Little bit of Hoard of the Dragon Queen help (some spoilers inside)

[lytokk]

So, as a player we got through the first module of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. The DM was wondering if us making it through in a single session was speedy or if something like that would be expected. Took us about a 5 hour session before we did battle with the Blue half-dragon guy. So, I guess I'll ask the forum if we did things very quickly or if it was normal. We hit all 4 locations on the map and I believe had all the adventures detailed in the module, rescuing about 21 villagers, saving the mill and one of our own stepping up to do battle with the BBEG.

He's a little unsure about how much XP we actually earned, and is calculating it based upon how many guys we fought, the villagers we rescued and all that, but by a guess we might have earned enough in that one session to go from 1 to 3. Would this be normal or did we end up fighting a lot more than the module dictated? I'm trying to avoid reading it for risk of spoilers.

Another question is we ended up having about 15 separate encounters, in a 5 hour span. Is this typical for 5e or did we just have a good group to get through these things so quickly? Judging from my other groups that many encounters in a session is impossible. This is my first 5e game and if combat's really this streamlined I'm going to have to talk my other groups into converting.

[Ace Jackson]

So, as a player we got through the first module of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. The DM was wondering if us making it through in a single session was speedy or if something like that would be expected. Took us about a 5 hour session before we did battle with the Blue half-dragon guy. So, I guess I'll ask the forum if we did things very quickly or if it was normal. We hit all 4 locations on the map and I believe had all the adventures detailed in the module, rescuing about 21 villagers, saving the mill and one of our own stepping up to do battle with the BBEG.

He's a little unsure about how much XP we actually earned, and is calculating it based upon how many guys we fought, the villagers we rescued and all that, but by a guess we might have earned enough in that one session to go from 1 to 3. Would this be normal or did we end up fighting a lot more than the module dictated? I'm trying to avoid reading it for risk of spoilers.

Another question is we ended up having about 15 separate encounters, in a 5 hour span. Is this typical for 5e or did we just have a good group to get through these things so quickly? Judging from my other groups that many encounters in a session is impossible. This is my first 5e game and if combat's really this streamlined I'm going to have to talk my other groups into converting.

I'm not sure how you pulled that off. My group took about 16 hours gameplay to reach the dragon, though he was the first event of the session we found him. And we've been resource starved, we really only got to the keep at all because we were given some potions of healing to start with by our GM, and since then we're about out of spellslots, and many of us have already spent our hit dice in short rests. We left the main keep a grand total of five minutes the first time we tried to leave, having been turned around by the rats knocking two PCs down and major RP shinanagins involving the wild magic table and someone poking general domain cthulhu.

What exactly is your party composition? How long has your group been playing together?

Ours is made up of a high-elf wizard, a dragonborn (chromatic red) fighter, a half-elf wild mage sorcerer, a variant human light domain cleric, a tiefling-disguised-as-human great old one warlock, and a gnome rouge. Our group has, for the most part, played a little together (a few DnD 4th games and few other systems) in the past, though I'm a newcomer to the group. All in all, we work together well enough to survive, but we do still have a few character conflict issues.

At first guess, your GM ran the game far lighter then the module prescribed, your group works together tremendously well, or I give my own group too much credit in the "works well together" department. In any case, I'd be interested in hearing the story.

[lytokk]

Dwarven cleric, Dwarven Paladin, Tiefling warlock and a human warlock. The tiefling took the urchin background, which allowed us to move through cities twice as fast. This was the first time we actually ever played together. All of us understood the basic tactics of taking down the weakest creatures first, then knocking guys down one at a time. Kobolds always became a priority due to thier horde tactics giving everything advantage, and they tended to go down in a single hit.

Paladin had a 20 str, the warlocks had 18 charisma's and the cleric had an 18 str. Both dwarves had an 18 AC, but the paladin tended to fight without his shield but took the heavy armor mastery feat. We got a total of 6 healing pots, 3 before running to the temple and 3 before the mill.

The rats in the sewers gave us some problems, but none of us were really sure how swarms worked in 5th. I thought it was like in 3.5 and we needed area effects, but since none of us were sure we all ended up getting 1 attack against us per round and just did about 50 HP of damage to disperse the swarm.

I was the cleric and I used my damaging cantrip quite a lot and the warlocks did thier blasting. The tiefling warlock used a lot of illusions for some crowd control. Put one of the guys in the illusion of a cage, which he consistently failed his save against. Then there was the illusion of a wall of fire which got a few guys to waste a turn, and then the purple unicorn, which outted me as a bronie to the rest of the group when I yelled "twilight sparkle to the rescue".

[Ace Jackson]

Dwarven cleric, Dwarven Paladin, Tiefling warlock and a human warlock. The tiefling took the urchin background, which allowed us to move through cities twice as fast. This was the first time we actually ever played together. All of us understood the basic tactics of taking down the weakest creatures first, then knocking guys down one at a time. Kobolds always became a priority due to thier horde tactics giving everything advantage, and they tended to go down in a single hit.

Paladin had a 20 str, the warlocks had 18 charisma's and the cleric had an 18 str. Both dwarves had an 18 AC, but the paladin tended to fight without his shield but took the heavy armor mastery feat. We got a total of 6 healing pots, 3 before running to the temple and 3 before the mill.

The rats in the sewers gave us some problems, but none of us were really sure how swarms worked in 5th. I thought it was like in 3.5 and we needed area effects, but since none of us were sure we all ended up getting 1 attack against us per round and just did about 50 HP of damage to disperse the swarm.

I was the cleric and I used my damaging cantrip quite a lot and the warlocks did thier blasting. The tiefling warlock used a lot of illusions for some crowd control. Put one of the guys in the illusion of a cage, which he consistently failed his save against. Then there was the illusion of a wall of fire which got a few guys to waste a turn, and then the purple unicorn, which outted me as a bronie to the rest of the group when I yelled "twilight sparkle to the rescue".

I think I see part of how you guys cleared it so fast. I don't know exactly how the older editions cap atributes, but in 5e 20 is the max without any exceptional magic items or one of the barbarian perks. For a scale comparison, I was one of two players gutsy enough to roll for stats and I have the best stats of the group, far and away, and my character has 10 strength, 14 dex, 16 con, 11 int, 16 wis, 14 cha. This means I get AC 18 after scale mail and shield.

Also, only variant humans start with a feat by raw. Still, it's just a different flavor of game, I've been having fun with mine, but I see the appeal of yours.

Funny you should mention that bit at the end though. My variant human cleric of Lathander is actually my take on a cleric built twilight. The character has actually grown surprisingly fast, and by back story setting implications, in directions I wouldn't have guessed. Funny thing is, that started out of a lightfoot halfling cleric concept, then I decided I wanted light domain, then I saw the absolute basics of Lathander in the PHB, then I decided on a noble background, and from there on out I just couldn't resist the idea. Imagine my surprise on learning about Chauntea and the cult having strong ties to Lathander's history, and then Helm's influence in the order of the gauntlet probably means I'll be regarded coolly by them at best.

I don't think anyone in my group has caught on yet, but who knows how it'll all pan out, I'm secretly holding out some hopes for the raid on the hatchery. ; )

[lytokk]

yeah, we got some good stat rolls due to the nature of the DM's rolling method. 4d4 b3 6 times while re-rolling 1 and 2s. We thought we'd have some problems at the temple with the massive groups around. 1 group banging down the door had probably 15 or so mooks with 3 of those ambush drakes, 1 patrol had more drakes and bolds, and was definitely bigger. Luckily we went after the small group at the back door to the temple and with the tieflings sleep spell we cleared their number pretty quick. There was also little bit of party splitting when the tiefling would bring people back to the keep and the rest of us would stay behind and clear out the raiders.

[Ace Jackson]

yeah, we got some good stat rolls due to the nature of the DM's rolling method. 4d4 b3 6 times while re-rolling 1 and 2s. We thought we'd have some problems at the temple with the massive groups around. 1 group banging down the door had probably 15 or so mooks with 3 of those ambush drakes, 1 patrol had more drakes and bolds, and was definitely bigger. Luckily we went after the small group at the back door to the temple and with the tieflings sleep spell we cleared their number pretty quick. There was also little bit of party splitting when the tiefling would bring people back to the keep and the rest of us would stay behind and clear out the raiders.

Afraid I don't have much insight at this point, my group is heading out to the temple next session, which due to scheduling issues, (4th of July barbecues and all that,) might not be until the eleventh or later. All told though, that sounds like a pretty tight rescue operation. I'm just hoping we still have a caster with sleep and spell slot when we get there. We took a beating at the mill, we ambushed the first ambush outside the mill, but then got trounced by the guards and cultists inside the mill. The sorcerer setting the mill on fire, rolling a nat 1 bluff to say "oops," and then leaving the immediate vicinity of the mill didn't help much either, then the wizard went down before he was able to use ray of frost to put the fire out, three ko's that fight, and I burnt through all my warding flares. Next session should be interesting.

[lytokk]

So are there any other opinions on how quickly we moved through it? I've never actually played through a module before so I don't have anything to compare it to. It seems like we moved pretty quickly based upon what Ace has been saying but I was hoping for more opinions

[zinycor]

I'm not sure how you pulled that off. My group took about 16 hours gameplay to reach the dragon, though he was the first event of the session we found him. And we've been resource starved, we really only got to the keep at all because we were given some potions of healing to start with by our GM, and since then we're about out of spellslots, and many of us have already spent our hit dice in short rests. We left the main keep a grand total of five minutes the first time we tried to leave, having been turned around by the rats knocking two PCs down and major RP shinanagins involving the wild magic table and someone poking general domain cthulhu.

What exactly is your party composition? How long has your group been playing together?

Ours is made up of a high-elf wizard, a dragonborn (chromatic red) fighter, a half-elf wild mage sorcerer, a variant human light domain cleric, a tiefling-disguised-as-human great old one warlock, and a gnome rouge. Our group has, for the most part, played a little together (a few DnD 4th games and few other systems) in the past, though I'm a newcomer to the group. All in all, we work together well enough to survive, but we do still have a few character conflict issues.

At first guess, your GM ran the game far lighter then the module prescribed, your group works together tremendously well, or I give my own group too much credit in the "works well together" department. In any case, I'd be interested in hearing the story.

What? 16 Hours?!!!! I have done the first module of HotDQ, and has taken about 4-5 hours both times. One of those times with people completely new to RPGs.

I just don't see how it could take you 16 hours to complete the first module...

[Ace Jackson]

What? 16 Hours?!!!! I have done the first module of HotDQ, and has taken about 4-5 hours both times. One of those times with people completely new to RPGs.

I just don't see how it could take you 16 hours to complete the first module...

I give my group far, far too much credit in the works well together department then. Unless I'm radically misunderstanding the boundary of the first module. And if my perception of the first module is right, we aren't even done yet. No one in our party has been keen on giving up and riding it out in the keep, since the the dragon meeting we've played an additional 8 hours, and now we're leaving the mill with the garrison after a hard, but thorough sweep of it, only to head back to the keep and out to the temple afterwards. In game about 3 hours have elapsed.

[zinycor]

I give my group far, far too much credit in the works well together department then. Unless I'm radically misunderstanding the boundary of the first module. And if my perception of the first module is right, we aren't even done yet. No one in our party has been keen on giving up and riding it out in the keep, since the the dragon meeting we've played an additional 8 hours, and now we're leaving the mill with the garrison after a hard, but thorough sweep of it, only to head back to the keep and out to the temple afterwards. In game about 3 hours have elapsed.

how much time do you spend planning? do you use a grid or theater of the mind? how long are the descriptions? these 3 (And am sure many more) are things that could make it so the game is faster or slower,so, it isn't necesarily wrong to have a slow game.

On the other hand, spending so much time on the first module is kind of an overkill, specially since it does mean that your characters would be first level for so much time, which in my case would be frustrating for me as a DM and much more frustating for my players.

But, if you are having fun, then it's ok. how would you describe the style of play on your table? Maybe everyone is just over-analitical or you all just spend much of the time telling jokes on the table.

In the end if you are having fun, it's all good, and you shouldn't worry about it.

[Ace Jackson]

how much time do you spend planning? do you use a grid or theater of the mind? how long are the descriptions? these 3 (And am sure many more) are things that could make it so the game is faster or slower,so, it isn't necesarily wrong to have a slow game.

On the other hand, spending so much time on the first module is kind of an overkill, specially since it does mean that your characters would be first level for so much time, which in my case would be frustrating for me as a DM and much more frustating for my players.

But, if you are having fun, then it's ok. how would you describe the style of play on your table? Maybe everyone is just over-analitical or you all just spend much of the time telling jokes on the table.

In the end if you are having fun, it's all good, and you shouldn't worry about it.

Agreed on the end point, and we do tend to be a little obsessive in planning, we use theater of mind with a white board visual, nothing hard and fast, but something to convey approximately what's going on and avoid any sudden teleports. So far everyone except my cleric and the party rouge has been knocked out cold at least once, two people, possibly three have had to make three death throw successes, and, in hindsight alone mind you, it was amusing to see the formerly evil wizard who lost most of his direction and purpose after poking the warlock's GOO patron agnoize over the question of whether to blow the mill up now and save erosion the trouble later, while three of us were in the main mill, two of whom were unconscious, or to try and simply hit one of the guards, he eventually choose to hit a guard, but apparently the GM rolled the guard's save so well that the guard effectively pulled a deflect missile and threw the fire mote straight back at the wizard.

Horrifying as a player, but incredibly cool given we all still survived.

Our GM loves our characters, at least as much as we do, and in a few select cases I personally suspect he loves them more. And has gone out of his way to point out how much he doesn't want to TPK us, despite all the incredibly odd circumstances we throw ourselves into. Including but not limited to, driving the blue dragon off by boredom, wild magic table butterflies becoming tactile and tentacled, having the human Lathander cleric be the chief one to defend the tiefling warlock from the dragonborn fighter while the points of light continuity is considered as possibly on the table as pertains to dragonborn and tieflings, (we still aren't sure whether it is or not for our play-through BTW), the wild mage rolling a nat 20 initiative and showing up to the dragon encounter naked do too running from his bath as he had wild magic table greased himself in the same incident as the butterflies, being knocked out by rats and then having our CG (I think, most of the party is CN and I'm LG) rouge honor a life debt that one of the rats collected on, having said rat save our bacon after opening a creaky gate while near a cult scouting party, our wizard took three sessions just to learn his familiars name, and said familiar is now concerned about his ennui with the world anyway.

It's been a long, hard haul of a game, but I don't think I'd have had it any other way.

But I suppose this isn't typical, as the OP has expressed interest in knowing.