So in a dragon focused campaign with subtle warnings of a dragon dwelling cavern, my level 7 party of 3 (Magus, Alchemist and Rogue)found it unreasonable to find a juvenile black dragon waiting for them at the end of the cavern system. This was meant to be an epic encounter as this was their first major "boss" encounter. I had given them a wand of resist energy and had quite a bit of acid around the cave to lead them more to to ward the dragons type to being black.
Do you guys on the boards think this encounter be unreasonable as most of my group seemed to think?
Included in the treasure horde were 2 scrolls of raise dead (party has high UMD) incase things went sour and only one survived.
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A juvenile black dragon is supposed to be CR 8: Base (3) + Age (5)
It would have 10d12+40 hp and 24 AC.
It would be medium size, and would have immunity to acid and the darkness ability, but no DR or spells.
It would get a 1d8 bite, two 1d6 claws, and two 1d4 wing attacks
Its breath weapon would deal 8d6 acid in a line, before any resistance.
Seems like a challenge, but not an unreasonable one.
Sounds fine to me, only thing that could be "unreasonable" would be if there where a to narrow a passage for the dragon to get through, otherwise, why should there be any problem whit that?
APL is essentially 6 (level 7 3 people). The monster is CR 8. How is that unreasonable? Difficult? Probably, but not unreasonable. Was the party out of resources or something? I mean everyone but the rogue has limited use abilities and without those they are not particularly useful, but if the alchemist still had bombs, and the magus spells it should have been a managable encounter.
Barf on 'em all, death roll the rest 'neath logs to marinade.
This is a difficult, but doable encounter - especially if they're on the higher end of the point buy spectrum or its equivalent.
The area was relatively wide and open, the players and dragon had access to the full cavern system.
I should also add that before the combat began the dragon offered 2 options, the first being go home tail tucked between your legs or go after the artifact that had been moved from the dragons lair that the party were tasked to get, and die for their efforts. The dragon gave a bit of plot about who currently has the artifact so if the party took option one they could plan and regroup to get the artifact another way. The party unfortunately took option 2. There was nearly a TPK until one party member offered his life in exchange for some information. (The magus was flying invisibly outside after escaping) The dragon flew him close to where the magus was and dropped him from a great height causing a dramatic scene where the player dropped was caught just above the tree canopy by the magus. Yet still the players still think the encounter was too powerful for the group, except for the player that was dropped who thought it was an epic amazing encounter.
This has lead to me wanting to drop one of the player due to the way he was arguing about it. But if I drop him then it would damage a friendship and cause the game to be dropped as I couldn't replace him(there aren't any other free players in our gaming circles).
APL is essentially 6 (level 7 3 people). The monster is CR 8. How is that unreasonable? Difficult? Probably, but not unreasonable. Was the party out of resources or something? I mean everyone but the rogue has limited use abilities and without those they are not particularly useful, but if the alchemist still had bombs, and the magus spells it should have been a managable encounter.
Everyone was close to full hp, Magus had all spells slots, alchemist still had about 4 bombs left
Barf on 'em all, death roll the rest 'neath logs to marinade.
This is a difficult, but doable encounter - especially if they're on the higher end of the point buy spectrum or its equivalent.
Players are on 23 point buy so well above what the bestiary CR is based on
Yeah, it was an APL+2 encounter, difficult if they came in reasonably prepared - which they should have been given the clue bat you whacked them with.
Don't sweat it, just keep in mind that not all CRs are created equal. They don't have a full caster of either flavor, so their current level +1 = APL +2, current level +2 = APL +3 for this group by my reckoning.
I hope the Alchemist has the Chirurgeon archetype or they're in for a world of hurt.
Look, you knew before you posted it that this was a reasonable challenge. CR is +2 above the party APL which makes it a nice challenge but not unreasonable, especially since the party can prepare in advance with resist energy and wasn't resource depleted.
Your real question is what to do about a whiny troublesome player. That's a whole different question.
Me, I would take him aside and talk to him, one on one, about what he wants from the game, what you want from it, and figure out if you two can game together or not. Then you'll have your answer.
The magus is a hexcrafter with the healing hex and alchemist has the discovery where he can dish out his concoctions so they have enough healing after wand supplements
Yeah, sounds like you have some whiny/fearful players. It was their own perceived fear of the situation that messed them up imo.
Blacks are one of the weakest chromatics(just above white IIRC). I honestly am not surprised your Magus didn't try to Nova and one shot the thing. I've got a Kensai Magus in my homebrew that bursts for something like 90 Damage at level 6 with a crit & a shocking burst. And the Samurai's done damn near that with a Challenge & Power Attack.
Mechanically you're in the clear. Your party is APL 6(down a member) but as long as they're well geared(Cause less than WBL and their effective level drops) they should be good. Heck, with 23 point buy, you could even argue they're a CR higher for those kind of stats. In any case, they're well within CR range and a CR 8 Dragon shouldn't be a problem. The fact you gave them a wand of Resist Energy is just Icing on the cake. This is a challenging encounter at best, a hard at worst. Not epic plus or anything TPK worthy.
Now that said, you should talk to the problem player out of game like a responsible adult. Explain how the Dragon wasn't a big threat by CR, show him the stats on the thing so he can see how things were. Explain how the Wand would let you guys get around its acid. And explain, that if you guys decide to fly around invisibily while the others are forced to fight the thing; yeah you're going to lose.
Look, you knew before you posted it that this was a reasonable challenge. CR is +2 above the party APL which makes it a nice challenge but not unreasonable, especially since the party can prepare in advance with resist energy and wasn't resource depleted.
Your real question is what to do about a whiny troublesome player. That's a whole different question.
Me, I would take him aside and talk to him, one on one, about what he wants from the game, what you want from it, and figure out if you two can game together or not. Then you'll have your answer.
That was the real question yes spurned on by the events of the game. I guess it was more an attempt to vent a little as I felt the encounter that caused the "incident" and to see if other DM's would think this encounter was within the powerscale of what they would expect their own parties to cope with.
Now that said, you should talk to the problem player out of game like a responsible adult. Explain how the Dragon wasn't a big threat by CR, show him the stats on the thing so he can see how things were. Explain how the Wand would let you guys get around its acid. And explain, that if you guys decide to fly around invisibily while the others are forced to fight the thing; yeah you're going to lose.
They know the stats they are experienced players, I had a post game chat with two of the players(including the disruptive one) to which their argument was they don't have a tank to deal with melee threats(the party's highest ac being 21 pre-buff) and the wand means nothing as they didn't know what kind of dragon they were facing despite the hints left for them. The group is just used to being able to stroll into encounters unbuffed and at most cast a haste or drink a potion once the combat begins.
Tell that player who is whining to put on his big boy pants and play. They had options available to them and decided to fight to the death, that is not YOUR fault if he thinks he can just say "no" to the dragon w/o rolling any dice and the dragon just tucks his tail between his legs and lets the PC's do whatever the heck they want with his treasure horde.
I agree that this should be done in person one-on-one and let him know that you meant to challenge them and that if he doesn't want to play in a game where there are challenges that this isn't the game for him. You can't give in to him being a whiner when you didn't railroad them into anything and they had multiple choices and chances to think outside the box of what you presented to them.
I finally grew a pair myself and had the difficult chat with player who has decided to drop out.
That's a hard thing to do. I hope you can find a replacement.
Good for you. Its better to resolve those things away from the table. The players dont get to b@*%$ that they dont have a tank if they choose not to have one. After all in my kingmaker game my magus makes an amazing tank. And he doesnt have to pre-buff, that whole spell combat thing lets him buff well in the middle of a fight. As for how to proceed with just 2 players (assuming as you said there isnt another available player) I recommend you let them use the 3.5 gestalt rules, and they each play have either summoner or druid as one of their classes (the powerful pet makes up for the lack of pcs and the gestalt allow them to have all the abilities they need).
Guess the player wanted it his way or the highway, I can't say that I'm sorry to hear they decided to drop out of your game if they couldn't play nice.
I'd suggest one of the following:
1) Stay with current players and allow them to be gestalts as @kolokotroni said above.
2) Give each player the leadership feat for free and grab a couple of cohorts.
3) Allow each player to actually play 2 different PC's if they want.
4) Find some more players either through friends/family or go check out meetup.com or penandpapergames.com, I've had great luck with both of those sites and put together my current group through them (we've been playing together going on 2 years now).
5) Just continue on as is with 2 players. I've played in campaigns where it was just me and one other person and had some of the best experiences in my gaming career due to the higher amount of role playing that can go on with a smaller group.
I have managed to find a replacement through friends who's last game just wrapped up so I should be sorted to continue on the epic adventures of the dragonborn
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I sounded like an encounter that would be formative in the development of a character. Having your behind handed to you every so often keeps the thrill relevant.
I had a character who was beaten up so bad in his early adventuring days by a huge earth elemental that even at level twelve, I fear them as a player. Every time they are summoned, I panic a little until they actually hit me ... then I see that my memory of that beating was much harsher than the actual beating.
Dragons can be tough, especially if they either have terrain advantages (think black dragon in a swamp or bog where all movements is restricted except his) or ability to use their aerial mobility. The last is especially true for huge or larger dragons with their fly-by attacks. It sounds like you put yours in a cave where they are confined and at their weakest. A challenging encounter, but not too tough.
Since you gave them an out, I would say you have done everything a good GM does for his players.
It kind of reminds me of a game I was running a couple of years ago with a few of my buddies.
They were tasked by the local baron with cleaning out the mine from an infestation of kobolds. Every knight that the baron sent in never came back so he had a big reward for the PC's if they could clean it out.
The PC's went about killing off all the kobolds only to reach the end of the mine which opened into a large natural cavern and at the back of the cavern was a white dragon (wyrmling).
One of the players turns and looks at me and says, "Holy sh!t, that's a dragon! You didn't say there was a dragon in here!"
I smile evilly at him and replied, "This is Dungeons and Dragons, not Houses and Humans!"
Why would you say there was going to be a dragon, also Kobolds without some form of dragon? What's with that?
Why would you say there was going to be a dragon, also Kobolds without some form of dragon? What's with that?
Exactly. I told them only what they needed to know, the rest they had to find out on their own through adventuring. The kobolds were worshiping the dragon and bringing him wayward peasants and of course the men the baron sent in as tributes and morsels of food.