D&D 5E How We Beat the HD, HotDQ, Spoilers

[Syntallah]

They didn't start the fire.

It was always burning.

Thaumaturge.

Since the world's been turning

 

[KarinsDad]

Actually they are not setting the town on fire. They are setting hay bales, barrels, and other flammable objects to instill fear. When the PCs get into town they realize this. Even the fire at the Mill ends up being a ruse to pull any heroes out into the open.

None of the buildings are actually burning, and the adventure book is careful to mention that fact.

Yes and fires never get out of control. Yet another strange thing about this module. Again, it just seem so scripted.

 

[Kaychsea]

Right, first off lets get this out of the way. I do not agree with you on some fairly fundemental reasons why I run and play RPGs. I quite understand why some people will not like this. Having said that I feel that many of the reasons you give for not liking it are, in my opinion, quite spurious.

So anyone not intuiting this obscure bit of knowledge is not paying attention?

Got it.

Did you or any of your party talk to the NPCs? If not how do you expect to understand what the heck is going on? That is intuiting.

Or, not go into a burning town with a dragon flying over it at low level to begin with.

Or a tomb, or a haunted forest, or a city with people in it... I will say it again. Heroes. Big Damn Heroes.

It shows nothing of the kind. Just because you read the module and you know this as a DM does not mean that the players are going to intuit this. A creature's actions do not necessarily dictate its thoughts or its motivations.

There could be several reasons why he does not get involved:

1) The townsfolk are beneath him, or
2) He wants everyone to run to the keep so that he does not have to track them down individually to kill them, or
3) He wants kobolds to die for some obscure reason, such as a power struggle in the cult perhaps, or
4) Although his perception is supposed to be high, he doesn't notice PCs sneaking through the town and killing guys on his team.

Who knows why the dragon does what he does? Certainly not the PCs. And saying that the players are not paying attention if they do not figure out what is going on is a bit unfair. They did not read the module. You did.

So many things. So many, many things.
Yes. I have read the scenario. So I know where the information that can fill the gaps in the characters knowledge can be found. If you look. There is nothing you have said that leads me to think you tried. So all your actions are based on your assumptions and anything you may be spoonfed.
And if the dragon is not sweeping the streets and eating people, why not? If he's not paying attention to you, why not?
Find out. What can it hurt?

So this is why they are setting the town on fire, because they do not want the town destroyed? And how does this prevent the dragon from killing PCs and NPCs without destroying the town. It does not need its breath weapon to destroy anything in that town. It could fly down and kick the snot out of anything. And with a directed narrow breath weapon like lightning, it could even do so with its breath weapon.

Or, and this is where the hard of thinking are at a disadvantage, they set fire to the bits they have already looted. You know, like they are pillaging the town.

The entire Greenest scenario seems off. The dragon does not try to kill them. They are expected to attack a dragon. The half dragon does not kill them (or is at least not supposed to). The NPC guards cannot hurt the dragon. The governor has his guards go out on the parapets which is basically suicide. The cultists want to loot the place first, but set it on fire anyway. The low level PCs are just supposed to waltz into an invaded town with a dragon flying overhead. It's just so way out there and implausible.

Yep. It's not about you. It's about townsfolk needing help. It's about the Cult acting out of character. It's about seeing people in trouble and helping. It's about being Big Damn Heroes. And this is the first, dramatic as hell, step on that path. Becuase at some point you need to step up and face danger, if you want to be the guy they pass a healing potion while you rest rather than spit in your water while they bandage the heroes that did look death in the face to save their town.

For a 5E flagship adventure, it seems subpar and forced.

Or, as unlikley as it may seem, you're not doing it right. In RPGs there are no real right answers, just solutions, but some answers are really bad. Trying to slog through kobolds because they are just kobolds will kill you. Stealth and smarts go much further in this chapter than muscle. There are plenty of opportunities to smack stuff but you have to pick your fights.
You should leave that chapter at least second level, with luck you can arrive at the keep at second! With good play (game and role) you can come out third. But not watching from a nearby hilltop or hiding in the keep.

 

[Kaychsea]

Actually they are not setting the town on fire. They are setting hay bales, barrels, and other flammable objects to instill fear. When the PCs get into town they realize this. Even the fire at the Mill ends up being a ruse to pull any heroes out into the open.

None of the buildings are actually burning, and the adventure book is careful to mention that fact.

To be fair they are trying to set the buildings on fire but arson does not appear to be their forte. From the comment about thatch they seem to be throwing torches onto the roofs rather than setting fires inside.

 

[KarinsDad]

Or, as unlikley as it may seem, you're not doing it right. In RPGs there are no real right answers, just solutions, but some answers are really bad.

So which is it? Am I not playing right, or are there no real right answers.


I cannot tell you how many people jumped on the "you are not supposed to attack the green dragon" bandwagon here on the boards for the Lost Mines of Phandelver for third level PCs, but PCs are supposed to attack the blue dragon in this module at second level.

Sorry. It's whimsical and not consistent between the two modules. Just because it is written down in a module does not make it a good adventure. Just because experienced DMs can make lemonade out of a sketchy lemon adventure does not mean that inexperienced DMs necessarily can.

And just because you liked the adventure does not mean that everyone does, or that people who do not like some aspects of the module are not playing the game right.

 

[Kaychsea]

So which is it? Am I not playing right, or are there no real right answers.

Nothing stopping both being correct. Just because there are no right answers doesn't mean there are no wrong ones.

I cannot tell you how many people jumped on the "you are not supposed to attack the green dragon" bandwagon here on the boards for the Lost Mines of Phandelver for third level PCs, but PCs are supposed to attack the blue dragon in this module at second level.

Yes, but perhaps being British colours my view on this, heroism in the face of overwhelming odds doesn't seem odd. In your vernacular should the NY firefighters not have entered the Twin Towers? Heroes.

Sorry. It's whimsical and not consistent between the two modules. Just because it is written down in a module does not make it a good adventure. Just because experienced DMs can make lemonade out of a sketchy lemon adventure does not mean that inexperienced DMs necessarily can.

So it's bad because not everybody can run it well? Who's being whimsical now?

And just because you liked the adventure does not mean that everyone does, or that people who do not like some aspects of the module are not playing the game right.

Ahem

I quite understand why some people will not like this.

It won't appeal to everybody and there are bits of this that will hammer people who don't duck. I have three groups that I've run in recent years. Two of them will do well, the third will probably be on their third, if not fourth, characters by the time they get fed up. They will not be playing it right because they will go at it like a bull at a gate.
A common theme of yours is that the characters can't know some things that are quite important. And it's not true. There is a lot of information to hand that can inform their decisions. If nothing else the simple fact that there are still people alive to defend the parapets after being under repeated attack by the dragon should be telling you something. The people you rescue on the way to the keep will happily let you know a lot of the events from the early hours of the attack. The prisoners you take are a goldmine of information.
But only if you talk to them.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes, but perhaps being British colours my view on this, heroism in the face of overwhelming odds doesn't seem odd.

Who said that all PCs are heroes? Being an adventurer does not necessarily equate to being a hero. And some players like to roleplay their PCs as they envision them. For example, intelligent.

What happens if half of the party decides to be heroes and the other half decides to be practical. Do you split the party at the table?


Here is a link to someone who didn't buy the hype of HotDQ being awesome.

link

or

link 2

Can I also take a moment here to point out that the campaign hook for Hoard of the Dragon Queen is absolutely ridiculous? The PCs are approaching a random town, crest a hill, and discover that it is being attacked by a dragon. Okay. That’s fine. But then the campaign assumes that the 1st level PCs are likely, when confronted with that sight, to decide that their best course of action is to walk into the town.

(Did I mention that the dragon is also accompanied by an entire army?)

Maybe I’m just spoiled by having players who aren’t seriously brain damaged, but I literally cannot imagine a scenario in which that hook would work.

It's not that their opinion is correct and yours is wrong, it's that HotDQ is one of those adventure modules that doesn't quite deliver for some people.

 

[Desalus]

Who said that all PCs are heroes? Being an adventurer does not necessarily equate to being a hero. And some players like to roleplay their PCs as they envision them. For example, intelligent.

I couldn't agree more. Not everyone is going to play a character who thinks running into small town overwhelmed with kobolds, cultists, and a huge dragon flying overhead is a smart idea. Not every character is willing to die to save some helpless villagers. It would make more sense to run 'Greenest in Flames' as a later chapter in the campaign in order to provide more motivation for the characters to go running in. In the first chapter of the campaign perhaps the characters uncover the cultist's plot to raid Greenest. The characters then rush off to Greenest to alert Governor Nighthill. Perhaps they make it in time to prepare defenses and perhaps they don't.

In regard to the dragon, when I played this adventure I was constantly asking the GM where it was since I was paranoid that it would spot us. He continually said that it was flying around off in the distance. The town is what, 600 feet across (I don't have the book in front of me)? Why wouldn't the dragon be able to spot the heroes when the town is that small? In my revised plot I would simply get rid of the blue dragon. Its presence is not needed, it's illogical that it doesn't spot the characters, and the entire encounter with it in the keep is lame.

 

[KarinsDad]

In my revised plot I would simply get rid of the blue dragon. Its presence is not needed, it's illogical that it doesn't spot the characters, and the entire encounter with it in the keep is lame.

Yeah, getting rid of the dragon would have been a huge step in the right direction. PCs are not as apt to not even go there (or go there under metagaming duress) and the entire scenario is just a lot cleaner.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I mentioned this the other day, and I think it bears repeating. HotDQ is the first big adventure for the Adventure's League for the brand new 5th edition. It makes perfect sense to include elements that highlight aspects of 5e that aren't in previous editions. These include:

* showing players how death saves work (the battle with Cyan)
* showing players that big bad monsters can now be successfully attacked by low level mobs, AKA bounded accuracy (the dragon encounter).


I don't think the designers of HotDQ were being dicks or being obtuse or oblivious when they wrote this adventure. I think these encounters were intentional. Bounded accuracy is one of the big selling points of 5e, and to show that yes, level 1 PCs can in fact do damage to a dragon is a huge change from previous editions.

In both of these scenarios, they were written not to kill new PCs. Only in the very small % of times with horrible luck and tiny odds would that happen in eitehr case. Heck, the PCs aren't even forced to engage in either encounter if they don't want.