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

[Mort]

Because it's in the adventure that I paid $40 to run. And it's the highest reviewed adventure of the 5e era.
And I trust the designers of the system to know how to create adventures.
(They apparently don't.)

Much as I like 5e (the system) I've found most of the "official" published adventures REALLY lacking.

Most of the Adventure's league adventures are actually better designed than the published modules.

 

[Mort]

Take it up with Chris Perkins.

I'm going to give it a serious look through. Owned it for a while but never ran it.

 

[Retreater]

Much as I like 5e (the system) I've found most of the "official" published adventures REALLY lacking.

Most of the Adventure's league adventures are actually better designed than the published modules.

Even when I'm designing my own adventures, they don't come near the level of challenge that I would like.
With another group I was dropping mariliths and other high level monsters at 7th level characters.
The system just doesn't work. I don't even get a single turn to act, so it's not like I'm employing bad strategy. The group rushes in and they're a blender - nothing can stand up to them. Nothing can get in a single action. Or if they do - it's like "I do 12 points of damage." It's pathetic.

 

[Retreater]

I'm going to give it a serious look through. Owned it for a while but never ran it.

This is my second time running it. I had a decent challenge the first go around (up until they got to Castle Ravenloft with all the magic items and a few extra NPCs, anyway).
This is just ... it's too easy. And using milestone XP it becomes even more difficult to figure out the challenges.

 

[Xamnam]

(eg placing them too close together so more than expected get hit by AoE).

This is a thing I am notoriously foolish about, and I can lay the blame nowhere else. It's created some memorable scenes for the party, at least.

 

[Retreater]

This is a thing I am notoriously foolish about, and I can lay the blame nowhere else. It's created some memorable scenes for the party, at least.

Honestly, it's difficult to do when dungeons are so darned small. I guess it's trying to be realistic with the scope of buildings, but it doesn't make for good tactical combat situations.
So the choice is to spread out your monsters in a big environment or to beef up the monsters (or weaken AoEs) to survive AoE attacks. At least PF2 has weakened AoE attacks to give the mobs a fighting chance.
Last night I was looking through a Paragon tier 4e adventure, and I'm telling you, those battle fields can be LARGE. Plenty of room for enemies to spread out, flank, push the characters. It's all the stuff you wish you could do in 5e, but it's never given the space to breathe.

 

[Mort]

Even when I'm designing my own adventures, they don't come near the level of challenge that I would like.
With another group I was dropping mariliths and other high level monsters at 7th level characters.
The system just doesn't work. I don't even get a single turn to act, so it's not like I'm employing bad strategy. The group rushes in and they're a blender - nothing can stand up to them. Nothing can get in a single action. Or if they do - it's like "I do 12 points of damage." It's pathetic.

I haven't had too much trouble challenging my group and 2 of the 4 are serious power gamers. Regular characters are 7th level and while there have not been any deaths this time around, the have been a number of close calls. The group certainly doesn't feel like they're breezing though.

 

[Retreater]

I haven't had too much trouble challenging my group and 2 of the 4 are serious power gamers. Regular characters are 7th level and while there have not been any deaths this time around, the have been a number of close calls. The group certainly doesn't feel like they're breezing though.

So you don't use the published adventures. I'm guessing you don't use the encounter building guidelines in the DMG.
Do you create your own monsters? Do you throw like +10 level challenges against them? NPCs with class levels?
Do you let your players use non-core stuff (like Xanathar's options)? Do you use gritty rest variants?
I'm just trying to figure out what I'm missing. I have no idea how 5e is even considered "playable."

 

[pemerton]

The party gets to Kresk and decides they want to stop the Abbot. I give the party's cleric some divine intervention to say "maybe don't try to kill this guy outright" - and the party gets frustrated that they have to leave yet another adventure location because it's too difficult to change anything.
So I'm assessing that the party has explored the village of Barovia and completed the Death House; gone through Vallaki and basically did all the damage they can do there by putting Wachter in power; met with the Vistani at Tser Pool; spoke with the Abbot in Kresk. In frustration, the other "old timer" in the group (a 55 year old parent of some kids in the group) says "everywhere we go, it's like we're at least 2 levels behind where we should be."
And sure enough, using milestone levelling, the party should be at 5th level before their next planned stop (the Winery).
So at the start of the previous session, they went from 2nd to 3rd level. An hour into yesterday's session (and after that complaint), I just shrugged: "Level up. I guess twice."

Perhaps if I provide a very specific example?

Party composition (all 5th level):
Ranger
Cleric
Rogue
Paladin
Artificer (Artillerist specialization)

The party knows from talking to a group of survivors that the Winery has been overrun with druids and their plant-like minions. Ranger has cast Pass Without Trace so the group can enter the building - basically undetected. They stealth into a room that is packed with 24 twig blights and a druid overseeing everything on scaffolding.
Initiative is rolled when the party breaks into the fermentation room. Each twig blight has 4 HP and AC 13. The Paladin is killing two a round with his multiattack. The Artificer drops a shatter spell in the midst of the creatures - and even if they save for half damage, they die anyway (that's one third of them dead). Rogue is killing one a round with Sneak Attack. Cleric is killing one a round with Sacred Flame. The paladin has a 19 AC, so I am rarely hitting him.
The Ranger gets the drop on the druid on the scaffolding. One shot, second shot with colossus slayer. Dead druid before she got a chance to even cast a middling produce flame spell.
And that's basically a typical encounter. All of the enemies are dead - usually before we go around the table.

There seems to be some tension here: you were concerned that the PCs were not mechanically powerful enough to tackle the Winery, and so got the players to add a couple of levels; they then easily defeated the encounter at the winery, and you're unhappy that the encounter at the Winery was too easy.

I don't know much about 5e D&D's CR rules, but taking what someone posted upthread at face value, twig blights are CR 1/8 and a druid is CR 2. Treating those additively (which probably exaggerates their strength), that is 24/8 +2 = 5. In 3E D&D, I would expect a 5th level party to handle a CR 5 encounter fairly handily, especially if it had a lot of low AC, 4 hp creatures in it. In 4e D&D, I would expect a 5th level party to handle a Level 5 encounter fairly handily, especially if the PCs have AoE abilities and the encounter includes 24 closely-packed 1st level minions. (In 4e, 24 1st level minions would be 600 XP, which is 3/5 of the budget for a 5th level encounter.)

So the outcome in the Winery doesn't seem that surprising to me.

 

[Mort]

So you don't use the published adventures. I'm guessing you don't use the encounter building guidelines in the DMG.
Do you create your own monsters? Do you throw like +10 level challenges against them? NPCs with class levels?
Do you let your players use non-core stuff (like Xanathar's options)? Do you use gritty rest variants?
I'm just trying to figure out what I'm missing. I have no idea how 5e is even considered "playable."

I've been running a homebrew Greyhawk campaign.

Use the adventuring day XP budget but tend to add to it a bit (nothing like +10CR though).

But when Spelljammer came out the players got a bit nostalgic so running it, pretty much straight.

Have been able to challenge them just fine, and again, that's with a twilight cleric - they make the DM work for it.

Players also had a hankering for higher level play, so ran them through a 15th level adventure (mostly designed by @Flamestrike). Mostly uses the standard XP budget except the final encounters which were overclocked. Final encounter, after the players had already spent almost all of their resources to get there was a CR 25, but it 1. it was a solo and 2. the design was for it to be a chase encounter with the PCs trying to get the heck out of dodge. It actually worked (ad felt) great having a high level party running for it.

The true key, IMO, is to not let the group dictate the pace of play all the time. Make them do stuff when they are way off their peak.

And don't play "fair." Invisible opponents. Smart opponents who set ambushes. Diversions to waste group resources etc.