this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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I did this once. Lost Mine of Phandelver, the dragon encounter.
I did a pretty dramatic bit of roleplay with the dragon beforehand where he tried to bunch them all up before opening with his breath attack.
They were level 3. They never stood a chance. I read out the number and it would have been an insta-death (no death saves) for multiple members of the party, with everyone else unconcious. Luckily, they didn't hear me well, and when asked to repeat it I lowered the damage considerably. No insta-deaths, one stayed conscious, along with the powerful NPC they had recruited to help.
When I ran Thundertree, I had a backup plan where if my party all died I’d have them wake up jailed somewhere else in the tower with none of their gear or magic items. Venomfang would be sleeping and they’d have to escape from their cells somehow and sneak out of the tower. Maybe Venomfang would wake up while they were escaping and there’d be a tense escape sequence.
Instead, my party managed to somehow kill the young green dragon at level 3 before he could escape. They rolled multiple crits in a row and the only casualty was a weak npc. They rode that high for a while.
Then I introduced them to Strahd.