D&D 5E First Session of HotDQ - WOW, what a meatgrinder

[Nytmare]

You only have to start really worrying when we move in together...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmzuRXLzqKk

 

[Desalus]

Yeah but the internet is full of examples where the most comments made are made by people with negative experiences. That is not necessarily representative of the whole. If you consider just how many people are playing through HotDQ, just through Adventurer's League alone, then the vast majority seem to not be coming online and complaining that it's too hard.

That's true the internet is not a good representation. But I'm guessing new players won't care enough to come onto an RPG forum and complain about their experience...they will just stop coming to the sessions like I have seen. Most people on RPG forums are not new to roleplaying and will be more apt to enjoy this adventure.

For Adventurer's League I did, yes. 100% by the book. Although, as I said, the other DM was lenient so the group was rested and levelled up for my session (I'm like an alternate, I play mostly but DM if it's needed and I'm not falling asleep on my feet, which is most of the time).

But for my other play and DM experiences, it was pretty stock standard. Having known the adventure as a player I also tried not to influence the decisions being made too much.

I'm very curious to know how your parties survived if you played it exactly as written. To me there just seems to be way too many encounters with no rests for that to even work (unless your party was full of healers).

Yeah, I gotta disagree here. Making choices is what RPG's are all about. Making good and bad choices are part and parcel of the play experience. Hell, even as a veteran player, I make mistakes with my PC's all the time. Giving the players an experience where they can't make bad decisions is like saying, "Don't worry, you can't fail, just do whatever silly nonsense you like as there won't be any consequences."

I completely agree that making choices is what RPGs are all about. However, I was speaking specifically about new players. I think you have high expectations for new players if you expect them to come into Greenest and know that they should conserve their spells throughout 4+ sessions. Quite a few probably expect that their spells will refresh after each session. Also I never said anything about not allowing them to fail, I just think that this adventure does a lousy job of easing them into the game. If you had a table with a bunch of new players, it would be akin to throwing them into the deep end of a pool and expecting them to swim with no prior swimming lessons.

Eh, in my experience every Pathfinder game I've participated in has been a cake-walk. I tried DM'ing it and used "balanced" encounters and all the players complained that it was too easy and that I'd gotten the math wrong. I went back, checked, rechecked, and had other people look over it on forums, and it wasn't balanced at all. It was actually considered far too powerful for the PC's to defeat. They won in the first round of every combat.

It would be interesting to convert 'Greenest in Flames' to Pathfinder and see how well it runs.

Eh, I think it highly depends on the DM and how it's run. And also on the type of players. The only thing I'll agree on is that it is definitely a meat-grinder. But on the flip-side, I think these types of scenarios also foster smarter, more cautious, more creative play. Part of why I have such a hate-on for 3.x/Pathfinder is that I got so bored of the "let's just kick in every door and loot every store because we're practically unkillable" style of play that it promotes. The only time I've seen characters die in these systems is when they do something so monumentally stupid that they'd be deserving of a Darwin Award.

Yeah the experience of every adventure is highly dependent on the DM and how it's run. As I said in an earlier post, a DM could take the absolute worst adventure and turn it into something great. 'Greenest in Flames' is probably a welcome challenge for RPG veterans. I completely understand why this adventure would seem like such a refreshing change from 3.x/Pathfinder if your experience was as you described. However, I'd wager to say that an adventure as difficult as this one is not the best introduction for new players. If I invited my friends or family over, who were new to D&D or even RPGs, this is not the adventure I would want to begin with. I think the chapter would be a lot more fun as a higher level character but I don't think it's a good level 1 introduction adventure.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm very curious to know how your parties survived if you played it exactly as written. To me there just seems to be way too many encounters with no rests for that to even work (unless your party was full of healers).

Played /exactly/ as written, Seek the Keep can put a party through a series of random encounters, followed by a fight with 8 Kobolds, followed by 3 more encounters. Or, it can be 0 random encounters (they are /random/ after all), followed by watching 8 kobolds massacre a family, followed by sneaking or talking your way past 3 more encounters. The latter extreme, obviously, is quite survivable, since you never actually fight, at all, just make a lot of DEX checks, maybe some CHA checks.

Even if you are brutalized by Seek the Keep (or the Sanctuary or Old Tunnel or Sally Port), you can simply decline the rest of the missions. You might not make 2nd, but you'll be alive in the morning.

 

[Thank Dog]

I'm very curious to know how your parties survived if you played it exactly as written. To me there just seems to be way too many encounters with no rests for that to even work (unless your party was full of healers).

The kobolds are dead in one hit almost every single time. One round and there was usually only a cultist or drake left standing. Second round he was dead too. The DM rolling well and the PC's rolling poorly could skew that but at the end of the day, the law of averages means the PC's aren't really in that much danger unless they're very foolish about how they do things.

I also liked to use pack tactics whenever I could. Still didn't make much of an impact. The monk alone would take out two kobolds a turn. A sorcerer with burning hands once took out almost all the kobolds in an encounter in one go. Rolled well enough that even the ones that saved died. Dragonborn did much the same with lightning breath.

If you read the module, the PC's can sneak through the town fairly easily and only get spotted if two of them fail the very low DC 10 check. So more often than not, they got the jump on groups.

 

[Desalus]

Even if you are brutalized by Seek the Keep (or the Sanctuary or Old Tunnel or Sally Port), you can simply decline the rest of the missions. You might not make 2nd, but you'll be alive in the morning.

Declining the missions would work just fine for a home game but for Encounters that doesn’t exactly work out so nicely. If one group skipped parts of chapter 1 they would then be far ahead of other groups if they didn’t do the same.

The kobolds are dead in one hit almost every single time. One round and there was usually only a cultist or drake left standing. Second round he was dead too. The DM rolling well and the PC's rolling poorly could skew that but at the end of the day, the law of averages means the PC's aren't really in that much danger unless they're very foolish about how they do things.

How many players did you have in your groups? When we had seven players we steamrolled through ‘Seek the Keep’. However, on all subsequent missions, when we had 4-5 players, it always seemed like it took us at least four rounds to defeat our enemies.

I also liked to use pack tactics whenever I could. Still didn't make much of an impact. The monk alone would take out two kobolds a turn. A sorcerer with burning hands once took out almost all the kobolds in an encounter in one go. Rolled well enough that even the ones that saved died. Dragonborn did much the same with lightning breath.

Compared to your group of players the group I played with sounds completely inept. More than half the time it seemed like my group would fail our attack rolls against kobolds and cultists. My core party consists of a gnome that rolls well but seems to attack with puny d4 or d6 damage weapon, a fighter that who multi-classed into a wizard at level 2 (so I’m not sure how good of a fighter the character is), and me who always forgot to make use of my fighter’s ‘Great Weapon Fighting’ style. For one session we had a druid that used all of his spells on ‘Seek the Keep’, a ranger for two sessions who rolled terribly (probably failed 70% of his rolls – seemed like his d20 was cursed), and a cleric for two sessions that quickly used up his healing spells and consistently failed at hitting with sacred flame.

If you read the module, the PC's can sneak through the town fairly easily and only get spotted if two of them fail the very low DC 10 check. So more often than not, they got the jump on groups.

If you have a bunch of players wearing medium or heavy armor with disadvantage, this doesn’t work out so well. With two fighters in the group you could easily fail the sneak check.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Declining the missions would work just fine for a home game but for Encounters that doesn’t exactly work out so nicely. If one group skipped parts of chapter 1 they would then be far ahead of other groups if they didn’t do the same.

Just to clarify, (because people seem to miss this part) if a DM runs a party through every mission in Episode 1, the DM is not running the module "by the book".

The sequence of events that follow is up to you and the characters. You can present them with as many of the encounters as you want, in any order. The only exception is "Seek the Keep", which should e the first encounter after the characters enter Greenest.

I ran all but one of the events, but I have a table of 5-6 people in a home campaign where there is only one heavily armored character. They snuck everywhere easily. If I'd run a table of heavily armored, unstealthy characters, I would have dropped other events, too.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The kobolds are dead in one hit almost every single time. One round and there was usually only a cultist or drake left standing. Second round he was dead too.

How do you figure? You must have a lot of players. Statistically, you're only hitting kobolds 2/3 of the time, give or take (AC 12). And they have 5 hp. Unless every one of your PCs has a +4 ability modifier (and even then), I don't see how you're taking out 4 or 6 kobolds in the very first round. And the ambush drake has AC 13 and 22 hp.

I also liked to use pack tactics whenever I could. Still didn't make much of an impact.

Hell, for us it sure did. With advantage, and a +4 base to hit, they were hitting us nearly every time. Did all of your PCs have AC 18 or something?

The monk alone would take out two kobolds a turn.

How do you figure. Your extra monk attack doesn't get ability modifier damage to it unless you also have the two-weapon feat. My interpretation is that it's treated like any other bonus off hand attack. So how does 1d4 dmg take out a 5 hp kobold, assuming you're hitting with every attack anyway?

A sorcerer with burning hands once took out almost all the kobolds in an encounter in one go. Rolled well enough that even the ones that saved died. Dragonborn did much the same with lightning breath.

Yeah, or wiz tried burning hands too. Took out two kobolds that were in range, but because of that ended up in the front line (since you have to get close) and got skewered by the other remaining ones. A AC12, 6HP PC didn't last long against kobolds that attacked at advantage.

Also, that's great for one encounter, but what about all the others? You can only do those things once.

 

[Desalus]

Just to clarify, (because people seem to miss this part) if a DM runs a party through every mission in Episode 1, the DM is not running the module "by the book".
Thaumaturge.

Yeah that's a good point. However with Encounters, I was under the impression that each table is expected to run through all of the missions so that they generally end at the same spot each time. I know this doesn't always work in theory, but I thought that's what DM's are encouraged to do since attendance can fluctuate from week to week and players might end up with a different DM.


On a different note, thanks Sacrosanct for dissecting Thank Dog's post. Makes me feel a better about the performance of my group.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Yeah that's a good point. However with Encounters, I was under the impression that each table is expected to run through all of the missions so that they generally end at the same spot each time. I know this doesn't always work in theory, but I thought that's what DM's are encouraged to do since attendance can fluctuate from week to week and players might end up with a different DM.

Hopefully, someone else can speak to the Encounters expectation, because I just don't know. I certainly understand what you're saying, but, especially with Episode 1, it seems players playing the Encounters version of the adventure will just have to accept they'll miss stuff and the pacing will be weird.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Sacrosanct]

On a different note, thanks Sacrosanct for dissecting Thank Dog's post. Makes me feel a better about the performance of my group.

When we played, we had 4 encounters before making it to the keep, and we had to protect villagers along the way. No one died, but I went down twice, the sorcerer went down once, and the barbarian went down once.

Remember, pact tactics doesn't mean the kobolds all have to be up on you, only that an ally of theirs does. So the cultists and drakes were on the front line while the kobolds all ran around and were not in a nice tight group for us to AoE on them.