Overlooked Dragon Hoards

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Maybe the players' thought process went something like:

"Are we in the dragon's lair? No. Then there is no hoard here."

Rather than not searching, maybe the flaw was failing to recognize the area as a dragon's lair. I think both examples featured a non-typical lair.

Somewhat late to the party, but this was my first reaction, as well.

 

[Bullgrit]

Regarding my dragon hoard anecdotes: Neither scenario was anything like a random wandering monster encounter, and the Player/PCs knew it. Whether the setting could be considered "non-standard" dragon lairs, well I don't know what a "standard" dragon lair is.

Anyway. If backtracking a dragon about 50 feet is illogical, then I guess I need to just keep it in mind the next time I design a dragon encounter.

Bullgrit

 

[Mark CMG]

Anyway. If backtracking a dragon about 50 feet is illogical, then I guess I need to just keep it in mind the next time I design a dragon encounter.

Tracking a dragon back to find its lair is a given, in my experience, whether that leads to finding the lair right around the corner or miles away in some cave. Plus, any place the dragon has recently been is either going to give clues to its lair or clues to its intent in raining destruction on the vicinity, so thoroughly looking around is also what one does after defeating a dragon in an area that dragon has targetted.

However, in the case of the behind the building situation, I might have pulled back out of move-by-move exploration expectations and merely mentioned that while looking around the locale they noticed it behind the building. In the other case where it was in the building, if they weren't actually looking in any buildings at all and simply leaving right after the fight, I might have just allowed that hoard to be missed. I think the intent of the players in regard to the behind the building situation was clearly to search the area and the game just got stuck in a move-by-move mode that makes it difficult for the players to be quite as thorough as the players intended the characters to actually be, given the time constraints of tabletop gaming sessions (we cannot account for each action in the 24/7 lives of the characters after all).

 

[Bullgrit]

However, in the case of the behind the building situation, I might have pulled back out of move-by-move exploration expectations and merely mentioned that while looking around the locale they noticed it behind the building. ... I think the intent of the players in regard to the behind the building situation was clearly to search the area and the game just got stuck in a move-by-move mode that makes it difficult for the players to be quite as thorough as the players intended the characters to actually be, given the time constraints of tabletop gaming sessions (we cannot account for each action in the 24/7 lives of the characters after all).

Huh? You know how that game session went, and you know what the Players' intentions were? That's quite a crystal ball you have.

Bullgrit

 

[Mark CMG]

Huh? You know how that game session went, and you know what the Players' intentions were? That's quite a crystal ball you have.

Bullgrit

I based that off your description that they were looking for the structure and after defeating the dragon explored further. Given your admonishment, I'll quote and look over the description again and then pose a number of questions lest I make the continuned assuming we are having a friendly discussion.

First scenario:
The PCs were in a swamp, looking for a structure to delve into. They found the structure. As they neared it, a dragon leaped up from behind it. The fight ended with the dragon dead.

The dragon’s nest and hoard were behind the structure, where the dragon leaped up from. It was not hidden. But the party didn’t bother investigating around the structure. (Just walking around it would have found the treasure.) They just went up to the front, opened the doors, and went in. They explored, came back out, and went home.

When I designed the adventure, and the dragon’s “lair,” I never thought that the party might not get the treasure. I mean, all they had to do was walk around the structure, and bam, there it would be.

It's pretty obvious they were looking around and that they had come out to the structure to look around, but I suppose that might be a leap. Feel free to give more of your first hand details to enlighten how it is they managed to miss the hoard. Please do so taking in mind the following, assumption-avoiding, questions . . .

Would there have been any impediment to them going behind the building due to the swampy nature of the area? Were you strictly only going to allow the hoard be found if someone specifically said they were going behind the building? Were they always in move-by-move mode (as I previously surmised) or was there also general discussion of how they might be exploring the area? As the GM (Facilitator) of the game did you make sure they were aware that they could easily circumnavigate the building or might they have assumed it was impassable terrain? Were you doing this all verbally or did you use battlemats? Were there player handout maps of the vicinity so that they could check off mentally where they had looked in the area and where they might still look? Were there no windows or gaps in this structure that would have left a line of sight to the hoard from any place the groups or individuals in the group had explored? Were there any time constraints on their exploration? Were there any other encounters that needed to be handled during their exploration or could we assume the characters, if not the players, had every chance to be thorough in their exploration of th structure and the surroundings.


Given the lack of a crystal ball, I might have further questions. Thank you for your patience.

 

[prosfilaes]

Regarding my dragon hoard anecdotes: Neither scenario was anything like a random wandering monster encounter, and the Player/PCs knew it. Whether the setting could be considered "non-standard" dragon lairs, well I don't know what a "standard" dragon lair is.

A standard dragon lair is well-protected and a death trap for intruders. It's a place where humanoids don't go, and where most that show up at the lair should die before the dragon has to deal with them. Even most animals don't have their lairs right out in the open; birds nest in trees, and burrowing creatures burrow. I would never expect a dragon, of at least human-average intelligence, to keep a lair in the open behind a building.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I would never expect a dragon, of at least human-average intelligence, to keep a lair in the open behind a building.

The Purloined Letter works some of the time.

 

[Orius]

the BEST one I know of what a MASSIVE dragon's hoard easily with millions in gold

it was an illusion, the real treasure was in a chest hidden under the illusionary hoard

the players got mad and never searched, a chest of holding had ALL the treasure they saw infront of them.

This is awesome. I love when players do stuff like this.

I'm going to have to remember this trick.

 

[Wycen]

If we've ever missed a dragon hoard it was because the risk wasn't worth the reward or something like that. We killed some of Tiamat's consorts and going after the hoard seemed like a bad idea.

But in a game I ran, the players forgot an artifact. It was my own fault for borrowing the campaign of somebody else, who was now a player while I played in his sandbox. One of the campaign rules was "if you die it takes more than a spell and expensive component to bring a character back to life".

But I didn't want myself and the group to worry about character death as much, especially since it was a high level game. So as a reward in the first battle I threw in a torc which acted like an Amulet of Life Protection (this was 3E). I told the wizard Identify would not identify an artifact and expected Legend Lore or something else would be the first activity for the next session.

Well, that never happened and I once made an oblique reference to it, but still they never remembered. I should have just shoved the whole death is near permanent thing, but oh well.

 

[Zelligars Apprentice]

We will often go through an area, killing the monsters, but deliberately NOT looting. The idea is, first we clear an area of immediate threats, than loot at our leisure. Most of the time it works. One time, however, there was the big door at the end of the corridor. We thought we should just check one more door for bad guys before looting.

One teleport trap later...