XP for Sessions 4 & 5 of Episode 4

Heroes! Sometimes, surviving is a victory. The Natural Ones defeated cloakers, wights, Dolgaunts, and Soldarak guards; intimidated and persuaded the Soldarak captain Nimira into allowing safe passage through the Soldarak-claimed Noldrunhold Foundry and to the chasm that led to the Black Lake; conversed with a dragon; and, notwithstanding a deadly assault by Nightscale, an adult black dragon in his own lair who was further enhanced (perhaps painfully so?) by the corruption of leaking energy from the Dimensional Seal, still managed to survive to fight another day. We'll take that! By my math, the team earned 3,500 XP each  from the final two sessions of Episode 4, meaning that the crew now stands at 12,000 XP --just 2,000 XP away from 6th level! Boy, it feels like y'all just got 5th level--the benefits of facing deadly encounters, I suppose (side note: according to official D&D math, the fight with the cloakers and wights was supposed to be harder, and worth more, than the fight with Nightscale. Nuh-uh.) Given the pace of your advancement, y'all may wish to start looking at your 6th level choices--'cause you may be making them relatively soon now that we're officially beginning "Episode 5!" Koop

There is no way that an adult black dragon (either in or out of his lair) who is CR 14 would be easier than two cloakers and two wights no matter what math you use.  5th level characters have no business going up against a CR 14 creature.  If it wasn't for the Deus Ex Machina that saved us, it would have been a TPK. 

Myron M. said: There is no way that an adult black dragon (either in or out of his lair) who is CR 14 would be easier than two cloakers and two wights no matter what math you use.  5th level characters have no business going up against a CR 14 creature.  If it wasn't for the Deus Ex Machina that saved us, it would have been a TPK.  Respectfully disagree. Although we did get our asses handed to us, the difficulty was officially a Hard encounter, not deadly. It was situational/environmental factors that made this an impossible task. We had limited mobility, nearly no opportunity to even make an attack against the dragon, and when we finally did, we were incredibly depleted. The Darkness ability rendered nearly 1/2 of us useless every round as limited mobility prevented us from being able to see around the darkness.  So, it wasn't the dragon itself that was impossible to defeat, the dragon was just run very effectively in a well designed dragon's lair where the dragon knew it had the advantage.

I disagree. with  your disagreement.  The dragon had a breath weapon that did an average of 54 points on a failed save and could hit more than one party member at a time.  This would be enough to take down almost every party member in one shot. Kodiak was hitting well and doing damage, but after 6 or 7 rounds,  the dragon still had half its hit points when he went down.  Even if the rest of the party were not enveloped in darkness, they did not have enough spell slots/ damage causing ability to finish it off.  Further, his legendary ability to make saving throws would minimize spell damage.    Challenge ratings are there for a reason.   In Chult (ToA) we had a party of six seventh level characters going against an adult red dragon and even doing everything right and having much more powerful magic than we currently do, we lucked into winning that battle.  I repeat, unless there are 20 of them and 8 are healers, fifth level characters have no business going up against a CR 14 creature. 

Here is the exact math that went into it. Mathematically, it was a Hard Encounter, not a Deadly one. It was the environment and the darkness that contributed to our defeat, but if we were in an open field (and he wasn't flying) it probably would have been a much easier/victorious encounter. Tactically, we couldn't have done much differently, it was a hopeless battle in that particular situation, but it was not entirely because of CR. <a href="https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th" rel="nofollow">https://kastark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th</a>

To be very Fiddler on the Roof &nbsp;about it--you're both right. Steve C. is right in that official D&amp;D sources give (7) Level 5 PCs fighting an adult black dragon (CR 14) an encounter difficulty of "Hard." To back up Steve C.'s sources, here's the screenshot from Kobold Fight Club --same analysis: But Mike, you're right in that the encounter didn't play remotely close to "Hard," and I feel like the "official" D&amp;D math misled me just as much as it misled me the other direction regarding the cloakers and dwarves encounters that preceded it (each of which registered as "Deadly" by comparison). I do feel badly about that. I never intentionally throw PCs into a no-win situation. My objective (at least, in D&amp;D) is always to provide the PCs with alternatives to a tough combat encounter, whether through skills or roleplaying to avoid straight-up combat, and to have at least some chance to craft a combat win through effective strategy and tactics. I agree that the environment and the terrain, added to the lair actions, made that encounter particularly tough. And--not faulting anyone!--some alternative spell selection and some strategic and tactical decisions might , I repeat might , have helped. Nightscale was a tough &nbsp;adult black dragon, and a CR even a bit higher than 14 might have been warranted (I won't reveal the entirety of the reasoning there, because y'all might not be finished with good ol' Nightscale just yet). But per Kobold Fight Club, the Hard-Deadly threshold for (7) Level 5 PCs is CR 16-17, not 14. But even if we limit ourselves to a straight-up combat, maybe , just maybe, the group could have pulled back, regrouped, and come back with a different strategy--maybe to use the second bridge bottleneck to the PCs' advantage, or to draw Nightscale out of his lair, or both. No guarantees--but even with a tough encounter, y'all did, what, roughly 150 HP of damage to Nightscale? It wouldn't have been much more before he'd drop below 40%, which (lifting the DM screen for a moment) is a threshold (both in the original module and in the tactics guidance I often follow) for Nightscale to pull back and bargain for his life. I feel badly that the situation didn't go well for the party. I mean it that the DM wants the PCs to be challenged, but still able to prevail. But I've taken note and have already been adjusting things for Episode 5 accordingly, and we'll continue to learn and improve!

In designing an encounter, I don't use the encounter calculator. or Kobold Fight Club.&nbsp; I use experience and knowledge of my characters and their abilities.&nbsp; That having been said, I followed the calculation up until the "Difficulty Multiplier" or "Adjusted HP" which inexplicably cut the hp value of the fight in half.&nbsp; That appears to me to be the disconnect. If Nightscale is both enhanced and in his lair, the difficulty should be much greater, not less.&nbsp; This maybe why the numbers on this and the cloaker fight evened out.&nbsp;

In the end, it's challenging to get right, 7 PCs at increasing levels can have a great deal of variability, and I fully understand the challenge if finding encounters that are not too easy, but also not an absolute TPK. It's hard to get right every single time, especially when dice are thrown in there.

Yeah. Someone else also pointed out that owing to some unfortunate die rolls, the group was without its flanker Vellios, who averages 20+ points of damage per attack. That could easily have spelled the difference, too. Damage spells instead of debuffs would have also contributed. There were potential allies available to the PCs. Lots of variables. We’ll keep trying to get the balance right.&nbsp;