D&D 5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen: Encounter Difficulty

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Eugee:

There's a random road encounter in Episode 4 that first got me looking thinking about this:
 

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[sblock]No Room at the Inn4 NPCs have rented out the entire inn and stables, and taunt the PCs repeatedly.  In truth, they are 4 assassins...
The entry ends with:
...
 They needle and goad the  characters and their fellow travelers at every opportu­nity, including from the doorway and windows of the inn  when no one else is inside. If the characters don’t start a  fight, someone else from the caravan might. In fact, these NPCs are four disguised assassins trav­eling to Baldur’s Gate in search of employment and out  to have a good laugh over someone’s misfortune. They  drop all pretense after violence breaks out.
[/sblock] 
CR 8, 3900 XP each
For a party of four 4th-level characters (expected at this point of the adventure)... the top end of a deadly encounter is 2000 XP.
 
The assassins total up to 15,600 XP and challenge wise are at 31,200 XP!
 
Ordinarily I would view this as a sometimes you run away encounter, but the text even mentions that if the characters don't start a fight, the NPCs in the caravan probably will.
 
So that got me looking at some of the other encounters, and some of them are just brutal if you factor in the encounter XP multiplier for difficulty...
 
For a party of four 2nd-level characters a deadly encounter maxes out at 800 XP...
The first real encounter in Raider Camp...

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[sblock]Is 4 Dragonclaws, so 200 XP each is 800 XP, then doubled for 4 of them is 1600 XP...[/sblock] 
Can someone who's started running HotDQ speak to this?  Are the encounters too nasty?
 
It really seems like KP wrote this before the XP Difficulty Multiplier came about, and if it plays fine, why bother with the multiplier?

Originally posted by DarkCrisis77:

​The whole first episode seems brutal for 1st level characters. 1st encounter saw them blow all their spells etc.
 
Several Kobalds with slings are brutal to 1st level characters.
 
Now figure in several encounters and all they get are short rests to complete the town scenerio.
 
I ended up having the Governor give then some cure potions and shortened the over all episode.
 
As much combat as there is and only a couple short rests, its just brutal.
​
​

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Huscarl:

The first episode is brutal. 1st-level characters don't get to swoop in, defeat hundreds of cultists, and win the war on their first day on the job. The DM needs to make players understand, through descriptions of what's happening in town and through NPCs at the keep, that they can't tackle these raiders head-on. Their job is to survive the night and to help as many townsfolk as possible do the same. But even if PCs perform brilliantly, the town will be sacked and innocent townsfolk will be murdered and abducted -- Welcome to the Cult of the Dragon's new vision for the Sword Coast.
 
Regarding the "No Room At the Inn" road encounter -- That encounter has a long, sad history. The original version was very different, because the villains were not assassins but young green slaads polymorphed into human form and out to cause trouble. Playtesters loved the original encounter because of the twist -- no one expected slaads in that situation. 
 
But then young green slaads disappeared from the MM and we were instructed not to use them in this encounter. We cast around for alternatives and found no really good ones, but assassins were at least close to the slaads in power -- as they were then written. In hindsight, we probably should have dropped the encounter entirely and replaced it with something else, because making the villains into just a bunch of human a**holes took all the charm out of the situation. But it had been such a hit with playtesters, we hated to lose it. 
 
The problem was compounded tenfold because, by the time monster stat blocks were finalized, assassins wound up significantly more powerful than the original slaads or even than assassins had been when they were chosen as the slaads' replacement. Thus, we wind up with the killer encounter described by the OP. 
 
I recommend one of the following changes to fix it.
 

• Use veterans instead of assassins. They're still just a pack of jerks, but at least they won't TPK the caravan.
• Use doppelgangers instead, although that makes this encounter rather redundant with another.
• Use werewolves instead. 
• Choose any other creatures you like in the challenge 3-5 range, select enough to make a tough encounter, and give them potions of polymorph, hats of disguise, or some other way to conceal their true identities until it's time for them to spring the surprise. 

Option 4 comes closest to preserving the original intent and value of the encounter, so it's my top recommendation. You could use gargoyles, ettercaps (maybe they captured some potions from another caravan and are looking for payback), nothics (they have some of the slaads' ick factor), minotaurs, or whatever else you like.
 
Or grab one of those stat blocks to use, give it shapechanging ability, and call them young green slaads. 
 
Steve
 

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by DarkCrisis77:

I can't tell if that post is supposed to be sarcastic or something. 
 
The episode doesn't give much instruction beyond "Heres some missions and random encounters"  While one non-random encounter by the river/tunnel consisting of 6 Kobolds and 2 Cultists was all my 4 players could handle for the night.  A group that had a Paladin and a Cleric for healing.  How were they supposed to fight 2 rat swarms immediatly afterwards?  Or any random encounters?  Or save the Mill or the Sanctuary?  And lets not even mention the Dragon.
 
I basically did nothing the episode requested short of "get to the keep" and fight a couple of encounters before doing the final battle that the hero can't win.
 
Im scared now to keep running the book as the encounters can be very lop sided.  Episode 3 has the Roper that hopefully the PCs wont get into a fight with.  Eps 4 has the Assassins. 
 
I get the DM has carte blanche to change things etc but it seems like more work for the DM to edit and change the over-powered stuff that was thrown in.  As if little regard for PCs levels was considered, or s mentioned above poor editing turned a normal encounter into an extra deadly one.

Originally posted by Eugee:

Huscarl wrote:The first episode is brutal. 1st-level characters don't get to swoop in, defeat hundreds of cultists, and win the war on their first day on the job. The DM needs to make players understand, through descriptions of what's happening in town and through NPCs at the keep, that they can't tackle these raiders head-on. Their job is to survive the night and to help as many townsfolk as possible do the same. But even if PCs perform brilliantly, the town will be sacked and innocent townsfolk will be murdered and abducted -- Welcome to the Cult of the Dragon's new vision for the Sword Coast.
 
Regarding the "No Room At the Inn" road encounter -- That encounter has a long, sad history. The original version was very different, because the villains were not assassins but young green slaads polymorphed into human form and out to cause trouble. Playtesters loved the original encounter because of the twist -- no one expected slaads in that situation. 
 
But then young green slaads disappeared from the MM and we were instructed not to use them in this encounter. We cast around for alternatives and found no really good ones, but assassins were at least close to the slaads in power -- as they were then written. In hindsight, we probably should have dropped the encounter entirely and replaced it with something else, because making the villains into just a bunch of human a**holes took all the charm out of the situation. But it had been such a hit with playtesters, we hated to lose it. 
 
The problem was compounded tenfold because, by the time monster stat blocks were finalized, assassins wound up significantly more powerful than the original slaads or even than assassins had been when they were chosen as the slaads' replacement. Thus, we wind up with the killer encounter described by the OP. 
 
I recommend one of the following changes to fix it.
 

• Use veterans instead of assassins. They're still just a pack of jerks, but at least they won't TPK the caravan.
• Use doppelgangers instead, although that makes this encounter rather redundant with another.
• Use werewolves instead. 
• Choose any other creatures you like in the challenge 3-5 range, select enough to make a tough encounter, and give them potions of polymorph, hats of disguise, or some other way to conceal their true identities until it's time for them to spring the surprise. 

Option 4 comes closest to preserving the original intent and value of the encounter, so it's my top recommendation. You could use gargoyles, ettercaps (maybe they captured some potions from another caravan and are looking for payback), nothics (they have some of the slaads' ick factor), minotaurs, or whatever else you like.
 
Or grab one of those stat blocks to use, give it shapechanging ability, and call them young green slaads. 
 
Steve
 

 
Thanks for the insight and suggestions.  I suspected that the "math" behind that assassins encounter likely had something to do with a change in the MM during/post-writing.
 
Can you comment on the Encounter XP Multiplier table in the DM Basic Rules?  It doesn't seem like that was a factor when writing HotDQ either, because most of the tough encounters are hitting a full XP budget before factoring in how many enemies there are.  Many times there is an encounter that seems like it was intended to be hard but winnable for the appropriate party level, and the XP of the NPCs adds up with that, but then when you factor in the multiplier, suddenly you have double or even triple a deadly encounter.
 
I have no problem with just scaling back the numbers a bit or staggering waves out, etc, but I'm really interested to hear if those multipliers were a factor in encounter planning.

Originally posted by QuestingWord:

I initially had problems with the Adventure, but it was mostly because 'how in the heck do they survive the first hour of play?". In fact, I stated on Google+ DnDNext that it was horrible.  BUT, after giving it a night to sleep on it I started reading the other episodes and started to see the brillance in the adventure.  I have read up to the castle and I am still liking it.  Ok, so the encounters are over powered in my opinion and others opinions, but without it being deadly I don't think the adventure would be half as good.  Now, I understand what someone mentioned that the math might now work based on the DM basic rules encounter level/table multiplier-whatever, but it does say a 'work in progress' on the DM Basic Guide (somewhere).  Also, just pull-punches and don't worry about the math that much, I am not personally going to.  Just look at all the encounters and social interactions as LOTS of WAYS to use some of the content and you can pick and choose what you want and what you don't want to use, award XP as you think it should be worth.  I can understand that you want a math complete product and it may seem like it doesn't provide it and you get hungup with wanting it all 'correct', I used to want stuff like that also... its a choice you will have to make... wait until the DMs Guide comes out and correct it, or just play fast and loose with portions of the adventure that need that style of play.
 
Oh, Steve... don't hold back on the next adventure, keep it deadly... I would hate to see you take some of the advice and think that you need to hold back for people to like the next adventure... thanks for your work!  Good job.
 
 

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Eugee:

QuestingWord wrote:I initially had problems with the Adventure, but it was mostly because 'how in the heck do they survive the first hour of play?". In fact, I stated on Google+ DnDNext that it was horrible.  BUT, after giving it a night to sleep on it I started reading the other episodes and started to see the brillance in the adventure.  I have read up to the castle and I am still liking it.  Ok, so the encounters are over powered in my opinion and others opinions, but without it being deadly I don't think the adventure would be half as good.  Now, I understand what someone mentioned that the math might now work based on the DM basic rules encounter level/table multiplier-whatever, but it does say a 'work in progress' on the DM Basic Guide (somewhere).  Also, just pull-punches and don't worry about the math that much, I am not personally going to.  Just look at all the encounters and social interactions as LOTS of WAYS to use some of the content and you can pick and choose what you want and what you don't want to use, award XP as you think it should be worth.  I can understand that you want a math complete product and it may seem like it doesn't provide it and you get hungup with wanting it all 'correct', I used to want stuff like that also... its a choice you will have to make... wait until the DMs Guide comes out and correct it, or just play fast and loose with portions of the adventure that need that style of play.
 
Oh, Steve... don't hold back on the next adventure, keep it deadly... I would hate to see you take some of the advice and think that you need to hold back for people to like the next adventure... thanks for your work!  Good job.

 
Just in case there's any impression that I was stating the adventure is too hard or the encounters too big, that wasn't ever my intention.  As stated, I've not run the adventure yet (or even started it).  In the process of scanning my book to PDF and creating a Fantasy Grounds 2 module for it, I basically read the whole adventure pretty closely--and I agree completely that the adventure is awesome, and SOOO much more than a collection of encounters.  In fact, I'm the guy down at my FLGS going on and on about how good the adventure is, and how much I hope WotC continues to outsource their adventure-writing out to 3rd parties like Kobold Press, who knocked this one out of the park.
 
The discussion I'm after (outside of asking about the ridiculously deadly 4 assassin encounter above) was just trying to identify two things.
1.  For those running the adventure already, are the encounters for the most part not deadly every fight?
2.  For those who wrote the adventure, did the Encounter XP Multipliers table even exist at the time of writing?
 
I'd just like to understand how well that work in progress table is working so far, as I don't have a group to use it with, yet.  When we start playing, if I see an enounter that would be classes as "Hard" before the EXPM table, then I'll adjust the numbers so it's down to the same XP total with the multiplier.  Having played 13A for the last year, I'm using Milestone XP anyway--I don't really care how many XP they should be getting; they'll level when they accomplish something major.

Originally posted by zoroaster99:

Thanks, Huscarl, for posting that, and thanks, OP, for this thread. I'm getting ready to run this for my players but I'm going to use it as continuation for Lost Mine of Phandelver, so they will be six characters of 3rd or 4th level at the start.  I am expecting they will have an easy time in the first couple of chapters but that is fine and I can always toughen the encounters up by adding more kobolds or cultists, and if the encounters are too tough for first level, then it might actually work fine as is for my players.

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Huscarl:

DarkCrisis77 wrote:I can't tell if that post is supposed to be sarcastic or something.

 
No, although reading it again, I see how it could come off that way. Not meant to be sarcastic or condescending, just strongly worded.
 

The episode doesn't give much instruction beyond "Heres some missions and random encounters"  While one non-random encounter by the river/tunnel consisting of 6 Kobolds and 2 Cultists was all my 4 players could handle for the night.  A group that had a Paladin and a Cleric for healing.  How were they supposed to fight 2 rat swarms immediatly afterwards?  Or any random encounters?  Or save the Mill or the Sanctuary?  And lets not even mention the Dragon. 
I basically did nothing the episode requested short of "get to the keep" and fight a couple of encounters before doing the final battle that the hero can't win.

 
And if that's all the characters can handle, that's fine. If they fought their way to the keep plus a couple battles more, Governor Nighthill will happily say they've pulled their weight. By midnight, the keep should be full of wounded who can't take any more. Anyone who's heavily wounded can join them without shame. My experience with 5E in general and this scenario in particular is that characters can handle more than players new to the system think they can. Once everyone is wounded and spells are gone, the only tactic that makes sense is avoiding as many fights as possible. That doesn't necessarily mean hiding in the keep, however. Once the old tunnel is cleared out, some missions can be handled very stealthily. Others can't. It's up to players to decide what their characters can handle, 
 

Im scared now to keep running the book as the encounters can be very lop sided.  Episode 3 has the Roper that hopefully the PCs wont get into a fight with.  Eps 4 has the Assassins.

 
The roper is an IQ test. If characters don't attack it, they'll have no problems, and they'll get to have an entertaining encounter with an odd creature. If they do attack it, then one hopes that the pounding they receive (likely fatal for anyone who refusese to retreat) will teach them something valuable about antagonizing peaceful monsters. In that instance, it will not be random chance that killed them, it will be their own bad choice. 
 
Steve

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Huscarl:

Eugee wrote:Can you comment on the Encounter XP Multiplier table in the DM Basic Rules?  It doesn't seem like that was a factor when writing HotDQ either, because most of the tough encounters are hitting a full XP budget before factoring in how many enemies there are.

 
We didn't have that table at all while writing. Even if we had, monsters hadn't been assigned CRs yet, so it wouldn't have helped much. Wolf and I have both done plenty of writing for versions of D&D that predate CR, and we had to call on that experience to judge how difficult encounters would be. One of the last things that happened was a pass through the finished manuscript by us and the crew at Wizards (who by that time had better CR evaluations, but still not final ones) to nudge numbers of monsters up or down for balance. But even then, it still bore a strong resemblance to judging the wind by extending a freshly-licked thumb. All things considered, I'm rather pleased with how tense some of the balance turned out. 
 
Steve

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Eugee:

Huscarl wrote: 

Eugee wrote:Can you comment on the Encounter XP Multiplier table in the DM Basic Rules?  It doesn't seem like that was a factor when writing HotDQ either, because most of the tough encounters are hitting a full XP budget before factoring in how many enemies there are.

 
We didn't have that table at all while writing. Even if we had, monsters hadn't been assigned CRs yet, so it wouldn't have helped much. Wolf and I have both done plenty of writing for versions of D&D that predate CR, and we had to call on that experience to judge how difficult encounters would be. One of the last things that happened was a pass through the finished manuscript by us and the crew at Wizards (who by that time had better CR evaluations, but still not final ones) to nudge numbers of monsters up or down for balance. But even then, it still bore a strong resemblance to judging the wind by extending a freshly-licked thumb. All things considered, I'm rather pleased with how tense some of the balance turned out. 
 
Steve

 
Thanks so much for the feedback and explanations.  I myself thought the Roper is one of the best encounters in in the whole castle, specifically because it's a Darwin Award death waiting to happen.  I feel very priveleged to get a direct response back about the development of this adventure, and the only reason I am curious about that table is because I just wanted to know if it was going to be useful.  Seeing as almost major encounter in HotDQ should be a 2-3x Deadly threshold fight using that table, I'm feeling like the table isn't super-accurate.

Originally posted by celtwarrior:

does the paladin of torm, frume show up again later in the adventure?

Originally posted by Coredump00:

Eugee wrote: 
Thanks so much for the feedback and explanations.  I myself thought the Roper is one of the best encounters in in the whole castle, specifically because it's a Darwin Award death waiting to happen.

I feel that was the intent, but thanks to the wording with the kobold encounter in the same room... the implication is the Roper just attacks. (Oh, andd the issue that Ropers can't talk...)

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Hurin88:

I'm sorry, bit I find this situation disheartening. I'm playing in a campaign right now and we lost a couple of characters and had a near TPK in what I believe was episode three (fight with the half-dragon guy in the camp). I am pretty sure this encounter too would be way beyond the encounter budget. I know you didn't have the encounter budget or CRs when you made the adventure, but seriously, that encounter is just far more than anyone could reasonably expect the characters to fight.
 
I'm ok with there occasionally being monsters that are beyond the characters' capacities in a module. The characters shouldn't expect to swoop in, destroy an entire army, and win the war in a single day. Even the dragon was fine, because you have some warning and any character with sense can judge that you don't want to run in and attack it.
 
But the characters in this module seem to keep getting overmatched regularly, with little to no warning. The half-dragon guy in the camp was just there when we opened a door. We didn't do anything particularly insane. The module essentially railroaded us into going back into the camp, so we did. We open a door, and there is an encounter way, way beyond what can reasonably be expected of level 3 characters, and one of our party members is now dead and two others in trouble. We didn't do anything particularly wrong, we didn't roll badly... we had deaths due to being overmatched repeatedly. That is just poor game design.

Originally posted by Hurin88:

Just to be clear: I am a player, not a GM. I have not read the module. We've only played through our first few sessions, and I don't know what's coming next (won't read spoilers), nor do I know what advice the GM was given.
 
But so far, we've run into: a dragon that could wipe the whole party; a dragonborn or half-dragon that was a virtually impossible fight for anyone in the party who chose to duel him; a giant camp with dozens of enemies that we were pretty much forced to enter; and a return battle with the half-dragon and his henchmen that was ridiculously difficult. This is by the end of session 4.
 
Has anyone run the numbers on the battle in the camp with the half-dragon and his henchmen? I am willing to bet it is far, far beyond the encounter budget in the DMs guide... but I can't run the numbers myself because as a player I can't read the module. It was not a fair challenge.

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by BRJN:

Hurin,
 
I came into HotDQ at Balder's Gate and managed to skip everything you have played through.  But I am DMing Rise of Tiamat for our ex-HotDQ group, so I did get to read the book.
 
- You are not supposed to fight the blue dragon to the death.  You are supposed to give it a hard slap, whereupon it loses interest and wanders off.  I don't know what your DM did with it but it sounds like he tried to really blow away defenders of the keep.
- Cyanwrath - the half-dragon - is supposed to be a grudge match.  Yes he clobbers your guy the first night.  (I believe this was written to give players experience with the Death Save rules.)  When you meet again you are three times tougher than you were before, plus - I HOPE - the group has learned to work as a team.  If I was DMing HotDQ from the beginning, I would have built up Cyanwrath as a figure the Cultists obviously respect.  Many of the as-written combat encounters in Greenest would have been name-dropping instead.  And his Purple would have been a uniform not a big cloak.  He is supposed to be approximately a Fighter2 with racial powers.
- You were supposed to sneak around in the Cult camp and get information.  I agree that this goal is hard to discern, since it takes until almost the last page of that chapter before the authors say the camp has almost 200 fighters (Cultists, mercenaries, kobolds, and Big Tough Nasty Leaders included) in it.
- The group I had not joined yet got into so much trouble trying to clear out the cave, that the old DM had to use a visit from Drizzt to fix the plot.  Other groups report losing Fighters and Barbarians to the enemies in there.  There has to be a way to break it up into manageable chunks, but I can't see how to fit in a Long Rest without making the enemy bosses become INT 3.
 
The fights do get easier from here on out - you are not attacking the enemy in his base - until you meet up with BBEG and her Chief Lieutenants again, about 3 months in-game from where you are now.
 
There is one encounter ahead of you that has 4 x CR8 enemies in it vs your group at L4, and suggestions are given in posts above how to fix the problem.  For myself, I found the road trip to be the most fun part of the adventure.  Try to get your DM to hire the group all together as a Caravan Security Team and appoint somebody Sergeant; this is easier than the random table given in the book.
 
Originally posted by Hurin88:

Thanks for the input BRJN. Cyanwrath did not kill the player he dueled in Greenest, he just defeated him and gave him a shot to drop him down to one death save left; the rest of the party was able to get to him in time. So I have no problem with that. Nor do I have any problem with the whole dragon encounter in Greenest.
 
What I do have a problem with is a module that repeatedly puts the players up against enemies that they simply have no hope of defeating. And it sounds like this module does that constantly. Cyanwrath in the cultists camp killed two of our party members. The fact that you had to introduce Drizz't to rescue the party indicates that you had problems with that as well. I haven't done the xp budget for that encounter because I am just a player, but I can't see how, even without the xp budget guidelines, a module's designer could think this is a fair challenge for a level 3 party. It is not.
 
And it looks like the designers of the module are going to keep doing this, if they are putting 4 CR 8 monsters up against a level 4 party.
 
To be clear: I don't expect the players to be able to destroy every enemy they meet instantaneously. Occasionally challenging the players by putting them in situations where they need to run or negotiate is fine. But this module does it way too often for me, and even some of the regular encounters the module expects the characters to defeat are WAY over the xp budget, and WAY too hard for the level of the PCs, which puts the DM i the awkward position of having to fudge things just to prevent a TPK.
 
I hope future modules don't repeat that mistake.

Originally posted by iserith:

Hurin88 wrote:What I do have a problem with is a module that repeatedly puts the players up against enemies that they simply have no hope of defeating...

 
...in direct combat.
 
The CR and XP budget guidelines assume the party is fighting the enemy directly and is choosing to defeat those enemies by reducing their hit points to zero in a direct battle. Therefore, when taking on enemies that exceed the XP budget for your level or monsters with higher CR than the party level, that should tell you that reducing their hit points to zero in a direct battle is probably not the best path to defeating them.
 
What's more, the DM should be telegraphing threats so you have an opportunity to prepare and tips the scales in your favor. If the DM isn't doing a good job of that, take it upon yourselves to be a little more cautious, stealthy, and crafty in order to cause the enemy to fight on your terms. Just make sure you're not making the game boring in the doing. (Some people go overboard.)
 
This isn't D&D 4e where there's an expectation of a skirmish with enemies within a standard range of difficulty that you can meet head on. It's a different game altogether.

Originally posted by pukunui:

Hurin88 wrote:What I do have a problem with is a module that repeatedly puts the players up against enemies that they simply have no hope of defeating. And it sounds like this module does that constantly.

The main reason for that is because the modules were written while the rules were still being finalized. Look upthread at Steve Winter's posts (Huscarl). He's one of the authors of the modules and talks about the difficulties they faced writing these adventures with a fluctuating ruleset. He's also suggested some fixes for some of the unintentionally overpowered encounters. You can also find some more of his corrections and fixes here(x). 
The vast majority of "errors" in the Tyranny of Dragons modules are minor, easy to fix things. I think the modules have gotten a much worse reputation than they deserve.

Originally posted by BRJN:

pukunui wrote:The vast majority of "errors" in the Tyranny of Dragons modules are minor, easy to fix things. I think the modules have gotten a much worse reputation than they deserve.

I think that WotC ought to make a formal statement that HotDQ will be the "floor" of quality for future products.  All future products will be compared to it before release.  Nothing will be worse, everything must be that good or better.  Acknowledge that special circumstances existed that made it harder-than-usual to create high quality for this one product.
 
That said, I have DM'ed part of Ep8 and had a chance to read through the rest of HotDQ.  I could start at the beginning and play through it as a DM this time.  Some stuff I would do very differently but most of it seems to me to require more to-the-group explanation rather than replacement.  I hope a few years down the road WotC can present an Updated HotDQ that has removed rules that weren't used (readiness levels come to mind), and included rules that did make the final cut, and sets all encounters at acceptable difficulty ranges.  I also would like an appendix of references to kewl lewt that can be brought forward into Rise of Tiamat (like the Farseer of Illusk*) for potential use.
 
* Help the Zhents install it in Darkhold so it can spy on the Well of Dragons.  After the emergency is over, who's going to take it away from them?

 

[MerricB]

Originally posted by Hurin88:

pukunui wrote: 

Hurin88 wrote:What I do have a problem with is a module that repeatedly puts the players up against enemies that they simply have no hope of defeating. And it sounds like this module does that constantly.

The main reason for that is because the modules were written while the rules were still being finalized. Look upthread at Steve Winter's posts (Huscarl). He's one of the authors of the modules and talks about the difficulties they faced writing these adventures with a fluctuating ruleset. He's also suggested some fixes for some of the unintentionally overpowered encounters. You can also find some more of his corrections and fixes here(x).
 
The vast majority of "errors" in the Tyranny of Dragons modules are minor, easy to fix things. I think the modules have gotten a much worse reputation than they deserve.

 
Thanks, that does help. But it does also seem that a lot of people have problems with the module, especially the frankly poor monster math. I'm sure we can cut the designers some slack for not having the final rules and xp budget when they were writing. But so many of the battles seem to require DM fudging (something I absolutely despise) to prevent a TPK. Even without the final encounter budget, designers should know that a monster with a rechargable 4d10 breath weapon, two heavy attacks per round and henchmen with advantaged-greataxe attacks and 67 hit points is way to much for most 3rd level parties to be able to handle.

Originally posted by pukunui:

Hurin88 wrote:Even without the final encounter budget, designers should know that a monster with a rechargable 4d10 breath weapon, two heavy attacks per round and henchmen with advantaged-greataxe attacks and 67 hit points is way to much for most 3rd level parties to be able to handle.

The point is that that isn't necessarily what the encounter involved when they wrote it. The monster's breath weapon might have done less damage. The henchmen might have had fewer hit points. They weren't able to catch every late change in monster stats in their final editing pass of the adventure, and they were no doubt under pressure to have it ready to print in time for 5e's launch.

Originally posted by Hurin88:

pukunui wrote: 
The point is that that isn't necessarily what the encounter involved when they wrote it. The monster's breath weapon might have done less damage. The henchmen might have had fewer hit points. They weren't able to catch every late change in monster stats in their final editing pass of the adventure, and they were no doubt under pressure to have it ready to print in time for 5e's launch.

 
Then that's when you delay a launch. Good companies have quality control and refuse to release a broken/inferior product, regardless of the hit to their bottom line. And this module is as close to broken product as AAA modules get.

Originally posted by OGRE1984:

using milestone xp i allowed an extra level to help the party, i also used hero points. used morale as well
when close to castle bowmen on walls gave fire support. a healer [feat] was in the castle to aid the party
bad stealth rolls led to a number of running fights.
cyan wrath fight was almost won due to lucky rolls.
for the dragon i had ballista on the keep and it swooped in out of boredom [got tired of not recharging his breath weapon].
the party got dropped a number of times and they lost 1 character [mill ambush]
 
at the camp they split up and got stupid, ending up captured and interrogated by Rezmir and Hazirawn. [foreshadowing] also lost another character
they witnessed an attempted assassination on Rezmir by old cult loyalists. introducing subplot about old cult of the dragon loyalists resisting the Church of Tiamat.
they manage an escape the halfling rogue having avoided capture scouted part of the hatchery [disguised as kobold + spoke no draconic = comedy gold] he avoided traps and encounters through blind luck several times!
 
a week later they return Hatchery is been fortified with extra traps, i added an urd sorceror, dragonborn race abilities to berserkers, added class abilities to Mondath and Cyanwrath, gave potions and scrolls and poison. it took 3 tries to clear the hatchery, with the enemy observed gathering ambush drakes for reinforcement. 
additional players joined so that helped alot [6 total] mondath fled first fight and they rested. at this time only 2 characters are original and level 4, everyone else is level 3.
 
personally i don't bother with 'Balancing' an encounter. many of the tougher fights were with the minor foes. player choices, enemy tactics, and DICE all change the dynamics. 
for instance the kobolds relentlessly attacked the gnome, dropping him twice. the big boss fight with Mondath and Cyanwrath challenged the party and dropped half of them, with out Mondath and her trickery domain powers and prayer of healing, they would have mopped the floor with that fight.
 
the biggest problem i have at my table is edition creep; where past versions of common rules pop up to confuse players [and DM] causing mischeif. 
 
 

Originally posted by Helnam:

We were actually able to win this fight with 4x 4th level characters as is but it was very close and very hard.  During an argument with 3 of them the 4th one backstabbed me and nearly insta killed me(like almost double my max health)... if I had 2 less health I would have died outright... kind of insane as I was full health to begin with.  Lucky for us our healer rolled good imitative and healed me and then being a sorcerer I twin casted hold person and got both of them to fail saves for like 3 rounds(#thankthedicegods).  So our Orc Warrior was doing 3d12+4 per round as we had very easy crits with paralyzed targets.  Once those 2 went down I twin casted another hold person and only got 1 to stick but at that point they can't do their sneak attack dmg so it wasn't too horrible.. it was a lot of getting knocked down and having the healer pop them up just to get knocked down again.  Our raging dwarf barb was able to take a few hits as he had resistance and advantage to the poison and resistance to the physical… but if it wasn't for those hold persons sticking it would have been a TPK.  Problem is now that we were able to win that fight I don’t see anything posing much of a threat haha.  3900 exp was a nice bump.

Originally posted by BRJN:

Helnam wroteroblem is now that we were able to win that fight I don’t see anything posing much of a threat haha.

Well, if Solos don't bother you, I - excuse me, your DM - can either throw a half-dozen Elites (boss lieutenants) at you or send in swarms of minions.  Let's see you Hold Person a whole mob !
 
(My group is into Tiamat and lucky for me the Wizard used his Hold Monster spell slot on a troll, instead of saving it for the Dragon he knew was in the basement.  They still beat me, but I put up an Epic battle and made them earn it.)