Dragon Mountain defeated without even entering it!

[James McMurray]

In my campaign (many may remember the lawyer posts, nd various dragon posts) the party has been tracking down Dragon Mountain, a plane shifting mountain. They have been doing this in order to kill the Dragon that lives there, as he has been a thorn in their side for a long time now.

There is still a few months of game-time before the mountain arrives in the plane, but they have already beaten it, and are now dividing the spoils. Here's how:

The party had signed a contract with a powerful dragon that would allow them to kill their enemy in exchange for giving the dragon the mountain and a share of the treasure within. They had been hunting dragons for a while, and were told in no uncertain terms that it wouldn't be tolerated, and for every dragon that died, so would ahuman city.

They struck a bargain (using their own lawyers and having to contend with the dragon's devilish attrney, who almost screwed them twice.

Meanwhile, their nemesis wants an amulet the cleric of the party has. He teleports to their location and calls in some friends he has planar allied: 3 smoke para-elementals and 6 ethereal filchers. The elementals act as a very effective distraction, while the filchers grab various items and take them to the dragon.

In chasing down his sword and shield, the paladin of the party notices the dragon, who tries to use a suggestion on him, but is prevented by protectiob from evil. The next round, the paladin moves to the dragon, who decides too teach this upstart a lesson.

To make a long story short, due to some good rolls on the part of the party, and a miscalculation on the part of the over-confident dragon (he felt his improved invisibilty would save him, but hadn't counted on the cleric's invisibility purge), the party managed to slay the beast.

Their contract listed that event as the catalysst for them having defeated dragon mountain, and they must now divide the spoils with the Great Wyrm they dealt with. However, since the mountain was on another plane, they had to find it and travel there. They managed this by using the contract, whose terms stated that items must be gathered in a central location in the mountain, to be divided there. So as not to be in violation of the contract, the mediator (devil) and the great wyrm told the paraty where it was. They plane shifted and wind walkd (along with a planar ally celestial lawyer) to the mountain.

The spoils are being divided now, And since it was the mediator's contractual obligation to gather and identify the items, they party doesn't even have to fight anyone in the mountain!

That's several months of planning down the tubes.

 

[EricNoah]

Sheesh, that's what happens when players are allowed to do what they want. If they would just jump on the railroad it would make the DM's life a LOT easier.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

And all that was supposed to be fun?

 

[Wolfspider]

Hi. Remember me? I'm the guy who thinks that dragons aren't portrayed as being as smart or strong as they should be in most games.

[pet peeve]

Ahhh, another dragon de-fanged, de-clawed, and muzzled so that is can be ridden like a pony by all the good children of the kingdom. How pathetic!

This is what really gets me:

In chasing down his sword and shield, the paladin of the party notices the dragon, who tries to use a suggestion on him, but is prevented by protectiob from evil.

So....how old is this dragon? Has it never heard of paladins before, or their protection from evil ability? Oh, you may respond that there was no reason for the dragon to think this was a paladin, but I would counter by saying that the dragon would know. No powerful dragon enters a conflict without knowing who is enemies are.

Hmmm, the dragon would think. This plate-mail clad warrior with a sword and shield is wearing a holy symbol. There is a fervent look in his eye, almost fanatical. I've seen that look before.

Sniff. There is the smell of incense on him, clinging to him like a second skin. A devout fellow, he must be. The smell of dust, too, from old monestaries and churches, no doubt. And a fainter smell, too, of blood--the blood of his enemies, righteously slain.

Yes, a paladin, foe of all that is evil and dark in this world. And what am I but the most dark and most evil being to stalk this land? Bwahahahaha!

But the gods favor him. It will not be easy to overcome him.

So I'll just cast a completely ineffectual spell on him that I know without a doubt will not work.





See what I mean?



[/pet peeve]

Carry on. I guess if it's fun, it's fun. By the way, how much does the King in your world charge for dragon-rides?

 

[James McMurray]

Doc: Of course it was fun. Why wouldn't it be?

Wolfspider: In 3E, paladins don't have a built-in protection from evil, so no, there was no reason fort he dragon to suspect it. It was the product of the cleric's paranoia, using persistent spell to keep the party from being ambushed by another enemy with the demand spell. I suppose you could always rationalize another hard-to-swallow method for the dragon to know what spells the party has up at all times, but I prefer not to stretch the bounds of believability just so I can use a little DM knowledge.

As for the dragon being played less smart than he should have been, he did everything right. A couple of criticals and a failed save vs. a well-above average spell did him in. also, I may have failed to mention, but the dragon is only a juvenile. It is his several levels of Wizard that made him a real threat.

I'll assume you're being facetious about the dragon rides.

 

[Wolfspider]

Fudge the dice rolls! Fudge them! Dragons must win!

Only juvenile, eh? The mighty nemesis that was able to summon elementals out its scaly butt was just juvenile? Interesting. Well, I guess that might explain its rash actions and why it would even stick around to fight a combat it hadn't anticipated...but I have to wonder how this dragon even made it out of the nest alive, much less ever got its wings dry enough to fly. Even a human wizard of medium ability would be more careful. Why did the dragon even accompany its minions into the fray?

I'll conveniently ignore the comment about protection from evil not being a 3E paladin ability and just move on, whistling innocently.

On a more serious note...if this unfortunate death ruined the suspense of your campaign and proved to be anticlimactic, then by all means fudge it! Rule that the dragon had a clone back at its lair, and that it is in true fighting shape when the characters come knocking to get their loot.

Like the Doc said, "And all that was supposed to be fun?"

Don't be afraid to fudge in the name of fun! (Your fun is included here.)

(That almost sounds perverse....)

 

[Carnifex]

To be honest, I must disagree with the people saying 'fudge it', because the DM appears to be quite happy with what has happened.

The fact that you, as DM, are accepting what has happened as a legitimate turn of events and haven't tried hell for leather to try and fudge it, makes me respect you more. That kind of quality in a DM is good to see, I think. It also lets the PC's know you aren't just railroading them around all the time - another good thing.

 

[James McMurray]

You may not have seen enough of my posts to realize it, but I don't fudge the dice rolls. Ever. One of the most important aspects (IMO) in a gaming group is trust. The DM must trust the players not to cheat, and in turn, the players must trust the DM not to cheat. I'd much rather have a long-term foe die early than have to resort to violating the trust of my players.

Here's his background, since you expressed an interest:

At the point where that leaves off, he meets the party, and joins them to adventure. After they find their way into an ancient sorceror's vault, he waylays them with subdual substitution spells, and teleports away with the loot. He then follow them via scrying, and even manages to steal loot from them one other time (after having killed another dragon).

The party starts to hunt him down, and he has foun himself a need for a well-defensible lair. He returns to his mother's home, Dragon Mountain. Prooving his worth to her, and also purchasing the right to mate from her, he and his mother attempt to sire a child with their obviously powerful genetic heritage. At least, that's what Arthax wanted her to think. While trapped in the breeding (kinda like cats or dogs) Arthax begins to assault her, with surprise and "position" on his side, he quickly kills her and takes dragon mountain as his new home.

Meanwhile, the party has traveled a bit, and gathered quite a bit of loot. He figures he'll get them to bring it to him, and begins planting clues to the whereabouts of te mountain, as well as letting the group know that's where he'll be.

The reason he stayed to fight was that one, he's never lost a fight in his life, and never expected too. Two, he had only taken moderate damage prior to the round of attacks that killed him, and three, he expected to be able to circle around after dealing out some damage, and grab the cleric's dragonbane word that had been dropped by a slain filcher.

Sure, I didn't get to run the massive dungeon crawl I had hoped for, but I still had a lot of fun, as id the players. Besides, now we'll be finishing up their jury duty (from the old Ravager of Time adventure if anyone's curious. After that, they'll enter this month's Dungeon Magazine's Challenge of champion for the right to find out what's happening in a certain swamp (aka the start of Return to the Tomb of Horrors.)

I think our fun is far from over just because one enemy has died.

 

[Wolfspider]

I don't believe in railroading. Heaven knows that my players have taken me to parts of my campaign world I never knew existed.

But as a good DM (and my players over the years have claimed that I'm such, even if to just save their own hides), I have to look at the fun factor in general. I want to have fun to, darn it! If I've created an adventure that I think the players would really enjoy and they're inches away from missing out on it, I'll fudge a bit to get them in the right direction. However, if they've decided to completely go another direction, I'll just save the adventure for later.

If it would be fun for the charactes, after months of work, to kill the main bad guy on a lark, then I'll let it happen. More often than not my players would think this was a great disappointment. They want an epic final confrontation. They don't want a pushover.

So it takes a careful hand to keep everything in balance. Often I fail, but most of the time I succeed--even if I do break the cardinal rule against fudging.

 

[Zarrock God of Evil]

To be honest, I must disagree with the people saying 'fudge it', because the DM appears to be quite happy with what has happened.

The fact that you, as DM, are accepting what has happened as a legitimate turn of events and haven't tried hell for leather to try and fudge it, makes me respect you more. That kind of quality in a DM is good to see, I think. It also lets the PC's know you aren't just railroading them around all the time - another good thing.

A good idea that is always useful is the Shadow Nemesis. So the dragon is just juvenile - so throw in its sire or some insane, planar-based cult that used to work with the dragon and now want to claim its riches...

-Zarrock