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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 7379903" data-attributes="member: 6669384">Oddly, this question just came up again in my game.The first time the PCs were trying to access a dream-world version of the Palace of the High King.  This was guarded by "Flying Monkeys" (re-skinned Harpy Archers, straight from the book), one per PC, and a CR 14 Dragon.  Party level is 11 through 13.This was actually designed to be a barrier that couldn't be bypassed by most normal means.  Absolutely not winnable by straight combat.That was what inspired the question originally.Then this past game session, after the party had managed to escape in the right direction (i.e. they got into the palace) they faced the Big Bad himself who cast Blasphemy and sent almost all of them back to the waking world.  The Paladin made his Will Save (a Save he really wanted to fail, oddly enough), so he remained.  Paralyzed for 9 minutes, weakened (only 2 points of Strength loss on 2 D6) and Dazed.  Last seen he was turned into a statue, posed heroically with his flaming sword held aloft, and placed as a floor lamp.  Not dead, and definitely recoverable, but out for the moment.After some recovery, including the Scry that showed them the Paladin's fate, and a 24 hour wait period (required after being sent home via Blasphemy), they decided to try again.They'd been assaulting the wrong castle for their goal, which was to rescue another PC who was being held in the dream world, and they'd realized it.  Trying to find a way physically back to the Dream Realm, they discovered a portal/rift right in town.  I had rolled direction, distance, and how long it would be open, and the dice said it was in town.When we roll a "Direction dice" we use a D6.  Whichever way the 1 pip faces is the direction.  I rolled a 1, so it's in town, someplace up.  The only real high point was the tallest tower in the Palace.  They have access to the waking-world version, so they pursued that avenue.  It was pointed out that they'd have to find their way out of that version of the palace, with the exits guarded by the same opponents who had just thrashed them within an inch of their lives.  They were okay with that.In the dream realm the dragon had a "nest" wrapped around the top of that same tower, and they'd seen him there.  I don't know why they weren't expecting him to be in that same place.They moved very quietly until they had gone down one floor and found it full of treasure:  The Dragon's hoard.  Two characters, not the light footed types, tried walking across the heaps of gold without disturbing it, to reach the exit door.  They saw that the Dragon had the tip of his tail coming in a window and tucked into the heap, and they tried this anyway.  He woke up and all hell broke loose.  (Not exactly a surprise there.)Long story short, one PC ended up diving into the pile ala Scrooge McDuck, trying to scoop as much loot into his Bag of Holding as he could before fleeing.  I allowed for a D1000 gold per round.  While most everyone else decided to exit through the portal, the remaining heavy fighter in the party stopped to fight the Dragon, more or less one on one.Dragon used Snatch to grab him, then flew up for two rounds and spit him out, with a Dragon's Breath chaser, after which he fell 250 feet to the ground, all while getting perforated with arrows from the Flying Monkeys.  (Average 12 points per hit, with seven of them that miss him only on a "1".  Doesn't take a lot of that to ruin your whole day.)Needless to say, he splatted.  This time I'm calling it a real defeat.  They got barely more money than it will take to pay for a Res' for the fighter (one of them got splattered with his blood when he hit the tower on the way down), and he'll come back with no gear at all.  That stayed with his body, and is only recoverable from that dragon's hoard. As for Exp from the first encounter?  Apparently they learned nothing from it, so I'm suddenly questioning the 1/2 Exp award they got for it.Oh, and they're no closer to their goal than they were before.  They need the Wiz to de-petrify the Paladin, and they'll need full strength if they're to have any chance against that Dragon, and I don't know why she swallowed the fly.  Perhaps she'll die... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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