D&D 5E 1st session of HotDQ put a little fear in my players

[Splurch]

So I ran the my first session of HotDQ last night and only had 3 players (Human War Cleric, Half Ork Barbarian, & Wood Elf Monk) and it seemed to put a little real fear into the players that the characters could actually die. It seems to me that the fear of character death somehow got lost between 2nd Edition till now but when they ran into the second batch of roaming monsters (3 Kolbolds & Ambush Drake) the monsters dropped the Cleric right before they got into the keep. I had run them on Lost Mine of Phandelver which was rough (but had a 4th player who didn't show last night) but this really kicked it into high gear. Because they had saved a good bit of townsfolk I added a cleric in the keep to help save the Cleric as a good gesture, which later I used to coerce them to do the Sanctuary mission.

We started late so all they got through was the Old Tunnel & the Sanctuary missions but were really challenged and on edge the whole time.From the Kobold tactics to the actual look on their faces when they approached the town seeing the Blue Dragon flying overhead I thought it went well and it was a lot of fun to run overall. I see why everyone says this is a deadly game and after the Cleric dropped they players are very cautious and using more tactics of their own then I've seen in a D&D game in a while.

 

[Sloblock]

Great start.

The old tunnel and the sanctuary were two of my favourite parts, I almost lost a new PC in the tunnel due to some expert rolling.

We are 2/3 through Rise of Tiamat, but PCs still reminisce about their time in Greenest...

 

[jayoungr]

I had heard so much about how deadly Greenest was that I went easy on my players: I let them have a short rest and hit second level during the night. Looking back on it now, I don't think I'd give them level 2 if I were running it again. It meant that our Battlemaster (who was already slighly OP due to spectacular rolling of stats) almost killed Cyanwrath in the duel.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The first part of HotDQ looks like it was designed with draft encounter guidelines that didn't take into account the effect of being outnumbered under Bounded Accuracy. It can be pretty deadly. Actually, even with the right encounter guidelines, 1st level can be randomly deadly through nobody's fault. Sometimes I think it's intentional, since combat gets so much easier and less lethal, so fast, by all accounts - 1st level gives you the first impression that the game's deadly, so it can get away with being less challenging later.

I do find, though, that random stats can give you a couple of PCs who are significantly better than the array (and few if any meaningfully worse), and that they'll be able to help the part through to 2nd. That is, when that's acceptable to the venue I'm running - it's funny how varied organizers can be. AL has its set rules, of course, so everything has to be array and by the book. One convention I run intro games at insists the pregens must be generated with the basic pdf, and non-pdf material otherwise minimized, but otherwise I'm off the leash. Another had me run Seek the Keep over and over by way of intro...

It just keeps getting better after 2nd, opinion varies as to when you really put the low-level pain behind you - as early as 2nd or 3rd, or not until 4th or 5th.

 

[jayoungr]

In practice, having the group roll for stealth with advantage, and only half the group needing to make the target, meant that they avoided practically every potential random encounter, though. I wonder how many groups bypassed that step.

 

[Lanliss]

I had the exact opposite experience. Had a Kobold Rogue, some sort of Elf Paladin, and an Orc Monk. Only the Kobold had any imaginative thoughts really, but he covered enough for all of them. They mopped the floor with every encounter, up until cyanwrath. Kobold fought Cyanwrath because of an honor thing, and was immediately one shot. Didn't even use cyanwrath's lightning breath.

 

[Sloblock]

I had heard so much about how deadly Greenest was that I went easy on my players: I let them have a short rest and hit second level during the night. Looking back on it now, I don't think I'd give them level 2 if I were running it again. It meant that our Battlemaster (who was already slighly OP due to spectacular rolling of stats) almost killed Cyanwrath in the duel.

I factored in a short rest for the PCs as otherwise I felt they wouldn't get involved with helping the townsfolk

 

[Sloblock]

I had the exact opposite experience. Had a Kobold Rogue, some sort of Elf Paladin, and an Orc Monk. Only the Kobold had any imaginative thoughts really, but he covered enough for all of them. They mopped the floor with every encounter, up until cyanwrath. Kobold fought Cyanwrath because of an honor thing, and was immediately one shot. Didn't even use cyanwrath's lightning breath.

Due to the PCs being battered at this point. I ran the Cyanwrath encounter slightly differently, with him fighting other villagers I one of the squares. The PCs watched from afar, bleeding and looking forward to a long rest

 

[Rhenny]

The good old feeling of vulnerability, yeah baby.

Thinking back, I think at least 1 pc went down nearly every session when we played HotC (at least through 4th level). I like how it forces players to think about not entering combat when possible. To me it is a great training adventure to teach some restraint to players who are used to just running into every encounter with swords drawn.

 

[Sloblock]

The good old feeling of vulnerability, yeah baby.

Thinking back, I think at least 1 pc went down nearly every session when we played HotC (at least through 4th level). I like how it forces players to think about not entering combat when possible. To me it is a great training adventure to teach some restraint to players who are used to just running into every encounter with swords drawn.

I miss the early part of games where PCs have fear