Building A Dragon's Den

[Radiating Gnome]

So initially, it's PCs vs NPC Slayers vs The Dragon. Thoughts?

As a personal rule, I try to avoid those sorts of three-way battles unless all sides are focusing on the PCs.

4e combat takes a while to play through -- I enjoy it and all that, but because it takes a long time to play through, the players are not engaged all the time. They're directly engaged with the action at the table when they're attacking or being attacked, for the most part. So, in a typical one-on-one fight, at least one PC is engaged with the action at any given moment.

But if you add a third group to the scene, one that is fighting the same enemy some or all the time, you create chunks of time in which you're essentially playing (with) against yourself while the players watch.

If there's a story-motivated reason to put the NPCs there, I'd recommend a couple of options:

1. Don't play through NPC turns against each other. With a little path up front you can speed that up a lot. (For each NPC, figure out what his or her average damage, multiply that by the NPC's chance to hit, and you get a number you can subtract from the dragon's total HP each time that NPC takes an action against it. )

2. If you can work it out, make the NPCs allies of the PCs, and turn over running the NPCs to the players.


-rg

 

[MortalPlague]

As a personal rule, I try to avoid those sorts of three-way battles unless all sides are focusing on the PCs.

Yeah, the way I was going to use them was as a rival to start the fight. Basically, the two groups would meet up at the hoard, while the dragon's still hiding. And they would likely get into a fight over the hoard, at which point the dragon would enter the fray, taking on both sides. The rival party would be there as early fodder, to play up the dragon's deadliness (and also because my players love to defeat rivals).

However, we played the lead-up session today, and the rivals will be late. Said rivals heard about the PCs intentions to take on the dragon, and then decided that they would also take on the dragon. My PCs, catching wind of their 'pre-fight celebration', decided to take off that very evening, beating the other slayers to the punch.

So they'll fight the dragon, then they'll taunt the slayers who arrive rather too late.

I did manage to have the dragon kidnap two of their NPCs, however. See, Argondaxilis has a spy network, and they too heard about the PCs intentions. So he's taken steps to ensure the PCs are distracted when they enter his lair.

Also, I started putting together the trapped hoard, beginning with some animated coins. I was really pleased with this bit of monster design...

Animated Coin - Level 19 minion lurker
Tiny natural construct - XP 600
AC 35 F 29 R 34 W 31
Initiative +16 Speed 0

Traits
Coin In A Treasure Hoard
The Animated Coin has superior cover while in a space containing treasure.

Standard Actions
Slice and Dice * At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +24 vs. AC
Hit: 13 damage.
Effect: The Animated Coin moves up to 6 squares. If the coin hit the target, the target takes a -2 penalty on their opportunity attack.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Animated Coin - Level 19 minion lurker
Tiny natural construct - XP 600
AC 35 F 29 R 34 W 31
Initiative +16 Speed 0

Traits
Coin In A Treasure Hoard
The Animated Coin has superior cover while in a space containing treasure.

Standard Actions
Slice and Dice * At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +24 vs. AC
Hit: 13 damage.
Effect: The Animated Coin moves up to 6 squares. If the coin hit the target, the target takes a -2 penalty on their opportunity attack.

So... the coin only moves when it attacks. It's interesting the way it becomes more of a hazard than anything else.

To go with what you're trying to do, you might want to give the coin a stealth skill and state that it makes a hide check at the end of it's post-attack movement.

Still, treating this hazard as a creature opens it up to a lot of easy PC countermeasures. So, they get tagged by one attack, the coin hops into another heap of coins, and even if they can't see which coin it is where it lands, they can use area effect spells to kill it as easily as any minion. Given that the dragon is the real fun in the encounter, that may not be a problem at all, but I expect these to be a one-trick pony.

-rg

 

[MortalPlague]

So we had the fight. The dragon went down hard. He was locked down pretty badly by the fighter; he couldn't hit her with his luring gaze to move her away, and he kept being hit by her opportunity attacks to stop his movement. Adding to the difficulty, the dragon spent half the fight dazed, which denied any reaction powers, and also limited the amount of damage it could put out. All in all, it was a very disappointing fight... on my side of the screen.

That said, it was a mixed bag for my players. My sister, playing the tank, loved it. She got the chance to shut down the dragon, and she really had fun with it. My sorcerer's player racked up a ton of damage, including a brutal crit to kill the beast in phase three. And the rogue was dishing out damage left right and center. On the flip side, the cleric had a tough time of it; he did spend a bit of time running around, and he wound up having poor dice luck on a few attacks. And the ranger only managed to land one hit on the dragon.

The coins proved to be an interesting 'puzzle' enemy during the early going; it took a while to realize they could only attack someone next to them, but then they'd move around. The ranger spent a couple rounds trying to pick them off with twin strike, but he simply couldn't roll a hit. The terrain abilities (duck and cover, and the treasure aggro bit) never came up once. And with the dragon locked down, the mobility aspect of the fight just didn't happen.

Even using the Angry DM Boss Fight rules, the solo just wasn't a satisfying threat. Something needs to address the 'dazed' condition...

 

[Syntallah]

Seems like a lot of the solo monsters have a trait that allows them to roll a save at the beginning of their turn to throw off the affects of a stun/daze/restain/etc. Roll for it a couple of times, then if necessary, fudge the roll; dragon is free of daze.