Hey guys. First time DM running Lost Mines here. My party just finished chapter two, and Thundertree is one of the main locations that they've got on their list for the next session. I was just looking at Venomfang (young green dragon), and I can't help but feel he's freakishly overpowered, especially given that there doesn't seem to be any real solution to dealing with him other than combat. They're level 2s and 3s, and it just doesn't seem like a particularly fair fight. I'm trying to avoid outright slaughtering my party, as more than half of them are complete newbies and I don't want to sour their first experience with the game. How should I handle this?
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.
I had similar concerns to you when I first ran the module.
My players met up with the druid and then decided they were going nowhere near a dragon, as they'd got the information they needed and were instead immediately leaving to go save the dwarf.
I probably helped the situation by having the clear, but not overly loud voice carry across the entire area, telling the adventurers to come talk to him, as he had an offer for them. Nope. They bailed!
Different groups will approach things differently, but you should realise that you can heavily influence player decisions based on how you portray things. If you play up the destruction and lack of life around the dragon's den and so forth, you can make them think twice about engaging the dragon.
I did do a double-take when I first read that there was a dragon there though. I kinda think of it as a Darwinian test. If the party do decide to attack the dragon, that almost certainly knows they are coming, then they should expect some or all of them to die. The breath weapon alone should manage that.
I'm playing Lost Mine too, and i think you can apply some of my points of view here. Hope this can help.
1- Dont worry about unbalanced encounters, Faerûn is a dangerous place and there are plenty of signals about it. For example, i've settled a very good background and my players know very well that only brave adventures go out of cities and towns for a good reasons...deadly good reasons. If your players find something they cannot beat (and that should be common but not frecuent) they should just run for their lives. If they fight to the death they will...well, die, the world is not there for them to beat it at level 2.
2- Focus on the information they can get without going into a fight. Yeah, you can apply number 1, but applying it without giving your players a chance to decide if a challenge is too much or they can handle it is a fault that can end with all your group banished. You should reward those players who try to find info about the adventures they are about to take on. There's a druid in thundertree that can give them some info about how deadly a dragon is for a group of noobies. Also, you can encourage them to spy the dragon's territory and maybe you can make the dragon fight vs a strong creature that the player's have faced before...and make them see how the dragon obliterate it (a dragon needs to eat, after all). That should give your players hints about how strong a dragon can be.
3- Stick to the rules untill it becomes stupid. This is a rule i apply myself when i'm DMng. Yeah, the module gives you hints and directions to roleplay the NPC's, but if your players think out of the box and make something that could make a challenge easier (like setting a trap for the dragon), let them do it if you think it's possible. If you stick to the module poor setting you will see that your players feel they cannot do a thing to face the challenge but charging into the room. That's when you have to stop using the premade NPC ways of acting and start thinking through them. Will a young dragon go for an easy hoard even if in the module says he's allways in the tower? Well...maybe he's not ALLWAYS in the tower.
I think you should be good if you apply this three things to your games. And relax if your players go for the kill even knowing the dragon is though as a hammer, it's player's nature to face challenges they are not prepared for. Sometimes a good beating helps to encourage them not to act like videogamers.
You can choose to play the dragon a bit "stupid", perhaps the dragon havent really met real "heroes" before and only dealt with weak peasants and is not proper experienced" for a real fight.
Like :
Attack the "fighter" or the character that has highest AC
dont use breath attack on group up characters
If your characters have a solid tactic and most of their spells and abilities then they should be able to bring the dragon down to half HP and trigger the dragon to flee.
But if things looks like its going really bad then perhaps remind them they have they do have the option to try and flee (if all the players are new they might not know or be used to the idea).
I was in a 3 player party of level 3 and we had no problem dropping Venomfang, I was a monk, we had a barbarian and a sorceror. Depends on how tactical your party is or isn't and how they maxmize their turns.
But you can always play with his hp and stats, you aren't married to anything, only you know what you change.
We killed him. 4 Chars (Monk, Thief, Wizard and Warlock). I think we were around level 4. it was tough and we nearly died but we did it.
Non-comba idea:
You could talk the dragon into believing the cultists want to kill him or steal his treasure. I think we stole the gems the cultists had in their hideout when they were talking to the dragon.
Then we stole some magic itemes from his lair when he was out and about.we thought that would get them to fight but the dragon new where his items really were (in our castle :)).
So unfortunately our DM sent the dragon after us and we finally were confronted by him in cragmaw castle.
I can't remember the details, that was like 4 years ago :)
We also killed the Banshee at level 3. My monk insulted her one time too often and she attacked. First round our thief went down wjhen she used her wailing attack and then madness ensued.
Im playing this Module the first time as well. Its also the first time DM’ing for me. In my Party are 5 people all lvl 3 and one of them already got a +1 Sword. Anyways they all had a drift to not take the enemy’s srsly. They fought all encounters with not that many problems. That leaded to a problem… my players thought they are invincible and killed everything that attacked them without talking with them. One Died instant but that was because he had Constitution -1 from the start and played as a frontline monk. They also got baited by the Dragon cult even they died in that fight because I played the Dragon doesn’t care about anyone he just want to have his fun and mess with people. After 2 more PC’s got downed they just made barely enough dmg that he was 2 hp under his half. But they didn’t let him escape (closed the roof with web) and kept fighting inside the tower for the advantage of the dragon. So I decided the Dragon took the 2 knockout people as prisoners. Then the Dragon made the offer to not kill them as long as he is entertained. The other 2 made a deal with the dragon to bring him 2 other people for exchange. Now I have a nice side Quest. And they can try it another time.
However I think I made the mistake to not describe the dragon deadly enough. But it was still a lot of fun. The player who died wasn’t that happy with his character and he was quiet an exception with 14 hp at lvl 3. Its definitely doable to bring the Dragon half hp with just playing him not to strategic (using his breath in the first round or something). If the Dragon cult is with them maybe focus them first so they see that the dragon can take out one of them in one turn with ez.
Still have a question do u guys think as a consequence its fair to strip the imprisoned Players all there Stuff. I will play with them also a session. Let them fight each other and stuff (still thinking about some ideas maybe someone has one for me). I thought to let each of them 2 choose one item of their old stuff if they doing good with the dragon. (so they don’t lose the +1 sword and just need new armor)
As others have said; Venomfang does seem like an overwhelmingly deadly encounter for the party. And that's because he is, particularly at the point of the adventure your party are likely run into him, around level 3.
The only times I've seen him defeated, are in playthroughs where – in my opinion – the DM handicapped him. Such as not simply having him take off and fly around strafing the party with his poison-breath. Picking up players and dropping them from a decent height. Picking off magic users and ranged attackers first. Etc.
I too first ran this encounter with a group of new players, and I get the distinct feeling that this is the encounter that lets your players know that they don't always have to fight. And sometimes, if they do, they can die. The problem is compounded by one of the pre-gen characters (the fighter) with the objective to 'drive off the dragon', and instructions to have the dragon flee when he reaches half-hp in the campaign book.
My advice, especially as they're new, is to give them a bit of grace. Have the druid ham up the danger of the dragon - go into great detail about the dead giant spiders surrounding the tower. The plumes of acrid smoke causing your party to splutter and choke. Get your narration going, emphasise how dangerous and large this dragon is. It'll set the scene and provide suitable red flags.
Start with some dialogue with the dragon, rather than a straight up 'You walk into the tower – and into poison breath'. Perhaps the dragon is asleep? Giving the party time to set up a trap or ambush? Maybe the dragon is vain and proud, and the party can sweet talk him with honeyed words. Reward creativity with some inspiration or advantage.
If a fight happens, then give them at least a sporting chance. The breath weapon can wipe the entire party in one round, so perhaps save that until they've spread out a bit. Consider spreading the three attacks Venomfang has per round across three characters, rather than potentially insta-killing one.
Venomfang is a young dragon, so could be highly arrogant and inexperienced. Perhaps this could be motivation for him not to simply take off and raze the tower, and everyone in it.
I agree with the above advice of playing the dragon as "dumb". In my homemade one shot, the group was having trouble and was going to probably die. So I changed a few of my rolls behind the screen to make them misses, or had the damage roll low on purpose. I did that on purpose since they were down a character as well.
My group killed him, but it was my fault for honestly forgetting to have him flee. Chalk that up to newbie DM forgetting pertinent details.
All at level 3, Divine Sorceror, Zealot Barbarian, Moon Druid and Gloom Stalker Ranger. Dragon started off with strafing, moved to close quarters when the party began to separate themselves. The aarokocra ranger and sorcerer dealing the most damage, the dragon didn't put himself out in the open as often and used buildings for (partial) cover.
When the battle was nearing its end, the dragon picked up the druid in bear form, then dive-bombed him back into the ground hard enough to demorph. In a good spot, he then breath weaponed across the entire group. Damage rolled high, and the sorcerer, ranger and druid fell unconscious.
The barbarian, having lost her great sword and on her last legs, drew a dagger and rage-stabbed the dragon. It ended up being the killing blow.
The group thinks I just allowed that to happen to avoid a TPK. I honestly didn't, but it was a mistake on my part to let it get that far nonetheless. I'm still very new as a DM, they've only just now reached Wave Echo, but I've at least improved on that front.
I was also worried about this fight since the PCs were all brand new to D&D and they were only level 3 when they got to Thundertree. it was a well balanced group though and there were five of them so I thought they had a good chance. And we spent an entire session (3 hours or so) traveling to Thundertree where I threw a bunch of encounters at them so they could get some more battle experience. That did help them to "play better", think tactically and gave them some confidence. In Thundertree I role played the local Druid and used that encounter as a 20-30 minute strategy panning conversation. Warning them the whole time that the dragon was beastly and they were not really that strong. Then we ended the session knowing the the next session would start with the dreaded Venomfang!! (always end on a cliffhanger)
The party, all level 3: Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian, Druid, Bard.
The strategy they settled on was to use the druid's entangle to try keep the dragon in the base of the tower and maybe keep it from using it's full range of attacks. The Paladin would stand in the doorway and start a conversation (challenged him to a game of Dragon Chess) - this ensured that any melee attacks would hit the pally. The druid and the bard were ready just outside to give a quick heal to the pally if he died and just let him get hit each round so they could rinse and repeat. The barbarian would go in once the entangle was on and just rage on the dragon. The Fighter and the Bard were behind the pally with a bow/x-bow to help on damage. If the entangle didn't work then they would just play yo-yo with the paladin, which is how they beat the 3 Bugbears in room 9 of The Redbrand Hideout - pally dies, heal pally, everyone shoot Big-Bad, repeat. After the strategy was in defined I thought they had a good chance to get the dragon down to 1/2 HP as long as they hit the entangle and the druid stayed outside in case of a breath attack.
What really happened: The entangle worked first try as the dragon rolled a 2 on his save. EVERY party member rolled over 18 on their attack rolls in the first round and did 39 HP of damage before the dragon (who rolled a 1 on init) even got a turn. The only one who failed was the bard who missed on his attack. The Dragon rolled a 3 on his strength check to bust out of entangle - so he was basically nullified into round two. In round two the EXACT SAME THING happened. Five straight hits from everyone in the party including a crit and the dragon lost another 42 HP. The dragon rolled another crap strength check to break entanglement so he couldn't even flee.. Round three saw some missed attacks, a lot in fact, but the dragon rolled another crap strength check and was still entangled. Round 4 and 5 more of the same until they got to 136 HP damage on the dragon. The only one who took any damage was the barbarian who went into the room to rage on the dragon while he was down and got clawed a couple times.
So after all that build up and all the warnings and strategy and the 2 weeks of down time in between sessions worrying... After all that suspense, it was a slaughter. It wasn't even a goodfight.
They left the town with the head of the dragon on the back of the Barbarian (i determined that the head would weigh about 100 Lbs so they cut it off and took it with them). I know that you can't really control the dice. I know that it could have been a completely different fight, catastrophic even, if the dragon rolled well and the players rolled badly. I know that the statistical chances of this playing out this way are phenomenally low. But I also know they felt really good about the outcome, and they did carry the head back to Neverwinter and parade it down the street... But I still wanted to have a good fight for them to brag about...
So in the end I just say this.. The drama and the story need to be engaging - so pump up the drama on the big fights! The players need to feel invested so get them to think about what they need to do and get the players to own their characters and their actions! I think that this encounter more than any other in LMOP was specifically designed to do just that, get the party to act like a real "band of brothers". Fellowships are not made in taverns or guildhalls. They are born from facing overwhelming foes and doing these incredible things as a team. This is what makes games like D&D so extraordinary.. So by all means, make it a story filled with drama and humor and adventure and silly revelry..
What happens in battle is just about the dice.. But what happens on the adventure is really what makes the difference.
This same encounter is going poorly for my group. They ignored the twig blights in 1, took out the ash zombies at the tavern (3) and then went into 2, but failed the perception check on the blights. When they saw nothing in 2, they headed toward the tower next. Two dead spiders weren't enough to push them away. They assumed the druid did that.
They entered the tower and opened the tower door to find a dragon. I gave them more than enough warning that the dragon is well above their means, but not impossible. One person in the group convinced them that the dragon had to be the druid and kept trying to communicate with the dragon despite the "leave or die" warning given.
When they went to leave, they were ambushed by the twig blights and the dragon used his breath weapon. They made the saves so I gave a little mercy and only took out one of the 3 hit and had two of the twig blights die from the breath weapon.
We had to end half way through, so we are in the waiting to see what will happen. I wonder if I should send Reidoth to help pull them out or not. I wont have venomfang give chase, but the blights have blocked the one exit.
Reduce his AC and damage output by a couple points.
Or, fudge things, of course. If you don't roll your dice out in the open, there's nothing wrong with declaring an errant miss every now and again if you realize you've misbalanced an encounter.
The party is going to be 3 level 5s and a level 4 by the time they get there, a couple sessions from now. Gundren died, and they don't know the way to Wave Echo Cave, so they got here pretty late in the campaign.
Story-wise, Sister Garaelle has already told the party that Reidoth may know the way to the Cave. The Druid in the party will be told by Sending Stone that Reidoth is missing. The Warlock in my party will also be summoned where the Feywild meets Neverwinter Wood, and asked by an Archfey to find Reidoth.
Reidoth has found the Cult of the Dragon in Thundertree, but has lost his Sending stone and can't abandon his position. Reidoth will not require the party to confront the Dragon, but will ask them be rid of the cultists, and the cultists may ask the party to visit Venomfang. Since the party is higher level, I strengthened the Cultists in the area to be actual Dragonclaws, led by a Dragonwing, from HotDQ, and I weakened Venomfang so he couldn't one shot the party. I felt like the encounter would be more dynamic if Venomfang couldn't one shot the party and if the party couldn't one shot the cultists.
We did this as well,with a large group of newbie PCs. It somehow turned out to be a dragon slaying session. The party consisted of lvl 3 bard, druid, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, ranger and a lvl 4 barbarian. The whole party, including the DM, were complete newbies to Dnd, but I'm pretty sure we did nothing wrong. It was just the dice gods that decided for us. The plan was for the Bard, Druid and Sorcerer to use the cultist's cloaks and masks to bribe the dragon, making him believe we want to worship him, while the ranger and rogue took position outside with the warlock and the Barbarian climbed the top of the tower. The goal was to get the dragon out of the tower as we thought the poison breath would be less devastating. Turned out, the roof gave in, the raging barbarian jumped down and hit the wing of the dragon (called shot at disadvantage, reckless for advantage, cancels out, normal roll) with a crit. The dragon then used his claw attacks and missed, then unleashed his breath upon the Bard, Sorcerer and Druid (poison resistant). They all made it out barely alive, and then Initiative was rolled. The dragon then climbed out of the tower but rolled really poorly, and the barbarian made his dex save to stay on top of the dragon and continue hitting his wings. With frenzied rage triple attack, he dealt another 30+ damage to the damaged wing, thus managing to make the dragon flightless. The dragon did not regain his breath weapon in that round, and got a full blast of Bard's Shatter, Ranger's crit, Warlock's Eldritch Blast and so on. It only took 4 rounds of combat for the dragon to die, as he couldn't fly away and he never regained his breath weapon, so every attack was melee based, with the raging barbarian as main target. Lots of misses there. I am not the DM (in this group), but I went through the whole session with him afterwards to find out if we did anything wrong. We didn't. It was all tactics, luck and our DM rolling poorly. (we're all still in awe and shock, as most of the group was struggling with anxiety and bad dreams before the encounter, just to have it be a slaughter. We did have lots of fun though)
There are very few absolutes in the world of D&D, but one of them is Dragons should always be imposing foes, it's in the name, the ampersand, and the essence of the game. "Here there be Dragons" is not an invitation, it is the warning of the most dire kind.
Extreme luck, great planning, or questionable homebrewing will allow the party to actually kill the dragon. If your party gets lucky, the dragon flies off. If the party flees, even after engaging, half-hearted pursuit, allowing them to escape is fine. If the party chooses to fight, and stay, and the dragon does not leave, the result will most likely be a TPK, and that is just fine. TPK to little middling things due to some bad luck is one thing, TPK to one of the ICONIC foes in the setting, perfectly fine. Both the DM and the Players need to learn this, embrace it, and enjoy it.
As the toughest person in the room is the most visible(shiniest armor/flashiest spells/glintiest dagger), attack that person with the high AC. If one goes down to unconscious, you are always okay to have the dragon feel vindicated and fly off. NO MATTER WHAT THE MODULE SAYS, YOU KNOW THE FUN NEED IN THE GAME BETTER. You can always overrule the module for the sake of fun. Fun is the number one watchword. If the players are not having fun, then why are you playing?
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Hey guys. First time DM running Lost Mines here. My party just finished chapter two, and Thundertree is one of the main locations that they've got on their list for the next session. I was just looking at Venomfang (young green dragon), and I can't help but feel he's freakishly overpowered, especially given that there doesn't seem to be any real solution to dealing with him other than combat. They're level 2s and 3s, and it just doesn't seem like a particularly fair fight. I'm trying to avoid outright slaughtering my party, as more than half of them are complete newbies and I don't want to sour their first experience with the game. How should I handle this?
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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.
I had similar concerns to you when I first ran the module.
My players met up with the druid and then decided they were going nowhere near a dragon, as they'd got the information they needed and were instead immediately leaving to go save the dwarf.
I probably helped the situation by having the clear, but not overly loud voice carry across the entire area, telling the adventurers to come talk to him, as he had an offer for them. Nope. They bailed!
Different groups will approach things differently, but you should realise that you can heavily influence player decisions based on how you portray things. If you play up the destruction and lack of life around the dragon's den and so forth, you can make them think twice about engaging the dragon.
I did do a double-take when I first read that there was a dragon there though. I kinda think of it as a Darwinian test. If the party do decide to attack the dragon, that almost certainly knows they are coming, then they should expect some or all of them to die. The breath weapon alone should manage that.
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Hi Twisturtle!
I'm playing Lost Mine too, and i think you can apply some of my points of view here. Hope this can help.
1- Dont worry about unbalanced encounters, Faerûn is a dangerous place and there are plenty of signals about it. For example, i've settled a very good background and my players know very well that only brave adventures go out of cities and towns for a good reasons...deadly good reasons. If your players find something they cannot beat (and that should be common but not frecuent) they should just run for their lives. If they fight to the death they will...well, die, the world is not there for them to beat it at level 2.
2- Focus on the information they can get without going into a fight. Yeah, you can apply number 1, but applying it without giving your players a chance to decide if a challenge is too much or they can handle it is a fault that can end with all your group banished. You should reward those players who try to find info about the adventures they are about to take on. There's a druid in thundertree that can give them some info about how deadly a dragon is for a group of noobies. Also, you can encourage them to spy the dragon's territory and maybe you can make the dragon fight vs a strong creature that the player's have faced before...and make them see how the dragon obliterate it (a dragon needs to eat, after all). That should give your players hints about how strong a dragon can be.
3- Stick to the rules untill it becomes stupid. This is a rule i apply myself when i'm DMng. Yeah, the module gives you hints and directions to roleplay the NPC's, but if your players think out of the box and make something that could make a challenge easier (like setting a trap for the dragon), let them do it if you think it's possible. If you stick to the module poor setting you will see that your players feel they cannot do a thing to face the challenge but charging into the room. That's when you have to stop using the premade NPC ways of acting and start thinking through them. Will a young dragon go for an easy hoard even if in the module says he's allways in the tower? Well...maybe he's not ALLWAYS in the tower.
I think you should be good if you apply this three things to your games. And relax if your players go for the kill even knowing the dragon is though as a hammer, it's player's nature to face challenges they are not prepared for. Sometimes a good beating helps to encourage them not to act like videogamers.
You can choose to play the dragon a bit "stupid", perhaps the dragon havent really met real "heroes" before and only dealt with weak peasants and is not proper experienced" for a real fight.
Like :
If your characters have a solid tactic and most of their spells and abilities then they should be able to bring the dragon down to half HP and trigger the dragon to flee.
But if things looks like its going really bad then perhaps remind them they have they do have the option to try and flee (if all the players are new they might not know or be used to the idea).
I was in a 3 player party of level 3 and we had no problem dropping Venomfang, I was a monk, we had a barbarian and a sorceror. Depends on how tactical your party is or isn't and how they maxmize their turns.
But you can always play with his hp and stats, you aren't married to anything, only you know what you change.
We killed him. 4 Chars (Monk, Thief, Wizard and Warlock). I think we were around level 4. it was tough and we nearly died but we did it.
Non-comba idea:
You could talk the dragon into believing the cultists want to kill him or steal his treasure. I think we stole the gems the cultists had in their hideout when they were talking to the dragon.
Then we stole some magic itemes from his lair when he was out and about.we thought that would get them to fight but the dragon new where his items really were (in our castle :)).
So unfortunately our DM sent the dragon after us and we finally were confronted by him in cragmaw castle.
I can't remember the details, that was like 4 years ago :)
We also killed the Banshee at level 3. My monk insulted her one time too often and she attacked. First round our thief went down wjhen she used her wailing attack and then madness ensued.
Im playing this Module the first time as well. Its also the first time DM’ing for me.
In my Party are 5 people all lvl 3 and one of them already got a +1 Sword. Anyways they all had a drift to not take the enemy’s srsly. They fought all encounters with not that many problems. That leaded to a problem… my players thought they are invincible and killed everything that attacked them without talking with them.
One Died instant but that was because he had Constitution -1 from the start and played as a frontline monk.
They also got baited by the Dragon cult even they died in that fight because I played the Dragon doesn’t care about anyone he just want to have his fun and mess with people.
After 2 more PC’s got downed they just made barely enough dmg that he was 2 hp under his half. But they didn’t let him escape (closed the roof with web) and kept fighting inside the tower for the advantage of the dragon. So I decided the Dragon took the 2 knockout people as prisoners. Then the Dragon made the offer to not kill them as long as he is entertained. The other 2 made a deal with the dragon to bring him 2 other people for exchange. Now I have a nice side Quest.
And they can try it another time.
However I think I made the mistake to not describe the dragon deadly enough. But it was still a lot of fun. The player who died wasn’t that happy with his character and he was quiet an exception with 14 hp at lvl 3. Its definitely doable to bring the Dragon half hp with just playing him not to strategic (using his breath in the first round or something). If the Dragon cult is with them maybe focus them first so they see that the dragon can take out one of them in one turn with ez.
Still have a question do u guys think as a consequence its fair to strip the imprisoned Players all there Stuff. I will play with them also a session. Let them fight each other and stuff (still thinking about some ideas maybe someone has one for me). I thought to let each of them 2 choose one item of their old stuff if they doing good with the dragon. (so they don’t lose the +1 sword and just need new armor)
As others have said; Venomfang does seem like an overwhelmingly deadly encounter for the party. And that's because he is, particularly at the point of the adventure your party are likely run into him, around level 3.
The only times I've seen him defeated, are in playthroughs where – in my opinion – the DM handicapped him. Such as not simply having him take off and fly around strafing the party with his poison-breath. Picking up players and dropping them from a decent height. Picking off magic users and ranged attackers first. Etc.
I too first ran this encounter with a group of new players, and I get the distinct feeling that this is the encounter that lets your players know that they don't always have to fight. And sometimes, if they do, they can die. The problem is compounded by one of the pre-gen characters (the fighter) with the objective to 'drive off the dragon', and instructions to have the dragon flee when he reaches half-hp in the campaign book.
My advice, especially as they're new, is to give them a bit of grace. Have the druid ham up the danger of the dragon - go into great detail about the dead giant spiders surrounding the tower. The plumes of acrid smoke causing your party to splutter and choke. Get your narration going, emphasise how dangerous and large this dragon is. It'll set the scene and provide suitable red flags.
Start with some dialogue with the dragon, rather than a straight up 'You walk into the tower – and into poison breath'. Perhaps the dragon is asleep? Giving the party time to set up a trap or ambush? Maybe the dragon is vain and proud, and the party can sweet talk him with honeyed words. Reward creativity with some inspiration or advantage.
If a fight happens, then give them at least a sporting chance. The breath weapon can wipe the entire party in one round, so perhaps save that until they've spread out a bit. Consider spreading the three attacks Venomfang has per round across three characters, rather than potentially insta-killing one.
Venomfang is a young dragon, so could be highly arrogant and inexperienced. Perhaps this could be motivation for him not to simply take off and raze the tower, and everyone in it.
I agree with the above advice of playing the dragon as "dumb". In my homemade one shot, the group was having trouble and was going to probably die. So I changed a few of my rolls behind the screen to make them misses, or had the damage roll low on purpose. I did that on purpose since they were down a character as well.
"Shadow Hide You..."
My group killed him, but it was my fault for honestly forgetting to have him flee. Chalk that up to newbie DM forgetting pertinent details.
All at level 3, Divine Sorceror, Zealot Barbarian, Moon Druid and Gloom Stalker Ranger. Dragon started off with strafing, moved to close quarters when the party began to separate themselves. The aarokocra ranger and sorcerer dealing the most damage, the dragon didn't put himself out in the open as often and used buildings for (partial) cover.
When the battle was nearing its end, the dragon picked up the druid in bear form, then dive-bombed him back into the ground hard enough to demorph. In a good spot, he then breath weaponed across the entire group. Damage rolled high, and the sorcerer, ranger and druid fell unconscious.
The barbarian, having lost her great sword and on her last legs, drew a dagger and rage-stabbed the dragon. It ended up being the killing blow.
The group thinks I just allowed that to happen to avoid a TPK. I honestly didn't, but it was a mistake on my part to let it get that far nonetheless. I'm still very new as a DM, they've only just now reached Wave Echo, but I've at least improved on that front.
Just wanted to share another story:
I was also worried about this fight since the PCs were all brand new to D&D and they were only level 3 when they got to Thundertree. it was a well balanced group though and there were five of them so I thought they had a good chance. And we spent an entire session (3 hours or so) traveling to Thundertree where I threw a bunch of encounters at them so they could get some more battle experience. That did help them to "play better", think tactically and gave them some confidence. In Thundertree I role played the local Druid and used that encounter as a 20-30 minute strategy panning conversation. Warning them the whole time that the dragon was beastly and they were not really that strong. Then we ended the session knowing the the next session would start with the dreaded Venomfang!! (always end on a cliffhanger)
The party, all level 3: Paladin, Fighter, Barbarian, Druid, Bard.
The strategy they settled on was to use the druid's entangle to try keep the dragon in the base of the tower and maybe keep it from using it's full range of attacks. The Paladin would stand in the doorway and start a conversation (challenged him to a game of Dragon Chess) - this ensured that any melee attacks would hit the pally. The druid and the bard were ready just outside to give a quick heal to the pally if he died and just let him get hit each round so they could rinse and repeat. The barbarian would go in once the entangle was on and just rage on the dragon. The Fighter and the Bard were behind the pally with a bow/x-bow to help on damage. If the entangle didn't work then they would just play yo-yo with the paladin, which is how they beat the 3 Bugbears in room 9 of The Redbrand Hideout - pally dies, heal pally, everyone shoot Big-Bad, repeat. After the strategy was in defined I thought they had a good chance to get the dragon down to 1/2 HP as long as they hit the entangle and the druid stayed outside in case of a breath attack.
What really happened: The entangle worked first try as the dragon rolled a 2 on his save. EVERY party member rolled over 18 on their attack rolls in the first round and did 39 HP of damage before the dragon (who rolled a 1 on init) even got a turn. The only one who failed was the bard who missed on his attack. The Dragon rolled a 3 on his strength check to bust out of entangle - so he was basically nullified into round two. In round two the EXACT SAME THING happened. Five straight hits from everyone in the party including a crit and the dragon lost another 42 HP. The dragon rolled another crap strength check to break entanglement so he couldn't even flee.. Round three saw some missed attacks, a lot in fact, but the dragon rolled another crap strength check and was still entangled. Round 4 and 5 more of the same until they got to 136 HP damage on the dragon. The only one who took any damage was the barbarian who went into the room to rage on the dragon while he was down and got clawed a couple times.
So after all that build up and all the warnings and strategy and the 2 weeks of down time in between sessions worrying... After all that suspense, it was a slaughter. It wasn't even a good fight.
They left the town with the head of the dragon on the back of the Barbarian (i determined that the head would weigh about 100 Lbs so they cut it off and took it with them). I know that you can't really control the dice. I know that it could have been a completely different fight, catastrophic even, if the dragon rolled well and the players rolled badly. I know that the statistical chances of this playing out this way are phenomenally low. But I also know they felt really good about the outcome, and they did carry the head back to Neverwinter and parade it down the street... But I still wanted to have a good fight for them to brag about...
So in the end I just say this.. The drama and the story need to be engaging - so pump up the drama on the big fights! The players need to feel invested so get them to think about what they need to do and get the players to own their characters and their actions! I think that this encounter more than any other in LMOP was specifically designed to do just that, get the party to act like a real "band of brothers". Fellowships are not made in taverns or guildhalls. They are born from facing overwhelming foes and doing these incredible things as a team. This is what makes games like D&D so extraordinary.. So by all means, make it a story filled with drama and humor and adventure and silly revelry..
What happens in battle is just about the dice.. But what happens on the adventure is really what makes the difference.
This same encounter is going poorly for my group. They ignored the twig blights in 1, took out the ash zombies at the tavern (3) and then went into 2, but failed the perception check on the blights. When they saw nothing in 2, they headed toward the tower next. Two dead spiders weren't enough to push them away. They assumed the druid did that.
They entered the tower and opened the tower door to find a dragon. I gave them more than enough warning that the dragon is well above their means, but not impossible. One person in the group convinced them that the dragon had to be the druid and kept trying to communicate with the dragon despite the "leave or die" warning given.
When they went to leave, they were ambushed by the twig blights and the dragon used his breath weapon. They made the saves so I gave a little mercy and only took out one of the 3 hit and had two of the twig blights die from the breath weapon.
We had to end half way through, so we are in the waiting to see what will happen. I wonder if I should send Reidoth to help pull them out or not. I wont have venomfang give chase, but the blights have blocked the one exit.
"Shadow Hide You..."
Reduce his AC and damage output by a couple points.
Or, fudge things, of course. If you don't roll your dice out in the open, there's nothing wrong with declaring an errant miss every now and again if you realize you've misbalanced an encounter.
I will be running this encounter pretty soon.
The party is going to be 3 level 5s and a level 4 by the time they get there, a couple sessions from now. Gundren died, and they don't know the way to Wave Echo Cave, so they got here pretty late in the campaign.
Story-wise, Sister Garaelle has already told the party that Reidoth may know the way to the Cave. The Druid in the party will be told by Sending Stone that Reidoth is missing. The Warlock in my party will also be summoned where the Feywild meets Neverwinter Wood, and asked by an Archfey to find Reidoth.
Reidoth has found the Cult of the Dragon in Thundertree, but has lost his Sending stone and can't abandon his position. Reidoth will not require the party to confront the Dragon, but will ask them be rid of the cultists, and the cultists may ask the party to visit Venomfang. Since the party is higher level, I strengthened the Cultists in the area to be actual Dragonclaws, led by a Dragonwing, from HotDQ, and I weakened Venomfang so he couldn't one shot the party. I felt like the encounter would be more dynamic if Venomfang couldn't one shot the party and if the party couldn't one shot the cultists.
We did this as well,with a large group of newbie PCs. It somehow turned out to be a dragon slaying session. The party consisted of lvl 3 bard, druid, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, ranger and a lvl 4 barbarian. The whole party, including the DM, were complete newbies to Dnd, but I'm pretty sure we did nothing wrong. It was just the dice gods that decided for us.
The plan was for the Bard, Druid and Sorcerer to use the cultist's cloaks and masks to bribe the dragon, making him believe we want to worship him, while the ranger and rogue took position outside with the warlock and the Barbarian climbed the top of the tower. The goal was to get the dragon out of the tower as we thought the poison breath would be less devastating.
Turned out, the roof gave in, the raging barbarian jumped down and hit the wing of the dragon (called shot at disadvantage, reckless for advantage, cancels out, normal roll) with a crit. The dragon then used his claw attacks and missed, then unleashed his breath upon the Bard, Sorcerer and Druid (poison resistant). They all made it out barely alive, and then Initiative was rolled. The dragon then climbed out of the tower but rolled really poorly, and the barbarian made his dex save to stay on top of the dragon and continue hitting his wings. With frenzied rage triple attack, he dealt another 30+ damage to the damaged wing, thus managing to make the dragon flightless. The dragon did not regain his breath weapon in that round, and got a full blast of Bard's Shatter, Ranger's crit, Warlock's Eldritch Blast and so on. It only took 4 rounds of combat for the dragon to die, as he couldn't fly away and he never regained his breath weapon, so every attack was melee based, with the raging barbarian as main target. Lots of misses there. I am not the DM (in this group), but I went through the whole session with him afterwards to find out if we did anything wrong. We didn't. It was all tactics, luck and our DM rolling poorly. (we're all still in awe and shock, as most of the group was struggling with anxiety and bad dreams before the encounter, just to have it be a slaughter. We did have lots of fun though)
The encounter was not that hard with that many people, you guys were 7 people of level 3
The power of a party scales hard with the number of people.
For fun you guys can re-roll the encounter as a test, and see if the dragon rolled more poorly, it would've been closer.
Darkest Dungeon-like DnD Insanity System
Let's put a meter to that foolish bravery, for both you and the NPCs.
(and help give the INT stat more uses)
There are very few absolutes in the world of D&D, but one of them is Dragons should always be imposing foes, it's in the name, the ampersand, and the essence of the game. "Here there be Dragons" is not an invitation, it is the warning of the most dire kind.
Extreme luck, great planning, or questionable homebrewing will allow the party to actually kill the dragon. If your party gets lucky, the dragon flies off. If the party flees, even after engaging, half-hearted pursuit, allowing them to escape is fine. If the party chooses to fight, and stay, and the dragon does not leave, the result will most likely be a TPK, and that is just fine. TPK to little middling things due to some bad luck is one thing, TPK to one of the ICONIC foes in the setting, perfectly fine. Both the DM and the Players need to learn this, embrace it, and enjoy it.
For sometimes; "Today is a Good Day to Die"...
It's very easy to say "Don't worry about it. Dragons are tough" but the impact of potentially having a TPK for
is a big deal. It could potentially put people off just as they are starting to become familiar and, at ease.
One bad roll on the damage dice of that breath weapon and 15 seconds later there is silence.
The easy answer is that it is a new dragon,
that bails at 60 damage done,
and is in a smaller area than comfortable.
I would say in that area confinement,
the breath weapon is limited in aim,
so the breath only focuses on one PC at a time.
As the toughest person in the room is the most visible(shiniest armor/flashiest spells/glintiest dagger), attack that person with the high AC. If one goes down to unconscious, you are always okay to have the dragon feel vindicated and fly off. NO MATTER WHAT THE MODULE SAYS, YOU KNOW THE FUN NEED IN THE GAME BETTER. You can always overrule the module for the sake of fun. Fun is the number one watchword. If the players are not having fun, then why are you playing?