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

[Wrathamon]

KD are you playing with the Factions? Because that is probably the motivation on why you are going to the town and want to try and help save it even if their is a dragon.

 

[KarinsDad]

KD are you playing with the Factions? Because that is probably the motivation on why you are going to the town and want to try and help save it even if their is a dragon.

Not yet.

Our motivation for heading to Greenest was as follows:

1) The DM had all of the PCs come up with background reasons to be in Berdusk.

2) My PC interviewed adventurers to join an adventuring group (offstage, long background story as to why my PC was creating an adventuring group). It turned out to be the rest of the PCs (big surprise). We met in my mentor's home. She had had a vision of the plains in flames and a dark shadow rising in the midst and told us about it.

3) So, we headed down the road from Berdusk to Greenest. We did not know that we were going to Greenest, we were going along the road to find out what the vision meant. Our motivation was to go adventuring and to investigate the vision.

The vision was probably the tipping point on why we went into the town. The flames were just too specific. The party was kind of split. We all wanted to help (TMK, maybe not the Rogue), but we were also roleplaying our PCs that dragons are super deadly beasts. We talked about whether the dragon was the shadow in the flames or not, etc.


So we are not using Factions yet, but we might in the future. My PC will probably never join a faction, just based on the details of his background, but other PCs might. I've always viewed factions as wanting capable individuals (as far as adventurers go, not maybe as far as innkeeper/spies go, etc.), not starting PCs. YMMV.

 

[Joe Liker]

n episode 1, characters are entirely swept along by events. They start in a town under attack by raiders—a situation that demands rapid action. Throughout the course of a long night, they are assigned missions by the town’s leader to rescue villagers who are surrounded in isolated buildings, to capture prisoners for questioning, to seal a breach in the keep’s defenses, to drive away a blue dragon, and so forth. Characters could branch off on their own, but there’s no reason to. The keep’s commander is a capable leader, he knows the town, his plans are tactically sound, and the things he asks characters to do probably are what they’d wind up doing if they struck out on their own anyway.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...at-the-HD-HotDQ-Spoilers/page24#ixzz3F6gq5oQH


from Tiamat Tuesdays

bold is mine

"Characters are entirely swept along by events" -- terrible adventure design.

"Characters could branch off on their own, but there’s no reason to." -- Meaning the designer completely ignores this possibility and offers the DM no guidance in 1) Allowing the players any agency in the matter, or 2) Getting things back on track if the players do stray from the rigid path. In other words, terrible adventure design.

"The keep’s commander is a capable leader, he knows the town, his plans are tactically sound, and the things he asks characters to do probably are what they’d wind up doing if they struck out on their own anyway." -- Patently false on every count. His plans are tactically absurd, and many of the things he asks the players to do are either ludicrous or pointless.

I've never played any other adventure by these guys, but I'm really starting to wonder how they earned the esteem they apparently enjoy among the community.

 

[Zaran]

My motivation to get the PCs into Greenest was they were escorting a 15 year old Daughter of a Merchant, Jasmine, mogul to Greenest to meet her arranged fiancé, Governor Nighthill. That was enough motivation to get her into the keep and then Nighthill offered them more money to help out.

 

[Zaran]

Personally, I like the adventure. It shows the players that the world doesn't level up with them and they get to work against an army of evil doers and eventually succeed. It also shows me that low level characters can interact with higher level foes without the need of killing them. Could it use more advice for the GM? Absolutely, but I think a lot of the issues was because Kobold Press was trying to hit a moving target with the monsters constantly changing so they had to devote more time to that and less time on teaching GMs how to deal with tough situations.

 

[Wrathamon]

and probably in addition to it being a D&D encounters adventure as well, so they had to add in faction support.

 

[Wrathamon]

self edited ...

 

[Derren]

Personally, I like the adventure. It shows the players that the world doesn't level up with them and they get to work against an army of evil doers and eventually succeed. It also shows me that low level characters can interact with higher level foes without the need of killing them. Could it use more advice for the GM? Absolutely, but I think a lot of the issues was because Kobold Press was trying to hit a moving target with the monsters constantly changing so they had to devote more time to that and less time on teaching GMs how to deal with tough situations.

It also shows that if the adventure throws a creature too high level for the PCs to defeat at them that they have plot immunity and can charge in "heroically".

 

[Wrathamon]

Saw a post on g+ about the dragon and 1/2 dragon encounters and maybe some advice on running it from the designers perspective.

Steven WinterOct 3, 2014
Why? -- They're horrible situations, but they give characters who aspire to be "Heroes" with a capital H the chance to step between someone else and death. No one gets to be a hero by risking discomfort and inconvenience.

How? -- Neither encounter is as deadly as it appears. NPCs bear the brunt of the dragon's attacks. It's up to the DM to decide when the dragon starts targeting PCs instead of NPCs. It shouldn't happen until PCs have inflicted significant damage on the dragon -- otherwise, why would the dragon care about them? Smart players will declare ready actions while the dragon circles. They can launch their readied attacks as the dragon swoops in, BEFORE the dragon attacks, and with any luck, put it over the 25 damage threshold. A DM with an eye for drama would also let them dive for cover behind the parapet as part of their reaction, even though it's unclear whether that technically within the RAW. (Hugging some stone is easily possible without leaving your 5-foot square, so I'd allow it).

There's no reason Cyanwrath should kill anyone, if the PC's friends are on the ball. Cyanwrath wins the fight, he strikes what he thinks is a death blow, and then he dismissively turns and leaves. The PC's friends should reach the fallen character ASAP and get him stabilized. Everyone in the keep watches this play out, including Nighthill and Escobert, and the DM can offer the smartest advice possible through them. 

 

[Desalus]

Saw a post on g+ about the dragon and 1/2 dragon encounters and maybe some advice on running it from the designers perspective.

Thanks for finding that Wrathamon. Quite interesting to see Steve's thoughts on how he believes it should be run. I still disagree with him on these points though:

It's up to the DM to decide when the dragon starts targeting PCs instead of NPCs. It shouldn't happen until PCs have inflicted significant damage on the dragon -- otherwise, why would the dragon care about them?"

The book states that "the dragon launches a final assault against the citadel. Frulam Mondath orders the attack, knowing that the adventurers are in the keep at the time." So did Frulam Mondath forget to mention to the dragon that the reason for the attack is to kill the adventurers? Also it says "The NPC's attack are ineffective against Lennithon." So why would the dragon finally start paying attention to the adventurers only after taking significant damage? Why wouldn't he pay attention as soon as they start doing damage if the NPC's attacks are assumed to be doing no damage? I know that it says "Lennithon accompanied this raid but is not an enthusiastic participant." But why is he not enthusiastic? Aren't they doing this for Tiamat so doesn't he have even more to gain from this fight than the cultists do (since he is a dragon)? I just don't understand the logic behind these things.

There's no reason Cyanwrath should kill anyone, if the PC's friends are on the ball.

Sure there is. If the DM decides to use Cyanwrath's lightning breath (4d10) on a PC it could instantly kill the character (especially if the character was already below their HP maximum). Also, if the PCs are more than 30 feet away, and no one has any healing spells, there's a small chance that the PC will critically fail the first death saving throw and then fail the second one before a PC can reach the character to administer healing.