Cloudgatherer
First Post
Since I've seen so much guff about dragons lately, I thought I'd relate my own recent dragon tale. I did play him a little overconfident (demanding the party's gold in exchange for their lives), but in combat he slew one PC and managed to escape.
So last night I ran my first dragon, an adult blue (Party consists of 7 9th level characters, 1 8th level cohort). The party was aware that the dragon was a blue and was "big", and had been asked to retreive a few items from his hoard. As the party was exploring the mountains, the blue spotted them. The party missed their spot/listen checks, and the blue circled above them for a while, sizing up the party and their potential and waiting to see what they would do (from the safety of 1000 feet up).
Sure enough the party realized they were being watched from above and quickly sought cover, hiding under a ledge in the mountain large enough for the party. The dragon, seeing the party did not feel confident enough to face it in the open, descended and landed on the mountain uphill from the ledge the ledge the party was hiding under.
The party was well aware of the dragon landing (he's huge after all), and now started to debate what to do. One player (the bard), decided to send his horse back down the slope. The horse was promply fried by lightning breath. Same player turns his cohort's horse invisible and sends it out. Same result. Suffering the effects of dragon fear, one character breaks a "communication rod", which requests the attention of their current arch-villain.
A few breaths later, he appears (an evil wizard who keeps his face covered with a shadow mask) among the group and asks if they have had a change of heart and wish to join his organization. One of the party fighters attempts to bull-rush the villain, who finds him to be an illusion, and ends up outside the safety of the ledge, where the blue dragon promptly gives him a bolt of lightning (no damage to the character, who had protection from elements on, but it was sure dented). The arch-villain laughs at their desperation and attempted trickery before the illusion fades.
The rogue in the group attempts to parlay. He sticks his hands out from the ledge, and slowly presents himself to the dragon. The dragon decides to see how this plays out and lets the rogue do this. Unfortunately, the rogue doesn't speak draconic, and the dragon ends up looking at him quite funny. The bard also steps out in the same slow manner, and starts to address the dragon, this time in draconic. The conversation goes rather quickly, the dragon demands their gold/treasure and in return the dragon will let them live/leave. Unfortunately, the rogue continues to take 5-foot steps away from the ledge and party during the conversation, is warned twice, and is blasted by lightning the third time he does it.
This starts the combat in earnest. The party rogue charges the dragon as the party fighters emerge from the ledge and make their way toward the dragon. The party wizard discharges a fireball at him, the cleric uses flamestrike. The dragon quickly deals significant damage to the offending rogue (he drops to 9 hp), roughs up one of the fighters a bit, and otherwise continues to hold his ground. The bard casts haste on the party wizard and later casts haste on the party fighter. The party ranger, in the meantime, deals significant damage to the dragon (favored enemy bonuses), which makes him unhappy.
The party fighters take a little while to engage the dragon (one uses spring attack to keep his distance, the other is slower due to encumbrance). After being hit with three more arrows from the party ranger, the dragon decides he *really* doesn't like that ranger. The party mage is throwing two spells/round, but one always fails the resistance check and is not as damaging as the arrows. Moving in, the dragon crits with his bite attack, dealing 47 points of damage to the ranger. The ranger, wounded but determined, takes a 5-foot step back and still plants 3 arrows into the dragon.
After the rest of the party makes more or less bad rolls on their attacks, the dragon takes his 5-foot step at the ranger and rips her to shreds with his claws (that's the second character I've killed in 5 months of DMing). The dragon takes one more round to bat at the fighters before fleeing (he was down to 40 hit points at this time). He flies 120 feet into the air, then flys away at top speed. As he managed to escape, he only had 15 hit points left and likely would have died if the party wizard did not fail a couple of SR checks.
OK, so I think I played the dragon relatively intelligently. He cornered seemingly frightened party members and used his breath weapon in his initial attack (he had to wait 4 rounds to use it again, but when it became available, I decided he should live to fight another day as he was severely wounded). He also made quick work of the one who pissed him off (the rogue, down to 9 HP for almost the entire fight) and the one who was the greatest threat (the ranger, who is currently deceased). He also used his full-attacks fairly well, and severely damaged the party. He has now retreated to treat his wounds and can confront the party another day.
So did I play the part of the dragon sufficiently? Any pointers for the next time the dragon runs across the party (which may be fairly soon... the party is discussing quickly proceeding to its lair and finishing the job).
So last night I ran my first dragon, an adult blue (Party consists of 7 9th level characters, 1 8th level cohort). The party was aware that the dragon was a blue and was "big", and had been asked to retreive a few items from his hoard. As the party was exploring the mountains, the blue spotted them. The party missed their spot/listen checks, and the blue circled above them for a while, sizing up the party and their potential and waiting to see what they would do (from the safety of 1000 feet up).
Sure enough the party realized they were being watched from above and quickly sought cover, hiding under a ledge in the mountain large enough for the party. The dragon, seeing the party did not feel confident enough to face it in the open, descended and landed on the mountain uphill from the ledge the ledge the party was hiding under.
The party was well aware of the dragon landing (he's huge after all), and now started to debate what to do. One player (the bard), decided to send his horse back down the slope. The horse was promply fried by lightning breath. Same player turns his cohort's horse invisible and sends it out. Same result. Suffering the effects of dragon fear, one character breaks a "communication rod", which requests the attention of their current arch-villain.
A few breaths later, he appears (an evil wizard who keeps his face covered with a shadow mask) among the group and asks if they have had a change of heart and wish to join his organization. One of the party fighters attempts to bull-rush the villain, who finds him to be an illusion, and ends up outside the safety of the ledge, where the blue dragon promptly gives him a bolt of lightning (no damage to the character, who had protection from elements on, but it was sure dented). The arch-villain laughs at their desperation and attempted trickery before the illusion fades.
The rogue in the group attempts to parlay. He sticks his hands out from the ledge, and slowly presents himself to the dragon. The dragon decides to see how this plays out and lets the rogue do this. Unfortunately, the rogue doesn't speak draconic, and the dragon ends up looking at him quite funny. The bard also steps out in the same slow manner, and starts to address the dragon, this time in draconic. The conversation goes rather quickly, the dragon demands their gold/treasure and in return the dragon will let them live/leave. Unfortunately, the rogue continues to take 5-foot steps away from the ledge and party during the conversation, is warned twice, and is blasted by lightning the third time he does it.
This starts the combat in earnest. The party rogue charges the dragon as the party fighters emerge from the ledge and make their way toward the dragon. The party wizard discharges a fireball at him, the cleric uses flamestrike. The dragon quickly deals significant damage to the offending rogue (he drops to 9 hp), roughs up one of the fighters a bit, and otherwise continues to hold his ground. The bard casts haste on the party wizard and later casts haste on the party fighter. The party ranger, in the meantime, deals significant damage to the dragon (favored enemy bonuses), which makes him unhappy.
The party fighters take a little while to engage the dragon (one uses spring attack to keep his distance, the other is slower due to encumbrance). After being hit with three more arrows from the party ranger, the dragon decides he *really* doesn't like that ranger. The party mage is throwing two spells/round, but one always fails the resistance check and is not as damaging as the arrows. Moving in, the dragon crits with his bite attack, dealing 47 points of damage to the ranger. The ranger, wounded but determined, takes a 5-foot step back and still plants 3 arrows into the dragon.
After the rest of the party makes more or less bad rolls on their attacks, the dragon takes his 5-foot step at the ranger and rips her to shreds with his claws (that's the second character I've killed in 5 months of DMing). The dragon takes one more round to bat at the fighters before fleeing (he was down to 40 hit points at this time). He flies 120 feet into the air, then flys away at top speed. As he managed to escape, he only had 15 hit points left and likely would have died if the party wizard did not fail a couple of SR checks.
OK, so I think I played the dragon relatively intelligently. He cornered seemingly frightened party members and used his breath weapon in his initial attack (he had to wait 4 rounds to use it again, but when it became available, I decided he should live to fight another day as he was severely wounded). He also made quick work of the one who pissed him off (the rogue, down to 9 HP for almost the entire fight) and the one who was the greatest threat (the ranger, who is currently deceased). He also used his full-attacks fairly well, and severely damaged the party. He has now retreated to treat his wounds and can confront the party another day.
So did I play the part of the dragon sufficiently? Any pointers for the next time the dragon runs across the party (which may be fairly soon... the party is discussing quickly proceeding to its lair and finishing the job).
