Why the low level recommendation for the adventure, though? To read the description of it, players get into the mindset that they will be stopping the cult and saving the day. To learn after you start playing that "Oh, those epic adventures are only for more experienced characters" can be disappointing. It's false advertising if the module doesn't permit the low level characters to be the heroes.
D&D 5E Why is Hoard of the Dragon Queen such a bad adventure?
There are plenty of opportunities for the characters to be heroes throughout each of the chapters in Hoard. Going toe to toe with an adult dragon at first level is not one of them. In fact just risking their lives in the first instance makes them heroes to the people of Greenest.
It takes longer than you'd think to learn that in D&D, though. Most people who do know it, only do because they remember what happened when someone tried. So I wouldn't be too hard on the players who tried. Most heroes are brave, but also foolish.
I'd pull punches, etc., until they get the idea, not just try to scare them or make them feel like they were crazy to consider attacking it. They could be only singed as an entire building near them exploded, knocked out, or saved by a friendly wizard named Elminster.
Oddly that's almost the exact opposite of the lesson I learned. If you don't hit them with the encounters they won't learn how lethal the system can be for low level characters. That doesn't mean they can't triumph, but that they have to learn that not all fights are balanced and on a plate for them. They have to learn when to fight, when to talk, when to run and hide. And what will push them up the risk scale to defend.
Deus ex machina saviours are a really bad idea, particularly in this AP.
The module sounds like something I might run for my own players, only in 2nd Edition and at very high level.
It's all preparation until the players are ready to win.
It really isn't. It's designed to take the characters from 1st level (stumbling across Greenest and the Cult) to 7/8th at the end of Hoard and mid/high teens at the climax of the second book.
A lot of the complaints have come from three main sources:
Thinking about it as though it was in an earlier version (expectations of balance, etc.)
Dislike of such a linked set of areas (railroad, APs in general)
Problems in production, which are more valid IMO. It looks rushed in places and suffers from late rule changes in others.
The whole "But it's a dragon!" thing is a problem of style as much as anything else, and has been seen before in modules now regarded as classic (see earlier in this thread).
It requires a fair amount of thought and charging in murder-hobo style will result in a slaughtered party. Hours before they would get close to the dragon. Quite a few of the parties I'm running will shoot a lone kobold on sight in case it has friends in the area.
I hope I'm not hitting on too many already-covered topics here (sorry, I did not read all 286 replies), but HoDQ isn't as much a 'bad' adventure as it is a 'perplexing' adventure. I believe I called it a 'hot mess' in my review. There are flashes of brilliance (many detailed NPCs & encounters for the caravan portion of the journey), but there are also plenty of head-scratcher encounters & logic paths that lessen the adventure's effectiveness. It presents itself as more of an adventure outline than a fully fleshed-out adventure, but I hold to the notion that if I spend my thirty bucks on a book, I shouldn't have to do so much of the work to make the adventure presentable.
Bloodsausage
First Post
Hi, all. I'm new here.
I'm about to run Hoard of the Dragon Queen starting this weekend, and I'm a relatively inexperienced DM. As I was re-reading the first section, I had a crazy idea that I wanted more input on:
Is the encounter with the Blue Dragon necessary in any way? From my reading ahead, I don't see any later connection with Lennithon and the rest of the plot, and the overall raid on Greenest is plenty in the way of motivation and stakes for the PCs to get involved.
I played the first section of this adventure as a PC several months ago, and my first reaction to seeing the dragon attacking the town was, "No way." Would simply removing the dragon from the adventure altogether solve every one of these problems?
I'm about to run Hoard of the Dragon Queen starting this weekend, and I'm a relatively inexperienced DM. As I was re-reading the first section, I had a crazy idea that I wanted more input on:
Is the encounter with the Blue Dragon necessary in any way? From my reading ahead, I don't see any later connection with Lennithon and the rest of the plot, and the overall raid on Greenest is plenty in the way of motivation and stakes for the PCs to get involved.
I played the first section of this adventure as a PC several months ago, and my first reaction to seeing the dragon attacking the town was, "No way." Would simply removing the dragon from the adventure altogether solve every one of these problems?
Maybe you have Lennithon show up after the party jumps into the fray. Another possibility is having the dragon make a pass every 15 or 45 minutes and focus just on the castle until the PC's get into said castle, followed by attempting to burn the town rather than the castle.
In my game, they came over a rise and saw the dragon make a pass over the town and then disappear into the night. They rushed into the town to try and save people and immediate failed the first random encounter roll (not to mention the next 2 or 4). The dragon was reduced to being noticed as making another pass every so often as they were fighting for their lives with the ground troops. Eventually flew off - I don't recall if I had the party hear the whole angry dragon yelling as she left thing or if they just noticed that it had been a really long time since they last saw/heard the dragon.
There are other ways to play it but that's just the two that come off the top of my head.
dream66_
First Post
Removing the Blue Dragon wouldn't mess up the adventure in any way, but it wouldn't solve all the problems.
Similar Threads
