See, except for the two new players in my campaign, neither of whom have reached 5th level yet, all the characters involved in the goblin fight were henchfolk of the players' higher level characters. The players had selected a "C"-crew ... as the players call them, made of 1st to 5th level characters. It's an opportunity for a player to invest in a different class, characteristics, short-term goals and so on. But the drow promised to be a tougher go, so the party opted to bring in the "B"-crew ... 5th to 8th level characters, excepting one 10th level thief that hasn't been run in a long time, and the two lower-level new players. Time had to be spent bringing the character up to date before it could be used, but that didn't matter because the players had a great session.
The choice to head back to town and change parties was inspired by the players revealing a secret door through the use of the stone shape spell, on a guess, at a dead end. This revealed a stairwell to a room filled with offal and the crucified corpses of six goblins, presumably by the drow elves to send a message. Believing they'd found the start of the drow (they'd met a few when first entering the caves), they opted to bring in the B-crew.
Here's what the dungeon they revealed Friday:
The stairs being in the upper right, they moved down to room A ... a 15 ft. wide room (each hex is 5 ft.) that went 280 ft. straight up (A.). This wasn't self-evident at first; infravision won't reach that high, nor with torch or lamplight. The 10th level thief, Ivan, whose primary study is setting traps, saw right away the the first ten rungs of the ladder were designed to set off a dweomer of some kind, though what specifically couldn't be determined because it was out of sight. Think of it as seeing an aura of residual magic, as you've learned how to do this.
The ladder's rungs would be set off by pulling down, so from within the goblin lair he made shims and deactivated the trap. He started up, followed by the 8th level monk (Shalar), but was called back down by the 8th level illusionist (Penn), who cast ultravision on most of the party. This made it possible to see the top, so a segment of the party climbed the ladder to the top.
B. is a room filled with blue ice, intensely cold, very slippery, with white ice coating the walls, ceiling and the top 15 rungs of the ladder. The sharp turnaround at C. worked like a curling slide, with a 20 ft. drop over 30 ft., from the top of the ladder down to the turn. There was a low wall, about three feet, at the top of the ladder, but as the ice coated everything, moving at all forward from the ladder's top meant probably losing footing and sweeping down into D., which at this time was unknown to the players. It might have been a 200 foot plunge straight down, for all they knew.
Once at the top, Ivan identified the alarm spell that was set to go off when the ladder was touched below.
After much deliberation, they obtained the 20 ft. ladder from location E. on the map depicting the goblin lair. They lashed the end of the shorter ladder, so that it laid down towards point C. This had only the effect of allowing more players to join the group at the top, to discuss what to do next. They lowered a rope through C., easing Ivan down around the corner, who got a look at D.
This room was filled with more blue ice, formed like a smooth frozen pool about the center; and atop this center was a 25 ft. young white dragon, sleeping. The party had made this suggestion already, and so weren't entirely surprised; but they weren't pleased either. Unfortunately, the dragon expert in the party, the 7th level cleric (Widda), was still back on the bottom (A.), and was one of those who hadn't benefitted from the ultravision spell.
Nonetheless, if Widda could see the dragon, she could identify how strong it was, and how dangerous; they got Widda up and helped her down the ladder to the rope. So Widda could see (she had infravision, but by my rules this was useless in a deeply cold cave), the 4th level druid (Tavrobel) cast faerie fire on the cleric. This emits a light glow, so in the ice cave this was enough.
My dragons are different from AD&D, but the upshot was, 6 hit dice, 2d6 h.p. per die, near grown (so only 7/8ths of the rolled hit points) and not likely to wake up so long as loud noises and aggressive spells weren't employed. The breath weapon, equal to the beast's hit point tally, would average about 37. Most of the party could take that, but it's not a great way to start the destruction of a drow elf lair.
The player behind Widda (and Shalar, too) hit on setting a glyph of warding at point C. My version of this spell allows the character to invest any spell from their lexicon into the glyph being created. Widda's collection wasn't that great for offense spells, but it was pointed out that her cure serious wounds was reversible. My version of that spell cures 20-48 h.p.
This was a plan. Widda set the glyph (technically non-aggressive, as it's just a glyph), and everybody headed back down to A., taking the positions shown, backing off into the cave below the stairs (and Torvik, the 1st level ranger, on the stairs). Ivan removed the shims from the trap, moved back and let Shalar set the trap off. Penn, shown at the bottom of the great shaft, cast wraithform and held the spell without discharging it on herself, concentrating.
The alarm went off. They heard a very distant roar ... then a very distant but terrific scream of pain as the dragon triggered the cause serious wounds. It had 43 hit points, well above average; it took 32 damage from the glyph. This was more than half, thoroughly stunning it by my rules ... unable to stop after launching itself through C., it hit the far wall at the top of the shaft for 2d6 collision damage; this took another 9 out of its hit points, leaving it with 2 remaining. It also left the dragon at the top of a 280 ft. drop; we calculated it's relative time to react before hitting the bottom by calculating a falling velocity halved by wing resistence. Total, 8 seconds. Not enough time. The illusionist went wraithform and the dragon hit the bottom, dead. Shalar took two damage from the scales and boneshards flying round the cave.
So, technically, Widda one-offed a dragon. There was much rejoicing.
What with exploration, deliberation, doubt, problem-solving and ultimately bringing it off, three hours passed. We called the session. I'm going on vacation 8 days from now, so we won't be playing again for six weeks.
A quick point about Torvik. Though only 1st level, he was as relevant and important to the overall game as any other player. And, despite Widda and Shalar being the only two to get any actual hands on experience (and there wasn't much, as I award only 10 pts. per h.p. done), it is a dragon and there is treasure, which everyone gets a share of; and experience from, as the risk was taken by every member of the party. If the dragon had had more hit points; if the cure serious had done less; then there would have been at least one breathweapon for most everyone to face.
This is how, in my game, a 1st level character can join a 6-8th level party, participate and go up levels faster than other characters. Tavrobel started with the "A"-crew six months ago, switched to the C-crew after, and is now part of the B-crew. She's the player's only character, but soon she'll be 5th and will have a second character to become part of the C-crew. Torvik started with the C-crew and is now with the B-crew.
Secondly, note the various ways in which rules above were used. Ivan didn't "check" to see if he saw the trap. He did, because that's his knowledge level. Nor did he need to roll to deactivate it; it's a very simple trap. Ivan has set off loads of traps in his past. He's paid his dues.
In each case, spells and sage abilities meshed to give the players information and solve problems, often by using the spells in new and different ways. At no time did anyone need to make anything like a "perception" check. The party walks into a room every time and sees everything. In no way does this diminish the experience, nor the danger, and it wastes far less time making rolls that don't really contribute to game play. Perception is just a way for the DM to do "gotcha" moments when players fail the check. I don't like the overuse of gotcha moments. I prefer an upfront crisis that needs immediate, effective and sustained action. I'll do a surprise, but usually only if the players have blundered into something without checking first. That is, "checking" in the sense of "I look at the ladder before I climb it."
And by that, I don't mean five minutes of the character listing off everything about the ladder looked at, like many old-school game DMs insisted upon when I began playing. "Look at the ladder" means all of that in short hand.
Finally, after forgetting to get this picture taken for a couple of months now, here's a shot of my DM table arrangement:
Caught the player next to me with her eyes closed. The person taking the picture would be in the chair on my right. The screen up and behind me duplicates what's on my screen ... so nothing I'm looking at is hidden.
Enjoy your own D&D games, please.
What a great story.
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