The Caves of Chaos: Not very good?

[fuzzlewump]

Did anyone else get the impression that the caves were boring? Bonus points if you were a player, not a GM. As a quick background, my group has pretty much always done set-piece style combat encounters with very little roleplaying and exploration. We felt that 4e did set-piece encounters better and we didn't really feel the sacrifices made in other areas (YMMV, etc). In playing 5E, I wanted to see a different way to play, where combat was quick and deadly, and something you wanted to avoid (because it's really not more fun than the rest of the game.)

The adventure we got is just... combat. I don't understand that. Why don't any of these creatures (Hobgoblins excepted) speak common? This 'political' approach the document talks about to these caves seems impossible, we don't speak the same language! And these are evil creatures, you need a nice DM that doesn't just have them attack you on sight even if you can speak their language through a spell or otherwise.

Then we proceeded to slog through like 15 kobolds (combat noise attracting more) without a wizard in our party (The DM is having to roll 2d20 for each kobold, because of outnumbering...). We honestly just got bored and stopped. If the game is just going to be a combat-fest, I'd waaaaay much rather play 4E D&D. Were we just 'doin it wrong?' I feel like when I ran it as a DM and then played as the rogue we were running it as written pretty much.

Any thoughts?

One question I want to sneak in at the end, are you supposed to be able to hide every turn as a rogue? I don't think the documents talk about whether stealthing is an action or not. We ran it as the rogue jumping out of hiding, shooting the sling, then walking back behind the fighter to hide again in the same turn.

 

[DonTadow]

Thanks, great to know they are starting first with combat, because this is the reason why people left 4e, too much focus on non-combat.

 

[FinalSonicX]

Thanks, great to know they are starting first with combat, because this is the reason why people left 4e, too much focus on non-combat.

I assume this is sarcasm...?

As for the OP's questions: the political approach is more "playing sides against each other" rather than "making friends", from what I understand. Since nobody speaks orcish or anything like that, you're right that a straightforward approach to diplomacy is going to be difficult.

As for the rogue, I think the Rogue generally needs to take a turn to hide. This is somewhat ambiguous though because of the Rogue's ability to hide behind creatures larger than it (or rather, the halfling ability) and the fact that you can move and attack in any order and split up your move.

As for the Caves of Chaos, I've played this adventure twice, once in 2e, and once with 5e (haven't finished it). I loved my 2e playthrough as a player, mostly just because it felt very open-ended. I felt like my decisions mattered and like the DM wasn't just giving me the "illusion of choice". In 5e, as a DM, I feel different about it. My players seemed to have lots of fun, but I personally felt like the adventure fell kind of flat when running it. It felt very much like how you described it - combat after combat. My players appeared to be okay with that, and frankly I love combat, but it felt very "linear" as a DM as opposed to a player. Probably because I can see the map and I end up kind of "knowing what comes next" in the adventure compared to being a player in this adventure. I really like it when dungeons and megadungeons have built-in points of interest or interesting features, or even some randomization. I'll be running barrowmaze soon, and I'm really liking the look of it. Even though there'll be a ton of combat, I think it's more fun because it has the features listed above.

The Caves of Chaos are fun to me as a player, but as a DM it's too simplistic for me. I want some NPCs or interesting environments rather than 20x20 rooms strung together. However, I feel like the straight-forwardness of the dungeon along with the "sandbox-y" nature of it is perfect for new DMs to learn how to make the world feel "alive".

 

[darjr]

There are other ways to go about things.

Spoiler

For instance the kobolds might not just fight, fight, fight, but notice the goblins being attacked and take that oppourtunity to pitch in against them. No common required.

The hobboglins have an Orc and Gnoll prisoner, what do you think those two will tell their compatriots about the hobgoblins after the PC's free them? No common required, and no cooperation required. Just free the Orc/Gnoll who up to this point has done you no harm.

Also the Ogre works for cold hard cash. Doesn't one of the PC's have 50gp? I think that Ogre just might make a goblin all you can eat feast for that much gold. No common required, just the jingle of gold coins. That might be leaning to much towards the evil end of the scale, I admit.

edit to add the spoiler block

 

[Piratecat]

My suggestion: if you have advantage, don't roll attacks twice. Just reroll misses.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I don't think rules are needed for non-combat encounters (there may be playtesting required for resolution of individual mechanics, mind ...); this is really the domain of the DM. There's a massive amount of non-combat options that can be played with this adventure if the DM isn't creative. It just isn't hard coded into the adventure with a section that starts "this is a skill challenge ..." or the equivalent.

I've DM'd this adventure multiple times in multiple editions, and left the approach up to the PCs ... and ended up with vastly different experiences each time. One group played politics between the various humanoid factions and started their own little internal war-by-proxy, for example.

 

[Blackwarder]

I assume this is sarcasm...?

As for the OP's questions: the political approach is more "playing sides against each other" rather than "making friends", from what I understand. Since nobody speaks orcish or anything like that, you're right that a straightforward approach to diplomacy is going to be difficult.

As for the rogue, I think the Rogue generally needs to take a turn to hide. This is somewhat ambiguous though because of the Rogue's ability to hide behind creatures larger than it (or rather, the halfling ability) and the fact that you can move and attack in any order and split up your move.

As for the Caves of Chaos, I've played this adventure twice, once in 2e, and once with 5e (haven't finished it). I loved my 2e playthrough as a player, mostly just because it felt very open-ended. I felt like my decisions mattered and like the DM wasn't just giving me the "illusion of choice". In 5e, as a DM, I feel different about it. My players seemed to have lots of fun, but I personally felt like the adventure fell kind of flat when running it. It felt very much like how you described it - combat after combat. My players appeared to be okay with that, and frankly I love combat, but it felt very "linear" as a DM as opposed to a player. Probably because I can see the map and I end up kind of "knowing what comes next" in the adventure compared to being a player in this adventure. I really like it when dungeons and megadungeons have built-in points of interest or interesting features, or even some randomization. I'll be running barrowmaze soon, and I'm really liking the look of it. Even though there'll be a ton of combat, I think it's more fun because it has the features listed above.

The Caves of Chaos are fun to me as a player, but as a DM it's too simplistic for me. I want some NPCs or interesting environments rather than 20x20 rooms strung together. However, I feel like the straight-forwardness of the dungeon along with the "sandbox-y" nature of it is perfect for new DMs to learn how to make the world feel "alive".

I'm running this right now and my advice is that you should make it your own advanture.
The way I look at it, the Caves of Chaos module, describe what's the situation is in the first moment the PCs enter the ravine, from that point forward it's up to you what to do with it, for example I knock up a quick random encounter table for outside encounters during the night and I started the advanture by telling my players "roll a d6 1-3 you arrive just as the sun is setting 4-6 you arrive during the day" they rolled a one.

Once the characters start making a mess in the ravine you should consider how it will effect the caves status que. Personally, Unless my players will find some allies in the caves sometime soone they would get hunted by a combined attack force of monsters (that's if they survive the next session ) simply because they will become a major threat.

Warder

 

[Yora]

I don't think rules are needed for non-combat encounters (there may be playtesting required for resolution of individual mechanics, mind ...); this is really the domain of the DM. There's a massive amount of non-combat options that can be played with this adventure if the DM isn't creative. It just isn't hard coded into the adventure with a section that starts "this is a skill challenge ..." or the equivalent.

Yes, which is why I consider the playtest rules to be good rules.

But if you have a premade module, it should have a purpose, a plot, and on objective. What do I need a chaotic unstructured floor plan and random encounter blocks for? Those I can throw together myself in 30 minutes. Which is why caves of chaos are a bad module, and even a bad dungeon.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Perhaps an alternate way to look at this: every game is a contract between the DM and players. The players choose how their PCs act; the DM chooses how monsters act.

The PCs might decide to open every encounter as a combat encounter; it doesn't mean the DM has to, and vice versa. What happens if instead of fighting one side welcomes the other in, offers to surrender, offers a bribe, asks for help, says "Thank Pelor you're here and brought a cleric, we're under nightly assault from undead" or takes similar action?

 

[Hussar]

The Caves of Chaos is the classic Tower of Orcs. It is what it is. Sure, it can be more, but, as presented, it's a giant combat slog.