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

[Wrathamon]

I thought you had already decided smart characters are downstairs having a cup of joe?

as we all start beating a dead horse ...

 

[Kaychsea]

as we all start beating a dead horse ...

Safer, I'll give you, but with far fewer XPs available.

 

[Wrathamon]

But I am not sure a Dead Horse is an appropriate CR for the player at this point in the adventure. Maybe a Dead Donkey Horse? I wish WotC had published the CR chart before they released this adventure.

 

[KarinsDad]

I thought you had already decided smart characters are downstairs having a cup of joe?

The extremely smart characters are doing that.

The merely smart ones are still hiding behind the parapets.

 

[Wrathamon]

The next time I play this I am going to not spend my starting money and then bribe the dragon to attack the 1/2 dragon for being a mockery of real dragons.

 

[fanboy2000]

The next time I play this I am going to not spend my starting money and then bribe the dragon to attack the 1/2 dragon for being a mockery of real dragons.

My new hero.

 

[Derren]

If you know the player only has 2 hps, why would you use the Breath Attack

Because it might make sense in this situation? Why must the DM pull punches left and right and make a mpckery out of any versimilutude he managed to create just in order to salvage some horribly written encounters?

If they know the encounter is meant to be more theatrical in nature ... Why play it straight?

...

Is this more about We don't want theatrical cinematic encounters? all encounters must be winnable? must be an appropriate threat level but not winnable but believable and don't throw anything to crazy at the player that might be beyond their capabilities to see what they might need to do or we don't want to have to alter or improve an adventure as a DM? all of the above?

"Theatrical encounters" are absolutely horrible and devalue everything the players do as everything is scripted. And if you havent noticed, those two encounters are winnable, or rather, they are nearly impossible to lose as they are scripted in a way that the PCs will win (drive of the dragon and rescue the hostages without casulties)

I think everything wrong with this adventure so far for me has been DMs not being good DMs, and being a good DM is hard and not every style of encounter design is for everyone.

Everything wrong with this adventure is that it is written in a horrible way and expects and even rewards players for using metagame knowledge and playing heroic stupid while pretty much making their actions irrelevant as the outcome is scripted.

 

[Desalus]

If you know the player only has 2 hps, why would you use the Breath Attack unless you intend to kill the player outright? It's up to the DM, this isnt a boardgame or AI automated encounter. The DM who does this chooses to do this. If they Roll damage (instead of taking the average) for example. If they know the encounter is meant to be more theatrical in nature ... Why play it straight?

Why would Cyanwrath choose not to use his most powerful attack to win a duel? Doesn't it make sense that he would if he wanted to ensure that he would win the duel? Anyway, I agree with you that the DM doesn't have to use it...I was merely pointing out that Steve Winter is wrong when he said that there's no reason why Cyanwrath should kill the character.

I think everything wrong with this adventure so far for me has been DMs not being good DMs, and being a good DM is hard and not every style of encounter design is for everyone.

A good DM can take a terribly written adventure ('The Forest Oracle' for example) and turn it into a great one. It doesn't mean that the quality of the adventure as it is written is any good.

 

[Kordak]

The next time I play this I am going to not spend my starting money and then bribe the dragon to attack the 1/2 dragon for being a mockery of real dragons.

Hey KH! Very funny as always...This is Mike...I played this adventure recently and was the guy who had to go out and take on the half dragon...I have to say that I completely agree with KD that this setup sucked. It reminded me of another game wherin we were assailed by an uber-powerful DMPC with no hope of success. I'm impressed that he and his group were able to overcome this threat, but with our party, I just died...not fun...at all.

I really see all of the different viewpoints presented in this huge thread, however, none of them assuage the feeling that I had playing this part of the game...if I really have no choice (which let's face it, I didn't...I'm a hero) but to walk out to certain death, then well...that just sucks. I would hope to at least have a chance at victory, but really in our case that wasn't possible. So yeah, in this case that part of the adventure (where the Half Dragon killed my character and I could do nothing about it) just sucked ass.

We could blame it on the DM, but I just don't think that is fair as he should be able to play it as written (since it is a module that he paid for). I think the blame lies with the authors of the adventure as they wrote the series of encounters...they have more accountablility than the consumers of their product.

KD, I'm with you man. <bro fist bump>

Thanks,
Mike

 

[Iosue]

Why would Cyanwrath choose not to use his most powerful attack to win a duel? Doesn't it make sense that he would if he wanted to ensure that he would win the duel? Anyway, I agree with you that the DM doesn't have to use it...I was merely pointing out that Steve Winter is wrong when he said that there's no reason why Cyanwrath should kill the character.

That's indeed what happened to me when my character fought Cyanwrath. Breath weapon that would have killed me outright, but I was able to no-sell it thanks to my Shield Mastery. Which I then used to pound him into the ground and get one good lick in.

Uh...he got better.

But from the point of view of the set-up...why would Cyanwrath do that? He could Breath Weapon anyone he wanted from a distance. Why go through all the trouble of getting a champion to come out and duel with him, only to Breath Weapon him into a crisp at the first opportunity? It seems to me, given the "I want a challenge" set-up, that he would be more likely to want to at least begin the battle with his weapons, for the sport of it, holding the breath weapon in reserve if the fight ends up not going well, or if the militia decides to attack en masse while he's exposed fighting the town's champion.