Dragon Encounter
I’m going to have to disagree with the Handbook today. That’s because there is one beast more overconfident than a dragon. It is the foulest, most dangerous monster in all of gaming. It lairs in basements and behind cardboard screens, and can be identified by means of a Knowledge (Obscure Geek Shit) check. Be wary, friends! For if ever you hear its haunting call of “Roll for initiative!” it is already far too late.
…
So any dang way, let’s talk about GMing dragon fights. Our pal Uchichi Draguto gives a pretty good overview of the what-not-to-do. Wading into melee like a dumb winged dinosaur is going to get your scaly butt handed to you. It’s far better to trust the open skies, practice your strafing run, and isolate individual PCs as much as possible. A quick google for “dragon tactics” will give you the breakdown for your system of choice, so let’s not sweat the minutia. Instead, I’d like to talk about dragon encounters in a more general sense.
You see, when you’re the GM, you have access to all the stats on the battlefield. You know what your monster is capable of, and that it is easily the biggest badass on the grid. Unfortunately, that tends to blind folks to the grim reality that every dragon has to face: five heroes are collectively tougher than one overgrown iguana. Everybody and their mama knows that the action economy is a thing, but addressing the issue mechanically is only half the challenge (thanks legendary actions!). When it comes to making a dragon fight feel special, you’ve got to do more than mechanics.
The lair actions in 5e give us a clue here, making the environment relevant to the encounter. But for my money, the setting surrounding your climactic chromatic combat should be about more than “make a save or suffer an effect.” These are friggin’ dragons we’re talking about. They are the mascots of the hobby, and each and every one of them deserves to feel like a set piece encounter. For green dragons, that might look like a swimming retreat into a slimy pools followed by tense rounds of hide-and-go-seek negotiation. If you’re dealing with a white dragon, getting caught out on an ice flow or running from an avalanche is half the fun. A red dragon attacking a city should block alleyways with debris, strand NPCs in burning towers, and cause mass panic with its frightful presence. In every case, it’s about more than the smart tactics of “fly away while your breath weapon recharges.” It’s about spectacle. It’s about bombast. It’s about reshaping the game world to accommodate an overwhelming draconic presence. And if you want to do that, you have to look beyond the stat block.
So for today’s discussion, why don’t we brainstorm a few dragon encounters? Pick a color or a metal, propose a setting, and let’s build a few memorable set piece encounters. Everybody ready? Let’s hit it down in the comments!
THIS COMIC SUCKS! IT NEEDS MORE [INSERT OPINION HERE] Is your favorite class missing from the Handbook of Heroes? Maybe you want to see more dragonborn or aarakocra? Then check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. You’ll become part of the monthly vote to see which elements get featured in the comic next!
Red dragon on the beach.
Fire Breath + Sandy Beach = Molten Glass
After it cools, would it break if someone walks on it and turns into basically caltrops?
Very yes.
Oops, sorry, clicked on reply instead of comment
Minus 50 DKP! 😛
Ironically, dragons are actually probably one of the enemies I’m least prone to using in my games because who wants to deal with three-dimensional positioning rules on the battlemat?
That being said, I love the idea of a dragon fight that captures the feel of the Volvagia boss battle from Ocarina of Time, with the dragon poking its head out of a series of connected holes/pools to harry the party and the party essentially playing whack-a-mole in response. You could do it with red dragons, but I think black dragons work better for those extra pools of acid/caustic air hazards.
I may own a set of magnetized acrylic stands.
Hell yeah! To me that’s a lot more interesting than the “trading haymakers” kind of combat. Add in some kind of mechanic to track the dragon / make educated guesses about where it will pop out and you’ve got a solid mechanic for your boss fight.
Here’s an encounter that can start an entire campaign, or get a party of unlikely individuals together.
Step 1: Have session 0 start with each of the PCs getting their lives or something precious to them rescued or saved by a mysterious individual in a black cloak (with a specific identifying symbol on it – a curved talon). Said individual only says ‘You owe me, now’ and leaves.
Step 2: Years later, at session 1, have a letter arrive, claiming it’s time to repay their debt(s), marked with the curved talon symbol.
Step 3: PCs all convene at the designated meeting area. Give them a few minutes to talk to each other, discuss things. Then, have the mysterious individual show up… And be identified as a rather old black dragon.
Step 4: Proceed to ‘diplomance’ the party into a quest of ‘heroics’ to bring the dragon ‘a few trinkets and heirlooms’, to settle their collective ‘debts’.
Have you actually used this campaign hook? How did it work out? And perhaps more to the point: how did the inevitable fight against the big bad quest-giver go?
I did not, it exists in my head for now. Feel free to nick it!
I imagine problems wise, there’s potential problems with the party paladins or goody-two-shoes attempting to suicide against the dragon, or the confrontation attempt happening before they’re ready for it, or infighting due to the moral quandry or ambiguity of it (notably, the PCs did not witness dragon do any evil acts, outside of being terrifying). You might need to ask the PCs how they would react to a morally questionable quest giver in advance.
One possible resolution is that the dragon is secretly on a redemption quest and trying to become a legitimately better dragon (or transform into a metallic). They need the PCs to not cause themselves to be tempted by evil in acquiring the things they need, reach areas warded from evil/dragons, etc.
You can also make the dragon start good aligned but become slowly corrupted by the items get get, or reveal it to be a disguise.
Fight wise, I imagine it’s two scenarios: the PCs do as they’re told and the dragon betrays them (attacking once they get their last item, or letting them go but sending assassins to tie up loose ends), or the PCs investigate the dragon motives, find previous NPCs that got ‘recruited’ by the dragon and survived, and hatch a plan to ambush/double-cross the dragon before their job is finished, potentially with the things they collected or with advantages.
I love this and might have to steal it sometime.
Funnily enough, if Uchichi Draguto has the right build, he might wipe the floor with Team Bounty Hunter.
He has draconic natural armor, high DEX (given he’s a ninja) and small size, all of which provide AC bonuses. And given their… Character inspiration, they are likely also able to shapechange into a fox or similar tiny creature. As a ninja, he can turn invisible and apply sneak attack damage for both defense and offense.
Combined, this makes Uchichi a ‘Sonbird of Doom’ build.
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rzop?The-Songbird-of-Doom-A-Guide-to-a-most
He’s screwed, however, if he loses his DEX to AC, has his invisibility negated, or gets hit by a spell (though his draconic saves and SR should help with those).
If that headband is anything to go by, he’s probably not an actual ninja. I bet he collects a lot of ninja memorabilia though.
For serious though, dragons aren’t so good at Dex builds. At low CR you don’t have enough class levels to make the songbird build turn on. At high CR you’re a huge+ creature, meaning that Dex goes out the window.
What if the dragon is a full sized adult/ancient, but poly’s themselves into a smaller form rembling their younger self? Nothing says surprise like the tiny whelp hatchling unleashing ancient dragon abilities or breath attacks.
Heh. Cursed with youthful good looks? Could be very Monty Python rabbit
!WARNING! Sidetrack ahead, enter digression at own risk! !WARNING!
“If that headband is anything to go by, he’s probably not an actual ninja. I bet he collects a lot of ninja memorabilia though”
There’s always been this interesting meta-‘discussion’ going on about the Players behind the Heroes, despite the Handbook mostly hewing to “The Heroes have no Players” meta-textual setup. That Uchichi’s Player has created a Character that is himself a weeb, not that the Player is the weeb*, is a take I find very interesting…
The Player can still be a weeb, but I find it very amusing that the Character is a weeb, or at the very least an anime ninja enthusiast.
Heh. I am now imagining Street Samurai showing Uchichi old anime holograms as the dragon party watches in slack-jawed wonder.
You know, this now calls for a Dragon Party crossover into Shadowrun…
I know I’ll be running with a few Dracolisks in a Pathfinder game based on one large city. Undead invasion theme, with my plan being to use the older Red Dragons ability to melt stone to destroy large swathes of the giant wall built over generations by dwarven and human architects and let the undead flow in. Just reading your description makes me realize that that’s not enough, especially with the big bad being present and riding one of them, doubly so when one considers I don’t expect the low level PCs to win. They know OOC the actual setting is this massive city being overrun and trying to survive the fallout.
I’d appreciate any ideas folks might have towards making that just that much more terrifying.
If you’re doing the whole “low level PCs trying to survive the sack of a city,” then the dragons are window dressing for the actual challenges: Rescuing NPCs, clearing an escape route through invading foot soldiers, and drawing enemy fire away from civilians. Like I said in the blog:
A good boss fight might be a red dragon that got knocked out of the sky by a ballista. Unable to fly, it’s still quite dangerous on the ground. Dropping a partially-collapsed building on the sucker, leading it down an alleyway where it’s too narrow to turn around, or simply kiting the monster could be interesting non-combat encounters.
Of course, since PCs are going to want to charge in and hack away anyway, figure out what kind of building the downed dragon fell into. A steel mill, damaged dam, or fireworks factory could all be interesting.
Oooo, I do love that idea for a boss fight, especially since multiple dragons may be involved at the beginning.
A lot of the campaign will revolve around staying alive in the middle of said horde, rescuing civilians and trying to build up defenses, and seeing if there’s anything that might be done before things manage to somehow get even worse (Because there’s totally a Pathfinder Lovecraft book >.> )
Hmm. White Dragon on several iceberg like things. Thinking the arctic/Antartica where animals will sit on the ice to avoid the predators below.
You have frozen water to dive in, other islands to go to. Hell, cold breath could probably make a landing spot, which could be a story element; this entire land is made by THE white dragon who uses their cold breath to maintain it and grow their land.
You could also trap PCs who fell in the water below the ice. Suddenly the drowning rules are an actual threat!
Bonus: Your ranger / druid gets to make friends with some seals to find an air hole.
Ah, THAT is the explanation behind the famous white dragon last words “Curse you baby seeeaaaaaaaals!”
I’m personally responsible for ruining two dragon encounters for my DM.
The first time we were fighting a Large dragon, and I managed to get a net over it, and the DM failed the strength check to free the dragon for several rounds.
The second time the dragon was larger, and it had kobolds helping, the area was well prepared, it was all looking good for our scaled foe. Half the party went into melee, some chasing the kobolds, and we could hear the DM’s grin. Then it was my dwarven wizard’s turn, who threw a fireball in the middle of the battlefield. Evocation school meant that my party members were safe, but I killed most of the kobolds with one shot – including the kobold shaman preparing to use the Staff of Healing on the dragon. It was a simple cleanup job from there.
You know that episode of “Batman: The Animated Series” where the villains are all trading “almost got him” Batman stories?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEdg4glpCkg
I feel like, if the D&D equivalent of a “big rock” can ruin the encounter, there might have been some miscalculations on the dragon’s part.
I think the miscalculations was forgetting the Sculpt Spell feature on evocation school wizards, as the dragon and kobolds thought they are safe from big area damage if they stay close to party members… without that feature (and me throwing extra big on the damage so even the half damage killed some) we would have had a hard time.
…one of the reasons why I’m always very sceptical about homebrew classes and subclasses, especially in one shots – it’s hard enough to plan with official features, but then someone comes with an innocently looking feature that totally breaks or deprecates your encounters and obstacles…
Believe me, I heard that: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/flighty
Heheheh I’ve one in the works for my current game… an ancient green dragon of oceanic theme that I hope will be the second-hardest fight of the campaign.
It will start with the grand old dame being resurrected (she’s been dead and bound 2,500 years) and rising from a storm-lashed sea. The party, standing on a decomissioned and decaying north sea oil rig, will be slipping and sliding and stumbling as the storm of the century batters their seaborne battlefield.
There will be ample shelter for the party to hide from her arial attacks, if they think of it – and they had better, otherwise they will quickly die in a sea of venom. But after growing impatient with their efforts at hit-and-hide fighting, she’ll move to destroying the rig from its foundations, and the party will have to race against her – and likely try some crazy daring jump-onto-the-beasts-back finale – to take her down before they are dragged to a watery grave.
… That’s how I hope it will turn out. Check back in a couple of months to find out what actually happened…
Love the setting! Any chance of a crane or other heavy machinery coming into play during the fight?
A marvelous idea! I’ll put the set pieces there, and see if any players think to use them!
Well, our pal Uchachi here looks to be a juvenile green dragon, so let’s see what we can do with that:
At juvenile level, green dragons don’t yet have most of the signature dragon powers, but the two big things they do have are acid breath and water breathing. So let’s imagine a green dragon that lives in a set of underwater caves, having used its acid breath (which does work underwater) to sculpt tunnels through the stone. It might have rooms which are themselves above water level, but which can only be accessed by long swims through flooded tunnels, in order to store things water would ruin. Fighting this dragon should involve it constantly hitting and fading. It can hang out in a lake, just popping its head out long enough to acid-breath the PCs then ducking back under to hide from ranged counter-attacks. It can use a rushing river to shoot from one end of a long cave to the other, outflanking melee tanks and getting in position to hit the squishies. It can use its tunnels to attack from the walls and the ceilings. If the PCs try to pin it down, it flees up into vertical tunnels or under the water, and if they try to face it underwater it probably turns and fights (its breath weapon works underwater and having a swim speed means it ignores the worst aquatic combat penalties).
I struggle with this when I’m running incorporeal creatures. It makes sense to go full Tucker’s Kobolds and turn on the guerrilla tactics. It’s realistic for the monster and challenging for the players. Only problem is that it’s frustrating as hell to play against. When the song and dance drags out too long, my players will sometimes get visibly irritated: “What can I do besides ready an action and wait?”
A good way to counter that mindset is to offer some way to temp your enemy out of hiding. Threaten the dragon’s horde or egg or whatever, and it’s forced to do the “dumb thing” and defend its stuff without all the sneaking about.
I like the high mobility bit though. What about complimenting it with geysers and flooding? Unblock some tunnels and cause the whole cave system to start filling with water. Tempt the players onto unstable ground and watch them get hydro-pushed back into the nearest convenient body of water.
The whole “green dragon hides in a lake and takes potshots” tactic was actually written in to the tactical recommendation for the DM for the final boss fight of the 3E “Forge of Fury” module.
For me, the interesting part of this scenario is less the hit and run than the ability to have a simultaneous social encounter. I’m imagining an aquatic version of the hall or mirrors trope where you’re trying to tack down the beast while it taunts you.
Don’t mean 2 b that guy but greens have poison not acid breath.Curious if u use system where that’s different
P.s. can’t remember if greens have a swim speed, do u actually mean black dragons?
According to the SRD, green dragons definitely have a swim speed and acid breath.
Which SRD? I know in 5e, green dragons are poison-aligned and can swim (I’ve got the Monster Manual right here). Not sure about other editions; I may have skimmed past the green dragon part of the 4e Monster Manuals, but that was over a decade ago.
3.5e D&D
White dragon hiding under the ice of a frozen lake.
Breaking through to separate the PCs on different floes and trapping those who fall into the water by freezing it above them with his cold breath.
It’s funny… I always considered the “icy lake” encounter a remorhaz sort of idea. The ice breath pushes it to another level.
I am actually planning on running an ancient gold dragon encounter! Now, an ancient gold dragon is quite a fair bit out of the party’s weight class, in terms of combat, but the dragon is actually going to be extremely frail and sickly looking.
Y’see, they allied themselves with a powerful alchemist who had a Jekyll and Hyde situation, which has since been solved in the campaign, and now they need, and I quote, “The breath of a dragon”. there are dragons lying around, but the alchemist only knows the location of a gold one that he encountered a century ago, when he was evil. He was not able to kill it, but did drain its blood to fuel his blood magic (Honestly, blood magic is a recurring theme in the campaign). Now it turns out that after the alchemist magically drained most of its blood, the dragon is now frail, weak, and dying, and only has one good fire breath left in him. not to mention, he is under a heavy guard of half-dragons.
The dragon does not know the party exists, nor that the alchemist is now no longer evil, nor that the alchemist was in the aforementioned Jekyll/Hyde situation, and now holds the kind of grudge that only an immortal who has just been given a crash course in mortality can hold. The party is planning on going the diplomatic route, so far as I can tell, and is going to need to pull out all the stops in convincing the once mighty dragon to part with the breath he is saving for his revenge on the alchemist.
Now, this being dnd, things can (and knowing my party, might) go sour quite quickly. Maybe they accidentally mention the name of the alchemist, (which has happened a couple of times already), maybe they just aren’t that persuasive, maybe any number of things will happen, in which case the fight starts! The dragon is unable to move, and is on a giant throne, he cannot do much by way of fighting, but he IS able to empower his guards in a bunch of ways as a lair action thing! Basically, if the fight happens, they will need to manage the weaker half dragons, keep the empowered ones occupied, and eventually goad the dragon into using his breath attack on them in a last ditch effort, at which point they will claim it in an enchanted potion decanter. Then it is largely a matter of escaping alive.
I am putting this mainly to say that sometimes a weak dragon can be just as intense as a mighty, city destroying one. Although, I will say at this point the dragon might be an “ancient gold dragon” in name only, given he lost most of his power, and replaced his frighten aura with an empowering one. I don’t know
Gold dragons are regal rulers, right? Makes sense that there would be a bunch of half-dragon lieutenants guarding him. Figuring out how to make those guys interesting and characterful combatants should help to sell the “faded glory” angle on this dragon. It could also turn up the pathos if one of the lair actions was something like, “I’m proud of you, grandson!”
Of course, I suspect that most good-aligned parties would want to find a cure rather than fight a tragic grandpa. Is there any way to restore the dragon? Maybe a transfusion from its descendants that drive the dragon temporarily crazy…?
Oh action economy. You can render the most powerful of BBEGs impotent.
So the party was up against their first BBEG: A Dwarf-Aasimar^1 Conquest Paladin who believed his celestial nature made him infallible, and therefore justified all his Lawful Evil actions. He and his troops had just cornered the party, and he wanted to make an example out of them so he decided to let them have a short rest and take them on himself. I was hoping to lock them down via Fear combined with his Aura of Conquest so he could get his smite on. When the fateful moment arrived? He immediately got zapped for 40 lighting/turn from the Storm Cleric’s Call Lightning combined with their Channel Divinity maxing the damage. His attempt to lock the party down? Counterspell‘d.
He was humiliated so thoroughly in his defeat that he fell as he died.^2 As a result he came back as a Death Knight to menace the party later in the campaign since “Immortal until redeemed” in this case meant “Immortal until he got his vengeance upon the foes who humiliated him.”
^1 Why should only humans be able to have special births marked for greatness/be descended from Angels? Dwarves are the chosen people of the most powerful LG deity, so it only makes sense that they’d have disproportionate Aasimar per-capita, just like they canonically have disproportionate Clerics per-capita. That said; “Pretty people with wings” Aasimar are so passe, I prefer Aasimar based on biblical descriptions of angels.
^2 Conquest Paladin’s tenets if you get past the edgelord verbiage and read what they actually entail basically boils down to “1. Be the best you can be, 2. don’t take any shit, 3. make sure that your opponents are so thoroughly humiliated that they don’t fight you ever again.
Yeah… If you don’t have lair actions, legendary actions, or minions, you’re gonna have a bad time. It’s just doubly unfortunate when it’s a dragon getting humiliated due to bad tactics. Takes a lot of punch out of the game.
My party is going to be fighting a red dragon that’s been powered up by an artifact that makes him much stronger, at the cost of his mind. If they can get it away from him or knock him out, he’ll go back to how he was before he lost his free will- a party ally.
Oh, and he’s going to be absolutely tearing through what the party previously believed was an impenetrable bunker.
This right here. That’s the kind of thing that makes a dragon fight stand out.
Are you planning on a multi-stage fight? For example, lvl 1 with the dragon fighting them in the bunker, lvl 2 as it chases them out of the collapsing tunnels, and lvl 3 on the surface?
Wyrms of the North was a great source for personalities for encounters. You could probably get a six month stretch out of a dragon doing raids far from a lair, relying on obscuration and remoteness as defense. Could be several sessions just finding the thing it cashing in favors to get the planar consultations needed. Include a decoy lair if you want things thrown at you. We are talking creatures of over a century old with a target on their back. They have time for contractors and to eat their entire family line to guard the secret.
That’s an article series in Dragon, right? Looks like it’s time to go PDF hunting.
My favorite so far was an ‘encounter’ with a youngish (Medium Sized) Black dragon with some ‘home defense’ spells who had taken up residence in a ruined keep. Cu’laddwr (roughly translates as “Beloved Killer” as she killed and ate her first mate – she killed him with a fire trap, which is information the PCs could get if they asked around and impressed a group huntsman in ‘The Hunting Lodge’) is crippled, she has a deformed front left paw, it still has one claw in it’s twisted lump (so she can attack with it), but isn’t useful for grabbing (so no grabbing, flying, and then dropping foes) or even walking comfortably (so she moves slower on the ground).
The ground surrounding the keep has been cleared of trees and vegetation, the ground itself is blackened and acid scorched out for several hundred yards making sneaking up on the keep difficult (unless he is asleep or not home).
https://i.imgur.com/RokJLnW.png
https://i.imgur.com/ZFp3RWf.png
1 – The Donjon. This used to be the central tower, stretching hundreds of feet into the air, now it barely stretches 50 feet above the courtyard, not even enough to see over the walls very well if one stood on it’s tallest spot. The floors have all been demolished by time and Dragon. The ground floor entrance has been burred from inside with rubble, the middle entrance (from the walls) is an open portal, and the top is gone. The inner tower simply drops down into the dungeon below, a decently sized space (30+ yards across) that has all corridors blocked off with rubble. This is where Cu’laddwr sleeps and keeps her meager treasures.
On the ‘upper outer wall’ (the grey section), tucked into the alcove of the wall entrance, Cu’laddwr has 2 pots of pitch per PC and a small stack of wood (10 logs that are wrapped in pitch soaked cloth on one end as makeshifts ‘torches’, once lit will remain lit for about 30 minutes).
2 – These rooms are mostly intact (though there are holes in the ceiling) and Cu’laddwr stores wood and pots of pitch here for safe keeping. One room is filled with dry wood, the other has some number of pots, some filled with pitch, some empty, probably one ‘being filled’. Your call on how many pitch pot she has extra here. She also has some rotted cloth and strips of ‘cloth-like’ bark here to be used for making more ‘torches’.
Pitch pots do 1 yard radius 1d-1 burn damage and will burn for 3d+3 seconds once ‘splashed’. If they are in Cloth or Leather Armor they will be lit on fire, and require 3 Ready Maneuvers of rolling on the ground to put out the flames (victims on fire are Distracted and suffer a -2 to DX), unless it’s raining or they are otherwise rather wet. It takes a Ready action to light a Pitch Pot with a lit brand or torch.
Being on fire might call for a morale roll for Henchmen.
3 – These two bridges do not ‘draw’. They are stout tree trunks (roughly 18-24 inches thick) banded together with iron. The bases are braced against posts long ago hammered into the ground. They are pretty sturdy (though they sag a bit near the middle), but aren’t bolted in place. One of the reasons Cu’laddwr hasn’t just moved them is their tremendous weight (the inner bailey bridge weighs about 9,000 lbs, the outer bailey bridge just over 17,000 lbs). Shifting them would difficult! (Though Cu’laddwr could shift the inner bailey bridge off it’s foundations and let it fall. She just hasn’t yet.)
4 – This was once a bridge crossing where the old creek was (this tributary dried out long ago and helped decide the abandonment of the castle). The bridge has fallen into rubble, the whole area is strewn with large blocks and crushed timbers, going from a few feet to tens of feet in height. The creek bed itself is measured in 10 foot elevation lines.
5 – These walls are thin and not well anchored. A good push or battering could see them fall.
S – An old secret sally port. Cu’laddwr does not know it exists and only mild laziness has kept her from digging out the escarpment along that section of wall.
Broken Terrain – This area is littered with large broken stones (from the walls and fallen tower) as well as the remains of the trees from the surrounding cleared area. Most of the logs, branches, and stones have been broken down and well scattered, creating an ‘almost’ uniform field of broken and hard to move through terrain. If one is of roughly human size. Creatures less than SM +2 will find that movement is Obstructed (+1 movement point per hex) and that it is Bad Footing (-2 to attack rolls, -1 to defense rolls).
The area might also be flammable, depending on the weather (roll 3d6). If it has been dry (3-6), areas will light up almost immediately (needing 3 points of damage), if it has rained within the last day (7-10) it may take a few seconds (10 points of damage), it it has rained heavily (11-14) it will take considerable time (30 points of damage), or if it is currently raining (15-18) the wood might never light (6 or less on 3d every 10 seconds of fire contact).
Rain will also hamper Vision and Hearing rolls, and Bow/Crossbow combat, double all distances for determining penalties.
Punji Stakes and Sharp Stones – Cu’laddwr has spent some of her time planting stakes of sharpened logs and stones along these inclines to make climbing above them perilous. Anyone falling or being thrown in these areas might (1-4 on a d6) hit these sharpened ‘spikes’ turning their falling damage from crushing to impaling. However climbing in these areas for SM +1 or smaller creatures is at +2 due to the ease of finding hand and footholds.
Deadfall Traps – These two traps are pretty obvious (+2 on a Per based Traps, Architecture, or Urban Survival roll to spot) but still deadly. On a 5 in 6 chance anyone walking across that weighs more than one hundred pounds sets it off. The falling rocks and logs do 3d6 crushing damage and makes the area Obstructed (+2 movement points to climb/scramble over) and gives Bad Footing (-2 to attack rolls, -1 to defense rolls).
Pitfall Traps – These two areas are mostly dug out to a 3yd depth (though the edges of the pits slope instead of being straight) and lined with stone and stakes. They are not easy to spot, being just “more tree limbs and debris on the ground” (-2 Per based Traps, Architecture, or Urban Survival roll to spot). 1-3 on a d6 for each hex crossed that someone hits a weak spot and falls through (Dodge at -2 to save), taking 1d+2 falling impaling damage (see Falling Damage Table below).
Watchdog Areas – These areas have Watchdog cast on them at dawn and dusk. North-most area has a radius of 3, northwestern tower area is radius 2, the area just south of that is likewise radius 2. Continuing clockwise the large square tower is radius 3, the southernmost small broken tower is radius 2, the large southern tower is radius 3. The two drawbridge doorways are radius 2 each, and the area crossing from the Outer Bailey to the Inner Bailey is also 2 radius. This adds up to 16 FP cast over the course of about 45 minutes (includes average rest time, so she spends 8, rests 16-20 minutes, spends 8, rests 16-20 minutes). She also uses Watchdog on her traps out in the wilderness, but that’s not important here.
It’s always fun to see a dungeon spun out of a single point of reference. The dragon wants to defend her lair. What logical precautions would you take in her place? This sort of thing adds a sense of weight to world, and brings verisimilitude in spades.
I particularly like the ruined details like the fallen bridge and the draw bridge that doesn’t draw. The effects of the dragon seep into the landscape and permeate the environment.
Ironically as a DM I’ve only ever run one dungeon that involves dragons.^1 Except I had to exercise my 4E-fanboy card by using some awesome dragons unique to 4E: Catastrophic Dragons. Catastrophics have different from normal dragons in that they have an aura that expands until it reaches critical mass, then explodes in an effect similar to a breath weapon but in all directions. The tactics they employ therefore involve a lot of getting into the center of enemy formations.
The final battle of the dungeon had the party on one end of a narrow walkway over lava. Pele was on low enough health that she retreated, but half the party was unconscious, one of them was on fire, and one was in magma with two failed death saves. I’d say I tuned that battle just perfectly.
Here’s the stat-blocks I used for said dragons if anyone’s curious.
^1 There was another dungeon in the pipeline involving some Githyanki who the party met attacking an Illithid-stronghold that the party were hunting for a plot-device in. If the Yanks had gotten to the plot-device first they would have taken it back to their base after clearing out all the squids. Said base happened to include some young red dragons. The players actually got to play as the Githyanki assault-squad who were attacking the front entrance of the Illithid base. The players would switch between the Yanks and their normal characters whenever a short rest happened. The Githyanki included such punny names as “Go’yi Reb’ba” (Yogi Bera) “Doe Mi’gagio” (Joe Dimagio) “Yick’em Ton’mel” (Mickey Mantel) and “Go’uis Leh’rig” (Louis Gehrig). Sadly that table didn’t care much for sports-ball, and so was not the target audience for Yankee-puns.
The Illithid with the plot-device managed to Plane Shift away to Mechanus during the party’s encounter with them, and I ended up scrapping the Githyanki-stronghold for a prison-tower in Mechanus. This turned out to be a good thing in the long-run since I ended up using the Modron Hierarch stat-blocks I dug up for that a lot in the campaign which involved Slaadi going all Aliens on cities.
On a semi-related note, when I was DMing a different table that eventually fell apart they had rescued a Githzerai named “Rez’dox Buz’ton.”
Also, shouldn’t the Githyanki be Lawful Good, and the Githdodjaz be Chaotic Evil? Githredsox should be Lawful Evil
The battlefield is important. It reflects the danger posed by your dragon of choice. And an explodey dragon should be able to explode you into something hazardous. Good show!
And even before the volcanic dragon’s aura explodes, it’s still a radius of toxic fumes. It’s actually an interesting mechanic; every turn you can expand the aura’s range by 10′ but if you expand it while it’s at 25′ it explodes doing equivalent damage to a red dragon’s breath, but also setting those who fail the save on fire. When the aura explodes it resets to 5′.
I’ll always be partial to the Dragon encounter in paizo’s Dragon’s Demand. He’s vastly more powerful than the party, even with their specialized dragon-slaying gear. But, a clever party will have done investigating into this dragon’s nature, and discovered a huge weakness- one that can be exploited to send the beast into a seething rage, causing him to jump down from his perch and engage in melee. His statblock includes tactics, and if you don’t exploit this weakness he’s actually a COLOSSAL threat, with a staff of illusions he uses to cast Mirror Image on himself, remaining in the air or up in his nest, etc. Exploiting a dragon’s personal weaknesses and history should always be key to defeating such powerful creatures, imo. Having dragons just be a one-off thing that shows up kinda ruins the majesty of what they are.
Avoiding any spoilers of the module itself, paizo gave the dragon a trait that means when his weakness is exploited, he has to make a will save or be staggered for a round and thrown into a blind rage. He gets increasing bonuses on this save every time the weakness is exploited, so using it on key rounds is mandatory to keep him in melee and not shredding the party’s much lower health totals.
Now I’m beginning to wonder if a random dragon encounter can be done well. Or is it always an anticlimax?
I wouldn’t say they’re anticlimaxes but I feel like it does miss some of what makes dragons what they are. I’d probably do something similar to Monster Hunter- the Dragon isn’t dumb, when you randomly stumble into a dragon in the wild and start beating it down, it’s going to leave if the fight looks like it’s going south. You can probably track it to its nest, where you can properly engage it in a real battle, but any given random encounter with a dragon is unlikely to end with a dragon’s death.
I suppose you could do a game where dragons are common. Outside of the standard “BBEG dragon” that we’re imagining, you could start with fairy dragons and pseudodragons, graduate to drakes, hang out in a cosmpolitan city of metallic dragons, etc. At that point though, it’s not really the same creature in terms of its meaning.
Why limit ourselves to chromatic & metallic dragons? I know Pathfinder at least has several fun thematic groups of dragon types beyond those.
How about fighting a Magma Dragon in an active volcano with plenty of lava around? Battle starts with the Dragon resting just under the lava’s surface and spraying the party with molten lava as they burst out to start the fight. During the encounter, the dragon repeatedly dives back into the lava to keep the party from being able to apply constant pressure. And even better if the dragon has some method to trigger the volcano’s eruption once the fight starts to go bad for it, knowing that it could survive the eruption while the PCs would have to flee or die.
Classic scenario for Time Dragons, don’t bully a young one or its older self might time travel from the future to teach you a lesson.
Dream Dragons & Nightmare Dragons both seem like great campaign set-pieces, capable of repeatedly harassing the party in their sleep. A dream dragon’s sleeping breath combined with their ability to enter a sleeping creature’s dream while simultaneously acting in their physical body seems like it could make a great mid-fight bait-and-switch, transitioning from fighting the dragon in the real world to fighting in the dream world while the real dragon escapes/completes its objective. And of course Nightmare Dragons have the classic “die in the dream = die in real life” ability along with warping dreamscapes to their will. And I can only imagine how a fight would go when the boss can alter terrain, gravity, etc during the battle.
Wait a minute… Is this a jojo meme? 😛
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1YcJkYBAxQ
The party is in the middle of a city. Buildings of stone and wood all around them. Empty, except for the wind clashing with the belongings of the former habitants. There is a dragon in here, the rumors say so, the burned taint in the air confirm that, so does the bones and fire marks. It’s here, somewhere, hidden among the architecture, between the columns and roof, between the houses and towers. Between the missing pieces of the city’s famous facede. Glistering like rainbows over the black stone in days before fire rained from the sky. You are the pray, we are the hunters, have these friends and outcasts say to many beings. From giants to dragons, from vampires to rabbits.
-So more snacks have come! How nice of you- says the winds in front of them while behind a death winds crosses the streets.
The friends prepare themselves, they know its near. Their prey only got scares for them. Hidden among the buildings, hidden like an animal, hidden among stolen treasures.
-It’s near- says the bow-girl.
-Damn these spiky buildings- curses the small warrior among them.
A wind here, a thunderous wing over there, a fleeting shadow on the corner of the eye. They look for their prey, look among the buildings, among the roofs, among the shadows with wings…
The building, its shadow has wings…
They turn around and see, the building, glistering with the rainbow facede, black scales beneath, unfolding its wings to their full span. The hunter in front of them. His prey only got scares for him. Hidden among the streets, hidden like an animals, hidden among looted armors. Are you the hunters? Asks the predator eyes. No, we are the preys, respond their cut breath. Hands grasping weapons, claws preparing to jump, lips whispering spells, throat about to exhale fire. A fight about to begin…
The haunted city trope is a personal favorite. That might have something to do with my other favorite game:
http://broheim.net/downloads.html
What’s so great about dragons is their adaptability. Choose the right subspecies and you can tie them into virtually any setting.
I don’t know if haunted city, but empty or too much big city is a scenario i like. Something too big, or maybe too sparely populated and in disrepair. Think of New York but only with like 10.000 habitants, or Ravnica with like one person per city block. Like the city have grow too big for the habitants it has. The best example would be the ruins of the Mall the protagonist go in an episode of Cowboy Bebop. I really need to do a game in a place like that 😀
And as you said, dragons could appear there too. They are everywhere, they could be anywhere. Dragons are awesome 😀
Mall dragon? I can dig it: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dreamy/images/4/49/IMG_0126.JPG/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20180402225900
Roll perception for discounts on elven Iphones XD
I think they’re going to have a big argument after, he’s barely got enough scales to make one bikini out of, let alone three….
Micro bikinis it is!
Wrong handbook.
What’s NSFW about technically-clothing? :3
“Sure, you’ve got the action economy on your side. But I have an indeterminate number of hit points granted to me by God. Come at me!”
(That’s not actually a good GM strategy to use, but it can work in a pinch.)
I don’t have much to say on dragons, so I’ll just go over some fun, unconventional boss fights I’ve used, and why I think they worked.
There was Madrian the insane cannibal drow. When the party reached her lair, she sent her ghoul minions to attack and went invisible. While the party took down the ghouls, she used Enlarge Person and got behind the party, then revealed herself with a bite-and-grab attack to snatch up one of the PCs. The fight wasn’t super-long after that, but it made a big emotional impact (especially when the grappled Alchemist threw a bomb in her mouth for the K.O.), which is what’s really important. A later battle with her was short, but after the party killed her and got on the elevator to descend to the next area, the ghoul fever in her body brought her back as a mutated, animalistic ball of fury and hunger and she leaped onto the elevator platform after them, forcing a desperate, close-quarters showdown that the players loved.
Ulken the mutated scientist was definitely on the wrong end of the action economy, but vivid descriptions of how quickly he was healing off any injuries the party inflicted, combined with the damage caused by a single swing of his massive arms, caused panic among the PCs as they desperately tried to squeeze out every point of damage they could. Furthermore, though this didn’t actually come up, I’d used my god powers to grant Ulken immunity to most any status effect that would disable him, BUT using such immunity would increase the INT damage he was taking most every turn, so it a player’s turn would not be wasted by casting Sleep or whatever. The extreme fast healing led to the players to treat the battle like it was a race against time even though it wasn’t, which can be a useful trick. Yeah, the party can definitely beat that solo boss monster in four rounds, but what if circumstances tell them they need to do it in two?
Yukesia the salt ghost began combat by covering the entire field in an Obscuring Mist that she could see through and kept flying around, blasting the PCs with area-of-effect spells that caused entanglement or slowness as the party tried to nail her down. A different boss (Magus/Ninja) from another campaign used a complex mix of Bladed Dash, spell combat, reach, five-foot-steps and Vanishing Trick to zip and zap around the map before disappearing, leaving the party utterly confused as they desperately tried to track which square she was in or form a defense. Anything that makes it hard for the players to actually attack the boss on their turns drastically rebalances the action economy. (“Hard to” should not mean “impossible”, though.)
The Black Heart was hard to design an encounter for, since it was fundamentally a big, immovable, psychic rock. I ended up using some summoned earth elementals, giant bone-and-sludge hands emerging from a nearby pool of black blood and channeling negative energy until the PCs wailed on it enough for things to seem climactic (since I kinda-sorta hadn’t calculated its HP). Fortunately, the rock had put them through so much crap that it felt satisfying.
Lastly, we should note that anti-climactic fights are not always bad. After a long series of fights, my players found themselves exhausted in battle against a heavily-buffed Gun Chemist mad scientist who was effectively shooting grenades at them. As the party turned to flee, the Wizard threw a casting of Damp Powder at the boss’s gun. The party had almost reached the exit to the house they were in when the boss reappeared, having used a secret passage to cut in front of them. He said something menacing and then tried to fire his disabled gun. After which the party just jumped on him. I could have had him notice the damp powder and replace it before he cut them off, but the party had been through a lot that day, I didn’t want to negate by fiat the Wizard’s spell prepared for this exact situation, and it seemed to be sufficiently gratifying in a “man behind the curtain” sort of way for an unsportsmanlike beatdown now that the boss was out of flesh golems and exploding zombies and shapeshifting minions and giant extradimensional spiders. And the players seemed to agree. Sometimes, one-shotting the boss is more fun and memorable than a proper battle.
I like that business with the ghost dragon and the mist. It’s a nice marriage of mechanics and theme.
Aaw… no gemstone dragon encounters? Fiiine…
The black dragon is, of course, amphibious. The obvious solution is therefore a lake of some sort… but why need it be one of water? After all, all of that acid it breathes over time has to go somewhere…
So, then, we have a deep, deep lake of acid, coloured a putrid green. Running across it is a chain of giant “stepping stones” which must be leapt along, and at the very centre is a small islet with a glowing magical circle and a gong. Crucially, however, each stepping stone can only be occupied by a single player at once, and each is actually an unsecured granite pillar sunk a short distance into the muddy lake-bed. Smart players may be able to spot that they hsvd been clawed out of a type of rock not native to the area, rather than formed naturally. With a gentle nudge from beneath the acid, the dragon (let’s call her Sathixamanakt) can knock one of these pillars over half-way. A second nudge dislodges it entirely.
Strategy: Sathixamanakt hides under mud, 60 ft. down at the bottom of the lake and thus within Blindsight range of the surface. Her servants have spread rumours that the central circle is her personal Teleportation Circle to her lair… it certainly seems large enough. As the party begins hopping between pillars, she knocks them over. If any attempt to swim, she allows them to, and continues knocking over pillars. This should appear to be more a trap effect than an actual creature. Eventually, though, the party will reach the centre, and either ring the gong or step into the circle, or both.
The gong targets the nearest creature with a spell active on them with Lv6 Dispel Magic.
The circle I’d a Glyph of Warding: antimagic sphere.
Sathixamanakt finishes knocking down the last pillars before emerging to deliver some variant on this explanation: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0627.html
Her first attacks are directed at either any flying mount or any spellcaster who looks like they might know Fly.
Once Sathixamanakt is defeated, the typical player may be disappointed by the absence of treasure. The intelligent player, however, will note that the central pillar is the same as all the others in appearance, and yet has not yet been knocked over.
Beneath the central pillar, if the enormous mass of stone can be moved, is found the true teleportation circle, leading to a chamber of fabulous wealth buried miles underground… A kind DM may even opt not to also have it contain acid. A REALLY kind DM will have the teleportation circle be two-way, rather than having a series of (possibly also acid-filled) shafts leading up to the surface, obstructed in places by boulders too large for humans to move.
I, as you may have surmised by now, am not a kind GM. Thank God I primarily run intrigue.
Nice to see acid come into focus instead of lava. We’ve had frozen lakes elsewhere in the thread… Now if we can just figure out how to make a lake of electricity we’ll be set!
I see a blue dragon that lairs in a 3D web of copper strung through the heart of a gigantic canyon whilst a thunderstorm rages perpetually overhead…
Bonus points of the party are kenku and aarakocra and similar. Fried birds on a power line!
And further, the ability to maneuver in three dimensions without having to risk the wires, as long as they were willing to move more slowly and carefully, would add a tactical element absent for ground-crawlers… marvellous!
My group ran into a young green dragon once. After some playful banter, our ranger made the mistake of not forking over his swag when a godsdamn dragon told him to, and a fight broke out. They managed to deal respectable damage to the dragon and kill his minions, so he flew off swearing revenge.
I plan to have him turn up later in an attack on a magical mine they liberated earlier (that they told him about mid-banter, even); this time, though, he’ll have learned a couple lessons in pragmatism. This means more and better minions than the bunch of zealots in bathrobes he had earlier, he won’t bother with the banter (get the jump on them with the breath weapon while they’re in an enclosed space, invisibly if he can find a way to manage it, then start taunting them), and he’ll have learned just enough magic to get some defensive and escape spells.
If things go south for him again, there’s an underground river down there for him to escape into, and he’s pretty confident that he’ll be able to hang out down there in safety long enough to be able to recover and make a more thorough escape. If anyone tries to follow him, he’ll have an enormous advantage due to being able to swim and breathe and fight normally underwater.
Where are you planning to stage the ambush? Sounds like a bridge encounter to me.
I’d hate to fight a dragon in almost any situation. A well run dragon is arguably one of the deadliest encounters you can face in a campaign. Fighting a black dragon in a swamp would probably be a TPK without a powerful wizard or druid who could lock it down. Just imagine trying to predict where the damn thing is going to pop out next and either drag the poor wizard into the swamp to drown them or cover the party in acid. Fighting a red dragon on a mountain top, particularly one with very narrow pathways next to cliffs, would be awful. Another “fun” encounter would be running into a white dragon while crossing a frozen lake.
I bet that mountain fight could be fun if you had the party all roped together for “safety.” Really play up the dragon’s superior maneuvering in that situation.
I’ll pitch…. a Blue Dragon in a gnomish artificer style city. The gnomes’ defensive illusions make things difficult for all sides since the dragon can’t necessary beat every check for them, the PCs don’t know what are and aren’t illusions but can use them defensively if they figure them out and the dragon doesn’t (or the other way around), and the gnomes are too terrified to think straight and recognize the illusions for what they are even if they know about them.
The dragon breathing lightning/lair effects does two different things.
The first is that it sets off experimental (read: standard) gnomish devices into unpredictable chains of explosions. The resulting fires and debris creates all sorts of hazards.
The second is that it also activates various other devices including rotating or extending bridges and gateways or other stuff that changes the terrain or just sets off various magic effects. Some dangerous, some beneficial, some just weird. Turning on or off lights, making constructs think their directions are to take all boots to the warehouse, shooting magic missiles at random targets, granting random turn duration fire resistance, etc.
The resulting panic/destruction might activate various constructs/cause gnomes to give panicked commands to do a bunch of poorly worded actions or just be going about trying to put out fires/fix things that gets in the way.
And if the numbers would be too against the dragon, perhaps they have minions in the city that will sow additional chaos and try and convince onlookers that things are the fault of the PCs. Because what’s better when fighting a dragon than to have a squadron of ornithopters or whatever fly in from another district that can’t actually see the cause for all the chaos show up and try to detain the PCs?
Lightning dragon inside of a gnomish device kind of city? Hell yeah! I bet you could have all sorts of things going off. Street signs, cable cars, traffic lights, construction equipment of dubious quality… Anything hit by the breath weapon goes haywire!
The lair of a copper dragon. Picture a labyrinth carved through stone, descending hundreds of meters into and below a mesa. There is a gap above the walls just big enough for the dragon to climb through using its spider climb ability. Then, after dealing with twists, turns, and traps (mostly of the annoying or humiliating kind), the ceiling just opens up into an unnatural cavern beyond the reach of any darkvision while the labyrinth continues on. Any attempts to fly or climb over the walls at this point are stymied by gale force winds pushing would-be interlopers back into the entrance. Trying to teleport past the wind yields much the same result as the whole place is warded by a teleport trap. So the party must continue on through the maze. All the while, the dragon watches. It’s heard them coming since they set eyes on the entrance outside. It can see them from anywhere if they have a light, and from past the edges of their darkvision if they don’t. An illusion of pitch blackness covers the air if they try to get a glimpse by going up. And when they’ve explored every inch, found every trap, and exhausted themselves in hours of searching, they will find nothing. The dragon’s true lair lies on the ceiling of the cavern, inside a permanent reverse gravity effect. They’ll never find it if it doesn’t wish them to. And even if they do, it has ample time to scoop up its hoard and leave by stone-shaping its backdoor out the top of the mesa. Or perhaps the dragon was never there at all, merely using an astral projection to interact with the area from its true lair.
Picture an iceberg, massive in size, extending hundreds of feet below the surface of the water. Home of a white dragon. The inside is riddled with unstable tunnels crisscrossing throughout the structure. Some are flooded, those that aren’t are filled with thick, chilling mist. Glitters of gold and gems can be seen buried deep in the ice. As well as the frozen carcasses that the dragon has been saving for later. Yet none of the tunnels go to these icy caches. The dragon uses its ability to burrow through ice to have unimpeded movement through the entire area, the walls of ice blocking line of effect every time it “submerges”. And it can attack from any angle thanks to its ability to stick to the ice with spider climb. In addition to food and treasure, the dragon has encased lifelike ice statues of itself in the ice. They’re incredibly lifelike, their eyes seeming to follow you as you traverse the frozen tunnels. No, they /are/ following you. The simulacra the dragon has created of itself bursting out of the icy walls to attack along with the original. Or perhaps the real one isn’t there after all. You’d have to track down and slay every last copy to see whether it bleeds true or collapses into a pile of snow.
I hadn’t ever considered the thematic connection between white dragons and simulacra. Always scary when the big scaly guys get caster levels!
Never used it, but I had a concept for a town run by a brass dragon once… a desert town grown around the lair of a young wyrm which had decided that the best way to build a hoard was to turn its territory into a safe trade nexus with reasonable taxes.
I had a similar concept once upon a time. Suffice it to say that the halfling on the cover is not a halfling:
https://adventureaweek.com/shop/pathfinder/b17-death-taxes/
My dragon was entirely open about what it was. But like many governments, it was a little less open about whether “pay me taxes and I’ll keep your caravans safe” was a promise or a threat.
You know that meme with the black guys standing behind the white girl who is sitting on a couch? IDK why but I’m getting that kinda vibe from this. The internet has fucking ruined me.
From KNOW YOUR MEME:
I think that’s enough internet for me today.
To add to this, I just realized team bounty hunters is all female too.
I had a party I GM’ed for fight a Frost Wyrm from Warhammer Fantasy, its a weird mutated dragon whose head has split in two to make it a two headed dragon and I had it pretty much land and create a whirling snowstorm around itself and it tried to freeze the Vampire/Undead party (It was that kind of game!) but they managed to hold it still. The dual heads thing let me fire two breath attacks or combine it into a single bigger blast. The local gamestore we were playing with had this big model of Alduin from Skyrim so I borrowed it (They were awesome like that) and when I put it on the table on the grid and said it was to scale (It blew WAY past colossal size) they all sorta sucked in their breath and it went all day but man it was fun!
For some reason, that’s much creepier than a standard two-headed dragon.
Tome or gold dragon dragon in a huge library built into the side of a mountain
Firebreathing dragon + books = lost knowledge.
Could be fun the dragon cast “scrolls” from the library by burning the books.
If you can grapple a dragon, and it doesn’t have minions, you’ve functionally got a scaly pinata. The trick is getting to a size where you can make that grapple.
https://i.redd.it/amqxkm31nqgy.png
The adventurers stumble across the corpse of a long-dead Faerie Dragon, while (supposedly) out on another quest.
It’s been preserved in a peat bog, and between spears of bone and near-perfectly taxidermed deepwater bits, there is an incredible macabre sense of menace around the area, and they’re constantly looking over the back of their shoulders.
As the adventurer progresses, however, they find more and more clues that seem to contradict their stated mission, musing on the nature of reality, of life, and death.
Over the time, the adventure starts to take on a strange, Through the Looking Glass quality, with the dead dragon’s semi-submerged head regularly asking incomplete questions, stating the (wrong) date or time, and laughing – sorrowfully.
The ‘boss’ is that the dragon’s illusory powers and whatever killed it have created what might be dubbed a half-revenant. The dragon is alive and dead, suffusing the mire with its energies, but unable to truly interact with them, caught in its own decaying dreams. Recognising this, the adventurers can choose to finish off what’s left of the dragon – a time-consuming, ghoulish and labour-intensive task that finishes leaving the smothering depression and regret of the area intact.
Or, by interacting with the illusions and perhaps using a mix of clerical magic, people skills, arcane lore, and strong-armed excavation, convince the part of the dragon still present that there are other fields for it to play and gambol on – and, as it sinks into the swamp, entirely, let it be at peace.
It isn’t a ‘fight’ encounter, but that’s the sort of mini-adventure I’d have as an in-betweener in one of my games.
Hey, is an encounter with a faerie dragon ever a fight encounter? Brilliant stuff!