Running a dragon encounter

[NewJeffCT]

The players will be shipbound and are all level 10. The party is:

Elf Fighter 2/Paladin of Freedom 8
Human Rogue 10
Human Cleric 10
Dwarf Fighter 10
Halfling Psion 10

They also have an Elf Ranger 3/Scout 3 with them as well as a crew of 16, most of whom are Level 1 experts, though the Captain is a level 8 expert.

I think the black dragon may be size Huge, which would make it a Mature Adult, CR 14.

The party has one fly potion, and I know the psion can cast Levitate, and has a pretty good arsenal of attack spells.

My fear is making the encounter at sea would be too much an advantage for the dragon - since at least one of the heavy hitters would need the dragon to land on the ship in order to have everybody attack it.

The cleric is an archer, so is pretty good with ranged attacks. But, the elf paladin & dwarf fighter are melee-oriented, as is the rogue.

Maybe a couple more "fly" potions are needed, or a wizard NPC can tag along?

I would assume most of the crew would duck down below, cowering in fear.

would the dragon just continue to strafe the ship with its acid breath?

 

[Drowbane]

Dragon vs Ship is almost an assured TPK. Assuming the PCs can't just teleport out... and if they could... why would they be traveling by ship?

Whats the dragon's motivation? Food? Destruction? Loot? Other?

Food~ fly-by snatch, takes a couple of crew and leaves (it'll be back)

Destruction~ Acid Breath the hull, TPK (unless party can teleport), dragon can feast and loot and leave the rest for the sharks.

Loot~ The PCs likely have the best items for the dragon's horde... and if it has any idea that the party can escape, "destruction" isn't the best idea. If it doesn't think the party can escape, annihilating the ship is its best course of action (unless, of course, it wants the ship as part of its horde).

Just some ideas...

Personally, I'd run it. You'd be amazed (or not) by how resourceful players can be. And if it TPKs, well they have a story for thier grandkids

 

[NewJeffCT]

Dragon vs Ship is almost an assured TPK. Assuming the PCs can't just teleport out... and if they could... why would they be traveling by ship?

Whats the dragon's motivation? Food? Destruction? Loot? Other?

Food~ fly-by snatch, takes a couple of crew and leaves (it'll be back)

Destruction~ Acid Breath the hull, TPK (unless party can teleport), dragon can feast and loot and leave the rest for the sharks.

Loot~ The PCs likely have the best items for the dragon's horde... and if it has any idea that the party can escape, "destruction" isn't the best idea. If it doesn't think the party can escape, annihilating the ship is its best course of action (unless, of course, it wants the ship as part of its horde).

Just some ideas...

Personally, I'd run it. You'd be amazed (or not) by how resourceful players can be. And if it TPKs, well they have a story for thier grandkids

The party can teleport, but they're journeying to a place they've never been before... plus, they're all good-aligned and likely would not leave the 16 sailors behind, so that would necessitate several castings of teleport.

 

[Runestar]

Well, considering that a black dragon can swim with relative ease, I see little reason why it can't just sink the ship, then dive underwater to retrieve any treasure. Unless it fears that the seawater might ruin them?

Assuming your PCs are not optimized for underwater combat, they will probably be even bigger sitting ducks.

Unless there is a credible reason why the dragon would opt to land on the ship to fight, I think it is pretty much a TPK.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Agreed.

This is the FRPG equivalent to the whale attack on and sinking of the Essex (the RW inspiration for Moby Dick).

A creature used to moving in 3 dimensions- IOW, swimmers & fliers- are used to fighting in 3 dimensions. There is zero reason why even a reasonably intelligent (not genius level) black dragon would attack a ship from above...at least, not as an opening gambit. It could simply dive underneath and start tearing up the planks.

If attacking the ship from below didn't work, then and only then would the beast take to the air.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Agreed.

This is the FRPG equivalent to the whale attack on and sinking of the Essex (the RW inspiration for Moby Dick).

A creature used to moving in 3 dimensions- IOW, swimmers & fliers- are used to fighting in 3 dimensions. There is zero reason why even a reasonably intelligent (not genius level) black dragon would attack a ship from above...at least, not as an opening gambit. It could simply dive underneath and start tearing up the planks.

If attacking the ship from below didn't work, then and only then would the beast take to the air.

True - there is no reason for the dragon to attack from above if its at sea... and, if its on land, why even engage in melee, just fly above and strafe the party with its breath weapon, then fly up and drop boulders on them from out of spell range...

I'm just trying to think of a way to design a fair encounter with a dragon at sea. If there is not one, then I won't do it.

 

[Stormborn]

Could you move the encounter to a small island? Perhaps the ship needs make repairs after a storm and puts into a relatively tiny but wooded volcanic isle to gather supplies. There the black dragon, possibly a strange recluse who has tried to move far away from all sentient creatures, falls upon the party as they are protecting the crew sent to cut timber.

Another possibility is that someone notices smoke coming from said small island, a place the captain assures them has no native population. As they get closer they notice a ship wreck, but no one on the beach. The smoke is coming from inland. The PCs go to investigate (you said they were good, just emphasize the possibility of someone being injured or in trouble and they shoudl go), and discover a group of survivors that have been using a small cave as shelter from the dragon that forced their ship aground.

Or you could go all King Kong on the party. Due to an oncoming storm the ship is forced to seek shelter in the lee of an uncharted island. Strange sounds and the disapperance of a crew man or two force the PCs to go ashore. There they discover a tribe of half-dragon semi-aquatic elves that worship the black dragon as god/father. He has gone there after being defeated by a rival and is breeding followers to take his ultimate revenge. The draconic elves see the party as violators of sacred ground. The black dragon only decends upon the PCs after they have managed to get the best of some of the elves. The elves, however, always flee the presence of the dragon unless he specifically commands them not to do so, and is eager to deal with the PCs himself just for the sport of it.

Either way you can still have your black dragon attack, alter the terrain a bit so that it does not overwhelmingly favor the dragon, and possibly throw in a few other encounters and opportunities for role play along the way.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Could you move the encounter to a small island? Perhaps the ship needs make repairs after a storm and puts into a relatively tiny but wooded volcanic isle to gather supplies.

Thanks - good idea. I like how you think.

And they thought it was a 3 hour tour! ;=)

j/k on that, but the party has had two voyages by ship so far that have been relatively benign in terms of encounters due to the fact that they sailed through heavily patrolled waters. But, now they're going through some dangerous waters and an aquatic "no man's land" area that is too big to be heavily patrolled.

 

[Asha'man]

This might not be applicable to your game, but if it is, here is what I think:
You are going about this backwards, taking a big, powerful dragon in advantageous circumstances and asking for help to make it fair.
But it shouldn't be fair. It certainly shouldn't be fair at the expense of good (or even realistic) tactics on the dragon's part. Run the encounter at sea, make the dragon use its advantages (come at the ship from below and tear up the hull, dive down to escape retaliation, or if somehow attacked, take to the air and strafe them to pieces with flyby breaths. By all means have Mage Armor precast.) but use a smaller dragon. Actually, a mature adult would probably massacre a level 10 party even fighting in a cave. I would suggest using a young adult instead. It's Large, nominally CR 9, but dragons have something like an invisible +3 over their listed CRs, so it should be appropriate. To pad out the reward for what will likely be a grueling and tricky fight, increase the EL by +1 for fighting on a ship/in water, and award exp for any NPCs the PCs manage to save (Even the scout is likely to be quite useless in this encounter, the NPCs will require protection)

Good feats include: Multiattack (the dragon won't be full-attacking most likely, but basically all dragons have this feat. If you're feeling cruel, replace it with one of the evil feats I list below), Power attack, Flyby attack (A must-have), Wingover (For tight turns in the air), Recover Breath, Shape Breath (to turn the breath into a cone, from Draconomicon) and any one of Maximize Breath, Quicken Breath and Awaken Spell Resistance (from Draconomicon). I'd not use more than one of these last feats or the dragon is likely to be too dangerous.

 

[Stormborn]

I would suggest using a young adult instead. It's Large, nominally CR 9, but dragons have something like an invisible +3 over their listed CRs, so it should be appropriate.

While I agree that a younger dragon could be more of a challange in a ship encounter, I don't know about the "invisible +3" always being applicable, especially if the PCs are willing to pull out the best of their resources to stop it. And any time PCs face a dragon thats what they are most likely to do. Let's just say that what was meant to be a dangerous encounter (due to the circumstances) with a large red dragon, just young enough to have no SR, netted the party of 10th level PCs a rather ill tempered iguana in an encounter I ran recently. All because I had forgotten about that scroll of baleful polymorph one of the PCs had made. Access to 5th level spells means that a dragon with no SR, or low SR even, isn't going to have much of a chance.