Regarding Hoard of the Dragon Queen:

First: I'm not the greatest DM, and don't have a ton of experience on how to handle these situations.

The situation: My 3rd level (group of 5) players did not go through the cave (Dragon Hatchery)--they went straight in and found Mondath in her quarters--and have ended up in a "high potential for a TPK" situation.

If you're familiar with the module: They killed all the humans and cult members in there (except the berserkers)--and almost killed Mondath, but Mondath escaped down the escape hole. Had they killed her, it would have probably worked out fine--but they did not. They then found the hole--covered it with furniture from the room, set an "alarm" spell around it--and fled outside to sleep and get a long rest. They needed it after all the fighting they'd done--and it didn't make sense to me that they'd be able to get a long rest in the cave.

So it made sense to me that they could go outside--and that the Kobolds would come looking for them on orders from Mondath and Cyanwrath. The Kobolds did not find them--and the party made their way back to the cave the next morning.

I had it all worked out how four kobolds up in the front of the cave were cleaning up dead bodies (from the party's previous day) to take back to feed to the Drakes and Hatchlings--and the Kobolds hadn't seen the party, so they were going to just ask, "hey...are you the droids we're looking for?", and were going to give them valuable information necessary to get through the level without dying--but the party didn't even try to engage with them, they just killed them straight out and barged in (which is honestly a little unusual for this group).

So...I tried to have some more Kobolds harass them and get them to chase them down the corridor (with the violet fungus, etc)...but that did not happen, and I felt it would be cheap to just keep throwing kobolds at them. And they were just barging straight in to the room (down the rope ladder from Mondath's place) with three berserkers, Langdedrosa, and Frulam Mondath. It made sense to me that Mondath would likely be hanging out here for fear of their return--especially since she had no guards, dragonclaws or cultists left--and if the characters get a long rest, Mondath gets a long rest.

In TODAY's session: they fought two of the berserkers and wore one of them down--but Mondath and Cyanwrath and the third berserker haven't even joined the fight yet. This is setting up to be a TPK. I had Cyanwrath yell to stop the fight so he could fight one-on-one the player that took him on in Chapter 1 (and that's where we ended the session)--but--there is not a realistic scenario (in my mind) where this party could actually survive this.

ONE idea in my mind is that Frulam could have a book from Candlekeep Mysteries (or something similar)--and order them to engage with the book (therefore transporting them somewhere that they have no choice but to finish the mission--because I have thought about them going with Frulam and Cyanwrath on some sort of venture--but it seems to me that would be unlikely--nobody would trust each other, and a thinking enemy wouldn't likely even consider that as a possibility--and wouldn't consider it a possibility to just send them on a mission for them without some assurance that they would return). And if not from Candlekeep itself--I'm sure I could find a premade one-shot adventure and make it a similar situation.  

The "real life" situation is that those of us playing are all adults with not lots of extra time to come up with characters and backstories every time that a "real" adventure would kill someone (and I don't have time to do a lot of home-brew).

Also--I don't feel like it's "fun" for them if I kill them off. Some may not mind--but I feel like it is my responsibility to have an appropriate and not-unwinnable challenge for them to take on.

My goal is to not kill them--but also not just let them "win" this Dragon Hatchery encounter and have it be inconsequential that they barged in to this room with all these big enemies, not thinking about what they were doing.

Any thoughts? If not, that's ok--I'm sure I'll come up with something--I'm just frustrated, and this seemed a good place to talk about it!  :) Thank you all for your attention...

Mmm... when I ran this I edited it quite heavy putting Leosin and other prisoners in the meat storage area 6

Ok worst case scenario the party is TPK I'm thinking this doesn't necessarily mean all the players are dead right? what if they are unconscious? Mondath would want to take them captive and interrogate them remember Rezmir up camp and sent the wagon train off early because of Leosin. Mondath could think she'll gain standing in the cult and send Cyanwrath off with the info (They have captured the heroes} to catch up with Rezmir.
So a TPK could just mean imprisoned in the meat locker and awaiting the opportunity to make a gallant escape 

other then that... https://slyflourish.com/dials_of_monster_difficulty.html

wishing you all the best   

If you move all the bosses into one room it is on you to balance it, why shouldn't they barge into a room? They have no way of knowing where you have put everything, and they don't really have much choice, I strongly advise against punishing the players because they when left and you think they should have gone right. This chapter the heroes don't have a real goal, they don't have anything to indicate what is going on, going after the person who ran away from them and following that trail makes more sense than wander off into a cave in the other direction where there is currently nothing of interest.

Specifically in current situation this is one way you could handle it, have Cyanwrath take on the party alone (it would fit that he thinks he can, and he wants to), and while he is busy, and the party, have Mondath and her body guards slip away, she isn't interested in getting killed here, you have already established she runs to save her own skin, have her go for the eggs and replace the drakes there, the party can catch her later trying to pack the eggs to make good her escape.

Going to warn you HoDQ is full of poorly balance encounters and plot holes, but at least as the party levels up they get a bit more breathing room before a bad call could TPK. 

Thank you all—yeah—I definitely feel like it’s my responsibility—I am still working at understanding how this game works and what is unbalanced and what isn’t for my players. They’re all very smart and whenever I think I have a good challenge, they surprise me and trounce it.

in this case—I was trying to play the enemies in a way that made sense to me….and it ended with them all in one room together (Mondath had almost been Killed, and all of her guards had been).

I think that the possibility of Cyanwrath fighting them each one on one (unless they want to take on the whole group and likely die doing so) makes some amount of sense—killing or disabling them…putting them in the meat locker, and maybe even giving players a chance to create a new character if they want. Leosin could sneak in to rescue them, or someone else.

If they do end up whittling Cyanwrath down, which is likely, I have to figure what to do then as well—I guess they could have it out with the Berserkers and Mondath, likely losing and getting put in the meat locker.

thanks for the thoughts! Much appreciated.

I'd say if your players go down, the cultists wouldn't kill them. Just think of Leosin, who was kept tied up and tortured for an extended period of time.

If they do fail, just have them get tied up and left in the hatchery to be fed to the Black Dragon hatchlings. If it gets that bad, then I would also have Leosin come in to rescue them... so everyone gets a long rest waiting in this pit, a monk shows up and gives everyone some simple weapons so they're not totally defenseless, then the eggs start hatching and they have to deal with these hungry newborn dragons and just go from there.