Adjusting Forge of Fury

blackrazor49 · Apr 6, 2005

I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions for making the black dragon encounter at the end of the Forge of Fury more difficult. The reason I ask is because my gaming group has basically doubled in mid-adventure (4 players to 7) and I am unsure how much to increase the challenge in the dragon encounter. For the rest of the module I have taken the easy road and basically increased the number of foes by 50 to 100 percent. I am pretty sure 2 black dragons would kill 7 3rd and 4th level characters, especially considering 2 of the players have little to no experience. So what would you do? Thanks in advance.

Mike

Jeff Wilder · Apr 6, 2005

I think if you up her by one age category, you'll be fine, and the encounter will still be challenging. That encounter, along with the roper, is one of the two serious threats for a TPK in Forge of Fury (which I otherwise consider an exceptional adventure, BTW). Dragons are notoriously under-CRed, anyway, and Nightscale has a tremendous terrain advantage.

Dracomeander · Apr 6, 2005

Jeff Wilder said:
I think if you up her by one age category, you'll be fine, and the encounter will still be challenging. That encounter, along with the roper, is one of the two serious threats for a TPK in Forge of Fury (which I otherwise consider an exceptional adventure, BTW). Dragons are notoriously under-CRed, anyway, and Nightscale has a tremendous terrain advantage.

There is a problem with increasing the dragon's age category. It goes from medium to large in size which increases the range of its breath weapon. Intelligently played using the lake as cover, the PCs will never have a chance to strike back for the dragon can launch its breath from farther than the PCs can see.

There really is no need to increase the difficulty of the encounter. With that many PCs, the dragon will just retreat into the water and snipe at the characters. It will require very lucky spot checks to even get a chance to strike back at the dragon in that instance. And that is provided the PCs have readied missile weapons and the skill to hit a target 90% covered by water. The number of the PCs does not really matter in that case because only the ones with exceptional Spot skill will avoid being surprised and receive the chance to act.

The encounter can be defeated by just one very competant and lucky PC, or it can be a TPK if the PCs are not smart enough to retreat when they discover they can't find the enemy.

blackrazor49 · Apr 6, 2005

Yeah, in the back of my head that is what I was kinda planning on going with. The only thing that worried me a bit was the extra damage from the breath weapon. However, after looking at the Monster Manual I found out the breath weapon only increases by 2d4. This seems like a good way to go. Thanks

Dracomeander · Apr 6, 2005

My mistake, looked at the wrong dragon (the page flipped on me). The black dragon stays medium size; the blue dragon (next page) gains a size category.

Couple of cautions still. The hit die increase and AC increase can be a game breaker at those levels. When you add the AC increase for the cover modifier of being in the water, the AC may end up beyond the reach of the PCs without resorting to a Nat 20.

Another tactic that becomes available. The Darkness ability can really screw up the PCs sense of location. If you drop it on them in a tricky place, then breathe into the darkness, you might get some PCs blundering right off a ledge trying to get to what hit them when they can't see.

Capellan · Apr 6, 2005

My group (5 players) kicked the ever-lovin' heck out of poor Nightscale. Apart from the surprise round I think they did more damage than she did in every round of the combat. Of course, they did have shotguns and grenades ...

Against a normal D&D group, you wouldn't need to do much more than up her by one size category (as alread suggested) or alternatively give her 2-3 monitor lizards as back-up. They can keep the group busy in melee while she snipes with acid and spells.

SWBaxter · Apr 6, 2005

Nightscale is really hard for a 4th-level party if she uses a few tactics, so I'd be inclined to just play her as-is. Against 7 players, the good guys should prevail, but it wouldn't be too surprising to see a couple of deaths (or at least near-deaths).

Rel · Apr 6, 2005

I honestly think you'll do fine to leave this encounter alone. When I ran FoF, the Barbarian in the party critted Nightscale for over half her hit points in one shot and it was still a dicey encounter that almost killed 2 of the PC's.

If you are completely familiar with what she can do and the terrain in which she can do it, she'll give them a run for their money.