Underpowered Group Found BBEG

Here's what I would do: Let the party fight the dragon. If they win, they feel like badasses and rightfully so. However, as soon as one of them goes down to zero HP, have the dragon pin the downed PC and bargain with the rest of the party. They get to leave, but the unconscious PC becomes the dragons next meal. Or, the dragon demands the party give it all their hard earned loot and leave his lair in exchange for the downed PC's life. If they don't have enough treasure or gold, he eats the downed PC and continues trying to slaughter the party. Dragons are cunning and evil like that.

Hiya!

New players? Well, nothing teaches better than thinking you're cleaver and then proceeding to get your butt handed to you because you didn't think things through as much as you thought you did.

Don't deprive your players of this learning opportunity. Don't teach them that no matter what they do, or don't do, you will 'protect their PC's' from death. Don't. Just...don't. You will be doing FAR more harm than good, imnsho.

As they are new players, I would probably let them get as far as to see the dragon, roll to see if the dragon is asleep (I use the BECMI or 1e rules for dragons being able to speak or cast spells). Then I'd use my DM warning voice and say something like "Ok, are you sure you want to do this? It looks REALLY big and it is sleeping on a pile of both treasure and bones...mostly the later". If the players then decide that they can "take it", ok. Roll initiative. I would open up with the most devastating effect I could, specifically trying to kill ALL of them in the first round.

My point is...let the players make their own decisions. It's NOT your job as DM to "keep them alive" or "provide an even chance of success". It's your job to portray a believable world that your players can learn about and use that knowledge to make informed decisions.

PS: Stop "writing to the PC's capabilities" when designing adventures; that way only encourages self-entitled play where the Players expect to win anytime and every time they pick a fight. You do that and you will end up with whiny players who cry foul anytime one of their PC's suffers some significant drawback (like death, or loosing an arm or favourite magic item), claiming you "did it on purpose". And they would be right, because up until that point, you, as DM, *have* been building encounters you know they will win. You've more or less stated "you are the heroes and you will always win"...and then stabbed them in the back with "HA! Suckers! I put this in here to kill your PC's!". That's how they will interpret it anyway. Best to not ever let it get to that. Best to have your Players default thought process be "Oh, great! We're gonna die. Again...". Because when they DON'T die and they lived because they worked together, came up with solid plans, and played well....they will have smiles on their faces that will bring a tear to any Killer DM's eye! (Trust me...experience talking... ).

EDIT: PS: (this is after the XP from those below, but figured it's worth mentioning.
Last night we played. Two players couldn't make it (work related) so the three other players decided to not do our BECMI game and we'd just do something else. Decided on a quick 5e game. Anyway, as the PC's were exiting the Cairn Hills on their way to Greyhawk City, the camped for the night.I grab the Encounter Tables from the City of Greyhawk boxed set (or From the Ashes, can't remember), and roll. I get "Use Standard Encounter Table". So I grab the 5e book ...oohhhh...right. There are no Encounter By Terrain tables in 5e. Poop! I mention this out loud and go grab my Hackmaster books (d10,000 encounter charts by terrain and climate). One of my players, a 'temp' player who happens to be my young whippersnapper of a nephew (I think he's 18 or 19), who, up until playing with us this last month or so, has only played 5e, has a sort of 'confused' look.

Anyway, I then proceed to denigrate the "new style" of DM'ing preference of a DM custom-making or, usually, ignoring "Random Encounters" because they can somehow 'wreck' a game or some such nonsense. I point out that without a 'regular' (re: old skool) Random Encounter Table for some area, it removes the Players ability to engage in the world in a realistic and logical manner. If the PC's travel through some area multiple times and frequently encounter wolves, for example, then they can realistically expect that in a year when their PC's are all 12th level and come through the area they will encounter...wolves. Not ogres, giants, dragons or wandering demon lords. Wolves. Because this area of the world has a lot of wolves that hunt here. Always has, always will. The "encounter chart" doesn't change monsters just because the PC's gained levels. There was then a pause. ... ... And then he said "Huh. That makes sense. Cool". I got nods and 'yups' from the other two players and all us old farts kinda just smiled, knowing that this new player was beginning to see his view of RPG's and "encounters" in a whole new...er... old (?)... light. Kinda brings a tear to my eye.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Used to be a time when avoiding unnecessary encounters on the way to fight the BBEG was the key to successful adventuring- it was all about avoiding monsters and stealing their stuff and having as many spells etc ready as possible. Ah, I miss xp for gold rather than combat which has been a big part in changing the focus.

The modern approach of "I don't care if its talking, it's xp, quick kill it" bores me, as does the adventure insists you do A,B, C and collect x,y,z before you meet the BBEG at D- yawn.

I've been gaming with my main group nearly 20 years and even now and then couple of the guys insist on cleaning out everything and not avoiding unnecessary combats so we sometimes clash as to the 'preferred" way to work through an adventure.

Let your guys give it a crack or retreat and regroup but try to give them an option when they realise they are in over their heads to fall back, if they refuse then that's life. In my experience when their backs are to the walls and the crap is getting real then players pull out their A game and do something totally unexpected to pull though that the players recount years later (and that is the true magic of D&D, "remember that time when...")

... or else they go down in a blaze of glory. Which can also be fun.


Stormdale

I would give them a consumable magic item with, say, 3 charges, which teleports the whole party to a place of safety (multiple people can attune to it and it picks up all attuned people within 120 feet). Then, in the fight with the dragon, incorporate some hints (fairly blatant ones, players are lousy at picking up subtle hints) which point them to some of the key magic items elsewhere in the dungeon which they need to succeed.

In all likelihood, the party will crash into the dragon, lose, and have to play their escape card. Then they can go hunt up the other items and come back to face the beast, with added satisfaction from avenging their previous defeat.

(Slightly off topic, but no one without experience in D&D or its electronic descendants would ever think, "Hmm, we could bypass a bunch of dangerous monsters and go straight to the big enemy's lair... or, we could slog our way through all those monsters, risking death at every turn, and face the same big enemy at the end. Let's slog!" By normal-people standards, the whole idea of level grinding is insane. It exists only because of the XP-for-kills mechanic, and in D&D it only makes sense if you assume the PCs are metagame-aware that killing monsters will earn them XP and level them up.)

I assume the dragon is the whole point of the dungeon and everything is is your typical computer game fodder for xp right? Is there some reason they have to kill all the fodder? The party was careful and smart and they avoided the unnecessary encounters. Every encounter they avoided like this should result in the full xp of defeating the encounter. They won the encounter by getting past it without risking their lives. Give them the xp.

Now if they were able to go straight to the dragon because there was a straight path and not by being clever then that was a mistake on your part. You should not have a dungeon that is designed in such a way that a party can intentionally or accidentally walk around every encounter. If the side fights are necessary for xp then make them impossible to avoid.

[MENTION=42040]Retreater[/MENTION]
I think that if you allow a total party kill or similarly harsh outcome, what you’re essentially doing is punishing them for being efficient. Only in a game would it be “smarter” to fight every opponent in a dungeon rather than sneak past most of them and then face only the boss. Probably not a great message to send to them, especially if they’ve already expressed frustration with character death.

I think you have a few options.

First would be to let them face the dragon, and see what happens. You can have the dragon be overconfident and have this show by playing him in a tactically careless manner. Maybe that will help swing things in the party’s favor. You can also have the dragon be surprised that the mere humanoids were able to hurt it, and have him flee to fight another day. No dragon wants to die, and a recurring foe is a great thing to have in a D&D game.

If things go the dragon’s way, you can again have him be overconfident and not finish the party off. Have him let them flee while he yells “tell all your kind that I am beyond them” or something like that. Not every fight has to be to the death. Dragons are powerful beings who likely enjoy the fear that they instill. They don’t need to prove themselves by killing a group of novice adventurers.

If you wanted, maybe reward them a bit by having there be a room just before the one with the dragon and have that room contain some items that they may have otherwose found in the dungeon. Reward them for their clever play. Gear them up before the encounter. They approached the dungeon with stealth, so grade their performance based on that. You can change the map a bit to adapt to their approach.

Whatever you do, it’s up to you. All I can say is that you know the vibe at the table; if you think things are going to go poorly and that won’t sit well with your players, then don’t go that route. Change things in a way you think will go over better.

Good luck!

I like the heroes fighting, if they really want to. If they do and lose any survivors then become thralls of the newly angered dragon. It demands regular tribute or threatens destruction of nearby town/countryside.

Doing the smart and tactical thing should not be met with things being made harder for them. XP is an inherently pretty silly concept. I party should not be a in worse position because they avoided heaps of fights before taking on a dragon. That makes little tactical sense and even less in-game logic.

For them to feel that they have to game the system by collecting XP from encounters leads to a really undesirable playstyle for me. PCs stop trying to be clever, since cleverness is punished. They stop trying to avoid encounters, become quick to resort to violence and basically become murderhobos.

Might I suggest that they find out that a bunch of kobold minions (or whatever underlings you are using) have a bunch prisoners that they want to eat. The only reason they have not done so is that the dragon is alive and wants to keep them for some reason. The second the dragon dies the hostages die. This gives them an in-game reason to head out and do side encounters. Next they hear from the captives that the kobold chieftain has a dragon-slaying spear he was keeping in case the dragon turned on them. Now they have another reason to do a side corridor or too before heading into the dragon. They kill the chief and get the spear, but get hit by a terrible curse from the kobold shaman as he runs away. Next they need to track him down or fight the dragon under the effects of an ongoing curse. The shaman has a stash of healing potions and some potions of pure magic essence that give spell slots back.

By doing that you give them a sensible reason to have gone to most areas of the dungeon, with clear advantages for having done so.

When one of the LotR video games came out, my son picked it up and travelled a bee-line through Moria to face the Balrog.

I played through Moria too, but I thoroughly explored every room, looked into every nook and corner, picked up all the special equipment, ran into so many random encounters that I doubled his level when I finally "caught up" and met the Balrog.

My son needed about 20 tries to defeat the Balrog. He was underpowered, low on HP (compared to the attacks), had very little offensive firepower. Gandalf carried most of the load. He relied on the computer making tactical mistakes to achieve his own success.

I watched him succeed before I faced the Balrog myself. It took me two tries to defeat the Balrog in a straight-up fight and get on with the game.

You may tell your PCs this story before they go tackle the Dragon; it will provide a judicious hint of what they need to do.

So I see several posts here that are various forms of "Decisions have consequences; let the players make decisions." IMO, this is misleadingly incomplete. Uninformed decisions are not only completely uninteresting, they're really terrible because they can make an unfortunate outcome seem to be the players' fault when in fact that is not the case. What are interesting and an appropriate basis for consequences are informed decisions. And the PCs (and your players) seem to be well short of having sufficient information.

As others have suggested, one really handy piece of information that they need is how tough the dragon is. The most obvious (to me) indicator would be what opponents the dragon has vanquished (be they other adventurers or other 'monsters'). There are plenty of in-game channels for delivering this intelligence. But the thing that I don't think anyone has mentioned is that if there are items in the rest of the dungeon that are needed the PCs should have at least a clue that that is the case. (And I'm not talking here about player metaknowledge about always 'clearing' a dungeon 'in order'; I mean something the characters know.)

Even if the items in the rest of the dungeon are just 'nice to have', I still think it is much better for the PCs to have an in-game reason for taking not-the-most-direct route to their main quarry. This doesn't mean some NPC has to hand them a roadmap to the dungeon; they just need to have a reasonable basis to believe there would be value in exploring the rest of the dungeon and a vague notion of what that value is.

The issue of the PCs needing to level in order to have a good chance of defeating the dragon seems to me a bit harder to manage. To some extent I suppose all they need is a somewhat finer-grained estimate of their own capabilities vs. the difficulty of the dragon. That could be delivered by a wise NPC ally or a more exacting description of the dragon's previous conquests. Whether the option of "just let them try it and flee if necessary" is desirable seems to me to depend on what kind of campaign you are running. I think that would be much more acceptable in a very sandboxy situation than one where the PCs have been given a strong (external) motivation to defeat the dragon as their next main task.

EDIT: Ninja'd on many points by @Unwise, who in addition provided a nice concrete example.