5e Starter Set First Play

[Human Paragon 3]

So I got the opportunity to try out the 5e starter set last night. I was already familiar with the rules, and was excited to play / positive on the edition before play began. I showed up late, so got last pick of the pre-gens. I ended up with the halfling rogue. This is not the type of character I usually play, but I had fun playing her impulsively and affably.

The party was all level 1, and consisted of:

Ranged fighter
Close fighter with axe
Dwarven cleric
High elf wizard
Halfling Rogue (me)

My impressions of the relative strength of each of these characters are spoilered below. Keep in mind, this was level 1.


Ranged fighter: This guy had the best attack bonus in the game. His +7 to hit seemed god-like, and he dealt consistent damage at long range.
Axe fighter: Good tank with good damage. I had fun hiding behind this guy. His lack of consistent ranged attacks did not come into play, and I did not see the great weapon fighting style trigger at all.
Dwarven cleric: He seemed the worst of the bunch to me. Slow initiative and cantrips that allowed saving throws made him ineffectual. When he finally got into combat, he was dropped immediately (see recap below). His healing spells were useful, but not plentiful enough to make a difference in the long run.
Elf wizard: A good party member, played intelligently. He kept out of trouble and sniped with magic missile from afar, dealing consistent damage. After he ran out of spells, his cantrips ensured he stayed useful, though at this point he paled in comparison in every respect to the fighter and rogue.
Halfling Rogue: This was my character. I found her extremely fun to play, with a good assortment of skills. I was able to get advantage and sneak attack on almost every attack I made, and hit on all of them except for the one I couldn't get advantage on. This meant I had to hide a lot in combat to get that advantage - something that took time, but felt fun and in-character.


Roleplaying

Having the backrounds, bonds, personality traits and so on on the page was amazing. I instantly had an idea of how to play this character, and every single character at the table was bursting with personality, role-played well, etc. My group is pretty good usually, but the ease of adopting the personalities of the player characters was beyond what I was hoping for.

Adventuring

Exploring the environment was a joy. The eyes of everyone at the table lit up with excitement when they realized they didn't have to roll a dice to climb a steep cliff - that they could just do it, since they weren't being opposed. The wizard made an intelligence (investigation) check to determine how a trap worked and who built it. In what edition would that ever happen? The fighter in the front had good perception skills so we were able to spot things without blundering into them, and then we were able to use our proficiencies to the best of our abilities, including teamwork, to overcome traps and obstacles.

Combat

Combat was fast and fun. There wasn't a hurricane of misses like happened in 2e and low-level 3.5. Hit point values were low enough that many monsters were one-shotable. For PCs, it was also quick and dirty combat since our HP were good enough to let us survive 1-3 hits depending on how hardy we were, enough to keep things tense and dangerous.

It was great to be able to split up movement between attacks however we wanted. All characters made pretty good use of that.

The first few encounters were easy, and good for whistle wetting, then things got intense.

And Yup, We got TPKd.

Saga spoiled below.


Here's how it happened. We were already weakened from previous encounters, and declined to take a short rest. (Mistake #1). The wizard was out of spells and had to rely on cantrips, and both fighters were injured.

I started combat by stepping up and shooting the bugbear boss with my shortbow before the party had any time to strategize (Mistake #2). I got a surprise round, but no one else in the party did. This was really fun at the time, but ended up being a bad plan. My character sheet told me to play impulsively, so I did!

Next, the cleric moved closer and used his sacred flame cantrip. (Mistake #3) As he approached the goblins, the player actually said out loud "why am I getting so close to do this?" He did it anyway, though. His attack missed, then the bugbear dropped him in one hit.

The fighter ran up next, and hit the bugbear for good damage. However, we didn't realize that the wolves were next in the initiative. Their pack tactics gave them advantage on the attack, both hit, and the fighter was dropped immediately (remember, he was already injured). The Cleric could have healed him before combat, but decided to save his spell for later (Mistake #4).

After that, it was a battle of attrition. We traded ranged pot shots at the goblins, since we had no melee characters remaining. The ranged fighter got dropped by an arrow, then I took a critical hit which dealt 7 damage, leaving me at 2 HP. I continued fighting and hiding, but was dropped the next round due to my low AC of 14.

The wizard was the only character left standing. Everyone else was rolling and failing death saving throws every round. It came down to one wizard vs. one goblin, and was a simple matter of who got lucky enough to hit the other first. Turns out the luck was with the goblin that day.

The wizard finally went down, but not before both the fighters failed their third death save.


Conclusions

I would definitely play this again. I actually like that tactics are important and death is on the line, and the ease of adventuring, combat, and roleplaying make it the best version of D&D yet, in my opinion. I'd love to play the rogue again at level 2 to take advantage of the bonus action class feature, and to see the party a bit hardier.

I will certainly buy the PHB and run games using 5th edition in the future, and I hope my group converts eventually.

The other players all had a lot of fun too, and marveled at how streamlined it was. Some other things people really liked:


Advantage/Disadvantage
Nothing immune to sneak attack
At-will cantrips that have good effects
Ability to move freely in combat

[pwykersotz]

I had a very similar experience except that we didn't wipe versus the bugbear. The primary difference was that we had the opportunity to plan in advance because our halfling scouted up the chute when we first began and we saw the bugbear early. Still, the tank fighter and the rogue were dropped and the cleric was doing his best to dodge as the Wizard got the last of his HP with Magic Missile.

[Human Paragon 3]

I had a very similar experience except that we didn't wipe versus the bugbear. The primary difference was that we had the opportunity to plan in advance because our halfling scouted up the chute when we first began and we saw the bugbear early. Still, the tank fighter and the rogue were dropped and the cleric was doing his best to dodge as the Wizard got the last of his HP with Magic Missile.

I also scouted up the shoot, but then instead of strategizing, I told the party what I saw, then shot the bugbear.

It was pretty funny actually. I reported what I saw, and at the same time, another party member was scouting the other direction. He reported seeing "a bunch of goblins." I asked "Are any of them huge?" The answer was no, so I said "OK then, here we go!" and sneak attacked the bugbear. We LOLd, then TPKd.

[Secret Bard]

I was the scout who went up the shoot. Upon arriving at the top, I told the party about the bugbear, lowered down the rope, and cast minor illusions so the enemies wouldn't see the party coming up. As the the first of the group was coming up (the fighter), the wolf sniffed me out and attacked me, the rest of the group had to rush up and managed to save me just in time.

All in all we had a lot of fun with the adventure.

[Cibulan]

When my group ran it, the Wizard and the Cleric climbed up the chimney. The Wizard had went first and succeeded on sneaking up there. As the Cleric made his way up, the Wizard unleashed a Sleep spell from surprise that took out the wolf(s?) and goblin(s?). Rolled for initiative. Wizard used second 1st level spell on Magic Missile on the Bugbear. Cleric readied action for the BB to come closer. I made the sub-optimal decision for flavor reasons that the BB was super pissed at the Wizard for the two spells so he charged at him, past the Cleric. Cleric took his readied action to hit the BB when he came into range, and then hit him again for an attack of opportunity, dropping him right in front of the Wizard. Much excitement was found amongst the players.

I went ahead and rolled the BB's attack for sh%ts and giggles, he would have hit the Wizard and reduced him to 0 HP with the one hit if the Cleric had missed either of his attacks.

[Human Paragon 3]

What exactly are the attack of opportunity rules in this edition?

[Cibulan]

What exactly are the attack of opportunity rules in this edition?Page 74 in the Basic rule PDF.

[Cibulan]

Page 74 in the Basic rule PDF."In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for enemies to drop their guard. You can rarely move heedlessly past your foe without putting yourself in danger; doing so provokes an opportunity attack.

You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you us your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack interrupts the provoking creature's movement, occurring right before the creature leaves your reach."

[lianightdemon]

Why didn't you ranged people run away when the fighter and the cleric dropped? The wizard really should have as well. Even if they all died, he might have been able to go back to town to get help (new adventurers) to retrieve the corpses.

[Human Paragon 3]

Why didn't you ranged people run away when the fighter and the cleric dropped? The wizard really should have as well. Even if they all died, he might have been able to go back to town to get help (new adventurers) to retrieve the corpses.

The enemies were just as fast as us and also had ranged attacks. It would have been a stag chase.

[hawklost]

The enemies were just as fast as us and also had ranged attacks. It would have been a stag chase.

Dash and Move would get your farther than them. They can't really keep you in range for long. Also, if you moved 40ft and then went around a corner (and kept moving) then they would have to Dash and Move to catch up, keeping them from being able to shoot you any round.

[Human Paragon 3]

Dash and Move would get your farther than them. They can't really keep you in range for long. Also, if you moved 40ft and then went around a corner (and kept moving) then they would have to Dash and Move to catch up, keeping them from being able to shoot you any round.

Well, maybe that's mistake #5. The honest answer is probably that we wanted to play the encounter out because we were testing the system and having fun. Also, we still almost won.

The boss was already down by that point, and we are not in the habit of running off and abandoning downed PCs. It's just not how we play.

[lianightdemon]

yeah see thats why I dislike that crowd control spells are harder to use now. Even a cantrip that slows a target by 20 feet would be handy.

[hawklost]

Well, maybe that's mistake #5. The honest answer is probably that we wanted to play the encounter out because we were testing the system and having fun. Also, we still almost won.

The boss was already down by that point, and we are not in the habit of running off and abandoning downed PCs. It's just not how we play.

I had a similar fight against the Bugbear. In our case we had custom characters.

Our wizard went out in front to take out the goblins with Burning hands and the Bugbear noticed him. He Died in the first hit.

Out Fighter came up and did Dodge actions to block the Bugbear while the Cleric and Rogue pelted the BugBear.

The Fighter survived 3 rounds that way before the Wolf got lucky and knocked him down. Bugbear squashed him that round

The Bugbear was heavily bloody but the Cleric and Rogue couldn't seem to land a his (even with Bless) When the Bugbear went up next to the Cleric, the Rogue backed up over the bridge and continued to fire.

The Cleric went down a turn later. The Rogue jumped off the Bridge and fled down the waterway. He barely escaped into the woods.

It was a glorious fight that the entire group loved. Even though we died, we loved the fact that one escaped to find another party to 'avenge' his friends (Rogue wanted the loot he said :smallbiggrin: )

(Found out later that the Bugbear was down to 2 hp and the wolf down to 1. The Rogue might have been able to do a heroic stand and actually win the fight.)

[Human Paragon 3]

Yeah, it was actually a really good encounter. If we had taken the time to play carefully it would have gone much differently.

[lianightdemon]

The Rogue might have been able to do a heroic stand and actually win the fight.)

Doubtful, cause on his next turn if he'd missed they both would have come for him. If he hit, one would have gone down but the 2nd might have come for him. He did the smart thing and fled.
Don't try and be a hero unless you know you can win.

[pwykersotz]

Doubtful, cause on his next turn if he'd missed they both would have come for him. If he hit, one would have gone down but the 2nd might have come for him. He did the smart thing and fled.
Don't try and be a hero unless you know you can win.

... Said the Slytherin. :smalltongue:

[hawklost]

Doubtful, cause on his next turn if he'd missed they both would have come for him. If he hit, one would have gone down but the 2nd might have come for him. He did the smart thing and fled.
Don't try and be a hero unless you know you can win.

Oh I know, and it would have been against the style of play the Rogue had done up until then too. And he could have won if the exact same rolls used for his escape were instead used in his fight (curse you luck! :smallbiggrin:). He rolled awesome to escape and the enemies rolled terrible to chase and hurt him. But that is the life of DnD, fortune favors no one. It was kinda ironic that earlier that night the rogue was rolling so well that he one hit killed every goblin he targeted (even without Sneak Damage) but that Bugbear just must have shaken him too much (that is what the group decided jokingly at least)

[lianightdemon]

The game is also about realism, you should play your characters with a will to live. If you were an adventurer would you want to die? Also the randomness factor is one of the reasons I dislike the d20 as the dice for rolling. Hoping to find a die or dice that allow for a better average roll.

And yes I did get picked for Slytherin, when i signed up for Pottermore. No wonder my current larp character is so much fun. She is a lawful evil power hungry mage, who struck a deal with the demon of the god of death and undead, and is hoping he can grant her necromancy and healing magic ( two schools that mages cannot usually learn)

[some guy]

Haha, oh yes, we ran away from that fight after we lost our cleric. We ignored the chimney because I was afraid of getting flanked and getting the exit blocked. We killed some goblins but one ran away to warn the others, I tried to stop him but was already to late. Then the fecal matter hit the rotation device. I (wizard) placed two bags worth of ball bearings on the ground, while the fighter caried the cleric's body (the cleric died on the way). It was really fun. And ball bearings are so much better than 3.5's caltrops I have to say. Covering a 10 ft. area instead 5 ft. is great (also no AoO's for retrieving and using them is a godsend).

[pwykersotz]

The game is also about realism, you should play your characters with a will to live. If you were an adventurer would you want to die? Also the randomness factor is one of the reasons I dislike the d20 as the dice for rolling. Hoping to find a die or dice that allow for a better average roll.

And yes I did get picked for Slytherin, when i signed up for Pottermore. No wonder my current larp character is so much fun. She is a lawful evil power hungry mage, who struck a deal with the demon of the god of death and undead, and is hoping he can grant her necromancy and healing magic ( two schools that mages cannot usually learn)

Haha, yeah, so did I. :smallsmile:

I fully agree that the smart thing to do is run, but history is full of crazy idealists who don't always do the smart thing. Often they die for their cause. But sometimes they succeed beyond imagination.

[Sartharina]

The game is also about realism, you should play your characters with a will to live. If you were an adventurer would you want to die?No man lives forever! Cowards flee to live as slaves to mediocrity and fear!

If you don't want to die, you don't become an adventurer.

[akaddk]

You know what I love most about your story?

Y'all TPK'd and yet loved it anyway. That says you have a good group for a start and that you recognise that character death is a real threat and don't cry about it but rather think, "Well, we should probably be a bit smarter next time," makes me want to hug your group.

[WickerNipple]

You know what I love most about your story?

Y'all TPK'd and yet loved it anyway. That says you have a good group for a start and that you recognise that character death is a real threat and don't cry about it but rather think, "Well, we should probably be a bit smarter next time," makes me want to hug your group.

We just TPK'd on the third encounter. Party had a good time laughing at how bad everyone was and the general observation was if you could roll a 14+ everything would be fine and if you couldn't you'd lose.

Did we love it? We laughed a lot, but we laughed a lot more AT the system than we did with it. We might try it again once the real rules come out, but the basic adventure is just a dice fest, and the guy who actually paid for the box didn't seem to think he was gonna get another night of play out of it.

Hopefully the whole edition isn't a dice fest, but that's certainly what we walked away with from the starter set. If you love RNG....... you might like it. *shrug*

Again, we did have a good time, but only cause it was hilarious watching characters get focus fired and dying every turn. That happened every encounter. If we cared about the characters it might have been less fun. If there was less booze it would have been a whole lot less fun.

If nothing else, it's probably a great system for playing Paranoia.

[DiBastet]

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."

[hawklost]

We just TPK'd on the third encounter. Party had a good time laughing at how bad everyone was and the general observation was if you could roll a 14+ everything would be fine and if you couldn't you'd lose.

Did we love it? We laughed a lot, be we laughed a lot more AT the system than we did with it. We might try it again once the real rules come out, but the basic adventure is just a dice fest.

Hopefully the whole edition isn't a dice fest, but that's certainly what we walked away with from the starter set. If you love RNG.......

First level is always a Dice Fest. Many adventurers never make it past it (unless they are cautious And lucky). If you want less chance of TPK then you should start around level 3. That might keep it from you dying from just bad luck. Note, if you do something stupid even at the highest level, you can TPK pretty horribly.

[WickerNipple]

First level is always a Dice Fest. Many adventurers never make it past it (unless they are cautious And lucky). If you want less chance of TPK then you should start around level 3. That might keep it from you dying from just bad luck. Note, if you do something stupid even at the highest level, you can TPK pretty horribly.

First level is not always a dice fest, not like this at least.

This is a standing group that has played together for over ten years, and the first TPK we've ever seen. The general reaction after the first encounter when we lost out first part member was essentially: "Screw it, it doesn't matter what we do, we'll either roll well or we won't!" We didn't.

I suppose we could have run from the encounters, but that seems rather pointless in a railroad newbie module. We just took it in the face and lost, repeatedly. (Again, no one rolled particularly well in the party. Borderline below average rolling = Death.)

Granted, the wizard never cast Sleep. We kept telling him to and he kept thinking it was cheesy and saving it. Cleric was tapped after the first encounter and everyone just basic attacked cause there was nothing else to do at lvl1.

We'll give it another go when the PHB comes out, but everyone generally felt ineffectual and useless.

[hawklost]

First level is not always a dice fest. This is a standing group that has played together for over ten years, and the first TPK we've ever seen. The general reaction after the second encounter was essentially: "Screw it, it doesn't matter what we do, we'll either roll well or we won't!" We didn't.

5e at first level and 3e at first level are pretty close to the same, (4e first level is like 3rd for 3e so that really doesn't count, its even called out that way). So if you played 3e at first level you would have noticed the same chances of dying.

Also note that they put a pretty strong enemy into the Adventure for first level characters. Not sure why, but since they did there was a chance of death. I have a feeling that if you did not play the Adventure but made your own up your DM would not have thrown it at you (meaning it would have been less dangerous).

Plus with your final statement of 'screw it lets just do whatever' kinda implies to me that you didn't care if you died or not. That means you weren't playing cautiously and therefore dying makes a whole lot more sense.

[WickerNipple]

Plus with your final statement of 'screw it lets just do whatever' kinda implies to me that you didn't care if you died or not. That means you weren't playing cautiously and therefore dying makes a whole lot more sense.

We definitely didn't care if we lived or died after the first encounter. That was the mentality the system inspired, in our group. The only competent character was focused fired and killed in the first turn. After that it was pretty much lol whatever.

Maybe that's people's thing. *shrug*



So if you played 3e at first level you would have noticed the same chances of dying.
We played tons of 3rd. No one experienced this degree of swingy.

[Tholomyes]

5e at first level and 3e at first level are pretty close to the same, (4e first level is like 3rd for 3e so that really doesn't count, its even called out that way). So if you played 3e at first level you would have noticed the same chances of dying.

Also note that they put a pretty strong enemy into the Adventure for first level characters. Not sure why, but since they did there was a chance of death. I have a feeling that if you did not play the Adventure but made your own up your DM would not have thrown it at you (meaning it would have been less dangerous).

Plus with your final statement of 'screw it lets just do whatever' kinda implies to me that you didn't care if you died or not. That means you weren't playing cautiously and therefore dying makes a whole lot more sense.It's worth noting while the enemies can be pretty strong at first level, this is true across the board, for monsters of that CR (at least, if Appendix B is any indication). Meaning, unless the DM decides to low-ball encounters, relative to the encounter design guidelines listed in L&L, which are presumably not too different from those in the MM or DMG, 1st level will be a dice fest pretty often. Fortunately, it goes by pretty fast, and you get to 3rd within a couple sessions.

[WickerNipple]

Yeah there was no low balling, monsters did what they were supposed to do, DM made good choices, party rolled poorly, we lost a character a turn, more or less.

The exact consensus of the event was if you roll well, things will be fine, and if you don't well lol, and if the DM rolls 5-10% above average yer just done. He wasn't critting use every turn or anything, he could just roll 12-14s. That appears to be the entire tactic of Next. Roll 12-14s.

Again, I hope the PHB offers us more play than that. We'll see.

[WickerNipple]

Also, granted, we were playing with the pre-gens, and even with 0 system mastery everyone thought they were poorly designed as characters.

Maybe the basic set is just bad and the PHB will be fine, but it doesn't offer a lot of confidence in our group.

[pwykersotz]

We definitely didn't care if we lived or died after the first encounter. The only competent character was focused fired and killed in the first turn. After that it was pretty much lol whatever.

Maybe that's people's thing. *shrug*


We played tons of 3rd. No one experienced this degree of swingy.

I hate to be one of those people...but your math doesn't pan out. A single lucky crit or two shots from a CR 1 creature is definitely enough to take down a level 1 PC. Orcs (CR 1/2) for example, do 2d4+4 in 3.5 with a wide crit range. Rolling average on two shots is 13 damage, more than enough to drop most people.

The identical situation is true with the Goblins in the Starter Set.

Unless, of course, I'm missing something else. I mention this because I am legitimately interested in coming to absolute terms about the differences between 5e and what I'm used to playing, and your example is an anomaly in what I've seen.

[hawklost]

We definitely didn't care if we lived or died after the first encounter. The only competent character was focused fired and killed in the first turn. After that it was pretty much lol whatever.

Maybe that's people's thing. *shrug*


We played tons of 3rd. No one experienced this degree of swingy.

well, lets make a quick experiment then. Build 3e characters using the same bases. (Make the same kind of characters with basic stat choices (not rolls)) Then grab some 3e goblins and try the first Section up the Bugbear again. Of course, since there are feats in 3e try to take ones that would fit the character concepts as written (don't just optimize them up, since you would effectively be grabbing 3e style pre-gens, preferably grab only things from the Core). I have a feeling that you will have just as much problems as you did with the pre-gens (who are pretty crapily built if you are into optimization). I remember many adventures in 3e that had us lose a character or 2 in a fight at first level. Mostly it was because the DM decided to focus fire the person down (which is a legitimate tactic but will kill most first level players).

I more feel that the swingy feel of first level in this adventure was because of the power of the enemies and crapiness of the pre-gens more than the dice. I did not see that many things that would be different from 3e to 5e at first level fights. (Note, next session we will be level 3 so I can get the feel of what happens to characters at the First important level of theirs)

[WickerNipple]

I hate to be one of those people...but your math doesn't pan out.
I didn't really offer any math, so I'm not really sure how i could pan anything.

The DM rolled slightly above average all night, the players rolled slightly below average all night. It was a wipe. It's that narrow of a system.

[Tholomyes]

Haven't run the starter set (and I don't plan to; bought it for the maps, and the fact it was cheap), but from what I've been hearing, I'm probably going to go ahead and institute a house rule I was considering for a different reason, in giving everyone, not just Humans, a feat at first level. Not sure if I'm going to make it so humans get 2 feats, or if they just get +1 to all stats (and maybe a skill proficiency), but as a combination of the weakness of a first level party (granted, not all feats will probably help, but stuff like Lucky certainly will, and Alert makes it so enemies can't get the jump on them, and there are plenty of other feats that sound like they'll help out, like armor feats or [as much as it pains me to suggest this] Toughness) and the fact that both 3e and to a lesser extent 4e had the issues of Humans being better than all other races, due to being a feat up on everyone else, and I'm afraid of seeing this again, especially since it seems that it will be even more of an issue, since 1 vs 0 is a lot more than 2 vs 1, not to mention feats being larger than previous editions.

[WickerNipple]

well, lets make a quick experiment then. Build 3e characters using the same bases. (Make the same kind of characters with basic stat choices (not rolls)) Then grab some 3e goblins and try the first Section up the Bugbear again. Of course, since there are feats in 3e try to take ones that would fit the character concepts as written (don't just optimize them up, since you would effectively be grabbing 3e style pre-gens, preferably grab only things from the Core). I have a feeling that you will have just as much problems as you did with the pre-gens (who are pretty crapily built if you are into optimization). I remember many adventures in 3e that had us lose a character or 2 in a fight at first level. Mostly it was because the DM decided to focus fire the person down (which is a legitimate tactic but will kill most first level players).

I more feel that the swingy feel of first level in this adventure was because of the power of the enemies and crapiness of the pre-gens more than the dice. I did not see that many things that would be different from 3e to 5e at first level fights. (Note, next session we will be level 3 so I can get the feel of what happens to characters at the First important level of theirs)

Again, we don't have the full system of the PHB, we only have the parts we have. Making 3e translations to argue a point about a feel of I have of our recent experiment seems rather premature. All i wanted to say is it is absolutely swingy as all hell, and the swing isn't that big of a swing.

(And maybe when every player starts with the Lucky feat it will all magically work.)

And also, I agree -- maybe it is just the crappiness of the pre-gen vs the encounters, but is that even more terrifying that anything else? The same people who wrote the game chose to highlight it this way.

[hawklost]

I hate to be one of those people...but your math doesn't pan out. A single lucky crit or two shots from a CR 1 creature is definitely enough to take down a level 1 PC. Orcs (CR 1/2) for example, do 2d4+4 in 3.5 with a wide crit range. Rolling average on two shots is 13 damage, more than enough to drop most people.

The identical situation is true with the Goblins in the Starter Set.

Unless, of course, I'm missing something else. I mention this because I am legitimately interested in coming to absolute terms about the differences between 5e and what I'm used to playing, and your example is an anomaly in what I've seen.

Using the d20 Encounter calculator and the d20 CR levels of each of the creatures discribed in the Adventure, these are the Encounters, Encounter Levels and 'Difficulty' it provides. We will ignore things like the Ambush effect since that is harder to quantify

Goblin CR1/3
Wolf CR 1
BugBear CR 2

4 Goblins - EL 1 - Very Difficult
2 Goblins - EL 1 - Easy
3 Wolves - EL 3 - Very Difficult
6 Goblins - EL 2 - Very Difficult
3 Goblins - EL 1 - Easy
1 BugBear, 2 Goblins, 1 Wolf - EL 4 - Very Difficult

Now, I have a feeling that a party in 3e who attempted to do all this in a single day would TPK most of the time.

[Tholomyes]

And also, I agree -- maybe it is just the crappiness of the pre-gen vs the encounters, but is that even more terrifying that anything else? The same people who wrote the game chose to highlight it this way.A lot of people like to play that way. When the Hobgoblin was revealed, and people started remarking about how deadly it was vs first and even second level PCs (remember, this is a CR 1/2 monster) as a positive. It's one of the reasons I'm not too keen on running or playing the starter set.


Using the d20 Encounter calculator and the d20 CR levels of each of the creatures discribed in the Adventure, these are the Encounters, Encounter Levels and 'Difficulty' it provides. We will ignore things like the Ambush effect since that is harder to quantify

Goblin CR1/3
Wolf CR 1
BugBear CR 2

4 Goblins - EL 1 - Very Difficult
2 Goblins - EL 1 - Easy
3 Wolves - EL 3 - Very Difficult
6 Goblins - EL 2 - Very Difficult
3 Goblins - EL 1 - Easy
1 BugBear, 2 Goblins, 1 Wolf - EL 4 - Very Difficult

Now, I have a feeling that a party in 3e who attempted to do all this in a single day would TPK most of the time. I think comparing Starter set to 3e-ified starter set is the wrong way of going about it. The starter set in 5e was designed around the 5e monsters. A wolf is CR 1/4, for example, and a bugbear is CR 1. A better metric would be to compare the XP budget/CR of the encounter, relative to the encounter building guidelines, and make up a roughly equivolent encounter for 3e. The issue of Short rests somewhat complicates the matter, but I'd generally assume that there'd only be one short rest in there, at max, since, if the party is in a position where they can rest for several hours, they can probably rest for a night.

[Mezmote]

If I get to run the starter set, I'll suggest that the party starts with more HP. Just to keep them alive for a bit longer. Maybe a flat 10 or an extra hit die worth of HP. How would that add up? Imho it would give the group 1 or 2 extra rounds before they go down. It can make a whole lot of difference.

[akaddk]

I've read dozens of stories about the Starter Set from experienced players all the way through to total newbies. And the take-away from all of them has been, "Play dumb, you'll die, play smart, you'll breeze through it." Personally, I'm ok with TPK's when the players don't play smart. I'm also ok with RNG making life difficult for the players or easy for them. That's the inherent risk of adventuring and fighting monsters. Apes shouldn't live forever after all.

[akaddk]

There's something that I think you also might not be taking into consideration. The first three levels are considered "training" levels. The edition is very much designed around the concept that 3rd-level is essentially the equivalent of 1st-level in previous editions. For 1e/2e, that means monsters are more dangerous. For 4e that means hit points are lower and equivalent only once you reach 3rd level. I have no ****ing idea what it equates to in 3rd ed.

Point being is that you're meant to be squishy. Monsters can one hit you. You have to play very cautiously in order to get past your novice levels and become a fully fledged adventurer. Only then do things become less swingy. This is by design as you might notice via the XP charts. The first three levels are lightning fast and then it slows down.

Something to consider if you decide to play again, anyway.

[Cibulan]

Something raises my hackles about four dumb goblins (the first encounter) focus firing down one player in an ambush. I do not think they would behave that way naturally, but even if we agree they would, I wonder if any 1st level character in any edition could take such a focused fire attack and live through it?

Also, did you apply the death rules for 5e? There's no negative HP and you have to fail successive checks so even if one guy is burned down at the start, if the rest survive to win the fight, the burned guy will most likely make it.

[hawklost]

Something raises my hackles about four dumb goblins (the first encounter) focus firing down one player in an ambush. I do not think they would behave that way naturally, but even if we agree they would, I wonder if any 1st level character in any edition could take such a focused fire attack and live through it?

Also, did you apply the death rules for 5e? There's no negative HP and you have to fail successive checks so even if one guy is burned down at the start, if the rest survive to win the fight, the burned guy will most likely make it.

True, about the Death saves. Unless the Goblins were shooting at the target after after he was already at 0, there is no way he could have died from their fire alone (Not even sure a Crit from the goblins could Kill the Fighter from 0 in most cases but I don't have the goblin stats to look up). Now, he could have had terrible saves as well. Assuming a single enemy hit the Fighter after he went down just because (which is already the DM deciding to take out a player, but some DMs play the enemies all attack at the same time without any communications, we that is alright), that means he would have 1-2 death save throws (1 if somehow the Goblin critted, which would just be terrible luck). So, if the Fighter was not first, any other member of the party could have saved him in 2 rounds (Cleric could have cast the ranged heal spell even). If he was first, he might have died if only 1 save throw or he still at least had one Round for the party to save him.

Remember, you never go below 0 hp anymore. But you do have to take damage that 'reduces you to 0 AND then goes to do enough extra damage to get you to -hp' Since he is already at 0, that means just -hp worth of damage. If somehow it does only 9 damage and another enemy does another 9 damage, that is just 2 failed saves for him, not Death (might feel like Death at that point though)