u/TotalKhaos

I recently ran the 2nd faction mission of the Zhents (deliver the potions to the Black Viper), and was wondering a couple of things about the mind reading potions secretly being poison:

Did the Black Viper order poison disguised as potions of mind reading? Or did she order mind reading and Skeemo delivered poison without her knowing? If so, why? And would Davil know that Skeemo did this or is this part of his betrayal to Davil?

The whole potion thing feels a bit random so it might be left ambiguous intentionally to have the DM fill in what works for them, but I want to check that I didn't miss anything 😁

I recently ran my first session of this adventure. Our party of 3 characters (all light armor/d8 classes) made it to the Zhentarim warehouse. The kenku brought everyone down to 3 HP or less in one round. The party surrendered and tried to talk their way out. Unsuccessfully, so I had the city watch arrive to take care of the situation.

Now I'm prepping the next session where they'll go into the sewers. I gave them an early level 2, as I simply didn't see them surviving the Intellect Devourer and the orc wizard otherwise. But still I'm considering having Renaer join them to add some punching power (although he would very much outshine the party, his stat block as written is pretty powerful).

After they finish chapter 1 I plan to have them start on the first Zhentarim faction mission. But that involves fighting a CR 4 Drow Gunslinger at level 2. That again seems very deadly. The average damage on his pistol attack would down each character instantly from full health. Or roll a bit higher to just outright kill any character from half health.

So is it just me, or are the first and second level encounters extremely deadly? I know the party shouldn't try to win every fight, but it now seems like fighting is rarely an option. What's your experience with combat in the early parts? Did you pull punches or otherwise help your party out?