Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Karunake Sep 05, 2014 7:06:26	Warning, if you are a player in any Hoard of the Dragon Queen campaign, please do not read this post to avoid spoilers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alright, on page 36. We are at chapter 4. The encounter No Room at the Inn involves a semi-forced fight against four assassins. Each of them is CR 8, putting them together makes for a CR 32 encounter, with an XP tally of 15600 XP. If we use the Basic DMG, we find that these values must be multiplied by 2 because we have a group of 3-6 npcs. That'd make for a CR 64 31200 XP encounter.   My mind can't wrap around such a ludicrous challenge for a party of level 4-5. Is there something I'm missing?
#2 Gold_Katana Sep 05, 2014 8:21:44	That's what I'm seeing too.  I hope someone else points out where we are wrong.  ONE assassin would be a challenge for a party of 4th levelers.
#3 Bantam Sep 05, 2014 10:44:05	I believe one of the writers for the book stated that they originally put in slaads, but had to change it as there wasn't gonna be any slaads in the adventure. Changed it to assassins for the encounter, but they were originally a lot lower CR before the final version. Suggested to swap it out with veterans or something else that's CR 3-4.
#4 obsid Sep 05, 2014 13:33:40	Assuming you have a full party of party of 7 players at level 4: 3500XP is deadly, 2625XP is Hard, 1750XP is medium.  4 assassins would be 31200XP, it would be impossible for the assassins to lose unless the DM was dues ex machina'ing it for the players.  Think about it each assassin does (assuming you dont roll damage, the asssassin hits and the player fails the DC 15 con save) 43 damage to one player, and 30 damage to another.  A 4th level fighter with +1 con mod has about 30 hp.  So each assassin can kill two fighters per turn.  your party will be dead in two turns.  If they get suprise or advatnage during the first turn, free crits (ie your party wouldnt last a turn).   If you want to keep it with assassin's, then I would change it to ONE assassin (CR 8).  The one Assassin alone is 3900 XP making the encounter deadly for 7 characters at 4th level.  (Think about if your a 4th level +0con wizard with 17 average hp getting hit for 43 damage in one turn...)     If you dont care about it being an assassin, and still want a "hard" fight I would go with 6 spy's (CR 1).
#5 Karunake Sep 05, 2014 13:50:18	Well, I'm coding the adventure for use in Fantasy Grounds, and trying to do it -as written- while coding. However, yes, I'm going to make a homebrew encounter to replace this, because it's absurd. Loving the Veteran and Spy suggestions.
#6 Alynn Sep 05, 2014 14:22:29	This is not how CR works... At all....    CR is nothing more than a measuring stick to see how powerful a creature is. Full stop. CR is not added multiplied, divided, subtracted, or anything, it's just a measure of how powerful that particular monster is. However for the purposes of difficulty it is indeed a 31200 XP encounter (although only 15600 for actual value) with 4 CR 8 creatures.   Secondly, this fight is nowhere near forced, at all. The players choose to fight, or the DM chooses that one of the NPC's fights. That said, if one of the NPC's start the fight, wouldn't they also participate? This means you are going to have a ton of other people fighting. The PC's aren't the only ones affected by the cruelty.   Thirdly, this is an optional event. It doesn't have to happen. Only the 4 Planned Events are required to happen. It can be modified, as the DM wills.   Finally, not every fight is made to be winnable. This is something that players need to understand, and even something they tried to hammer home in the beginning of the adventure with the Adult Blue Dragon. Running away is always ALWAYS an option.
#7 James_the_True Sep 05, 2014 15:14:37	I'm hoping the MM will clarify 5E CRs a bit and we don't have to wait for the DMG.  IIRC (it's been quite a while) in 3E two creatures of the same CR would equal the CR + 2, four of the same CR would equal CR + 4 and so on.  So four CR 8 creatures would be a CR of 12. A bit high for a 4th level party.   We've been testing the rules at various levels and our party of four 12th level characters beat a CR 16 blue dragon. At the start I wasn't sure of the PCs chances (no magic items) so I placed the encounter in a cave and the dragon didn't have much room to manoeuver or escape and it was just and straight-up fight.  However, going by the 3E rules for CR, that should have been about an average encounter.
#8 Karunake Sep 05, 2014 17:28:00	Alynn, you are right on this point, but the setup really calls for the fight to erupt. I think, however, that what troubles me the most, in general, about this adventure, is that none of the encounter CRs and XP values are given outright in their description. A DM who just runs the adventure as is and throws the npcs/monsters as stated is up for a -bad- surprise when the fighting actually starts. Why? Because some tend to start the fight, roll according to the statblock, and then do the accounting work after it's done. A little: This is a CR X encounter worth Y XP would have worked wonders to tip DMs into adjusting or avoiding certain encounters.   tl;dr: Yes, running away is always an option. A DM should also have full control of the document he has under his eyes, and this can be a bad surprise for the unwary DM too.
#9 Gold_Katana Sep 11, 2014 10:17:03	In a similar vein is the initial Greenest setting.  The PC's are called upon to put some serious damage into the blue dragon.  Even making their saves against its breath weapon once will outright fry them.  Not sure what the adventure designers had in mind for them to attempt.  Even the best damage any of the PC's can do on a crit won't hit the 25 required, especially with the dragon's AC.   In our game, I'll simply fudge the mechanics to somehow let them come up with roleplay reasons to avoid the damage.  If anyone else has ideas, I'd love to them.
#10 Explodenator Sep 13, 2014 16:32:50	Alynn wrote:
#11 Thank_Dog Sep 14, 2014 1:42:02	Gold_Katana wrote:
#12 Gold_Katana Sep 15, 2014 7:53:39	My point was hitting the dragon is extremely difficult, so adding up the damage to 24 points will take awhile.  A crit happens only on a 20 - this could also take a few rounds to happen.  Any PC's caught in the lightning blast (not difficult for the dragon to pull off, at all) will absolutely kill any first level player, regardless of making their saving throw.  By the rules, this is a TPK encounter.  I've run two seperate parties through it already and that is exactly what happens without fudging.  In fact, both groups of seasoned players could not believe they were actually expected to confront an adult dragon at first level.   Was your experience with it different, Thank_Dog?
#13 Explodenator Sep 15, 2014 10:49:14	I played the Dragon encounter once, then ran it myself. As i player, i found the Dragon extremely hard to hit, but the DM played it so that, until the PCs actually landed a hit, the Dragon ignored them in favor of the NPC guards, which afforded is quite a few rounds. When I ran the encounter, my players had quite a few lucky hits, combined with magic missle, and i found I actually had to drag the encounter out to make it more dramatic. Otherwise the Dragon should have run after 2 rounds, which would have made the whole thing thing feel very anticlimactic, in my opinion.
#14 Uthrac Sep 15, 2014 11:35:53	A lot depends on how the PCs roll on Frightful Presence and how well the DM rolls on breath weapon recharge.   Even with a save, a PC targeted with the breath weapon is dead.
#15 nightwalker450 Sep 15, 2014 13:11:41	Gold_Katana wrote:
#16 Thaos52002 Sep 17, 2014 8:57:32	Hoard is terrible... at least in the Pay 30 Bucks for a scenario you need to heavily edit it sense.  The encounter version might be better... I haven't seen it but I gave up on the bound version and basically consider it a waste of money.