D&D 5E HotDQ looking like an early TPK...

Ok, so the party pretty much blew off everything that Chapter 2 was about, no way were they going to sneak into the camp at first. They were very careful about moving around the camp and just planned on reporting what info they could get from looking at the camp. Which they did, but after going back to the city, and back to the camp, and back to the city, and back to the camp the raiders had moved off, party due to plans laid out in the module, and actions of the PC's attacking some of the rearguards and one late infiltration attempt. So they have headed back and found the empty camp and after running off the 4 scouts left they are going into the cave. So they got pretty much none of the XP from the in camp encounters, which left them way off of L3.

Well it says after Ch2 that its not vital they have hit level 3. But my party of 4 L2, and a L1 PC don't look like they could even handle Cyanwrath and his berserkers, much less the whole deal.

We are playing tonight so maybe they will must smoke it all. With hot rolling they could be fine, but a few hot rolls from me and PC's will be dead.

But I think its becoming clear that this isn't the style of campaign for a "get what you earn" style game. Something I was pretty concerned about but said lets run it anyway. This thing is pretty railroady, which is why I'm not a fan of adventure paths, more of a site based adventure guy.

Also it got me thinking, will standard classic adventures be a problem since it seems 5e assumes you get a level for getting out of bed in the morning.

Errr aren't ypu using the milestone system for level Advancment?

Warder

My party was LVL4 during that encounter, and it was CLOSE... i mean 1 PC up and lucky halfling rolls to save the day.

Level them up. Or play it by ear and remove cyanwrath for a later encounter.

Blackwarder - No, not a fan of that style as a DM or player.

Flexor the Mighty! said:

Ok, so the party pretty much blew off everything that Chapter 2 was about, no way were they going to sneak into the camp at first. They were very careful about moving around the camp and just planned on reporting what info they could get from looking at the camp. Which they did, but after going back to the city, and back to the camp, and back to the city, and back to the camp the raiders had moved off, party due to plans laid out in the module, and actions of the PC's attacking some of the rearguards and one late infiltration attempt. So they have headed back and found the empty camp and after running off the 4 scouts left they are going into the cave. So they got pretty much none of the XP from the in camp encounters, which left them way off of L3.

Well it says after Ch2 that its not vital they have hit level 3. But my party of 4 L2, and a L1 PC don't look like they could even handle Cyanwrath and his berserkers, much less the whole deal.

We are playing tonight so maybe they will must smoke it all. With hot rolling they could be fine, but a few hot rolls from me and PC's will be dead.

But I think its becoming clear that this isn't the style of campaign for a "get what you earn" style game. Something I was pretty concerned about but said lets run it anyway. This thing is pretty railroady, which is why I'm not a fan of adventure paths, more of a site based adventure guy.

Also it got me thinking, will standard classic adventures be a problem since it seems 5e assumes you get a level for getting out of bed in the morning.

Click to expand...

A TPK sounds like the right solution.

in all seriousness, the mission they were hired for was to infiltrate and/or spy upon the camp. They can, in theory, nickel and dime their way through the cultists, but it won't be long before the cult overreacts should they make serious efforts.
[sblock]
And Cyanwrath's CR 5... but the Cyanwrath encounter in chapter 3 is written to be handled easily as either 2 separate encounters (the bersekers then separately Cyanwrath), or, if the players are up to it, one big melee. Also, one can tone down the lethality by having Cyanwrath focus on capture... so no death saves, and if he TPK's, he interrogates them. He wants to know what they know before he kills them. And then, when they go to escape, they're just facing kobs or guards, not berserkers and Cyanwrath.

On the other hand, in Ch 3, my players scared Mondath bad and before hitting Cyanwrath; she stayed with Cyanwrath thereafter (as in, they got her to 1 HP as she was fleeing...), so they had to face the berserkers and Cyanwrath with Mondath in tow... and piles of Kobs, too. They were only 2nd and 3rd level... they hit it by careful use of terrain in the dungeon.[/sblock]

Yeah, if you don't use the milestone system, or nerf the dungeon...they are gonna die.

So that makes me ask, more generally: when heroes come across something too powerful for them to defeat, what do they do? Go find some other task to grind XP?

Reminds me of the joke version of Castlevania, in which you arrive directly at the boss monster, without having levelled up on the way to the lair.

I have never understood the "railroad" argument in most cases. Especially in this case.

First off, your players have a couple of options. Not that they know it.

1. They can fight to the death on that encounter and that be the end of it.
2. They can fight and quickly learn they are outclassed and either fight really smartly or retreat to Come back a little later after better equipping themselves or even finding a hireling to help.

You as a dm have a couple of options.

1. My least favourite option is to talk to your players and tell them they will get slaughtered if you play as written.
2. Retroactively Credit them enough xp to level basedvon the fact that they resolved the camp encounter even if it wasn't combat. I hope you aren't only awarding xp for combat encounters.
3. Add in a few combat encounters before the cyn encounter to level them up. This is really the most railroad of the options to me. However make sure to give an extra health potion our two so you aren't completely depleting their resources.

I think the "modules and adventure paths are too railroady" argument is so overused and cliche these days. It's your job as the dm to fit these into your world not make them your world. There is a huge difference in my eyes.

In this case I would have slowed the urgency or added another encounter or three in between to help them along. Remember there is a living world in there and bandits can attack towns when they are under threat of the (insert big bad here) if for no other reaSon than forces are occupied so it will increase their chances. And if they so happen to attack the inn where the pcs are to steal wenches... Well... More xp for them.

Edit only to add a reply to post above... If you are running a living world that question should be encountered as well. What do you do?. You go back and find other work until you are big enough to kill whatever comes their way.

On adventure paths a dm had to be particularly vigilant to make sure the party has options even if that means leaving the adventure path for a while. May not have been written in the middle or path but it doesn't mean the pcs have to engage it as written.

The PCs could hear reports of Cyanwrath and his zerkers taking out an entire militia platoon by themselves. They find evidence of their brutality and it is clear that they are a threat beyond their abilities. I am not overly familiar with the scenario, but if they know in advance that these guys cannot be fought, then they can try and draw them out, attack when they are not there, sneak past and avoid them, poison their food supplies etc (only the beserkers get to eat fresh meat etc). It is OK to present the PCs with unwinnable fights, if the point of the adventure is to avoid those fights entirely. If so, you need to tinker with things to make sure that they have the ability to make a diversion, poison, tell if they are away, avoid etc.

This is a classic DM issue, [MENTION=1013]Flexor the Mighty![/MENTION], and I hope this does not come off as sounding inconsiderate or rude (I mean to be constructive), but the tools for dealing with it have been around as long as there has been a DMG. What to do when the PCs don't play the adventure module in what is written to be the most likely outcome? Well you seem to have hit on the answer already judging by your post, but maybe you are hesitant to jump to it because it isn't in the book.

Start by looking at your campaign setting. If you are using the Forgotten Realms (the default), then there are hordes of other factions and entities that might be interested in what is going on. All of Toril is your sandbox! So toss in adventure hooks of your own design in to give the PCs other things to do for a little while. They do not have to be complicated or take a long time. And you can even weave them into the overall story. But subplots do not have to be limited to running this in the Realms unless you are running this in a world of isolation where the town the PCs call home is the last bastion of civilization (which would require some significant changes to the module in the first place). The point is the cult's plans can get stymied momentarily for whatever reason you like (the PCs will likely never know anyway), and in the meantime the adventurers can find another adventure. They might just find another cell of similar cultists (something you could do if pressed for time by simply duplicating some of the encounters).

And then, there is the nuclear option, the TPK. I often wonder why so many DMs are reluctant to do it, seeing as I have done it twice in my 15 years of DMing, and it has not stopped a campaign from progressing for another year or two. If the actions of the players (which, from your description sounds rather craven and uncommitted to being actual heroes) have led to the consequence, should they not suffer the consequence? Maybe they will roll hot, maybe not. And if not, is such not the very danger which makes being a hero and adventurer so exciting? I would never play D&D if I did not fear character death. I would play some roleplaying game that did not need detailed rules for hit points, injury, death, and resurrection. The very fact that these rules are there means they are expected to be used from time to time. And the ramifications of a TPK? Perhaps the PCs will hurt the cult enough in the process that they slow down their plans, giving time for a new batch of heroes to arise. I mean, are the PCs the only adventurers in the entire world? And what would happen in the worst case scenario anyway if the cult won? Would that not be interesting to play out? Even if you expect to use the next adventure, you can assume, having not even read it that in The Rise of Tiamat that Tiamat will still somehow, you know, rise anyway. The circumstances surrounding that rising might be more optimal for the cult of Tiamat, but it does not preclude continuing the campaign.

This is why D&D has a DM. A video game might have two or three preset outcomes (video gamers often swoon about games with five or more endings; see Chrono Trigger). But the possibilities in D&D are endless because there is a live person who can design, in real time, an adventure that responds to literally anything the player character might try. Your job as the DM is not simply to read boxed text and follow pre-scripted actions of monsters like a programmed AI (unless that is what your players expect, in which case why aren't they playing video games?). You provide the world. Your players have given you an unexpected turn of events. That's exciting! You get to go off-book, which is exactly why tabletop RPGS are so engaging.

If you have trouble thinking on your feet (not every DM is good at it; we all have strengths and weaknesses), you have some random encounter tables to roll up to keep them busy for a while until you can think of something, even that session or next session if you are really stumped.

I think your problem has already been addressed in your head. You know the answer is to go off-book, but for some reason you don't seem comfortable with it. You say you're more of a site-based adventure guy. So make the module your skeleton and build the "site" around that. Who says the PCs have the spend all their time tromping after the Cult of the Dragon? That might be the main story of the campaign, but that doesn't mean there cannot be as many diversions and side quests that you want to make available in your world.