Forge of Fury: Advice for Nightscale

[TheCleverGuy]

Running Forge of Fury with two different groups at the moment. Last night, one of those groups had a battle with Nightscale, the Young Black Dragon in the Black Lake level of the dungeon. The party of six level 5 characters pretty handily defeated it. The dragon only lasted 2 full rounds, though it did manage to drop two of the players with its acid breath.

There was a lot of luck involved--the Ranger managed to crit on each of her turns, the dragon failed its save against a fireball, but did get off two breath attacks. But I'm wondering what I could have done differently to make the fight last longer, aside from bumping up dragon's hp, because my other party will encounter it soon. Maybe 6 PCs were just too powerful, and my other group of only 4 PCs will find it to be much scarier.

Should a Young Dragon have lair actions? There's nothing listed in its stat block, and the adventure doesn't mention any. If I add lair actions for my smaller group, will that make it too deadly?

Thanks in advance for any tips and tricks.

[Bobthewizard]

Did you have it submerge at the end of each of its turns? That at least eliminates multi-attack since you can only ready one attack and uses the party's reactions.

Then it waits until its breath weapon recharges and comes up in a random spot, breathing on whoever is closest. The players mostly have to be in one area or they risk falling into the water, at which point the dragon attacks just that character, only coming back up when it is finished.

[TheCleverGuy]

I had it fly out and land on ledge in order to hit more then one target with its acid breath (30-ft line), and also to avoid the two Spiritual Weapons hovering above the water.

I probably mis-played the ready action rules, allowing the Ranger to make both attacks. But I think it was her first attack that crit every round anyway (we're playing in Roll20, so I know it was fully legit).

The other thing I wasn't sure of was how visible the dragon would be while under water. One player has a passive perception of 20 or 21 (Observant feat), so I ruled that she could point out its movements, but gave the dragon three-quarter cover, which ended up not mattering much against the Ranger's three crits!

[ImproperJustice]

I’ve seen this encounter go both ways before.

That breath attack, I remember it one shotting, our toughest party member at full health.

It nailed us on that opening bridge too. It was a losing battle of attrition after, followed by a sad broken retreat.

In another group, the party had characters that could fight underwater and the battle went very differently.

[Griswold]

Did you have it submerge at the end of each of its turns? That at least eliminates multi-attack since you can only ready one attack and uses the party's reactions.

I'm reading the rules for the Ready action, and I don't see anything about only letting you take a single weapon attack. If you ready the Attack action, you should get the the Attack action. It should work the same if you ready Multiattack as a wildshaped druid.

Am I missing something? Or is this a case of remembering the 3.5 rules?

[Quietus]

I'm reading the rules for the Ready action, and I don't see anything about only letting you take a single weapon attack. If you ready the Attack action, you should get the the Attack action. It should work the same if you ready Multiattack as a wildshaped druid.

Am I missing something? Or is this a case of remembering the 3.5 rules?

The specific wording of extra attack is :

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Readying an action means you're taking that attack action on someone else's turn. Extra Attack would not apply. Multiattack might allow for more than one, I don't recall the exact wording there.

[Bobthewizard]

I had the water be dark, acidic and murky. They couldn't see the dragon until it popped up and it had full cover while submerged. Plus it's dark in there so I also had it stay out of range of darkvision or light sources until it attacked.

They ended up killing it by having the barbarian use a potion of spider climbing to climb upside down on the ceiling and then fall on it when it popped its head out. Passed his athletics check so I gave advantage on the attack and he rolled a critical to end the fight.

[Tanarii]

I had it fly out and land on ledge in order to hit more then one target with its acid breath (30-ft line), and also to avoid the two Spiritual Weapons hovering above the water.I thought the dragon was supposed to stay in the water and get three quarters cover on it's turn, and total cover between turns?

[Theodoxus]

I've only played that encounter once, and never ran it. It was my first night at AL, and the DM was pretty lenient (and honestly didn't have a firm grasp of the rules - we kinda ended up mortal enemies after that night because I was rules lawyering him left and right (hey, as I said, it was my first AL event, and I had read up on what to expect - the DM has leeway, but shouldn't be countermanding things like halfling lucky being used for Initiative...)

Anyway, with the dragon, the party monk managed to jump on its back and basically flurry of blows it dead in something like 4 rounds. The dragon flew, dived, rolled - and the monk passed every check to stick on. The rest of us used ranged attacks when possible and I made copious use of healing word to keep the monk up - I'd also blessed the party, so the monk did have that extra d4 for the saves (as did most of the party, against the breath weapon). In the end, the dragon was dead and the party, as a whole was down about 20 HP... Honestly, I think if the dragon had just stayed underwater (the DM ruled the room was pitch black outside of any light we brought, and the water was murky, so we couldn't see beyond maybe a foot into it, even with darkvision), the monk would have had to come up for air (I really like the idea of the lake being acidic, so the monk wouldn't have lasted long slowly melting away...)) we probably would have lost. We just wanted to get to the loot island...

If I ever run it, I'd probably have the dragon be submerged, maybe asleep, unknown to the party. They see the loot island, get greedy, swim across, take 1d4 acid damage a round, probably decide it's not worth it - but if so, their splashing wakes the dragon who waits until most are in a nice line, and aims a jet of acid at them. Probably takes out some of the party... they then have to decide if finishing the swim is worth it, or regroup on shore. Even if they make it to the island, getting the loot out is problematic.

A dragon encounter should rarely, if ever lead to a party win so easily. Sadly, I never seem to actually run an encounter like that... they're just bags of hit points with a recharging cannon... I'd love a co-DM who runs encounters, while I do all the social and plot work... best of both worlds...

[Tanarii]

A dragon encounter should rarely, if ever lead to a party win so easily. Sadly, I never seem to actually run an encounter like that... they're just bags of hit points with a recharging cannon... I'd love a co-DM who runs encounters, while I do all the social and plot work... best of both worlds...
I've only played and run the encounter in 3e, but did it multiple times there on both sides of the screen. Any time it was run and played based on the guidelines in the module, it resulted in a TPK. Even knowing what was coming. I'd like to think the 5e version hasn't been watered down.

[TheCleverGuy]

I thought the dragon was supposed to stay in the water and get three quarters cover on it's turn, and total cover between turns?

I'm sure I ran it wrong. But it seems like it wouldn't be a terribly fun encounter doing it that way, especially for characters with very few ranged options.