Forge of Fury--Taming the Giant Subterranean Lizard

[TheCleverGuy]

Spoilers ahead, just in case anyone cares.

In the second level of the Forge of Fury, there's a Giant Subterranean Lizard chained up in a cave guarding a couple of treasure chests. My players came across it tonight, and I described it lunging and snapping at them. They decided to try and calm it down through Animal Handling. I decided they'd need a natural 20 just to get it to not attack for a round. So the party cleric rolls--natural 20, for a total of 24. While the lizard is calm, the Paladin grabs the carcass of one of the gricks they'd killed earlier and tosses it to the lizard, which distracts it enough for the Rogue to open one of the chests and snag a potion. Seeing that work so well, they toss the lizard the second Grick corpse and the Rogue gets the other chest open, too.

At this point, the Cleric and Paladin are itching to free this beast and keep it as a pet. I tell them there's no lock on the chain--it has to be broken and it's a big thick chain. The Paladin has the Shatterspike longsword from the Sunless Citadel though. So I have him roll another Animal Handling to see if he can close enough to strike the chain without riling the lizard again. It's another nat 20!

So he makes his attack against the chain, hits and auto-crits because of the sword. I ruled that it did enough damage to cut through half the chain, but the noise and the pull of the chain make the lizard angry. At this point I have everyone roll initiative. Unfortunately I only rolled a 2 for the lizard, and the players decided to give up on trying to free the beast and retreat. On the lizard's turn I rolled a STR check to see if it could break the weakened chain, but no success.

So, I'm just wondering two things:
1) Did I handle that situation ok? The module doesn't expect that anyone would make an attempt to befriend the lizard, but I can't imagine giving a party a huge creature like that as a pet. If they'd managed to break the chain, I think best case scenario would be the lizard trying to escape the cave somehow, possibly alerting the Troglodytes that the party hasn't encountered yet. Worst case, it immediately attacks. But the players were really pushing for a giant lizard pet.
2) What happens next? I'm thinking that with the chain weakened it's only a matter of time before that lizard busts free. And the closest food source for it is the Troglodyte warren to the north, which happens to be the way the party went... Or it could move south down into the next level of the dungeon.

[The Glyphstone]

If the Trogs chained it up, have it go looking for (tasty) revenge on them. When it crosses paths with the party again, it remembers them as friendly givers-of-food and doesn't attack. They don't get it as a permanent pet, but it does become a temporary ally who makes the rest of the dungeon that much easier.

[micahaphone]

You handled that excellently! Sounds like that was a fun scenario for your players. Never goes as planned, does it?


If I were in your situation,

I'd have it go after the trogs, causing chaos and perhaps thinning their numbers somewhat. Up to you what you want to have happen, but I think I remember the trog chief having a riding lizard. I'd let the party find the trog warrens as an aftermath of chaos, and the giant lizard and the chief's mount are snoozing together in the chief's room. The lizards would be full of food and not very hostile, but if the players want the presumably cool loot hidden in the chief's room, they'll need to sneak past or fight or otherwise distract the lizards.

The remaining trogs are now setup in the lower level as a secondary location / refuge, or went towards the orcs and are fighting a turf war at the top of the stairs (edit: my players went in through the back door of the mountain, I realize this might not apply to you), or hell maybe they have a secret passageway that leads to the forge and they've set up in the parts of the forge that the dueregar leave alone,believing it all to be full of undead and nothing worthwhile.

[TheCleverGuy]

If the Trogs chained it up, have it go looking for (tasty) revenge on them. When it crosses paths with the party again, it remembers them as friendly givers-of-food and doesn't attack. They don't get it as a permanent pet, but it does become a temporary ally who makes the rest of the dungeon that much easier.



I'd have it go after the trogs, causing chaos and perhaps thinning their numbers somewhat. Up to you what you want to have happen, but I think I remember the trog chief having a riding lizard. I'd let the party find the trog warrens as an aftermath of chaos, and the giant lizard and the chief's mount are snoozing together in the chief's room. The lizards would be full of food and not very hostile, but if the players want the presumably cool loot hidden in the chief's room, they'll need to sneak past or fight or otherwise distract the lizards.

The remaining trogs are now setup in the lower level as a secondary location / refuge, or went towards the orcs and are fighting a turf war at the top of the stairs (edit: my players went in through the back door of the mountain, I realize this might not apply to you), or hell maybe they have a secret passageway that leads to the forge and they've set up in the parts of the forge that the dueregar leave alone,believing it all to be full of undead and nothing worthwhile.

Thanks for the tips! As things stand now, to get to the trogs, the giant lizard would have to go through the party. However I like having it head that direction first. Maybe I'll have the lizard bust in if the battle against the dozen or so trogs in the warren starts going poorly. Otherwise they'll run into it again on their way back out of the warren area.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, use the lizard as a kind of a Brick Joke.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BrickJoke

[No brains]

I wanted this to happen SO MUCH when I ran this for my group. You handled it pretty well.

In the spirit of one good turn deserving another, you could have the lizard come save them during another fight later.

The roper and black dragon fights are good candidates for this. Say the huge lizard can muscle its way up the river with its bulk. Have it 'tragically' die defending the party for a round. Then they get a reward and you get to not have a giant lizard borking your balance in encounters.

Though one weird thing about this lizard's room is that the map makes it look like there's only one 5' square for a 3-square lizard to need to squeeze through. That's too narrow to squeeze, so the big thing might need acrobatics checks or a special quality to let it escape. It's technically reasonable to say it can't get out. Maybe the trogs found it when it was smaller?

[TheCleverGuy]

Though one weird thing about this lizard's room is that the map makes it look like there's only one 5' square for a 3-square lizard to need to squeeze through. That's too narrow to squeeze, so the big thing might need acrobatics checks or a special quality to let it escape. It's technically reasonable to say it can't get out. Maybe the trogs found it when it was smaller?

Ya, I was looking at that too. I think I'm just gonna handwave it though and say there's more space up by the ceiling for it to crawl out through.

If I'd thought about it earlier I might have stopped them trying to break the chain in the first place, since it wouldn't be able to leave the cave anyway. But the more i think about it, the more I like the idea of it showing up again later.

[Aussiehams]

Have it help with the Roper. That fight is deadly and annoying.

[BeefGood]

Can’t believe what I’m reading here, the exact same thing happened when I ran it, including the nat 20 on the Animal Handling check. And I did have the lizard come and rescue them when they were in big trouble later—not with the monster on the last level but with a very tough monster before that.
The lizard has become their pet but as was mentioned earlier it’s an inconvenient pet because it can’t go through 5 foot corridors and has to squeeze to get through 10 foot corridors. It’s been fun but I’m going to figure out a way to get the lizard out of the picture.

[Mr Adventurer]

I think you handled it very well!

But I'd say that there's no way for an on-the-spot Animal Handling check to make it into a pet. It's essentially an adult wild animal that's been abused - it's not going to be trusting. Changing an animal's attitude would take months, years of careful work.

Or of course a few low-level Druid or Ranger spells. But unless the training is also applied, those are only temporary.

The PCs can have a giant lizard pet. But they need to work for it.