D&D 5E Curse of Strahd (and limitations on 1st level play)

[Mort]

Yeah. And the cleric too.
The Passive Perception of the blights was a 9 ... no way that could fail.


Sorry. I don't think to check Jeremy Crawford's Twitter before every combat. But good to know for future reference.
But even so, fighting a mass of 30 twig blights would be another speed bump encounter.


Except what's good for the goose...
That druid can be sniped by the ranger in a turn, just like he was on the balcony in my game.

Also, I just took a look at the encounter.

Aren't the twig blights initially in a big cask, under total cover?

That means all the PCs see when sneaking into the room is 1 druid.

When they move to take out the druid, they're going to get mobbed by twig blights who should at least get 1 attack each in - causing some trouble. Heck might even be an opportunity for actual surprise (rare as that is) and the twig blights get 2 or so attacks in - causing some actual damage.

That's one thing you may want to be sure to look at carefully. Terrain is an often overlooked thing in 5e and, used well, it can make a big difference. And it can turn an otherwise mundane fight, into an actually interesting challenge.

 

[Mort]

Those blights have to get past the paladin, the cleric, and the rogue first. And that ain't happening.

There are 2 dozen of them and, for better or worse, PCs in 5e are just not that sticky.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That druid can be sniped by the ranger in a turn, just like he was on the balcony in my game.

Actually, once a druid lands a Heat Metal it can stay in total cover and continue to do damage until the target is dead (or naked).

 

[Retreater]

It was a trifling encounter for 5th level PCs. Due to the low CR of the twig blights you wouldn't multiply for difficulty due to them being in the encounter (they're a speed-bump only) leaving you with an Easy encounter (and likely the only encounter for the day, so barely 1/10 of that days expected XP budget).

Yeah. But then again, I didn't design the encounter - Chris Perkins did.
And I understand that no designer can predict my table, but is there any table in the world of D&D where this is a decent challenge for 5th level characters?
I'd like at least to have a solid basis for tinkering with the encounters.
It's like getting a recipe book and deciding to make a birthday cake. I should decide what name goes on the cake and how many candles to put on it - maybe if they want Bluey or Paw Patrol. I should have the basic recipe to make a cake, though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Those blights have to get past the paladin, the cleric, and the rogue first. And that ain't happening.

The blights are running along ceiling beams, leaping from barrels, bursting through windows, even throwing each other. Those little guys can easily get past.

 

[Retreater]

There are 2 dozen of them and, for better or worse, PCs in 5e are just not that sticky.

No, but walls are.
The blights would have had to crawl over other opponents to get to the ranger, following the orders of a druid who was dead in one round.

Wait, you would let them do this? Sometimes it feels like you are trying to make things harder on yourself.

Yeah. The threat at the winery is over. If it's not, well is the group supposed to just move in and operate it for the Martikovs?
Likely next they'll need to go to Yester Hill to take care of the "real" threat. And hopefully there I can make something cool happen.

 

[Retreater]

The blights are running along ceiling beams

And dying from the falling damage, right?

bursting through windows, even throwing each other.

With what Strength score?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And I understand that no designer can predict my table, but is there any table in the world of D&D where this is a decent challenge for 5th level characters?

As we have said several times it's not supposed to be a combat challenge. It's not the point, that isn't what Perkins was aiming for.

It's easy enough to turn into a more combat focused encounter, or a more horror movie cinematic encounter if that's what the table wants, but that's not the default. And I think that's your problem, you want a published adventure to match your playstyle out the box, when your playstyle isn't even close to average.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And dying from the falling damage, right?

How high do you think the ceilings are? Anyway, they are landing on something soft (the PC's heads).

With what Strength score?

It's a pseudo-medieval winery - you think it would have glass in the windows?! Even if it does, a glass window has AC 13 and 3 hp.

 

[mamba]

Yeah. But then again, I didn't design the encounter - Chris Perkins did.
And I understand that no designer can predict my table, but is there any table in the world of D&D where this is a decent challenge for 5th level characters?

no, and I'd say it also was never meant to challenge them given everything about the encounter guidelines. So the only mistake here is that you expected it to when it clearly does not - and maybe you not changing it because you wanted a harder encounter

I'd like at least to have a solid basis for tinkering with the encounters.

you had that, there were several proposals for slight changes (off the top of my head: 3 druids instead of 1, replace 12 blights with one shambling mound)

It's like getting a recipe book and deciding to make a birthday cake. I should decide what name goes on the cake and how many candles to put on it - maybe if they want Bluey or Paw Patrol. I should have the basic recipe to make a cake, though.

You took a cookie recipe, failed to realize that, thought it was for a birthday cake, and now complain that you got a cookie by following it

Sorry, there is just no way that you should have expected a difficult encounter from this if you had done the tiniest bit of encounter math beforehand. Heck, just looking at the CRs can tell you that

My advice is to always check that and adjust the encounter to suit your needs. You can even remove encounters or add some if you think that works better for the story you want to tell. Do not be a slave to what was written down, that is a recipe for disaster for any group. The question simply is how much tuning and rewriting you need, and CoS seems to be decent with just changing the encounters to suit, some others need more involved fixing