Ending Forge of Fury...

*may contain traces of spoilers*

Hi there,

The last battle in Forge of Fury went a little weird, IMO, and we ended the game before we reached the actual conclusion of the module. I'll recap the last battle rounds, and how the situation ended, and I'd like to hear some suggestions on how to resolve it. Feel free to critique the way I handled Nightscale (the at the end of the module).

The party consisted of:
Human Rogue 5
Human Monk 5
Halfling Fighter 5
Human Illusionist 5

and prepared as such: The rogue and the fighter had received an Endurance spell. The monk had received a Bull's Strength spell. The illusionist was spider climbing on the 60' roof of the cave. Everyone had received a Water Breathing spell.

Nightscale is in an environment that greatly favors her. Most of the cave is submerged. No one was surprised as the illusionist and the fighter had already gone down once and encountered Nightscale (but didn't see her) and fled.

The fight went poorly for Nightscale as she was the victim of three very lucky critical hits and some spells from the magic user, as her breath weapon prooved pathetically weak.

Once she was badly wounded, Nightscale stayed hidden under water, and when her breath weapon would recharge, would close is, out of the light range of the characters, breathe on them and swim away. The illusionist fell once to these attacks, but was healed with potions. Nightscale understood that even if the combattants did damage her a lot, it was the magic-user who was most threatening because it's the only character with any kind of ranged attack. Nightscale once flew up to the roof of the cave where the illusionist was spider climbing, grappled him, and they both dropped to the bottom of the underground lake. Nightscale inflicted some damage, but fled when the other characters closed in.

The characters finally went to her island, and while they collected the loot, wounded Nightscale stayed out of range of their light sources, attacking with her breath weapon, but doing very little damage. She realized that the character would leave once they stole her treasure, and thus swam back to the chain ladder, and destroyed it (with her acid breath). She went back to the lake and is now observing the PC's from afar.

The characters came back with the treasure to the chain ladder and found it destroyed, and I ended the session there.

Now.

Nightscale understands that the characters will have some difficulty climbing back upstairs. She also knows (because she has seen him do it) that the Illusionist is capable of walking on walls. She will try to take him out with her breath weapon. She is totally enraged at the party for robbing her, but her 7 hp prevent her from simply charging the group. She'll try to be patient, but if the characters find a way to climb up rapidly, her choices will be limited and she'll be forced to act.

So, do you have any suggestions regarding this matter? Healing back ~80 hps will take a while for Nightscale. I thought that maybe she could follow them outside (wait for them, perched on the Stone Tooth) but she'll lose much of her advantage.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the length of the post!

AR

Nightscale is smart enough to recognize this as a fight she can't win. I'd say let her fly away and keep tabs on the characters. She can forge alliances with other CE creatures to bring down the PCs. She can certainly age a bit, or she could call upon a relative (maybe the black dragon that is housed atop Nightfang Spire [before Gulthias comes along and sics the Mooncalf on it]).

As it turns out, Nighscale is a CR 4 dragon facing a 5th-level party. They're supposedly capable of killing her with just a loss of about 20% of their resources. Unless Nightscale is played as very bloodthirsty and suicidal, she'll back down, lick her wounds and come back for revenge later.

If the party seeks to make an exit in the near future (which seems like it wouldn't be that difficult with the Illusionist being able to Spider Climb - he only needs to climb up and drop down a rope, right?) then it would be foolhardy for Nightscale to attack with so few hit points.

I think that the idea of her spying on them and following is a good one for several reasons. First she will have some time to heal. She would be attacking when they weren't expecting it and very possibly from complete ambush. And don't underestimate how deadly she could be from the air. If they are short on ranged attacks then she'll be as well off or better as when she was attacking from the Black Lake.

And this potentially gives you a great returning villain to use!

Agree with Klaus. If aging is unreasonable based on pacing of the campaign (you should be able to squeeze in at least one age category), let her look at gaining some class levels.

And don't forget that Nighscale left the nest early (she's far too young to have a full-fledged hoard), so she can probably go back to daddy and complain about the hairless apes that took away her allowance!

Cue in very angry, overprotective Adult Black Dragon with a tribe of lizardfolk in tow!

Run away to spy on PCs as a recurring villain is likely the best plan, using half-dragon children, assorted minions, and allies to harass them from afar.

Just use these sorts for occasional appearences at REALLY bad times, like after a fight where lots of resources are used up, and the PCs are barely alive.

Intresting tactical situation....

On paper, the young dragonling could probably just fly around and keep hitting the players with breath weapon hits. But I am assuming you dont want to be overly dickish to the players over this.

And I also concur that the dragon is unlikely to simply charge the players at this point.

So what to do? I will assume you just want to give the players a bit more greif because the dragon is vengeful and they went through the dragon just a bit quicker. I strongly advise keeping the dragon alive for furure vengeance, if at all possible.

If the players left any of the Deurgar dwarves alive, why not cut a deal? Nightscale will spill whatever secrets of the mountain the dwarves are after in exchange for some healing and / or aid in slaying the players. Even if your inclined to think that the dwarves will not help the dragon, you could have the dragon sick the dwarves on the players by implying that the players are weakened and loaded with treasure. As long as the treasure stays under the mountain, Nightscale has a shot at getting it back.

END COMMUNICATION

Yeah, I think it's time for Nightscale to cut & run.

If the PCs take a while to leave the mountain, Nightscale might have time to heal up. If so, she can ambush them while they're on some sheer mountain trail.

Otherwise, she'd make a fine recurring villain; if nothing else, as the minion of some more powerful villain.

I agree with the posts above. Nightscale would be a great recurring villain to use against the party later. If you decide that you REALLY want to continue the fight though, nothing is stopping you from saying that she had some healing potions stashed outside her underwater escape tunnel that would allow her to return and give the PC's more trouble sooner!

Enjoy!

Keeping Nightscale for another day would be great.

However, if you want one last go at the party and if the illusionist does climb up and then drop down a rope, Nightscale has the perfect opportunity to attack while a character is dangling in midair. A quick flyby, one acid breath hitting the character plus falling damage when the rope breaks (it only has a few hp) and then she retreats. I party member injured (perhaps badly) and the rope near useless.

Which character to hit? Either someone who already looks wounded, someone carrying the most of Nightscales goodies, or to be safe, the last one.