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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadow Adanza" data-source="post: 7052529" data-attributes="member: 6874636">I DM for a party of 5 players using the Starter Set's 5 pre-made characters. The party was at level 3 and our last session they had just arrived at the ruins of Thundertree and met Reidoth (who I used the voice of Deckard Cain from Diablo for.) In exchange for the location to Cragmaw Castle, Reidoth asked them to drive off Venomfang from the ruined city. So tonight's session, the party took to the outskirts of town and cleared out the other buildings. They antagonized the cultists by using their Halfling Rouge, Alton, as kind of a lure and baited them out into a trap after the Halfling shouted some insults and such. This ended with the Strength-Fighter, Bomark, bashing in the leader's skull to a pulp with a shield and causing the rest to flee. After then clearing the zombies and twig blights in the town, the party caught their first glimpse of Venomfang as he flew over head carrying a calf to his tower. Knowing that he'd be resting for the night, they returned to Reidoth's and settled down for a long rest themselves. On the next in-game day, they went up the curving path towards the tower and Alton scouted ahead. Detected by Venomfang on his approach, Alton listened to Venomfang call out but didn't respond to him and fell back to where the rest of the party waited down the path. Talking it over, they decided to just go for a fight straight out with this dragon. So with Alton moving back towards the door where Venomfang was murmuring from inside his tower over what remained of his slaughtered calf, the Wizard, Zoltan, stealthed up behind the some-what crumbling tower and looked for a spot that was liable to cause the tower to fall. With a 18 Stealth check and natural 20 investigation check, he found a spot perfect for what the party had planned and wasn't detected himself by Venomfang who continued to call out to the halfing. The dex-fighter: Penelope, Bomark, the cleric: Set, and Alton all stepped back and Zoltan cast Thunderwave right up against the wall. The tower wall next to him crumbled inward onto VF and, hitting the bottom of the other half of the tower, caused that side to crumble down on top of VF as well. I decided to give it 10d6 damage for the falling tower as I'd made the tower quite tall, making it 38 damage right off the bat.Now, with my boss characters I like to use a dynamic boss health, with the base hp and max hp possible both available based on how the party's doing. So already, VF was getting near half with just the falling tower. So VF, angry, rolls a natural 20 to burst out of the rubble that now coated him with a big "fwoosh" of his wings and rearing his head out. I gave the party a surprise round when he burst from the rubble, apart from Zoltan, as they'd all readied their ranged attacks for the first sign and then we got into combat proper. As soon as his turn came up, VF let loose his poison breath and knocked Zoltan out and left Alton and Bomark in dire straits as they were the 3 who'd been the only ones really clustered. Bomark, downing a health potion, rushed into battle with VF and fought him bravely before eventually falling unconscious from a claw attack. With Bomark and Zoltan down when he hit half health (of his max hp, I'd long since decided on the full health fight) (he had been fighting Bomark when Set dragged Zoltan out of view and healed him and Zoltan had yet to show himself while Set had moved up again to the top of the hill), Venomfang was confident in his chances and taunted the player party's futility over Bomark's body before, instead of flying away, he moved in for the complete annihilation of the remaining band and moved for Set, immediately gashing him with a claw and bite attack. Set meanwhile, healed Bomark while Zoltan showed himself once more with a 2nd-level Magic Missile. Things quickly went bad for VF when he crossed the 136 hp base threshold as he continued to take Penelope and Alton arrows while fighting Set. Landing a bite attack on Set, VF snarled as he latched onto his shoulder and held it there, where in his pain Set reached up and cast Inflict Wounds to a devastating effect, pushing VF up to 179 damage taken. Bomark then shoved his longsword into VF's back flank to the tune of a natural 20, pushing VF dt up to 193 of his max 208. It was here that Alton threw his bow on the ground and raced up to VF to attempt a leaping stab attack with his shortsword (I never tell my players the enemy's health, but I describe how the enemy is looking and at this point VF was looking really bad, so hearing that description of the dragon growing desperate he moved). Rolling a 19 acrobatics check and a verified nat 20, Alton did in one attack the last 15 damage exactly. As a big fan of Critical Role, I ask my players "How do you want to do this?" when they kill a major enemy and then I will either add to it or let it be how it is, or describe it for them. So he wanted to run, grab onto VF and swing across the back of his neck and use his sword to decapitate the dragon. So, putting his wants into words, I described how, after VF bit into Set and got hit with Inflict Wounds, he reared his head back in pain before Bomark's stab caused him to toss his head in agony. Seeing the dragon's writhing, Alton rushed up and leaped to grab onto Venomfang's crest and launch himself over the neck before grabbing onto VF's lower jaw on the other side and using that hold to slam his sword into the dragon's neck and dig it into it where it sank until it hit bone, a half decapitation. At the pain, VF lurched his head back, taking Alton with him and the jerk of his head severed what meat and bone held the now heavy head on and the head snapped off and fell to the ground (with Alton taking 5 points of bludgeoning damage and falling unconscious from the head landing on him). Headless, the young green dragon's wings and claws fluttered and protested for a moment before they fell lifeless and with a deep sigh of relief and many smiles around the table, the party applauded their conquering of this worthy foe.</blockquote>

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