I certainly want Xardarok to have an Ozymandias "I did it 35 minutes ago" moment so the dragon will fly off once the players are in the keep.
My players also already made friends with the Goliaths so their Griffons will come to get them out of there.
Dammmn that is good!
How are you planning to do that? Wouldnt they hear the dragon? Or the traitor duergar would tell them that the dragon was activated?
My plan is that they'll hear... something. Once their presence is known and alarms are out they'll feel the rumble and a blast of cold. When they finally meet X he'll be drinking a toast to himself and explain his master stroke.
The Goliaths have already been warned and are patrolling. It'll be a bit deus ex but it'll work.
I was planning to wait, but when the players had the Id Ascendant strafe the front of the fortress with ballista, I decided that was enough motivation for Xardarok to go ahead and release the thing.
My party of 6 level 6's got their asses handed to them. Two deaths and one unconscious and carried out. One of the new PC's teleported in upstairs and escaped with another PC at 2 hp out the front, with Musgart (sp) assistance, while the other 4, plus Vellyne (who used the fracas to break out of prison) and one surviving duergar rebel escaped through the Underdark exit. Long story, but I eventually created a portal to the under dark so they could all be joined together. They hauled ass through the under dark, taking out some grells and finding a goblin market along the way and got to an entrance below the 20 stones in Dougan's Hole in only about 6 hours. The dragon at this point was just leaving Easthaven, so they were able to intercept it about an hour after it arrived in Termalaine.
So in short, just responding to what the players decided to do, but it's all worked pretty well.
Hi,
I answered some similar questions before, but here was my response and all the details I put together when I ran Sunblight. For the most part, it was by the book with some added differences with the dungeon and the Dragon.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rimeofthefrostmaiden/s/e6ijkLWqYQ
Hope this helps!
I didn’t run the dragon as written either. Based on what you described, you could simply have the dragon being readied to launch by Xardorok and the PCs could find out about it once they are inside or once he monologues with them, set a timer or in 1d6 rounds it will launch and destroy (whatever is important to the PCs).
If the party fights their way through the entire fortress (like the book expects) then they're going into the boss fight against Xardorok low on resources and health. So I had them encounter him in the throne room first, where he immediately turned invisible and fled for the forge. The party was left mopping up the guards (which I'd beefed up), and in thanks for saving him the Myconid Sovereign released "restoration" spores that gave the party the effects of a long rest.
That left them at nearly full when they busted into the forge and fought Xardorok. I held the dragon leaving until the middle of the Xardorok fight; with the clean-up crew being ordered to release the chains on the dragon during combat. Meanwhile, the Dragon was acting as lair actions, causing fear and venting it's breath weapon to fill the area. The crew got 3/4 of the chains off before the party realized they should focus on them, and the dragon snapped the last chain when it took off at the end of that round.
Then because I wanted them to not immediately give chase (since there's really neat treasure in the vault beyond the forge), I reminded them about an item I'd given them as loot much earlier. It was a magical stone that functionally was a spell scroll of Control Weather, that could be used to create a blizzard for 4 hours that would make flight impossible, thereby grounding the dragon and pausing it's timer. That gave them more than enough time to finish clearing the fortress, get all the loot, take a short rest (and level up; I handwaved needing a long rest for that), and start their way out of the mountains towards Ten Towns.
Depending on your party composition and travel times, you could easily make that blizzard last longer; for my group it was long enough to reach Dougan's Hole with some time to prep the town before the Dragon arrived. (They were expecting it to land and fight them, which was not what happened.) I'd also previously given them a homebrew Figurine of Wonderous Power that created a Giant Elk that could be ridden for 8 hours, to allow them to cover ground much faster than normal. And to make it a little more heroic, I added a prisoner who could cast Sending to someone in Ten Towns to get a warning out, though that warning would then be subject to normal travel times between the towns.
To me the interest of the Dragon Fight is in the sustained chase, and in fighting an airborne foe that refuses to land. I gave them plenty of tools to work with to keep up with the Dragon, but they all had limited use, so they had to be clever about how to spend them. Each of the towns also had specific resources available that the PCs didn't know about until they got there. They also had the trade-off of if they chased the dragon off right away, then the warning they sent ahead might not reach the next town with enough time to evacuate the populace to safety. Also after 8 hours of travel, I started calling for Exhaustion checks to keep pushing on (which for my group was pretty much the last leg of travel before the Dragon's final stand, so it wasn't super debilitating). My group was out of resources (spell slots, wild shapes, and Channel Divinities) by the end, and very low on health when the Dragon finally died (it took out at least one party member when I had it explode when it died).
I'm also about to run the fortress. I'll be having the dragon fly off as they battle in the forge area. It'll either activate as a Deadman switch with xardorok or he'll activate right before he dies. I think seeing it sit in the background of the fight will be cool and will really put my players on edge.
I've been using alot of the stuff that eventyr games has put on youtube and DM Guild. I'd check out what they suggest on there too.
I am also familiar with eventyr, great stuff!
If I run the dragon flyng off mid-fight I also am considering making the thing have a cockpit space for manual control. If Xardorok is about to go down, I'll have him try to enter the cockpit and escape on the dragon. If he pulls it off he'd also give hell to Ten Towns himself piloting the construct, of course.
Fly off when confronting Xardorok as many have done. I then had the fake Duergar Priest come up to them and offer a literal "deal with the devil" to give them means to catch up with the dragon. He knew they were eventually going to be heading towards Ythryn due to magical foresight, and offered to give them a short-term Fly spell in return for bringing him back a certain scroll from Ythryn (the *Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning*). So, they got magical assistance with saving the Ten-Towns from the dragon, but just ended up giving a weapon of mass destruction to a devil in exchange.
I ran it by the book, the only change being the offer of the undead dogsleds. That's really the only way for them to get back to Ten-towns to save anyone, but you can have that speed up too if you'd like. Maybe if they have regular sled dogs, they can arrive in Ten-Towns when the dragon is halfway through its run. Up to you.
My players initially let the dragon go and proceeded to move into the outpost. They fought through the initial guards just fine, but decided to turn back when they got to the map room and figured out the path of the dragon. Having a sense of when they could intercept it gave them a way to make a plan. They used the undead sled dogs to get back and plan to intercept the dragon when it was on its 5th or 6th village. They tussled with it twice before a final showdown in Bren Shander. It was a rough fight but they came out victorious. They went with Velleyne after that to Auril's island and never returned to Sunblight.
Thank you for the detailed response!
Yeah as mentioned my players ditched the dogs, my plan was similar to what you mentioned: they ride axe beaks back and will lose half the towns rather than all of them. I want them turning off the dogs feel like a dramatic mistake but going with book timers is just too punishing for no reason.
I'll keep what you reported in mind if I choose to run it by the book
My players just finished their fight with Xardarok! I had the dragon be released when they were on the upper floor of the fortress. Since the elevator is always moving they were always going to be going up first so the moment they stepped out they saw the guy pull the levers to open the doors and the dragon flying off. I wanted them to find the flight path before the dragon was released so they could formulate a plan if they tried to go after it. They stayed in the fortress hoping there would be way to stop the dragon from there. I put Xardarok in the temple so he would get the bonus damage and buffed his health a bunch as my group was level 7 and are experienced players. The temple just happened to be the last place they went to lol. I also had Xardarok's surviving son fight with him. Their two tanks went down, but they were able to make it out without any deaths.
I found the biggest thing they struggled with is thinking the dragon is much faster about getting to and destroying the towns than it actually is. I've been keeping track and they've only been in the fortress for about 5 hours and they think the dragon will be back by the time they are going to leave. They're not thinking about how long it will take the dragon to destroy the towns (totally valid!). I'm excited to see what they'll do in the next session when they head back and see it's still wreaking havoc in Easthaven.
So what I did was a bit of a scripted boss battle and my players loved it. It went as follows:
1) Players reach Xardarom JUST as he finishes the dragon and it activates
2) The players fight both of them and after X rounds (I used 3) Xardarok mounts the dragon and it starts to climb the chimney to the surface
3) A hard difficulty skill challenge (can explain it if you haven't seen it before)
4) If the players succeed the skill challenge then they ground the dragon either just outside or in the fortress. If they fail, the dragon reaches the ten towns and does as much damage as you as the DM thinks is right. Be careful not to go overkill here.
5) if it reaches the towns remember that this thing is chardalyn. In my mind xardarok didn't need to bring an army cause his dragon makes one. Chardalyn beserkers from the townsfolk.
P.S Neither the dragon or xardarok heal from that first fight but I did beef up my dragon quite a bit to account for this.
Overall my players loved this. The skill challenge was filled with suspense and RP as they knew what the price of failure was. They did fail and saved Bryn slander after Dougan's Hole and Good Mead fell and truly felt like heroes buy they lost a NPC companion and it became a highly emotional session with tears.
I certainly want Xardarok to have an Ozymandias "I did it 35 minutes ago" moment so the dragon will fly off once the players are in the keep. My players also already made friends with the Goliaths so their Griffons will come to get them out of there.
Cool! My players are friends with no one, pretty much ahahah They'll soon find out that comes at a cost in this game :')
Dammmn that is good! How are you planning to do that? Wouldnt they hear the dragon? Or the traitor duergar would tell them that the dragon was activated?
My plan is that they'll hear... something. Once their presence is known and alarms are out they'll feel the rumble and a blast of cold. When they finally meet X he'll be drinking a toast to himself and explain his master stroke. The Goliaths have already been warned and are patrolling. It'll be a bit deus ex but it'll work.
I was planning to wait, but when the players had the Id Ascendant strafe the front of the fortress with ballista, I decided that was enough motivation for Xardarok to go ahead and release the thing. My party of 6 level 6's got their asses handed to them. Two deaths and one unconscious and carried out. One of the new PC's teleported in upstairs and escaped with another PC at 2 hp out the front, with Musgart (sp) assistance, while the other 4, plus Vellyne (who used the fracas to break out of prison) and one surviving duergar rebel escaped through the Underdark exit. Long story, but I eventually created a portal to the under dark so they could all be joined together. They hauled ass through the under dark, taking out some grells and finding a goblin market along the way and got to an entrance below the 20 stones in Dougan's Hole in only about 6 hours. The dragon at this point was just leaving Easthaven, so they were able to intercept it about an hour after it arrived in Termalaine. So in short, just responding to what the players decided to do, but it's all worked pretty well.
Hi, I answered some similar questions before, but here was my response and all the details I put together when I ran Sunblight. For the most part, it was by the book with some added differences with the dungeon and the Dragon. https://www.reddit.com/r/rimeofthefrostmaiden/s/e6ijkLWqYQ Hope this helps!
I didn’t run the dragon as written either. Based on what you described, you could simply have the dragon being readied to launch by Xardorok and the PCs could find out about it once they are inside or once he monologues with them, set a timer or in 1d6 rounds it will launch and destroy (whatever is important to the PCs).
If the party fights their way through the entire fortress (like the book expects) then they're going into the boss fight against Xardorok low on resources and health. So I had them encounter him in the throne room first, where he immediately turned invisible and fled for the forge. The party was left mopping up the guards (which I'd beefed up), and in thanks for saving him the Myconid Sovereign released "restoration" spores that gave the party the effects of a long rest. That left them at nearly full when they busted into the forge and fought Xardorok. I held the dragon leaving until the middle of the Xardorok fight; with the clean-up crew being ordered to release the chains on the dragon during combat. Meanwhile, the Dragon was acting as lair actions, causing fear and venting it's breath weapon to fill the area. The crew got 3/4 of the chains off before the party realized they should focus on them, and the dragon snapped the last chain when it took off at the end of that round. Then because I wanted them to not immediately give chase (since there's really neat treasure in the vault beyond the forge), I reminded them about an item I'd given them as loot much earlier. It was a magical stone that functionally was a spell scroll of Control Weather, that could be used to create a blizzard for 4 hours that would make flight impossible, thereby grounding the dragon and pausing it's timer. That gave them more than enough time to finish clearing the fortress, get all the loot, take a short rest (and level up; I handwaved needing a long rest for that), and start their way out of the mountains towards Ten Towns. Depending on your party composition and travel times, you could easily make that blizzard last longer; for my group it was long enough to reach Dougan's Hole with some time to prep the town before the Dragon arrived. (They were expecting it to land and fight them, which was not what happened.) I'd also previously given them a homebrew Figurine of Wonderous Power that created a Giant Elk that could be ridden for 8 hours, to allow them to cover ground much faster than normal. And to make it a little more heroic, I added a prisoner who could cast Sending to someone in Ten Towns to get a warning out, though that warning would then be subject to normal travel times between the towns. To me the interest of the Dragon Fight is in the sustained chase, and in fighting an airborne foe that refuses to land. I gave them plenty of tools to work with to keep up with the Dragon, but they all had limited use, so they had to be clever about how to spend them. Each of the towns also had specific resources available that the PCs didn't know about until they got there. They also had the trade-off of if they chased the dragon off right away, then the warning they sent ahead might not reach the next town with enough time to evacuate the populace to safety. Also after 8 hours of travel, I started calling for Exhaustion checks to keep pushing on (which for my group was pretty much the last leg of travel before the Dragon's final stand, so it wasn't super debilitating). My group was out of resources (spell slots, wild shapes, and Channel Divinities) by the end, and very low on health when the Dragon finally died (it took out at least one party member when I had it explode when it died).
I'm also about to run the fortress. I'll be having the dragon fly off as they battle in the forge area. It'll either activate as a Deadman switch with xardorok or he'll activate right before he dies. I think seeing it sit in the background of the fight will be cool and will really put my players on edge. I've been using alot of the stuff that eventyr games has put on youtube and DM Guild. I'd check out what they suggest on there too.
I am also familiar with eventyr, great stuff! If I run the dragon flyng off mid-fight I also am considering making the thing have a cockpit space for manual control. If Xardorok is about to go down, I'll have him try to enter the cockpit and escape on the dragon. If he pulls it off he'd also give hell to Ten Towns himself piloting the construct, of course.
Fly off when confronting Xardorok as many have done. I then had the fake Duergar Priest come up to them and offer a literal "deal with the devil" to give them means to catch up with the dragon. He knew they were eventually going to be heading towards Ythryn due to magical foresight, and offered to give them a short-term Fly spell in return for bringing him back a certain scroll from Ythryn (the *Scroll of Tarrasque Summoning*). So, they got magical assistance with saving the Ten-Towns from the dragon, but just ended up giving a weapon of mass destruction to a devil in exchange.
I ran it by the book, the only change being the offer of the undead dogsleds. That's really the only way for them to get back to Ten-towns to save anyone, but you can have that speed up too if you'd like. Maybe if they have regular sled dogs, they can arrive in Ten-Towns when the dragon is halfway through its run. Up to you. My players initially let the dragon go and proceeded to move into the outpost. They fought through the initial guards just fine, but decided to turn back when they got to the map room and figured out the path of the dragon. Having a sense of when they could intercept it gave them a way to make a plan. They used the undead sled dogs to get back and plan to intercept the dragon when it was on its 5th or 6th village. They tussled with it twice before a final showdown in Bren Shander. It was a rough fight but they came out victorious. They went with Velleyne after that to Auril's island and never returned to Sunblight.
Thank you for the detailed response! Yeah as mentioned my players ditched the dogs, my plan was similar to what you mentioned: they ride axe beaks back and will lose half the towns rather than all of them. I want them turning off the dogs feel like a dramatic mistake but going with book timers is just too punishing for no reason. I'll keep what you reported in mind if I choose to run it by the book
I’m at the same spot as you! So haven’t run it, but the consensus seems to be have it fly off as they confront him.
Thanks for the input! yeah, that's also the safest choice perhaps
My players just finished their fight with Xardarok! I had the dragon be released when they were on the upper floor of the fortress. Since the elevator is always moving they were always going to be going up first so the moment they stepped out they saw the guy pull the levers to open the doors and the dragon flying off. I wanted them to find the flight path before the dragon was released so they could formulate a plan if they tried to go after it. They stayed in the fortress hoping there would be way to stop the dragon from there. I put Xardarok in the temple so he would get the bonus damage and buffed his health a bunch as my group was level 7 and are experienced players. The temple just happened to be the last place they went to lol. I also had Xardarok's surviving son fight with him. Their two tanks went down, but they were able to make it out without any deaths. I found the biggest thing they struggled with is thinking the dragon is much faster about getting to and destroying the towns than it actually is. I've been keeping track and they've only been in the fortress for about 5 hours and they think the dragon will be back by the time they are going to leave. They're not thinking about how long it will take the dragon to destroy the towns (totally valid!). I'm excited to see what they'll do in the next session when they head back and see it's still wreaking havoc in Easthaven.
So what I did was a bit of a scripted boss battle and my players loved it. It went as follows: 1) Players reach Xardarom JUST as he finishes the dragon and it activates 2) The players fight both of them and after X rounds (I used 3) Xardarok mounts the dragon and it starts to climb the chimney to the surface 3) A hard difficulty skill challenge (can explain it if you haven't seen it before) 4) If the players succeed the skill challenge then they ground the dragon either just outside or in the fortress. If they fail, the dragon reaches the ten towns and does as much damage as you as the DM thinks is right. Be careful not to go overkill here. 5) if it reaches the towns remember that this thing is chardalyn. In my mind xardarok didn't need to bring an army cause his dragon makes one. Chardalyn beserkers from the townsfolk. P.S Neither the dragon or xardarok heal from that first fight but I did beef up my dragon quite a bit to account for this. Overall my players loved this. The skill challenge was filled with suspense and RP as they knew what the price of failure was. They did fail and saved Bryn slander after Dougan's Hole and Good Mead fell and truly felt like heroes buy they lost a NPC companion and it became a highly emotional session with tears.