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

[Jester David]

I think at most tables, some poor player is supposed to have his PC go out and get his butt kicked and that is somehow supposed to be enjoyable to the people playing the game.

I just do not see how that is enjoyable for anyone.

It's not meant to be fun, it's meant to be memorable.

The encounter isn't set up to kill a PC, just knock them down. You see this in video games all the time: you fight the unbeatable bad guy, get thrashed and left alive (or someone saves you at the last second) which makes it more fun to face them again and smacking down the bad guy.
Defeating them in a second encounter is incredibly satisfying in a way that just beating a hard opponent is not. Because it's anticipated, potentially for weeks. And it provides a sense of closure for the player and PC while also offering a sense of progress and increased skill in the game.

I do think that this is a memorable fight for our group, but unlike Irontooth which is also a very nasty fight, I do not think that this fight (or the green dragon one or the blue dragon one) are supposed to ever be won. I think an Irontooth level of encounter would have been just as enjoyable as one with this Half Dragon that is supposed to be unwinnable.

Out of curiosity, what details can you remember of the Irontooth fight? Were you compelled to post about that online as well?

Yes, it worked out for us. Barely. And yes, I get the concept of actually having a reoccurring villain that the players actually hate. I just do not like this type of encounter design to accomplish that.

There's no real way of having reoccuring villains in D&D without lopsided encounter difficulty. Not in a prepublished adventure anyway.

 

[SilverBulletKY]

Yeah sounds like you already knew this was an impossible encounter or you wouldn't have had a problem with it because you wouldn't have known you couldn't kill him. I can't stand it when people read up on premade adventures before playing them but that's a big problem with using them.

Either way, there's obviously always going to be enemies that you're not able to beat at level 2. You don't have to fight the dragon in the starter set and you didn't have to fight this guy. And even if you did, you'll get a chance to get revenge which is the whole point of the encounter. It gives you an enemy to hate and want to fight again.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Sorry, where exactly does it state that Lawful Good = Lawful Stupid?

Lawful generally means keeping your word. Otherwise you'd be chaotic good.

You can play your PCs however you want and I'll play mine my way.
.

Obviously your way means prereading up on encounters and using metagame knowledge to beat the encounter, because "winning" is clearly the most important thing to you.

Shine on, I suppose.

 

[KidSnide]

The designer of HotDQ does not have to say that he MEANS for that encounter to screw over a character. By definition, that encounter is designed to humiliate a PC or a player. To me, regardless of designer intent, that's the outcome that will happen at many tables.

...

Dude. Seriously? Just because I vehemently dislike this type of heavy handed encounter design does not mean that I play my PCs bad/wrong/incorrectly or metagame. It means that I think that this encounter belongs in the scrap heap of seriously bad encounter designs. Humiliating a player or PC is a good design? I call BS.

I don't understand why you think that the encounter humiliates a PC or a player. It seems like there is something particular about your approach to the game that is giving you this reaction.

I see the HD encounter as a fairly standard type of encounter design (with the delightful variant in which the enemy doesn't keep his word). In the straight up example here, it gives the party the opportunity to either (a) have one character heroically take on a near-impossible-to-win fight sacrificing his character's body (and taking a risk that the character is killed outright) to rescue innocents or (b) think outside the box and try to work around an encounter that you are highly unlikely to "win" straight up. Either of those choices sounds like fun to me.

That being said, I do agree that HotDQ can be fairly criticized for its treatment of the HD encounter in that

Spoiler

if you win, the HD in a later encounter is replaced with an identical HD. It would be much better if the enemy there was replaced by a much weaker champion, along with enough clues that the PCs can figure out that they got an easier encounter as a reward for their previous heroism.

-KS

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't understand why you think that the encounter humiliates a PC or a player. It seems like there is something particular about your approach to the game that is giving you this reaction.

-KS

I agree. I certainly don't feel humiliated any time I failed at a contest (whether it be a sports game, academic competition, whatever). And I wouldn't feel humiliated if I played a game of 1-on-1 with LeBron James and got smoked.

 

[KarinsDad]

Lawful generally means keeping your word. Otherwise you'd be chaotic good.

You must be reading a different PHB than me.

Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society.

To me, that means saving the villagers, not keeping my word to a monster. My concept of raiders who loot pillage, and kill is the same as outlaws. In other words, outside the law.

Yes, someone CAN play their LG PC that s/he always keeps their word, but I don't straight jacket myself in that way.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't understand why you think that the encounter humiliates a PC or a player. It seems like there is something particular about your approach to the game that is giving you this reaction.

You don't think that humbling a PC by stomping him into the mud with no real chance of him winning isn't a bit humiliating? And shaming him into accepting the challenge in the first place isn't a bit humiliating? This is an overt display of DM power over player power. Do what I tell you to do, or watch the NPCs die.

I think players want to have their PCs be heroes, not suckers. This encounter seems like one designed to shove a PC into the mud. The players are shamed into sending a champion out to fight.

Option 1: Let the villagers die. Not very heroic.
Option 2: Go out and fight the dude one on one, and lose and possibly kill a PC. Again, not very heroic.
Option 3: Have the entire team go and fight 30 kobolds and lose and possibly have a TPK or partial TPK. Again, not very heroic.

This encounter reminds me of DMs who have got to put a latrine into a dungeon and on top of that, let the players know that there is some treasure hidden down in the latrine. Sure, if one thinks about it carefully, latrines would exist in dungeons. But do we really have to roleplay that?

Ditto with this. Yes, an evil guy might conceivably come up with a plan to challenge a PC to single hand to hand combat and threaten to kill some NPCs to force this. If he knew that there were PCs in the keep who gave a damn about that.

But think carefully about this. How would the evil guy KNOW that anyone in the keep would actually be willing to risk their life over the lives of a few villagers? How did the half dragon know that there wasn't some mega-super retired fighter in the keep with 80 hit points who could come out and kick his butt? This is totally contrived.

If the PCs are neutral and evil, they might even just laugh at the half dragon from the parapets and start taking pot shots at him with bows and could care less about the villagers.

No, this is a contrived encounter designed to pull on the heart strings of players who are playing good aligned PCs where the entire purpose of it is to drop a PC into the mud and start up an emotional response so that a reoccurring villain is possible. Sorry, but I've seen better ways of doing this without the module designers showing off their big bad nearly impossible to kill monsters and their railroad attempts at forcing PCs to get the snot kicked out of them by said monsters.

Kobayashi Maru scenarios are all fine and well in works of fiction because the author can pull whatever solution he wants out of his butt. When playing an RPG where the players have time invested in the PCs and the dice often do not cooperate, not so good. It's easy for this 20 points of breath weapon half dragon to kill a PC with only a few hit points remaining. That's just so ludicrous.

DM: "Sorry that I killed your PC over an encounter that I practically forced you to do. I know you had no real choice in the matter and the other PCs couldn't really help. And the monster wasn't really supposed to kill anyone. Oops. Roll up a new PC."

I just hope that the rest of this module isn't this much of a railroad. If so, I suspect that our group will do a lot of things that send it off its tracks.

 

[KarinsDad]

Out of curiosity, what details can you remember of the Irontooth fight? Were you compelled to post about that online as well?

Irontooth was our first night of playing 4E and it ended in a party TPK.

And yes, I probably posted about it after the fact.


In this scenario, we would not have won without the DM assisting. A different DM and this would have been a totally different outcome.

The fact that most groups of PCs in most games would be almost totally out of resources when having this encounter shoved down their throats also contributes to how totally lame this encounter design is. Talk about stacking the deck.

 

[KidSnide]

You don't think that humbling a PC by stomping him into the mud with no real chance of him winning isn't a bit humiliating? And shaming him into accepting the challenge in the first place isn't a bit humiliating? This is an overt display of DM power over player power. Do what I tell you to do, or watch the NPCs die.

I think players want to have their PCs be heroes, not suckers. This encounter seems like one designed to shove a PC into the mud. The players are shamed into sending a champion out to fight.

Option 1: Let the villagers die. Not very heroic.
Option 2: Go out and fight the dude one on one, and lose and possibly kill a PC. Again, not very heroic.
Option 3: Have the entire team go and fight 30 kobolds and lose and possibly have a TPK or partial TPK. Again, not very heroic.

First, I don't see why the players are being shamed into doing something. Their characters may be, but the players have a choice.

Second, Option 2 is totally heroic. I don't understand you definition of "heroism" if willingly facing a night-unwinnable fight doesn't qualify as "heroic."

Third, you left off Option 4: use magic, roleplaying and cleverness to "win the no-win scenario." Your description of how you got around it sounded great! Sure, it required some cooperation from the DM, but all good creative options require a DM that's willing to let you do it. A DM that totally shuts down out-of-the-box thinking isn't a good DM.

What you have here is a sadistic NPC (albeit one who follows his own code of honor), who is giving the PCs a sadistic choice. Responding to it is a difficult moral decision that will get different responses from different PC parties. I love difficult moral decisions in my game. Letting a new set of players with new characters work that out is the kind of role-playing moment that will set the intra-party dynamic for the rest of the campaign. You know... Bruno is the guy who doesn't trust the enemy to keep is word and is willing to make the tough decision of letting a few innocents die to preserve our ability to fight back while Charis is the one who would rather risk her own life than let the innocents die.

Maybe I'm wrong, but you seem to be interpreting this scenario as a railroad event in which the PCs are obliged to respond in a particular way. Maybe your DM made it seem that way. But it's not. It's just an evil NPC doing a classic evil maneuver. The PCs can react however they want.

-KS

 

[Jester David]

In this scenario, we would not have won without the DM assisting. A different DM and this would have been a totally different outcome.

The fact that most groups of PCs in most games would be almost totally out of resources when having this encounter shoved down their throats also contributes to how totally lame this encounter design is. Talk about stacking the deck.

But there's lots of choices, unlike Irontooth.

Without getting into creative solutions there are three realistic options:
1) You can fight as a party, and it's a very obvious TPK possibility.
2) You can ignore the challenge and let an NPC go off to their deaths.
3) You can let one PC go off for single combat.

That's not a railroad. That's pretty open. There's just no obvious "win" option. There's no easy super happy mega victory option. But there doesn't need to be. The PCs achieving absolute victory is not a part of the game.