So I'm a new player to Dungeons and Dragons, and I'm not entirely used to all the bells and whistles, but lately I've found that a lot of these campaigns feel less fun and more ferociously punishing for things that can't even really be considered 'mistakes.' Example being something like the Baba Lysaga fight in Curse of Strahd... Without a warn or even a hint to her power beyond a handful of scarecrows we encountered on a road, we were dropped in her domain and TPK'd. It was impossible to leave the range of her house's mighty strikes before we were wiped out, and hell, we were all level 7. This didn't even include Baba herself dropping all sorts of hell from the skies right on our heads. It didn't really feel tragic to be defeated, we didn't have any emotional attachment or hell, we didn't even have any fun getting our arses kicked. It just felt really stupid and unfair. It was by no fault of the players or even fault of the dice. Even if all our rolls were more or less perfect, Baba Lysaga simply had too many toys and was able to tear through us like rice paper. I'd feel better about it if there were some more obvious tells about what we were heading into... But there just wasn't.
We're going into Avernus next week because we were all killed and felt a bit sick of Strahd. Our DM jokingly told us "If you guys live to level 2 I'll be pleasantly surprised." And warned us to never create a good-aligned character because they would die quickly. I actually scowled a bit because it sounded ridiculous. So, I started cheating a little bit, being a naughty boy in a way, and reading the forums about the encounters we might be expected to face down in the future and just. Holy hell. I know we're gonna be in -literal hell- but Baldur's Gate itself is -ferocious.- He was not freaking kidding, if we manage to make level 2 it'll be jaw-dropping.
And I'm just sitting her wondering how it's supposed to be fun? I can understand thrilling life or death battle, I can understand how threat of death is a grave risk that makes the world more immersive. But sometimes it feels too punishing and like... why bother roleplay ever? Your character will be dead next week. Our Curse of Strahd had a 75% mortality rate and we never really did anything wrong. Can there ever be a chance to use your roleplay skills or build a character, explore some backstory? It's depressing. Not to mention my DM has made sure that we never have a body to resurrect if we retreat. If we don't have total victory (a single enemy surviving) that enemy will be sure to pulp and eviscerate bodies beyond anything shy of True Resurrection and I just can't help but feel it's pointless to have the spells at all.
Is my DM just a bit too harsh in his rulings? Am I playing the wrong adventures? Or is this just how D&D works? Because at this point I'm just not having any fun at all.
Curse of Strahd is intentionally brutal, it's part of the atmosphere of the setting. Haven't played Avernus, but it seems a bit harsh in the early levels, particularly if the DM plays enemies as willing to burn all their resources before assessing the danger of the PCs. Your DM seems more bent on party kill than most, so I'd expect more of the same unless you talk to them about it.
As for other adventures, some are a bit more friendly to low levels, but given the trend your DM seems to be setting, I'd expect Tomb of Annihilation next.
Is the DM too harsh? It's hard to say. Is this how D&D works? Well, sort of. How D&D is played is generally decided upon collectively (or should be, in my opinion) by the DM and players. So sometimes, yes, but not always. Ultimately, if you're not having fun, discuss this with your DM. Explain why you're not having fun, and see if this could be changed in some way so that you could enjoy the game without detracting from any fun the others may be having.
The 'point' of the game, as far as I believe, is to have fun. Especially to have fun with your friends. If the game isn't fun, don't be afraid to talk to the DM about that or to even leave the game to find something that is enjoyable if talking isn't working.
It took me quite a few sessions to drill down into what it was that each player liked and disliked in D&D. After that, I started tailoring the experience to maximize the fun stuff and minimize the unfun stuff.
Maybe your DM just hasn’t sorted things out properly yet. Talking to them earnestly would help.
It's up to the DM. Any DM can pretty easily make any campaign brutal and murderous or easy, up to their liking.
This is not how "D&D" works in general - in the few campaigns I've played recently, player death has been quite rare. It sounds like it IS how your DM wants things, because they're deliberately setting up your campaigns that way.
If you're not having fun, probably talk to your DM, and stop playing with them if they're not planning to change anything.
My brave dwarf warpriest got a Blight spell cast on him by Stradh himself. The dwarf became unconscious and was dragged out in the woods by wolfs and killed.
I mean, I get that Barovia is supposed to be a very dangerous place. And granted, hindsight is 20/20, but...
Baba Lysaga is a pretty powerful spellcaster. She's also super-weak in melee. The hut can't hit you if you're inside it. Rush the hut, trap Baba Lysaga inside, and cast silence - that knocks out 90% of her spells. Pummel her to death - it'll only take a couple of rounds.Then disable the hut from the inside.
Alternatively, if you get in the hut and she's still outside, bar the door and avoid the windows - most spells need line-of-sight. Take out the hut, then worry about her.
Beyond that, having enemies mutilate the bodies until resurrection is impossible is just the DM being a dick about it. There's no reason an average enemy would go to those kinds of lengths.
There's no way to get in her house, is there? When we arrived we tried to poke around inside and met an impossible to pass barrier. We hadn't started the encounter just yet but it was physically impossible to enter even with the wide open door. Only inanimate objects could pass inside.
Edit: She also was in her magic flying skull which flew up and out of range of our abilities way too frequently. Only our ranger could pick at her and she just. kept. Shielding! We barely lasted.
Which again means your DM is mak8ng the choice of having you fail. As I said, maybe he doesn't realise that that is not the point. I frequently skip enemy abilities when I notice that my party is up shit creek without a paddle. Except if for story reasons I need to do something or if I've clearly advertised that this might be a road to death most violent.
There's no way to get in her house, is there? When we arrived we tried to poke around inside and met an impossible to pass barrier. We hadn't started the encounter just yet but it was physically impossible to enter even with the wide open door. Only inanimate objects could pass inside.
Edit: She also was in her magic flying skull which flew up and out of range of our abilities way too frequently. Only our ranger could pick at her and she just. kept. Shielding! We barely lasted.
Dimension door. Plus grapple as falling equals suicide bombing.
Our D&D group encountered Baba Lysaga (and her *&^%$#@! hut) when our party was 8th level. All experienced players, with characters optimized for combat; we knew the campaign was a meat grinder. We barely escaped alive. My Blood Hunter got away with 1hp. I'm not surprised she'd wipe out a 7th level party.
Then we took a long rest and came back. No more Baba, no more hut.
There are a few encounters that have some OP monsters in Avernus that need to be dialed back for sure. The one where you are level 2 or 3 and you come against a caster that can cast fireball is a TPK no matter what, so I made sure that I didn't cast that and ruin it. As a DM it is your responsibility to make sure an encounter is tailored to the group you are running. There can be a great disparity in player experience, group size, group makeup, etc. As hard as an encounter can be written for a small group of inexperienced players it can be flipped the other way for a large group of experienced optimized players.
There's no way to get in her house, is there? When we arrived we tried to poke around inside and met an impossible to pass barrier. We hadn't started the encounter just yet but it was physically impossible to enter even with the wide open door. Only inanimate objects could pass inside.
Edit: She also was in her magic flying skull which flew up and out of range of our abilities way too frequently. Only our ranger could pick at her and she just. kept. Shielding! We barely lasted.
No way to get in the house? There's a door. If the door is blocked by some kind of bizarre field, again, that's your DM making stuff harder for the party - that's not in the monster listing for the hut.
Also, per the monster stat block, Baba Lysaga doesn't have access to shield. Which means your DM is building a meat grinder.
This has been a very, very insightful thread to be honest. I talked to my DM and he admitted that sometimes he doesn't read the whole encounter because he works so much and usually gets to reading the night of sometimes. So I decided to be a little lenient because of that and he promised he'd be more thorough with his readings to stop slipping those things up in the future.
Sounds like it's a little of column A (adventure difficulty), and a little of column B (DM decision-making)
Curse of Strahd is brutal. A lot of adventures are, and not entirely by design either. Some are just poorly written/balanced, but CoS overall is more brutal by active design. The first encounter I had in CoS was:
In the church basement, still all at level 1, with the priest's Vampire Spawn son. Combat occured for story/RP reasons... yes, there's supposed to be a choice, but we were not given one.
What followed was 2 hours of us all (vamp included) running around in the basement like a scene straight out of Benny Hill. The vamp was not having much luck with actually hitting us, and made the unfortunate decision to try grappling my Aarakocra Monk. The last 30 minutes of the fight was the vamp trying to run away from us while my drunk bird showed him the "proper" way to grapple effectively.
At level 1, we should not have survived the encounter. It was well over the "very deadly" threshold for our group. CoS is brutal by design, but it does become manageable after level 1.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Oh, hey, we faced that same exact encounter at level 1 actually. We did manage to live though. My Dwarf's AC was ridiculously good and we just pile drived it from there. Be very careful of basements more or less.
It does sound like your DM was being particularly brutal.
In general, there is no need for multiple kills in any particular combat. The DM doesn't "win" by killing characters and the players don't "lose" if they die though it can be unpleasant and not enjoyable. Which is the point ... D&D is supposed to be fun. The DM facilitates that by adjudicating the interaction of the PCs with the surrounding world. A DM TPKing a party leaves all of the players usually unhappy and dissatisfied. Unless the TPK is due to the players making really poor choices, then the TPK is the fault of the DM not properly balancing the encounter. If the party is coming into a challenging encounter it is a really good idea for the DM to foreshadow it a bit so that the characters can make intelligent decisions.
The encounter you describe with Baba Lysaga could be challenging. However, there are no forcefields over the door of the hut and the noise of the ravens in the cages prevents Baba Lysaga from becoming aware of your approach unless you try to interfere with her goats and set off the alarms near the pen. Otherwise, you should be able to walk right up to and into the hut where you would encounter Baba Lysaga.
In addition, the encounter with the hut activating is specifically listed as optional.
"You can use one or both of the following special events while the characters are exploring the ruins of Berez"
"If the characters overstay their welcome, she commands the hut to animate and attack them."
If you set off the alarm by trying to free the goats then you would probably have to deal with the scarecrows and Baba Lysaga. However, the tree is 400 to 500 feet from the goat pens so you would not likely have to fight the hut and Baba Lysaga at the same time unless you got into a fight outside the hut which shouldn't happen unless you somehow make a lot of noise outside the hut.
Both the hut and Baba Lysaga are listed as CR11 which are challenging. Baba Lysaga also has some nasty spells but honestly not as nasty as they could be.
Anyway, in your case, I would say that the DM just decided to create a situation where you would all likely die (unless the party made some poor decisions along the way). I'd also suggest being cautious playing with this DM in the future and if you don't like their play style choose to play elsewhere if you have other options.
Well there's the issue actually. When we do come to fights I don't expect my abilities to save the day exactly, but we can't seem to avoid fights either. I've been told I'm overthinking things way too much when I try to avoid combat scenarios. Attempts to negotiate trigger a ferocious attack 9 times out of 10, regardless of rolls. I've rolled 25+ (using bardic inspiration and my high charisma mods) for persuasion and intimidation when trying to defuse a potential battle. I was told 'excellent roll, no way this character would spare you.'
Spoilers for COS:
At Baba Lysaga's house we were rather sneaky about it, carefully prodding the house from a distance and investigating. We used most of our nifty little RP tricks before determining there was no one in the house. The reason we went there was some RP, Strahd had taken a personal delight in hurting our leader's soul because of how pesky she had been in meddling with his plans. To finally 'break her' he kidnapped our sorcerer (with permission from the player) and sold her to Baba in trade for the gem she had in her possession. This set us on a hell path to find Baba, we killed a bunch of werewolves on the way and three of the seven of us caught lycanthropy. We all resisted the curse, meaning we kept control of our characters and got the resistances at the stipulation every full moon would drive us crazy. No big deal because my cleric was nearly level 5 and that would give me the spells to cure the disease.
Our intent was to rescue our sorcerer, and honestly? None of us had the delusion of defeating someone so powerful that even Strahd wanted to bargain with her instead of killing her outright. We spoke to a ghost, the goats outside kinda creeped my cleric out but after detect good and evil she determined they weren't anything to worry about. With detect good and evil still up, we approached the house. It was empty, and our swashbuckler tried to walk into ajar door, only to find his face smashed against an invisible barrier. We went around, creeping and prodding to find a way in. I got the idea to use my Horn of Silent Alarm in a clever way the DM allowed. I blew the horn, targeting our lost sorc. It's a silent alarm which means only she can hear it, and I know if the message is received. Either she's in 600 feet or the magic doesn't take effect.
He said something interesting. "For the first time ever, the Horn is both used and unused." Brianna had a realization that there was 'some dimensional magicky shit' going on, and spoke to alert the rest of the party while our warlock used a mage hand to pass through the barrier. Once it went through the other side, it vanished entirely. The Swashbuckler moves his prosthetic arm, and the inorganic material is able to pass through. Curiously, he picked up a rock and gently tossed it inside. DM then mentions the sorcerer and Baba Lysaga are just inside the door, and he hits our now brain-washed sorcerer in the head with the rock. Of course, we don't see this, because Baba and the sorc are in a pocket dimension that only inorganic materials or Baba's guests can go in and out through.
Faerie Fire manifested around us, and our leader slid back away from the group to get out of the light. The rest of us were puzzled because the light reminded us of our sorcerer, it was her exact skin color (she was a drow with pale blue skin.) Then a Fireball fell on our heads, launched by the enthralled sorc. House activates, and I'm hurting, only 11 HP leftover from a successful save against the Fireball. I get slapped twice by the house and I'm down, even with all my resistances to physical damage from lycanthropy. Next round of combat, Baba sends our sorc out and we find out the brainwashing had given Sorc a few druid powers. She chases us around with a shillelagh, and our warlock summons a great giant demon monkey to start busying the house as best it can. Next round of combat, our swashbuckler takes two hits from the house while the third hit attacks the demon monkey. He's an Eldritch Knight multiclass and tries to throw his magical weapon into the house to hit her and bonus action summon it back, but finds it entered the pocket dimension and therefore is gone more or less for good until Baba is defeated. (That was the story item +2 spear btw.)
On the next combat round, Swash is hurting bad when warlock's turn is up. He's got 2 HP left, none of us can run because Baba is hassling us from inside her house. We managed to get a shot or two on her, because after the fight started she began poking her head past the barrier. Phew, we're hurting bad though.
Warlock zaps Swash with a polymorph and turns him into a Giant Ape and we get a really good boulder hit on Baba. Then she jumps in a magic flying skull and flies up and out of range, not before using her druidic spells to create a huge patch of tangling roots. Sorc hits our warlock so hard concentration breaks on both controlling the demon and the polymorph, so 2 HP swash is standing right next to a demon monkey that is hellbent to kill whatever's closest to it. Thankfully, the house was closer, demon kept fighting.
Leader keeps getting further and further away. Being rogue/ranger multiclass with a badass magical bow, she has some pretty impressive range. Baba floats up in her skull, giving her full cover from above the battlefield. Our ranged people try to poke the skull a little but it was really too late. Our healer (me) was downed in the first combat round, Swashbuckler took a final hit from the house and was knocked clean out. Me and one of our better DPS were down but stable, and our warlock was hanging on by a thread. Our sorcerer managed to regain control of herself with a successful save (she'd been rolling saves once a round) but found she had lost access to her Healing Word spell that she got from the Bard multiclass. Then the entangling roots crushed out the last few HP she had.
Warlock grabs the closest person to him, our downed rogue. He opens a gate and teleports out of attack range as to not provoke an opportunity attack from the house (who had something of a 60 foot range. He force feeds rogue a potion, they look to the leader. They agree there's nothing left for them there. Of 7 players at that house, 3 left while Baba laughed in delight. One last slap from the house and Swash was down for the count. Baba went down and cut off each of our heads one by one before letting the house mulch our bodies. Our heads were then mounted on the fence around her goat pen, and our adventures in Barovia ended. He ruled there were no means to use AL legal resurrection to get us back (saying raise dead was the only available spell and there was no corpse left to raise.)
Well, the Sorc did live. Baba healed her and permanently enslaved her.
We discussed the endings from there. Warlock's patron intervened and pulled him out of the mists. Rogue succumbed to lycanthropy and ran wild through Barovia until finally killed by our leader, who resigned to spend the rest of her days wandering the misty woods and thinking of a way to maybe save the Sorc who had become like a daughter to her while also dealing with resisting her own lycanthropy that would never be healed, as I died before I was high enough level to remove the curse.
Obviously there's a few problems here. For one, it seems the general consensus is there's no such barrier to Baba's house at all. Me and another player talked about it and he mentioned the DM will sometimes not read the whole encounter before something happens. This is sometimes to our benefit, because when we fought Izek in Valleki, the DM misread his information and said. 'oh, this guy has three arms.' And from then on we called Izek the Three-Armed Man. When in reality, Izek had two arms. One normal arm and one monster arm. DM just read 'he has a monster arm' got confused, and thus he had three arms. It became an inside joke and we loved it.
Edit: Forgot to mention. For two, apparently the gem that Strahd traded the sorcerer for is the fuel source for the house itself. Therefore, if the trade went as intended (and seeing it's Strahd, I don't imagine he bartered) the house would have never been in play at all.
We kinda guessed that he mistook the impassable barrier that comes up when the house activates for an impassable barrier that's -always up.- But we had no idea what he was on about with the pocket dimension shenanigans.
Basically, all of our RP options were kind of systemically cut off one after the other. RP wise our hands were tied, because each of our characters would be playing against type to let the Sorc go. She was not only beloved by our leader (who was true neutral but shifting towards good because she thought of Sorc as a daughter and cared for her more than herself), but my Cleric of Ilmater would not tolerate someone being subjected to what Strahd had planned for her. Even our lawful evil rogue (the man who would later become a werewolf and be slain by the leader after it all ended) would not stomach her capture, because she was easily our most powerful asset with her fireballs making amazing crowd control.
Long and short of it being DM sealed our fates when he put that plan into action, especially since he ran the scenario as an encounter when we intended it to be a stealthy rescue. We tried to use every roll and trick to make sure we could get her out of there, but it ended in a combat we did everything we could to avoid. He even admitted after the fact he probably should have never run that as a fight because mathematically speaking it was less than a fraction of a percent of a chance we could have triumphed in that scenario.
I don't think of myself as a -bad- player, definitely inexperienced. But I've never thought I was a hack-and-slasher. My main issue is actually when I take too long in combat because I forget which dice to roll for spells.
We -did- get into Avernus though, and it seems like the tune is largely changed. While we were told jokingly it would be amazing if we saw level 2, we made it pretty well. I was playing a bard who used a lot of flattery and silver tongue work to navigate situations. Elfsong Tavern encounter was -vicious-, but we managed to survive nonetheless. Both paladins went down a few times, but with help from some bribed patrons we won the day. We also managed to survive the first fight in the bathhouse, but now my bard is cursed because he tried to loot one of the priests. DM hasn't decided what the curse is yet. I'll find out next week.
So I'm a new player to Dungeons and Dragons, and I'm not entirely used to all the bells and whistles, but lately I've found that a lot of these campaigns feel less fun and more ferociously punishing for things that can't even really be considered 'mistakes.' Example being something like the Baba Lysaga fight in Curse of Strahd... Without a warn or even a hint to her power beyond a handful of scarecrows we encountered on a road, we were dropped in her domain and TPK'd. It was impossible to leave the range of her house's mighty strikes before we were wiped out, and hell, we were all level 7. This didn't even include Baba herself dropping all sorts of hell from the skies right on our heads. It didn't really feel tragic to be defeated, we didn't have any emotional attachment or hell, we didn't even have any fun getting our arses kicked. It just felt really stupid and unfair. It was by no fault of the players or even fault of the dice. Even if all our rolls were more or less perfect, Baba Lysaga simply had too many toys and was able to tear through us like rice paper. I'd feel better about it if there were some more obvious tells about what we were heading into... But there just wasn't.
We're going into Avernus next week because we were all killed and felt a bit sick of Strahd. Our DM jokingly told us "If you guys live to level 2 I'll be pleasantly surprised." And warned us to never create a good-aligned character because they would die quickly. I actually scowled a bit because it sounded ridiculous. So, I started cheating a little bit, being a naughty boy in a way, and reading the forums about the encounters we might be expected to face down in the future and just. Holy hell. I know we're gonna be in -literal hell- but Baldur's Gate itself is -ferocious.- He was not freaking kidding, if we manage to make level 2 it'll be jaw-dropping.
And I'm just sitting her wondering how it's supposed to be fun? I can understand thrilling life or death battle, I can understand how threat of death is a grave risk that makes the world more immersive. But sometimes it feels too punishing and like... why bother roleplay ever? Your character will be dead next week. Our Curse of Strahd had a 75% mortality rate and we never really did anything wrong. Can there ever be a chance to use your roleplay skills or build a character, explore some backstory? It's depressing. Not to mention my DM has made sure that we never have a body to resurrect if we retreat. If we don't have total victory (a single enemy surviving) that enemy will be sure to pulp and eviscerate bodies beyond anything shy of True Resurrection and I just can't help but feel it's pointless to have the spells at all.
Is my DM just a bit too harsh in his rulings? Am I playing the wrong adventures? Or is this just how D&D works? Because at this point I'm just not having any fun at all.
Curse of Strahd is intentionally brutal, it's part of the atmosphere of the setting. Haven't played Avernus, but it seems a bit harsh in the early levels, particularly if the DM plays enemies as willing to burn all their resources before assessing the danger of the PCs. Your DM seems more bent on party kill than most, so I'd expect more of the same unless you talk to them about it.
As for other adventures, some are a bit more friendly to low levels, but given the trend your DM seems to be setting, I'd expect Tomb of Annihilation next.
Is the DM too harsh? It's hard to say. Is this how D&D works? Well, sort of. How D&D is played is generally decided upon collectively (or should be, in my opinion) by the DM and players. So sometimes, yes, but not always. Ultimately, if you're not having fun, discuss this with your DM. Explain why you're not having fun, and see if this could be changed in some way so that you could enjoy the game without detracting from any fun the others may be having.
The 'point' of the game, as far as I believe, is to have fun. Especially to have fun with your friends. If the game isn't fun, don't be afraid to talk to the DM about that or to even leave the game to find something that is enjoyable if talking isn't working.
It took me quite a few sessions to drill down into what it was that each player liked and disliked in D&D. After that, I started tailoring the experience to maximize the fun stuff and minimize the unfun stuff.
Maybe your DM just hasn’t sorted things out properly yet. Talking to them earnestly would help.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It's up to the DM. Any DM can pretty easily make any campaign brutal and murderous or easy, up to their liking.
This is not how "D&D" works in general - in the few campaigns I've played recently, player death has been quite rare. It sounds like it IS how your DM wants things, because they're deliberately setting up your campaigns that way.
If you're not having fun, probably talk to your DM, and stop playing with them if they're not planning to change anything.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely be talking to my DM. If things don't pan out, I may just find a new group to run with. Thank you all!
My brave dwarf warpriest got a Blight spell cast on him by Stradh himself. The dwarf became unconscious and was dragged out in the woods by wolfs and killed.
Rather brutal I would say.
But the end fight against Stradh was too easy.
Is the DM adamant on following every encounter to the letter? Or hellbent on wiping the party? Because there are other rpg systems for that...
Kindly inform him that it's about creating an enjoyable experience together. Doesn't mean death is not a thing or danger can't happen.
I mean, I get that Barovia is supposed to be a very dangerous place. And granted, hindsight is 20/20, but...
Baba Lysaga is a pretty powerful spellcaster. She's also super-weak in melee. The hut can't hit you if you're inside it. Rush the hut, trap Baba Lysaga inside, and cast silence - that knocks out 90% of her spells. Pummel her to death - it'll only take a couple of rounds.Then disable the hut from the inside.
Alternatively, if you get in the hut and she's still outside, bar the door and avoid the windows - most spells need line-of-sight. Take out the hut, then worry about her.
Beyond that, having enemies mutilate the bodies until resurrection is impossible is just the DM being a dick about it. There's no reason an average enemy would go to those kinds of lengths.
There's no way to get in her house, is there? When we arrived we tried to poke around inside and met an impossible to pass barrier. We hadn't started the encounter just yet but it was physically impossible to enter even with the wide open door. Only inanimate objects could pass inside.
Edit: She also was in her magic flying skull which flew up and out of range of our abilities way too frequently. Only our ranger could pick at her and she just. kept. Shielding! We barely lasted.
Which again means your DM is mak8ng the choice of having you fail. As I said, maybe he doesn't realise that that is not the point. I frequently skip enemy abilities when I notice that my party is up shit creek without a paddle. Except if for story reasons I need to do something or if I've clearly advertised that this might be a road to death most violent.
Dimension door. Plus grapple as falling equals suicide bombing.
you get 1 shot.
sometimes you just got to be creative.
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Our D&D group encountered Baba Lysaga (and her *&^%$#@! hut) when our party was 8th level. All experienced players, with characters optimized for combat; we knew the campaign was a meat grinder. We barely escaped alive. My Blood Hunter got away with 1hp. I'm not surprised she'd wipe out a 7th level party.
Then we took a long rest and came back. No more Baba, no more hut.
DICE FALL, EVERYONE ROCKS!
There are a few encounters that have some OP monsters in Avernus that need to be dialed back for sure. The one where you are level 2 or 3 and you come against a caster that can cast fireball is a TPK no matter what, so I made sure that I didn't cast that and ruin it. As a DM it is your responsibility to make sure an encounter is tailored to the group you are running. There can be a great disparity in player experience, group size, group makeup, etc. As hard as an encounter can be written for a small group of inexperienced players it can be flipped the other way for a large group of experienced optimized players.
No way to get in the house? There's a door. If the door is blocked by some kind of bizarre field, again, that's your DM making stuff harder for the party - that's not in the monster listing for the hut.
Also, per the monster stat block, Baba Lysaga doesn't have access to shield. Which means your DM is building a meat grinder.
This has been a very, very insightful thread to be honest. I talked to my DM and he admitted that sometimes he doesn't read the whole encounter because he works so much and usually gets to reading the night of sometimes. So I decided to be a little lenient because of that and he promised he'd be more thorough with his readings to stop slipping those things up in the future.
Sounds like it's a little of column A (adventure difficulty), and a little of column B (DM decision-making)
Curse of Strahd is brutal. A lot of adventures are, and not entirely by design either. Some are just poorly written/balanced, but CoS overall is more brutal by active design. The first encounter I had in CoS was:
In the church basement, still all at level 1, with the priest's Vampire Spawn son. Combat occured for story/RP reasons... yes, there's supposed to be a choice, but we were not given one.
What followed was 2 hours of us all (vamp included) running around in the basement like a scene straight out of Benny Hill. The vamp was not having much luck with actually hitting us, and made the unfortunate decision to try grappling my Aarakocra Monk. The last 30 minutes of the fight was the vamp trying to run away from us while my drunk bird showed him the "proper" way to grapple effectively.
At level 1, we should not have survived the encounter. It was well over the "very deadly" threshold for our group. CoS is brutal by design, but it does become manageable after level 1.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Oh, hey, we faced that same exact encounter at level 1 actually. We did manage to live though. My Dwarf's AC was ridiculously good and we just pile drived it from there. Be very careful of basements more or less.
It does sound like your DM was being particularly brutal.
In general, there is no need for multiple kills in any particular combat. The DM doesn't "win" by killing characters and the players don't "lose" if they die though it can be unpleasant and not enjoyable. Which is the point ... D&D is supposed to be fun. The DM facilitates that by adjudicating the interaction of the PCs with the surrounding world. A DM TPKing a party leaves all of the players usually unhappy and dissatisfied. Unless the TPK is due to the players making really poor choices, then the TPK is the fault of the DM not properly balancing the encounter. If the party is coming into a challenging encounter it is a really good idea for the DM to foreshadow it a bit so that the characters can make intelligent decisions.
The encounter you describe with Baba Lysaga could be challenging. However, there are no forcefields over the door of the hut and the noise of the ravens in the cages prevents Baba Lysaga from becoming aware of your approach unless you try to interfere with her goats and set off the alarms near the pen. Otherwise, you should be able to walk right up to and into the hut where you would encounter Baba Lysaga.
In addition, the encounter with the hut activating is specifically listed as optional.
"You can use one or both of the following special events while the characters are exploring the ruins of Berez"
"If the characters overstay their welcome, she commands the hut to animate and attack them."
If you set off the alarm by trying to free the goats then you would probably have to deal with the scarecrows and Baba Lysaga. However, the tree is 400 to 500 feet from the goat pens so you would not likely have to fight the hut and Baba Lysaga at the same time unless you got into a fight outside the hut which shouldn't happen unless you somehow make a lot of noise outside the hut.
Both the hut and Baba Lysaga are listed as CR11 which are challenging. Baba Lysaga also has some nasty spells but honestly not as nasty as they could be.
Anyway, in your case, I would say that the DM just decided to create a situation where you would all likely die (unless the party made some poor decisions along the way). I'd also suggest being cautious playing with this DM in the future and if you don't like their play style choose to play elsewhere if you have other options.
Well there's the issue actually. When we do come to fights I don't expect my abilities to save the day exactly, but we can't seem to avoid fights either. I've been told I'm overthinking things way too much when I try to avoid combat scenarios. Attempts to negotiate trigger a ferocious attack 9 times out of 10, regardless of rolls. I've rolled 25+ (using bardic inspiration and my high charisma mods) for persuasion and intimidation when trying to defuse a potential battle. I was told 'excellent roll, no way this character would spare you.'
Spoilers for COS:
At Baba Lysaga's house we were rather sneaky about it, carefully prodding the house from a distance and investigating. We used most of our nifty little RP tricks before determining there was no one in the house. The reason we went there was some RP, Strahd had taken a personal delight in hurting our leader's soul because of how pesky she had been in meddling with his plans. To finally 'break her' he kidnapped our sorcerer (with permission from the player) and sold her to Baba in trade for the gem she had in her possession. This set us on a hell path to find Baba, we killed a bunch of werewolves on the way and three of the seven of us caught lycanthropy. We all resisted the curse, meaning we kept control of our characters and got the resistances at the stipulation every full moon would drive us crazy. No big deal because my cleric was nearly level 5 and that would give me the spells to cure the disease.
Our intent was to rescue our sorcerer, and honestly? None of us had the delusion of defeating someone so powerful that even Strahd wanted to bargain with her instead of killing her outright. We spoke to a ghost, the goats outside kinda creeped my cleric out but after detect good and evil she determined they weren't anything to worry about. With detect good and evil still up, we approached the house. It was empty, and our swashbuckler tried to walk into ajar door, only to find his face smashed against an invisible barrier. We went around, creeping and prodding to find a way in. I got the idea to use my Horn of Silent Alarm in a clever way the DM allowed. I blew the horn, targeting our lost sorc. It's a silent alarm which means only she can hear it, and I know if the message is received. Either she's in 600 feet or the magic doesn't take effect.
He said something interesting. "For the first time ever, the Horn is both used and unused." Brianna had a realization that there was 'some dimensional magicky shit' going on, and spoke to alert the rest of the party while our warlock used a mage hand to pass through the barrier. Once it went through the other side, it vanished entirely. The Swashbuckler moves his prosthetic arm, and the inorganic material is able to pass through. Curiously, he picked up a rock and gently tossed it inside. DM then mentions the sorcerer and Baba Lysaga are just inside the door, and he hits our now brain-washed sorcerer in the head with the rock. Of course, we don't see this, because Baba and the sorc are in a pocket dimension that only inorganic materials or Baba's guests can go in and out through.
Faerie Fire manifested around us, and our leader slid back away from the group to get out of the light. The rest of us were puzzled because the light reminded us of our sorcerer, it was her exact skin color (she was a drow with pale blue skin.) Then a Fireball fell on our heads, launched by the enthralled sorc. House activates, and I'm hurting, only 11 HP leftover from a successful save against the Fireball. I get slapped twice by the house and I'm down, even with all my resistances to physical damage from lycanthropy. Next round of combat, Baba sends our sorc out and we find out the brainwashing had given Sorc a few druid powers. She chases us around with a shillelagh, and our warlock summons a great giant demon monkey to start busying the house as best it can. Next round of combat, our swashbuckler takes two hits from the house while the third hit attacks the demon monkey. He's an Eldritch Knight multiclass and tries to throw his magical weapon into the house to hit her and bonus action summon it back, but finds it entered the pocket dimension and therefore is gone more or less for good until Baba is defeated. (That was the story item +2 spear btw.)
On the next combat round, Swash is hurting bad when warlock's turn is up. He's got 2 HP left, none of us can run because Baba is hassling us from inside her house. We managed to get a shot or two on her, because after the fight started she began poking her head past the barrier. Phew, we're hurting bad though.
Warlock zaps Swash with a polymorph and turns him into a Giant Ape and we get a really good boulder hit on Baba. Then she jumps in a magic flying skull and flies up and out of range, not before using her druidic spells to create a huge patch of tangling roots. Sorc hits our warlock so hard concentration breaks on both controlling the demon and the polymorph, so 2 HP swash is standing right next to a demon monkey that is hellbent to kill whatever's closest to it. Thankfully, the house was closer, demon kept fighting.
Leader keeps getting further and further away. Being rogue/ranger multiclass with a badass magical bow, she has some pretty impressive range. Baba floats up in her skull, giving her full cover from above the battlefield. Our ranged people try to poke the skull a little but it was really too late. Our healer (me) was downed in the first combat round, Swashbuckler took a final hit from the house and was knocked clean out. Me and one of our better DPS were down but stable, and our warlock was hanging on by a thread. Our sorcerer managed to regain control of herself with a successful save (she'd been rolling saves once a round) but found she had lost access to her Healing Word spell that she got from the Bard multiclass. Then the entangling roots crushed out the last few HP she had.
Warlock grabs the closest person to him, our downed rogue. He opens a gate and teleports out of attack range as to not provoke an opportunity attack from the house (who had something of a 60 foot range. He force feeds rogue a potion, they look to the leader. They agree there's nothing left for them there. Of 7 players at that house, 3 left while Baba laughed in delight. One last slap from the house and Swash was down for the count. Baba went down and cut off each of our heads one by one before letting the house mulch our bodies. Our heads were then mounted on the fence around her goat pen, and our adventures in Barovia ended. He ruled there were no means to use AL legal resurrection to get us back (saying raise dead was the only available spell and there was no corpse left to raise.)
Well, the Sorc did live. Baba healed her and permanently enslaved her.
We discussed the endings from there. Warlock's patron intervened and pulled him out of the mists. Rogue succumbed to lycanthropy and ran wild through Barovia until finally killed by our leader, who resigned to spend the rest of her days wandering the misty woods and thinking of a way to maybe save the Sorc who had become like a daughter to her while also dealing with resisting her own lycanthropy that would never be healed, as I died before I was high enough level to remove the curse.
Obviously there's a few problems here. For one, it seems the general consensus is there's no such barrier to Baba's house at all. Me and another player talked about it and he mentioned the DM will sometimes not read the whole encounter before something happens. This is sometimes to our benefit, because when we fought Izek in Valleki, the DM misread his information and said. 'oh, this guy has three arms.' And from then on we called Izek the Three-Armed Man. When in reality, Izek had two arms. One normal arm and one monster arm. DM just read 'he has a monster arm' got confused, and thus he had three arms. It became an inside joke and we loved it.
Edit: Forgot to mention. For two, apparently the gem that Strahd traded the sorcerer for is the fuel source for the house itself. Therefore, if the trade went as intended (and seeing it's Strahd, I don't imagine he bartered) the house would have never been in play at all.
We kinda guessed that he mistook the impassable barrier that comes up when the house activates for an impassable barrier that's -always up.- But we had no idea what he was on about with the pocket dimension shenanigans.
Basically, all of our RP options were kind of systemically cut off one after the other. RP wise our hands were tied, because each of our characters would be playing against type to let the Sorc go. She was not only beloved by our leader (who was true neutral but shifting towards good because she thought of Sorc as a daughter and cared for her more than herself), but my Cleric of Ilmater would not tolerate someone being subjected to what Strahd had planned for her. Even our lawful evil rogue (the man who would later become a werewolf and be slain by the leader after it all ended) would not stomach her capture, because she was easily our most powerful asset with her fireballs making amazing crowd control.
Long and short of it being DM sealed our fates when he put that plan into action, especially since he ran the scenario as an encounter when we intended it to be a stealthy rescue. We tried to use every roll and trick to make sure we could get her out of there, but it ended in a combat we did everything we could to avoid. He even admitted after the fact he probably should have never run that as a fight because mathematically speaking it was less than a fraction of a percent of a chance we could have triumphed in that scenario.
I don't think of myself as a -bad- player, definitely inexperienced. But I've never thought I was a hack-and-slasher. My main issue is actually when I take too long in combat because I forget which dice to roll for spells.
We -did- get into Avernus though, and it seems like the tune is largely changed. While we were told jokingly it would be amazing if we saw level 2, we made it pretty well. I was playing a bard who used a lot of flattery and silver tongue work to navigate situations. Elfsong Tavern encounter was -vicious-, but we managed to survive nonetheless. Both paladins went down a few times, but with help from some bribed patrons we won the day. We also managed to survive the first fight in the bathhouse, but now my bard is cursed because he tried to loot one of the priests. DM hasn't decided what the curse is yet. I'll find out next week.