I have a number of questions about running my next session. How to prepare and build a well balanced encounter with so many moving parts. The party is 5 level 8 PCs, but with various allies they are a party of 21 PCs and NPCs.
The party needs an artifact that a White Dragon has in it's hoard. They are:
a Level 8 Lore Bard
a Level 8 Wild Magic Sorcerer
a Level 8 Devotion Paladin
a Level 8 Bear Totem Barbarian
a Level 8 Moon Druid
They have 2 long time NPC allies:
a Level 4 Life Cleric
a Guard NPC
And recently acquired additional allies from a Barbarian Tribe who are ready for the battle
3 NPC Berserkers
3 NPC TribalWarriors
1 NPC Berserker with bumped up stats, 90 HP, and rage
They also have an allied party traveling with them (but which they don't really trust) which may help out some in the fight too:
an NPC Necromancer
an NPC CultFanatic (apprentice)
3 NPC Thugs
I realize that is a huge party to take on an Adult White Dragon. The White Dragon has some allied Winter Wolves that help it hunt and with whom he sort of "shares" the entrance areas of his cave, so they will defend their home and help the White Dragon. I need to determine how many Winter Wolves should be involved.
Since the party did well convincing some of the Barbarian Tribe members to help them fight the dragon, I want that to be meaningful and make the fight easier, but I would like this to be challenging (Hard?) but not Deadly.
And the Necromancer party will mostly hang back but contribute a bit. They mostly want to get access to the artifact but not risk their lives to get it. I predict some of the Tribal Warriors and Thugs will go down during the fight.
So...my questions are:
How do I create a balanced encounter? I'm using Kobold Fight Club [http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder]. If I ONLY include the main party (5 PCs and the two long time NPC allies), that is a Medium encounter with an Adult White Dragon. But as I start to add Winter Wolves, it gets Deadly after only 2.
I'm not sure how to account for the Berserker, Tribal Warrior, Necromancer, and other allies on Kobold Fight Club. What level should they be? In other words, is there a reliable CR to PC level conversion?
When running it, how do I manage 21(!) party and ally turns each round? That seems like it will take forever and be boring and tedious! (Someone elsewhere on Reddit suggested I have the Berserkers and TribalWarriors off fighting the WinterWolves in a separate, abstracted combat, but I'm not sure how to do that. And I would like the PCs face some WinterWolves because I've been foreshadowing them for many sessions).
If I make the White DragonAncient, then it gets much harder to defeat (obviously)... But maybe easier to make it challenging? I just have no idea how the players are going to approach the fight. If they are going to keep the Necromancer party out of the fight, or insist they participate, or have the Berserkers fight the wolves or help the party, etc.
Phew! You have got quite a handful there, but this does sound super fun! So, there is a lot to address here. First I will kind of jump ahead to #4. Initially when I was reading through your post I was thinking just that; why not just increase the dragon to "ancient" level? You could do this, especially if you decide on having all 21 people attack it. One of my concerns with this though, mainly because your party is only that of level 8, you are putting like an "end game" monster early on, thus setting your bar for future encounters even higher, making it harder to "impress and wow" the players, at least that is my opinion.
So personally, with this many potential characters to control, I would probably also go with the suggestion to do an abstract battle with a majority of the NPCs. Maybe like the berserkers/tribal warriors go in first and lead a majority of the Winter Wolf pack away and clear a way for the players. Then, as the party proceeds with the Necromancer's party, they encounter the last bit of the wolf pack, maybe like a den mother and two wolves. Obviously power up the den mother wolf so its a decent little warm up fight for everyone. You're still looking at quite a lot of NPCs and monsters to control, so I wouldn't have this last too long for your own sanity. After that, as this group continues to progress, maybe a new development occurs, like down a second cave path there is a group of White Dragon Wyrmling's that need to be dealt with and the Necromancer's party offers to go handle them to keep them away from the adult dragon's encounter, or maybe like a cave in happens (caused by the dragon as a precautionary method) and the main party is now separated ahead of the Necromancer's party. At this point, it is now just the main party and the two long time NPCs facing the adult white dragon. Given Kobold fight club listed this as a medium encounter, I'd still bump this up a bit. In reality, especially if the party has magic items, medium encounters are pretty easy. As a DM, especially when fighting a big boss like this, you should make the situation scary for your players and up the ante so they take the situation really seriously as that usually makes it a little more fun and rewarding for the players upon victory. So bump up the stats of the dragon a bit, or add a Wyrmling/other creature, or both! Briefly, a way to handle the abstract encounters is to just set some rules for it (I'd just google some ideas). But you could have like equal numbers of creatures to berserkers and then roll a D20 for each creature versus a d20+5 or something for each berserker, which ever side for that roll survives. Again, there are many ways to handle abstract encounters, so i'd explore around for more on that.
A few other pieces of advise to answer your other questions. For #2: I have seen so many calculations, like a player's CR should be 1/4 of their level, or the overall party level. Or following Polymorph rules, which pretty much makes CR equal to PC level. I have also seen tables, like this for example as well:
You could always try one of these methods to help your calculations. If fights prove to be too hard or too easy, just acknowledge your mistake and have creatures retreat to a more worthwhile cause or reinforcements arrive or something and then change up your calculations for next time.
I kind of already addressed #3, but I want to add one more thing. As a DM, you want to make combat more about the players and their enjoyment versus what you personally just think will be "cool or awesome". There is a high chance that your players will get super bored if you are sitting there rolling attacks for 16 friendly NPCs and like 5-10 monsters. At that point, you are just playing the game against and with yourself and you minimize your players importance and influence. Again, personally, when I am a player, I absolutely hate when it takes like over 10 minutes to get back to my turn. In one of my games, my DM gets way too into her head and ideas, and between her and the other players, I've waited upwards of 30 minutes to take my turn in battle, which as an effective player, my turn lasts maybe 30 seconds or a minute to calculate damage and actions, so this is super boring and frustrating. Ideally, if everyone is on top of their turns, you'd only want your players to wait a few minutes in between turns to keep them engaged.
I think I covered most or all your points. Feel free to reply if I missed anything! Again, I love dragon fights and this whole premise sounds super fun! I am confident just getting to this point you will work it out and everyone will have a lot of fun. Good luck!
As far as making it Ancient, I think you are right. I want this to be a challenging encounter, as you say, and I want them to feel like the stakes are high, but if they encounter a CR 20 Enemy at this point in the campaign, it will be hard to top it later on. And frankly, I intended this to be a challenging but certainly winnable fight. I do want to have them worried, and it would be very anticlimactic for them to take the dragon down in a round or two, but I don't expect any PCs to die in the fight. Some NPCs may...we'll see.
I really like your scenario where the Berserkers and Tribal Warriors are occupied with the majority of the Winter Wolves, but the party gets to deal with a beefed up Winter Wolf and some cubs as they move further into the lair. And the dragon causing an avalanche/ice fall to separate the Necromancer's party is an interesting idea too, though the Necromancer's secret plan is actually to try to recover the artifact while the party is busy fighting the dragon. So that wouldn't happen if the Necromancer's party was separated from the PCs before they entered the main cavern (where the artifact is frozen in ice around a frozen dead dwarf's neck).
Regarding the combat: yes, I am absolutely concerned about spending time rolling off-screen combat while the players wait around for their turn. I hate that when I play, and these players don't like it either, so I try to avoid that at all costs. That is why I want to figure out how to do it in an abstracted and expedited way: "You can hear the members of the Barbarian Tribe in the ice chamber nearby in pitched combat with the Winter Wolves..." etc. and I do prefer to actually have it be dice rolls that determine the outcome rather than my simply saying the Berserkers eventually won but only 2 of them survived.
In fact, the Tribal Warriors only have 11 HP, and the Winter Wolf Bite does 11 HP damage, so one bite will kill one...
A big factor in this will also be how many of the party ressources are spent.
If they go into this fight with fully rested with all spells, abilities and full hitpoints then dont be afraid to make this a "very deadly" encounter and put plenty of wolfes.
Perhaps have 2 kind of "minions" some very weak, some more powerfull. I think there is an old "minion" option where you use a monster but only give it 1 hp. So they die easy but still have all their attacks and other stats. This way you can have many more monsters and give it a more "epic" feel.
You can also divide your fight into phases. The party will first fight minions, then dragon, then more minions will come to aid the dragon.
have the party fight the dragon, with enough wolves to balance the encounter to the danger level you want it at, split the barbarians to one side and describe their combat with more wolves, let them more or less wipe each other out but only at the point the party have dealt with the dragon.so if the party are getting wiped by the dragon the barbarians can come in and lend a hand having killed their wolves if the party wipe their allotment of foes fast, they get to fight more wolves to help save the barbarians, another thing you can do is if the party are killing their foes quick have barbarians fall, so you give them the option of killing the dragon or the healers splitting off to save barbarians and get them back in the fight. let the party split the dragon away from it's hoard,
have the necromancers steal the target item and run away with it (this takes them out of the combat so you don't have to give them foes to fight)
then let the party chase the necromancers to try and retrieve it so they then get another fight with the necromancers, if you want the necromancers to be a recurring foe but the party to gain possession of the artifact, select one of them as a sacrificial minion give that one possession of the artifact and have the rest flee when the party have killed the minion, obviously one method of fleeing is to let the necromancer reanimate some wolves as wolf zombies to get in the way as they make their escape. but that would depend on how fast your party has taken down their allotted main adversaries and how much fire power they have left, but that way you can balance it on the fly
how do you engineer this, they enter the lair, start a fight with wolves, the barbarians urge them to keep going and push through as they will handle the wolves as do the necromancers. the party engage the dragon , the necromancers split from the barbarians and sneak round the back to get the artifact., the barbarians follow but fighting until they occupy the entrance to the dragon chamber, at that point you have the situation in control and all aspects can play out in the manner i mentioned. (stop laughing)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
I was trying to figure out how to move from the Dragon fight phase to the Necromancer escape phase and this makes a lot of sense. I also like how you suggest the Winter Wolves are enough in number that there are some for the party to fight alongside the Dragon, so it doesn't wind up an easy fight. And using the Barbarian/Wolf fight as a sort of valve on the main fight to allow me to make it easier or harder depending on how it is going.
And I was hoping to engineer it so the Necromancer's party only got the artifact temporarily but also escaped to fight them another time. Your solution is perfect: have one of his Thugs be the one that gets a hold of the artifact (the Necromancer is established as a bit of a coward anyway, so he'd be likely to stay back and send one of his Thugs to do the scary bit), so the Necromancer (and probably his apprentice) can potentially truly get away, while the party can still recover the artifact.
another thing you could do if your party refuse to take the go forward suggestion from your npcs, and stay helping them fight the wolves, is to bring the dragon in to attack them in the rear, thus forcing them to stop concentrating on the wolves and pay attention to the greater threat, to make that happen manoeuvre the wolves round so they get between the party and the entrance while exposing the passage further in. just make sure that when the necromancers disengage the wolves, the party have already started fighting the dragon so they think the necromancers are still tied up with the wolves and they can sneak round and steal the artifact unseen
just consider it from the necromancers point of view, the important thing to them is they gain possession of the artifact, everyone else is a convenient expendable distraction, used to help them achieve their goals
As you point out, it is certainly possible that the party will want to stay and fight with the Winter Wolves, so it will be helpful to keep the party moving forward. I considered having the Necromancer's party try to sneak away at that point too (if the party stays to fight the Winter Wolves) but I don't think they would choose to move into the Dragon's main lair without allies.
Also, FYI, I have foreshadowed the battle: The party found the diary of a member of a dwarven clan that recently tried to kill the dragon (in fact using and then losing the desired artifact). That diary was written by a survivor of the battle with the White Dragon (who was subsequently killed), and the diary describes the dwarves making their way into the dragon's lair, being beset by Winter Wolves, seemingly from all sides, and then, during the fight with the Winter Wolves, the dragon showing up from somewhere behind them. So the party is actually anticipating a surprise attack from both the Winter Wolves and the Dragon, and I'm not sure how they are going to prepare for that, but they will be on the lookout for avenues of surprise attacks.
My idea has been that the White's Lair is a cavern and tunnel complex in the side of a mountain which he has excavated to suit his purposes and create a defensible lair with lots of ambush opportunities. The Winter Wolves have several dens near the most obvious entrance to the cavern, but there are several twisty tunnels with many branches and side tunnels which:
lead to small dens for groups of Winter Wolves
loop back to rejoin the main tunnel
act as secondary exits to the outside (for escape or ambush)
And the White Dragon himself lairs in the main oblong chamber, which is very high (80 feet), and large around (120 ft), and there are many large ledges on the walls of the chamber for him to "retreat" and perch if the battle is not going his way. He also has an escape route out the top of the chamber/mountain, but I think, since he was recently attacked by a party of dwarves intending to kill him, he will furiously fight to the death this time.
Captaincarrot1889: Thank you for all your great advice. It really helped me plan to run this encounter.
I ran the session yesterday, butthe expected big fight didn't happen during the session!! (There was an absent player and we had to end unexpectedly early). In fact, I'm not entirely sure how to play out from the place we left off...
Here's what happened during the session:
After some unanticipated role-playing and then navigating the White Dragon's regional effects (sleet, chilly fog), the four players who were at the table decided to do a stealth scouting mission into the lair to see if they could determine where the dragon was to better plan a full on assault. They left the NPC party (the Necromancer and his 4 associates, 7 Barbarian allies, 2 long-term party allies) behind in a makeshift camp in the sleet, about a 1/4 mile away, though they had heard a Winter Wolf howling as they approached the lair, so they know the Wolves are around.
The first part of the lair is a series of Winter Wolf dens with many branching passageways. They followed a couple of these and found an empty Winter Wolf den and a smaller area with frozen animal carcasses, apparently recent kills by the Winter Wolves. They also found a secondary exit to the face of the glacier up one of the passageways.
The druid was in the form of an Arctic Fox and was trying to smell which direction the dragon's cave was in, and when they reached a passageway that sloped down steeply and was very icy, he smelled a stronger smell of something other than Winter Wolf...something reptilian...though still hard to detect, and decided that was the way to the dragon's primary cavern. So they decided at that point to back out and go get the rest of the party, now that they think they know which way to go.
At this point we took a break but then, before we could resume, we had to call it a day and will finish with the big fight next time.
In my planning for the presumed full party assault, I had determined that the Winter Wolves would know the 19 member party was coming and they would wait to attack until most or all members of the party had slid down icy tunnels and maybe been caught in the ice-spike pit traps the dragon created near the entrance to his main cavern. Then, when they were in disarray, the Wolves would attack and have the upper hand. But the party didn't go that far, and they came in as a party of only 4!
I see a few options as a DM at this point (but am not sure how to shift these to employ the strategy you suggested):
Some Winter Wolves attack the party of 4 as they retreat out of the lair.
Some/All Winter Wolves attack the encampment of 15 NPCs while the party is in the lair.
The Winter Wolves let the party of 4 retreat to the encampment, and then the Wolves can follow their original plan (let them all come in and attack when they slide down the icy tunnels and maybe fall into ice pits)
If I do #1 and have the Wolves attack them now, the party will probably blow a horn to call the rest of the large party to their aid (this was the explicit plan given to the NPCs). In this scenario I expect the party will be more inclined to take on the Winter Wolves with the Barbarians and not explore further into the caverns until that threat is eliminated.
If I do #2, this is even more certain. Though the thinning out of the Barbarians can take place now, but will take away the nice valve I had intended to use during the White Dragon Combat (the valve to add Winter Wolves or Barbarians depending on how the fight was going).
#3 lets me have it play out as intended, but seems to make less sense to me overall. Why would the Winter Wolves allow a small, more easily defeated party to enter and leave their lair unharmed in favor of having a much larger party enter a little later.
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Phew! You have got quite a handful there, but this does sound super fun! So, there is a lot to address here. First I will kind of jump ahead to #4. Initially when I was reading through your post I was thinking just that; why not just increase the dragon to "ancient" level? You could do this, especially if you decide on having all 21 people attack it. One of my concerns with this though, mainly because your party is only that of level 8, you are putting like an "end game" monster early on, thus setting your bar for future encounters even higher, making it harder to "impress and wow" the players, at least that is my opinion.
So personally, with this many potential characters to control, I would probably also go with the suggestion to do an abstract battle with a majority of the NPCs. Maybe like the berserkers/tribal warriors go in first and lead a majority of the Winter Wolf pack away and clear a way for the players. Then, as the party proceeds with the Necromancer's party, they encounter the last bit of the wolf pack, maybe like a den mother and two wolves. Obviously power up the den mother wolf so its a decent little warm up fight for everyone. You're still looking at quite a lot of NPCs and monsters to control, so I wouldn't have this last too long for your own sanity. After that, as this group continues to progress, maybe a new development occurs, like down a second cave path there is a group of White Dragon Wyrmling's that need to be dealt with and the Necromancer's party offers to go handle them to keep them away from the adult dragon's encounter, or maybe like a cave in happens (caused by the dragon as a precautionary method) and the main party is now separated ahead of the Necromancer's party. At this point, it is now just the main party and the two long time NPCs facing the adult white dragon. Given Kobold fight club listed this as a medium encounter, I'd still bump this up a bit. In reality, especially if the party has magic items, medium encounters are pretty easy. As a DM, especially when fighting a big boss like this, you should make the situation scary for your players and up the ante so they take the situation really seriously as that usually makes it a little more fun and rewarding for the players upon victory. So bump up the stats of the dragon a bit, or add a Wyrmling/other creature, or both! Briefly, a way to handle the abstract encounters is to just set some rules for it (I'd just google some ideas). But you could have like equal numbers of creatures to berserkers and then roll a D20 for each creature versus a d20+5 or something for each berserker, which ever side for that roll survives. Again, there are many ways to handle abstract encounters, so i'd explore around for more on that.
A few other pieces of advise to answer your other questions. For #2: I have seen so many calculations, like a player's CR should be 1/4 of their level, or the overall party level. Or following Polymorph rules, which pretty much makes CR equal to PC level. I have also seen tables, like this for example as well:
CR-----Level
1/4----1
1/2----2
1-------3
2-------4
3-------5
4-------7
5-------9
6-------11
7-------12
8-------14
9-------16
10-----18
11-----19
12-----20
You could always try one of these methods to help your calculations. If fights prove to be too hard or too easy, just acknowledge your mistake and have creatures retreat to a more worthwhile cause or reinforcements arrive or something and then change up your calculations for next time.
I kind of already addressed #3, but I want to add one more thing. As a DM, you want to make combat more about the players and their enjoyment versus what you personally just think will be "cool or awesome". There is a high chance that your players will get super bored if you are sitting there rolling attacks for 16 friendly NPCs and like 5-10 monsters. At that point, you are just playing the game against and with yourself and you minimize your players importance and influence. Again, personally, when I am a player, I absolutely hate when it takes like over 10 minutes to get back to my turn. In one of my games, my DM gets way too into her head and ideas, and between her and the other players, I've waited upwards of 30 minutes to take my turn in battle, which as an effective player, my turn lasts maybe 30 seconds or a minute to calculate damage and actions, so this is super boring and frustrating. Ideally, if everyone is on top of their turns, you'd only want your players to wait a few minutes in between turns to keep them engaged.
I think I covered most or all your points. Feel free to reply if I missed anything! Again, I love dragon fights and this whole premise sounds super fun! I am confident just getting to this point you will work it out and everyone will have a lot of fun. Good luck!
This is all very helpful! Thank you very much.
As far as making it Ancient, I think you are right. I want this to be a challenging encounter, as you say, and I want them to feel like the stakes are high, but if they encounter a CR 20 Enemy at this point in the campaign, it will be hard to top it later on. And frankly, I intended this to be a challenging but certainly winnable fight. I do want to have them worried, and it would be very anticlimactic for them to take the dragon down in a round or two, but I don't expect any PCs to die in the fight. Some NPCs may...we'll see.
I really like your scenario where the Berserkers and Tribal Warriors are occupied with the majority of the Winter Wolves, but the party gets to deal with a beefed up Winter Wolf and some cubs as they move further into the lair. And the dragon causing an avalanche/ice fall to separate the Necromancer's party is an interesting idea too, though the Necromancer's secret plan is actually to try to recover the artifact while the party is busy fighting the dragon. So that wouldn't happen if the Necromancer's party was separated from the PCs before they entered the main cavern (where the artifact is frozen in ice around a frozen dead dwarf's neck).
Regarding the combat: yes, I am absolutely concerned about spending time rolling off-screen combat while the players wait around for their turn. I hate that when I play, and these players don't like it either, so I try to avoid that at all costs. That is why I want to figure out how to do it in an abstracted and expedited way: "You can hear the members of the Barbarian Tribe in the ice chamber nearby in pitched combat with the Winter Wolves..." etc. and I do prefer to actually have it be dice rolls that determine the outcome rather than my simply saying the Berserkers eventually won but only 2 of them survived.
In fact, the Tribal Warriors only have 11 HP, and the Winter Wolf Bite does 11 HP damage, so one bite will kill one...
A big factor in this will also be how many of the party ressources are spent.
If they go into this fight with fully rested with all spells, abilities and full hitpoints then dont be afraid to make this a "very deadly" encounter and put plenty of wolfes.
Perhaps have 2 kind of "minions" some very weak, some more powerfull. I think there is an old "minion" option where you use a monster but only give it 1 hp. So they die easy but still have all their attacks and other stats. This way you can have many more monsters and give it a more "epic" feel.
You can also divide your fight into phases. The party will first fight minions, then dragon, then more minions will come to aid the dragon.
how i'd do it with so many npcs, is:
have the party fight the dragon, with enough wolves to balance the encounter to the danger level you want it at,
split the barbarians to one side and describe their combat with more wolves, let them more or less wipe each other out but only at the point the party have dealt with the dragon.so if the party are getting wiped by the dragon the barbarians can come in and lend a hand having killed their wolves if the party wipe their allotment of foes fast, they get to fight more wolves to help save the barbarians, another thing you can do is if the party are killing their foes quick have barbarians fall, so you give them the option of killing the dragon or the healers splitting off to save barbarians and get them back in the fight.
let the party split the dragon away from it's hoard,
have the necromancers steal the target item and run away with it (this takes them out of the combat so you don't have to give them foes to fight)
then let the party chase the necromancers to try and retrieve it so they then get another fight with the necromancers, if you want the necromancers to be a recurring foe but the party to gain possession of the artifact, select one of them as a sacrificial minion give that one possession of the artifact and have the rest flee when the party have killed the minion,
obviously one method of fleeing is to let the necromancer reanimate some wolves as wolf zombies to get in the way as they make their escape. but that would depend on how fast your party has taken down their allotted main adversaries and how much fire power they have left, but that way you can balance it on the fly
how do you engineer this,
they enter the lair, start a fight with wolves, the barbarians urge them to keep going and push through as they will handle the wolves as do the necromancers. the party engage the dragon , the necromancers split from the barbarians and sneak round the back to get the artifact., the barbarians follow but fighting until they occupy the entrance to the dragon chamber, at that point you have the situation in control and all aspects can play out in the manner i mentioned. (stop laughing)
All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
Thank you Captaincarrot1889! This sounds like a great way to do it.
I was trying to figure out how to move from the Dragon fight phase to the Necromancer escape phase and this makes a lot of sense. I also like how you suggest the Winter Wolves are enough in number that there are some for the party to fight alongside the Dragon, so it doesn't wind up an easy fight. And using the Barbarian/Wolf fight as a sort of valve on the main fight to allow me to make it easier or harder depending on how it is going.
And I was hoping to engineer it so the Necromancer's party only got the artifact temporarily but also escaped to fight them another time. Your solution is perfect: have one of his Thugs be the one that gets a hold of the artifact (the Necromancer is established as a bit of a coward anyway, so he'd be likely to stay back and send one of his Thugs to do the scary bit), so the Necromancer (and probably his apprentice) can potentially truly get away, while the party can still recover the artifact.
another thing you could do if your party refuse to take the go forward suggestion from your npcs, and stay helping them fight the wolves, is to bring the dragon in to attack them in the rear, thus forcing them to stop concentrating on the wolves and pay attention to the greater threat, to make that happen manoeuvre the wolves round so they get between the party and the entrance while exposing the passage further in. just make sure that when the necromancers disengage the wolves, the party have already started fighting the dragon so they think the necromancers are still tied up with the wolves and they can sneak round and steal the artifact unseen
just consider it from the necromancers point of view, the important thing to them is they gain possession of the artifact, everyone else is a convenient expendable distraction, used to help them achieve their goals
All plans turn into, run into the room waving a sword and see what happens from there, once the first die gets rolled
Yes! Thank you again!
As you point out, it is certainly possible that the party will want to stay and fight with the Winter Wolves, so it will be helpful to keep the party moving forward. I considered having the Necromancer's party try to sneak away at that point too (if the party stays to fight the Winter Wolves) but I don't think they would choose to move into the Dragon's main lair without allies.
Also, FYI, I have foreshadowed the battle: The party found the diary of a member of a dwarven clan that recently tried to kill the dragon (in fact using and then losing the desired artifact). That diary was written by a survivor of the battle with the White Dragon (who was subsequently killed), and the diary describes the dwarves making their way into the dragon's lair, being beset by Winter Wolves, seemingly from all sides, and then, during the fight with the Winter Wolves, the dragon showing up from somewhere behind them. So the party is actually anticipating a surprise attack from both the Winter Wolves and the Dragon, and I'm not sure how they are going to prepare for that, but they will be on the lookout for avenues of surprise attacks.
My idea has been that the White's Lair is a cavern and tunnel complex in the side of a mountain which he has excavated to suit his purposes and create a defensible lair with lots of ambush opportunities. The Winter Wolves have several dens near the most obvious entrance to the cavern, but there are several twisty tunnels with many branches and side tunnels which:
And the White Dragon himself lairs in the main oblong chamber, which is very high (80 feet), and large around (120 ft), and there are many large ledges on the walls of the chamber for him to "retreat" and perch if the battle is not going his way. He also has an escape route out the top of the chamber/mountain, but I think, since he was recently attacked by a party of dwarves intending to kill him, he will furiously fight to the death this time.
Captaincarrot1889: Thank you for all your great advice. It really helped me plan to run this encounter.
I ran the session yesterday, but the expected big fight didn't happen during the session!! (There was an absent player and we had to end unexpectedly early). In fact, I'm not entirely sure how to play out from the place we left off...
Here's what happened during the session:
After some unanticipated role-playing and then navigating the White Dragon's regional effects (sleet, chilly fog), the four players who were at the table decided to do a stealth scouting mission into the lair to see if they could determine where the dragon was to better plan a full on assault. They left the NPC party (the Necromancer and his 4 associates, 7 Barbarian allies, 2 long-term party allies) behind in a makeshift camp in the sleet, about a 1/4 mile away, though they had heard a Winter Wolf howling as they approached the lair, so they know the Wolves are around.
The first part of the lair is a series of Winter Wolf dens with many branching passageways. They followed a couple of these and found an empty Winter Wolf den and a smaller area with frozen animal carcasses, apparently recent kills by the Winter Wolves. They also found a secondary exit to the face of the glacier up one of the passageways.
The druid was in the form of an Arctic Fox and was trying to smell which direction the dragon's cave was in, and when they reached a passageway that sloped down steeply and was very icy, he smelled a stronger smell of something other than Winter Wolf...something reptilian...though still hard to detect, and decided that was the way to the dragon's primary cavern. So they decided at that point to back out and go get the rest of the party, now that they think they know which way to go.
At this point we took a break but then, before we could resume, we had to call it a day and will finish with the big fight next time.
In my planning for the presumed full party assault, I had determined that the Winter Wolves would know the 19 member party was coming and they would wait to attack until most or all members of the party had slid down icy tunnels and maybe been caught in the ice-spike pit traps the dragon created near the entrance to his main cavern. Then, when they were in disarray, the Wolves would attack and have the upper hand. But the party didn't go that far, and they came in as a party of only 4!
I see a few options as a DM at this point (but am not sure how to shift these to employ the strategy you suggested):
If I do #1 and have the Wolves attack them now, the party will probably blow a horn to call the rest of the large party to their aid (this was the explicit plan given to the NPCs). In this scenario I expect the party will be more inclined to take on the Winter Wolves with the Barbarians and not explore further into the caverns until that threat is eliminated.
If I do #2, this is even more certain. Though the thinning out of the Barbarians can take place now, but will take away the nice valve I had intended to use during the White Dragon Combat (the valve to add Winter Wolves or Barbarians depending on how the fight was going).
#3 lets me have it play out as intended, but seems to make less sense to me overall. Why would the Winter Wolves allow a small, more easily defeated party to enter and leave their lair unharmed in favor of having a much larger party enter a little later.