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

[DEFCON 1]

I find a lot of rationalization about published material by gamers on the forums. If it is in print, then it must be good and here are the reasons a), b) and c). Not that you are necessarily doing this, but I do have to ask if you are trying to be totally objective in your rationalization of this duel as a good encounter.

Is practically forcing a PC to take a dirt nap REALLY a good encounter idea? Or is it just an encounter idea that happens to be printed, and hence, the DM should just go with it? Does it really add anything to the game, or is it just a heavy handed way to introduce a reoccurring villain?

To me... yeah, it's introducing a recurring villain, but I don't find it heavy-handed.

If you need to introduce a villain that is more powerful than the PCs under the expectation that this villain could and should come back in future installments... and that you want the villain to actually interact with the PCs and not just stand above and beyond everyone... you need to do something. And I find this scenario in the module completely plausible.

This Big Bad has wandered the village during the raid, having absolutely no competition from anyone. It's probably been boring as hell. Nothing has gotten his blood going, no one has given him a fight. He's a warrior... he wants to be challenged. Thus far it hasn't happened.

Then at the end... after they have pretty much wiped up the town... he doesn't want to leave without a good fight. So he demands the village send out their best challenger to him so he can get some quality action before they leave (and he uses threatening villagers as the impetus for that person to come out). As the module writes the baseline expectation so DMs can understand what's happening, one of the PCs probably fits this bill the most so hopefully one of them volunteer-- knowing full well that they might be sacrificing their own life to protect the lives of the villagers.

That's a player playing his/her PC in character. They are choosing to make the ultimate sacrifice because in character that's what their PC would do. And that kind of scenario for me is an awesome roleplay scenario for a player to deal with.

Then... once the player decides his/her character is willing to give their life for the villagers, they go out and fight the Big Bad. However, the Big Bad find out pretty quickly that even the village's BEST challenger sucks and it's not a true test or fight. So the Big Bad just says "screw it" and leaves. Now you ask why the Big Bad doesn't kill the PC? Because the PC has been proven not even to be worth killing. The PC is a gnat. Insignificant. The Big Bad knows he gains nothing by doing so... especially considering he's Lawful Evil. Killing so far beneath you doesn't gain you anything, so why even waste the time. And this is distinctly different than the "stupid Bond villain" trope... because at least in those movies... the Big Bad KNOWS he's James Bond (or at least a member of the British Secret Service) and thus has some skill and worth at the barest minimum. He didn't get to be a member of MI6 by being a nobody. But everyone in this village of Greenest? An anthill full of ants. Worthless. So the Big Bad just sighs and walks away.

Now that being said, KarinsDad... I will grant you one thing. If your primary argument that it's too early in the campaign for that kind of Catch 22 sacrifice because the player hasn't gotten as attached to his/her PC... and thus they aren't really making a grand sacrifice they're just throwing away a sheet of paper with some numbers on it... okay, yeah, I could buy that argument. A player being asked to sacrifice their character one or two sessions in before the character has done anything where it truly would be a sacrifice on the part of the player... sure. That ain't the best time to do it. I'll buy that.

But I wouldn't rule out this kind of plot or scenario as bad on the whole. There's a time and a place for it for maximum impact and can lend itself to great character drama. But yeah, perhaps in Episode One of this adventure isn't it, depending on the type of players playing the game. But I also think that like what happened in your game... those tables who aren't buying the "ultimate sacrifice" trope this early in the game are going to find others way around it. Which also makes for good drama and creative thinking.

So no... I don't think this scenario is out-and-out horrible on the face of it. Could it be used better at a different time in the story? Sure. But does it makes sense to me why it would occur? Absolutely. And as I like this sort of interesting roleplaying condundrums and challenges, I also don't think you gain anything by not introducing them early in a PCs career. Because holding off on them implies that new PCs aren't worth challenging from an RP perspective until they've "become important". But that's just me and how I play.

 

[Bumamgar]

KarinsDad:

I completely disagree with the 'pulled punches' comments as well. The half-dragon doesn't pull any punches, in fact, it specifically states that after his opponent drops, he swings one more time, either killing an NPC combatant outright, or inflicting a death roll failure on a PC combatant. That's actually beyond what one would expect in a duel, showing just how brutal this monster is. In most cinematic duels, its over when one side drops. You don't have the winner continuing to hack at the loser unless it's a 'thumbs down' scenario in a gladiatorial arena, which this is not.

Besides, you do realize that regardless of your 'we beat the HD' comment, you, in fact, ended up with the exact same result as everyone else, right? The whole encounter is scripted to ensure that the HD lives to be encountered later on, and your DM played it by the book having the kobolds dragging him off to get healed up for later. You could have played it as written and the end result would have been the same: the prisoners free, one party member knocked out, but still alive, and the HD alive. For all of your 'creativity' you didn't actually change the outcome at all.

Now that is a valid complaint about the scenario, that it is so railroaded that it doesn't matter what the characters do, the end result is the same. If you had come in here complaining about that, I think you might have found a more sympathetic set of ears. As it stands now though, you've made so many erroneous assumptions about the encounter and the intentions of the designers and DM, as well as making quite a few comments bordering on personal attacks, that I find myself unable to agree with your stance at all.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think at this point it's safe to say we won't agree on anything Kerinsdad. Firstly, I don't think the first encounters in town are easy at all.. You can have several in a row without being able to really catch hour breath. We had 1 party member go down and 2 more at 1hp and 2hp respectively before making it to the keep. Kobolds have pack tactics, they can come at you from more than one direction (street), AND you have to they to keep the townsfolk safe. You're also only 1st level.

secondly, I strongly disagree that any encounter the PCs can't beat in battle is ludicrous. Who knew having the ring wraiths show up to chase the hobbits in the shire was ludicrous? Who knew that having a star destroyer attack a transport ship was ludicrous? Why don't these guys know that no good adventure should have something that the good guys can't beat in battle...


*edit*. Sorry for any spelling errors, but I'm on a mobile device and the entire right side of the text box is cut off by the headlines section to the right, and I can't see what I'm typing

 

[KarinsDad]

Then... once the player decides his/her character is willing to give their life for the villagers, they go out and fight the Big Bad. However, the Big Bad find out pretty quickly that even the village's BEST challenger sucks and it's not a true test or fight. So the Big Bad just says "screw it" and leaves. Now you ask why the Big Bad doesn't kill the PC? Because the PC has been proven not even to be worth killing. The PC is a gnat. Insignificant.

Thanks for this input. I definitely see your POV.

On the other hand, it did take you 8 paragraphs to rationalize the encounter. 8 paragraphs that the players never see because much of it is from the POV of the villain or your rationalization of his POV (maybe not many DMs take on him). On the surface, the encounter seems (to some people) dumb, forced, the caricature of a bad movie villain, an attempt to humiliate a PC (at least to me) and/or designed to introduce a BBEG whom the PCs could defeat given the chance, but they are not really given the chance. Digging deeper, it might be plausible as you indicate, but again, that deeper level of rationalization that you added is not necessarily obvious and visible to the players.

And it's the players for whom this is either an exciting encounter, or a meh one.


And in the case of our group, that half dragon is no longer as mysterious and tough as maybe he was supposed to seem. The entire foreshadowing of what a real scary foe that he was supposed to be is now lost on our group since we already kicked his butt once. He's just another NPC brute to us without the emotional appeal that the designers might have tried to achieve out of him as a reoccurring villain. Granted, there might be some emotional appeal about him from some of our players due to his threatening of the villagers, but instead of it being a scary one of him being a badass (as possibly intended by the designers), it's more that he's just an evil bully who picks on people weaker than himself. By knocking him down once, our group knows of some of his limits and he is not as mysterious as he was before.

That doesn't mean that he cannot kick our butts with the proper allies in the future, but it does mean that we should have enough information to present a much greater challenge to him in the future. Information that a group of players who just sent a PC out to take a dirt nap might not have. For example, his breath weapon. He might just cut a PC down in many games in a few rounds without ever using his breath weapon. Our group now knows to not line up in a row against him and/or to get our hands on lightning resist. Other groups might not.

 

[KarinsDad]

Besides, you do realize that regardless of your 'we beat the HD' comment, you, in fact, ended up with the exact same result as everyone else, right? The whole encounter is scripted to ensure that the HD lives to be encountered later on, and your DM played it by the book having the kobolds dragging him off to get healed up for later. You could have played it as written and the end result would have been the same: the prisoners free, one party member knocked out, but still alive, and the HD alive. For all of your 'creativity' you didn't actually change the outcome at all.

Actually, we did.

First off, we know some of the capabilities of the HD that PCs who only watched him chop down a fellow PC would not.

Also, the HD now remembers us and knows some of our capabilities (like the cleric's Wrath of the Storm ability) and can now plan accordingly. He will remember us and our chances of ever disguising ourselves in the future probably will not work against him. In a well DMed campaign, he might even seek revenge or try to find out more about these creatures who kicked his butt.


Maybe your game is railroaded to the point that PC actions do not matter, but a lot of games have consequences for PC actions. In fact, we did something unexpected after a later encounter that the DM said totally threw the train off the tracks.

The first casualty of a "scripted to ensure" adventure is the adventure itself.

 

[Tommy Brownell]

Actually, we did.

First off, we know some of the capabilities of the HD that PCs who only watched him chop down a fellow PC would not.

Also, the HD now remembers us and knows some of our capabilities (like the cleric's Wrath of the Storm ability) and can now plan accordingly. He will remember us and our chances of ever disguising ourselves in the future probably will not work against him. In a well DMed campaign, he might even seek revenge or try to find out more about these creatures who kicked his butt.


Maybe your game is railroaded to the point that PC actions do not matter, but a lot of games have consequences for PC actions. In fact, we did something unexpected after a later encounter that the DM said totally threw the train off the tracks.

The first casualty of a "scripted to ensure" adventure is the adventure itself.

The adventure, as written, specifically allows for the possibility that the PCs defeat the Half-Dragon, complete with the kobolds attempting to drag the half-dragon off, with other, minor changes if they fail to do so and the Half-Dragon dies. It does assume that scenario is unlikely, just like it assumes that the PCs are going to attempt to save Greenest rather than shrug their shoulders and go "Man, glad I don't live there".

 

[KarinsDad]

secondly, I strongly disagree that any encounter the PCs can't beat in battle is ludicrous. Who knew having the ring wraiths show up to chase the hobbits in the shire was ludicrous? Who knew that having a star destroyer attack a transport ship was ludicrous? Why don't these guys know that no good adventure should have something that the good guys can't beat in battle...

The difference between a book or a movie, and an FRPG is that the book or movie are written by a small number of people and those people decide exactly what happens.

In an FRPG, decisions are made by three groups, the authors (i.e. the DM/adventure designers), the players (i.e. the protagonists), and random dice rolls.

TPKs do not typically happen in books and movies. A few protagonists might buy the farm, but the death star is not a real threat because the authors write a movie ending where the protagonists win.

Would Star Wars have been a good movie if the Vadar would have TPKed Leia and the two droids at the start of the movie? That can happen in an FRPG, so the power of enemies has to be controlled.

Yes, the DM can make the big bad blue dragon be indifferent to the fight. That's lame. Vadar was not indifferent. He felt real. The dragon feels made up. The players do not necessarily know why the dragon refuses to kill them, it just does.

And how does making the PCs seem and feel insignificant because the dragon is bored a way to make a heroic game?

Movies/books are not interactive. FRPGs are. So, the boundaries have to be different, otherwise the FRPG feels contrived.


Yes, you and I disagree. I think that tough foes are fine, but insurmountable foes are bad game design because it is a game. One doesn't play Monopoly with starting money and no properties and land on a square that already has hotels.

 

[KarinsDad]

The adventure, as written, specifically allows for the possibility that the PCs defeat the Half-Dragon, complete with the kobolds attempting to drag the half-dragon off, with other, minor changes if they fail to do so and the Half-Dragon dies. It does assume that scenario is unlikely, just like it assumes that the PCs are going to attempt to save Greenest rather than shrug their shoulders and go "Man, glad I don't live there".

And that's how it should be. I didn't say that the designers did not take into account the half dragon being defeated, I said that our PCs changed the outcome of the encounter. The entire campaign with respect to that villain should now be drastically different than in the default outcome. He should react to his butt kicking.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Funny. I'm pretty sure the duel with Cyanwrath isn't a TPK....


Also, the whole "battling impossible odds" is a pretty common and impactful aspect of many great stories. Shame that you prefer to not give your players a chance to experience that. As I mentioned above, my 13 year old did that battle, not knowing what to expect. What he took away from that was a feeling that his PC was brave and noble for trying. Not that he was humiliated. It was memorable for him. Not only because of the battle itself, but because of the after affects. He was a tiefling, and the townsfolk shunned him. But being willing to fight against terrible odds (and losing badly) to save them? He's now a hero in that town. If you had your way, he wouldn't have even had the opportunity of that ever happening.

To each their own I guess.

 

[KarinsDad]

Also, the whole "battling impossible odds" is a pretty common and impactful aspect of many great stories.

Yes. Stories. Things written down where the outcome is pre-decided.

You seem to have difficulty understanding the difference between stories and shared storytelling.

FRPGs are shared storytelling where winning against impossible odds never occurs because the dice just are not cooperative enough.

Nobody kills the blue dragon in this adventure with second level PCs. Nobody.

And the module actually has to explicitly tell the DM that the dragon does not kill the PCs because battling impossible odds in an FRPG is a joke. It has to railroad the encounter into a non-TPK way because the designers knew that it should really be a TPK.

In a written story, impossible odds can be overcome. The author just writes it that way.

That's why it's a bad idea to put impossible odds into an FRPG. It feels contrived because it's forced. The PC actions have little or no bearing on the situation. They are not heroes at that point, but backdrop to the scripted story.