Reddit mentions of The Sanctuary Series, Books 1-3: Defender, Avenger and Champion

There are two ways to go about this:

1. Have the party fight something else so the dragon slayers can focus on the dragon. This is the less fun one to me.


2. Have the raid fail and it really about showcasing one of the most powerful monsters in the game and how disastrous things can go.

This is a stolen plot from the first book in the Sanctuary Series (imagine a fantasy world similar to D&D/WoW where the characters take strategic advantage the game-y-ness of magic, like "We can res people within an hour of their dying" and "rotating the front line so those going in are always at full life"). It used to be free for the combined books 1-3, now it is 99 cents. It is popcorn fiction, but it has a lot of good

First, the dragon is trapped in the place it resides (like a 400 foot dome/cave that is only 40 feet high -- it is a prison, so it makes sense it would be unpleasant for the prisoner). That is why the dragon is in a known location. It could also be somewhat remote. During the passage toward the dragon chamber, they maybe notice small vents in the ceilings of certain corridors. (These are breath weapon exit tubes so the dragon can autoclave certain chambers.)

Second, give the dragon minions. The raid has to get through that to get at the dragon.

Third, the raid is not intended to succeed. Sure, the raid gets through the guardians, but an ancient dragon is going to blow through raid members each time it recharges its breath weapon.

Have the last encounter before the dragon be at the door of the dragon's prison. Then as that encounter is starting to wind down (I would do it right as the last guardian falls), the over eager raid leader (who is actually an overconfident fool) tries to lead part of the raid into the dragon's chamber (not quite Leroy Jenkins style, the leader lets others go first).

There are two ways this failed raid can be managed. The first is just having the PCs watch the first wave get wiped out, and they run away.

The second is having the dragon hold back its breath weapon. Or maybe the dragon's first action is to rush to a small tube and blow its breath weapon through it which causes fire to shower down further away from the dragon chamber. This accomplishes two things: it discharges the breath weapon and it suggests that the PCs could run into the breath weapon via tube if they try to flee back through the lair.

That initial blast should kill one of the squads in the raid (they were resting during the final guardian fight). After seeing that wipe, they should notice there are several tubes in the chamber that presumably lead to other parts of the lair.

So the overconfident raid leader YOLO commands a charge and now everyone can fight a dragon for a few turns. Have the Breath Weapon recharge on a schedule (I would do probably the 4th round). I wouldn't even track damage. Just assume the dragon shrugs off damage. Give each NPC like 1, 2, or 3 Special Hit Points and the various attacks do 2 or 1 Special Damage to NPCs (Bite is 2, claws and tail are 1 each). In theory, it could kill 6 NPCs for each of its turns (3 on its turn, 3 as legendary actions).

Between a Dragon's Multiattack and legendary actions a Dragon can do these attacks:

• Frightful Presence (but I wouldn't, or just have the NPCs fail automatically and the PC's get missed), instead treat this as the reason why it is ignoring all the NPC damage (they are so frightened they aren't hitting effectively)
  
  
• One Bite (reach 15): 21 piercing + 14 fire.
  
  
• Two Claw Attacks (reach 10): 17 slashing each.
  
  
• 3 Tail Attacks (reach 20) via Legendary Actions: 19 bludgeoning each time.
  
  If there were 40 people in the Raid, and they are losing about 5 people every round, by the time it recharges its breath weapon on round 4, there will be 15 dead NPCs. The party should be trying to rally a retreat, like use an action to make a Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check and every 5 in their result, they convince 1 NPC to bail (or at least get them paying attention enough to the PC that they will follow simple directions). If the party bails early (like, they just "Nope!" immediately), have an NPC get ahead and let the Dragon do another tube-breath weapon to incinerate that NPC.
  
  The trick to escaping would be to either bait a breath weapon usage (giving them another 4 rounds of no breath) or stealth past the tube ends or finding a way to stop up the exit vents.

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