D&D 5E Do You Tinker with Adventures to Make Them "Winnable"?

If you, at your table, think you need to adjust something about the adventure you're running - whether it's your own work or someone else's - so that your players will have more fun going through it, then adjust it.

Simple as that.
 

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Lwaxy

Cute but dangerous
I do not run adventures where they players can't solve the quests, although if they can only solve something later in the game that is fine and I always communicate that the world can have challenges too big for them.
 

I think you're saying that as a joke, but this is exactly the kind of thing I like to see in TTRPGs that can't really happen in CRPGs. It's possible that the invulnerable door could be a thing the party carries around for the rest of the campaign and finds uses for.

A party I was in smashed an "indestructible" huge adamantium door with a ring of Telekinesis over and over on top of enemy opponents. We recovered it carefully after concluding that the door was very durable... but the masonry it was attached to was within our destructive power...

To address the OP, I tinker every adventure so the player have a decent opposition but I will make sure they get the necessary clue. Which implies thinking of several ways for them to get said clue, and making sure I don't keep a necessary element behind a skill check (that, invariably, the players will manage to fumble). I also tinker to make the scenario more fun for the players. I had a plot with a kidnapping ring in a seedy suburb. Distmantling it was a step to reach the characters goal. For some unfathomable reasons, the players decided, before even learning about the kidnapping, to visit the suburb under the disguise of a poor, homeless family with the halfling rogue playing the role of an infant. It would have been a missed opportunity not to have townsfolk warning them to keep an eye on the baby with all those kidnapping recently, and expecting them to be informed about it by speaking to an official that would have acted as a quest giver. I try to make it so everything the players do have a chance to contribute usefully to their goal.

On the other hand, players should have the opportunity to fail, if they can't think of way to overcome the challenge. It doesn't mean guessing exactly what the author had in mind, it means having a realistic-enough, cool-looking enough solution to the problem. If I had been Theseus's DM, I'd have allowed him to succeed on his silk rope idea, even if I had planned another route for escaping the maze, like constructing a dam to divert a river and flooding the Maze like that other PC, Herakles, did when playing that module about stables.

With regard to the specific points raised by the OP, I think the magic door that can only be opened by a Knock spell is a misreading (by the designer?) of what an arcane lock is. I'd expect a wizard to have arcane-locked doors and chest, that can be opened with Knock... but the spell doesn't make it impossible to open just more difficult. Unless heavily telegraphed, I'd change that in a heartbeat and not have PCs just stuck in front a door they must cross.

It's even worse with the enemy they can't reduce under 1 HP. There is a serious chance of TPK if the players don't flee and don't have enough clues about the situation. At least I'd make it clear from the beginning of the fight that something is amiss, by having the wizard gloating about his protection and making sure the players see that their attacks have no effect. Getting the foe to 1 HP... can make them think he'll get down soon and it would be too late to flee anyway.

Adventures in TTRPG should'nt be designed like CRPG ones -- and even MMORPG would usually have a way to identify the correct strategy when one is needed for a boss fight like the unkillable wizard.


@Retreater and @Reynard pointed out, rightly IMHO, that sandbox games should not necessary be tweaked so the party can always succceed. That's the point, IMHO, of sandbox games. If the players state, at level 1, that they plan to assassinate each and every ir'Wynarn and reunite the kingdom of Galifar under their rule, it's... fine, but I don't think they should miaculously encounter the king of Breland taking a stroll in a park after sending his guards back so they can conveniently assassinate him. Even if they study his habits beforehand to identify such opportunity. They should gather ressources and get insight on the opposition and build a credible strategy. But in the OP's case, we're, I think, on a lower scale. From what I got, the problem appeared without means for the players to realize the problem. If it occurred while they were assaulting the BBEG stronghold at a much lower level than reasonable (and they had some clues about the opposition they were encountering), I wouldn't change anything. But having the PCs just burglar a house and having the GM say "Tough luck, this old crone is in fact Baba Yaga in disguise. You're dead" isn't fun for anyone. It's not tweaking the game to make anything achievable right now, it's tweaking the game so the PCs can get an idea of the challenge level and manage their expectations.
 

1) Party needs to get into room to defeat evil caster who is terrorizing the local village. Caster is safely locked behind a door that (per the adventure) "cannot be damaged, forced open, or opened in any other way besides a knock spell (or a second spell that is fairly obscure)." All the party can do is leave the quest incomplete.
And is that actually the design intent of the adventure, or did events simply somehow end up there? Not that it matters, because if you want the PC's to win, then regardless of what situation the adventure design created, as DM you can figure out a way to let them win. If it was YOU who simply let events somehow end up in a no-win situation then same thing - as DM, if you want the PC's to win, they win; if you want them to lose, they lose.
2) Party enters the first room of the dungeon. There's a monster that is resistant to magic and immune to non-magical weapon attacks (and has a boat load of HP). Party doesn't have magic weapons, because none are placed in the adventure. All the party can do is leave the quest incomplete.
Resistant to magic is not immunity to magic so it's not actually an insoluable problem, just a more tediously difficult one. But again, you should read and be familiar enough with an adventure to spot that kind of flaw. You should know what magic items the PC's have and what they can ACTUALLY do or not do. When the module then throws them into a Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario, you change the rules of the test.
3) Party fights their way through a dungeon to get to the BBEG. He cannot be reduced below 1 HP unless the party casts one of two spells in another room that they are too level to be able to cast. (The adventure specifically says that no other actions work.) All the party can do is leave the quest incomplete.
Again, reading the adventure is key. You have to be able to recognize that the party is too low a level to genuinely be able to win. Whether that's the fault of the adventure design or not, in the end it is ALWAYS the DM who holds the power to determine whether the PC's can win or not. When you unexpectedly find yourself in that situation of realizing the PC's are in a no-win scenario - change the rules for the scenario. That is YOUR JOB as DM. It's one of the reasons WHY you're there.
Also, when following the milestone XP suggestions, they get nothing for incomplete missions. So they can't level up to be able to complete the other missions, stuck forever at 4th level.
And why do you feel that you are FORBIDDEN to let the PC's undertake some small side-adventure so that they CAN level-up and actually reach the level they need to be? Whether the adventure is your own creation or not, as DM, the GAME that you're all playing is yours to run AS YOU WISH. You're not there to just blindly enforce somebody else's vision of how YOUR game HAS to go.
 

TheSword

Legend
And why do you feel that you are FORBIDDEN to let the PC's undertake some small side-adventure so that they CAN level-up and actually reach the level they need to be? Whether the adventure is your own creation or not, as DM, the GAME that you're all playing is yours to run AS YOU WISH. You're not there to just blindly enforce somebody else's vision of how YOUR game HAS to go.
The funny thing about this adventure is that there are literally dozens and dozens of side quests and locations that could be used to level party up if needed.
 

Retreater

Legend
The funny thing about this adventure is that there are literally dozens and dozens of side quests and locations that could be used to level party up if needed.
In Chapter Two there are 13 quests. They have to complete 2-3 quests to gain a level. Probably about one third of them are incompletable by the recommended levels. Mathematically, it's improbable that the party will stumble into the "right" quest.
 

TheSword

Legend
In Chapter Two there are 13 quests. They have to complete 2-3 quests to gain a level. Probably about one third of them are incompletable by the recommended levels. Mathematically, it's improbable that the party will stumble into the "right" quest.
Plus the ten quests in chapter one. Let’s be honest in 5e most parties can tackle a quest designed for a couple of levels higher or lower.

As a DM you can also decide where the foes are at any given point. Maybe a few are out hunting or there is a fight between two factions and the PCs end up in the middle. Or a clue is given to Telegraph what the PCs will be up against, making the fight much easier.

As has been said, change what you need to change if your party is particularly powerful or weak.
 

Retreater

Legend
Plus the ten quests in chapter one. Let’s be honest in 5e most parties can tackle a quest designed for a couple of levels higher or lower.

As a DM you can also decide where the foes are at any given point. Maybe a few are out hunting or there is a fight between two factions and the PCs end up in the middle. Or a clue is given to Telegraph what the PCs will be up against, making the fight much easier.

As has been said, change what you need to change if your party is particularly powerful or weak.
The ten quests in Chapter One give no experience (per the adventure) after Chapter One.
 


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