Hey people. I'm curious... have any of you faced the CR8 Young Green Dragon in Lost Mines of Phandelver, and if so how did the battle play out? Any tips?
We're going to wait until 4th level to tackle it, but it still seems a bit rough considering it can drop most of our party members with one multiattack.
Our Party:
3rd level Half-Orc Totem Warrior
3rd level Wood Elf Hunter (Archery)
2nd level Human Warlock/1st level Knowledge Cleric
3rd level Forest Gnome Arcane Trickster
Thanks.
The green dragon is tough enough for a full party of 8th level characters. It will destroy a party at levels 3/4. Even attempting to drive it off by reducing to half HP is extremely dangerous. The breath weapon could kill the whole party in one round.
So, you should lead your players to recognize its danger and do everything they can to avoid combat with the dragon. The dragon is an awesome role-playing opportunity though! There's a lot of green dragon info in the MM if you have it that will help you role-play it.
After my group finished Phandelver, we still had some time, so I ran them through that encounter with their 5th level characters. Even giving them the benefit of several doubts, and getting very (un)lucky on the recharge of the breath weapon, only one made it out alive.
Clutchbone wrote:
I intend to make sure that the characters in my campaign here do not face Venomfang until they are high enough in levels to stand a fair chance...no use in getting through most of everything just to have a total party wipe-out occur for no good reason.
If that means a slight delay in dealing with Venomfang and working through some homebrewed additions to the LMoP adventure area, then so be it. 
And I do love Iserith's suggestion for some hired minions to help take Venomfang out! 
Akeisha wrote:
BRJN wrote:
Akeisha wrote:
BRJN wrote:
iserith wrote:
My party consisted of five level three characters. One Tempest domain cleric, one Life domain cleric, a College of Valor bard, a warlock of some kind, and me, a Sharpshooting eldritch knight.
Hearing there was a dragon in a particular tower, we decided to kill it for its gold - well, that's what my Zhentarim character thought; apparently, one of the clerics had also promised to help out some of the people ravaged by the beast. In any event, we were all on the same page: that dragon had to go!
Trying to think smart, we decided that kicking down the door and charging in swinging was probably not the best way to go. So, with a bit of fiddling, and a few well-placed burning arrows, we set the roof of the tower on fire as a distraction. Then, we kicked down the door and charged in swinging.
The Tempest cleric opened with a maximized casting of Shatter, which the dragon failed to save against, and I followed with a fortuituous critical hit from my bow. First round, the dragon hadn't even acted, and we had dealt over forty points of damage to it. To say we were feeling cocky would be an understatement.
Of course, then the dragon breathed. Three of our five failed their saves, so three of our five took forty-one points of poison damage and promptly fell over. Luckily, the two clerics were the ones left standing, so in a round, the party was back up. The bard, the warlock, and I all piled on the damage, then got the heck out of the death trap we had accidentally made for ourselves. Small, confined quarters, with fire overhead, and a very ticked dragon no longer seemed like the best place to be.
Luckily, said very ticked dragon agreed, and he burst through the top of the tower and flew away. In two rounds, we had managed to do do about ninety points of damage to it - well over half its health. As the tower continued to burn behind us, we all took a moment to brush the dirt off our shoulders.
Did not have a problem with the fight....
One guy went down but not dead.. me because I was the only melee type in party.... everyone else spread out then either casted spells or ranged attack with a bow..... 1 and half rounds later... dragon fled
Encounter success
Note: If I were to do this adventure again.. I would skip this encounter because the loot is not worth the trouble
iserith wrote:
iserith wrote:
My party and I used our surroundings. We had a Dex Tempest cleric (me), Rouge, Wizard, Life Cleric, Off Tank FIghter and a Paladin of Bahamut. Pretty much everyone was inside the olf fort (ranged up top in the tower and the cleric and the fighter ready to heal, tank once the paladin went down) next to the tower except for the paladin. The paladin called out the dragon, questioned the dragons manhood and once it landed it got the full strentgh of our party. We brought it to almost half health in that first round and we could have killed it if the DM let us instead of having it fly away. Our paladin barely lost any health and the dragon never let its breath weapon fire because it thought it was a 1v1 fight and not an ambush. Granted most of us were lvl 4 (except the rouge and fighter) but the ability to ambush the dragon helped out tons. No army required ^^.
Admittedly we were level 5 but that dragon be dead.
Yunru wrote:
Yunru wrote:
I assume the Divination wizard uses Portent to ensure that the dragon fails the Monk's Stunning Strike (and possibly using Portent to ensure the hit connects as well). While stunned, the rest of the party piles on the dragon with advantage.
Yunru wrote:
Buy antitoxin from the town for adv on the breath save. Ideally also have a dwarf in the party for resistance too. Or hire some dwarf warriors with crossbows to go with you!
My group decided to have that fight as their Lost Mines finale before moving on to another campaign with the same DM. We got it to about 1/5 health with a lvl 4 Rogue/Warlock, lvl 2 Sorcerer and lvl 3 Monk. Several magic missiles and sneak bow attacks, with a sneak attack crit added up.
Grappler Bear-barian hold it down while a few Evokers drop some fireballs on it?
Clutchbone wrote:
I faced the dragon as a player twice now (once with a sorcerer once with a barbarian) at level 3 both times.
Basically your group knowns there a dragon in this village (since it's the background of one of the player, the familly in the bandit cellar warn you about the dragon etc...) then it's pretty easy to realised that the only building able to house a dragon is the tower. everybody knwo dragon got a AoE dragon breath so the range member are stying outside and aim from the windows, Get ready to open the door, no one in front of the door waiting for the head to pass trought the door way.
Then when the dragon get bored and fly outside, he his force to come on the ground otherwise the cleric, archer and sorcerer will blast it quickly while he wait on his breath to recharges and we spread around, so he cannot get multiple of us with his breath, and we try to keep the cleric inside the little house to protect him from the breath weapon so he can heal the other member.
once we drove him away, the other time we killed him
You know, I just had a thought. Dragons fight each other all the time: for territory, for treasure, for spite. They also kill lots of wildelife and domesticated animals for food.
But how much experience does your average dragon really have fighting a band of adventurers? Especially a young dragon?
Maybe they aren't versed enough in anti-hero tactics to do what is most prudent when facing wizards, archers, and fighters. That could be something that only comes with a LOT of age, when a dragon's reputation begins to draw assaults on it's lair.
Just food for thought. Some dragons may attack players like they are wyverns, dire bears, or other prey animal with some small defensive abilities.
autolycus wrote:
Our group of the five pre-gens beat him at level 4. We tried to stay spread out but he did some tricky things to get many of us into his cone. Still, with a steady set of magic missles, and a hiding rogue getting two sneak attack crits + some guiding bolts, we took him out. If he would have gotten a second breath weapon off we'd have been toast
Human Barbarian 3
Human Paladin of Vengeance 3
Tiefling Warlock 3
Human Necromancer 2
Dwarven Battlemaster 3
The warlock (me) walked up the wooded hill under stealth, made some noise and heard something big moving around in the ruins, I hid. Dragon flew over me to attack my party who were in the first building calling out where was I. Necromancer and Battlemaster were off to the left, Barbarian and Paladin were just outside the door of the building. The Dragon landed and breathed to the left because the Necromancer used a magic missile which the DM determined meant he was going to breathe to the left. The dragon landed at the feet of the barbarian and Paladin.
The dragon breathed on the dwarf and Necromancer, necromancer failed save and insta died. Dwarf between resistance and adv to save lived with 2 HP I think, the barbarian then frenzied and hit, then crit. The paladin vowed and swung crit hit and smited. I hexed the dragon and threw an eldritch blast hitting but not critting. The dragon regained its breath weapon and breathed on me. I saved and with my temp HP I still managed to live. Barbarian hit two more times and paladin hit again with smite.
The dragon deciding it was badly hurt tried to fly away taking attacks from the barbarian and paladin. Paladin smited and the barbarian finished it off.
We ended up trapping the Flameskull from the Lost Mine in a chest and offering it to the dragon as "tribute". A fireball and 2 magic missiles later and the dragon lost nearly 30 hp before it smashed the skull (it wasted it's poison breath on the posion-immune skull). Fortunately for us the dragon didn't realize it needed to splash the remains with holy water, so in 1 hour the flameskull reincarnated and the process repeated itself!
By the time we came in to mop up (used a silent image to make it burn it's breath weapon first), it wasn't too hard to slay the dragon with a few solid attack rolls.
intently wrote:
jaappleton wrote:
Akeisha wrote:
Akeisha wrote: