D&D 5E Why is Hoard of the Dragon Queen such a bad adventure?
There is a difference between an example of "the stat blocks being changed" and an example of "passive perception changed" and your claim of "the writers didn't have access to the design math, so the numbers are all off".
All of the numbers were not off.
Most of the "bugs" in that article were made by the design team and had little to do with the WotC design team. None of the railroading or other aspects of the module that some people dislike have anything to do with the writers not having access to any portion of the game system.
Hussar
Legend
I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that the module presents a situation - a dragon attacking a town - lists at least two results (the PC's attack the dragon and drive it off, Yay! Heroes, or; the PC's hold back, town is badly damaged and the mayor doesn't like them as much) - is a railroad. When the module gives multiple responses to possible PC actions, how is that a railroad?
This has absolutely balls to do with story. Game design doesn't keep you from coming up with a good overall plot.
The problem is the guys that came up with this just can't write.
The Mirrorball Man
Aventurier
Well, railroads have forks.
delericho
Legend
Agreed. "Railroad" is a poor term here.
HotDQ is more like one of those cruises which take you from one destination to another (with no choice) but then leave you to explore those individual locations yourself (plenty of choice). Which isn't surprising - it is an adventure path after all!
(As opposed to a "theme park", where you could hit the chapters in any order, but didn't have any real choice once in a given chapter.)
I'm not yet in a position to evaluate HotDQ as a whole yet, but I have been pleasantly surprised by one thing in particular, and it is precisely what Hussar says - at many points during the adventure the designers explicitly pay attention to multiple approaches to the problem (fight, evade, sneak, negotiate). It's surprising how few published adventures fail to do that, and boil down to "just kill everything" - including many "good" adventures.
Prism
Explorer
That's a rather sweeping statement based upon one adventure. Kobold Press are awards winners for their adventures and you might like some of their other stuff
Nilbog
Snotling Herder
Not sure if this is the right place to post, but it seems a fairly healthy discussion of HoTDQ.
I'm currently playing it and quite enjoying it, our DM is doing a good job.
However its my turn to DM next and I was going to run the red hand of doom, converted to 5e, however, I'm worried that thematically it might be too similar to HoTDQ, is it different enough to run in your opinion?
I'm currently playing it and quite enjoying it, our DM is doing a good job.
However its my turn to DM next and I was going to run the red hand of doom, converted to 5e, however, I'm worried that thematically it might be too similar to HoTDQ, is it different enough to run in your opinion?
They didn't write it.
Prism
Explorer
So who do you think did then? Wizards created the Tyranny of Dragons storyline and Kobold Press wrote the adventure.
http://www.koboldpress.com/kqstore/...id=236&zenid=143bd85954d0e27cd4aecf4b47fc7d02
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