DMG Intro Adventure - Big Spoiler!

[Caliban]

Fear Aura? The white dragon doesn't have a fear aura... He does have Frightful Prescence, which is a standard action.

How did the Warlord get hit moving up to the dragon? Only creatures with Threatening Reach get ranged OAs.

Did the player's wait until the -2 to attacks was gone before using their dailies?

And really, breathing every round is slightly evil as a DM.

On a side note: I'm really thinking about letting action points either give a reroll or bonus (ala 3.5).

I may have remembered the first round incorrectly then. I know he spent an action point in the first round, so he probably used it for that instead of attacking. Either that or the DM played it wrong.

He was definitely having it take OA's whenever anyone closed with it.

 

[Dalzig]

I may have remembered the first round incorrectly then. I know he spent an action point in the first round, so he probably used it for that instead of attacking. Either that or the DM played it wrong.

He was definitely having it take OAs whenever anyone closed with it.

That might have been a big problem. If it was taking OAs it shouldn't be taking then it would be near impossible for the rogue to get behind it to flank. That alone would have probably let the melee characters hit with their daily powers. Not to mention the dragon does a lot of damage on OAs.

You might want to ask your DM how it was taking OAs. In 4e, you only threaten the squares right next to you, no matter your reach*. So the thing would only get OAs as you ran away, not moved to engage it.

*: If the creature has threatening reach, they threaten out to their reach range. These are rare though.

 

[Caliban]

That might have been a big problem. If it was taking OAs it shouldn't be taking then it would be near impossible for the rogue to get behind it to flank. That alone would have probably let the melee characters hit with their daily powers. Not to mention the dragon does a lot of damage on OAs.

You might want to ask your DM how it was taking OAs. In 4e, you only threaten the squares right next to you, no matter your reach*. So the thing would only get OAs as you ran away, not moved to engage it.

*: If the creature has threatening reach, they threaten out to their reach range. These are rare though.

Yeah, I realize that now. We were all experienced 3e players, and that was our first 4e session. So we all "knew" that large creatures with reach can make OA's when you close, and no one thought to question it.

I'll let him know for the next time we play. That was a big part of the TPK (it took a lot of effort to get a flank even momentarily), but a bigger part was the DM rolling very high in the first few rounds, and almost all the PC's rolling low at the same time. We didn't miss our daily's by a little, we missed by a wide margin.

 

[KarinsDad]

I may have remembered the first round incorrectly then. I know he spent an action point in the first round, so he probably used it for that instead of attacking. Either that or the DM played it wrong.

He was definitely having it take OA's whenever anyone closed with it.

If you are remembering correctly, it sounds like your DM screwed you (accidentally maybe) a bit and bad dice rolls screwed you the rest of the way.


DM screw:

1) The Dragon gets one standard action plus up to one Action Point standard action. That's Breath Weapon and Frightful Presence. The Dragon should not have dropped the Rogue on round one which means that nobody should have had to heal him.

2) The Dragon does not get to OA approaching foes.


Dice screw:

1) The Dragon won initiative.

2) On round two, the odds of getting the Breath Weapon back are one in three. So, the DM beat the odds there as well.

3) The PCs were missing with their Dailies.

4) The DM dropped the Rogue with the Breath Weapon combined with Dragon's Fury and the odds of doing that are only 14% with an AC 16 Reflex 16 Rogue (which I assume your Rogue is if he is first level).


Note: That Dragon gets two Action Points (both usable within an encounter), so he could have done two Breath Weapons, Frightful Presence and Dragon's Fury on rounds one and two legally. He just could not do three standard actions on round one.


The real power of Dragons is the Breath Weapon. That can make a Dragon encounter swingy. If the DM is rolling well, the Dragon gets it back many rounds and smokes PCs. If not, then the Dragon is considerably less of a threat (although still real challenging).

 

[ff6shadow]

This is probably my favorite thing about dragons in 4th. They actually scare parties. They aren't just big bags af meaty XP waiting to be killed with large piles of loot hidden nearby. They're an actual threat.

 

[angiloth]

I did this dungeon far differently...didn't feel it was adventury enough =)

In the skull skull room, I turned it into more of a gladiatorial arena
with pillars that kobolds could stand on. The 'skull skulll game' objective
was to get the skulls stuck on the rock, while the pillar kobolds tried
to knock eachother off and the rock away. I left a balcony for a kobold
announcer.

The party intruded in the middle of a game, and the objective then changed,
naturally. There was more sticky ooze everywhere (that our wizard set aflame). After the fight, the party apprehended the announcer, who declared the party the gladiatorial champions. They partied in the next room all night, and then for their 'prize' he took them to the dragon altar.

In this room, the floor beneath the dragon statue opened and the kobold announcer zipped down to become dragon food. The party opted to not follow--and violently protested when the other kobolds pulled out their spears to force them into the hole!

The adventure started off with the party retrieving a relic from Nightsong temple in Fallcrest--one prophecized to bring ruin to the town. It hatched in the middle of their intrusion---turning into a dragon-like form and flying away.

Turns out, it was a necromantically altered dragon egg, and the final
boss of my dungeon was an undead white dragon =P

Because of my extra quests and one or two extra fights, they
entered the boss fight higher level. I gave the dragon 100 extra hp, and
a 20% health insta-breath. Oh, and when he died, he blew up in purplish energy! I made the whole cavern ice-coated, so it was difficult terrain. The dragon made use of flying breath weapons, out of the parties range (the warrior countered this with mark, so he couldn't easily move/shift out of the party's range anymore).

The fight was very even, and a thrill to run and play. The party made extremely good use of tactics on our battle grid, and all used their powers
in a strategic manner. If they didn't use the 4e rules to their advantage, there was no way they could have survived. I dropped 2 or 3 pc's during the fight, but the healer was spot on.

That was my experience!

 

[wujenta]

My group played this as well, and we managed to beat the dragon, but at the end, only 2 of us were left standing and 2 were unconscious ... we could revive one of them, but the other died.

Party of four: a dragonborn pally, an orc fighter, a elf ranger archer and a doppleganger warlord. The dragon did not surprise us, and acted last because a very bad initiative roll. The Pally and the fighter surrounded him, one in each side, so he cant take both with the breath and the warlord in front of him, with the ranger far away (he came close one time to get the bonus from the warlord and his lead the attack and get his share of bretah weapon...so he stayed at 7 or 8 squares the rest of the fight) The orc and the dragonborn hadent used his dailys and hit with them.
The first to fall was the warlord, then the dragonborn got hit with a critical with his third breath weapon only recharged one time, the other one was when he got bloodied) and was nearly killed right there... went to -10 hp, and the orc had to use his second wind and hit with his orc racial power to survive until the end...was a close battle but we managed to beat him.

 

[dbm]

Thanks for the replies everyone. It's good to hear that some people managed to beat the dragon.

I think I was playing Threatening Reach on the creature, but to be honest it didn't make any difference as only once did the party come that close to the creature - after that they just bugged out!

I think I will arrange for them to go back with help (a new PC to replace the lost one) and recover their friend's remains. That way they should be fresher to the fight and have more of a chance. I will also correct the stats to those in the Monster Manual.

Cheers,
Dan

 

[Pielorinho]

That reach thing is excellent to know--I would've misplayed it also.

I did a test-run of this adventure with 5 PCs awhile ago. Nobody dropped during it: the sword-and-board fighter got off a daily that gave him +3/+3 to each attack, and marked the dragon. The dragon had to choose between attacking the fighter (who was very difficult for him to hit), or attacking someone else and suffering a whack from the fighter (who was hitting really hard). I think that fighter did more than 50% of the damage.

Other test PCs--especially the area-effect wizard--sucked during the fight. THey did almost nothing.

Angiloth, your changes sound really cool! I'm making some changes to it myself (the "dungeon" becomes an abandoned manor house with a courtyard and a few more encounter rooms; the dragon's lair is an old wine cellar in a cavern beneath the manor; and so on), but I really like what you did.

Daniel

 

[malacapricornis]

Anyone changing the slingers to the MM version where the glue pots are an attack vs AC and do damage as well as immobilize?