You Don’t Have To Leave Wolfy Behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' Your Companions Level Up With You!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dbm" data-source="post: 4360683" data-attributes="member: 8014">So, I ran my group through the intro adventure in the DMG as a lead in to Keep on the Shadowfell.They did OK in the Kobald encounters, though the 'conker of doom' encounter hurt them bad and one PC ended up on the deck in the boss battle against the Wyrmpriest.  By this point, the party (an elven ranger, human fighter, tiefling fey warlock, human controller wizard and dwarven cleric) were pretty beat up: all their daily powers were used, the ranger had no healing surges and the fighter only had two left.After this encounter they gamely found the secret passage and went into the icy room, making jokes about white dragons as they did so.  And it all went horribly wrong for them...No one was surprised, and the dragon got middle initiative so the fighter and ranger moved up before the young white dragon flew over to them and opened up with breath weapon and frightening aura, getting heavy damage and all the status effects on the fighter and ranger.  Luckily for the rest of the party they were out of range of these effects.The party immediately decide they were out classed and decided to bug out, dashing in and dragging back the stunned  party members, using action points to move as quickly as possible.  On round two the dragon's breath recharged so it breathed again, this time getting the fighter and warlock who had been dragging him out (the ranger had been cleared of the area by the cleric).  In round three the dragon got lucky yet again and finished off the warlock with it's breath weapon; the fighter managed to struggle out with his superior hit points.So, one character dead and the party completely out of ideas on how to take on the dragon.  They were quite a bit beaten up by this point, and had used up all their daily powers , and the dragon got lucky with its breath weapon re-rolls. However, we are all a little concerned.  Since this is an 'official' adventure and being the one in the DMG has presumably been play tested many, many times it must surely be considered a fair if challenging encounter for five first level characters.  Due to time constraints our plan is to play through the WotC modules, so we need to be comfortable taking on the encounters they write (or to know how to modify them and make them more achievable).My question is: what is other people's experience of this adventure and this encounter in particular?  Have other groups taken the dragon in their stride and if so had they taken an extended rest before doing so?  My group has a tendency to push on a little too much perhaps, and being fully rested would definitely have helped.Any thoughts and experiences welcomes,CheersDan</blockquote>

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