PlZ help set Dragon Encounter to continue story storyline

[jjhighberger]

I'm new to D&D and currently playing/DMing 4e. I'm looking for encounter ideas that include a dragon to coincide with my lvl 3 party of 4. Trying to stick to a goblin race theme.

Any Hook/flavor text ideas would be greatly appreciated also as the toughest part of DMing is my story telling.

So far they have defeated a lvl 4 named Goblin Underboss to retrieve what they thought was an Orb of Farseeing 3 they were sent for by a church, only to find out it was an Orb of Seeing which they will use to open a secret passage to an underground labyrinth, leading to the actual Orb of Farseeing 3 by defeating a lvl 6 named Bugbear Strangler and competing a puzzle challenge to obtain the orb (success grants access - failure summons skeletons which after defeating skeletons grants access). The church and other local churches feel that in the wrong hands this Orb of Farseeing 3 could wreak havoc in massively destructive ways. I'm thinking i would like to tie the Dragon somehow into this as a mastermind behind the whole operation.

Thanks all for future input as it is greatly appreciated

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm new to D&D and currently playing/DMing 4e. I'm looking for encounter ideas that include a dragon to coincide with my lvl 3 party of 4. Trying to stick to a goblin race theme.

Any Hook/flavor text ideas would be greatly appreciated also as the toughest part of DMing is my story telling.

So far they have defeated a lvl 4 named Goblin Underboss to retrieve what they thought was an Orb of Farseeing 3 they were sent for by a church, only to find out it was an Orb of Seeing which they will use to open a secret passage to an underground labyrinth, leading to the actual Orb of Farseeing 3 by defeating a lvl 6 named Bugbear Strangler and competing a puzzle challenge to obtain the orb (success grants access - failure summons skeletons which after defeating skeletons grants access). The church and other local churches feel that in the wrong hands this Orb of Farseeing 3 could wreak havoc in massively destructive ways. I'm thinking i would like to tie the Dragon somehow into this as a mastermind behind the whole operation.

Thanks all for future input as it is greatly appreciated

1 - Young Purple Dragon is level 6 Solo. With some update work to MM3/MV math, it would be a good challenge to them. You might want to make it a recurring campaign villain.

2 - The Orb was indeed a relic of the church. However, it was placed there as a seal for a labyrinth which culminates in a draconic hatchery. This beast was the first of the brood hatched from its eggs. It quickly ate it siblings so as to destroy any competition.

3 - Over the length of time from birth until now, it has grown...grooming its psionic powers. Recently, it developed the means to reach out with its mind to beyond the veil of its sanctum. Perhaps the church is directly above this lair and the dragon planted the seed of recovering the "church relic" into the minds of one of the weaker priests and it proliferated from there into an outright church-sponsored mission.

4 - Trapped with the dragon in this prison is a clan, of what once was multiple clans, of cannibalistic goblins who have slowly grown hungrier and hungrier as food has diminished during their imprisonment; when they PCs have arrived, they are depraved with near madness from their hunger. This is the 1st line of defense to the dragon's lair.

5 - As far as the battle with the dragon itself goes, make the lair large with lots and lots and lots of terrain features for the PCs to interact with (hindering terrain, terrain powers that the PCs can use, difficult terrain in piles of objects that the goblins have given to it in pledges of fealty, blocking terrain to hide behind, etc), and make it tall enough for the dragon to fly in. By the time they reach the dragon itself, they may be level 5 or so. At bloodied, have the dragon desperately escape, breaking through the unsealed ceiling into the church above, causing a precipitous collapse as the entire structure falls in on itself. This would be a Skill Challenge Complexity 2 or 3. Keep this fast paced and exciting. Each failure equals either a surge loss for the whole group as they maybe take a wrong turn or a pillar or wall or ceiling collapses on them. Or a failure could trigger an easy combat with a few ravenous goblins, lost to madness so they notice only the meat before them, oblivious to their imminent demise due to the collapsing lair.


Now you have a paragon tier BBEG that can show up again later; around level 13 (Adult).

 

[jjhighberger]

plz keep them coming!

manbearcat
thank for your insight I really like these ideas. one question tho, as a newbie what is BBEG
[DND][/DND]

 

[Tharian]

manbearcat
thank for your insight I really like these ideas. one question tho, as a newbie what is BBEG

BBEG = Big Bad Evil Guy

 

[jjhighberger]

BBEG = Big Bad Evil Guy

Thank you, that makes obvious sense now

 

[pemerton]

I didn't think of anything as elaborate as [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]. But your reference to orbs of seeing and so on made me think of crystal balls, and palantirs, and careless casters getting ensnared by trapped crystal balls. And that made me think of a green dragon.

A young green dragon is a level 5 solo, and with MV stats should be a pretty interesting challenge for a group of 4 lvl 3 or lvl 4 PCs. Throw in some goblins (maybe a Hexhurler behind a wall of Snipers - I think a Hexhurler could be quite nasty in conjunction with a dragon). Perhaps the orb is "attuned" to the dragon in some way, and so grants a bonus to hit vs the dragon, but also gives the dragon a bonus to hit with its Luring Glare minor action attack (in the fiction, you narrate this as the PC holding the orb feeling compelled to confront the dragon, as if nothing else matters - you could even say that the PC holding the orb is marked by the dragon, to repsent the ensnaring and "focusing" effect of the orb).

In terms of the physical details of the encounter, everything that Manbearcat has said about terrain etc makes sense, except in my version above the cave is not the church but rather a forest grove with standing stones - when the ceiling collapses, the stones fall down - you could even have the standing stones projecting downwards through the cavern ceiling, so that during the fight the PCs (and NPCs) can invoke the stones' magic powers in some fashion.

I would also add: the players may not want to let the dragon escape. If they take actions to try and stop this (eg immoblizing it, or knocking it prone, or jumping/climbing up through the cavern to chase it) my advice would be adjudicate those actions fairly, including via level appropriate DCs for skill checks/skill challenges. Whether the dragon escapes or the PCs defeat it, you should have a dramatic resolution either way.

EDIT: I didn't give a story suggestion as to why this dragon is down here and attuned to the orb. Maybe the goblins recently discovered the orb buried in the forest at the base of one of the standing stones, and have realised that with it they can awaken the power of a sleeping dragon and thereby conquer the civilised lands. The churches have received portents of this from their gods, and that's why they sent the PCs to try and recover the orb. Once the PCs recover the orb and deliver it to the church, the goblins' dreams of harnessing the dragon's powers are shattered - and this is true even if the dragon itself escapes.

For bonus plot development, the priest/bishop whatever who received the orb becomes corrupted by it, and the PCs soon find themselves having to sort out that mess.

If you have any primal PCs in your group the standing stones also give the opportunity for minor quests or other plot twists, as primal PCs are probably more comfortable with that sort of magic than the more mainstream religious types. (Primal PCs might also be especially good at harnessing the magical powers of standing stones. They might even try and use this to stop the cavern collapsing when the dragon tries to escape, calling upon the power of the spirits in the stones to bind the cavern roof tight.)

 

[jjhighberger]

EDIT: I didn't give a story suggestion as to why this dragon is down here and attuned to the orb. Maybe the goblins recently discovered the orb buried in the forest at the base of one of the standing stones, and have realized that with it they can awaken the power of a sleeping dragon and thereby conquer the civilized lands. The churches have received portents of this from their gods, and that's why they sent the PCs to try and recover the orb. Once the PCs recover the orb and deliver it to the church, the goblins' dreams of harnessing the dragon's powers are shattered - and this is true even if the dragon itself escapes.

For bonus plot development, the priest/bishop whatever who received the orb becomes corrupted by it, and the PCs soon find themselves having to sort out that mess.

​

Thank you Pemerton. This story feels fluid with what I have already created and my players have already started to suspect. Tying bits from both suggestions is like the the direction I'm headed
This although the fewest responses are the best responses out of 3 forums i posted this on. Strait forward yet intriguing. exactly the types of answers i was looking for.

 

[Manbearcat]

manbearcat
thank for your insight I really like these ideas.

You're welcome. It was no trouble.

I would also add: the players may not want to let the dragon escape. If they take actions to try and stop this (eg immoblizing it, or knocking it prone, or jumping/climbing up through the cavern to chase it) my advice would be adjudicate those actions fairly, including via level appropriate DCs for skill checks/skill challenges. Whether the dragon escapes or the PCs defeat it, you should have a dramatic resolution either way.

This is a key point here by pemerton. You don't want to just transition from one scene (the combat) to the next (the skill challenge) if the player have the want + ability to prevent that transition (in this case, by stopping the dragon's flight). In the above, I skipped this part because I just assumed that four level 4 characters, specifically after deploying their big guns earlier in the fight to get to bloodied, likely wouldn't have the requisite ability (grapple, immobilize, prone, restrained, stun, etc) to detain the dragon at this point. However, the creature, will be Large at this point (and thus a target for grapple), so in the off-chance that it is in melee when it attempts to retreat and smash through the ceiling, and you have a melee character with an MBA tricked out with a grapple (or prone) rider (through feats), then their may be an opportunity for them to successfully grapple the dragon for a round or two and/or prevent it from escaping.

Odds of all of that coming together are not good, however. So in the chance that there is no PC with an immobilize (save ends) at the end of the battle (or some such) and no MBA + prone and the dragon is in melee at bloodied (and escape attempt), then you may want to consider an activatable machinery of some sort in the chamber that was used to successfully capture the dragon's mother (or something that functions the same - anchors the dragon). Perhaps some sort of cannon-like machine that that accelerates a loaded harpoon (long chain, ending in nasty hook). You could have 1 of these but perhaps it would be better to have 4 of them placed at the NW, NE, SW, SE portions of the room, equidistant from each other, aimed at the center location of the room. It would require a check to activate and then a successful attack roll:

Dragon Harpoon - Level 5 Blaster
Limited-Use - Standard Action Ranged 10
Special: Dungeoneering, History, or Thievery check (DC 18) to discern the nature of the machine's control mechanism, or jury-rig it. * If this check is failed, the harpoon is triggered and it innocently falls to the ground.
Success: You swivel the turret and fire the harpoon at a target.
Target: one creature.
Attack: +8 vs. Reflex.
Hit: The target takes 2d6 + 6 damage and the target is immobilized (save ends).

If you use that, and go with multi-harpoon turrets, then I would rule that any secondary successful attacks create an aggregate penalty of -1 to the saving throw against immobilized. With the dragon saving at + 5 already, it wouldn't be too punitive.

Whatever scenario you decide to do, enjoy!

 

[jjhighberger]

I thank you both again for your contributions, i will mull on this and merge them together and we'll see how this works out. It may be a while b4 i get to run this encounter but i will let you know how it goes.

 

[jjhighberger]

Here's what i have so far for those interested. It is a work in progress but thanks to all of your help i think its coming along nicely.. There will also be a large murky pool of water at the back of the cavern since i have just read more on the dragon lore. there will also be a secret tunnel through the water that allowed the previous dragon inhabitant to come and go as they pleased.

[TABLE="width: 597, align: center"] [TR] [TD]
[/TD] [TD]Monsters needed for quest[/TD] [TD]
[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Young Black Dragon[/TD] [TD]Hobgoblin Beastmaster[/TD] [TD]Goblin Snipers x7[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] 1. A lesser priest approaches the party in secret and reveals that the Orb was used in ancient times to seal off a now believed empty black dragons lair belonging to Cheynth the Redeemer. But that in the wrong hands it could be used to break the seal and alert any of her clutch that may have survived.

2. The lair is the 2^nd level underground cavern, which has been discovered by the goblins through their exploratory digging. There are 2 Dragon Net Launchers in the cavern that seem to be for defensive maneuvers in case the dragon were to get unruly. To note it is possible for the PCs to discover a tunnel (DC20) leading back up into the catacombs under the House of Sun which has been the means to which the goblins were able to steal the Orb of Farseeing 3.

3. This young black dragon (Slyborn lvl 4) was discovered by the goblins as a newborn hatchling in this deep ancient underground lair. He was thought to be abandoned by his brood, thought to have never hatched. The goblins have thus far been able to control him with their beastmastery.
· When in truth it was the 1^st of its hatchling siblings, but devoured them to avoid having any competition.

4. Slyborn is not as docile as the goblins are lead to believe. He has a mind of his own and could be persuaded to dismiss battle. (until the dragon see’s fit to reveal true intentions). Having developed its psionic powers over the years that it has been “under the goblins control”
· The goblins have actually been doing his bidding unbeknownst to them.
· The priest has been corrupted by the dragon through the orb,
· Using the goblins to steal it they create a diversion and allow him to attune it to himself.
· Now attuned to Slyborn it marks them with a decrease to defenses (-1) but also granting its possessor an increased chance to hit (+1).

5. If dragon is engaged in battle, at bloodied he enrages and tries to escape, crashing through the no unsealed ceiling, initiating a skill challenge for the PCs to dodge falling debris. (ie coffins, alter, stone tiles).



[TABLE="align: center"] [TR] [TD](Slyborns) Orb of Far Seeing Level 3 Rare[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]You capture the image of Slyborn in this translucent sphere, leaving him no place to hide.[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]LVL 3 +1 680 gp
Implement (Orb)[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Enhancement: +1Attack rolls and damage rolls vs. Slyborn
Critical: +1d6 damage[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Debilitation: -1 Attack rolls and damage rolls against you by Slyborn[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Power (Encounter): Minor Action. Choose a target within 10 squares of you. Until the end of the encounter, this target is considered half as far away for the purpose of ranged attacks while in control of this orb.[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Power (Daily): Free Action. Use this power when you
make a ranged attack while controlling this vs. Slyborn.
affected by this orb’s encounter power. The attack does
not require line of sight or line of effect and takes no
penalty for concealment or cover.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE="align: center"] [TR] [TD]Orb of Seeing Level 2 Uncommon[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]With this translucent stone held to your eye, all things become tantalizingly clear to you.[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Wondrous Item 300 gp[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Trait[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]While you peer through the gem, you gain a +3 item bonus to
Perception checks to see things.[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Utility Power * Daily (Minor Action)[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Effect: Until the end of your next turn, you can see invisible
creatures and objects, and you know that any illusion you
can see is an illusion.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE="align: center"] [TR] [TD]Dragon Net Launcher Level 3 Blaster[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Special: Dungeoneering, History or Thievery check (DC18) to discern the nature of the machine’s control mechanism.[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Limited Use (Standard Action)
Ranged 10
Target: one creature[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Success: You swivel the turret and fire the net at the target[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Attack: +8 vs. Reflex
Hit: The target takes 2d6 +6 damage and target is immobilized (save ends)[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Miss: The turret is triggered and the net falls ill-effectively to the ground[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]