I'm thinking of taking out the stirges and just having some bat swarms instead.
I've thought about an otyugh. I suppose I could do that.
That sounds cool! I might do that!
My group argued their case with Governor Nighthill and were persuasive enough so I had three guards go with them. During the ambush, the guards fared much better than the PCs due to the randomness of the dice, and the players joked that if their PCs all died they should just start playing the guards instead.
The cultists in the camp aren't the entirety of the cult. They're just one small cell plus some hired mercenaries and such.
Some of it has to do with the unfinished Perception rules. The adventure doesn't railroad you into the rearguard ambush, though. It actually comes right out and says that the PCs would be better off avoiding this encounter all together, so the DM is encouraged to make sure the PCs know it's there ahead of time.
Baldurs Gate is a city founded on trade. It seems highly implausible to me that it would just rest on its laurels while raiders sacked their trading partners in the region.
Then it borderlines' on absurd that the Dukes are just going to let cultists cruise around in treasure wagons on their door step. If a bunch of low level characters can figure out what's going on, they certainly can.
Also note the time it would take runners on horse back to go from town to town, raising the alarm, is much faster than the pace that those caravan wagons travel at.
Maybe its our DM, but I haven't had the sense that there are cultists everywhere. If that was the case however, then I'd expect the towns of the region to at least be taking more action, and the Flaming Fists at least stepping up security around Baldurs Gate.
The fact that everyone seems to be sitting back doing nothing, and letting a bunch of low level chars ters sort it outc strikes me as a contrived scenario. Whether that's a module issue, DM issue, or both, I am not privy to.
D&D 5E Enhancing "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)
pukunui
Legend
That's pretty much the case with every FR adventure ever, isn't it?
Lol, yes that's very true indeed!
Don't get me wrong, I think it can be a great module, it just needs a bit of polishing.
I think because it's an AP our DM thought he could pick it up and run with it as written. With groups with a lot of "buy in" that would be fine, for other groups like ours it probably needs a bit of tweaking here and there.
He is doing that now, but you know what they say about first impressions.
pukunui
Legend
We'll forgive him for thinking that because he's new.
Mmm. I made sure my players bought into the premise ahead of time. I gave them a good sense of the adventure's scope and made sure they each picked a bond from the options in the back of the Hoard book. Two of the PCs also have the optional background features (Cult of the Dragon infiltrator and Dragon Scholar).
We've only managed to play through Episode 1 so far, but my players all loved it. Even Lennithon and Langdedrosa. My group's the opposite to yours, though: experienced DM with new players*.
*One of my players is a long-time D&D player but he's new to 5e, having mostly played 3.5/PF before this. The other three have only played Lost Mine of Phandelver before this.
My poor players. They managed to sneak on the citadel at night and avoid the master vampire, but they didn't go for the nearest door (which would have led them directly to the cloud giant)... nooo... they went straight for the vampire's tower and used magic to get inside. That battle drained a lot of their resources and since it was such a flashy battle, they fled into the caves... and straight into the dragon's lair.
The characters with their bag of holding and the black dragon mask died. The one with the mask was also the one who could cast fly and feather fall and now, low on resources, with no safe place to hide, the other three were trapped in Skyreach Castle on their way to the Well of the Dragons. By unanimous vote (with 1 abstaining (me) and 1 absence), they voted to end the campaign there and save themselves the humiliation of being horribly murdered by the cult.
The characters with their bag of holding and the black dragon mask died. The one with the mask was also the one who could cast fly and feather fall and now, low on resources, with no safe place to hide, the other three were trapped in Skyreach Castle on their way to the Well of the Dragons. By unanimous vote (with 1 abstaining (me) and 1 absence), they voted to end the campaign there and save themselves the humiliation of being horribly murdered by the cult.
pukunui
Legend
Upon further review ... Baldur's Gate is only a city-state. They don't control their trading partners, so I don't know how much they can actually do. They could certainly step up patrols in their territory and recommend that people hire on more guards for their caravans and such. They might be able to send out some Flaming Fists to reinforce town guards in the nearest towns.
Also the fact that it's cultists doing the raiding is meant to be something of a secret. The cultists deliberately don't wear their cult uniforms on raids. As far as anyone in Baldur's Gate knows, there's just been an increase in banditry in the lower Sword Coast/western Heartlands region - most of which is a fairly lawless area anyway. The low-level heroes find this out by directly interacting with the cultists.
Yes, they (and Leosin) can put the word out that it's really the Cult of the Dragon, but that doesn't necessarily spell the end of the cult's plans. Many cultists have legitimate businesses in civilized areas. They have people who can cover for them. They also have plenty of magic at their disposal. They might even have some of the Baldurian dukes in their pocket. If criminal organizations like the Mafia can operate more or less in plain sight in the real world, I don't think it's all that implausible or absurd that a similar organization can get away with things in a world with less advanced crime-fighting techniques.
EDIT: Speaking of Baldur's Gate, I wonder how feasible it would be to take some of the encounters from the Murder in Baldur's Gate adventure and interject them into Hoard while the PCs are in the city? It could be fun to show that the cult does indeed have a network of operatives in the city who are helping them smuggle the treasure through the city unnoticed.
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According to the Baldurs Gate Campaign Guide (which the HoTDQ designers have clearly read), the Flaming Fist very actively engages in regional military campaigns. In fact, they specifically mention that at any time 3000 of their 6000 members are out campaigning at at time. The Dukes use the fist actively to maintain Baldurs Gate profitable stance in the region.
And let me remind you - Rome was a city state - so that means nothing.
It's FR cannon that Baldurs Gate like to projects its power, it's ridiculous and highly implausable that it would just sit back and do nothing while sword coast towns are raided, and at least one sacked. The effect on the dukes tax revenue would be profound if this module was written realistically, since trade would effectively grind to a halt in the region and the dukes make a lot of tax revenue from trading caravans coming through Baldurs Gate.
The fact that a bunch of 1st level characters can discover what is going on pretty easily strains disbelief to think that the Dukes cannot. The fact the entire region just acts passively and statically defies belief as well.
Refugees flooding into Baldurs Gate would put pressure on the already strained relationships between the outer city and inner city proper, and refugees flooding into other towns in the region would also strain their own cities.
The Mafia does not sack entire towns so the comparison is invalid. These are more like viking raids. I'm pretty sure a ducal Lord in the medieval times would do is utmost to track down viking raiders who had sacked towns in his sphere of influence and return all that wealth immediately to him. Lets not forget (the module seems to) that Dragons were involved here as well, so people are going to be taking this seriously.
It's utterly ridiculous that the cult decide to slowly head along well traveled roads with caravans packed to the roof filled with loot, especially in a world where magic and divinitation is so readily available. One "Find the Path" or "Locate Object" spell would immediately track them down, and the Dukes would get their grubby hands on a lot of wealth - pitifully protected.
At the very least anyone with the least bit of sense would be moving all this loot by boat.
The whole premise of this part of the story is stupid. We already know where they're going, we should be stopping them. But we have yet another vague and pointless "Go here and find out what's going on" mission.
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pukunui
Legend
How do you know that the powers-that-be in Baldur's Gate are doing nothing? Did your DM tell you that?
I was talking more about the cultists smuggling loot through the city.
I'm not so sure about that. In the time when the Norse went a-Viking, the lords' spheres of influence would've been fairly small and the raiders would most likely have come from far away. It's probable some managed to track them down and recover the loot but I doubt it was a common thing.
Spells like find the path and locate object can be blocked fairly easily. While I'll agree that the route the cult takes isn't sensible, I don't think it's quite as implausible/absurd/ridiculous as you're making it out to be. Remember: as a player, you're not privy to all the info. It might seem nonsensical from your end, but that doesn't mean that it is.
What seems more implausible to me would be the cult not having anyone in Baldur's Gate to help them out. Perhaps the cult arranges matters so that their men are on guard when the wagons arrive and thus they're not properly searched. Perhaps one (or more) of the dukes is also a cultist and is using their influence to stymie the city's investigations and/or downplay the seriousness of it. There's also the fact that the cult is deliberately taking a circuitous route so as to obfuscate the hoard's ultimate destination.
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I feel it is absolutely absurd and I have a fair amount of leeway when it comes to these things. I'm willing to put up with a bit of this for the sake of the story, but an evil cult transporting caravans packed full of gold through one of the most populist cities in the FR, while everyone sits back and pretends nothing has happened, is absurd.
The missions are also absurd. We know where they are going, we have a pretty good idea what they are up to, but we're given orders to just pointlessly follow them to a known destination.
The more I discuss this with you, the more I am convinced I'm going to completely try and derail this awfully written chapter next session.
pukunui
Legend
Again, how do you know this is the case? Has your DM established this as fact?
Where are they going and how have you found that out? EDIT: Never mind. It's in Mondath's papers. Still, unless you've done some research, you might not know precisely where the castle is.
Also, something else to consider is this: the powers-that-be might be deliberately not stopping the cult's wagon train because they don't want to give away that they're on to them yet. They want to see where the cult is taking the treasure and what exactly they're planning on doing with it. Yes, as you've said, you have a pretty good idea about that - but having a good idea and having concrete proof are two different things.
I think it also makes sense that there would be cultists in influential positions who are using their political power to obfuscate and downplay the seriousness of the cult's actions. The powers-that-be might feel unable to do anything until they have more proof ... which is where the PCs come in.
That's terribly unsporting of you. I hope you will at least give your DM some warning, especially considering how green he is.
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