A DM in a home game is pretty much allowed to change things however they like. In this case though the DM pretty clearly seems to have decided it was time for all of you to die. He also screwed up a number of rules and rewrote a good portion of the Baba Lysaga encounter to make it even more deadly for a low level party (it is already deadly).
Comments in spoiler .
1) The only gem Baba Lysaga has is the one used to animate the house. If she traded it away then the house shouldn't animate.
2) There is no forcefield across the door. An effect like this might be accomplished with Leomund's Tiny Hut but she doesn't have the spell. In fact, the spell list for Baba Lysaga doesn't include any mind dominating effects (though the DM can always change up spells if they want). There are certainly no options to create protected pocket dimensions.
3) Baba Lysaga has no capability to dominate other characters (except Geas ... and that would not force the sorcerer to cast spells at her friends).
4) Baba Lysaga by themselves should pretty much wipe the floor with a level 4 party. She has finger of death, power word stun, multiple fireballs. She has Evard's black tentacles that make a 20' square into difficult terrain and do 3d6 bludgeoning damage but she doesn't have any druid spells. If the DM wanted you dead they didn't need the house.
5) The skull is AC15 and 50 hit points so it can be shot out of the air.
6) Lycanthropy grants immunity (not resistance) to damage from non-magical slashing, piercing and bludgeoning attacks. None of the characters afflicted with lycantropy should have been affected by the attacks from the house since they just do bludgeoning damage.
7) There is no way for the sorcerer to "lose access to the Healing Word spell she had from her Bard multiclass". If the sorcerer regained control of herself and has spell slots left then she should be able to use them to cast spells she knows. At this point, the DM is simply making stuff up as he goes along since none of this is in either CoS or the rulebook. If the DM is making up some homebrew to explain it then thats fine but he should offer up an explanation of what is happening.
8) "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.) " This is strictly incorect. AL spellcasting services include anything up to and including wish and true resurrection. Bodies are not required.
Also, if this was being run under AL rules, the DM took a few more liberties with the encounter than usual. An AL DM has a lot of leeway but they are supposed to balance encounters to challenge the party, not destroy them.
ALDMG v9.1
"Playing the Dungeon Master You have the most important role. You provide the narrative and bring the words on the pages of the adventure to life. While telling the story, it is also your responsibility to make everyone feel welcomed at the table creating a fun and fair environment.
You’re Empowered. Make decisions about how the group interacts with the adventure; adjust or improvise but maintain the adventure’s spirit. You can’t implement new rules.
Challenge Your Players. Gauge the experience level of your players, as well as what they seem to enjoy in a game and attempt to deliver what they’re after. Everyone should be able to shine. You can adjust the encounter by adding or removing thematically appropriate monsters.
Keep the Adventure Moving. When the game gets bogged down, provide hints and clues to your players facing puzzles or engaging in combat and roleplay interactions that get frustrating. This gives players “little victories” for making good choices based on clues received. When playing within a given time constraint, such as at a convention, it is important to gauge the pacing of your game. It’s okay to make adjustments to the content when you get bogged down in order to promote a play experience that feels complete."
I'll note that everyone doesn't "shine" when everyone dies. The goal with AL as with D&D in general is to have fun, not slaughter parties. (A DM can ALWAYS slaughter a party if they want to and it seems that in this case, that was the DMs objective).
Some comments on Avernus ..
1) Hopefully you are second level before the bathhouse since the module specifically states: "Make sure the characters advance to 2nd level before continuing the adventure."
2) As far as I can tell there are no curses for looting any corpses in the bath house (I could have missed something though). There may be a cursed item or two. Your DM seems to making this part up which is outside the range of usual AL play (but I could have missed something).
Finally, the bottom line is, are you and the other players having fun? If so and you don't mind this DMs play style then keep playing. If not, then look around for another game. "Killer" DMs do exist and to be honest they aren't usually that much fun to play with in the long run.
We are indeed 2nd Level at the bathhouse! We leveled over our break because we had plenty of time after Elfsong Tavern and we didn't want to wait until the end of the session. Which went just fine. This new campaign is definitely fun.
For Avernus:
He did say that I grasped a cursed necklace related to Myrkul which stung my bard's hand with a curse for trying to loot it. I figure this is fair myself.
I have an absolute blast with this DM when things are going well, and I think it's not 'kill the party' mentality and more that he's just... not reading the encounters or material all the way through. Like the ALDMG says right there exactly what you've linked before, it can be up to and including true resurrection. So I guess at the end of the day I'm happy to stick it out with him a while longer until he gets the hang of it and just -reads- the stuff more. You've been really helpful, man! I appreciate all your really solid posts and savvy knowledge of the rules. Thank you very much.
Edit: I do believe it was Geas he used. I imagine attacking adventurers counts as 'suicidal action' though.
We are indeed 2nd Level at the bathhouse! We leveled over our break because we had plenty of time after Elfsong Tavern and we didn't want to wait until the end of the session. Which went just fine. This new campaign is definitely fun.
For Avernus:
He did say that I grasped a cursed necklace related to Myrkul which stung my bard's hand with a curse for trying to loot it. I figure this is fair myself.
I have an absolute blast with this DM when things are going well, and I think it's not 'kill the party' mentality and more that he's just... not reading the encounters or material all the way through. Like the ALDMG says right there exactly what you've linked before, it can be up to and including true resurrection. So I guess at the end of the day I'm happy to stick it out with him a while longer until he gets the hang of it and just -reads- the stuff more. You've been really helpful, man! I appreciate all your really solid posts and savvy knowledge of the rules. Thank you very much.
Edit: I do believe it was Geas he used. I imagine attacking adventurers counts as 'suicidal action' though.
If it was geas, then the character can choose to take 5d10 damage and instead do whatever they like, not following the instructions of the geas. That particular spell won't make you attack your party. It would require something like dominate person to do that. Geas also doesn't have a save.
"GEAS: You place a magical command on a creature that you can see within range, forcing it to carry out some service or refrain from some action or course of activity as you decide. If the creature can understand you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become charmed by you for the duration. While the creature is charmed by you, it takes 5d10 psychic damage each time it acts in a manner directly counter to your instructions, but no more than once each day.
You can issue any command you choose, short of an activity that would result in certain death. Should you issue a suicidal command, the spell ends."
1) You could order the character to attack their friends. If the character is certain that their friends won't kill them then it might not be considered suicidal ... on the other hand, if the characters would attack her in self-defence then it might well be suicidal.
2) However, the character under the geas can refuse to follow the geas and takes 5d10 damage. In this case, I would think the character would likely refuse to attack their friends and take the damage if they were good aligned and cared about their friends. Alternatively, the character might choose to make their weakest attack possible. They don't have to throw a fireball.
The actions of the character were more in line with dominate person than geas.
This is a very interesting thread now, because I am trying to reverse engineer how my DM got to this absolutely wild encounter, and actually learning a lot more about the game by doing so. Turns out breaking the game beyond reason is the best way to learn how it should work! I never even heard of Geas before this situation. It's a pretty impressive spell.
This is a very interesting thread now, because I am trying to reverse engineer how my DM got to this absolutely wild encounter, and actually learning a lot more about the game by doing so. Turns out breaking the game beyond reason is the best way to learn how it should work! I never even heard of Geas before this situation. It's a pretty impressive spell.
This is one of the (imo) most beautiful parts about D&D. The ever expanding, growing and evolving world, based off of seemingly simple decisions or interpretations, or misinterpretations of rules and situations by players and DMs alike.
I wonder if your party's sorcerer did feel it was suicidal or not to attack the party? That'd say a lot about how that PC's personality and such is, and would be a nice thing RP'd out at some point. But, those things, also don't always happen.
The PC was a Drow girl, pretty young. She was like... 60? Which among elves and grow is roughly 17 among elves to my understanding. Very kind, I'm pretty sure her inclination was chaotic neutral because she didn't mind looting everything but wasn't actively evil at any point.
She would have every reason to believe it was suicidal. Between the Swashbuckler, Warlock, Rogue, and the leader herself... All people who have never hesitated to lay someone out before. The leader and my Ilmatari cleric would definitely be prone to save her, but all the others would have no reason to hold back.
This is a very interesting thread now, because I am trying to reverse engineer how my DM got to this absolutely wild encounter, and actually learning a lot more about the game by doing so. Turns out breaking the game beyond reason is the best way to learn how it should work! I never even heard of Geas before this situation. It's a pretty impressive spell.
One thing to keep in mind is that in a homebrew game pretty much anything can happen. The DM is free to bend or break the rules though it is better when the DM remains consistent since then the players know what to expect. Th key element is whether the players are having fun.
However, the main reason this encounter seems so off the wall is because it was supposed to be played as part of Adventurer's League organized play.
The DM has a little less freedom to take liberties with the adventure than they do in a regular homebrew game. They still have a LOT of leeway in balancing encounters or making changes to make things more fun. They also have freedom to modify and adapt things to the player's actions. However, from an AL perspective although the DM is allowed to scale an encounter up or down to match the strength of the party, in this case they seemed to have scaled up an already potentially deadly encounter and made some mistakes with the rules along the way.
The PC was a Drow girl, pretty young. She was like... 60? Which among elves and grow is roughly 17 among elves to my understanding. Very kind, I'm pretty sure her inclination was chaotic neutral because she didn't mind looting everything but wasn't actively evil at any point.
She would have every reason to believe it was suicidal. Between the Swashbuckler, Warlock, Rogue, and the leader herself... All people who have never hesitated to lay someone out before. The leader and my Ilmatari cleric would definitely be prone to save her, but all the others would have no reason to hold back.
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.
Probably the DM's "fault", but I also had the same experience with Strahd. When we faced him in the final battle, he died before the whole party had a chance to act!
We have this running joke that he died in "4 seconds" since only 4 out of 6 players got to do an action before he was dead... sad times.
I feel like one lesson is that it's pretty hard to make up abilities and powers on the fly, that defeat the players, without making it feel unfair.
Encounters feel fair if the DM puts the monsters as they're supposed to be and then plays it by the book, not adding/homebrewing things mid-encounter. Alternatively, encounters can feel fun if the DM is winging it as long as they're not screwing over the players too much by doing that.
But when the DM is winging it and making up abilities on the fly, AND these newly-made-up abilities defeat the players, it's gonna feel pretty bad.
My DM is having us face Baba Lysaga and the hut at 3rd level! 2 out of the 5 of us got knocked out by a Lightning Bolt spell cast at the lowest level possible from full HP. One of the other 3 has ran off with the gem (a mutual decision among the party), but regardless of that I think we're screwed and on our way to a TPK. It's just my Wildfire Druid and my friend's Storm Sorcerer. Any tips for this impossible encounter??
Hi all, I'm Druid_Girl31, but please call me Druid. I am (a/an) CERTIFIED INSOMNIAC, PAN, alterhuman,BADDD DM, and obsessed with HAMILTON! Why? I'm just cool like that!
My DM is having us face Baba Lysaga and the hut at 3rd level! 2 out of the 5 of us got knocked out by a Lightning Bolt spell cast at the lowest level possible from full HP. One of the other 3 has ran off with the gem (a mutual decision among the party), but regardless of that I think we're screwed and on our way to a TPK. It's just my Wildfire Druid and my friend's Storm Sorcerer. Any tips for this impossible encounter??
If someone ran off with the gem, at least you aren't fighting the hut anymore. Unfortunately, Baba Lysaga by herself is more than sufficient to TPK some level 3s. Only suggestion I would have is to run away as fast as possible and hope she doesn't follow though the odds are she will hunt down whoever has the gem. CoS is a sandbox and there are definitely areas of Barovia that will TPK a low level party. Berez is one of those places.
The DM should have probably hinted that the area was dangerous, the wizards of wines winery would have warned you, the ravens might have tried to warn you off, the citizens in Valaki would certainly know the dangers of heading south, as would the Abby or the Vistani. Talking to pretty much anyone could have revealed that there were dangers down the Berez road that might be best avoided for now. So, either the DM didn't give warnings or the party decided to ignore them ... however, early in the adventure, Berez is most definitely a TPK for a party less than about 6-9th level depending on how the DM runs the hut and Baba Lysaga. (The hut is pretty brutal ... never mind the witch's 16th level spellcasting ... she has a lot worse than a lightning bolt on tap ... she has up to 8th level spells :) ).
Having read (skimmed) most of this thread, it seems like your DM is either very inexperienced or a jerk. It's not a game of DM vs. players, or at least it shouldn't be.
EDIT: just realized this was a 5 year old thread that got necro'd. Probably not in need of any more advice or help.
My DM is having us face Baba Lysaga and the hut at 3rd level! 2 out of the 5 of us got knocked out by a Lightning Bolt spell cast at the lowest level possible from full HP. One of the other 3 has ran off with the gem (a mutual decision among the party), but regardless of that I think we're screwed and on our way to a TPK. It's just my Wildfire Druid and my friend's Storm Sorcerer. Any tips for this impossible encounter??
If someone ran off with the gem, at least you aren't fighting the hut anymore. Unfortunately, Baba Lysaga by herself is more than sufficient to TPK some level 3s. Only suggestion I would have is to run away as fast as possible and hope she doesn't follow though the odds are she will hunt down whoever has the gem. CoS is a sandbox and there are definitely areas of Barovia that will TPK a low level party. Berez is one of those places.
The DM should have probably hinted that the area was dangerous, the wizards of wines winery would have warned you, the ravens might have tried to warn you off, the citizens in Valaki would certainly know the dangers of heading south, as would the Abby or the Vistani. Talking to pretty much anyone could have revealed that there were dangers down the Berez road that might be best avoided for now. So, either the DM didn't give warnings or the party decided to ignore them ... however, early in the adventure, Berez is most definitely a TPK for a party less than about 6-9th level depending on how the DM runs the hut and Baba Lysaga. (The hut is pretty brutal ... never mind the witch's 16th level spellcasting ... she has a lot worse than a lightning bolt on tap ... she has up to 8th level spells :) ).
The hut is still there. I'm going to let the ravens out to send a message to Irwin with Animal Messenger. And definitely going to run away lol.
Hi all, I'm Druid_Girl31, but please call me Druid. I am (a/an) CERTIFIED INSOMNIAC, PAN, alterhuman,BADDD DM, and obsessed with HAMILTON! Why? I'm just cool like that!
There is nothing wrong with encounters that are impossible to win if it comes to combat as long as the strength of the NPC(s) is made clear to both the players and the PCs.
One of the best sessions I have had is when we encountered a beholder at level 3.
I think part of the problem is that some of the books expect the DM to have read and be familiar with everything, but some are just running sections as they come up – they're told to run a particular encounter so they run the encounter, but by that point it's too late for them to have studied it and realised it's way too hard. That means they have to notice the Challenge Rating, realise it's way too high, and adjust on the fly, but not everyone's great at that.
As others have said, you can have NPCs warn the players of impending dangers, or areas to avoid, but you can also just have Baba Lysaga behave differently; have her make clear she is too strong for them, and send them on an errand for her instead, which can point them back in the direction of somewhere more appropriate to their level. Another thing to do is make clear to players that sometimes it's okay to run away – the DM can have a monster hit hard but pull its attacks short of a party wipe, give the players a chance to flee having learned how strong a future enemy is.
A DM in a home game is pretty much allowed to change things however they like. In this case though the DM pretty clearly seems to have decided it was time for all of you to die. He also screwed up a number of rules and rewrote a good portion of the Baba Lysaga encounter to make it even more deadly for a low level party (it is already deadly).
Comments in spoiler .
1) The only gem Baba Lysaga has is the one used to animate the house. If she traded it away then the house shouldn't animate.
2) There is no forcefield across the door. An effect like this might be accomplished with Leomund's Tiny Hut but she doesn't have the spell. In fact, the spell list for Baba Lysaga doesn't include any mind dominating effects (though the DM can always change up spells if they want). There are certainly no options to create protected pocket dimensions.
3) Baba Lysaga has no capability to dominate other characters (except Geas ... and that would not force the sorcerer to cast spells at her friends).
4) Baba Lysaga by themselves should pretty much wipe the floor with a level 4 party. She has finger of death, power word stun, multiple fireballs. She has Evard's black tentacles that make a 20' square into difficult terrain and do 3d6 bludgeoning damage but she doesn't have any druid spells. If the DM wanted you dead they didn't need the house.
5) The skull is AC15 and 50 hit points so it can be shot out of the air.
6) Lycanthropy grants immunity (not resistance) to damage from non-magical slashing, piercing and bludgeoning attacks. None of the characters afflicted with lycantropy should have been affected by the attacks from the house since they just do bludgeoning damage.
7) There is no way for the sorcerer to "lose access to the Healing Word spell she had from her Bard multiclass". If the sorcerer regained control of herself and has spell slots left then she should be able to use them to cast spells she knows. At this point, the DM is simply making stuff up as he goes along since none of this is in either CoS or the rulebook. If the DM is making up some homebrew to explain it then thats fine but he should offer up an explanation of what is happening.
8) "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.) " This is strictly incorect. AL spellcasting services include anything up to and including wish and true resurrection. Bodies are not required.
Also, if this was being run under AL rules, the DM took a few more liberties with the encounter than usual. An AL DM has a lot of leeway but they are supposed to balance encounters to challenge the party, not destroy them.
ALDMG v9.1
"Playing the Dungeon Master
You have the most important role. You provide the narrative and bring the words on the pages of the adventure to life. While telling the story, it is also your responsibility to make everyone feel welcomed at the table creating a fun and fair environment.
You’re Empowered. Make decisions about how the group interacts with the adventure; adjust or improvise but maintain the adventure’s spirit. You can’t implement new rules.
Challenge Your Players. Gauge the experience level of your players, as well as what they seem to enjoy in a game and attempt to deliver what they’re after. Everyone should be able to shine. You can adjust the encounter by adding or removing thematically appropriate monsters.
Keep the Adventure Moving. When the game gets bogged down, provide hints and clues to your players facing puzzles or engaging in combat and roleplay interactions that get frustrating. This gives players “little victories” for making good choices based on clues received. When playing within a given time constraint, such as at a convention, it is important to gauge the pacing of your game. It’s okay to make adjustments to the content when you get bogged down in order to promote a play experience that feels complete."
I'll note that everyone doesn't "shine" when everyone dies. The goal with AL as with D&D in general is to have fun, not slaughter parties. (A DM can ALWAYS slaughter a party if they want to and it seems that in this case, that was the DMs objective).
Some comments on Avernus ..
1) Hopefully you are second level before the bathhouse since the module specifically states: "Make sure the characters advance to 2nd level before continuing the adventure."
2) As far as I can tell there are no curses for looting any corpses in the bath house (I could have missed something though). There may be a cursed item or two. Your DM seems to making this part up which is outside the range of usual AL play (but I could have missed something).
Finally, the bottom line is, are you and the other players having fun? If so and you don't mind this DMs play style then keep playing. If not, then look around for another game. "Killer" DMs do exist and to be honest they aren't usually that much fun to play with in the long run.
We are indeed 2nd Level at the bathhouse! We leveled over our break because we had plenty of time after Elfsong Tavern and we didn't want to wait until the end of the session. Which went just fine. This new campaign is definitely fun.
For Avernus:
He did say that I grasped a cursed necklace related to Myrkul which stung my bard's hand with a curse for trying to loot it. I figure this is fair myself.
I have an absolute blast with this DM when things are going well, and I think it's not 'kill the party' mentality and more that he's just... not reading the encounters or material all the way through. Like the ALDMG says right there exactly what you've linked before, it can be up to and including true resurrection. So I guess at the end of the day I'm happy to stick it out with him a while longer until he gets the hang of it and just -reads- the stuff more. You've been really helpful, man! I appreciate all your really solid posts and savvy knowledge of the rules. Thank you very much.
Edit: I do believe it was Geas he used. I imagine attacking adventurers counts as 'suicidal action' though.
If it was geas, then the character can choose to take 5d10 damage and instead do whatever they like, not following the instructions of the geas. That particular spell won't make you attack your party. It would require something like dominate person to do that. Geas also doesn't have a save.
"GEAS: You place a magical command on a creature that you can see within range, forcing it to carry out some service or refrain from some action or course of activity as you decide. If the creature can understand you, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or become charmed by you for the duration. While the creature is charmed by you, it takes 5d10 psychic damage each time it acts in a manner directly counter to your instructions, but no more than once each day.
You can issue any command you choose, short of an activity that would result in certain death. Should you issue a suicidal command, the spell ends."
1) You could order the character to attack their friends. If the character is certain that their friends won't kill them then it might not be considered suicidal ... on the other hand, if the characters would attack her in self-defence then it might well be suicidal.
2) However, the character under the geas can refuse to follow the geas and takes 5d10 damage. In this case, I would think the character would likely refuse to attack their friends and take the damage if they were good aligned and cared about their friends. Alternatively, the character might choose to make their weakest attack possible. They don't have to throw a fireball.
The actions of the character were more in line with dominate person than geas.
This is a very interesting thread now, because I am trying to reverse engineer how my DM got to this absolutely wild encounter, and actually learning a lot more about the game by doing so. Turns out breaking the game beyond reason is the best way to learn how it should work! I never even heard of Geas before this situation. It's a pretty impressive spell.
This is one of the (imo) most beautiful parts about D&D. The ever expanding, growing and evolving world, based off of seemingly simple decisions or interpretations, or misinterpretations of rules and situations by players and DMs alike.
I wonder if your party's sorcerer did feel it was suicidal or not to attack the party? That'd say a lot about how that PC's personality and such is, and would be a nice thing RP'd out at some point. But, those things, also don't always happen.
Blank
The PC was a Drow girl, pretty young. She was like... 60? Which among elves and grow is roughly 17 among elves to my understanding. Very kind, I'm pretty sure her inclination was chaotic neutral because she didn't mind looting everything but wasn't actively evil at any point.
She would have every reason to believe it was suicidal. Between the Swashbuckler, Warlock, Rogue, and the leader herself... All people who have never hesitated to lay someone out before. The leader and my Ilmatari cleric would definitely be prone to save her, but all the others would have no reason to hold back.
One thing to keep in mind is that in a homebrew game pretty much anything can happen. The DM is free to bend or break the rules though it is better when the DM remains consistent since then the players know what to expect. Th key element is whether the players are having fun.
However, the main reason this encounter seems so off the wall is because it was supposed to be played as part of Adventurer's League organized play.
The DM has a little less freedom to take liberties with the adventure than they do in a regular homebrew game. They still have a LOT of leeway in balancing encounters or making changes to make things more fun. They also have freedom to modify and adapt things to the player's actions. However, from an AL perspective although the DM is allowed to scale an encounter up or down to match the strength of the party, in this case they seemed to have scaled up an already potentially deadly encounter and made some mistakes with the rules along the way.
Ah. The picture is painted quite well now.
thank you.
Blank
Probably the DM's "fault", but I also had the same experience with Strahd. When we faced him in the final battle, he died before the whole party had a chance to act!
We have this running joke that he died in "4 seconds" since only 4 out of 6 players got to do an action before he was dead... sad times.
My RPG Campaigns
I feel like one lesson is that it's pretty hard to make up abilities and powers on the fly, that defeat the players, without making it feel unfair.
Encounters feel fair if the DM puts the monsters as they're supposed to be and then plays it by the book, not adding/homebrewing things mid-encounter. Alternatively, encounters can feel fun if the DM is winging it as long as they're not screwing over the players too much by doing that.
But when the DM is winging it and making up abilities on the fly, AND these newly-made-up abilities defeat the players, it's gonna feel pretty bad.
My DM is having us face Baba Lysaga and the hut at 3rd level! 2 out of the 5 of us got knocked out by a Lightning Bolt spell cast at the lowest level possible from full HP. One of the other 3 has ran off with the gem (a mutual decision among the party), but regardless of that I think we're screwed and on our way to a TPK. It's just my Wildfire Druid and my friend's Storm Sorcerer. Any tips for this impossible encounter??
Hi all, I'm Druid_Girl31, but please call me Druid. I am (a/an) CERTIFIED INSOMNIAC, PAN, alterhuman, BADDD DM, and obsessed with HAMILTON! Why? I'm just cool like that!
She/her pronouns please. TITLES: Savior of the Woods by Drummer! Send me a PM! PRAISE JEFF! Join the Hamilton Cult! Hate on Gen Alpha Slang! <--- ( all links)
I lost any measure of sanity I ever had a long time ago!
If someone ran off with the gem, at least you aren't fighting the hut anymore. Unfortunately, Baba Lysaga by herself is more than sufficient to TPK some level 3s. Only suggestion I would have is to run away as fast as possible and hope she doesn't follow though the odds are she will hunt down whoever has the gem. CoS is a sandbox and there are definitely areas of Barovia that will TPK a low level party. Berez is one of those places.
The DM should have probably hinted that the area was dangerous, the wizards of wines winery would have warned you, the ravens might have tried to warn you off, the citizens in Valaki would certainly know the dangers of heading south, as would the Abby or the Vistani. Talking to pretty much anyone could have revealed that there were dangers down the Berez road that might be best avoided for now. So, either the DM didn't give warnings or the party decided to ignore them ... however, early in the adventure, Berez is most definitely a TPK for a party less than about 6-9th level depending on how the DM runs the hut and Baba Lysaga. (The hut is pretty brutal ... never mind the witch's 16th level spellcasting ... she has a lot worse than a lightning bolt on tap ... she has up to 8th level spells :) ).
Having read (skimmed) most of this thread, it seems like your DM is either very inexperienced or a jerk. It's not a game of DM vs. players, or at least it shouldn't be.
EDIT: just realized this was a 5 year old thread that got necro'd. Probably not in need of any more advice or help.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The hut is still there. I'm going to let the ravens out to send a message to Irwin with Animal Messenger. And definitely going to run away lol.
Hi all, I'm Druid_Girl31, but please call me Druid. I am (a/an) CERTIFIED INSOMNIAC, PAN, alterhuman, BADDD DM, and obsessed with HAMILTON! Why? I'm just cool like that!
She/her pronouns please. TITLES: Savior of the Woods by Drummer! Send me a PM! PRAISE JEFF! Join the Hamilton Cult! Hate on Gen Alpha Slang! <--- ( all links)
I lost any measure of sanity I ever had a long time ago!
There is nothing wrong with encounters that are impossible to win if it comes to combat as long as the strength of the NPC(s) is made clear to both the players and the PCs.
One of the best sessions I have had is when we encountered a beholder at level 3.
I think part of the problem is that some of the books expect the DM to have read and be familiar with everything, but some are just running sections as they come up – they're told to run a particular encounter so they run the encounter, but by that point it's too late for them to have studied it and realised it's way too hard. That means they have to notice the Challenge Rating, realise it's way too high, and adjust on the fly, but not everyone's great at that.
As others have said, you can have NPCs warn the players of impending dangers, or areas to avoid, but you can also just have Baba Lysaga behave differently; have her make clear she is too strong for them, and send them on an errand for her instead, which can point them back in the direction of somewhere more appropriate to their level. Another thing to do is make clear to players that sometimes it's okay to run away – the DM can have a monster hit hard but pull its attacks short of a party wipe, give the players a chance to flee having learned how strong a future enemy is.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
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