D&D 5E hafrogman's Hoard of the Dragon Queen (full)

[hafrogman]

Just FYI, I haven't posted anything because I was waiting for the cultist to act, unless he or she is dead.

Yeah, sorry I've been lax in updating and left my maps at home. The cultist is alive. I don't have a target from Venn, but if he was aiming at the cultist, he didn't kill it outright.

 

[Forged Fury]

No problem, I went ahead and posted some stuff with contingencies. I think you can work with it.

 

[Forged Fury]

Carad moved to N8, so if the cultist wanted to attack Hunter, Carad would have been able to make an OA on him, if I am reading the map correctly.

 

[hafrogman]

Carad moved to N8, so if the cultist wanted to attack Hunter, Carad would have been able to make an OA on him, if I am reading the map correctly.

Ah, there was his destination square. Couldn't quite find it. Of course it just means the cultist would have attacked Carad instead. Good thing he ate those berries

 

[Forged Fury]

Yeah, I really don't get how 1st level characters are supposed to deal with this opening. This seems challenging even for our level, LOL.

 

[hafrogman]

Eh, nothing has really hurts you guys* and you have resources to deal with it all. Including hit dice that nobody has touched. But yeah, 1st level would mean less HP and a lot less resources. Ultimately, the implication in the book is "only do part of it" but that felt boring to me. "You come across a town under attack. Rush in to help. Make it to the keep, cower in keep for 8 hours because you have no spells and no hit dice left." *shrug* I wanted to make this BIG. So you're doing all or most of the options in the opening act.

It will slow down leveling quite a bit, but you get the joy of being Big Damn Heroes.

*aside from one lucky rat crit

 

[kuey1975]

Yup! Read the HotDQ was designed while the rules was still being put together, and so some of the encounters are quite imbalanced.

Sigh, looks like Carad has been jinxed with a bad dice. Just accumulating fumble rolls here... Need to do some dice shaming soon.

 

[Skarsgard]

Carads dice have been real bad.

DO we want to get into the church and get the people out before the circling team comes back?

 

[Forged Fury]

We definitely want to get in the church, I think. We keep hearing the ram hitting the front door. Whether we can convince them to leave and organize it in the time allotted, I'm not sure...

 

[kuey1975]

Haha, yes. Maybe Carad should take the Lucky feat at level 4 to mitigate.

I think if the door comes down too early, we won't be able to get our original plan in motion, i.e. creating illusion at back door to fool the roving team, while we take out the group at the front door. In fact, the roving group might still be north of the temple, i.e. together with the ramming group. So, the two teams might join up and either attack from the front door or, even worse, do a pincer attack from both the front and back door, trapping us and the villagers. So once our party gets into the temple, if the door doesn't look good from the ramming, I agree with [MENTION=6787159]Skarsgard[/MENTION] that we should probably get the villagers out as quickly as possible into the relative safety of the river creek and flee to the keep. Think either Jeni, whom they recognise, or those with high Cha should be able to get them out quickly? Then either our party try to draw the remaining raiders away, or at least hold the rear of the villagers as they flee. Of course, if in the process, we manage to take out the enemy (and capture the commander), that would be great!

So all depends on how the door holds...