[Channel Teaser]
How A Party Of Four Level 3s Defeated A Dragon
Our party is running on the 5e system through
discord and, at the time, consisted of 4 players:
a half-giant barbarian named Maximus, a goblin
warlock named Fig, a human warlock named Midha
and a half-elf nature cleric named Falkon.
We were generally accompanied by a few NPCs
at a time and the DM had a house rule that
we could use a bonus action to call in an
NPC to help us fight.
It was limited to 1 NPC per combat encounter
to try and keep from overwhelming everyone,
and make it so we didn’t have to wait forever
for our turn to come around again.
Overall a solid system.
Since we play through discord we use a dice
bot.
Everyone’s rolls are public, even the DMs.
While our party was Level 3, our main ally
Moss went missing.
Moss is a level 20 druid.
He doesn’t really do much aside from rest
at home and patch up the party for free, so
for him to go missing was unusual.
While Moss didn’t do much, he was a good
deterrent that kept less than savory folks
from bothering the small village we took up
residency in.
The party along with Moss’s two children,
Willow and Bark,
left to go and look for him in an abandoned
town near Neverwinter called Thundertee.
The place looked awful and there were signs
of a large battle taking place in the area
recently.
The party was cautious with their approach,
but they were ambushed shortly after by a
group of twig blights.
We’d gotten about half-way through turning
them into kindling,
before the DM pointed out that they were making
strange chittering noises and that the party
Cleric, Falkon, was able to understand them
since he spoke Sylvian.
The twig blights were accusing the party of
serving the great swamp that was poisoning
them.
Upon hearing this, Falkon called to the others
to stop, and thanks to a high persuasion roll,
the twig blights stopped as well.
The twig blights explained that their home
was being poisoned, and that if the party
truly wasn’t serving the great swamp that
they should help and in return, they’d share
the treasure they’d collected from the abandoned
city.
Falkon relayed the message to the others,
and with that the party eventually agreed,
more so because they felt that they could
get more information from the blights if they
helped…
That and one of the twig blights we named
Root, had taken a liking to Max the barbarian
to the point that it started budding flowers.
It was so cute we just wanted to make sure
the little guy would be ok after we left.
Spoiler alert, we took him with us anyway.
With 3 NPCs in tow, we made our way to the
building.
We had to clear out some venomous spiders
along the way, but eventually made it through
town to a large hill where we found a house
with a strange tower-like spire attached to
the side.
The DM explained that the building looked
pretty bad and that most of the Spire’s
roof was gone.
Root confirmed this was the home that the
great swamp was hiding in, and the party all
shrugged and walked inside.
The main room of the house was pretty barren.
There was a door that led to the spire, and
we were told “that we felt a strange breeze
from behind the door.”
“NOPE!”
Falkon said.
“That’s got to be something breathing…
I’m going back outside to find more information.”
the DM agreed this was allowed, and added
that there was a second door to access the
spire from outside with a similar but weaker
breeze leaking through it.
At this point, the party was pretty well terrified
and everyone was silent.
We had no idea what was in there and whatever
it was.
It was huge if Falkon was correct that the
breeze was from the creature’s breathing.
“Can I use channel divinity?
I have the charm animals and plants option…
I’d like to try and grow a thick vine that
I can climb to the roof,” Falkon asked.
The DM thought it over.
“I’m not sure if that’s how that ability
works…
But roll for it and that will determine if
it works or not, I guess?”
Natural 20.
the dice gods smiled upon us.
“Well… in that case, Root waddles over
and places his hand on the wall, and a thick
and sturdy vine grows up the side of the building.
You are free to climb it!”
The DM states, his voice sounds like he’s
smiling.
“Ok, well.
I’ll do that then,” Falkon declared and,
so up the cleric went on to the roof.
“You see, sleeping at the bottom of the
spire, a young green dragon,” The DM announces.
The party collectively craps themselves.
There was NO WAY we could handle that.
Falkon’s player has him climb back down,
and at that point, the rest of the party is
outside waiting for him.
“What did you see?”
Fig asked.
“There’s a dragon in there…”
Falkon said, going a bit pale.
The DM was silent, but we could tell he was
rather happy with the sense of dread he’d
managed to build up.
That quickly changed to shock.
“You know that recipe I told you all about,
for the philosopher’s stone.
It requires a young dragon’s heart…
We kinda need to fight this thing if we’re
going to complete it,” Falkon pointed out.
“The scales could be useful for armor as
well,” Fig said thoughtfully.
“I want one of its teeth!”
Maximus chimed in.
At this point, the DM remembered he was working
with a bunch of beginners that didn’t really
know just how bad of a situation they were
in, and that they were going to try and fight
the thing he wanted us to run away from.
“How are we going to do this?”
Fig asked and the party puzzled over it “We
get a sneak attack round since it’s asleep
and prone, right?”
“That… is true, yes.
You get one sneak attack round if you choose
to fight it,” the DM agreed.
“Okay.
So one person at each door and two people
on the roof.
We can attack all at once…”
Falkon suggested.
“If we go on the roof we could get knocked
off…
I don’t think any of us would survive the
fall,” Fig pointed out, and the party was
silent.
“Do we still have those Vials of Alchemist
fire from before?”
Falkon asked.
The party collectively checked its inventory.
Between the four of us, there were twenty
vials of alchemist fire.
Moss had given each of us a few as payment
for rescuing his daughter from vampires.
That's a story for a different day, though.
“If we each throw all 5 vials at the same
time, that would be 20, D4 damage.“
Suddenly, this seemed a lot more possible.
The DM was silent.
“Hey, that could work.
But we’d lose all of our sneak attacks…
Can we try just giving all 20 vials to one
person and just drop them on to the dragon
from the roof?”
Fig suggested.
“We’d need a way to bundle them all together
so they hit at the same time,” Falkon pointed
out.
“Ok so we’ll put them in a bag and drop
the bag of alchemist fire on the dragon,”
Fig stated, and the party all agreed.
“And Max still has his oil of sharpness.
If he puts that on his ax, that would be +3
to attack and damage rolls”
“Is that what you want to do?”
the DM asks and the party all agrees.
“Okay… so who is going on the roof?”
The party was silent again.
We all pretty much agreed going up there was
a death sentence.
In the end, Fig and Falkon volunteered to
go up.
Max went to the front door and Midha went
to the back door.
With everyone in their place, the party waited.
“We’re probably going to die, huh?”
Fig asked Falkon.
“Probably,” the cleric replied with a
shrug.
“Okay,” Fig said.
“Let’s do this!
I drop the bag on to the dragon.”
The party was silent as we waited to hear
if our plan worked or not.
“Roll for initiative and roll 20 D4.”
The party cheered as we dealt 52 points of
damage in one go with that move and woke the
dragon up.
Who was now incredibly angry.
The order ended up being Fig, Falkon, Dragon,
Max, Midha.
“Okay, continue with your sneak attack round.”
Falkon used a level 2 guiding bolt which by
some miracle hit dealing 25 points.
Max quickly threw his oiled up Ax at the dragon,
dealing 15 points of damage, and Midha went
with good old Eldritch blast which missed.
By the end of the sneak attack, we’d dealt
92 points of damage.
“Sneak attack round is over,” the DM announced.
At this point, even he seemed to have a sliver
of hope that maybe, just MAYBE, this wouldn’t
completely wipe out the party.
Fig goes to attack and misses, but uses her
Bonus action to Call in Willow, one of the
NPCs, which puts the NPC right at the end
of the initiative list.
Falkon got in another Guiding Bolt in dealing
18 more points of damage.
110 points total.
It was still alive, getting angier, and now
it was the dragon’s turn.
The dragon was pissed.
Seeing as Falkon and Fig were close together
it fired a blast of poison breath at the two,
rather than Multi attacking for its first
turn.
“I’d say you both had about half cover
from your position on the roof…” the DM’s
interpretation of the attack was more of a
sludgy spit attack rather than a noxious gas,
and we were not going to argue the protection
of half cover.
He rolled for the damage, “That will be
27 points of damage each since you failed
your con saves.”
Dropping us to 1 and 2 hit points each.
Before we could get in a sigh of relief, the
DM continued.
“However, it did knock you back, please
roll Dex saves to keep from getting knocked
off the roof from the force of the attack.”
Falkon managed to latch onto the edge of the
roof.
Fig, however, hit the ground with a resounding
thud.
“Well, it was nice knowing you guys,”
Fig’s player stated, a bit disappointed
but, not overly upset since she knew the risk.
Max uses his other ax to attack the dragon,
dealing 7 more points of damage.
117 total.
Midha’s turn came around.
“I cast witch bolt at level 2,” she said,
and with the blessing of the dice gods themselves,
landed the hit.
“Roll for damage,” the DM said, his voice
edging toward disbelief.
“An 11 and a 9.
So, 20.”
And the words we didn’t believe we would
hear rang out of the DM’s mouth like the
finest poetry.
“How do you want to do this?”
We cheered and shouted like a bunch of school
children, but could you blame us?
Midha described how the dragon was electrocuted
and fell dead before it could get the chance
to take flight.
Since Willow was called in, she hurried over
to Fig and used a stabilizing spell to bring
her back and heal her.
“You guys are absolutely insane.
You were supposed to run away… but that
was brilliant…
Welcome to level 4,” the DM announced.
And that is how we managed to take on our
first dragon… but not our last.
It’s always a surprise when you give your
group an item at random and it comes back
and blows up in your face, or in a dragon’s
face.
A well executed plan and an awesome turn of
events.
Have you ever done something like this?
Please let us know what you think and comment
below!
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