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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bento" data-source="post: 4066872" data-attributes="member: 36597">Dragon Encounter PostgameLast night I ran the blue dragon adventure modified with opportunities for the players to get out of meeting the dragon. I changed the villain of the adventure to be the sand giant, and the story be about his betrayal of their trust.  Their focus was to defeat him and not stick around.  But as I said before, things rarely go as planned.So the night started out with the sand giant's (SG) tale of woe - he was a failed caravan guard who lost his brother to the dragon.  He's vowed revenge and has a trap layed out to kill the dragon.  The players wanted to join in, but the SG tells them he'll only take them on as companions if they can pin him in a fair fight.  So they fight the SG unarmed, and they fail (miserably) to do any meaningful damage on him.  So the SG tells them they are far too puny to fight a dragon, but he'll be glad to guide the party through the badlands, showing them where to hide while the dragon is making his rounds.  As one of my players puts it - there's no way they could win a fight like that without fighting dirty. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Led by a scout the SG employs, the party reaches the mid-point at the ruins, and the spot the SG uses to trap other caravans.  Unseen by the players, the SG has flown a a signal banner from a nearby mesa, and then joins the party.  Half the group makes the DC 15 Notice check and sees the banner, but doesn't get too concerned about it (they are too busy debating its meaning).  With the animals and the guards hidden in the entrance of a nearby cave, the two magic users (cleric & sorcerer) decide to explore the ruins for tracks while two the two rangers continue their debate about the banner.  The SG leads the two magic users to the middle of the ruins where he and his scout have buried heavy chains under the sand.  Quickly they throw the chains around them and the players are surprised by the deception!Six rounds of combat later, the SG and minion go down.  There's still time (about 10 minutes) before the dragon flies overhead for the players to hide.  They are smart enough to take the banner down, but they decide to stand around the middle of the ruins debating the deeper meaning of what to do next and taking care of other busienss.  Finally they see the dragon flying overhead and the dragon gets over 40 on his Notice check that there's activity around the ruins.  At this point they decide they should hide.So the dragon sees the giant's body and the remains of the battle and decides to investigate.  Players stay hidden further in the cave, making animal handling checks to quiet down their camels and horses, and so forth.  At night the sorcerer's familiar (a bat) flies around and doesn't see a dragon.  The next morning the dragon returns to the ruins and uses his ventiliquoism ability to make himself like one of the minions.  The players aren't fooled, but one of them decides to risk it all and stick his head down the long and narrow cave entrance.  He's sees the dragon's shadow and the dragon starts talking more as he sniffs out the scent of the camels.  The player begins to talk with the dragon, "pretending" he's the SG.  This goes on for the rest of the game (about a half hour) as the dragon demands camels to eat, the party not wanting to do anything until they have another day of rest.  I also unveiled the mini I had been working on, which is huge in size.My players are now trapped inside a cave with a dragon outside.  I also gave them a second passage out that isn't wide enough for the camels to go through, but the people could.  We're waiting until next game to figure out what happens next.Most of my players still want to fight this dragon, but want to trap it inside the narrow tunnel.  At the same time they don't want to sacfice any of their camels, that is unless it is heavily drugged with something that can slow down the dragon.  In addition this this plan, I'm thinking about applying more pressure on the party to do something soon as the guards could start panicking or they could start running very short on water for everyone.Because they really want to mess with the dragon, I'm going to give them what they want.  I think my players decided I'm too soft hearted to TPK them, or even have any of them die (it's come close a couple of times but never past a -2 or -3).  Should I pull my punches?  Have the dragon not show up any more?  Or give them what I think they really want?</blockquote>

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