Dragon Heist TPK

[robus]

Welcome to 5e. Where the DM is actually responsible for their game.
The encounter isn’t bad and it isn’t bad design. You made a mistake. Happens.

I dunno, there is zero foreshadowing that the PCs are getting in over their heads:

The way to the hideout is clearly marked, there's one guardian on the route. The goblin guards are sleeping and will probably remain that way, doors are all unlocked. A couple of folks otherwise preoccupied. This is the poorest excuse for a secret hideout I've seen in a while. Compared to the goblin hideout in LMoP this is a walk in the park and then suddenly there's a mind-flayer! That escalated quickly...

Still shouldn't result in a TPK, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMHO.

 

[Hussar]

They did take the back way in and did 88 points of damage before the first bad guy got to go for the round and then he was engaged with multiple enemies.

However, Not till your post did I go look up Plan Shift and was surprised to see it has a casting time of one action. This is where I went wrong. I could have indeed used that to let him escape and not destroyed the party. I didn't realize that the casting time was so short.

I know that's just a typo, but, I would sell blood for the PHB to include that spell. Ultimate DM spell.

 

[WaterRabbit]

I hate to break it to you, but if you don't know your creatures capabilities, then don't get upset when the encounter doesn't play out as you hoped. There is literally NO way the creature in question with his pet do not know about the party when they enter the lair.

The creature in question is a mid-level messenger which is why it leaves the scene when the party approaches. Someone mentioned that this scene is a bit lackluster, but that is on the DM as well for not understanding the role the creature plays and why it is there.

This encounter should not have been a TPK from the creature, that is on the DM for running it that way.

My complaint in the book comes in Chapter 3, where they don't provide a good adventure flow chart to run the investigation, which can easily dead end without the DM having to railroad them back onto the path. They break the rule of providing at least three obvious avenues for the players to pursue.

If the DM had problems with this encounter, the rest of the adventure is also going to play out poorly because so much of it depends upon the DM to fill in the blanks as this adventure is woefully underdeveloped. Chapter 2 is completely upon the DM to develop.

Chapter 3 will require most DM to spend extra time to fix, since it really only provides one path through it that players can easily miss.

So far I am not that impressed with the adventure part of this supplement. The investigation portions are surprisingly poor given the people that worked on it.

 

[Gradine]

My complaint in the book comes in Chapter 3, where they don't provide a good adventure flow chart to run the investigation, which can easily dead end without the DM having to railroad them back onto the path. They break the rule of providing at least three obvious avenues for the players to pursue.

If the DM had problems with this encounter, the rest of the adventure is also going to play out poorly because so much of it depends upon the DM to fill in the blanks as this adventure is woefully underdeveloped. Chapter 2 is completely upon the DM to develop.

Chapter 3 will require most DM to spend extra time to fix, since it really only provides one path through it that players can easily miss.

So far I am not that impressed with the adventure part of this supplement. The investigation portions are surprisingly poor given the people that worked on it.

Yeah the book, much like HotDQ or CoS before it, by itself provides something more like a skeleton than a fully developed adventure at parts. I think I'm in the minority in that I don't necessarily find that a bad thing.

 

[WaterRabbit]

Yeah the book, much like HotDQ or CoS before it, by itself provides something more like a skeleton than a fully developed adventure at parts. I think I'm in the minority in that I don't necessarily find that a bad thing.

I agree it isn't necessarily a bad thing, but for an investigation it comes across as the DM leading the players by the nose instead of the players cleverly putting together the clues. I think they could have done a much better job on this part. Plus the end of Chapter 3 has too much based on "coincidental" timing.

 

[Greg Benage]

Yeah the book, much like HotDQ or CoS before it, by itself provides something more like a skeleton than a fully developed adventure at parts. I think I'm in the minority in that I don't necessarily find that a bad thing.

I think it's a good thing. But I also think they could explicitly write it that way -- call out places where the DM is expected to do some work developing the provided framework for those newcomers who have less experience with it.

 

[jasper]

I love it when a player whines about not being able to murder hobo.

 

[Reynard]

I love it when a player whines about not being able to murder hobo.

Most negative gaming experiences are based on bad communication between players and GMs. If you don't realize you aren't playing a "murder hobo" game that is the GM's fault for not clearly communicating the kind of game being run.