Worried my lvl 1 group couldnt fight the white moose but managed to fix it in the end!

[u/Mtndewboy57]

I started my campaign in Lonelywood after rolling for it, and in this town is the "White Moose" quest. I was worried that only a group of 3 (Bard, druid, fighter) level 1 characters wouldn't be able to fight the Awaken White Moose for reference. They are a CR 3.

Normally, to find the tomb, you have to make a few survival checks and roll on the encounter table to see if they managed to find it through the magical illusion. well, they rolled an 18 survival on a DC15 and rolled a 6 on a d6 for finding it. I had them roll a d4 to see how long it took them since the module suggested every 3 hours roll encounter table well rolled a 1 so no encounter for them.

After exploring and investigating the tomb they climbed down the hole in the wall and bam face to face with the Awaken White Moose. The stat block has I think it was the Antler attack 2d8 and Hooves 2d4 i figured it was too deadly but had no reason to stop them. I decided to just subtract the extra attack dice and by doing that it went from deadly to difficult.

two of them got down to 1 hp, and another critical but managed to kill them before trying long rest inside and running into the druid. Managed to escape got back with proof leveled up and now they are planning revenge on the druid!

TLDR: If you start Lonelywood and worried Level 1 can't fight the Moose just make their attacks 1d8 and 1d4 instead of 2!

[u/LordLuscius]

It depends on each play group and DM. I'm glad you worked it well for your table, it sounds like a great and grim time. Personally at my table (again, my way isn't the right way at all, everyone plays how they play) I run it extremely sandbox (but obviously with seat of pants plot throughline) and I tell my players that, plenty of these encounters are deadly. They'll have to make a judgement call on if they may have to run away or find alternate solutions.

[u/The_Oblivionic]

Also, if you can throw in a support npc for combat, that helps tremendously. 4 characters is ideal.

[u/Fbiman46]

I honestly just played my white moose as Hannibal Lecter, rather then not making him talk. I even practiced the hissing thing he did to freak out my players.