Adapting an (injured) blue dragon for 1st-level PCs

[gkathellar]

Some background: I'm running a game this weekend in either 13th Age or 5E (my players will be making the choice). For simplicity's sake, I'm going to be using the 13th Age sample adventure, Boltstike Pillar - it's not too long or complex, so I think that'll go well from a narrative standpoint. There are three fights in this adventure, and the first (against some goblins) and the second (against some lizardfolk and a guy who turns into a half-dragon monster-man) should be pretty easy to adapt.

The second is what's giving me trouble. It's against an adult blue dragon that had been badly crippled - much too powerful for 1st level PCs in 13th Age normally, but manageable due to greatly reduced HP and stat penalties. I feel intuitively like this can be replicated in 5E, at least with a Young White dragon, due to bounded accuracy; but I'm not sure how much power-reduction is enough, especially given the relative fragility of first level PCs.

Is this a manageable goal? How much would I need to cut? Should I rethink this, and if so, how?

[R.Shackleford]

Some background: I'm running a game this weekend in either 13th Age or 5E (my players will be making the choice). For simplicity's sake, I'm going to be using the 13th Age sample adventure, Boltstike Pillar - it's not too long or complex, so I think that'll go well from a narrative standpoint. There are three fights in this adventure, and the first (against some goblins) and the second (against some lizardfolk and a guy who turns into a half-dragon monster-man) should be pretty easy to adapt.

The second is what's giving me trouble. It's against an adult blue dragon that had been badly crippled - much too powerful for 1st level PCs in 13th Age normally, but manageable due to greatly reduced HP and stat penalties. I feel intuitively like this can be replicated in 5E, at least with a Young White dragon, due to bounded accuracy; but I'm not sure how much power-reduction is enough, especially given the relative fragility of first level PCs.

Is this a manageable goal? How much would I need to cut? Should I rethink this, and if so, how?


I do this all the time, taking HIGH CR threats and putting them up against low level parties.

The biggest trick is to take an appropriate boss for the low level party and refluff it as a dragon. The greatsword attack is now a claw attack, it has a limited fly speed (injured, maybe it can't fly), breath weapon DC is low and the damage is about 2d6 or whatever.

Basically the fluff of a dragon but the mechanical to hit/damage/AC/HP of a low CR creature.

Edit

Keep the size and physical limitations of a dragon and players really won't know the diffetence.

Also...

Look into turn 16 HP dragon

http://www.latorra.org/2012/05/15/a-16-hp-dragon/

[pwykersotz]

PC fragility at low level can be overcome by a several things.

First, telegraph the foe. Let the party see what they're coming upon so they can take reasonable precautions.
Second, don't give the enemy the initiative. The dragon might snap and snarl and threaten, but if you don't have it attack unless attacked first, alpha strike advantage goes to the PC's.
Third, add conversation. Whether with the dragon or an NPC, if you add a conversation aspect that could potentially arm the PC's with information, they can control the encounter more readily.

There are a lot of other possibilities, these are just the first ones that occurred to me after reading the post.

[JellyPooga]

Don't do it!

I played through that campaign and the "injured Blue Dragon" fight was...well frankly it was rubbish. We basically lucked our way through the whole affair and eventually managed to put it down, but the victory was hollow; we didn't really kill it because it was practically dead already, we just finished it off. There really wasn't a sense of overcoming massive odds or that epic feel of fighting a dragon; it's breath weapon only went off once, it couldn't fly and IIRC it didn't have as many attacks as it should have had. Also, I don't know how much of it was my GM at the time, but it didn't even fight "smart".

We weren't fighting a Dragon, we were fighting a watered down, pathetic excuse of a lizard. Fighting a Dragon should be exciting and dramatic and hard. That fight was just a HP grind.

Watered down foes that are supposed to be much tougher don't make for good encounters for lower level characters because everyone knows what a Dragon or Lich or Death Knight is supposed to be able to do, so when one comes along and doesn't live up to its reputation, everyone is left feeling...disappointed. If the PC's lose, then they cry "foul" for being put up against something beyond their capabilities and if they win, they know it's because the GM fudged it in their favour. No-one wins either way.

If you want your low-level PC's to face an Adult Blue Dragon, have at it. Don't pull your punches, don't water it down. Go in full-throttle. Just make sure your players know what's coming so they can get out of the way of that particular steam-train. If they're really smart, give them the chance to de-rail that train and gloat over the smoking ruins, but don't hold back; make them earn it. If they dodge the bullet, they live to see another day and have a recurring villain to defeat. If they smoke that fool, they get to say they actually killed a Dragon, instead of a glorified monitor lizard.

Seriously, that encounter sucks. Hard.

[R.Shackleford]

Snip

Don't listen to JellyPooga.

One of the great things about D&D is creating new scenarios and not just doing the same thing over and over.

I've ran plenty of games under this same type of premise and they worked out beautifully.

I threw a Terrasque up against a level 5 party once, fun times (modified Big T but still big T).

Basically instead of having multiple enemies throughout the day, they fought a day long encounter with the Big T. Every so often they (sometimes it) would retreat, come up with a new attack planever or try to distract it long enough to get the towns people out of the way.

They took a short rest on its back while hiding...

They actually was able to send it backeeps to sleep before it ate the capital ... Sadly a few towns didn't make it out.

The concept works, you just need to DM it correctly.

I'm going to run an adult dragon in the same way soon.

[JellyPooga]

They took a short rest on its back while hiding...

Err...what? That sounds...uh, well words fail me, to be honest. Awful? Ridiculous? Utterly unbelievable as even an option? What were they "hiding" as? Rocks lodged in its carapace or something?

See, this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Big T vs. your average lvl.5 party is not an encounter. Sure, you can do the "whole day fighting it" thing if you can overcome its Frightful Presence, swathe of immunities (only easy if you actually have magic weapons by that point; by no means guaranteed), it's massive AC and somehow avoid every. single. one of its attacks. Seriously, one hit from Big T is enough to kill some level 5 PC's, two will probably take down everyone else and with +19 to hit, it probably isn't going to miss.

If he's been watered down to the level that lvl.5's can actually do practically anything to it, then they haven't actually beaten Big T, they've beaten a pale facsimile of it. Whatever victory they achieve is stolen from them by the very fact that it got watered down. Save that epic fight for a time when they can earn that victory on their own terms; don't hand it to them on a platter. Victory earned is so much sweeter than a victory given away.

@R.Shackleford; I'm sure you had a blast with that campaign and that particular encounter, but at the end of the day did the PC's really fight the Tarrasque? Well, not really, they fought a GM-fudged set of stats that looks a bit like Big T and next time (assuming there'll be a next time) the PC's are probably going to expect to the same "tricks" to work; why shouldn't they? So instead of being the ultimate boss bruiser, Big T is just another creature that anyone over level 5 can defeat without too much trouble. Heck, it's so dumb you can have a tea party on its back without it noticing :smallannoyed:

[NB - this is all assuming they aren't defeating it through recruiting, like, a nation to beat it off with an armies worth of magical ballistae or something, instead of them, personally taking that muther down]

[MrStabby]

I agree with JellyPooga on this.

A hollow victory is less than the players deserve. If they want a fight to remember give them one.

You have their whole future campaign to think of. If you let them kill a Blue Dragon at level 1 where do you go from there? Where do the characters go?

Take the dragon and turn it into a lizard - no reason why it can't still be really tough fight for level 1s. Just take the role in the story and assign it to a CR appropriate level creature. I think it won't take anything from the adventure but will add a whole lot more to the players gaming future.

[R.Shackleford]

Err...what? That sounds...uh, well words fail me, to be honest. Awful? Ridiculous? Utterly unbelievable as even an option? What were they "hiding" as? Rocks lodged in its carapace or something?

See, this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Big T vs. your average lvl.5 party is not an encounter. Sure, you can do the "whole day fighting it" thing if you can overcome its Frightful Presence, swathe of immunities (only easy if you actually have magic weapons by that point; by no means guaranteed), it's massive AC and somehow avoid every. single. one of its attacks. Seriously, one hit from Big T is enough to kill some level 5 PC's, two will probably take down everyone else and with +19 to hit, it probably isn't going to miss.

If he's been watered down to the level that lvl.5's can actually do practically anything to it, then they haven't actually beaten Big T, they've beaten a pale facsimile of it. Whatever victory they achieve is stolen from them by the very fact that it got watered down. Save that epic fight for a time when they can earn that victory on their own terms; don't hand it to them on a platter. Victory earned is so much sweeter than a victory given away.

@R.Shackleford; I'm sure you had a blast with that campaign and that particular encounter, but at the end of the day did the PC's really fight the Tarrasque? Well, not really, they fought a GM-fudged set of stats that looks a bit like Big T and next time (assuming there'll be a next time) the PC's are probably going to expect to the same "tricks" to work; why shouldn't they? So instead of being the ultimate boss bruiser, Big T is just another creature that anyone over level 5 can defeat without too much trouble. Heck, it's so dumb you can have a tea party on its back without it noticing :smallannoyed:

[NB - this is all assuming they aren't defeating it through recruiting, like, a nation to beat it off with an armies worth of magical ballistae or something, instead of them, personally taking that muther down]

Funny, it worked just fine for them, they hid in between the "shoulder blades" on the back. Big T didn't see any threats and just went on its way.

Maybe if you remember this is a fantasy game where big T even exist is "ridiculous" then maybe you and your groups can start having a bit of fun with the game and you won't be such a Debbie Downer.

There are creatures that eat other creatures brains by sucking them out and hiding on a gargantuan creature is ridiculous? Haha.

Again, you have adjust it to be a CR 5 threat. In this case the Big T was 8+ CR 6 - 9 (ish) threats throughout the day. You seem to think MOAR hp, AC, and whatever is what the BIG T is, no, the Big T is a godzilla. As long as it acts, looks, and feels like a godzilla it works well. Role-playing is the key here.

You know, this is a fantasy role-playing Gane right?

Yes, they fought the Big T 8+ times throughout the day. If you aren't so hung up on big numbers maybe you would see that. They saved the capital, sent the monster back to sleep, and the players had tons of fun.

Just cause you have a problem with this being a fantasy game doesn't mean the rest of us do.

[pwykersotz]

Just cause you have a problem with this being a fantasy game doesn't mean the rest of us do.

There are no Sharknado's in Lord of the Rings. Both are still fantasy. Both your definitions are valid under the fantasy umbrella, and both are useful perspectives to come at the above plot idea from.

Just throwing this into the inevitable back and forth that will ensue.

[MrStabby]

There are no Sharknado's in Lord of the Rings. Both are still fantasy. Both your definitions are valid under the fantasy umbrella, and both are useful perspectives to come at the above plot idea from.

Just throwing this into the inevitable back and forth that will ensue.

Hmm. I wonder what sharknado would look like as a druid spell. Now I wants it.

[Chaosvii7]

Hmm. I wonder what sharknado would look like as a druid spell. Now I wants it.

http://therafimrpg.wikidot.com/vortex-of-teeth

Basically Spiritual Guardians as we know it. I had a friend in one of my 3.5 campaigns who got a maul made that looked like a piranha - he could cast this spell from it at-will, and when he crit the piranha head on his maul would bite the target.

As for injured dragon, do it. Or don't. Really, it depends on your players and their ability to suspend their disbelief. I think if they're new players who might not get the full gravitas of why killing a dragon early on is an accomplishment, then it might go over their heads. If not, they will be in shock and awe as they accomplish something monumental like that, even if they're playing at a handicap. More seasoned players who have a good idea as to how the game works will probably not be as enchanted of fighting a creature they know is at a disadvantage, but if the story is thrilling enough then it can carry them through the fight with the promise of an exciting encounter. All that matters is that you're able to make your players enjoy it as much as possible.

I'm reminded of the blue dragon fight in Hoard of the Dragon Queen - many many people bemoan that fight as being inappropriate for that point in the adventure, but both me and my players (60-80% of them being new) loved it. And I think a lot of that hatred is unwarranted given the parameters of the fight - the dragon isn't directly killing the PCs, at least not at first, and it only takes a quarter of it's health in damage before it flees. Realistically, it's only going to kill a few NPC soldiers a round, so dealing 57 damage to a dragon (in 5th edition at least) that is basically completely ignoring you, at any level, isn't difficult - but the way the encounter is framed is very fun. The dragon swoops down and flies back up every turn, you gotta throw stuff or shoot at it, it's decimating the army of Greenest as you watch it breath lightning and immolate soldiers like they're nothing, and sure, if the PCs get unlucky then they'll get caught in it - but I think it was designed with failure being a last option, and it shows.

[JellyPooga]

Funny, it worked just fine for them, they hid in between the "shoulder blades" on the back. Big T didn't see any threats and just went on its way.

Was it moving? Destroying anything at the time? Without some kind of howdah or something, that's not a restful environment. If Big T was asleep at the time, sure, I'd go for that, but otherwise...?


Just cause you have a problem with this being a fantasy game doesn't mean the rest of us do.

Don't get me wrong, the whole idea of the game is to have fun and if you did that, great. All power to you and your guys; I've got nothing against anyone having fun with whatever they're doing.

What I've got an issue with is high-level threats being watered down for lower-level parties. MrStabby hit the point I've been trying to make; if Big T can be defeated at level 5, what's the threat for level 10, or 20? Can't use the legendary, there's only one in existence, toughest tough of the toughs Big-friggin'-T (OK, so Big T as written isn't those things, but he's supposed to be!). They've already conquered that epic challenge. What's next? A Balor that doesn't have a Fire Aura? A Lich that doesn't use 9th level spells? What happens when Big T returns? Should be a cake-walk for a party of level 10's if level 5 characters can beat him. Right?

Where do you go when you've already beat the biggest challenge there is? Even if it wasn't actually the challenge it was supposed to be, it puts a limit on where the game can progress from there.

There's plenty of lower level challenges that can feel just as epic without invoking those legendary names; Dragon, Tarrasque, Balor, Lich...name dropping might feel cool at the time, but when you look back, no amount of reflected star-light is the same as shining just a little bit on your own.

[Sigreid]

If you do this at all, you will have to come up with a reason that it can't use it's breath weapon. For a low level party that is a game ender in one turn.

[MrStabby]

Maybe not right for the plot in this adventure, but in general this is a good time to add class levels to monsters.

It isn't just an Orc, its a legendary orc - with a couple of barbarian levels and legendary actions. This means he can be tough enough to pose a threat individually, and as a leader at a more strategic plot-based level.

Likewise take something like a Manticore, a tough challenge for a low level party but OK for a higher one. Add some class levels, and you have a manticore with some fighter levels and so on.

This means your love level encounters can stand out as being important villains in their own right whilst still leaving space for the bigger bad guys. If level 1 parties can take down a dragon, is anything actually a threat?

Part of the joy of D&D is character growth, the joy of learning from experience and leveling up.

[Laereth]

I'm with Shackleford.

I don't remember ever fighting against a Kraken in its monster manual form (campaigns rarely go high level enough). What I do remember is fighting off the Kraken by fending off its tentacles as they grabbed people on the ship and threw them at sea. When the beast finally goes away we don't feel robbed. We've fought a Kraken and survived !

And it doesn't mean that further encounters with a Kraken or Dragon are diminished because we fended off a Kraken at level 7. It is simply that as we grow in power instead of fighting parts of the creature or fighting in multiple smaller encounters, you get to fight them head on.

[RickAllison]

I'm with Shackleford.

I don't remember ever fighting against a Kraken in its monster manual form (campaigns rarely go high level enough). What I do remember is fighting off the Kraken by fending off its tentacles as they grabbed people on the ship and threw them at sea. When the beast finally goes away we don't feel robbed. We've fought a Kraken and survived !

And it doesn't mean that further encounters with a Kraken or Dragon are diminished because we fended off a Kraken at level 7. It is simply that as we grow in power instead of fighting parts of the creature or fighting in multiple smaller encounters, you get to fight them head on.

I agree, sort of. On the one hand, I totally agree that monsters can be used for lower-level things in interesting ways. On the other hand, Rusty's example sounded really strange. The tarrasque is really big, but not so big that one could reasonably rest on top of it especially since it is bipedal (so there is proportionally much greater movement in the torso). While I certainly think one could hide on top, resting is an entirely different story.

But as a general rule, you definitely can make stronger creatures and weaken them. Taking on a crippled dragon is not something one gloriously cheers of in a tavern, but it is a noteworthy thing so long as the weaknesses make sense. Don't give it a weakened breath power, have a terrible scar across the creatures throat which ruptured the organs necessary for his breath weapon. If you have to cut the fly speed or remove it, tell how the wings expand and are filled with so many holes that they couldn't possibly functional (and then let them see that they can, to some extent!).

Basically, make it clear to them that this isn't an ancient engine of fire and lightning they are fighting, it is a wounded creature and pitiful compared to a normal specimen. Then have them nearly TPK...

[JellyPooga]

I'm with Shackleford.

I don't remember ever fighting against a Kraken in its monster manual form (campaigns rarely go high level enough). What I do remember is fighting off the Kraken by fending off its tentacles as they grabbed people on the ship and threw them at sea. When the beast finally goes away we don't feel robbed. We've fought a Kraken and survived !

And it doesn't mean that further encounters with a Kraken or Dragon are diminished because we fended off a Kraken at level 7. It is simply that as we grow in power instead of fighting parts of the creature or fighting in multiple smaller encounters, you get to fight them head on.

This kind of thing I can get behind. Fighting off the tentacles opens up the thrill of defeating the Kraken for good at a later date; you're not killing it or fighting the whole beast head on like with the injured dragon or the Tarrasque example we were given. That's fine and dandy and if fighting those tentacles weakens the Kraken for a future fight, even better; the consequences of your lower level encounter can carry over to help defeat the beast later. Great.

With the Dragon, though, in this particular case, it's injured badly beforehand through no action or intervention of the PC's...it's entirely someone elses doing, so the PC's can't claim any credit for weakening it beforehand and only then do the PC's come in and kill it while it's weak. It's not fighting some of the Dragons minions or catching it while it's sleeping or setting a trap to weaken it; the PC's just rock up, get ambushed by a half-dead dragon with watered down stats and they kill it or get killed themselves. It's a really pants encounter with nothing really setting it up as an epic fight and no real concluding reward.

"Oh a half-dead dragon." *fight fight fight* "It's dead. Hooray"

...is pretty much the entirety of the scene, as I recall. There's some fluff about how the dragon actually got half-killed and such, but nothing that the PC's actually get involved in, or can take even a modicum of credit for, besides finishing off something that was probably going to die to a bear or an ambitious goblin or something anyway.

That's what I'm talking about with regards to watering down powerful foes; literally taking something powerful, legendary or unique, giving it stats that a Level X party can handle and saying "go at it". No set-up, no process of wearing it down or finding the macguffin that is it's only weakness or persuading an ally to help or anything like that, just "Here's a Dragon!" Oh, but it's the weedy nerd dragon who got bullied at dragon-school, except he's not that smart. You just killed the "smelly kid" dragon; don't you feel proud?

[gkathellar]

I played through that campaign

Huh, I wasn't aware it was anything more than a one-shot adventure in the back of the book. Do they tie it into Eyes of the Stone Thief, or something?


and the "injured Blue Dragon" fight was...well frankly it was rubbish. We basically lucked our way through the whole affair and eventually managed to put it down, but the victory was hollow; we didn't really kill it because it was practically dead already, we just finished it off. There really wasn't a sense of overcoming massive odds or that epic feel of fighting a dragon; it's breath weapon only went off once, it couldn't fly and IIRC it didn't have as many attacks as it should have had. Also, I don't know how much of it was my GM at the time, but it didn't even fight "smart".

We weren't fighting a Dragon, we were fighting a watered down, pathetic excuse of a lizard. Fighting a Dragon should be exciting and dramatic and hard. That fight was just a HP grind.

Thanks for providing your experience as input. I'll take a look at what else I can run, but if I don't have time to get ready, at least I can take pains to avoid this sort of impression.


I think if they're new players who might not get the full gravitas of why killing a dragon early on is an accomplishment, then it might go over their heads.

Mm, that's definitely something I'll have to be wary of.


I'm reminded of the blue dragon fight in Hoard of the Dragon Queen - many many people bemoan that fight as being inappropriate for that point in the adventure, but both me and my players (60-80% of them being new) loved it.

The way you describe it actually sounds pretty cool, in the right DM's hands. Gives the players a taste of power - both their own potential, and that of future enemies.

[mgshamster]

As a player, I was in a dragon fight as a low level PC. We were level 2 or 3, back in 2e. The dragon was stuck, it's body in one larger cavern and its head in a hallway. So all we had to do was fight the head in a hall way - with its bite and breath weapon. And there were plenty of hiding places and large rocks for us to hide behind for the breath weapon. It was fun.

I don't remember anything else about that encounter, such as why we were there or why we had to fight the dragon or what we got out of it. I just remember the fight itself.

[Gastronomie]

DO NOT REFLUFF A MONSTER.

Single-monster encounters suck hard in 5e. They're as boring as hell. They're a total wreck. Since the enemy takes his action only once per turn, and there's only one target for all the attacks, the fight is monotonous and just not fun. It's either massive damage to one player, or no damage to everyone. Really boring.

I've warned you.

Now, then, what shall you do? My answer is something I'd call the Exodia method - "refluff multiple monsters".

Grab a bunch of low-CR dudes and make them the dragon's "head", "right arm", "left arm", and so on. Give them separate initiative. And if a particular part takes too much damage, that body part is "too damaged to work". Perhaps chopped off. You do need to make the head stronger than it actually is to work, though (perhaps it's lifted up in the air and can only be hit by ranged attacks, until its limbs are damaged).

Or you can try creating a solo monster that works on its own. I've sorta attempted this with the "Elite Black Dragon Wyrmling" (link in my sig), and it worked with my friends, but this was for a level 4 party. It's difficult to balance, too.

[Temperjoke]

Something to consider, you don't have to let the players know just how injured it actually is at first. A dragon is smart enough to try and bluff about how hurt it is. Outside of visual cues, like a damaged wing, the players only have your descriptions to go on, and that's only if they try an investigate it. It doesn't use it's breath because it's actually internally damaged, but depending on where they attack, it could be attributed to their attacks interfering with it. That claw attack missed, is the dragon's fatigue messing with it's sight, or did they get a lucky dodge?

The battle is only as fun as you describe it.

[djreynolds]

Doesn't a dragon produce fear anymore?

A 1st level PC should be crapping the armor and having to use up their reaction to do it.

Have them have to perform a service for the dragon instead. The dragon intimidates or persuades the party to have to acquire a moose, its favorite meal.

Use something other than combat to defeat the dragon. Perhaps the PCs have to track down a powerful NPC paladin and ranger who kill stuff like this. Make this the adventure, having to find and persuade these two NPCs and their are obstacles.

Or have the party, persuade the goblin clan living in the cave, that the time for freedom is at hand and to attack and take back their cave.