The Sunless Citadel story question (includes some spoilers)

[tchntm43]

When Calcryx is found, assuming Meepo is with the party, it is then established that Calcryx hates Meepo and will usually target him first in combat.

My issue with this is one of continuity to the events that precede meeting with Meepo. If Calcryx hates Meepo, why wouldn't Calcryx have just breath-weaponed him long ago through the bars of the cage?

When I first went through The Sunless Citadel as a player, this issue stuck out almost immediately to me as a significant plot hole, but I didn't raise the issue because... well, I know it's not fun for the DM to get called out for plot holes, and the DM didn't write the adventure anyway. Now that I'm the one running the adventure, I'm looking for a way to try and clear this up. The book does not offer an answer for this question. My group of players are relatively new, but I've already found that they are quite inquisitive and perceptive, so I think there's a good chance they will pick up on this plot hole as well. I'm hoping for some suggestions to make it make more sense.

[Amnestic]

Meepo might have been the Keeper but they weren't the only guard. The section for the Dragon Cell room says:

Until recently, the kobolds confined a white dragon wyrmling in the cage and placed it under heavy guard. Those guards were not strong enough to stand against a sortie by goblins that stole the wyrmling a week ago.

The explanation I would give is that while the dragon may have been able to kill Meepo with its breath weapon, it wouldn't have been able to then fight back against the other guards from inside its cage (or at least, it didn't feel confident it could - the truth of the matter is less important than the perception of it), so it chose to bide its time and be patient. Dragons live a lot longer than kobolds, after all.

[Unoriginal]

When Calcryx is found, assuming Meepo is with the party, it is then established that Calcryx hates Meepo and will usually target him first in combat.

My issue with this is one of continuity to the events that precede meeting with Meepo. If Calcryx hates Meepo, why wouldn't Calcryx have just breath-weaponed him long ago through the bars of the cage?

When I first went through The Sunless Citadel as a player, this issue stuck out almost immediately to me as a significant plot hole, but I didn't raise the issue because... well, I know it's not fun for the DM to get called out for plot holes, and the DM didn't write the adventure anyway. Now that I'm the one running the adventure, I'm looking for a way to try and clear this up. The book does not offer an answer for this question. My group of players are relatively new, but I've already found that they are quite inquisitive and perceptive, so I think there's a good chance they will pick up on this plot hole as well. I'm hoping for some suggestions to make it make more sense.

Like Amnestic said. White Dragons in particular are patient hunters, and Dragon Breathing the one who brings you food is not a move someone keen on survival would do unless they have an ace in the hole.

The other kobolds would have retaliated, punished Calcryx, and the next Keeper would likely be less concerned with the Dragon's well being and comfort.

On the hand, Dragons are also prideful beings, and depending on Meepo's good graces and continued existence was more than probably extremely humiliating for the Wyrmling. So it is not surprising Calcryx hates Meepo and will act on this hatred as soon as the occasion makes it practical.

[tchntm43]

Might as well ask another question here... We've now played a few sessions of the adventure module, and the party has made a very unlikely (based on googling how other groups have played) decision to purchase the metal key from Yusdrayl and go to the area the key opens, before going to the goblins. If they go all the way through that area, they will still be level 1 against a CR 2 downgraded troll (the dragonpriest), and after I did a mental check on what I know their characters to be, they have no access to fire damage! A single claw swipe from the troll (max damage 16) can take down any of the 4 characters from full hit points. It doesn't get a normal troll's multi-attack, and the party begins with a significant action economy advantage against a single monster, but that goes down significantly as the dragonpriest takes down characters.

So my question is, is this an unfair fight for the group? Should I consider modifying it?

[chiefwaha]

Personally, I wouldn't lower the difficulty. Make it easy to escape, but part of adventuring should be coming across situations you're not ready for. If they truly don't have access to fire damage, maybe give them access to it somehow, but that would be about the limit of help I would suggest. From what I remember, the adventure notes what happens to the dragonpriest after a being free a week, that's probably a signal the designers expected this to be a difficult encounter the party might not win.

[Unoriginal]

Might as well ask another question here... We've now played a few sessions of the adventure module, and the party has made a very unlikely (based on googling how other groups have played) decision to purchase the metal key from Yusdrayl and go to the area the key opens, before going to the goblins. If they go all the way through that area, they will still be level 1 against a CR 2 downgraded troll (the dragonpriest), and after I did a mental check on what I know their characters to be, they have no access to fire damage! A single claw swipe from the troll (max damage 16) can take down any of the 4 characters from full hit points. It doesn't get a normal troll's multi-attack, and the party begins with a significant action economy advantage against a single monster, but that goes down significantly as the dragonpriest takes down characters.

So my question is, is this an unfair fight for the group? Should I consider modifying it?

Even if max damage can take out any of the PCs, rolling max damage is quite rare. And it's still several PCs vs a NPC without multiattack.

As for not having fire damage... they have torches still, right? My advice would be to inform them that as adventurers, they heard stories about how most trolls regenerate unless melted with acid or burned, and let them figure it out

[JonBeowulf]

Might as well ask another question here... We've now played a few sessions of the adventure module, and the party has made a very unlikely (based on googling how other groups have played) decision to purchase the metal key from Yusdrayl and go to the area the key opens, before going to the goblins. If they go all the way through that area, they will still be level 1 against a CR 2 downgraded troll (the dragonpriest), and after I did a mental check on what I know their characters to be, they have no access to fire damage! A single claw swipe from the troll (max damage 16) can take down any of the 4 characters from full hit points. It doesn't get a normal troll's multi-attack, and the party begins with a significant action economy advantage against a single monster, but that goes down significantly as the dragonpriest takes down characters.

So my question is, is this an unfair fight for the group? Should I consider modifying it?
Provide some clues that they're walking into a very dangerous fight but don't change anything. The game world shouldn't care about the choices the player's make. Having your character die because you made a bad decision is one of the ways player's level up.

[Just to Browse]

The meta reason is because Calcryx was created for 3e D&D, where white dragon wyrmlings only deal 1d6 cold damage with their breath weapon and could be swiftly grappled & pummeled even by a group of noodle-armed kobolds. In 5e, wyrmlings are much larger and powerful mini-bosses with 5e with Strength scores comparable to goblins, so Calcryx can pretty much solo Sunless Citadel on its own and it seems like she could reasonable break out of her own cage given enough effort. You'll need to invent some justification here. My suggestion making the cage extra tough, but giving Klarg some explosives so there's a reason why the goblins break a hole in it. This makes Calcryx's choice pre-goblin-raid was to either play along or starve.

RE: Dragonpriest, I think this fight was originally intended to be originally a skill test for skilled adventurers from old editions ("no fire? then die.") and/or a secret boss at the end of the game when the party is maxed out so they can one-shot the troll. I think the old way of thinking where you're expected to memorize certain bits of meta-info or be killed is less popular nowadays, and if your players aren't those kinds of folks then I would definitely reduce the Dragonpriest's damage.

My suggestion here is to cut the damage down by a lot, but possibly even increase its HP, and make its regeneration very clear. This gives the players a slow fight that they cannot win, a classic framing for a puzzle encounter. Later, give the players access to fire damage through items (thinking back to those explosives from Klarg, maybe you can kill 2 birds with 1 stone here) so they can come back and murder the Dragonpriest.

[Sigreid]

Might as well ask another question here... We've now played a few sessions of the adventure module, and the party has made a very unlikely (based on googling how other groups have played) decision to purchase the metal key from Yusdrayl and go to the area the key opens, before going to the goblins. If they go all the way through that area, they will still be level 1 against a CR 2 downgraded troll (the dragonpriest), and after I did a mental check on what I know their characters to be, they have no access to fire damage! A single claw swipe from the troll (max damage 16) can take down any of the 4 characters from full hit points. It doesn't get a normal troll's multi-attack, and the party begins with a significant action economy advantage against a single monster, but that goes down significantly as the dragonpriest takes down characters.

So my question is, is this an unfair fight for the group? Should I consider modifying it?
It was pretty unfair to the party when mine picked the lock. Fun to watch them try to survive. Note, to pick the lock successfully they went to a lot of effort to stack every mundane and magical advantage they could scrape together instead of taking the hint provided by a really difficult lock.

Edit: for the first question, it's a bad idea to kill the guy that brings your food before you escape confinement and white dragons are very patient.

[tchntm43]

Having your character die because you made a bad decision is one of the ways player's level up.
I do agree with this. But if the player feels that the character died because the DM made an unfair decision, they are not likely to want to play again. There is a point where it's on the DM, not the player. I feel like this encounter, if met at level 1, is probably not over that line, but uncomfortably close. The DM's ultimate responsibility is to provide a fun play experience.


RE: Dragonpriest, I think this fight was originally intended to be originally a skill test for skilled adventurers from old editions ("did you remember to bring fire? no? then die lol") and/or a secret boss at the end of the game when the party is maxed out so they can one-shot the troll. I think the old way of thinking where you're expected to memorize certain bits of meta-info or be killed is less popular nowadays, and if your players aren't those kinds of folks then I would definitely reduce the Dragonpriest's damage.
Yeah, this play group is not looking for the cut-throat version of the game. They love playing their characters and role-playing interactions with NPCs (they have adopted Meepo already). Because the players are newish (one of which completely new), I had announced at the start that the first adventure would be a kind of "warm up" adventure where the challenge is light and they have an opportunity to focus on learning the game. They are still at a point where they make a lot of mistakes simply related to being unfamiliar with the rules and abilities their characters have. For example, the rogue went through the early encounters not realizing that he gets sneak attack if an ally is within 5 ft of his target. The warlock has been relying on Eldritch Blast for everything, and has not used a single spell slot yet, which may just be due to feeling overwhelmed by too many options (I've seen this specific tendency come up before with new players who choose to play spellcasters).

If they truly don't have access to fire damage, maybe give them access to it somehow, but that would be about the limit of help I would suggest.
Yes, I think I'm going to do this. I'm going to place a single flask of alchemist's fire with a cloth note in draconic that says "in case of emergency". This actually fits well into the context of the quasit's purpose of watching over the dragonpriest. The flask is a last resort for the quasit if the dragonpriest should somehow get out of the coffin.

[Unoriginal]

I do agree with this. But if the player feels that the character died because the DM made an unfair decision, they are not likely to want to play again. There is a point where it's on the DM, not the player. I feel like this encounter, if met at level 1, is probably not over that line, but uncomfortably close. The DM's ultimate responsibility is to provide a fun play experience.

Yeah, this play group is not looking for the cut-throat version of the game. They love playing their characters and role-playing interactions with NPCs (they have adopted Meepo already). Because the players are newish (one of which completely new), I had announced at the start that the first adventure would be a kind of "warm up" adventure where the challenge is light and they have an opportunity to focus on learning the game. They are still at a point where they make a lot of mistakes simply related to being unfamiliar with the rules and abilities their characters have. For example, the rogue went through the early encounters not realizing that he gets sneak attack if an ally is within 5 ft of his target. The warlock has been relying on Eldritch Blast for everything, and has not used a single spell slot yet, which may just be due to feeling overwhelmed by too many options (I've seen this specific tendency come up before with new players who choose to play spellcasters).

Yes, I think I'm going to do this. I'm going to place a single flask of alchemist's fire with a cloth note in draconic that says "in case of emergency". This actually fits well into the context of the quasit's purpose of watching over the dragonpriest. The flask is a last resort for the quasit if the dragonpriest should somehow get out of the coffin.

Could just have the Quasit yell "Use fire! Use torches!" and let the PCs handle the fight.

A Quasit is not going to bravely fight that kind of opponent if there are convenient pasties to take the hits.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm going to place a single flask of alchemist's fire with a cloth note in draconic that says "in case of emergency". This actually fits well into the context of the quasit's purpose of watching over the dragonpriest. The flask is a last resort for the quasit if the dragonpriest should somehow get out of the coffin. I was going to suggest that. Nice idea. :smallsmile:

[SirDidymus]

The first time I played Sunless Citadel we managed to pick the lock and faced the dragon priest before most of the dungeon. We were experienced players so the fire wasn't a problem but I think the DM let us level before the fight to help with the insta-kill fears. If not in advance of the encounter, then it was a reward afterwards.