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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 6363203" data-attributes="member: 20741">Please appreciate that I come to this as someone who played in the session  -- not as someone who ran it.The DM has about 30+ years experience as a DM, makes up a LOT of things up on the fly and spends a lot of time differentiating the context in which combats occur and in adding the flourishes which could make a real difference in how I received those combat encounters. What I am trying to say is that I enjoyed it a lot -- but I can't say for sure that I enjoyed what was on the page -- or maybe I just enjoyed the flourishes he added to it. I'm not able to confirm that with you either way.I can say that we initially:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> investigated some mysterious deaths, ascribed to a disease and then later investigated to be poisoning; </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> fought some kobolds and cultists in the forest who were attacking some women who were fleeing Greenest; this may be an entirely made up encounter  - I just don't know.  There was a fair bit of roleplaying and moral choices which transpired out of this combat by reason of the capture of the kobold and cultist and the fact we did not trust these ladies we were rescuing; </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> We got to the town managing what we had left of the caravan to find it under attack by a dragon (Blue or black was unclear -- probably blue) and many cultists and kobolds. The Big Ass dragon scared the bejezus out of us and we cowered like little bitches, but we got our hero on as we saw the kobolds and cultists attacking the city and killing civilians with kids in tow that were running towards us for safety as we watched the horror spread out before us as we crested the hill and looked down on to Greenest; </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The variation in the three combats with the Cultists/kobolds was differentiated through the threats posed to the civilians and the city streets/houses where the combats took place. They got a little "samey", but that had more to do with the effectiveness of Sleep and FireBolt in 5E then it did with the tactics and environment, imo; </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> We avoided a final encounter with winged kobolds when my familiar spotted them on the wing and we ran and hid to avoid them. (Did I mention we ran heroically to avoid them?); </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> We also had a brief exploration of a sewer/ sally port entrance into the Keep where we dealt with 2 rat swarms in 5e. While not as large as 3.xx/PF swarms they were mostly just as annoying; and </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> We ended it off with a roleplaying encounter with the local lord and his dwarven castellan. </li> </ul>What can I say? I LIKED IT. I want to play it again. I didn't like the 5e system all that much, but I didn't mind it and any druthers  I might have had with it were more than made up for by the story and game session itself. If I were asked to play in a 5E home-brew? I must confess I'd probably say no. Mind you -- I'd probably say no to a Pathfinder homebrew given my current gaming schedule, too. But will I play Hoard of the Dragon Queen again? Hells yes. I'm in.If you care to watch the session for yourself (which is based physically in California by the way *ahem*) most of the session is viewable on our Twitch channel: <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/grumpygm/" target="_blank"> GrumpyGM</a></blockquote>

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