Finally Played the DRAGON Card!

[eXodus]

tonight after running the same game since november of last year i have played the dragon card.

yep. tonight the party took on their very first dragon. and let me tell you it was a blast.

i really tried to make it a difficult and exciting encounter. i wanted the dragon to appear as menacing and vicious as they should be. the dragon of choice was a juvenile blue.

the party was made up of four 7th level characters, so by the the book, a cr 7 dragon should be a good challenge for the party but not impossible.

i followed all the rules of dragonkind, kept to the air, snatched, clawed and dropped a halfling pc, used breath weapon whenever possible and just generally did not let up or pull punches at all.

when all was said and done there was one dead pc and one dead dragon.

i was very happy with it all. a good combat and experience for everyone.

now is my problem. how does a party realistically find a dragon's lair? he came at them in the mountains. there are no tracks to follow or anything like that. how could they find his home?

love to hear some suggestions.

 

[tburdett]

Well, find the path immediately came to mind, but the players aren't high enough level to cast it yet.

Any chance that they could find a scroll or item that would let them use that spell once? Just an idea.

 

[Le Freeke]

Search his pockets. He probably has a "If found, please return me to mommy at: 1234 Rock Hill Lane, Grumbleshire Wood, Silver Marches" card on him somewhere.

LF

 

[Le Freeke]

If the dragon is the kind that sleeps atop his treasure horde, have the PCs find gold coins and gems wedged between his scales and hide. The coins are minted from many different regions, but for every 10 they pick off the corpse they find 6 from one area in particular...and if you need to get more specific, give these coins an odd greenish tint from the presence of copper, a hallmark of one village in particular known for copper-contaminated gold coins because their region has such insane quantities of copper ore. Or something.

LF

 

[eXodus]

If the dragon is the kind that sleeps atop his treasure horde, have the PCs find gold coins and gems wedged between his scales and hide. The coins are minted from many different regions, but for every 10 they pick off the corpse they find 6 from one area in particular...and if you need to get more specific, give these coins an odd greenish tint from the presence of copper, a hallmark of one village in particular known for copper-contaminated gold coins because their region has such insane quantities of copper ore. Or something.

LF

sadly the battle took place in a desert/mountain region and there are simply no villages or cities in the area for many days travel.

oh well. maybe the party will not actually get the treasure that the dragon had. oh, the sadness.

 

[Le Freeke]

oh well. maybe the party will not actually get the treasure that the dragon had. oh, the sadness.

well, you could always use the circling buzzards trick. The dragon had to eat, right? And dragons eat a LOT. So, his lair is probably littered with detritus and the remains of fresh kills. As soon as the leftovers begin putrifying, which would be immediately in that environment, the buzzards swarm in. Those on the ground crowd out the others, who resort to circling overhead and waiting their turn. Or, hyenas show up and scare them up. whatever the case is, the PCs might notice the buzzards on their way back to civilization. IF they investigate, they find the lair....and they find a pack of orcs/ogres/bandits who are also intent on looting the dragon gold. The PCs have to fight for it, but not as hard as they did when they took on the dragon. This will lesson the "deus ex machina" effect of leading them by their nose to the gold pile.

LF