D&D 5E How did you fare against Venomfang the Young Green Dragon Lost Mine of Phandelver?

[Fire Brand]

What’s happened to your party (or as a DM, the party) when you (they) encountered Venomfang the Young Green Dragon in Part 3: The Spider’s Web 7. Dragon’s Tower encounter (pp 32-33)?

Did you talk to him to avoid combat?

Avoid him undetected? (does a DM give any XP for that?)

Fight and somehow take him to down half HP to make him fly away per the adventure notes?

TPK?

Run away!?

Other tactics and resolution?

Side notes: I haven’t checked to see if his XP value makes a difference in leveling-up throughout the entire adventure ie. do you have to deal with him somehow to get at least a certain amount of XP?

[minor spoiler] ‘Hew’ the Dwarven +1 Battleaxe in his treasure that he doesn’t know about helps role play because it was used in a Dwarf's feud with dryads. So it makes the wielder feel uneasy in a forest. Was anyone able to get it from his lair maybe by distracting him (like telling him his mom told him he had to go home for dinner that tastes much better than what’s in front of him)?

 

[Spookykid]

Old post but we just finished this part and it was pretty epic. I would like to hear other peoples stories as well.

Some of our group was outside talking to it while i was searching around inside. They pissed it off and it jumped off the tower to chow on our wizard, he went down. That gave me the chance to run up the stairs and jump off the tower onto its back. We dumped everything we had on it and it was about half dead. The dm wanted to at least take down another person before it flew away so it stayed around. Then we had something like 5 critical hits against it in one round and had something like 5 hp left maybe and tried to run but just took one more shot to kill it. We saved the wizard and my girlfriend and the dm was pissed because we did so well. We were all stunned that we did so awsome.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

They tried to sneak in...got busted.
They talked to him...then pissed him off by not being respectful enough.
They then got breathes upon and two of three dropped, one to one point from auto death. The third, being a green Dragonborn with resistance, made it out alive by promising to be a good respecter of VF's manifold glories and was allowed to remove his companions for a quick heal avec Druid.
Then they snuck back in and stole his loot then got chased - a lot.
Eventually, 3 levels up and an extra PC on board, they took him down, but even then it was touch and go with another 1pt from auto death (but for a different character this time).
They are scared to death of dragons. And to think that one still has dragon acne...brr.

 

[SuperTD]

My party decided to head back to Neverwinter, use all the money they'd made and a few persuasion checks to hire a squad of about 30 mercenary crossbowman/archers, and then set up an ambush for Venomfang in the village. He died in about 3 rounds.

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

My character sneaked into Venomfang's lair while he (she?) was away. Found a nice magical scimitar and made my escape. As the dragon did not soon return we decided to go back in (full party) and loot the whole place. The dragon showed up while we were there.

My character got the hell out quickly. Three others grouped up by the front door: breath weapon - two drop, one down to 1 or 2 hp. The one standing character and mine grabbed bodies and ran like hell. The DM hand-waved our escape as we dove off the side of the bluff into brambles and briars.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[AngryTiger]

My party killed venomfang. They were warned by the druid in thundertree about the dragon, who also wanted them to go kill it. They knew it would probably be pretty tough fight, so finished the adventure first, and went back after clearing wave echo cave and hitting level 5, which made all the difference in the fight.

The dragon was acting peaceful at first, deceiving tu lure them closer, then opened up with breath weapon, which almost wiped half the team right there. The party then were surrounding it to avoid whole team being hit by breath weapon again. The party included Barbarian(totem), bard(lore), druid(moon) and fighter(Eldritch knight).

The druid casted moonbeam on the dragon, then changed into bear form for more hitpoints, while using her action to keep targeting the dragon with the moonbeam. The barbarian and fighter kept attacking at melee range. The bard got knocked unconscious early in the fight by second breath weapon attack, which also knocked the druid out of bear form.

Near the end of the fight bard rolled natural 20 on a death saving throw and jumped back on his feet, but the fighter was knocked unconscious. When the dragon got low on hitpoints, it decided to fly away, but the druid shot it out of the sky with her longbow(She had bracers of archery giving her profiency, i replaced the boots of striding and springing in wave echo cave with the bracers since the party already had the boots from earlier introduction adventure). The druid was only one able to shoot the dragon at that point, since barbarian lacked ranged weapons, the fighter was unconscious, and the bard lost his other hand from the dragon breath(using lingering injuries on DMG, i roll on the table whenever someone drops to 0 hitpoints or fails a death saving throw).

 

[wedgeski]

After a warning from the druid, my party decided they were going to have at Venomfang (if you knew them, then like me you would have fully expected this).

They pooled their money and jewels, and fooled the dragon with a simple plan to offer it the whole lot while disguised as the (soon to be dead) cultist leader. With the druid's help, what followed was a string of d20 rolls so spectacular that the dragon was not only utterly fooled, but also killed *before it even got to act* by concerted critical hits by almost the entire party.

Quite the memorable encounter.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

My party had been warned of the dragon before their arrival.

At first it seemed like they were in serious trouble because they hadn't realized the breath weapon would be a cone, so they all were caught in it right at the start of battle. Even with everyone passing their saves, things seem dire.

But then the players had really great luck on the dice rolls of their first round of actions, including a few critical hits, while I manage to not roll well at all. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that the Venomfang tried to flee and was shot out of the sky following. I think the whole encounter only lasted just into the 3rd round - but that is what I expect to happen when the party is aware of the danger a threat presents and goes all-out to defeat it (burning every resource they could to get the job done).

 

[jayoungr]

In my game, Venomfang had the map in her* hoard. The party offered to trade her an emerald necklace plus delivery of the dragon cultists for her breakfast in exchange for the map, which they convinced her was nothing she would be interested in. Then they tricked the cultists into thinking the dragon was ready to work with them, but she wanted to see them in her tower right away. The cultists went to the tower, where the dragon killed and ate them; then the party turned over the necklace and took the map. On their way out, they suggested that she might find Cragmaw Castle a more comfortable nest. They saw her flying in that direction as they headed back through Neverwinter Wood.

(A more detailed account is here.)

*I made Venomfang female just for variety.