i'm having a very similar problem! i'm a new dm with new players (3 lvl 3, and an npc fighter that i'm running). my players consist of my close friends and gf so i would feel very bad about killing their characters. it doesn't really help that none of them usually bother with strategy.
my players have just arrived to thundertree and i have decided to drastically nerf the dragon. i've decided to, instead of running a young green dragon, reflavour a red wyrmling, have it also speak common, and give it a lair action--targets a single character, strength save or they are restrained. still technically a very deadly encounter but at the very least it won't literally auto-kill the sorcerer if she fails her save!
Keep in mind, from the dragon's perspective there is almost zero reason for him to get involved in combat with the pcs. Also, green dragons love corrupting and using people. For my group, which included a paladin and a cleric, he "encouraged" then to get rid of the cultist and the druid. They decided not to go back to Phandelin after killing the druid, though. So be ready for RP consequences of you take that route.
Read the complete stat bloc for green dragons for some more tips/ideas.
I've decided to run Venomfang as a "very young green dragon" for my level 2 newbie party (human cleric, elf druid, tabaxi rogue, half orc barbarian). If they are in big trouble Reidoth the druid may join them, charging in as a bear. If Venomfang ends up flying away (at 25 hp or so), he'll come back a bit later in the campaign as a young dragon looking for revenge on the party. :)
Just give them potions of poison resistance, a spell scroll of fireball and let Reidoth help them out (use Druid stats for him). My party consisted of 3 level threes and they did it with all of the above.
I have done this as a player twice. The first time was with a group of 5 level 3 players and no cleric, we took down the dragon, we were all experienced players and knew how to maximise our action economy. The second time everyone except me were completely new, even the DM. A couple of the players followed my example and played tactically, a couple ran straight in and charged it. Realistically they should have died but the DM was new and extremely generous. 1 character did die though as he took enough damage from the breath weapon to go to the negative of his hit points - I can't remember exactly what negative it was as it was last year.
The upshot of this is that it isn't impossible to do if you play tactically and sensibly. If your players manage to sneak in quietly and don't wake it up, or if they use some of the magic items they find such as a scroll of fireball that we found earlier in the adventure. In my first go through we snuck up and I cast fireball from the scroll before the barbarian and paladin and fighter ran in, with myself and our druid using spells.
i'm having a very similar problem! i'm a new dm with new players (3 lvl 3, and an npc fighter that i'm running). my players consist of my close friends and gf so i would feel very bad about killing their characters. it doesn't really help that none of them usually bother with strategy.
my players have just arrived to thundertree and i have decided to drastically nerf the dragon. i've decided to, instead of running a young green dragon, reflavour a red wyrmling, have it also speak common, and give it a lair action--targets a single character, strength save or they are restrained. still technically a very deadly encounter but at the very least it won't literally auto-kill the sorcerer if she fails her save!
Don't nerf the dragon, if the players refuse to play intelligently then let them go down as the dice falls. Maybe they can get rescued by the druid, maybe the cultists find them and stabilise them but take all their gear. Maybe they just die and next time they play more intelligently. It isn't the job of the DM to mollycoddle the players, or take their hand and lead them safely through. Your job is to run the adventure impartially and fairly. If they don't learn or listen it is their own fault.
I took that encounter as "Sometimes it's ok to no engage the creature." which is what my party ended up doing. As a backup, if I did end up TPK, I had them wake up in the Dragon Cult building in their prison and from there the party would need to break out, hence learning the lesson that "There are alternatives to fighting."
We chased it away easily, new players new DM, but this is the very end of this adventure and kinda got to know our way around by now and also, a big bag of luck. DM didn't caution us too much about the dragon, prolly because we were very cautious anyways, since we had our difficulties in the campaign beforehand. 5 players, starter set - Cleric, Rogue, MeleeFighter, MarksmanFighter and Wizard, all lvl4. Even trying to avoid most fights before the dragon, we had a hard time in Thundertree, with traps, failed surprise attacks and terrible rolls, so we hoped that the gods of luck will smile upon us in need and oh boy they did. Our Cleric distracted the dragon with a fearsome Thaumaturgy roar from the outside, so he took flight to search for the origin of the sound. The marksman got to open the fight from below this exact moment, aiming at the soft belly with Action Surge and a critical even, and all the initiatives got over Venomfang, rouge fired x-bow from hide, wizard popped whatever he hoped dragon's not immune to , cleric with poison resistance got into position below, so by the end of the first turn venomfang got over 50 dam, MeleeFighter barely survived the poisonbreath. Dragon landed, cleric held aggro with a reminder shout, soon after the beast got it's tail handed to him in melee. 'Twas definetly not boring, we were on the edge all the time, especially after the first breath's numbers came in and had no idea how long the fights gonna be..but still we realised it could have turned out very differently if not for some black dice magicry.
It's an optional encounter. Make sure they are warned it will be difficult and that they don't have to do it. Basically have the druid say he isn't strong enough to the dragon even if he had help and have him also be forthcoming about what he knows about their actual mission. Also give them the option to bail, you can have the dragon warn them off and or fire a warning shot as well as having it not chase them outside of its tower. They should fairly quickly get the message and leave.
Running the encounter So for me if I wanted to be nice it would go: If not surprised dragon stops eating the spiders it killed and says " who dares enter? leave now!" the dragon stays high up to avoid being hit and possibly has some cover behind the beams and dodges. If they have disguises or some plan to talk to the dragon they can do that now.
If they don't leave, roll initiative.
First round of combat, it carefully targets its breath to hit only one target as a warning shot. Then says something like " pathetic, you aren't worth my time. Leave!" The dragon stays high up to avoid being hit and possibly has some cover. This will probably down a player at level 2 and is their last warning
Second round if they haven't made an attempt to drag out the body of their now likely unconscious, possibly dead companion the dragon attacks in earnest. It attacks fully, that means it uses its breath to hit the rest if it can, other wise you can choose to play it defensively, dodging and avoiding until it has it breath or offensively charging down and doing it's multi attack.
If at any point they do more than 30 damage to the dragon it goes to attacking earnestly as it would in the second round skipping any remaining warnings.
Run like this they have plenty of chances to get out but death is still on the table. Escalating from one character dieing to all of them if they don't leave. At the same time if they get surprise they will likely win, if they can capitalize on it, but if they can't they still get warnings and can bail.
If they're level 2s and 3s you could try to have him lay off the flight and breath weapon for the first round or so (sizing up the party). Also keep in mind that he bails hard if he gets to half health. So they only really need to do ~60 damage.
Something to keep in mind is that the room isn't very big and has beams around every where as well as a stair case. The party can likely move to a location to hit the dragon even if it is flying or up high by walking up the stairs and climbing on the beams. You might also call it difficult terrain or force them to climb around instead of flying (both halve the dragons movement). Though If I reduced the dragons movement like this I'd also give them half cover to reflect that the area is congested.
i'm having a very similar problem! i'm a new dm with new players (3 lvl 3, and an npc fighter that i'm running). my players consist of my close friends and gf so i would feel very bad about killing their characters. it doesn't really help that none of them usually bother with strategy.
my players have just arrived to thundertree and i have decided to drastically nerf the dragon. i've decided to, instead of running a young green dragon, reflavour a red wyrmling, have it also speak common, and give it a lair action--targets a single character, strength save or they are restrained. still technically a very deadly encounter but at the very least it won't literally auto-kill the sorcerer if she fails her save!
Keep in mind, from the dragon's perspective there is almost zero reason for him to get involved in combat with the pcs. Also, green dragons love corrupting and using people. For my group, which included a paladin and a cleric, he "encouraged" then to get rid of the cultist and the druid. They decided not to go back to Phandelin after killing the druid, though. So be ready for RP consequences of you take that route.
Read the complete stat bloc for green dragons for some more tips/ideas.
they would suspect that you were playing easy though
I've decided to run Venomfang as a "very young green dragon" for my level 2 newbie party (human cleric, elf druid, tabaxi rogue, half orc barbarian). If they are in big trouble Reidoth the druid may join them, charging in as a bear. If Venomfang ends up flying away (at 25 hp or so), he'll come back a bit later in the campaign as a young dragon looking for revenge on the party. :)
Just give them potions of poison resistance, a spell scroll of fireball and let Reidoth help them out (use Druid stats for him). My party consisted of 3 level threes and they did it with all of the above.
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I have done this as a player twice. The first time was with a group of 5 level 3 players and no cleric, we took down the dragon, we were all experienced players and knew how to maximise our action economy. The second time everyone except me were completely new, even the DM. A couple of the players followed my example and played tactically, a couple ran straight in and charged it. Realistically they should have died but the DM was new and extremely generous. 1 character did die though as he took enough damage from the breath weapon to go to the negative of his hit points - I can't remember exactly what negative it was as it was last year.
The upshot of this is that it isn't impossible to do if you play tactically and sensibly. If your players manage to sneak in quietly and don't wake it up, or if they use some of the magic items they find such as a scroll of fireball that we found earlier in the adventure. In my first go through we snuck up and I cast fireball from the scroll before the barbarian and paladin and fighter ran in, with myself and our druid using spells.
Don't nerf the dragon, if the players refuse to play intelligently then let them go down as the dice falls. Maybe they can get rescued by the druid, maybe the cultists find them and stabilise them but take all their gear. Maybe they just die and next time they play more intelligently. It isn't the job of the DM to mollycoddle the players, or take their hand and lead them safely through. Your job is to run the adventure impartially and fairly. If they don't learn or listen it is their own fault.
I took that encounter as "Sometimes it's ok to no engage the creature." which is what my party ended up doing. As a backup, if I did end up TPK, I had them wake up in the Dragon Cult building in their prison and from there the party would need to break out, hence learning the lesson that "There are alternatives to fighting."
We chased it away easily, new players new DM, but this is the very end of this adventure and kinda got to know our way around by now and also, a big bag of luck.
DM didn't caution us too much about the dragon, prolly because we were very cautious anyways, since we had our difficulties in the campaign beforehand.
5 players, starter set - Cleric, Rogue, MeleeFighter, MarksmanFighter and Wizard, all lvl4.
Even trying to avoid most fights before the dragon, we had a hard time in Thundertree, with traps, failed surprise attacks and terrible rolls, so we hoped that the gods of luck will smile upon us in need and oh boy they did.
Our Cleric distracted the dragon with a fearsome Thaumaturgy roar from the outside, so he took flight to search for the origin of the sound.
The marksman got to open the fight from below this exact moment, aiming at the soft belly with Action Surge and a critical even, and all the initiatives got over Venomfang, rouge fired x-bow from hide, wizard popped whatever he hoped dragon's not immune to , cleric with poison resistance got into position below, so by the end of the first turn venomfang got over 50 dam, MeleeFighter barely survived the poisonbreath.
Dragon landed, cleric held aggro with a reminder shout, soon after the beast got it's tail handed to him in melee.
'Twas definetly not boring, we were on the edge all the time, especially after the first breath's numbers came in and had no idea how long the fights gonna be..but still we realised it could have turned out very differently if not for some black dice magicry.
it won't my goddamn party killed it.
So for me if I wanted to be nice it would go:
If not surprised dragon stops eating the spiders it killed and says " who dares enter? leave now!" the dragon stays high up to avoid being hit and possibly has some cover behind the beams and dodges. If they have disguises or some plan to talk to the dragon they can do that now.
Something to keep in mind is that the room isn't very big and has beams around every where as well as a stair case. The party can likely move to a location to hit the dragon even if it is flying or up high by walking up the stairs and climbing on the beams. You might also call it difficult terrain or force them to climb around instead of flying (both halve the dragons movement). Though If I reduced the dragons movement like this I'd also give them half cover to reflect that the area is congested.