5E Lost Mine of Phandelver: our 3rd game night

This continues my thoughts and experiences with 5th Edition D&D started here.

We are right on track with having a character drop to 0 hit points each session.  He got to roll one death saving throw before my character was able to get to him with a potion.  Each of the three sessions it has been a different character.  Since my character has not gone to 0 hit points yet, this statistics would imply I have a 50% chance next session of going to 0 hit points.  Heh.

We setup an ambush, and performed it horribly.  Amazing that a bunch of experienced players would botch

an ambush, but we did.  We did manage to win the encounter, so we did not play it as bad as we could, but there was definitely a number of mis-steps.  A spell was cast from 'cover' which basically alerted the enemy there was something going on and then people just pored out of the hiding spot before the enemy reached the optimum and agreed spot.  I think this was a combination of not being familiar with the rules and no plan survives contact with the enemy.  There is no confusion about getting a surprise round of actions.

A player fell victim to a minor trap and was 'surprised' there was no saving throw.  Even though this player cut his teeth on 1E, the last 15 years was spent playing 3.5E and typically getting saving throw.  The damage was minor so I think this was a good reminder that if you do something risky (stupid) you will probably just pay and not get a lucky saving throw.

During this adventure it feels like whenever we talk to an NPC for information, we also get another clue/quest to follow.  Now, I know it is not every time, but it is happening alot.  I don't know whether this feels like a sand box, with lots of choices, or a video game where only NPCs who have another quest for us appear in the story.  We'll see how this develops further.

I personally had some confusion about the Disengage action.  Reading it again, it is quite simple, but at the table I thought the action gave me a sort of disengage/dash combo - which really makes no sense and would make dash superfluous.  Nothing wrong with the way it is written up in the rules, just me not fulling grokking it yet.

We had more fighting in 5 foot corridor experience.  It is clear we need some more practice to optimize our performance with the new rules.  Split your move around actions, different attacks of opportunity, and still sorting out the power of cunning action feels like we are leaving opportunities on the table.  I am committed to get better at this.

 Pacing remains good.  We had two combats, an additional encounter where we talked through it rather than fight, some role playing, and three extensive conversations with NPCs in about a 4 hour session.

At first the ability to make ranged attacks through other creatures as cover seems somehow off.  I have been comtemplating some sort of house rules about how many cover creatures and how much cover plus the chance to hit the creatures who are providing cover.  So far I have come to the conclusion that is much effort for little gain and will leave things be.

The potential for 'abuse' of the fighter's second wind ability has me thinking about potential house rules for limiting it to addressing damage taken in the most recent encounter and must be done during or right after the encounter.  However, it does cause more accounting.  Perhaps the harm for abuse, essentially letting the fighter use more short rests and completely avoid spending hit dice is not so bad.  Since I am not the DM in this module, I will be quiet about it and watch it in play.  It may or may not get a rule in games I DM.

That is all for now.  The dice never lie.