D&D 5E Why is Hoard of the Dragon Queen such a bad adventure?

[Mouseferatu]

I'm not following something. How is the arcane ward "wasted"? It's basically temporary hit points that last until burned or a long rest; if you don't spend them now, you still have them for later.

 

[Sailor Moon]

5th edition wasn't designed around niche protection. You choose a class because you like it's theme and what it can do, not what it has that no other class has.

 

[Kaychsea]

And actually, you found that to be a problem with the players. I consider that it might also be a problem with the module.

What module? Their only interaction was to enter the town. The rest of it was the random encounters and watching one character's auntie's house slowly burn down.
I really expected them to become a bit more circumspect after burning so many of their resources in the first combat. If anything they took it as a challenge, they didn't hesitate, pointed the villagers at the keep (in the wrong direction) and shot off into the night looking for more trouble.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Shield doesn't help as much for an Abjuration Wizard since the first hit of the day has to be allowed, otherwise, Arcane Ward resources are wasted (or at least there's a good chance that they will be wasted). Assuming, of course, that one doesn't forego the use of Mage Armor (in which case using Shield at the first opportunity is a good move). So although my wizard has the Shield spell, he has only used it a small number of times.

I don't follow.

1.) Enemy attacks you. If he "hits", cast Shield to prevent the hit. This makes your Arcane Ward appear.
2.) If that plan is too reactive for you, just cast Alarm as a ritual first thing in the morning. This makes your Arcane Ward appear.
3.) Cast Alarm as necessary to recharge your Arcane Ward.

There's no need to fanatically conserve abjuration spell slots due to (3), and even if there were, (1) and (2) would get around the issue.

 

[delericho]

I don't see the railroad in either of these situations.

How is the GM deciding that a dragon attacks a railroad?

It isn't the dragon attack that would be the railroad, but rather what follows. Whereas HotDQ, as written, allows for the options of the PCs entering the keep, simply sitting things out, or other options, the "revised" opening does not - the PCs are in the keep whether they want it or not.

(And, even in HotDQ as written, once the PCs choose to enter the keep their options become much more limited - the adventure doesn't really make allowance for them then not getting missions from the friendly local NPC. And although it does give them choices wrt the dragonborn's challenge, all the options lead to pretty much the same outcome anyway, so those 'choices' don't really count.)

 

[aramis erak]

There are two issues here.

1) The module expects PCs of certain levels at certain points. Therefore, as DM, you need to make that happen with external encounters / mini-adventures and get off the railroad tracks a bit. Our DM didn't like part of the adventure, so our group has gone off and done quite a bit of other stuff, just to get us to where she thinks we need to be for the next section of the module.

2) The module expects PCs to level after each Section (Chapter, whatever they call them). This is all fine and well, but part of good tactics in gaming is knowing your PCs. There seems to be a bit of a rush to level up in this module that doesn't jive with the leveling guidelines in the DMG. This means that with some groups, players will not be as well versed in their PC's abilities as they should be and they might make tactical errors that make encounters more difficult or alternatively, use up resources and not be prepared to latter encounters as much. It's not just knowing your own PC's abilities, but also knowing what works for a given group based on the PCs. Experienced players will probably not have a big issue with this, but newbies or less experienced players might. It does seem as if the 55 or so encounters of PCs that normally gets one to level 8 by the end of this module is being compressed down into fewer encounters. Greenest had quite a few encounters, but after that, they seemed to have dried up a bit.

The actual earned experience is right about on par or a little above milestone. At least so far. And it's not Every chapter. Just most. (Episode 5 doesn't have a blurb for level-up for those using milestone only advancement.) Actually, I just started Episode 5, and have 2x 6th's, 2x 5th, and a 4th. (One of the 5ths would be a 6th if he hadn't had to be raised in the middle of 4th.) The lower level guys are actually lower level due to missed sessions (AL play, and work conflicts) including not making it to Expeditions weekends.

 

[delericho]

(Episode 5 doesn't have a blurb for level-up for those using milestone only advancement.)

The introduction covers this - using Milestone XP characters should gain a level in each part except 5. Presumably because part 5 is so very short.

 

[KarinsDad]

Interesting! I hadn't considered that aspect of the arcane ward. Huh. That's very counterintuitive.... I guess it depends on how often you get hit. It's weird that the ward sort of encourages you to let yourself get hit, but I guess it soaks up damage that would otherwise cost another pc hps (or use up a spell slot for the shield)... huh.

Precisely. It has really helped in those occasions where I can instead of using a wimpy cantrip, have the wizard casually walk out into the middle of the battlefield to give a potion of healing to an unconscious PC or put the wizard into the perfect position to cast a burning hands or a thunderwave without having to worry that there are 3 or 4 foes nearby.

The group in my game has been in many dangerous combats, either with large numbers of enemies (especially kobolds and orcs) or with a few very dangerous monsters (for instance, when thewizard was just barely 3rd level, most of the party fell down a slide trap that dropped them like 3 levels deeper in the dungeon they were exploring, and then they encountered 3 gricks. Yikes, that was a near tpk and one of the times that thunderwave really saved the day). Maybe the high-difficulty encounters, or the larger numbers of adversaries, help to let the wizard shine?

How many and what level were the PCs? 3 Gricks would be a morning warmup for our group (even when we were lower level, granted, there are 6 of us).

It's not that we don't fight large numbers of foes or dangerous foes, it's that our group is probably optimized fairly well (considering that we put together the PCs the next day after the PHB came out). Four of our players have been playing various FRPGs for 30+ years, so tactically, we have a fairly savvy group. I don't consider combats with large number of orcs to be as threatening as they would with other groups of players/PCs. We have had a lot of tough fights (in fact, our DM rarely throws an easy fight our way).

For example, our human Battle Master Fighter at fourth level has the Heavy Armor Master and Sentinel feats along with the Parry and Feinting maneuvers. He can fight for a really long time without needing any healing. Plus, he locks down foes and has the option for the heavily damaging Feinting attack. He is played by my 27 year old nephew who only played D&D (or any RPG) for 6 months before 5E came out. He doesn't think like an RPGer, he thinks like a MMORPG player. In his mind, the job of the fighter is to lock down mobs and tank. So, he designed his PC that way.

In your Grick example, he would hold one down and probably take 10 total points of damage (if that) from it.

Also in our group, every PC except the fighter can cast spells. I'm sure that the majority of most other groups out there can cast spells, but it really helps when 3 out of 6 can heal, 4 can do direct offensive spells (I'm not really counting the Cleric here, but even she can Bless which is more indirect and she can do Wrath of the Storm). Our group has two PCs with AC 20 and one PC with AC 19. The near TPK that the DM sent against us had two guys in plate mail (along with 10 other foes at least our level or higher, so we were outnumbered 2 to 1 with same or higher level foes, 4 of the foes were at least level 5), so our fighter and cleric ended up in plate mail. Probably a mistake at 3rd level for the DM, but it is what it is.

Another factor in the lack of shining for my wizard is that we also have a ranger 2 / evoker 2 in our group. So he walks around in armor (AC 19), attacks with his weapons, and pulls out (mostly) first level evocation spells when necessary. We have a Bard that casts Thunderwave and Sleep. So there is a bit of repetition except for the fact that my wizard has second level spells.

 

[KarinsDad]

I don't follow.

1.) Enemy attacks you. If he "hits", cast Shield to prevent the hit. This makes your Arcane Ward appear.
2.) If that plan is too reactive for you, just cast Alarm as a ritual first thing in the morning. This makes your Arcane Ward appear.
3.) Cast Alarm as necessary to recharge your Arcane Ward.

There's no need to fanatically conserve abjuration spell slots due to (3), and even if there were, (1) and (2) would get around the issue.

Two cases:

1) Wizard casts Mage Armor (or Alarm) before combat. This is the one I was discussing. If Mage Armor is already cast, Arcane Ward is already up. Sure, it might make sense to cast Shield against a foe that is paralyzing PCs or doing 20 points of damage or some such, but mostly, the Wizard lets Arcane Ward take the damage of the next hit and conserves the first level slot by not casting Shield. Casting Shield wastes the extra arcane ward points in this case and it wastes the spell slot.

2) Wizard does not cast Mage Armor first. This is the example you are discussing in your #1. It makes sense to cast Shield in this case. Arcane Ward is not up yet.

 

[KarinsDad]

I'm not following something. How is the arcane ward "wasted"? It's basically temporary hit points that last until burned or a long rest; if you don't spend them now, you still have them for later.

See this post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...nture/page24&p=6490045&viewfull=1#post6490045

Every time an abjuration Wizard casts an abjuration spell, he gets bonus points to his arcane ward, but they do not stack (the ward has to be at 0 hit points for this to occur). Hence, those bonus points are wasted if the Wizard casts a Shield spell to protect his Arcane Ward.