5e Tier 1 Difficulty

[machineelf]

These things nearly wiped the party, and would have if it wasn't for the cleric turning undead, reviving the downed PCs and retreating.

Sounds like the perfect level of difficulty to me.

I hear a lot of people say that characters are too hard to challenge in 5th edition. That's certainly not true in the first three or so levels. And I find that if you play the NPC monsters viciously and smartly, then it's pretty easy to challenge player characters in all levels.

Anyway, it seems like the encounter was appropriate and you ran it well.

 

[Li Shenron]

My 4 players are level 3. I'm running them through Death House as part of Curse of Strahd. One encounter includes 5 shadows. These things nearly wiped the party, and would have if it wasn't for the cleric turning undead, reviving the downed PCs and retreating.

Is it just me or was 5 shadows just a terrible mistake for the difficulty?

My humble opinion...

If the monsters nearly wiped the party, but didn't, then they worked perfectly. That's pretty much the best possible outcome of an encounter, just like it is in any movie

 

[hastur_nz]

My (four) players got through Death House surprisingly easily and quickly, because they focused on 'the plot' instead of just exploring everything in front of them, and the few combats they had, they played intelligently; they went straight to the upper level, found their way to the dungeons, and after a bit of wandering, found and defeated to 'end boss' at level 2.

Death House is a good warm-up for Curse of Strahd, where not every encounter is going to be "well balanced" - many will be too easy, some could be way too hard if your players are not up to a challenge or two. From memory, there are lots of traps and encounters in Death House where the PC's might well end up in danger of TPK - it's intentional, and yes, it's all avoidable, with a combination of skill and maybe some luck.

The campaign is not your usual kind of D&D one, and assumes a certain degree of skill from the players, as well as the DM, in order to make it fun.

 

[ccs]

If you think this encounter is out of wack you're going to love the rest of CoS. I'll bet we'll be reading similar posts from you.

I recommend that you spend some time reading it & adjusting things to your own taste, not just running whatever you find as-is as you turn the page.