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

[Derren]

That's too bad it's such a poor module. I had high hopes that Wizards of the Coast would get everything right this time around. Adventure writing is pretty basic, and if they're having trouble with it that could be a sign of a lot of problems.

All you can do is make the most of the module, or write your own.

The adventure does not come from WotC but from Kobold Press.

 

[aramis erak]

The adventure does not come from WotC but from Kobold Press.

And it's not really poorly written. It's not well edited, but that's not the same as a poorly written adventure.

4 GM's in one room. 4 different sequences in Chapter 1. And chapter 2 was 4 very different results. Chapter 3 was likewise quite different for each table.

The use of Factions to hook people into the story isn't clear until chapter 4... but I was easily able to get buy in from my players because of the factions. And they're in the Player's Basic Rules...

 

[Blackwarder]

H

Even Paizo, who are generally lauded for their adventure writing, have made some clunkers.

Paizo is a good example, they are lauded for thier AP and adventures but personally I have yet to see a paizo adventure that I thought to be good, I bought a bunch and my general reaction was meh... different taste I guess.

Warder

 

[sithramir]

It also assumes that you decide to infiltrate the enemy camp full of hundreds of enemies, that is what my players avoided, instead just spying from the outside and picking off some groups of guards, before finally trying to get a thief to sneak in after the camp was at full alert in order to try and find where the prisoners were. Well he rolled poorly on his CHA check and was unable to talk his way out of anything and in trying to flee was killed. So the rest of the group pulled out and went back to the keep to report what they knew and recover while finding a new PC. Then when they went back to the camp for Chapter 3 they were a level off where the module kind of expected them to be and its been a slaughter. So we have several new PC's now going to try and recover the ones that were killed or captured. I'm thinking they get killed too unless I start nerfing or giving them free levels..which just isn't how I run a game. So for me its a gamestyle conflict really. I don't go out of my way to modify and tailor everything to always be appropriate for the party if actions on the enemies part are set up to do something else, which has lead to a the current situation where I'm guessing they are going to pull out of the area. Or maybe they will use great tactics and roll good and get it done. We will see next week. This has just really rammed the point home that AP style stuff isn't for a more sandbox DM like me, which I should have learned by now. I may just throw the book away and wing the rest of it.

I'm really shocked here. You don't use suggested milestone leveling AND don't scale the encounters down since your PCs are lower leveled? I hope you don't think this has anything to do with the adventure fault wise?

This is like starting 3rd level adventurers in an adventure for level 9 characters and then being mad at the adventure. No one says every encounter should be balanced but this doesn't seem an issue with the adventure.

Maybe you could blame it for not having options on how to properly scale up and down?

 

[Zardnaar]

I was gonna run it yesterday but ran the 2E night below adventure or at least part 1. It actually ran quite well and jsut subbed in CR2 bandit leaders for lvl 2 fighters, level 3 thieves became scouts.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Simple answer: It's a railroad - but there's nothing wrong with that for the right (or perhaps wrong) group. Where it is bad (although a huge step up on Keep on the Shadowfell for 4e) is that the writers didn't have access to the design math, so the numbers are all off.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm really shocked here. You don't use suggested milestone leveling AND don't scale the encounters down since your PCs are lower leveled? I hope you don't think this has anything to do with the adventure fault wise?

This is like starting 3rd level adventurers in an adventure for level 9 characters and then being mad at the adventure. No one says every encounter should be balanced but this doesn't seem an issue with the adventure.

Maybe you could blame it for not having options on how to properly scale up and down?

I think I just said in the part you quoted that its a bad fit for my style of gaming. Sure the large numbers of errors and kind of iffy plot don't help but I can work with that a bit better since that is more fixable. Who said I was mad at a collection of paper and ink? Kind of strange to get mad at that. Getting mad at the designers maybe but even that is kind of unreasonable.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Simple answer: It's a railroad - but there's nothing wrong with that for the right (or perhaps wrong) group. Where it is bad (although a huge step up on Keep on the Shadowfell for 4e) is that the writers didn't have access to the design math, so the numbers are all off.

Yep, for the appropriate DM and group I'm sure there is fun to be had all around.

 

[dream66_]

The problem isn't that it's a railroad, I could handle that, it's how vague it is, then assumes that the charaters did some railroady thing to get to the next chapter

Don't give me this whole chapter of setting and freedom and anything can happen only to start the next chapter with "Now that the PC's have resqued the monk" What they did? where? when? Either railroad or sandbox but PICK ONE!!!

 

[KarinsDad]

Simple answer: It's a railroad - but there's nothing wrong with that for the right (or perhaps wrong) group. Where it is bad (although a huge step up on Keep on the Shadowfell for 4e) is that the writers didn't have access to the design math, so the numbers are all off.

You have evidence for this?

Easy to make the claim.