So I've kinda written myself into a corner, which sounded like a great idea at the time but now I need some ideas on how I can resolve this.
My players have just killed one of 3 big bads (there are 3 followers of Talos looking to turn Talos to physical form and bring him to the realm to create chaos and destruction). The 5 players are level 8, are all out of every resource (action surges, spell slots, the lot) as a result of their big battle with an arch mage. They survived the fight on very low hit points, we're talking sub 20, and just as they went to loot the bodies an adult blue dragon who has been colluding with the arch mage flew in to the chambers. They did the sensible thing and ran, meeting up with 4 tiefling enemies who they earlier conspired with if they defeated the archmage. A chase scene started, during which the dragon in a show of force, and some luck on the players part, killed outright 2 of the tieflings with a breath attack and the players made it out of the dungeon. The players are now running through the forest to reach a portal stone that the tieflings can control that will take them back halfway across Faerun to a more familiar city and escape the situation.
Having escaped the dungeon and now travelling back on a path they came from (they used the portal stone to get there in the first place), they are about 30mins of fast paced travel to reach the portal, through a creepy-ass forest. They have the option of not running to the portal stone and making their way back another route which will take them a couple of weeks or so, but I think they will want to get to this portal stone as they seem set on that. The dragon is now flying above trying to find the players, which if they have a confrontation we are looking at a TPK.
How can I have a dangerous climax without it being inevitable death to the players?
Some ideas, all of which are terrible but are showing my lines of thinking: The dragon is waiting at the portal stone, they attempt to talk to it which would go badly, or can run away in a different direction The dragon is asleep near the portal stone and they have to make it through without waking him The dragon doesn't know where they are, but the players see it land nearby. A fight ensues but they must deal with the situation quietly to not alert the dragon
I'm looking for something tense that keeps the danger of certain death up, but a situation/encounter that keeps the players and their decisions in control.
p.s. I know it was a crappy situation to have left myself in, but I was told at very short notice the game was being moved from thursday to that night, so i had 2 hours notice to complete my session planning! So I have a week to dig myself out of this one.
Put together a skill challenge for them to escape. Let them describe what they’re doing and have the dragon respond every round based on the results of the last skill check. When they give a great role playing description of what they’re doing I give my players advantage on the skill check.
I assume this is the case from your comment but just to make it clear: Does the dragon have in character reason to know about the portal stone or that the players would go for it? The answer will determine if the challenge is losing track of the dragon so that they can get to the stone without being fried or if it would be to avoid being detected by the dragon once they reach the stone so that they can take the longer route... Or just a safe place for a long rest in order to fight it at top health.
If you want climatic, you probably want the climax to be a chase in which they lose it. What can you tell us about the forest? What about the tieflings? Are the remaiming ones still chasing them? If so, why?
so the chase scene itself has finished, which was them escaping the dungeon, they are now running through a path in the forest towards the portal stone but haven't actually seen the dragon since they left the dungeon. The tieflings are currently working with the players, they are the ones who can open the portal stone, so it's almost doubling as a protection mission for them.
Yes, the dragon knows about the portal stone, he has seen the tieflings leading the players off so it is the most likely place they will head to, so the dragon has got much of a problem tracking them there.
The forest is a fairly straight route back to the portal stone, it's creepy and filled with creatures like sorrowsworn, the lonely, the wretched etc.
Thing is, everyone is so low HP and no spell slots or anything, that an encounter is a sure fire TPK. So i'm looking for something climatic that could result in death but is on the players as to whether that happens or not. I can have the tieflings find them a safe place to short rest to regain some health and abilities.
Ideally I want it to be a roleplay based or skills based challenge, but I just don't know what it could be!
And if the players long rest, they will want to fight it. They are level 8, although about to level to 9, even after seeing it decimate a tiefling with an attack dealing 70 damage (this is an adult blue dragon), they still won't back down, so any scenario that results in a long rest then a combat will be on them if they choose to stand and fight
What is stopping the dragon from destroying the stone to keep them from using it or the tieflings from using the stone to teleport the dragon away if it touches it?
Does the dragon want to kill the players or does it has other plans for them? Why does it want to do whatever it wants to do (revenge, cautiousness, etc)?
I think I've thought something up, although this needs some additional depth to it. One of the other Talos followers is a sea fairing kraken priest, so yes he has access to a kraken (it's actually the other way round, the players don't know that). The players encountered that earlier in the campaign, I thought i'd introduce it and deal with it later, but it showed them what would be to come.
So I'm thinking, the dragon lands in front of them during the chase, this can be at the portal blocking their escape. He talks to the PCs and plays games with them, slowly revealing snippets of his backstory, he had a home that the kraken drove him away from, the talos followers are kinda working together to restore Talos but at the same time compete with each other to be highest power to become his number 1. The dragon therefore has a beef with the kraken, which he proposes to the players he works with them if they help him out and fight the kraken.
Big sea fairing battle ensues later in the campaign, the PCs can pull together a fleet of ships and take on the kraken with the aid of the blue dragon.
Yes that escalated quickly, but back to the climax of the chase, the players are faced with a dragon landing at their feet and a big roleplay takes place to reveal the above, it comes across as their idea if I'm smart about it, or they simply choose to not talk and roleplay and make a final stand which is inevitable death. The dragon was only colluding with the archmage as a deal of convenience, he was help protecting them (great job mr dragon), and in return takes half or whatever he wants that the tieflings had been stealing for the mage (they were like thieves for hire).
The players can run a quest to show their usefulness to the dragon, and as always the question of "whats in it for me? Why should we even bother returning?" will come up which is where they need to piece together that the dragon will aid them fight the kraken. The dragon wants the kraken dead, the players want the kraken priest dead, so they have a mutual interest if they can tease out the backstory
To be honest i find that you already had a dangerous climax without it being inevitable death to the players by having a dragon show up and chase them after killing 2 of their tieflings buddies!
Do you want a TPK or you want the party to survive? If i was in your situation and didn't want a TPK, i would have them perhaps run party stealth check with advantage to avoid being spotted in the forest by the dragon until it decides to leave, playing on the narrative to sustain tension by describing the dragon making swoop, stopping nearby to sniff around leaving them unsure if they were detected or not etc and when they make their final rush running toward the portal, i'd describe the dragon finally spotting them in the distance and closing really fast on them until its in distance to breath, with lightning striking the portal just as they get through, teleporting the other side with hair raised from static electricity and little more fear than harm!
Here's what I'd do, with the obvious caveat of I'm not sure how I'd translate this to a Digital setting.
I would create a large 5x8 grid over a forest map, with a 'cave' at one end, and the portal stone at the other, and explain the the dragon is hunting the PCs. They get to move 2 squares from the entrance to start, and then you alternate between a PC and the Dragon. PCs can skill check, let them pick any skill and tell you how it would help, to either move 1 square, or to create a "distraction" in an adjacent square, but there's a Secret DC that would also create a "signal" in the square they're in. On the Dragon's Turn, it will do two things. Move, Check Square, Close Square. If he 'checks' their square, they're found.
Dragon default is to move towards the portal by the direct route, checking each as he goes. If the PCs fail a check and send up a signal, or if they successfully create a distraction, then he moves that direction instead, and 'closes' the square. He can also just start 'closing' squares near the portal if they aren't distracting.
PCs should be plenty tense trying to balance between not running into the dragon, and not just letting him beat them to the portal and set his trap.
The first question is: Do you want the players to have a chance of failure? (Assuming they don't just stand out in a clearing and taunt the dragon or do something else to force your hand.)
Given that they're already coming off a big successful fight, I think a TPK by failed die rolls would be a letdown.
The next question is: If they can't die without trying, do you want there to be something at stake, or is this just a set-piece?
I think it's fine for it to be a set-piece, and I don't have enough information to make many suggestions on what to put at stake. (Take the portal or be forced to take the long way? Their relationship with the tieflings? Is there any special loot they could be forced to abandon?)
However you answer the above questions, the operative word for the escape should be "Tension".
How I would run it would be:
They're making their way through the creepy woods. Through gaps in the canopy, they sometimes see the dragon circling overhead. It clearly knows they're in there somewhere, but not exactly where.
They hear the flap of its wings somewhere above them, and the trees all shake in a sudden burst of wind. It didn't spot them. This time.
Maybe it occasionally taunts them from above, telling them to come out and face it. Sometimes it breathes lightning at the forest. Not at them, but close enough to keep them moving. The longer they take, the closer it seems to be coming.
They have an encounter. Do they fight, making noise, or fall back and go around, losing time?
The first time they fight, have the enemies make noise. A blast of lightning wipes them out. The players have a few rounds to make a break for it or find cover before the dragon's breath recharges.
Eventually (how long depends on how your players are reacting, but you shouldn't stretch it out too much even if it's going well), they get close the portal stone, but it's in a clearing. (If it wasn't before, well, something uprooted a whole bunch of the trees and tossed them aside.) The dragon's some distance away, but it clearly sees them, and is flying toward them at top speed. They can make it to the portal and activate it in time... probably.
At this point, somebody may want to do some kind of heroic sacrifice to buy time for the others to escape. If they're cool with the consequences (death and no chance to retrieve the body), let them. (The dragon doesn't actually have to kill them. It might want to capture and question them. But the threat has to be there, and the players shouldn't know immediately.) If nobody does, that's fine too; don't push it on them.
If they manage to reach the portal in time, they make their escape. If things don't go as well... they still escape, coming out of the portal with their hair standing on end and sparks dancing on their equipment. If they want to use the portal to go back once they've had a chance to prepare... it doesn't work anymore. The dragon blew it up with the breath attack that they barely escaped.
They will, of course, try to come up with plans to distract or divert the dragon while it's hunting them. Don't stop them from working just because you want your cool set-piece to happen.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So I've kinda written myself into a corner, which sounded like a great idea at the time but now I need some ideas on how I can resolve this.
My players have just killed one of 3 big bads (there are 3 followers of Talos looking to turn Talos to physical form and bring him to the realm to create chaos and destruction). The 5 players are level 8, are all out of every resource (action surges, spell slots, the lot) as a result of their big battle with an arch mage. They survived the fight on very low hit points, we're talking sub 20, and just as they went to loot the bodies an adult blue dragon who has been colluding with the arch mage flew in to the chambers. They did the sensible thing and ran, meeting up with 4 tiefling enemies who they earlier conspired with if they defeated the archmage. A chase scene started, during which the dragon in a show of force, and some luck on the players part, killed outright 2 of the tieflings with a breath attack and the players made it out of the dungeon. The players are now running through the forest to reach a portal stone that the tieflings can control that will take them back halfway across Faerun to a more familiar city and escape the situation.
Having escaped the dungeon and now travelling back on a path they came from (they used the portal stone to get there in the first place), they are about 30mins of fast paced travel to reach the portal, through a creepy-ass forest. They have the option of not running to the portal stone and making their way back another route which will take them a couple of weeks or so, but I think they will want to get to this portal stone as they seem set on that. The dragon is now flying above trying to find the players, which if they have a confrontation we are looking at a TPK.
How can I have a dangerous climax without it being inevitable death to the players?
Some ideas, all of which are terrible but are showing my lines of thinking:
The dragon is waiting at the portal stone, they attempt to talk to it which would go badly, or can run away in a different direction
The dragon is asleep near the portal stone and they have to make it through without waking him
The dragon doesn't know where they are, but the players see it land nearby. A fight ensues but they must deal with the situation quietly to not alert the dragon
I'm looking for something tense that keeps the danger of certain death up, but a situation/encounter that keeps the players and their decisions in control.
p.s. I know it was a crappy situation to have left myself in, but I was told at very short notice the game was being moved from thursday to that night, so i had 2 hours notice to complete my session planning! So I have a week to dig myself out of this one.
Put together a skill challenge for them to escape. Let them describe what they’re doing and have the dragon respond every round based on the results of the last skill check. When they give a great role playing description of what they’re doing I give my players advantage on the skill check.
Professional computer geek
I assume this is the case from your comment but just to make it clear: Does the dragon have in character reason to know about the portal stone or that the players would go for it? The answer will determine if the challenge is losing track of the dragon so that they can get to the stone without being fried or if it would be to avoid being detected by the dragon once they reach the stone so that they can take the longer route... Or just a safe place for a long rest in order to fight it at top health.
If you want climatic, you probably want the climax to be a chase in which they lose it. What can you tell us about the forest? What about the tieflings? Are the remaiming ones still chasing them? If so, why?
so the chase scene itself has finished, which was them escaping the dungeon, they are now running through a path in the forest towards the portal stone but haven't actually seen the dragon since they left the dungeon. The tieflings are currently working with the players, they are the ones who can open the portal stone, so it's almost doubling as a protection mission for them.
Yes, the dragon knows about the portal stone, he has seen the tieflings leading the players off so it is the most likely place they will head to, so the dragon has got much of a problem tracking them there.
The forest is a fairly straight route back to the portal stone, it's creepy and filled with creatures like sorrowsworn, the lonely, the wretched etc.
Thing is, everyone is so low HP and no spell slots or anything, that an encounter is a sure fire TPK. So i'm looking for something climatic that could result in death but is on the players as to whether that happens or not. I can have the tieflings find them a safe place to short rest to regain some health and abilities.
Ideally I want it to be a roleplay based or skills based challenge, but I just don't know what it could be!
And if the players long rest, they will want to fight it. They are level 8, although about to level to 9, even after seeing it decimate a tiefling with an attack dealing 70 damage (this is an adult blue dragon), they still won't back down, so any scenario that results in a long rest then a combat will be on them if they choose to stand and fight
What is stopping the dragon from destroying the stone to keep them from using it or the tieflings from using the stone to teleport the dragon away if it touches it?
Does the dragon want to kill the players or does it has other plans for them? Why does it want to do whatever it wants to do (revenge, cautiousness, etc)?
I think I've thought something up, although this needs some additional depth to it. One of the other Talos followers is a sea fairing kraken priest, so yes he has access to a kraken (it's actually the other way round, the players don't know that). The players encountered that earlier in the campaign, I thought i'd introduce it and deal with it later, but it showed them what would be to come.
So I'm thinking, the dragon lands in front of them during the chase, this can be at the portal blocking their escape. He talks to the PCs and plays games with them, slowly revealing snippets of his backstory, he had a home that the kraken drove him away from, the talos followers are kinda working together to restore Talos but at the same time compete with each other to be highest power to become his number 1. The dragon therefore has a beef with the kraken, which he proposes to the players he works with them if they help him out and fight the kraken.
Big sea fairing battle ensues later in the campaign, the PCs can pull together a fleet of ships and take on the kraken with the aid of the blue dragon.
Yes that escalated quickly, but back to the climax of the chase, the players are faced with a dragon landing at their feet and a big roleplay takes place to reveal the above, it comes across as their idea if I'm smart about it, or they simply choose to not talk and roleplay and make a final stand which is inevitable death. The dragon was only colluding with the archmage as a deal of convenience, he was help protecting them (great job mr dragon), and in return takes half or whatever he wants that the tieflings had been stealing for the mage (they were like thieves for hire).
The players can run a quest to show their usefulness to the dragon, and as always the question of "whats in it for me? Why should we even bother returning?" will come up which is where they need to piece together that the dragon will aid them fight the kraken. The dragon wants the kraken dead, the players want the kraken priest dead, so they have a mutual interest if they can tease out the backstory
To be honest i find that you already had a dangerous climax without it being inevitable death to the players by having a dragon show up and chase them after killing 2 of their tieflings buddies!
Do you want a TPK or you want the party to survive? If i was in your situation and didn't want a TPK, i would have them perhaps run party stealth check with advantage to avoid being spotted in the forest by the dragon until it decides to leave, playing on the narrative to sustain tension by describing the dragon making swoop, stopping nearby to sniff around leaving them unsure if they were detected or not etc and when they make their final rush running toward the portal, i'd describe the dragon finally spotting them in the distance and closing really fast on them until its in distance to breath, with lightning striking the portal just as they get through, teleporting the other side with hair raised from static electricity and little more fear than harm!
Here's what I'd do, with the obvious caveat of I'm not sure how I'd translate this to a Digital setting.
I would create a large 5x8 grid over a forest map, with a 'cave' at one end, and the portal stone at the other, and explain the the dragon is hunting the PCs. They get to move 2 squares from the entrance to start, and then you alternate between a PC and the Dragon. PCs can skill check, let them pick any skill and tell you how it would help, to either move 1 square, or to create a "distraction" in an adjacent square, but there's a Secret DC that would also create a "signal" in the square they're in. On the Dragon's Turn, it will do two things. Move, Check Square, Close Square. If he 'checks' their square, they're found.
Dragon default is to move towards the portal by the direct route, checking each as he goes. If the PCs fail a check and send up a signal, or if they successfully create a distraction, then he moves that direction instead, and 'closes' the square. He can also just start 'closing' squares near the portal if they aren't distracting.
PCs should be plenty tense trying to balance between not running into the dragon, and not just letting him beat them to the portal and set his trap.
The first question is: Do you want the players to have a chance of failure? (Assuming they don't just stand out in a clearing and taunt the dragon or do something else to force your hand.)
Given that they're already coming off a big successful fight, I think a TPK by failed die rolls would be a letdown.
The next question is: If they can't die without trying, do you want there to be something at stake, or is this just a set-piece?
I think it's fine for it to be a set-piece, and I don't have enough information to make many suggestions on what to put at stake. (Take the portal or be forced to take the long way? Their relationship with the tieflings? Is there any special loot they could be forced to abandon?)
However you answer the above questions, the operative word for the escape should be "Tension".
How I would run it would be:
They're making their way through the creepy woods. Through gaps in the canopy, they sometimes see the dragon circling overhead. It clearly knows they're in there somewhere, but not exactly where.
They hear the flap of its wings somewhere above them, and the trees all shake in a sudden burst of wind. It didn't spot them. This time.
Maybe it occasionally taunts them from above, telling them to come out and face it. Sometimes it breathes lightning at the forest. Not at them, but close enough to keep them moving. The longer they take, the closer it seems to be coming.
They have an encounter. Do they fight, making noise, or fall back and go around, losing time?
The first time they fight, have the enemies make noise. A blast of lightning wipes them out. The players have a few rounds to make a break for it or find cover before the dragon's breath recharges.
Eventually (how long depends on how your players are reacting, but you shouldn't stretch it out too much even if it's going well), they get close the portal stone, but it's in a clearing. (If it wasn't before, well, something uprooted a whole bunch of the trees and tossed them aside.) The dragon's some distance away, but it clearly sees them, and is flying toward them at top speed. They can make it to the portal and activate it in time... probably.
At this point, somebody may want to do some kind of heroic sacrifice to buy time for the others to escape. If they're cool with the consequences (death and no chance to retrieve the body), let them. (The dragon doesn't actually have to kill them. It might want to capture and question them. But the threat has to be there, and the players shouldn't know immediately.) If nobody does, that's fine too; don't push it on them.
If they manage to reach the portal in time, they make their escape. If things don't go as well... they still escape, coming out of the portal with their hair standing on end and sparks dancing on their equipment. If they want to use the portal to go back once they've had a chance to prepare... it doesn't work anymore. The dragon blew it up with the breath attack that they barely escaped.
They will, of course, try to come up with plans to distract or divert the dragon while it's hunting them. Don't stop them from working just because you want your cool set-piece to happen.