lmop ... attack the dragon? strategy help plz :D

[Selkirk]

so we are between a rock and a hard place in our lmop campaign. we are at thundertree and our options at this point are basically to attack the dragon :smalleek: or leave town. problem is the druid won't tell us where the mines of phandelver are until we kill the dragon or drive him off. and we are in our typical information drought mode-we don't really know why the dragon is in town so working out strategies to drive him off is difficult. we are in a relatively safe position at the moment-we can take long rest and i can set my spells (3 2nd and 4 1st level spells). the dragon is in the tower.

anyways, looking for some advice on how to kill this guy with a party of three 4th level chars (a cleric/fighter/and a rogue). strategy we have right now (or one of them) is too kill our draft horse and poison him and have the dragon eat him-in the hopes that he will get sick or at the very least go to sleep in the tower. once he's in the tower sneak up on him cast blindness on the dragon and go at it. we would have to be incredibly lucky admittedly...but thinking goes if fighter could hit and rogue could strike him for a couple rounds and i got lucky with guiding bolt 2nd level we could lower him to enough hp's to cast sleep spell on him (rogue is eldritch). our understanding is that sleep works on a hp basis so if we wound him pretty bad sleep could affect him if he has 20-25 hp left.

the druid will not go with us to the tower (he is too old) but he will cast long strider and invisibility on at least one party member (possibly more). fighter's ac is presently 19 (with splint mail and shield) and i could buff her for +2 more which would leave fighter at 21 ac. oh and fighter is pretty brawny (40hp).

so anyways, long post but should we do it? or just leave town :D. if so any strategies to think about here (no spoilers plz...we don't know dragon's hp-just that he is powerful). also, looking for spell advice-which load should i set up for dragon killing? my second level spell options against a big creature aren't that good so i've been looking at putting 1st level damage spells in my 2nd level slots.

[ghost_warlock]

Personally, I'd just go and ask the dragon why he's there. Unless your entire party dump-statted Charisma and nobody bothered to choose Persuasion or Deception proficiency, that's probably the best course of action.

Maybe the dragon will take pity on a bold bunch of idiots if you grovel and flatter him enough. Dragons usually love being flattered.

[Selkirk]

this is definitely a good option..at least to find out why he's there and what he wants. we were floating this as well-posing as sycophantic worshippers just to find out what he wants. the problem is this could go sideways..and he also is very aware (regardless of outcome of discussion) that we are in town. as it stands now the dragon doesn't know we are there.

also, if we parlay with him and his demand to leave town is to kill the druid or do something evil we won't do that...my char is a cg cleric :smalleek:.

[MaxWilson]

this is definitely a good option..at least to find out why he's there and what he wants. we were floating this as well-posing as sycophantic worshippers just to find out what he wants. the problem is this could sideways..and he also is very aware (regardless of outcome of discussion) that we are in town. as it stands now the dragon doesn't know we are there.

also, if we parlay with him and his demand to leave town is to kill the druid or do something evil we won't do that...my char is a cg cleric :smalleek:.

If you pose as sycophantic worshippers, how does that make him aware that you're in town? He already knows there's people in town, this just lets him know that some of the people are interested in him. He still doesn't know anything about them except what he gleans from the conversation. Just leave your armor and weapons at home and pretend to be peasants.

If he demands that you kill the druid, maybe you can talk to the druid and get him to fake his death so the dragon will leave.

[Selkirk]

so the only people in town at present are the druid (we are at his safehouse) and a group of cultists in a larger building complex. we don't know anything about the cultists...but we could infiltrate/brawl with the cultists and steal some robes (if they are worshipping the dragon-which we think they might be). and then pose as cultists...good idea with having druid fake his death (but what if the dragon wants to eat the druid?).

only problem with this is we really don't want the dragon to wake up and find us fighting the cultists or have one of the cultists get away and tell the dragon we are slaughtering them :D. at present the cultists don't know we are in town either.

[Yoroichi]

I think you need more information ingeneral.

If i inderstood correctly you need to head to some mines?

Infiltrate the cultists and locate the mines that way or intimidate the druid into giving you the information you need

You first need to learn why the dragon is in town and then find out how this is connected to the druid

[Kryx]

I would not recommend speaking with the dragon. He's designed to be tricksy and your characters would likely know that dragons cannot be trusted.

On a meta game level there are several threads about how to play the dragon properly and all of them do not help any PCs who talk to it.

[Marcelinari]

Dragon's at the top of a tower, yes? Is it just perched on top, or inside? Can it quickly take flight?

If it's living in the tower, knock it down. Compromise the structural integrity, then hide really, really well. The falling tower might shake up the dragon something nasty, and then he'll need a new home. I recommend hiding underground for a minimum duration of a week after this occurs.

[Longcat]

The dragon is immune to poison.

[Selkirk]

good thoughts here...yeah we have been piecemealed information the entire campaign. our dm is very very tight lipped (to the point of absurdity at times :D). every npc has to be so utterly enigmatic and secretive that now it's to the point where we think a baker is part of the red wizards :D.

bullying the druid isn't going to work (just getting him to talk was a tall task). and the dragon does reside in the tower. either there is a hole in in one side or the top has collapsed and he is there.

and we aren't under tight time constraints so collapsing the tower might work (i wish for once we had a dwarf with stonemason knowledge). and getting in with the cultists is a good idea..just to see what they know (if anything). might be able to trick the cultists into helping us or at least acting as an unwitting decoy. and i agree about talking to the dragon...he's as likely to offer a 'deal' we can't honor as to just start chomping on us ^^;. and i didn't know he was immune to poison which puts our attack strategy on backburner (altho he still might be asleep after eating the horse).

from what i've read here i think best courses of action are 1)infiltrate the cultists /brawl with them (and as noted they may something of the mines) then 2)work up a plan to collapse tower/involve the cultists somehow in fight with dragon. if neither works perhaps work up assault plan based on first post...and keep fingers crossed :D.

[Kyutaru]

Your party might be a little ambitious to be thinking about murdering a dragon at your level. Driving it off seems the better route. You need to figure out why the dragon is there in the first place and discourage him from being there. If you need to get into the tower for any reason, try a distraction. Gnomish rogues are not just annoying, they look tasty too. Dragons tend to love flying so hiding from one is actually pretty easy if there's a lot of stuff near the ground. Just look the Desolation of Smaug and how well Bilbo did without his ring.