It is my fight. I do not like the dragon encounter and I do not like the half dragon encounter.
As for player entitlement, I am the person who bought the module. Even if I have not read it, I have as might right to discuss it and have an opinion on it as every other person here.
Nope. Not happening. She has never complained in front of the group. She has mentioned things to me because I am her father. Just normal conversations. And it's all editing type stuff with the exception of one section that she just thinks will be very difficult to run. I have no idea what that is, but she has mentioned that she wants to change it.
I'm enjoying it.
So, let me get this straight? The module designers design a game for 4 PCs and do not even take into account 5 PCs or 6 PCs and you consider this to be a DM issue?
As for focused fire, you are just flat out mistaken about that. Your idea here would be a good argument in higher level circumstances. But, not for low level 5E monsters. 80% of attacks kill these guys in a single hit. So mathematically, focus fire is actually often detrimental here.
6 PCs have surprise against 8 foes is little different than 3 PCs have surprise against 4 foes.
Now as encounters start getting higher level and foes are not the equivalent of one hit minions, then focus fire comes more into play.
But not for the vast majority of monsters in this town. Focus fire is sometimes a mistake against low hit point monsters like this. The fighter doing 10 average points of damage should rarely attack an NPC with 2 hit points remaining, rather he should attack a fresh NPC with 6 hit points. That way, when the wizard uses his cantrip against the 2 hit point foe, both NPCs will often be taken out. By using focus fire, the fighter will take out the 2 hit point foe and the wizard's cantrip may or may not take out the 6 hit point foe.
I would even opine that a lot of 4E players used to foes that take 3 to 4 hits to take out might be using tactically inferior focus fire in 5E and taking even longer in some cases to take out foes.
The low damage PC (typically using cantrips) should often focus fire. The high damage PCs, not so much unless the foes are tough.
So are you saying that the setups are not part of the module? Are the designers not putting in any encounter maps with creature tactics and potential locations at all?
Are you saying that the first chapter was not supposed to be a night time set of encounters? If not, then every group of players should have the option to be able to ambush a lot of foes (assuming that the group is designed to be a bit stealthy).
The only setup that I mentioned where I thought it was subpar was the rearguard one. I suspect that many DMs here (possibly yourself in the past) have set up NPC camps where the camp is lit up at night. I don't consider this a major mistake, but I did suggest to her that with how potent surprise is in 5E, she might want to think about it.
The rest of the encounters were just surprise material because of PC abilities and the fact that it was nighttime. I firmly believe that our group of PCs would have kicked butt on the same encounters run by most DMs.
Having DMed and played for over 35 years, I can truthfully say without bias that she is a decent DM (actually better than me when it comes to roleplaying). She had the blue dragon conversing with the fighter in Draconic. She roleplayed many of the NPCs well. She created a unique magical silver dagger with a backstory. She has NPCs shouting out commands in combat. People here that comment on her are fairly clueless about it. She is inexperienced, but I've seen a lot of experienced DMs make more mistakes in my time. And the bottom line is that 6 players who have averaged about 20 years of gaming each are having fun (3 less than 10 years, 3 more than 30 years). That is the proof in the pudding to me.
