An awesome story I had to share

[digiman619]

My story is one part warning to DMs, three parts an exercise of how a run of good/bad rolls can skew a game and six parts awesome roleplaying story.

We were playing the Horde of the Dragon Queen and were still dealing with the opening siege. I was playing a CG Mountain Dwarf Wild Magic Sorcerer (CG because my last character was LN and I wanted to play him differently, Mountain Dwarf because they get medium armor proficiency, Sorcerer for arcane versatility and Wild Magic to justify being a CG Dwarf). In an earlier encounter, we found a family making a last stand and kicked so much ass we ended up having her join the party.
The 'DM cautionary tale' part of my story came about when I rolled a 20 on an arcana check to ID a necklace. Because he liked that I chose wild magic instead of a draconic origin, he had the necklace trigger my wild surge EVERY time.

One last part of set up for the story is the DM had what he called "DM's Long Rest": At the beginning of each session, we heal and regain lost spells (assuming the dungeon isn't designed to be a marathon/use it to regain health and spells before a boss)

So we were meeting up with the mayor when the dragon attacked while we were in the middle of the courtyard. I (who had never played an arcane character before) yelled " I CAST MAGIC MISSILE AT THE DRAGON!" The DM had us roll inititive. I rolled 21. The dragon rolled a 5.

This was a omen of what was to come.

I casted Magic Missile and my Wild Surge dealt extra lightning damage. Unfortunately, being an adult blue dragon, he was immune to it. The rest of the party also attacked and the dragon attacked the archers at the walls. I knew that I couldn't get to cover, so I casted magic missile again and I also levitated myself. When i came to my turn, out of 1st level spells, I cast Fire Bolt. My Wild Surge also had me cast Magic Missile again as a 5th level spell.

I now had the dragon's full attention.

The dragon decided that I wasn't worthy of a breath attack, so he wing buffeted me. If I didn't make my Dex save, I'd be thrown past the wall and crash into the ground far out of the way and THEN start dying.

I roll a natural 20 to save.

The DM determines that I get blown to the parapet. Since I go on the top of the order, I cast Fire Bolt again. My Wild surge summons a unicorn... underneath me. The unicorn rolls for initiative and gets a 18, so he goes before the dragon.

The unicorn casts entangle. The dragon botches his save, lands prone.

The dragon CONTINUES to fail its strength save for THREE rounds.

I have the unicorn jump down and attack it with my axe. slashing the f--k out of it until it finally makes its strength check. The unicorn teleports me out of the way as he breaks free, but our barbarian gets an attack of opportunity and crits him for 20 damage, disemboweling him!

We had previously agreed that we'd level up after each chapter, we'd level up, but I did the math and we'd normally would have gotten enough XP to make us 7th level!

So we kinda became legends in the surrounding area, and I sport a blue dragonscale breastplate with an unicorn engraved in it.

[Oramac]

So we kinda became legends in the surrounding area, and I sport a blue dragonscale breastplate with an unicorn engraved in it.

Great story! I like that you took the encounter and turned it into your armor too. Very flavorful.

[Shining Wrath]

IIRC that dragon has several hundred hit points. Even with lots of 20's I'm surprised you killed him.
An entangled dragon can still breathe, dude would have wrecked that castle ...

[Christian]

IIRC that dragon has several hundred hit points. Even with lots of 20's I'm surprised you killed him.
An entangled dragon can still breathe, dude would have wrecked that castle ...

Only if the breath weapon recharges. The recharge mechanic is one of the really cool ideas that they plucked from 4th Edition. "Recharge 5-6" is much easier to deal with than "once every 3 rounds" for a harried DM. But when it's the iconic attack for a creature, and the DM rolls low a few times in a row, you end up with a party going, "Dragons? Meh, I don't know what the big deal is about dragons. The one we fought was just a big ol' pussycat."

[xanderh]

Your firebolts shouldn't have triggered wild Magic, it's only triggered by 1st level spells or higher.

Otherwise, you could use tides of chaos on all of your firebolts, giving you permanent advantage on all of your cantrips.

Your magic surges are what won you that encounter.

[Flashy]

Your magic surges are what won you that encounter.

Also the dragon not using its Legendary Resistance to escape the Entangle for some unclear reason.

Still a fun story though.

[Gastronomie]

I might be thinking in the extremes, but if someone pulls out godly dice rolls, if I were the DM I'd let miracles happen and have the PCs defeat the boss monster, regardless of how impossible it may be, both logically and stats-wise. After all, TRPGs are fun because unexpected things (things that can never take place in pre-set video games) often happen. Sticking to the rules and numbers drastically diminishes the fun, and isn't a very good idea IMO.

Nice story, especially how the DM gave you that badass armor - definitely something all adventurers would want badly.

[Puke]

Very funny story !

As a DM i can tell legendary auto saves are not well percieved by players. I can also tell that dragons sucks hard in 5e.

My players came from 3.5, so, when they saw the dragon fail a save, I said "The dragon alsmost failed, but at the very late moment, he pulled himself together and countered your spell. Don't be surprised man. It's a ****ing dragon.
- What ? He failed his save !
- Shut up. Magic.
- Don't shutupmagic me, he failed. I saw the roll.
- But that's a legendary creature. He does not care about failure.
- Meh ?
- Legendary save (I showed the book) new mechanic.
- Wow. Okay. That's... unexpected."

Legendary saves are cool to save some odd NPCS. But rather than that, I chose to up the dragons stats after this encounter to make em L E G E N D A R Y creatures.
Then they would not auto succes on the saves but had cool resistances and immunities and new attacks that led up to cool situations.
For instance, one of the players eventually get eaten by the dragon and made himself grow exponentially inside his belly, making the lizard explode from his guts.
That was fun. Not for the guy who received all the acid in the face and was not immune to it. But yeah. Fun.

[Know(Nothing)]

My players came from 3.5, so, when they saw the dragon fail a save, I said "The dragon alsmost failed, but at the very late moment, he pulled himself together and countered your spell. Don't be surprised man. It's a ****ing dragon.
- What ? He failed his save !
- Shut up. Magic.
- Don't shutupmagic me, he failed. I saw the roll.

Man, not to side-track, but for one thing, your players shouldn't be able to see the roll, and for another thing, any player that was eyeballing my rolls and trying to argue them would not be someone I would want involved in my campaign.

[Gignere]

Story would have been awesome if there weren't so many favorable rulings on the DM's part.

First off that necklace is crazy, second not sure how firebolt triggers your wild magic, third entangle doesn't even work on flying creatures unless they were on the ground already, fourth no legendary saves, fifth even if entangled the dragon can breath weapon so should have killed you and probably the unicorn thus ending the entangle as that requires concentration, sixth no mention of how you and your group saved against a DC 17 frightful presence.

So I am glad your table enjoyed the game, but this isn't the style of gaming I personally prefer. I prefer to earn my victories and not have them gift wrapped by the DM.

[Gastronomie]

So I am glad your table enjoyed the game, but this isn't the style of gaming I personally prefer. I prefer to earn my victories and not have them gift wrapped by the DM.

Speaking of which, the whole idea of how Hoard of the Dragon Queen starts off seems pretty suckish to me coming from how the victory can't be earned unless the DM's feeling charitable.
I myself am perfectly fine with DMs being overly flexible, but since many people aren't...

[Addaran]

Speaking of which, the whole idea of how Hoard of the Dragon Queen starts off seems pretty suckish to me coming from how the victory can't be earned unless the DM's feeling charitable.
I myself am perfectly fine with DMs being overly flexible, but since many people aren't...

From what my friend told me, there's a few very specific ways to win the fights. After 20 or 30 damage, the dragon feels the fight isn't worth it and retreat. Or the first crit, since an arrow in the eye hurts. =P You can tell the players after the session, so they know they really did win the fight fair and square.

[Puke]

Man, not to side-track, but for one thing, your players shouldn't be able to see the roll, and for another thing, any player that was eyeballing my rolls and trying to argue them would not be someone I would want involved in my campaign.

On the contrary, it allows em to understand that the dragon benefits from a legendary ability.
Because they know he failed, but the DM tell em right in the eyes he succeded. I think this is the kind of things their characters might be able to see : when a spell hit properly but has no effect.
But I agree otherwise.

My players never really argue, unless they think I missed something. Our games are always pretty cool.

[Christian]

Also the dragon not using its Legendary Resistance to escape the Entangle for some unclear reason.

Still a fun story though.

Escaping the Entangle is a check, not a saving throw, so LR doesn't help.

Of course, to be affected at all, it has to fail the initial saving throw. But I can imagine a Str 25 Dragon thinking, "DC 13 Strength check to escape? Meh, I'm not going to waste a 3/day ability avoiding that effect. I'll save those for when someone casts a real spell at me."

[Gignere]

Escaping the Entangle is a check, not a saving throw, so LR doesn't help.

Of course, to be affected at all, it has to fail the initial saving throw. But I can imagine a Str 25 Dragon thinking, "DC 13 Strength check to escape? Meh, I'm not going to waste a 3/day ability avoiding that effect. I'll save those for when someone casts a real spell at me."

Legendary Saves only kicks in after a failed save, no excuse not to use it.

[Flashy]

Escaping the Entangle is a check, not a saving throw, so LR doesn't help.

Of course, to be affected at all, it has to fail the initial saving throw. But I can imagine a Str 25 Dragon thinking, "DC 13 Strength check to escape? Meh, I'm not going to waste a 3/day ability avoiding that effect. I'll save those for when someone casts a real spell at me."

That's a fair point I hadn't considered. It does make a good deal more sense when you put it that way.

[Christian]

Legendary Saves only kicks in after a failed save, no excuse not to use it.

Generally, yes. All the time, no. "CR 16 creature attacking a town and failing a save against a 1st-level spell" seems like a reasonable exception. The dragon doesn't know those are the PCs!

If the official dragon tactic is always "use legendary saves whenever I fail a saving throw if any uses are available", then the official wizard tactic vs. dragons has to be "conjure steam mephits until the dragon fails three saves against their death bursts popping them". Once the dragon has burned up all of its legendary saves avoiding 12 hit points of fire damage, that's when you bring out the Dominate Monster.

[Gignere]

Generally, yes. All the time, no. "CR 16 creature attacking a town and failing a save against a 1st-level spell" seems like a reasonable exception. The dragon doesn't know those are the PCs!

If the official dragon tactic is always "use legendary saves whenever I fail a saving throw if any uses are available", then the official wizard tactic vs. dragons has to be "conjure steam mephits until the dragon fails three saves against their death bursts popping them". Once the dragon has burned up all of its legendary saves avoiding 12 hit points of fire damage, that's when you bring out the Dominate Monster.

This is such ridiculous example, just like the Entangle. The dragon shouldn't have even been affected by the Entangle as it was flying but whatever. A spell that takes you prone while you are flying and allows an army to attack whereas before you were safely in the air is not worth it to blow a legendary save? Does it matter if it is a cantrip? It is the likely result of the fail save that should determine whether to blow the legendary save and not the level of the spell in question. A dragon doesn't live to be adult being stupid. In this situation the dragon should have used his legendary save to remain in the air because otherwise it is exposing himself to much tactically.

If any dragon plays like an idiot and sit there without hitting the wizard while he conjures mephitis deserves to be killed. Yes your tactic works with stupid DMs, but it won't work with me.

[Puke]

Here is how i see the thing :

1st option : The dragon is dumb.
Happens. To me, some dragons does not care at all about magic, except the abilities they develop on their own by growing. So, when they face any magical effect and fail their save, they will burn their legendary resistance.

2nd option : The dragon is a spellcaster.
Well, this works for any spellcaster. To me, a lich, or any spellcaster NPC able to cast the spell he has to resist can chose to burn his legendary save or not because it can decide wether or not it will be bad for it.

For instance, try to cast anything to a very old Singing Dragon (I don't know if this is the correct name, in french we call em, "Dragon chanteur") get screwed. you will not fool him with your cantrips.

I'm a DM as well as a player. And my players really like to optimise their characters as much as possible. Once they learn a rule, they never forget it. So I have to be very careful. We do not apply the "GM IS ALWAYS RIGHT STFU NOOB". Because who wants to play with a DM like that ? I have to admit, sometimes, i use the "Shut up, magic.", we all do. The point is : my players must know the rules of the universe to plan how to face it. There is always surprises because they can never always plan and... well... I have their sheets so I can challenge them in many ways. They always manage to surprise me as well as I do surprise them anyway !
Well where was I ...? Ah yes ! Funny stories. We had a lot, a HUGE LOT of stories like OP. Sure, I let my players win sometimes. If they do it in a very funny way, why not. Depends of the campaign i'd say. I have a lot of stories involving "mage hand" for instance, and "cloud of daggers" (such a ridiculously OP spell BTW).

We always have a lot to learn, but the first thing we seek is the fun.
:smallsmile:

[darkrose50]

Dragons being labeled as all-powerful annoys me a little. Assuming that there are not overconfident, stupid, curious to the point of death, thrill seeking dragons is also annoying. Well any NPC at that. People do stupid things.

The FBI once held a man that was on their most wanted list, and in error released him after messing up taking his fingerprints.

The governor of Michigan was told that the water had lead in it, and was all like "suck it, drink that sh*t. We will figure it out later, you wimps."

The Germans in WWII did not attack English radar! Those guys are super smart science guys.

The Germans in WWII were freezing to death (starving due to lost energy) in Russia because they did not have hats! No kidding, no hats! Again these Germans are all kinds of science advanced masterminds, but forgot that hats make you warm, and did not figure it out till guys started to die . . . from lack of hats.

There could be reasons why the dragon messed up.

[Christian]

This is such ridiculous example, just like the Entangle. The dragon shouldn't have even been affected by the Entangle as it was flying ...

That's a really good point. I didn't notice that the Entangle had knocked the dragon out of the air. By the spell description, that can't happen; and if the spell could do that, it would totally be worth burning a use of the legendary saving throws to stay airborne. I thought, for some reason, that it was already in melee and the spell would just have been making it a bit more difficult to get back out.

This is still a cool story, but the list of DM mistakes that enabled it is growing quickly.


Ruling that the Wild Surge would automatically trigger on ever spell, even temporarily
Including cantrips in the above ruling (whether on purpose or because the fact that cantrips don't normally trigger wild surges was overlooked)
Allowing the Entangle spell to affect a flying creature
Not applying the Legendary Save ability to escape a tactically crippling effect


And it still took a long series of lucky/unlucky rolls by the players/DM for the PCs to win that fight.

[eastmabl]

Only if the breath weapon recharges. The recharge mechanic is one of the really cool ideas that they plucked from 4th Edition. "Recharge 5-6" is much easier to deal with than "once every 3 rounds" for a harried DM. But when it's the iconic attack for a creature, and the DM rolls low a few times in a row, you end up with a party going, "Dragons? Meh, I don't know what the big deal is about dragons. The one we fought was just a big ol' pussycat."

What's best in life as a DM? Choosing two numbers on a d6 (e.g. 1 and 4) as the recharge values. Then you have the players roll the dice.

Not only do the players kill themselves with the roll, the players who metagame the recharge rules get surprised when the breath weapon recharges on rolls other than 5 and 6.

[gameogre]

Don't give a rats arse about following or not following raw or whatever.

The DM is awarded one: Kickarse Thataboy! For running a game that caused a player to come here and post this story about what a great time he had!

Well done!