So in my campaign I have my players being randomly attacked by animals at random constantly in Neverwinter Forest. These animals are under druidic influence. They followed the tracks of an owl bear they killed all the way to thundertree. Here a Young Green dragon is shapeshifted into a big bear pretending to serve his druid master, but in truth the Green dragon actually controls the druid thus making the animals go out and kill random adventurers and bring back their loot. This Green dragon also possesses a red dragon egg that he stole from a red dragon to the south. He speaks on behalf of the druid (or pretends to), stating the druid is simply protecting the forest by hostile force. If the players were to go slay the red dragon he will convince his master to stop all the animal hostility (but he won't cus he's a scheming Green dragon) What do think about this idea?
Sounds like a good plot twist, though I advise you to not get too attached to it as if a character has a way to use truesight and so on it can reveal the trickery straight away, or if they try to use Dispel Magic to end the hold on the nice bera it might undo polymorph. I'd say it's got a reasonable chance of success, and the players will likely take the chance to slay a dragon, so the hook is one well baited. Good luck!
Oh I'm counting on them to figure it out. They are level 3 currently, and with 5 of them they could put up a decent fight. Can't wait til next week to see what happens!
The plot issue is this: The Young Green Dragon sends out animals to attack adventurers to bring back treasure. It will be confronted with a party of adventurers. Naturally, it will summon any animals it can to attack them, and then join in attacking them. There is little reason for the dragon to believe that the PCs will be able to take it down - it's a dragon after all. If it wants creatures to perform a service for it, then why is it having animals randomly attack adventurers? What is the difference between the PCs getting attacked in the forest, and the PCs getting attacked when they find the dragon?
It feels a bit to me like the only answer to this is "Because they're the main characters." So maybe you need to think of a reason that the green dragon won't just attack them.
Balance issue: A young green dragon's breath attack will deal an average 42 damage on a failed saving throw. The average Barbarian with +3 Con has 34 hit points, while the average wizard with +3 Con has 26. It's pretty likely that if they engage the Green dragon at level 3, if it rolls high on initiative it's a TPK.
The green dragon enjoys tricking those into serving him, so in exchange of deceit offers them another quest. But if they were to discover its a dragon in disguise they best run! There is a dwarf Cleric as well with poison advantage and resistance. And they have a Druid npc that is fairly high leveled. If they can break the crown that the bear/dragon is wearing it will release the other decent level Druid that's under its control and really turn the tides. If things get really out of hand I do have another plot of a silver dragon saving them. I don't wish to TPK, but give them a good sense that there is great danger in the world.
Um - well ... if you're playing a deus ex machina save for the players ahead of time, you know there's something wrong with your encounter balance.
And there's basically nothing worse for a game than the GM saving the party from his own flawed encounter design. It makes the players feel like spectators while the GM tosses OP enemies at the party, then conjures a save out of nowhere to avoid his own TPK.
Also, never plan on players not attacking an enemy. They usually will. So plan on that, and figure out how to make the fight winnable.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
You're right, that does seem deusy. Maybe I'll have the dragon imprison them instead. And then they have to break out. Either way we're playing to have fun, and no matter the outcome it should be great. Thank you all for your input thus far.
Um - again, that's taking agency away from the players. Basically, the players should be able to decide what happens to their characters - in general terms. And you as the GM should present them with a choice of reasonable options. Having a bear (that they have every reason to think they can beat) actually be a dragon they have little chance against simply isn't fair. It's not giving them reasonable options. Instead, you're placing a landmine in their path and waiting for them to step on it.
I hope you don't feel I'm being, you know, offensive or anything.
I think your idea is actually rather neat - the party is just too low level. Maybe, in stead of having it turn into a combat encounter, when the dragon is discovered, have it kill the druid - since it has no further use for him/her - and fly off. Plan for another, later encounter.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
One other thing to improve the feeling of player agency is to foreshadow it. Don't make it seem like just a bear. Give them clues and suspicious activity, and if they want to roll insight and roll high, they aren't going to get "It's clearly a polymorphed green dragon", but they might get "something about this bear seems off."
Make it clear to them that they may not be dealing with just a bear, that way if they do decide to go for the fight and they lose, and wake up in the green dragon's dungeon, then they can say "well, I guess that was why the bear seemed off", rather than "what the heck, I have studied dragons and I should have known that, the DM sucks for not giving us any clue that it was a dragon".
Player agency is giving the players choices to make, based on information they gather. If you put a powerful enemy who would imprison them instead of kill them in their path, and you make it clear in some capacity that the enemy is very powerful, then they decide to attack anyway, then you're not doing anything wrong. It's when someone is bitten by a mosquito, slaps it, and it turns out to be a polymorphed ancient dragon. That's when it's bad DMing, because they didn't have a choice to make.
Things can go many ways, and planning for fail forward scenarios doesn't make for bad DMing, provided they have enough information to succeed. If they work out that they are a dragon, then they decide to attack anyway, make it clear to them that their character knows a dragon is beyond them - do they still want to attack?
At that point, killing the characters is not even a bad call. They knew it was deadly, they did it anyway, and now they're dead. That's player agency.
I absolutely agree with Thoruk here, this sounds like an awesome idea but the players are coming to D&D so that they can be heroes. They probably don’t want a dragon to pop out on them and then get saved by an NPC. Give them some hints. Reptilian tracks around the bears cave, a smell of chemicals in the air, a greenish tint to the bears fur… give them a bit more agency and this will be truly awesome. Mabye you could have the druid captured or killed and they have to save them. Or the dragon tries to recruit the players for its own schemes and they have to choose whether to avoid imminent death or compromise their morality. but whatever you do, I really hope the session goes well and you and your players have fun!
Yes I plan on telling them foul toxins smell in the air, and vines have overgrown the town, all the hints of a green dragon. I am very good at improvisation, so no matter what they do, I'll make it work the best ways possible. My hope is they go "oh shit, let's come back here at a higher level."
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So in my campaign I have my players being randomly attacked by animals at random constantly in Neverwinter Forest. These animals are under druidic influence. They followed the tracks of an owl bear they killed all the way to thundertree. Here a Young Green dragon is shapeshifted into a big bear pretending to serve his druid master, but in truth the Green dragon actually controls the druid thus making the animals go out and kill random adventurers and bring back their loot. This Green dragon also possesses a red dragon egg that he stole from a red dragon to the south. He speaks on behalf of the druid (or pretends to), stating the druid is simply protecting the forest by hostile force. If the players were to go slay the red dragon he will convince his master to stop all the animal hostility (but he won't cus he's a scheming Green dragon) What do think about this idea?
Sounds like a good plot twist, though I advise you to not get too attached to it as if a character has a way to use truesight and so on it can reveal the trickery straight away, or if they try to use Dispel Magic to end the hold on the nice bera it might undo polymorph. I'd say it's got a reasonable chance of success, and the players will likely take the chance to slay a dragon, so the hook is one well baited. Good luck!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Oh I'm counting on them to figure it out. They are level 3 currently, and with 5 of them they could put up a decent fight. Can't wait til next week to see what happens!
You have a plot issue, and a game balance issue.
The plot issue is this: The Young Green Dragon sends out animals to attack adventurers to bring back treasure. It will be confronted with a party of adventurers. Naturally, it will summon any animals it can to attack them, and then join in attacking them. There is little reason for the dragon to believe that the PCs will be able to take it down - it's a dragon after all. If it wants creatures to perform a service for it, then why is it having animals randomly attack adventurers? What is the difference between the PCs getting attacked in the forest, and the PCs getting attacked when they find the dragon?
It feels a bit to me like the only answer to this is "Because they're the main characters." So maybe you need to think of a reason that the green dragon won't just attack them.
Balance issue: A young green dragon's breath attack will deal an average 42 damage on a failed saving throw. The average Barbarian with +3 Con has 34 hit points, while the average wizard with +3 Con has 26. It's pretty likely that if they engage the Green dragon at level 3, if it rolls high on initiative it's a TPK.
The green dragon enjoys tricking those into serving him, so in exchange of deceit offers them another quest. But if they were to discover its a dragon in disguise they best run! There is a dwarf Cleric as well with poison advantage and resistance. And they have a Druid npc that is fairly high leveled. If they can break the crown that the bear/dragon is wearing it will release the other decent level Druid that's under its control and really turn the tides. If things get really out of hand I do have another plot of a silver dragon saving them. I don't wish to TPK, but give them a good sense that there is great danger in the world.
Um - well ... if you're playing a deus ex machina save for the players ahead of time, you know there's something wrong with your encounter balance.
And there's basically nothing worse for a game than the GM saving the party from his own flawed encounter design. It makes the players feel like spectators while the GM tosses OP enemies at the party, then conjures a save out of nowhere to avoid his own TPK.
Also, never plan on players not attacking an enemy. They usually will. So plan on that, and figure out how to make the fight winnable.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
You're right, that does seem deusy. Maybe I'll have the dragon imprison them instead. And then they have to break out. Either way we're playing to have fun, and no matter the outcome it should be great. Thank you all for your input thus far.
Um - again, that's taking agency away from the players. Basically, the players should be able to decide what happens to their characters - in general terms. And you as the GM should present them with a choice of reasonable options. Having a bear (that they have every reason to think they can beat) actually be a dragon they have little chance against simply isn't fair. It's not giving them reasonable options. Instead, you're placing a landmine in their path and waiting for them to step on it.
I hope you don't feel I'm being, you know, offensive or anything.
I think your idea is actually rather neat - the party is just too low level. Maybe, in stead of having it turn into a combat encounter, when the dragon is discovered, have it kill the druid - since it has no further use for him/her - and fly off. Plan for another, later encounter.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
One other thing to improve the feeling of player agency is to foreshadow it. Don't make it seem like just a bear. Give them clues and suspicious activity, and if they want to roll insight and roll high, they aren't going to get "It's clearly a polymorphed green dragon", but they might get "something about this bear seems off."
Make it clear to them that they may not be dealing with just a bear, that way if they do decide to go for the fight and they lose, and wake up in the green dragon's dungeon, then they can say "well, I guess that was why the bear seemed off", rather than "what the heck, I have studied dragons and I should have known that, the DM sucks for not giving us any clue that it was a dragon".
Player agency is giving the players choices to make, based on information they gather. If you put a powerful enemy who would imprison them instead of kill them in their path, and you make it clear in some capacity that the enemy is very powerful, then they decide to attack anyway, then you're not doing anything wrong. It's when someone is bitten by a mosquito, slaps it, and it turns out to be a polymorphed ancient dragon. That's when it's bad DMing, because they didn't have a choice to make.
Things can go many ways, and planning for fail forward scenarios doesn't make for bad DMing, provided they have enough information to succeed. If they work out that they are a dragon, then they decide to attack anyway, make it clear to them that their character knows a dragon is beyond them - do they still want to attack?
At that point, killing the characters is not even a bad call. They knew it was deadly, they did it anyway, and now they're dead. That's player agency.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
I absolutely agree with Thoruk here, this sounds like an awesome idea but the players are coming to D&D so that they can be heroes. They probably don’t want a dragon to pop out on them and then get saved by an NPC. Give them some hints. Reptilian tracks around the bears cave, a smell of chemicals in the air, a greenish tint to the bears fur… give them a bit more agency and this will be truly awesome.
Mabye you could have the druid captured or killed and they have to save them. Or the dragon tries to recruit the players for its own schemes and they have to choose whether to avoid imminent death or compromise their morality.
but whatever you do, I really hope the session goes well and you and your players have fun!
Be Excellent to one another. Rock on dude.
Yes I plan on telling them foul toxins smell in the air, and vines have overgrown the town, all the hints of a green dragon. I am very good at improvisation, so no matter what they do, I'll make it work the best ways possible. My hope is they go "oh shit, let's come back here at a higher level."