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ShortQuests -- Pocket Sized Adventures! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed for 1-2 game sessions.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stalker0" data-source="post: 9869262" data-attributes="member: 5889">So getting into the breakdown. The fight was 6 rounds (which is a feat onto itself, my group is usually 3 and out).It was clear that without the alignment changing superweapon(which was a big part of the campaign and the rogue's plot) and my special badass die mechanic, the party was absolutely toast and they knew it. TPK was absolutely on the menu for this fight, and I think the party left with the excitement you should expect from such an epic debacle.My thoughts on the dragon having put it in play.1) The fire blast is one of the "meanest" weapons as well as one of its best single target attacks. Being able to knock a party member out of actions for a round with no save is both incredibly powerful as well as thematically terrifying. The look on my players face when he realized there was no save....they knew at that moment this thing was on a whole other level. Its a tool the DM does have to balance, its easy to just keep blasting one of the key threats in the group and then that player never gets to go so you want to spread the love out.2) The Tail Sweep was probably the best general attack this game. While the bite does incredible single target damage, its always about dealing with the entire group for a dragon. And in this game, the 60 foot push really highlighted the deadly lava terrain, the attack still does very respectable damage, and combing that with the prone means I often deny several melee attacks in the next round as people are struggling to keep up with the dragon. This party had massive saves due to various effects, I think even a normal higher level party would have been creamed by that high dex save.3) I was glad I went with the breath stripping fire resistance instead of that being a blanket aspect, just to give my party some control. Being able to keep up fire resistance became a strategy rather than something they ignored. Now for a truly epic party that is meant to face this guy that's probably less of a factor, but that change worked well for this group.4) I got the Tail Sweep and Wing attack confused in my head a few times. Its two area attacks rather the other. Nothing mechanically wrong just something I noticed.5) The piercing resistance did pay off early in the fight especially against the spear, so it was a facotr in the dragon's resistance. Ultimately the dragon has very respectable durability but that was never the issue for my group. They do very high damage for their level, especially with the bad ass die. Even without the die I would have meant I needed one more round of attacks from one of the big guns in the group to make up the difference. Ultimately the dragon was tough enough to get in an appropriate number of rounds for this fight, but I don't think he's too tough in that department.6) The 4 LAs from the lair were so nice to let me get in 2 attack LAs in a round. That was the scariest round I think, the party was reeling after that combo.7) For the breath, I actually mapped out the 25 20 by 20 squares, and its just kind of ridiculous. I think you could make it simplier, something like "eveyrone within X feet, no two are more than Y ft apart" kind of thing.All in all this was just a flat out terrfying threat. And frankly I could have played this dragon smarter, could have had it fly off in the middle and come back and pick off the party more strategically. I could have ramped up the challenge even more with tactics, but we played in to the dragon's rage and the fight was epic enough without that. Just saying I could have leveraged even more threat had it been needed.So as a final boss, this dragon did a great job.</blockquote>

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