Context time: I DM a campaign where people with the ability to get PC classes are VERY rare and often seen as enemies of the state by the BBEG Emperor guy. Thus any "adventuring" done by NPC's is usually done in HUGE groups (like, instead of a dungeon delve with 5 people, its more like 25-30 with expectations there will be casualties. High risk/High Reward).
My players stumbled upon one such group in a local tavern, their plan is to raid a young black dragon's hoard. Most of the NPC's are veterans at this, which has made the players think their leader is some kind of badass when in reality, he just uses the large crowd of people as cover while he charges in, grabs loot, charges away, splits loot with whoever remains.
I want the party to TRULY feel how dangerous dragons are in this world (and just the difficulty of the game) because they were all on board with playing DnD in "Hard Mode" They are only level 3 and this dragon can average 49 acid damage on its breath which would flat out kill our wizard (and several others) I HAVE STRESSED A LOT about how "Not all encounters are survivable in a straight fight" and that I won't stop them from taking jobs beyond their capability. and they agreed! But still took the Dragon job at level 3.
My Plan: I want to run the dragon using the tactics that make the most sense. Circling above out of reach, and swooping down when breath weapon charges. then retreating and waiting again. From my point of view, this forces them to think cleverly, "Do we hold actions and wait for dragon? or do we try to make off with as much loot as we can and keep our lives?" What I'm worried about is players thinking "How are we supposed to fight this thing while its in the air? Its 'cheating'" or whatever
Should I play the dragon a little less smart and have him land? or let them figure it out?
You can play the dragon smart if you like, but make sure to build in some outs for the players. Natural terrain they can use to their advantage for cover, maybe ledges they can climb on to reach the dragon easier, or some sort of net or bola system that can render the dragon's flight moot.
Stuff like that give the players options and helps them feel clever if they can leverage them to their advantage or at least less sad when they fail to use the tools you clearly provided.
I am not sure why a dragon's hoard is accessible in an area where the dragon can fly so high, usually finding the dragon in its lair is useful because it limits their airborne mobility, but I assume you have all that sussed.
Will the PCs be accompanying the 25-30 NPCs? If so then those NPCs - being experienced at this - will surely advise that everyone needs a ranged weapon. With just 127 hit points, the dragon will probably die to the second volley of arrows and spells before it gets off a second breath weapon.
How are you going to run that many NPCs? It seems impossible. Or are the PCs going it alone?
If they are going alone then they should really know that they won't stand up well against a dragon. But even if you tell the PCs that this is "hard mode" and that they might take jobs that they can't really achieve, I think you're doing a good thing asking the question as to whether this is a good idea for the game. It isn't. If they go it alone then they'll likely all die, and they don't have any real chance of taking out a CR7 dragon at level 3 without NPC help. Why have you included this in the game at this level if not to provide a monster that they can't beat and that will one-shot them on a high roll (max damage is 88...)?
Still, if they're choosing to go off dragon hunting on their own at level 3, then since it's already in the game, you need to just let the chips fall where they may.
So i don't know if it is part of your campaign that they must make it to the loot. But I tend to not have dragons being alone. The landscape and the creatures surrounding their lairs are in their service, so even just getting to the lair is pretty daunting. Maybe working their way into the swamp, members of the party already start disappearing as the group is forced to camps overnight after the walls of thorny bushes and creeping vines block easy travel, and instead end up trudging through the marshes.
Perhaps snakes, gasses, sinking mud takes out members of the group before even getting close. This gives the characters an opportunity to reconsider.
Only other part is that a black dragon's lair would often include flooded areas, and may even include deception such as smaller piles of coins to lead/trick intruders into thinking that they have found the hoard. So maybe the returns are more meagre than expected.
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Tell me what you you are trying to achieve - we're telling this story together ....at least I thought we were - Now I am not so sure [OGL 1.1]
To answer more context, The dragon's layer is in a toxic/acidic swamp so the environment is gonna be as much of an encounter as the dragon itself. There will be kobolds in service to the dragon.
I plan on having the dragon's first volley of acid breath take out MOST of the 25-30 people as both a display/demonstration of "This shit gonna be hard" and a way to relieve the headache of controlling all of them.
While I say they're "Veterans" I mean they've used cheesy methods to get loot from dangerous places before. MOST of them are fresh-dumb recruits tempted by the charismatic "Grizzled adventurer" leader, the more experienced ones are just ones that have happened to survive their other treasure hunts.
to Sanvael's question of "Why include this": Cause the group was there! When I run campaigns, I don't scale the world to the players level, I just present what is IN the world and react to the player's decisions. They are all aware of how powerful dragons are (in character and out) so they could have easily reacted to the looting group with "Yeah good luck dying" and it would have been just an introduction to a "faction" that could come up later. But the players CHOSE to say "Can we get in on this" and I wasn't gonna tell them No, they made this choice, and i wanna see what they do with it
[...]Most of the NPC's are veterans at this, which has made the players think their leader is some kind of badass [...] - I think that gave your players a false sense of security in this endeavor, tbh. You can say that they chose this, but, in truth, they were more deceived into it - which is fine, they shouldn't be that naive, insight/arcana/perception checks should've been made to avoid being deceived.
Honestly, if you play the Dragon as it is supposed to be, (intelligently flying, using it's breath weapon and only landing to kill the squishy members, before only the meat heads remain) - it's impossible for them to survive.
I can't see how to avoid a TPK without either EX Machina your way into having smth like a giant raid at the lair at the same time or, simply dumbing down your dragon - but if you do that, are you really playing "hard mode"?
<snip> I want the party to TRULY feel how dangerous dragons are in this world (and just the difficulty of the game) because they were all on board with playing DnD in "Hard Mode" They are only level 3 and this dragon can average 49 acid damage on its breath which would flat out kill our wizard (and several others) I HAVE STRESSED A LOT about how "Not all encounters are survivable in a straight fight" and that I won't stop them from taking jobs beyond their capability. and they agreed! But still took the Dragon job at level 3.
I'm not sure that "Hard Mode" quite fits in with the idea that a Platoon of veteran adventurers swoops into a Black Dragon's lair. Maybe I missed the part where it's just your party that will be going in to encounter the dragon.
I'm all for the party making their own decisions and suffering the consequences/rewards of those decisions. I'm not a fan of padding the blows when all the signs are there that this creature is above your capabilities. That said, I might suggest that the party witness the dragon in action so as to see how it fights, and what happens when it does. Litterally telegraph the creatures abilities. Show them what will happen to them before it does happen. If they don't change tack, or try to be better prepared, so be it.
When I play a dragon, I play it as it uses the environment to its advantage. Grabbin PCs, flying 80 - 100 ft up, then drop them. Grab one, dive into the water with them and hold them under and roll like a croc. Pin them to the ground, swallow them whole. Tail attack (push) them into lava, off cliffs, into pools of acid in the lair. I don't play dragons fairly. They fight dirty. And yes, I will homebrew them to give them bonus actions, reactions, legendary, mythic, lair. All of the opportunities to even out that action economy. They will call minions to their aid, and if the party survives all that, they will flee to heal and fight another day. I try to make dragons the namesake that they are advertised to be. When and if my party drops a dragon, they know that they have earned every bit of what they are rewarded with. And they are very well rewarded.
There are some articles that you might find useful - Dragon Part 1, Dragon Part 2, Dragon Part 2.5. The author is Keith Ammann, and his book is insightful, to say the least.
My Plan: I want to run the dragon using the tactics that make the most sense. Circling above out of reach, and swooping down when breath weapon charges. then retreating and waiting again. From my point of view, this forces them to think cleverly, "Do we hold actions and wait for dragon? or do we try to make off with as much loot as we can and keep our lives?" What I'm worried about is players thinking "How are we supposed to fight this thing while its in the air? Its 'cheating'" or whatever
Should I play the dragon a little less smart and have him land? or let them figure it out?
What should you do depends on what is most fun for your table. Period. Hand them the leftovers of the last party that tried and if they say they wanna try, go for it.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
You've got a few problems running this. First, the dragon is powerful but perhaps not that impressive. The breath weapon is a line 30' long and 5' wide. This won't be that impressive since the dragon can only take out 6 targets each round and that only if the creatures are lined up for him. Although there is likely to be some panic and chaos when the dragon shows up and melts a few people, most of them won't be right next to the folks who go down so morale may not drop so quickly that they all choose to flee. Basically, your idea to take out 1/2 the NPCs in the first round just doesn't work.
The dragon has AC18 and 127 hit points. If the NPCs are all Level 0 villagers then they will have a +0 and should be proficient with their bow for a +2. This means that an NPC villager hits on a 16+ or 25% of the time. Assuming you have 20 NPCs then 5 will hit in the first round doing about 5d6 damage on average or 17.5. Should be fine. I don't know what classes or capabilities the PCs have but at level 3 they will likely do much more damage. However, if the dragon keeps its attention on the NPCs and tries whittling them down this would give the PCs several rounds to hit the dragon. With 25 canon fodder to start, there is a good chance that the PCs could defeat the dragon or force it to flee. Especially considering the dragon may have to get very close to use their breath weapon. (Depends on whether the DM rules the breath weapon has to start from the dragon ... which is usually the case).
So my suggestions would be ...
1) Have a group of kobolds attack the hunting party at the same time as the dragon. Have them come out of hiding in the swamp. Have the kobolds focus their attentions mostly on the PCs. (Any reasonable dragon/kobolds would have some scouts in the swamp and a group of 30 would be very hard to miss).
2) Have the party notice that when the battle starts the charismatic leader and two henchmen seem to have disappeared (likely rogues that used sneaking in the swamp to circle around and quickly raid the hoard while the dragon and kobolds are distracted).
3) Each dragon attack will kill a villager and it has three. It also has the breath weapon. So the dragon engages the NPCs from the side farthest away from the PCs so that they can't easily attack the dragon without the kobolds getting them. One round of breath weapon taking out 5 or so NPCs and another one or two of the dragon ripping apart three more each round will make it clear to the NPCs that this isn't a good idea. They will also notice the leader is not there about this point and the entire gaggle of NPCs is likely to break and flee.
4) The PCs can then choose to stand and likely die when the dragon turns its attention to them or join the villagers in their retreat.
5) Since the dragon is near its lair there is a good chance it won't pursue, especially if sometime around now a gong starts to sound from the direction of the base. This announces that the leader and his henchmen have killed a couple of kobolds, grabbed what they could from the hoard and fled.
6) The dragon can either find these folks or they could escape and be left up to the players to deal with. Of course the leader has skipped town with no intention to share the loot with the few remaining villagers who followed him.
However, there are lots of variations on how you can run it but I think you need to put a decent sized group of kobolds (who have advantage to hit from pack tactics) up against the party to prevent them from focusing fire on the dragon. The kobolds will go down pretty quickly but without them the party+NPCs stands a decent chance of winning. This also prevents the party from having to face the dragon directly (three of its attacks might take down a PC/turn) while see the power of the creature as it melts the villagers. Feel free to bump the dragon hit points if it comes down to it. (127 is average - 195 would be the max if you go by the stat block 15d10+45).
Honestly it's hard to imagine a scenario where having the 25 NPCs making attacks is any fun for anyone. Get rid of them before the PCs get there, otherwise your players will get bored waiting while you roll a bucket load of dice.
I'm going to assume that the NPCs are not commoners. If they are, then they're suicidal and insane, and why the heck would they be attacking? Let's assume that they at least have +4 to hit, and deal 1d8+2 damage on a hit (light crossbow). Against AC18, they'll hit 7/20, so 25 of them should hit the young dragon 9 times for 59 (9d8+18) damage in a single turn. This brings the dragon to just 68 hit points.
If the NPCs are tanking the damage and dealing all that then it's not really hard mode, and the NPCs are playing the game rather then players.
I only ask, because with its rules regarding hordes, running in, grabbing treasure and running away is a pretty viable, and actually kind of smart strategy. Do it a couple times and you can really weaken the dragon. Specifically:
"Because dragons’ power is linked to treasure, it’s possible to weaken a dragon by plundering the dragon’s lair. By gaining access to a hoard and making off with a significant portion of that wealth, characters can diminish the dragon’s connection to both that lair and its associated territory.
As a rule of thumb, if a dragon’s lair no longer holds at least 10,000 gp worth of treasure, the site is no longer considered a lair. The dragon can’t use lair actions there, and the regional effects surrounding the lair end or fade as if the dragon had died."
Black Dragons are amphibious and they fly. It is hard as hell to engage them if they don’t want to be engaged. When you catch up to them it will be on their turf. If they have followers, kobolds or lizard men, use the troops to split the attackers into smaller groups, then the dragon uses its mobility to hopscotch to the smaller group and wreck them. Rinse and repeat.
I'm thinking its important incorporate some clever escape routes that the group could notice if they look for them... they may come up with their own of course, but if you lay them out before hand and they refuse to take them your far less likely to be beating yourself up about a disastrous outcome.
As for clever dragon strats... I'm thinking a large group of feeble bipods slowly encroaching through a swamp on a Black dragon lair would be subjected to the 24/7 specter of a silent dark shape overhead, the sudden swoosh of acrid air then screams fading away up high into the murky darkness... where is Timmy!?! he was here a second ago! Timmy Where are You?! Timmy!.. SPLAT!.. Oh I think that's Timmy on the crushed remains of Tommy...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
If the point is to reinforce how dangerous dragons are, then have it breathe on the trash mob NPCs, wiping out half of them in one shot. Make sure you players see/hear you rolling all the damage dice.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
How much fun if the whole group are crossing a lake around the dragon's lair in rowboats fighting kobolds in other rowboats, and then WHOOMF, the dragon is actually under the water and drags them down one by one.
If you want to make them realise what they're in for, then I'd make it clear at an early stage that they've been duped by this "Veteran".
When they get to the lair, have them roll initiative and then say "wow, the people rolled a nat 20, so they're going first". Have the people, egged on by the veteran, run out and immediately dissolve in the dragons breath. Roll the damage openly and say "well, they each take... ...49 points of acid damage, and they dissolve in agonised screams as they exit the tunnel".
This leaves the party with the veterans and with a choice - do they charge out to face the dragon they just saw destroy a whole group of people, whilst the veteran eggs them on from behind, or do they notice the veteran/s are the only ones here who had any gold/wealth, and that teir tactics all involve "you dristract it and I'll grab some gold". Make the two options for the party to either fight a black dragon, or fight the veterans to make their way out of the dragons lair.
An alternative twist would be for the veteran to be the black dragon, polymorphed, who is trying to test his lair defences, so is hiring groups of adventurers with promises of golden loot. Or, he is in league with this emperor, and is trying to weed out the adventurers, having been promised a hefty bounty for them by the emperor if he delivers them alive.
An alternative twist would be for the veteran to be the black dragon, polymorphed, who is trying to test his lair defences, so is hiring groups of adventurers with promises of golden loot. Or, he is in league with this emperor, and is trying to weed out the adventurers, having been promised a hefty bounty for them by the emperor if he delivers them alive.
I like the idea of a black dragon being a necromancer using the fallen hordes of adventurers that they've lured to their lair as the fodder for their undead army. I might have to borrow that.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
An alternative twist would be for the veteran to be the black dragon, polymorphed, who is trying to test his lair defences, so is hiring groups of adventurers with promises of golden loot. Or, he is in league with this emperor, and is trying to weed out the adventurers, having been promised a hefty bounty for them by the emperor if he delivers them alive.
to Sanvael's question of "Why include this": Cause the group was there! When I run campaigns, I don't scale the world to the players level, I just present what is IN the world and react to the player's decisions. They are all aware of how powerful dragons are (in character and out) so they could have easily reacted to the looting group with "Yeah good luck dying" and it would have been just an introduction to a "faction" that could come up later. But the players CHOSE to say "Can we get in on this" and I wasn't gonna tell them No, they made this choice, and i wanna see what they do with it
You and the party have the same expectations, and they made the choice. Honestly, you should just commit to your promise and play it true to the dragon even if it means a TPK is highly likely. If you're playing a gritty, level-independent world and you pull your punches when the PCs do stupid things, it's not really a gritty, level-independent world. If you need to rewrite certain encounters because they would otherwise be a TPK, you might as well just run a game where every encounter is winnable - or at least escapable - and not advertise otherwise.
This session went through and to my surprise, the party actually beat the dragon!
This happened for 3 reasons:
1. They managed to get him surprised and had a free round.
2. The barb took a potion of acid resistance beforehand (from an earlier quest) and reeeeeally pissed off the dragon making him the sole target of the breath (the rest of the party were scattered out of line range as well) he passed his save so half damage + half damage from resistance. Only took 14 damage. 3. I kinda messed up and didn't fly high enough with the dragon. I forgot about how much range ability the group actually had. That AND their rolls were on fire that night. they got like 3 guiding bolts off, several crits, unlucky dragon rolls, and reeeeeal good use of terrain + mold earth made for a good bunker to take potshots out of.
how'd they get surprize on it thought there was a small hord of bipods slogging it through that dragons swamp?
Sounds like everyone had fun which is what your aiming for in the grand scheme of things... although this encounter is unlikely by the sounds of it to make the group more cautious about taking on high risk missions
thanks for the update always find it super useful to hear what advice gets taken on board and how it turns out
wishing you all the best
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
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Context time: I DM a campaign where people with the ability to get PC classes are VERY rare and often seen as enemies of the state by the BBEG Emperor guy. Thus any "adventuring" done by NPC's is usually done in HUGE groups (like, instead of a dungeon delve with 5 people, its more like 25-30 with expectations there will be casualties. High risk/High Reward).
My players stumbled upon one such group in a local tavern, their plan is to raid a young black dragon's hoard. Most of the NPC's are veterans at this, which has made the players think their leader is some kind of badass when in reality, he just uses the large crowd of people as cover while he charges in, grabs loot, charges away, splits loot with whoever remains.
I want the party to TRULY feel how dangerous dragons are in this world (and just the difficulty of the game) because they were all on board with playing DnD in "Hard Mode" They are only level 3 and this dragon can average 49 acid damage on its breath which would flat out kill our wizard (and several others) I HAVE STRESSED A LOT about how "Not all encounters are survivable in a straight fight" and that I won't stop them from taking jobs beyond their capability. and they agreed! But still took the Dragon job at level 3.
My Plan: I want to run the dragon using the tactics that make the most sense. Circling above out of reach, and swooping down when breath weapon charges. then retreating and waiting again.
From my point of view, this forces them to think cleverly, "Do we hold actions and wait for dragon? or do we try to make off with as much loot as we can and keep our lives?"
What I'm worried about is players thinking "How are we supposed to fight this thing while its in the air? Its 'cheating'" or whatever
Should I play the dragon a little less smart and have him land? or let them figure it out?
You can play the dragon smart if you like, but make sure to build in some outs for the players. Natural terrain they can use to their advantage for cover, maybe ledges they can climb on to reach the dragon easier, or some sort of net or bola system that can render the dragon's flight moot.
Stuff like that give the players options and helps them feel clever if they can leverage them to their advantage or at least less sad when they fail to use the tools you clearly provided.
I am not sure why a dragon's hoard is accessible in an area where the dragon can fly so high, usually finding the dragon in its lair is useful because it limits their airborne mobility, but I assume you have all that sussed.
Will the PCs be accompanying the 25-30 NPCs? If so then those NPCs - being experienced at this - will surely advise that everyone needs a ranged weapon. With just 127 hit points, the dragon will probably die to the second volley of arrows and spells before it gets off a second breath weapon.
How are you going to run that many NPCs? It seems impossible. Or are the PCs going it alone?
If they are going alone then they should really know that they won't stand up well against a dragon. But even if you tell the PCs that this is "hard mode" and that they might take jobs that they can't really achieve, I think you're doing a good thing asking the question as to whether this is a good idea for the game. It isn't. If they go it alone then they'll likely all die, and they don't have any real chance of taking out a CR7 dragon at level 3 without NPC help. Why have you included this in the game at this level if not to provide a monster that they can't beat and that will one-shot them on a high roll (max damage is 88...)?
Still, if they're choosing to go off dragon hunting on their own at level 3, then since it's already in the game, you need to just let the chips fall where they may.
So i don't know if it is part of your campaign that they must make it to the loot. But I tend to not have dragons being alone. The landscape and the creatures surrounding their lairs are in their service, so even just getting to the lair is pretty daunting. Maybe working their way into the swamp, members of the party already start disappearing as the group is forced to camps overnight after the walls of thorny bushes and creeping vines block easy travel, and instead end up trudging through the marshes.
Perhaps snakes, gasses, sinking mud takes out members of the group before even getting close. This gives the characters an opportunity to reconsider.
Only other part is that a black dragon's lair would often include flooded areas, and may even include deception such as smaller piles of coins to lead/trick intruders into thinking that they have found the hoard. So maybe the returns are more meagre than expected.
Tell me what you you are trying to achieve - we're telling this story together ....at least I thought we were - Now I am not so sure [OGL 1.1]
To answer more context, The dragon's layer is in a toxic/acidic swamp so the environment is gonna be as much of an encounter as the dragon itself. There will be kobolds in service to the dragon.
I plan on having the dragon's first volley of acid breath take out MOST of the 25-30 people as both a display/demonstration of "This shit gonna be hard" and a way to relieve the headache of controlling all of them.
While I say they're "Veterans" I mean they've used cheesy methods to get loot from dangerous places before. MOST of them are fresh-dumb recruits tempted by the charismatic "Grizzled adventurer" leader, the more experienced ones are just ones that have happened to survive their other treasure hunts.
to Sanvael's question of "Why include this": Cause the group was there! When I run campaigns, I don't scale the world to the players level, I just present what is IN the world and react to the player's decisions. They are all aware of how powerful dragons are (in character and out) so they could have easily reacted to the looting group with "Yeah good luck dying" and it would have been just an introduction to a "faction" that could come up later. But the players CHOSE to say "Can we get in on this" and I wasn't gonna tell them No, they made this choice, and i wanna see what they do with it
[...]Most of the NPC's are veterans at this, which has made the players think their leader is some kind of badass [...] - I think that gave your players a false sense of security in this endeavor, tbh. You can say that they chose this, but, in truth, they were more deceived into it - which is fine, they shouldn't be that naive, insight/arcana/perception checks should've been made to avoid being deceived.
Honestly, if you play the Dragon as it is supposed to be, (intelligently flying, using it's breath weapon and only landing to kill the squishy members, before only the meat heads remain) - it's impossible for them to survive.
I can't see how to avoid a TPK without either EX Machina your way into having smth like a giant raid at the lair at the same time or, simply dumbing down your dragon - but if you do that, are you really playing "hard mode"?
I'm not sure that "Hard Mode" quite fits in with the idea that a Platoon of veteran adventurers swoops into a Black Dragon's lair. Maybe I missed the part where it's just your party that will be going in to encounter the dragon.
I'm all for the party making their own decisions and suffering the consequences/rewards of those decisions. I'm not a fan of padding the blows when all the signs are there that this creature is above your capabilities. That said, I might suggest that the party witness the dragon in action so as to see how it fights, and what happens when it does. Litterally telegraph the creatures abilities. Show them what will happen to them before it does happen. If they don't change tack, or try to be better prepared, so be it.
When I play a dragon, I play it as it uses the environment to its advantage. Grabbin PCs, flying 80 - 100 ft up, then drop them. Grab one, dive into the water with them and hold them under and roll like a croc. Pin them to the ground, swallow them whole. Tail attack (push) them into lava, off cliffs, into pools of acid in the lair. I don't play dragons fairly. They fight dirty. And yes, I will homebrew them to give them bonus actions, reactions, legendary, mythic, lair. All of the opportunities to even out that action economy. They will call minions to their aid, and if the party survives all that, they will flee to heal and fight another day. I try to make dragons the namesake that they are advertised to be. When and if my party drops a dragon, they know that they have earned every bit of what they are rewarded with. And they are very well rewarded.
There are some articles that you might find useful - Dragon Part 1, Dragon Part 2, Dragon Part 2.5. The author is Keith Ammann, and his book is insightful, to say the least.
What should you do depends on what is most fun for your table. Period. Hand them the leftovers of the last party that tried and if they say they wanna try, go for it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
You've got a few problems running this. First, the dragon is powerful but perhaps not that impressive. The breath weapon is a line 30' long and 5' wide. This won't be that impressive since the dragon can only take out 6 targets each round and that only if the creatures are lined up for him. Although there is likely to be some panic and chaos when the dragon shows up and melts a few people, most of them won't be right next to the folks who go down so morale may not drop so quickly that they all choose to flee. Basically, your idea to take out 1/2 the NPCs in the first round just doesn't work.
The dragon has AC18 and 127 hit points. If the NPCs are all Level 0 villagers then they will have a +0 and should be proficient with their bow for a +2. This means that an NPC villager hits on a 16+ or 25% of the time. Assuming you have 20 NPCs then 5 will hit in the first round doing about 5d6 damage on average or 17.5. Should be fine. I don't know what classes or capabilities the PCs have but at level 3 they will likely do much more damage. However, if the dragon keeps its attention on the NPCs and tries whittling them down this would give the PCs several rounds to hit the dragon. With 25 canon fodder to start, there is a good chance that the PCs could defeat the dragon or force it to flee. Especially considering the dragon may have to get very close to use their breath weapon. (Depends on whether the DM rules the breath weapon has to start from the dragon ... which is usually the case).
So my suggestions would be ...
1) Have a group of kobolds attack the hunting party at the same time as the dragon. Have them come out of hiding in the swamp. Have the kobolds focus their attentions mostly on the PCs. (Any reasonable dragon/kobolds would have some scouts in the swamp and a group of 30 would be very hard to miss).
2) Have the party notice that when the battle starts the charismatic leader and two henchmen seem to have disappeared (likely rogues that used sneaking in the swamp to circle around and quickly raid the hoard while the dragon and kobolds are distracted).
3) Each dragon attack will kill a villager and it has three. It also has the breath weapon. So the dragon engages the NPCs from the side farthest away from the PCs so that they can't easily attack the dragon without the kobolds getting them. One round of breath weapon taking out 5 or so NPCs and another one or two of the dragon ripping apart three more each round will make it clear to the NPCs that this isn't a good idea. They will also notice the leader is not there about this point and the entire gaggle of NPCs is likely to break and flee.
4) The PCs can then choose to stand and likely die when the dragon turns its attention to them or join the villagers in their retreat.
5) Since the dragon is near its lair there is a good chance it won't pursue, especially if sometime around now a gong starts to sound from the direction of the base. This announces that the leader and his henchmen have killed a couple of kobolds, grabbed what they could from the hoard and fled.
6) The dragon can either find these folks or they could escape and be left up to the players to deal with. Of course the leader has skipped town with no intention to share the loot with the few remaining villagers who followed him.
However, there are lots of variations on how you can run it but I think you need to put a decent sized group of kobolds (who have advantage to hit from pack tactics) up against the party to prevent them from focusing fire on the dragon. The kobolds will go down pretty quickly but without them the party+NPCs stands a decent chance of winning. This also prevents the party from having to face the dragon directly (three of its attacks might take down a PC/turn) while see the power of the creature as it melts the villagers. Feel free to bump the dragon hit points if it comes down to it. (127 is average - 195 would be the max if you go by the stat block 15d10+45).
Honestly it's hard to imagine a scenario where having the 25 NPCs making attacks is any fun for anyone. Get rid of them before the PCs get there, otherwise your players will get bored waiting while you roll a bucket load of dice.
I'm going to assume that the NPCs are not commoners. If they are, then they're suicidal and insane, and why the heck would they be attacking? Let's assume that they at least have +4 to hit, and deal 1d8+2 damage on a hit (light crossbow). Against AC18, they'll hit 7/20, so 25 of them should hit the young dragon 9 times for 59 (9d8+18) damage in a single turn. This brings the dragon to just 68 hit points.
If the NPCs are tanking the damage and dealing all that then it's not really hard mode, and the NPCs are playing the game rather then players.
Are you using Fizban's?
I only ask, because with its rules regarding hordes, running in, grabbing treasure and running away is a pretty viable, and actually kind of smart strategy. Do it a couple times and you can really weaken the dragon. Specifically:
"Because dragons’ power is linked to treasure, it’s possible to weaken a dragon by plundering the dragon’s lair. By gaining access to a hoard and making off with a significant portion of that wealth, characters can diminish the dragon’s connection to both that lair and its associated territory.
As a rule of thumb, if a dragon’s lair no longer holds at least 10,000 gp worth of treasure, the site is no longer considered a lair. The dragon can’t use lair actions there, and the regional effects surrounding the lair end or fade as if the dragon had died."
Black Dragons are amphibious and they fly. It is hard as hell to engage them if they don’t want to be engaged. When you catch up to them it will be on their turf. If they have followers, kobolds or lizard men, use the troops to split the attackers into smaller groups, then the dragon uses its mobility to hopscotch to the smaller group and wreck them. Rinse and repeat.
I'm thinking its important incorporate some clever escape routes that the group could notice if they look for them... they may come up with their own of course, but if you lay them out before hand and they refuse to take them your far less likely to be beating yourself up about a disastrous outcome.
As for clever dragon strats... I'm thinking a large group of feeble bipods slowly encroaching through a swamp on a Black dragon lair would be subjected to the 24/7 specter of a silent dark shape overhead, the sudden swoosh of acrid air then screams fading away up high into the murky darkness... where is Timmy!?! he was here a second ago! Timmy Where are You?! Timmy!.. SPLAT!.. Oh I think that's Timmy on the crushed remains of Tommy...
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
If the point is to reinforce how dangerous dragons are, then have it breathe on the trash mob NPCs, wiping out half of them in one shot. Make sure you players see/hear you rolling all the damage dice.
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How much fun if the whole group are crossing a lake around the dragon's lair in rowboats fighting kobolds in other rowboats, and then WHOOMF, the dragon is actually under the water and drags them down one by one.
If you want to make them realise what they're in for, then I'd make it clear at an early stage that they've been duped by this "Veteran".
When they get to the lair, have them roll initiative and then say "wow, the people rolled a nat 20, so they're going first". Have the people, egged on by the veteran, run out and immediately dissolve in the dragons breath. Roll the damage openly and say "well, they each take... ...49 points of acid damage, and they dissolve in agonised screams as they exit the tunnel".
This leaves the party with the veterans and with a choice - do they charge out to face the dragon they just saw destroy a whole group of people, whilst the veteran eggs them on from behind, or do they notice the veteran/s are the only ones here who had any gold/wealth, and that teir tactics all involve "you dristract it and I'll grab some gold". Make the two options for the party to either fight a black dragon, or fight the veterans to make their way out of the dragons lair.
An alternative twist would be for the veteran to be the black dragon, polymorphed, who is trying to test his lair defences, so is hiring groups of adventurers with promises of golden loot. Or, he is in league with this emperor, and is trying to weed out the adventurers, having been promised a hefty bounty for them by the emperor if he delivers them alive.
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I like the idea of a black dragon being a necromancer using the fallen hordes of adventurers that they've lured to their lair as the fodder for their undead army. I might have to borrow that.
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WOW! Now THAT would be something wouldn't it!
You and the party have the same expectations, and they made the choice. Honestly, you should just commit to your promise and play it true to the dragon even if it means a TPK is highly likely. If you're playing a gritty, level-independent world and you pull your punches when the PCs do stupid things, it's not really a gritty, level-independent world. If you need to rewrite certain encounters because they would otherwise be a TPK, you might as well just run a game where every encounter is winnable - or at least escapable - and not advertise otherwise.
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So an update!
This session went through and to my surprise, the party actually beat the dragon!
This happened for 3 reasons:
1. They managed to get him surprised and had a free round.
2. The barb took a potion of acid resistance beforehand (from an earlier quest) and reeeeeally pissed off the dragon making him the sole target of the breath (the rest of the party were scattered out of line range as well) he passed his save so half damage + half damage from resistance. Only took 14 damage.
3. I kinda messed up and didn't fly high enough with the dragon. I forgot about how much range ability the group actually had. That AND their rolls were on fire that night. they got like 3 guiding bolts off, several crits, unlucky dragon rolls, and reeeeeal good use of terrain + mold earth made for a good bunker to take potshots out of.
how'd they get surprize on it thought there was a small hord of bipods slogging it through that dragons swamp?
Sounds like everyone had fun which is what your aiming for in the grand scheme of things... although this encounter is unlikely by the sounds of it to make the group more cautious about taking on high risk missions
thanks for the update always find it super useful to hear what advice gets taken on board and how it turns out
wishing you all the best
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again