plans to re turn someday and take care of him.

So not particularly challenging but it was fun and didn't take a whole lot of time.

 

[Grimstaff]

Wait, how are you getting those ACs?

 

[TDarien]

I'm curious how the monk/cleric and Barbarians ACs are so high. I might be missing something, but I think you're stacking mage armor with their Unarmored defenses. This doesn't work unfortunately.
Both unarmored defense and mage armor reset your base AC, instead of a flat bonus, so you can only choose on or the other.

The Ranger's AC i can see with an 18 Dex or 16 Dex and Defensive Fighting Stance, or a shield.

The Wizard also seems to have an 18 Dex, which seems really odd.

 

[Bumamgar]

I guess I didn't do a close enough reading of the various AC related entries. I'm used to a base AC of 10, with armor / dex / shields etc adding to the base, so when I read Mage Armor, it seemed to suggest that it changed the base AC from 10 to 13, thus unarmored defense would be 13 + dex + wis (or 13 + dex + con). In re-reading, I see that basically there is no such thing as 'base AC' in the same sense as existed in prior editions, everything just gives a formula for what your actual armor class is in total.

Monk Unarmored Defense says "your AC equals 10 + your Dex mod + your Wis mod"
Barbarian Unarmored Defense says "your AC equals 10 + your Dex mod + your Con mod"
Mage Armor says "your base AC equals 13 + your dex mod"

It is a little awkward that Mage Armor refers to 'base AC', it probably shouldn't.

But yes, I allowed the players to go with 4d6 drop lowest vs point buy, and the Wizard does indeed have an 18 Dex. This party is built for stealth, all with darkvision and high dex, as well as proficiency in stealth either from background selection or class.

 

[jgsugden]

5E is a system where AC and attack bonus are hard to obtain. Giving 3 free points is a HUGE benefit. Once you adjust to the rules and remove that +3, you'll find that the encounters are a bit harder. However, even without the mage armors, your PCs have pretty insane stats.

A barbarian at 18 AC and no armor means a shield (2 AC), and then 6 points from dex and con. As Strength is likely to be his highest stat, that suggests 3 ability scores of 16 or above after racial adjustments. That is above average by a fair margin. Your point buy PC will generally have perhaps 16/16/13 or 17/15/13.

A monk/cleric at 19 AC suggests a combination of a 20 and an 18 (or 19) in dexterity and wisdom (monk can't use shield, afterall, and get the AC bonus).

Most PCs are running around with ACs between 14 and 18 at levels 1 through 3. Your PCs seem to be overpowered, and that is going to make for a less fun game, IMHO. If I were you, I'd wrap up Lost Mines ASAP and then reboot with new characters that are closer to the intended balance levels. The game is more fun when the encounters are balanced o provide a reasonable challenge. One PC in a party with insane stats is not going to ruin a game... but multiple? That is not a path to fun. It is a path to TPKs...

That results in the old pattern: PCS are overpowered in some ways, so DM ramps up the challenge to keep it interesting. Ramped up opponents are better in a variety of ways, including in ways that PCs are not overpowered. PCs turn into glass cannons and you get a TPK when the beastie that nails their weaknesses is way overpowered.

 

[Bumamgar]

My players are char-opers... That said, what an analysis of their characters shows to me is that 4d6 drop lowest tends to give arrays that are a bit higher than point buy. Folks around here seem to think point buy is the one-true way, but frankly, even the PHB defaults to 4d6 drop the lowest and mentions point-buy as an option for players who don't want random stats. I also am a DM who rolls HP for monsters and damage, rather than using the average HP / Damage in the stat-blocks. Characters roll HP when they level up as well.

The barbarian is a Half-Orc, +2 str, +1 con for totals of Str 16, Dex 15, Con 18, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 13. Pre-race that's an array of 17, 15, 14, 13, 13, 10. Uses the Longsword +1 from the Nothic's treasure, and a normal shield, for an AC of 18 and +6 Atk, 1d8+4 dmg.

The monk is a wood elf, +2 dex, +1 wis for totals of Str 15, Dex 20, Con 15, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 14. Pre-race that's an array of 18, 15, 15, 15, 14, 10 (that's a bit high, but I watched the rolls!). Uses the Ring of Protection +1 looted off the Red Wizard for an AC of 19 and a normal shortsword (monk weapon/finesse) for +7 Atk, 1d6+5 dmg and unarmed strike of +7 atk, 1d4+5 dmg

The wizard is a high elf, +2 dex, +1 int for totals of Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 13, Cha 7. Pre-race that's an array of 17, 16, 14, 13, 12, 7. Uses the Staff of Defense taken from Iarno, for an AC of 15 (18 w/ Mage Armor).

The ranger is a wood elf, +2 dex, +1 wis for totals of Str 13, Dex 18, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 13. Pre-race that's an array of 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 13. Wears no armor, for an AC of 14 (17 w/ mage armor) and uses a Longbow for +8 Atk, 1d8+4 damage. (Fighting Style: Archery)

As for high attributes being overpowered, I would argue that they are not OP, rather, they are simply front-loaded. In other words, these characters will hit the 20 ceiling faster than point-buy characters, but that ceiling still exists, so there's not going to be much difference between these characters attributes vs point-buy characters by level 8 or so.

 

[TDarien]

These characters are stronger than point-buy characters, by a lot. They will be EXTREMELY overpowered at low levels. Even at higher levels, they'll have several more feats than the average character. But you're right that the cap does help the situation.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, you will just have to work hard to challenge these characters effectively at the early levels. You will likely have to add several monsters to every encounter.

 

[drjones]

I let my players roll as well (and use 6x6 arrays) so they got some decent stats, but you have to remember that the standard array gives a +5 total mod, if you add up the mods for a character and it is wildly more or less than that then you can't run encounters designed for average adventurers. You can still have 18s but you need some low rolls to balance them out. So I monitored that and called for a few rerolls. Also, pumped up stats are going to be much more important at level 3 then at level 10 where may characters will probably have 20 in the primary stat anyway.