The Tarak D&D Campaign - Tuadun Attacked !

Welcome to the next post in a series where I describe the adventures during a 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign I ran a little while ago.

Last time around, the party went after the coven of Hags that had been plaguing the town of Tuadun. They tracked the devious witches to their lair, and after a tough battle seem to have driven them away, although with the promise of future troubles. They thought two of them were driven off and the third killed. In reality, all three had escaped....

Return To Tuadun

When our characters returned to Tuadun, they strutted into town with a thoroughly victorious swagger, convinced that the threat of the hags had been dealt with, at least for the foreseeable future.

Their first port of call was the Mayor, Gerd Ardrix. He was totally convinced by their tale.

The Mayor will thank the party for what they have done so far, and ask if they feel able to finish off the brigands and re-open the trade route to Filrath.

He’ll offer a wagon-full of quality woven cloth, with the deal being that he gets half of the profit – cost was 500gp, they should double the money, so the party gets 750 gold stallions (or Filrath golden Fids) and returns 250. This way, they can travel through Heimial Forest looking like merchants, dispose of the brigands, go to Filrath and make a profit on the deal.

Gerd will be keen for the party to get back as soon as possible, although he appreciates Filrath is a good 8-10 days each way. This assumes they go to Baron Ulric’s town of Delholm. Filrath itself (the capital, after which the Duchy is imaginatively named) is more like 15 days each way.

Filrath and Tarak.png

Tuadun Attacked !

To celebrate the defeat of the Hags and before the party heads to Filrath, Mayor Gerd declares that a great celebration will be held in Tuadun town square. The highlight will be the presentation of awards to our heroes. Food and beer will be provided by the town !

But just as the festivities are getting underway, they are interrupted.

Clovermeld returns !

Yes, the Black Dragon of the forest was working with the Hags all along, and now he had been sent to cause chaos. We first saw him a couple of episodes ago in The Tarak D&D Campaign - Back Into The Bad Woods.

Then, he was lurking in a pond and attacking from it. This time, he swooped in on the town in a thoroughly brazen manner, and it soon became apparent why. He was significantly bigger than before ! The Hags had magically aged him, changing him from being halfway between the wyrmling and young age categories, to a full young dragon. From a DM perspective, this was a hand-wave method to enable his challenge rating to keep up with the level increases in the party.

Image created by AI in Nightcafe Studio

It only took a couple of low passes from Clovermeld to persuade the inhabitants of Tuadun to flee, leaving the central square free for the showdown between the party and the dragon.

This was a fight which presented some complex tactical problems to both the players, and to me as DM.

One of the biggest differences between 3.5 and 5th Editions of D&D is the variety of feats. D&D 3.5 has a profusion of different feats, while 5th Edition has very few in comparison. It streamlines combat, but can reduce options.

In particular for me as DM, the "Fly by attack" feat doesn't exist in 5th Edition. That means I had to totally rethink my game plan compared to the 3.5 dragons I'm more used to using. Instead of endlessly harassing players and moving out of reach before they have the chance to react, in 5th Edition doing this would attract Opportunity attacks. So it would be a case of trying to isolate and overwhelm individual characters, putting them down then moving out of the way before help could arrive.

To give credit to the players, they did incredibly well tactically in this fight. They stayed close enough together that they could mutually support each other, but used cover and positioned themselves so that Clovermeld's jets of acid couldn't hit more than one or two of them in a single attack.

Clovermeld soon worked out that standing off and using his acid breath to wipe the party out wasn't going to work. They had enough missile weapons and ranged magical firepower that they would be able to match or exceed his damage output.

Swooping in to attack, the dragon had the advantage given by flight to be able to pick his target. He chose the battle priest Barrow Yazir, who was the party's main spellcaster and therefore a significant threat worth putting down first. It was a good plan, but a combination of Barrow being seriously well-armoured combined with some appalling dice rolling on my part meant that most of the first round of attacks failed to get through.

That was the point where the rest of the party piled onto Clovermeld. For a couple of rounds, the fight was a huge mess, with serious damage inflicted and taken by both sides. By the third round, Clovermeld decided it was time to break off if he was to survive.

That was the point where Morson the Paladin (whose Smite had failed on account of his previous misbehaviour) tried to make an unexpected and thoroughly heroic move. He realised that Clovermeld was about to withdraw, so he announced that he was going to try to jump on the dragon's back to stop him escaping.

The rules are pretty vague about such heroic and foolhardy actions, but I decided that "Rule of Cool" would definitely come into play here. I asked for a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to get an idea of how well (or poorly) the stunt went. An 18 on the dice told me that the move was successful - I described it in thoroughly heroic terms..

But then it was Clovermeld's turn in the initiative order. Instead of attacking, he did a full Disengage move, which enabled him to avoid the opportunity attacks that would otherwise have come his way. It also meant that he moved directly upwards, flying up and away by sixty feet.

As Morson's turn came around again, he struck at the dragon. A natural 20 ! For those who don't play Dungeons and Dragons, rolling a natural 20 on the dice is a critical hit which doubles the damage. To make things even better, he rolled very close to maximum damage; it was enough to slay the beast as he drove his longsword through it's skull.

That was the point where I invited him to roll his own falling damage, as he was sixty feet in the air atop a dead dragon that was no longer flapping it's wings. It was cruel but funny.

Amazingly, the damage didn't quite kill him, although he landed with a pretty big crash. Barrow was able to stagger over and give him some healing, and the party were proudly able to declare themselves dragonslayers. They had worked together as a team incredibly well, and deserved the accolade.

Next time..... the party finally starts the journey to Filrath....