Here's another example of what I'm trying to get across here.
Imagine this. Day/Night Cycle. You crash on the beach. It's early morning. We know this because it's night when the nautiloid crashes. So, when we wake up, it's morning. We fight Intellect Devourers. We long rest. End of Day 1. You make camp on the beach just outside the Dank Crypt entrance.
Next morning, we set out, meet Astarion, the fishermen, and Gale. We go through the entire dank crypt. We come out, and the party needs a short rest. You short rest once, the sun moves in the sky and it's afternoon. But they need to short rest again because they lost a lot of HP. The afternoon turns to evening. The sun has set. Now, the entire landscape is dark.
The party moves away from the dank crypt, and suddenly, they spot something moving in the shadows on the path ahead. Stealth mode. Astarion is sent ahead to investigate. Whatever it is has both hearing and sight cones. Astarion enters the broader hearing radius. He has Stealth Expertise. The creature's passive Perception is 12. Astarion rolls a 7. Now, in current game, he would get a 7+4 for Proficiency for Stealth skill which is a failure because he doesn't have Expertise. However, in this version of the game which is more true to D&D 5e, he has Expertise, so his skill is +6 for a total of 13. He succeeds. He creeps up close enough to see a giant badger. Player is a druid and approaches in animal form. Creatures spots the druid MC and immediately attacks. Druid MC uses Animal Friendship and succeeds. Animal calms down. Text box pops up (because we don't need voice acting for every little thing we encounter). "You frightened me. I thought you were going to try to kill me. How can I help you, Friend?"
You converse with the animal, and it tells you about the grove to the north. Then it hops off.
You continue along in the darkness. Quiet music is playing that's a bit spooky but not too much. You encounter the tieflings with Lae'zel. You get a +2 to Intimidate because you are a group of adventurers moving about in the dark and encountering them in the night. If you had encountered them by day, you'd get no Intimidate bonus. Ah, but your MC doesn't have Intimidate. So, you switch mid-conversation, to Astarion to use Deception. You chose Deception for his other Expertise. He doesn't get the +2 bonus for night because he's going to try to trick them into leaving. So, instead of your MC who has no bonuses attempting to make the roll, Astarion who has a +6 to Deception, gets to make the roll.
He succeeds and they run off, thinking a group of mind flayers is coming from the crashed ship. You free Lae'zel and she joins the party. Now you have 6 party members. Take your pick. 4 Custom Characters, Astarion, Gale, Shadowheart and Lae'zel. You can even boot your Custom Characters and only take the origin characters if you want. Your MC is the only one you have to take.
You approach the grove gate. Aradin and his team are shouting up at... nothing. There is no one anywhere atop the rocks. It looks just like sheer mountain walls because Silvanus' power is cloaking the entire grove so it cannot be seen or detected. The gate blends into the rock walls with vines so that you can't even see the faintest outline of it.
Suddenly, Kanon's head appears as if popping out of the rock walls. The illusion ripples as he does so. He shouts down at Aradin saying that he can't let anyone in. It's Zevlor's orders. Aradin shouts back that goblins are right behind. Kanon steps further out of the illusion, onto the very edge of the rocky ledge. Zevlor then appears and joins him. He and Aradin have their little exchange. Zevlor orders the gates to be opened. Goblins appear in the darkness, along with the worg. The light of some of their torches illuminates the forested area. Several archers fire. Kanon is raising the gate. The archers, however, are firing volleys at the wall where Zevlor is standing. Zevlor manages to take cover, but Kanon is hit by stray fire. You can suddenly see the gate because it was lifting. Otherwise, it still looks invisible. It descends, and the fight begins... at night.
Your party is on the hill. You can't be detected at first because of the cover of night and you aren't moving. Even if you aren't stealthing it, you are still not detected at first because of the fact that it is night and you are more than 60 feet beyond their line of sight. During the combat, you get +2 bonus to Stealth every time you try to hide. As soon as you are detected, the goblins fall back away from the main gate of the grove and focus on you. After all, they know they'll get pummeled by defenders on the wall, and their only hope is to kill you first. Suddenly, the battle becomes much harder. Same number of enemies, but they are now focusing their attention on you and not on Aradin and his crew and the defenders on the wall. However, you have a party of potentially 5-6. So, the fight isn't too overwhelming. Besides, you get a +2 for high ground up on the hill and you can have Astarion use cover of night to help him hide and do Sneak Attacks on his enemies. Whatever your strategy, the point is that even if you only took a party of 4, you'd still have Aradin and his group to help you, AND the defenders on the walls could help as well, including Wyll.
This would then also explain why Zevlor and everyone else acts like you saved the grove. If you were the ones to take the brunt of the attack upon yourselves, it makes sense that everyone would hail you as the heroes.
You enter the grove. It is night. The beauty of the grove by star and moonlight with torches lit. It's not late night. It's evening, so everyone is where they normally are. Still makes sense for nothing to have changed. You go about talking to people. You have Astarion rob a few people, gaining a +2 bonus for darkness of night AND his +6 Stealth Expertise. So, he's sneaking around and pickpocketing all over the place, but not suits of armor. Just little things like potions and gold and other small trinkets he can then sell to vendors and earn enough gold to buy armor and weapons and such.
You decide to sneak Sazza out. Ah! Cover of night will help with that. You have the choice of going through the secret tunnels OR sneaking her right out through the camp. Since you have cover of night +2 bonus for Stealth, she has a better chance of sneaking out with you especially if you have some of your characters engage different characters in the grove in conversation, causing them to turn their backs on Sazza.
Finally, you go meet Kagha and Rath and you make a Perception roll in the central chamber. All of your party does. One succeeds and points out the murals on the wall. You look at them and get the story of the grove. If Shadowheart is with you, she explains to you who Shar is and gives you a very basic background about her. Since she is your companion, and a Sharran, she WANTS you to approve of Shar and thus her, so she tells you a bit of the story and puts her own spin on it so that you'll like Shar. However, Gale refutes the tale, or maybe Wyll or Astarion or Lae'zel, or you make a Religion roll of 10 or higher and know that most people view Shar as evil and nasty and she doesn't even glow in the dark. Now, you know something about Shar.
Finally, you Long Rest. Day 2 ends. You make camp in the grove because that is the safest place you could possibly camp in the entire EA. It becomes your main camp. All other camps, even the one on the beach for Day 1 earlier, are mini-camps. A little cutscene is given at the end of Day 2 here when you first camp in the grove showing one of the druids guiding you to a quiet spot in the grove where you can make camp just at the edge of the river.
Skip ahead. You are roaming the forest at night. You are nearing Bogrot. Suddenly, you hear the screams of something in the night sky. It sounds like it's coming from the town. Slowly, you make your way in. You see goblins running west towards the goblin camp. They are fleeing from something. Is it you? You make your way into the town. AMBUSH! Phase spiders Ethereal Jaunt into the Material Plane right next to your party; 3 of them. Perception rolls are made to determine if you are surprised. You fail. They surprise attack you. During first round of combat that isn't the surprise round, they attack and phase back into the Ethereal Plane. Battle ends. They were only attacking you to soften you up and test you out. They can see you aren't goblins. They're just messing with you.
You continue through the village, exploring a few buildings and expecting spiders again at any moment. Bam! Three jump out at you again and attack. This time, Perception rolls are made and your party succeeds, or at least a few of them do. Phase spiders attack and flee again. Battle ends.
Because not every encounter in D&D has to be fought to the absolute death. That's not even realistic. Enemies will often surrender or flee if they are losing a fight. This speeds up combat and doesn't bog the game down with having to kill absolutely everything. And sometimes, enemies will do hit and fade tactics, ESPECIALLY phase spiders.
Finally, after softening you up a bit here and there, the phase spiders make their full assault. They appear again as you're in the street. They phase in and attack. Next round, they attack and phase out. Next round, they attack and phase in. You weaken them to quarter health. They flee into the Ethereal Plane and leave you alone for the remainder of your surface exploration.
You long rest, because they beat the crap out of you. You return by day. NOW the goblins are there and the ogres and everything that is currently there in the game. Whole new experience because it's by day.
Now THAT kind of stuff would REALLY take this game up a ton of notches.
