Running VENOMFANG like a boss! | Lost Mine of Phandelver Campaign Guide
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 มิ.ย. 2019
- This guide will give you some tips on roleplaying the encounter with the young green dragon that your players will remember for a long time to come, especially if they're new to the game.
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Green dragons in D&D are tricky buggers. They dabble in politics and intrigue, and try to gather as much influence and power as they can with as little effort as possible. They talk in circles, lie like there's no tomorrow, and are just generally terrible to be around. Venomfang is no exception.
#dnd #rpg #dungeonsanddragons
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My party killed a lot of gobling/hobgoblins in the Cragmaw Castle, activated the trap, then went for a short rest to lick their wounds, BUT leaving all the corpses around. Having an entire hour, the remaining goblings spotted the corpses and alerted Grol and the doppelganger, so by the time the party reached the final room, Grol was holding "Gundren" (the doppleganger) hostage, and pretended to hurt him. Once they defeated Grol, "Gundren" guided the party to the "Mine" (which actually was Venomfang's tower), and when they arrived, the doppelganger said "Greetings from Black Spider" and fled while transforming in a drow. Then the party was already in the tower and Venomfang showed up from the shadows, and there the session ended. People loved it, and now I have to REALLY prepare the encounter but I am really afraid that they die because they have such cool and developed backgrounds.
Thanks for all the LMoP videos! I'm learning from all of them. A video for the Echo Wave Cave would be wonderful, it seems too loaded with combat and I would like to know how to address that without "emptying" it. Greetings from Spain.
They totally fell for it lol. I had to fudge the dice because it would have instakilled the warlock otherwise. The dragonborn fighter decided to stay as a sacrifice while the rest fled with the unconscious warlock (with the player REALLY accepting her fate, so it was amazing). Then venomfang decided to let her go (because the tiefling hit him hard with hellish rebuke after the breath, and he was sure it was better to not fight), but before that, when it appeared he was going to eat the dragonborn, he licked her and told her that she must spread the word that no one should approach to his lair, and now he knows how she "tastes" so he would find her quickly, and kill her and all of his friends if she didn't do it. They met Reidoth afterwards and elaborated a plan to bait VF out. They made some kind of scarecrows with the surrounding flora and put them together but slightly hidden before the trees, waited for dusk, then Reidoth turned into eagle form and they gave him a torch to burn the foliage on top of the tower. VF destroyed the top by flying out and stood on the top, looking for his foes. Then the PCs used Thaumaturgy and Minor Ilusion to make the scarecrows look like they were the PCs. VF jumped onto them and used his breath weapon (with no effect). Then, the PCs had a round of surprise, and they were carefully and scatterly positioned around that spot, so they quickly burst him down and forced him to flee on his next turn, while the dwarf yelled at him "Greetings to your sister!". It was a pretty damn epic session. They discussed the plan for an entire hour of realworld time hahaha. Thanks for all your tips!
I ran that encounter much like that. Venomfang definitely threw the druid under the bus, sent the party to kill him, but the barbarian for whatever reason didn't want to do it, and attacked the dragon instead. He didn't immediately kill the group, as he thought it was funny that they would even try. Many months later (real time) in a different campaign of STK (same group, same PCs), they were met by Venomfang in the air, and they battled it out, ultimately killing him, with just 1 hp left on the airship balloon thousands of feet up in the air.. It was a very very close encounter, and the groups first dragon kill.
That sounds epic!
It was pretty epic indeed.
I've run Venomfang just like that redditor recommended and it went really well!
First off, they entered Thundertree during a storm, an unnatural storm that was created by Reidoth weeks ago and was pouring down on the cultist and the dragon to no avail. By the time the adventurers came to the place it was almost a swamp, with heroe's corpses and pools of poison here and there. A horse cadaver on the roof of one of the shacks (that falls down after breaking the ceiling under its weight, surprising -even harming- whoever is caught), overall having a sense of horror and dread, clues leading towards the tower.
Now, when Reidoth warns the rest of the adventurers about Venomfang he refers to it as "the Horror" from Thundetree and speaks in riddles and nonesense, but is very clear on how deadly this threat is and to flee now or die there.
As the PCs advance closer and closer to the tower I take a minute to describe the spooky thunder storm, the spider corpses, the mutilated heroes laying in pools of blood and venom and from the old stone tower, a giant creature, lizardlike, with huge leathery wings and drooling poison from its jagged maw.
They were shocked, terrified, totally excited as we closed the session with my morphed voice and most memorable impression of a real freaking dragon: "You have come to the wrong place, puny mortals".
10/10 would fool them and spray them again!
BTW, I'm glad I came upon your channel, subscribed! Your videos are short, to the point, clear and useful. Your voice kindda reminded me to Matt Mercer's voice at some point, you've got the tools, Dungeon Master. You've got the tools.
"You in the wrong neighborhood, mother#@$!&"
That honestly sounds like an awesome session!
Thank you so much!
Radagahst can you tell me more about your voice morpher? Is it an app?
Whoah this is sick 👀 I love it
I had Venomfang tell the players that the decay, blights and general horror in Thundertree was actually caused by the pesky druid who had recently taken up residence in the area. He would be very grateful if this threat was eliminated, but he himself was unable to find the druid who was always hidding. In reality, the druid was actually using a barrier spell hindering the dragon from leaving the area, so that it would not cause unneccessary destruction.
For some reason, the players found the druids stern and unwelcoming manner to be less trustworthy than the dragon's reasonable and smooth tone, and they went and killed the druid. I then had the dragon be a reoccuring villain for the scenario and the final battle was just after they had been into the mine when the dragon was attacking the town of Phandelver, aided by the hobgoblins that were left from the castle with which he had allied.
I love unintended consequences!
My dm changed up venomfang and gave her warlock levels and made her a cunning villain who was trying to summon a dragon god. I know my dm put a lot more work into this then a lot of people too. Venomfang also gave us some cursed items and was a jerk. It was so satisfying to kill her
Great advice! I really wanted to include VenomFang into my campaign so thankfully the players took the bait to travel to Thundertree. I too used the advice given by BrosEquis! I had a doppelganger take the identity of a dragon slayer NPC the party had met on the road prior to Goblin Arrows during a chance encounter with Cryovain (white dragon from Dragon of Icespire Peak.) For some reason I managed to roll the Cyrovain encounter during the first overland travel moment from Neverwinter to the goblin ambush, heh. I had prepared the encounter with an NPC to save the party - so it worked out.
The doppelganger took the identity of the dragon slayer NPC after the dragon slayer NPC had failed (off screen) to defeat VF in his lair. After convincing the party to go with her to defeat the young dragon in Thundertree, they arrive to be hit with a lair fog that has the opportunity to charm. They failed some wisdom saving throws, but I didn't tell them why yet. The party meets Reidoth who tries to talk them out of confronting VF. The party, naturally, continues on to VF. The doppelganger changes their identity back as soon as VF begins to talk to them - the charm effect from the fog prevents many of them from running away. The paladin tries charging - one VF grapple action to grab paladin and throw them against the wall. (The paladin thought the dragon might be an illusion?) VF is actually an adult green dragon who had tricked the party with misinformation.
So now they're negotiating with VenomFang as he convinces them to acquire an Orb of Dragonkind that Nezznar had stolen from VF. It was something that he wanted to protect himself from Cryovain's aggressive incursions in Neverwinter Wood. This sub-plot gave the party a reason to go and defeat Nezznar beyond the main plot but also allowed me the option of making VenomFang the big bad in the follow up to LMoP.
Just had a Venomfang run last night, they have completely fallen for his "my sister wants me dead" ruse (well, it was a more complicated setup, I could explain it fully if people would be interested) and their naivety almost cost them life ( our Paladin and Mage were knocked unconscious, and Rogue took half the hit, while our barbarian was drunk outside). Mid-fight though, just as our barbarian was to be killed, my homebrewn Reidoth entered the fray, transformed into an Owlbear and parried the claw of the dragon and they had full-blown duel, which ended in Reidoth giving his life for the party. The party then managed to chase him away with his parting words: "This is not the end!" I nerfed Venomfang though, by giving his Multi-Attack two attacks instead of three (one Claw attack less), so they were kinda left of the hook by the merciful god that I am, however next time, they better be stronger and/or faster, because I've run out of mercy!
My two sons were new players when we ran Lost Mines. Our DM played him well but your way was much cooler. We actually killed him with 3rd level characters but it was a fluke. The die were really kind to us and we hit with crazy damage rolls. However, we had a great plan going in as we split the party, never got close and used Earthbind to keep him from escaping. As I said, it was a fluke and our DM was very surprised that we are successful. With that being said, I really enjoy your videos. They are well thought out and very insightful.
Thank you so much!
This video - and the comments to it - are GOLD for a new DM like me. Thank you all so, so much!
I actually had Venomfang be the mastermind for the treasure like you said. This includes the PC's fighting him after returning from Wave Echo Cave as he was in Phandalin waiting for them.
I DMed Thundertree this weekend and your advice came in really handy, thanks! The party fell for Venomfang's cunning plan hook, line and sinker. The dwarf cleric tried to make me promise that if they undertake my quest to kill his "sister" that I will never harm any innocent creature. I pulled the most honest face and whispered "Of course!" while giggling on the inside. I added a few homebew elements: 1. I exchanged the spider corpses outside Venomfang's tower for adventurers' corpses, so it looked like he ate them recently (and it added to the plausability of him not being hungry and not wanting to eat them). 2. I let Venomfang introduce himself as Tiamath, so as to hide a more ominous name.
Nice job, zarago! Although "Tiamat" is a pretty ominous name, since that's the name of the queen of evil dragons and the goddess of greed. :-)
forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Tiamat
@@LunchBreakHeroes Haha, you're right! Only later did I find out that I (totally randomly) picked an even more ominous, dangerous and powerful name. One of my friends said: "Tiamat? Fuuuuuuuuuuuu*k." :))))
I'm playing this encounter tomorrow. My characters ran into the building screaming "HELLOO, IS ANYONE HERE?". So yep, they are about to learn a lesson. But I am making VF blind in one eye, and that he can barely see out of another one, so the sister trick will play really well into an excuse for the scars on his eyes and having them get really close to show him the map. Thanks for the hints!! I will also throw in the Reidoth modifications, that sounds awesome!
This is my first time running a campaign, and my players (one of whom is playing for the first time ever) are currently plotting how to handle Venomfang (they don't know his name yet though) and the Cult of the Dragon. I've been listening to a few different videos and I love the ideas of how to play him in this! Thank you! I'm so hyped for this encounter and I can't wait to see what my players do.
My party of 3rd lvl characters killed Venomfang, too. We had a barb, a rogue, a wizard, and my sorc/bard. We got lucky, especially since we killed him with a shortbow shot from our rogue as Venomfang was trying to fly away. Our DM was pretty shocked that we managed it!
Excellent notes! Big thanks as this event is coming up in our next sesh!
Damn. Love your green. Just what I had imagined (first devious, THEN vicious). Best I've heard yet. Thank you.
No, no, no... Thank YOU
Man what a great time to play this game especially for a dm. I’m loving all these Mines of phandelver vids. They will help me so much when I run this campaign.
Glad they could help!
I read that Reddit too and what I plan to do is combine it with the white Dragon of Icespire Peak, Cryovain! So Venomfang will be telling the truth (as opposed to a lie about a made-up sister) I'll make him his half brother that both came down from the North but is confined to Thundertree and the nearby forest sometimes because white dragon is a stronger feral hunter and Venomfang would lose. But if the PCs can rid the region of Cryovain then a deal would be honored. (Or not!)
Sounds great! I have yet to pick up DoiP.
Awesome, I was planning on doing something similar based off of that post as well except my Venomfang won't be so honorable 😉 and won't be related to Cryovain either 😛
@@recon441 It's interesting to note that Venomfang has more HP than Cryovain! Maybe not weaker!
I had a large group of 6 pcs encounter VF at level 3. Cultists tricked them into walking in then slammed the door. VF went third... First two PCs pried the door open, VF did his breath and killed almost all the cultists and sent Cleric into death saves. It turned into the end of the Benny Hill Show.
Party returned at level 4 and did a surprise ambush, using flying and climbing members, and killed him in two turns.
I've come across that D&D article, before. It's really well done! Nice to see it getting a bit more spotlight on youtube now. Fantastic videos man!
Thank you so much!
Thanks for the video it was really cool! I am running Venomfang, Reidoth and the Dragon Cultists to tie in Lost Mines of Phandelver to the Tyranny of Dragons Adventure. Reidoth is trying to scare off the Cultists with the Twig Blights and the Cultists are try to gain Venomfangs support in trying to raise Tiamat.
Sounds great!
My players requisitioned a ballista from Neverwinter and killed it before I could even start to rp
I commend your players for bringing an appropriately-sized weapon to try and kill a dragon rather than trying to kill it with weapons designed to kill medium-sized humanoids.
How did they know they needed to bring that with them and where to set it up?
@@fhuber7507 We built our own ballista, and set ambush outside the tower, DM buffed venomfangs HP (we were a party of 6, at lvl 5, with a ballista.....) We knew what to do because my character was from thunder tree and we knew of the dragon and spent time roleplaying learning about dragon traits and was set on the idea of liberating his old home, etc. Our wizard cast enlarge on the ballista at the last moment as it was flying away and we took it down! Dragon steak tonight boys!
Its flesh poisonous?
hahahahaha
I will be running this encounter soon, as my party skipped Thundertree in LMoP and have recently been pointed back that direction. Perfect timing to run across this, and really appreciate the tips on role playing Venomfang. Looking forward to more videos!
Good I could help! Be sure to check out the other videos! 😁
Thank you Saitama!
(Seriously very helpful cheers)
I really didn’t play venomfang like this…I DM for my 3x kids and a friend of theirs. All aged between 7 and 9. They were arguing between themselves as no one wanted to start the fight (for the first time in this whole campaign), and they kept trying to talk him into leaving (again, this was the first time any of them tried talking as a first option, usually they just want to fight stuff). They were saying “what do you want us to do for you to leave/what can we do to convince you/what is it you need for us to convince you to leave?” Etc etc. There was an exchange of about 5 or 6 back and forths, with some arguing within the group. I was putting on a loud deep voice when role playing VF, then jumped up from my chair and bellowed “ENOUGH WITH THIS TALKING!” One of the kids jumped out of his skin, they were all silent for a second until I described VF taking flight, and started with the poison spray move. I docked the damage down to half and still had the party in tatters in a single move. They were totally freaking out, one of them was on a single hit point, one was having to do saving throws, the other two were at 10hp. Very different way of approaching the fight, but the kids wont forget it 😂
AHA! luckily I can use this, my friends wanted to finish the whole module now that summers started and we're getting to thundertree soon as it seems. Awesome video!
Good luck to you! Thundertree turned out to be my favorite part of the module, which surprised me. As written, it seemed really bland.
I used the hook that the dragon cult were going to sacrifice the party to the dragon to get in his good graces. then once they got there the party and the cult started arguing over what was supposed to be happening and Venom Fang used his breath weapon on everyone and it instantly killed the cult people, droop and took down a few players. then they started 'bargaining' with the party. he had them get some stuff for them to prove they were trustworthy. then he asked them to find a new home. to make sure this happened one of the characters of the party stayed with him. it was one of the players that couldn't make it that week. after finishing cleaning up thundertree they went to cragmaw castle and decided it would be a good home for Venomfang. It took them a couple of weeks to clear that out but when they did the dragon flew the whole party back to phandilin so they could ready for cave wave echo. he appreciated the new home and went to move his small horde to the new home
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You have done a good job. I am interested in what you make next.
Why, thank you! It'll most likely be a general tip video or a Curse of Strahd video--I haven't decided yet.
Great video! Coming from the r/DnDTubers community, I have one critique: I think changing the title or thumbnail to be about roleplaying green dragons in general, you would reach a wider audience. However I know you have other videos about LMoP, and staying in this niche-within-a-niche has its advantages. Just something to consider :) Keep up the good work!
Sounds like sound advice, Bob. I'll give that a shot if I need to play with the CTR down the line. :)
I am about to run this campaign as a first time DM. I was reading through the encounter with Venomfang and found it pretty lack luster. I've decided that Venomfang is going to be desguised as an emerald eyed woman who occasionally visits Phandalin. Her goal is also to find wave echo cave, because she thinks that would make a perfect lair. When she discovers the PCs are also looking for the cave, she decides to use them. She lures them to Thunder tree to her current lair, where she reveals her true form. She promises riches and treasure(which she has no plans of fulfilling)if they let her know the location and also clear it of any danger. If that doesn't work, she will make subtle threats about the well being of Phandalin
My party managed to kill Venomfang by constantly casting Command on it to make it grovel. It kept failing it saves so they ended up easily killing it because it was basically just skipping its turns
Noooo! That sucks.
My players managed to ground it with tidal wave. 😤
I just finished binge watching this series and took a bunch of notes. I already liked LMoP but this makes it so much more interesting.
Happy to help!
My players stumbled into Thundertree at a very low level. Probably 2-3. After having trouble with a few houses of zombies and twig blights, they thought it would be easier to check out the tower on the hill...
My players never seem to use stealth at the right times. Completely ignoring the gas-burned giant spider carcasses, they walked into the tower and came face to face with the dragon. I wasn't very prepared to role play this since I didn't foresee them getting here during this session. Venomfang offered a deal. All may leave...except the Hafling. The party tried to reason with the dragon, but rolled terribly and the offer got worse. They resolved to run. This might be my mistake as a new DM, but I had them roll initiative for this. They all rolled well enough to run away before the dragon reacted....except the Elf Wizard with the lowest hp.
The entire party sprinted to hiding places outside the tower without knowing the Wizard didn't make it out and was bleeding out inside the dragon's lair. To make matters worse, the human fighter elected to hide in a building that had yet to be investigated....and was met with 4 Ash Zombies.
Luckily, the party finally started making some good decisions. Half of them held off the zombies while the others ran back to find their friend. They rescued the wizard just in time, and ran out of town with a few lucky stealth rolls as the dragon looked for them from atop his perch, reluctant to fully leave his dwelling for fear someone would rob him of his treasure.
Good save! My own players bunched up in front of Venomfang and got hit with his breath attack. All went down save for one, who esaped through a hatch in the floor that I added. He then had to solo some dragon cultists, intimidate the others, and then rescue his comrades. It was a pretty epic session, especially for that one player.
@@LunchBreakHeroes First time I ran this was similar too this.... They blundered in to the tower and the breath weapon took down 4 of the 6. Thankfully the healers both stayed alive and were able to get the part back up before his breath could recharge. As Venomfang was trying to flee the archer managed to land a critical (first hit she had the whole fight) right after the barbarian landed a massive hit and the rogue before him.... They ended up dealing just under half the dragons health in the last round or 2 of combat. Lucky for them too because the dragon was about to use its breath weapon a second time and they were pretty beat up and grouped up.
I just one-shot my party with the breath weapon -.-', 3 players with level 3 characters. The rogue only got away because of a nat 20 on the last death save. I don’t know why they put in a CR8 monster at the beginning of the story. I, as the DM, had a lot of fun running Venomfang like you distribed tho!
Brilliant video im definetly goning to use some of this in my game im gonna run my first d&d game ever in a few weeks, I have never palyed d&d and first time im gonna be involved in a d&d game im the DM. Wish me luck
Good luck to you!
I've ran this module a handful of times now, but the most memorable Venomfang combat encounter was when our halfling bard found himself 20-35 feet out of range for a sleep spell(VF was trying to escape at this point). So naturally, the goliath barbarian took it upon himself to run the ol' fastball special with the bard holding the sleep spell. Yeah, they killed Venomfang via fall damage....
My party encountered Venomfang yesterday. So far they've been extremely cautious and always Insight checking almost anyone they meet and, combined with Reidoth telling them to never trust green dragons for they are cunning tricksters, I thought there was no way the party would fall for anything the dragon tries.
Well, not sure what happened during this session, but they decided to accept the dragon's invitation to his tower and listen to his request, not throwing a single insight check his way. When the dragon offered them all to pick a single item from his trove as forward payment for what he was about to ask of them, they gladly spent time bunched around the piles of loot. You can guess what happened next. Took them around 4 hours and two revivify scrolls (one of them straight from the dragon's trove) to get out of that mess. Hopefully that served as a good learning experience since those were all the revives I planned on giving them throughout the campaign.
Dragons are like Senators, got it
Nah, dragons get shit done.
Our dm had Venomfang changed up where she was in a form of a beautiful elf woman the entire party knew she was a dragon she just preferred to be more of presentable form. Venomfang tried to act as if she was just a dragon looking for a place to call home since she was driven out by her older sister and wanted us to lure Randolph enter the ruins so she can take care of him and let us go she tried to make it as if the druid was the one responsible for all the undead lingering in Thundertree and that he would lure adventures to try to kill her and all she was doing was defending herself. We convince the druid to enter the ruins he unlocks a door to the ruins and immediately after Venomfang transformed into her dragon form and punted him in the distance he survived just barely. Turned out the druid locked the dragon out from her treasure trove and was unable to get access to it unless Radolph himself unlocked where the trove was at. She then let us go as a reward for “entertaining” her. Make it sad during our entire encounter with venomfang our entire party tried to roll insight to see if she lying all of our rolls were under 10.
I like to note the entire time the dwarf in our party fallen in love with Venomfang and would flirt with her the entire time we were there. The dragon even gave him a war axe claiming it once was owned by one of the dwarf ancestors. Even after that our dwarf still can't get over venom fang. Our entire party including the drow I play try to convince the dwarf that sleeping with a green dragon is a bad idea but it seems he going to try to someday. At one time we were camping we found out the dwarf was being scryd by someone he was convinced it was Venomfang doing it to check him out it was later revealed when we entered Wave Echo cave it was revealed it was just the Black Spider spying the party let just say our dwarf was really bummed about it. Let say our dwarf was really bummed after that. Once we completed the main story in lost mines and headed back to Phandalan the dwarf got a message from her she looking to have tea with us. The dm mentioned he will implement Venomfang in the future looking forward to telling the dwarf I told you so. In addition the module we doing when we complete mines is Tyranny of Dragon so you could imagine how that will turn out.
good stuff mate! I ran venom fang almost the same way! Baby's first dragon should be memorable
Absolutely! It's a shame that my group got extremely lucky rolls and ended up destroying Venomfang in only a few rounds. I suppose downing a dragon in flight with a tidal wave is sort of memorable, though.
Great post. Wish I had seen it before I ran my scenario. Much more full and creative. Still, my players barely survived to make a deal to split Wave Echo output. In finishing Wave Echo and planning to ‘deal with Venomfang’ to get out of the deal - that is, kill him - they came to realize he had co-opted Iarno, the doppelgänger, Kost, and a few northern dwarves. The dwarves are now running mine operations. The doppelgänger and Iarno are at large, Kost has returned to Owl Well, and Venomfang roams freely, monitoring and managing his schemes. The players are plotting how to pick each one off individually while learning of additional renewed dragon activity in the area - white as immediate threat, black nearby to the west, and blue further to the south.....the plot thickens and the story progresses apace. I am sorting out having Venomfang’s new residence in either Wyvern Tor or, perhaps more to character, in Kryptgarden Forest
Sounds like you've definitely expanded beyond the written material! I like it. Although I haven't run it myself, you may have an opportunity to tie into Tyranny of Dragons, what with all this flying lizard activity going on.
Exactly the plan!
My party's fight with Venomfang is one of my most memorable sessions of D&D ever. The DM decided to have him encounter us in the morning after a long rest next to his tower. We thought were hidden enough and he was gone when we setup camp in the building. He lured half of us in and used breath weapon. Amazingly only the monk failed the save and was dropped. My ranger ran early and the wizard hid. The bard took bad damage and ran after my ranger. He was caught and dropped feet in front of my ranger. I drank potion of invisibility and continued to run into forest. The dragon went looking for the wizard. Death saves for monk and bard. The BOTH roll nat 20s and are up. The monk runs away in opposite direction of rest of party. The bard runs south to hide. Venomfang can't locate the wizard but notices the bard is gone. He finds him. It becomes a game of the bard casting Dissonant Whispers and running away Venomfang having to fly away and then flying back to look. Meanwhile the wizard, monk, and my ranger all keep running. Eventually VEnomfang gives up after taking a fair amount of damage and flies away. My ranger, the wizard and bard meet up. Not seeing the monk and thinking he was dead we assume he was eaten. We head back to Neverwinter. We are tired and hurting and scared. There is a rustling in the bushes and our bard uses last spell slot to cast shatter. Nearly killing the monk that had run away. We could not stop talking about that encounter for weeks.
I love the way and devious "manners" for Venomfang you propose. If he comes up, I'll play him exactly like that.
Just had a APK running Venomfang! 😬 It was the party’s first dragon encounter and they all stood very close to each other and they attacked.... And he used his breath weapon and they all died............ I think it was needed because now my players actually know what dragons can do and I am sure they will be more careful next time. 😋
That's a tough lesson to learn, but a necessary one.
My players went to thundertree. At level 2. They're new player teenagers.
Hard lessons incoming
Well. New DM. New Players.
The Players entered the tower, found the loot, decided to go up the staircase.
At the top venomfangs head suddenly poked in through the hole in the roof and startet to talk to the players. One player, however, wouldn't stop interrupting the players. So I just gased them all. Three out of five were instantly knocked out, two of which barely suvived.(all lvl 3)
Then the dragon gladly took all of their treasures, and let them flee.
"What happened to you guys?"
"... Got mugged by a green dragon."
Oh very interesting.
For the Venomfang is behind everything idea, I've heard one recommendation elsewhere that suggested that Venomfang would benefit from claiming Wave Echo Cave as their permanent lair. As it stands, it's a bit tight, but I'm sure a dragon might be able to make some improvements in terms of space to move around. As a chromatic dragon, however, they'd want the place to be secret, so maybe this whole thing is arranged such that cave gets enough new digging to become habitable for a dragon, but not so much exposure that it's impossible to kill the people who know where to find it when they've served their purpose.
I personally have a different take on things. Given that chromatic dragons are quite territorial, I'd suggest that a youngster like Venomfang is probably not going to be able to find ideal territory; a ruined town near a large forest is the best they can claim, but there's a problem: they have enemies here. Reidoth and his blights and the Gulthias Tree, the dragon cultists (who aren't so much enemies as just trying to involve Venomfang in affairs that will bring unacceptable amounts of risk and attention), possibly even just clearing out the Ash Zombies (undead immunity to poison means they can't just gas them with their breath weapon.) Venomfang certainly feels (or projects the feeling of being) capable of handling these threats if necessary, but it's beneath them. And here comes a group of adventurers to this place that's infested with undead, a mad druid worshiping a Gulthias Tree and cultists wanting to bring back Tiamat...surely they'll be game to take on all this kind of thing.
In this case, Venomfang will just wait, poking their head out of the tower's sky entrance (made by Venomfang, of course) and observe the party's progress. If they decide to investigate the tower or notice the dragon, Venomfang will parley with the party and make a deal: if they finish off the other threats, they can depart in peace. If the party seems too trusting, I might have Venomfang offer to let them keep what they find, rather than demanding they turn over anything they find in Thundertree before leaving. (This is a deliberate hint - Chromatic dragons don't just let people take stuff from their territory; demanding they turn over anything they find is a much more expected and honest approach...point is, I don't want my level 3 party to take this entirely at face value.) This all progresses fine right up to the point when they're actually leaving Thundertree (or have set up camp for the night before leaving in the morning), at which point Venomfang swoops down and drops their breath weapon on the party, then flies back up. Standard air tactics for dragons while the party runs for dear life (finding the entrance to a cave system deep enough to evade the breath weapon ) or turns to fight.
That is, of course, the first encounter. The second encounter will be backed up by a squad of orcs and an ogre as per your Wyvern Tor video.
Sounds a fun, albeit very perilous ride!
A lot of great ideas
What if the half-sister actually exists? Venomfang proposition's would be to team up with the party to overthrone the sister who dwells in a cave nearby. Then, when the party arrives there, Venomfang crosses them, and now thy have two dragons to fight. I think this is a much more devious plan, and it matchs better the evilness of a green dragon. The only problem is: How the party could survive it?
My group let Venomfang live. My character a Warlock was about to throw a Eldrich Blast at him, I use an inspiration and get 20 on both dices so the GM decide I get some extra damage bonuses, I roll well ending in a enormous blast that do really sting the dragon, the Warlock then launch into a speech about the power of his Patron Demogorgon and manage to convert Venomfang to the Cult of Demogorgon so he flew away and left our party alone, though prior to this he did murder our Cleric. My character did get arrested later for converting a Dragon to serve the Demogorgon after he started leading a massive cult sacrificing pepole, but hey it worked. Praise be to Demogorgon!
... and this is why we all love this game.
@@LunchBreakHeroes Indeed so. And my character is even a kind kid, he just have severe abandonment issues and have started seeing his Patron he refuse to see is evil as a father figure to everyone else's frustration. He really loves his Patron, so while he got arrested no one have had the heart to tell him that Venomfang's new cult sacrificed pepole.
I'm running LMoP for first time players. Got 1 Dragonborn and 2 draconic bloodline sorcerers in the party so trying to tie in dragons more.
Saw your other video on Nezznar and made him a Drider who is trying to release Lolth who has been imprisoned. Tiamat is helping Lolth escape so she can use her as a pawn in the war against the other dragon god.
Going to have the cultists trying to bring Venomfang in on this plan when the party arrive. The party haven't decided which side they're on yet as they saw a vision of Tiamat who called them "children" which they took as "my children" not "infants".
Think we'll get to to Thundertree tomorrow but may save Venomfang for the session after to build suspense.
Sounds like awesome groundwork for Rise of Tiamat!
@@LunchBreakHeroes with so much interest in dragons thought that would be a good adventure to seed for next. Maybe via Ice Spire to continue to develop Phandalin.
Nice video. I just think all side quest should somehow be linked to the black spider or the wave echo cave in some way! So that the players feel like they are making progress in unraveling the mistery of the adventure. As written all those side quest, although cool don't do that unfortunately.
so good
We escaped venom fang however my barbarians pet badger Belinda was still in his backpack and he died
these are really good, and helpful for DM who want to change up the starter campaign.
Is there a write up of these sorts of ideas somewhere?
You can find the BrosEquis write-up here: I think more and more about what I'm going to do ...
www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/2e682e/what_makes_the_green_dragon_work_in_lost_mines_of/cjwhmus?
I am combining LMoP with DoIP and Venomfang is going to try to recruit the players to drive Cryovane from "his" domain
You have some good ideas. I like your videos. Can you do a guide for Dragon of icespire peak?
Thanks for watching! I'm sure at some point, I will.
Good timing, I'm curious as to your take on this.
By all means, keep watching. :-)
@@LunchBreakHeroes Well done! Playing a dragon as it should be played. Thanks for the idea on expanding Venomfang's involvement in the area.
I'm still kind of deciding what to do, I wish I would have seen this earlier haha. My players went to Thundertree and made a deal with the druid to drive off the dragon in exchange for information about the Wave Echo Cave. They then promised to tell Venomfang the location of the cave, if he would "pretend" to leave the tower in order to appease the Druid, but Venomfang said he would only cooperate if they agreed to kill the druid after they got their information. They agreed, but the Druid would not immediately reveal the location and told the players the players meet him in Phandalin after he took care of some business. So of course Venomfang has no real intention of cooperating with the players, but i'm not real sure how to play that out. He did fly away briefly to make the players think he was on their side, but I'm not sure where to put him now. I very strongly want Venomfang to be the "final boss" of the campaign, so I dont want to bank on the players returning to Thundertree, as they no longer have any reason to go there. The players have continued their journey and are have reached endgame, and have now just entered Wave Echo Cave. I was thinking of having the dragon meet them outside of the cave when they exit, but it might be overkill to put the dragon fight right after the Nezznar fight, especially if the players don't rest.
That is an interesting situation.
It sounds like Venomfang wants Reidoth dead, first and foremost. Secondarily, perhaps he wants to eat some adventurers. I would imagine that he follows the party, especially if he knows what they're after. Once the party gets to the cave, maybe Venomfang is their first encounter.
"Before you looms an opening into the hillside, its periphery littered with broken mining tools, slashed tents, and other signs of attack. The hooded figure of the druid points beyond the camp toward the opening. 'There is the cave you seek,' he says. 'Tread carefully.'
Just as you begin to take steps toward the mouth of the cave, a blur of a shape slams into the ground in front of you, sending leaves and the remains of the campsite flying. Standing between you and Wave Echo cave now is none other than Venomfang, his emerald eyes peering down upon you. His mouth opens wide and the smell of ammonia assaults your nose. Roll initiative."
Sure, he's not the last boss, but this way you can at least avoid a TPK, especially with Reidoth's help.
If you want to save him until after the cave, and make him the "final boss", then be sure to give the party plenty of means of escape. That water in the cave comes in from somewhere, after all.
Venomfang is totally TPK. Hide and then breath from ambush.
Only way my players survived: i have not used breath and then the party run away while Venomfang chaised one of them. So he ate only one. This even without cultists.
I would lovo to know more about Venomfang being the mastermind behind the hole campaign. Where do I find this material?
"there is no sister" green dragon, unless you're also running Dragon of Icespire Peak in which case his concern is Cryovain who has moved into the area. He knows about Cryovain but Cryovain doesnt know about him yet as Venomfang works in the background. So he really does want the adventurers to resolve this other dragon for him.
Which means you have 3 powers in the region. Cryovain to the east dominating the Many-Arrow tribe of orcs who are pushing outwards, Venomfang to the northwest and actual overlord of King Grol, which is why the Black Spider is having to treat with him for the dwarf, and ofc Nezznar. With the additional adventures coming from Icespire Peak I've felt it ok to bump up Nezznar a bit (also, female drow now....why are drow letting a male drow try and take control of a major magical site?) which with illusion magic enables her as well as the dopplegangers to come into contact with the PCs in Phandalin like other NPCs, especially whilst looking for Wave Echo Cave where better to try and find information?
How do you bring back venomfang later and change the core narrative to make him the true mastermind behind everything?
Here is my custom Venomfang encounter for my party:
The party is entering ruins on foot with the mercenaries and Tarthen
Giant spider corpses surround the old broken tower. Venomfang is found inside wounded after a territorial dispute with Corax, a young bronze dragon that he claims is encroaching on his territory from the nearby coast. Wounded and outnumbered by the party, he claims to be attempting to purge the forest around Thundertree of its curse in order to make it his permanent home and is being hampered in his efforts by the warmongering bronze dragon. In reality he wants to buy time to heal from his wounds and plan an ambush for the returning adventurers while at the same time potentially outsourcing the defeat of a rival dragon.
If the party met with Reidoth first and confront Venomfang with the information he's given them, Venomfang claims that Reidoth is a powerful, corrupt Druid and the true source of the forest curse.
If the party sees through his ruse and attacks, Venomfang unleashes a breathe weapon attack and attempts to flee, returning in 7 days time when he has fully recovered.
If the party fall for Venomfang's deception, they are tasked with finding and eliminating Corax with the promise of a share of the hoard that Venomfang has amassed. (10,000 gold pieces) and upon their return are ambushed by the fully recovered dragon.
You got me fucked up cause I'm watching this video wearing that exact same shirt.
One of us, one of us!
When I first ran this my party of 3 level 3's actually manages to kill him with insaine dice rolls and really poor ones from me.
I can empathize.
My level 4s rolled him, unfortunately. They had help from Reidoth and some blights, but it was mostly Reidoth's successful Tidal Wave spell that knocked down the flying dragon.
@@LunchBreakHeroes I had a dwarf champion passed his breath weapon save, hunter ranger and a druid. Dice rolls tipped massively in the players favour. They loved it haha
My aim is to transition into HotDQ and RoT respectively from LMoP. I’m also trying yo weave in Cryovain from the Essentials kit. The deal is that the Black Spider actually works for the cult of the dragon and Venomfang tries to force the party to kill Cryovain for him as he’s been encroaching on his territory. He’s playing the cult a bit to his advantage here because the cult would much rather recruit both dragons. If the players refuse, he threatens to terrorize Phandalin or just kill them outright. They may ash why doesn’t he kill Cryovain himself or wouldn’t they be able to kill him as well if they’re to take on another young dragon. His reply would be that Cryovain being a white dragon is rather dim. Additionally he’s also not expecting an attack.
So I actually just ran this for my kids. They found Riedroth first who advised them to leave before they got themselves killed but did of course mention the cultists and dragon and agreed to take the party to wave echo cave if they convinced the dragon to leave. Next they went and found the cultists and absolutely fell for the cultists lies. So together with the cultists they went into the dragons lair to convince venomfang to leave. The party was unsuccessfully trying to convince venomfang to leave without a fight when the cultists of course offered their services to the dragon as well as "these would be dragonslayers" then proceeded to shove the party towards the dragon and slam and bar the door shut behind the party leaving them to face venomfang alone. Just as venomfang was about to release his breath weapon, the druid interfered from above calling out to the party "I told ye you should av left before ye get yourself killed!"(but not before I showed the party what the damage for the breath weapon would have been) The dragon climbed up the side of the tower and out chasing the druid. At which point the party frantically started trying to break down the door. Finally succeeding, they hauled ass out of thunder tree as fast as possible with venomfang still circling overhead pissed off and looking for the hated druid. Too distracted to notice the party. That's where we left off.
I appreciate the idea about how to use Venomfang, I am truly not familiar with Green Dragons, so this video helps out immensely.
How did you incorporate the Cult of the Dragon part? Sounds like they are trying to entice Venomfang to join the other Dragons for glory and riches(as undead dragons!).
I also own Pool of Radiance module which also utilizes the Cult of the Dragon as the main villain group. I am heading down the path of making Lost Mine a feed into Pool of Radiance. Of course the Players would have to develop a desire but I am sure that could be arranged. Any thoughts on this?
My dm switched up the story, making venomfang the final boss of the campaign and we, a 6 person party of level 4’s, somehow killed it
Also i summoned a unicorn with wild magic and rolled a nat 20 on animal handling, named it kyle, and kyle was half the reason we only lost 2 people
Lifer talented DM/player recommended you. I love your stuff! But comment here. Arcane skill roll (maybe a ranger with draconic as favoured foe?) , if high, could emphasize just how dangerous a sub-adult large green dragon can be. Maybe even with hints about the breath weapon... something I plan to do to make your vanilla PHB ranger more diverse? Without the tough choice of humanoids they are likely to outgrow as the level up. Or dragon they can't handle until they level up? Let favoured foe: draconic include dragon themed humanoids. So um dragonborn and kobolds? Needless to say, this will often require the DM to produce related NPCs for the 'chunky salsa' scene.
What made you fabricate the half sister story and come up with using the tower to attack the players? I feel like I never read that in the adventure and these awesome tips could have totally been integrated in the book with a side bar
A mix of my own and others’ creativity!
Just hearing about a Rumor that there might be a dragon Made it so my party wouldn’t even go near thundertree. even when the halfling gave them te location of the loot that they can find after they helped her. XD
My players are in the middle of wave echo cave and will soon adventure to Thundertree, thank you for this advice, but their plan is to I presume kill it, if Venomfang gets low enough should I divert them to the young white dragon living on icespire peak? or should I save that for another adventure?
Dear Lunch Break Heroes (if only we could be heroes in a single lunch break!);
My name is Seth and I am a long time player and DM of 5th Edition. Being in my 30's, an RPG gamer, writer, reader, roleplayer, etc; I have extensive sources for inspiration. I just found your video's today, however, and they have been amazingly insightful.
My question was concerning if you had a Reddit account or some way we could converse more directly at length, as I have used my plot weaving skills to merge LMoP into the Tyranny of Dragons set and would love to bounce ideas and brainstorm and get opinions, as well as tell you all about my last 2 parties that I ran through to Wave Echo and beyond.
You can find my Reddit @ Airatome1
Also... dont mind the business account. Has been associated with this Gmail account for years >.
Sure thing, I'll hit you up. You can also find my Reddit button in the banner on my channel page. :)
Rn I'm working on making venomfang a dragon that has been summoned from hell by cultists worshipping asmodeus (its a long story) and the scene I'm setting up in my head is "they walk into the room and see cultists bodies littered everywhere, a summoning circle is ine the center of the room, and a glowing, vile monster of rotting meat is floating above it." I'm struggling on how I would make him "cunning" though. Any ideas?
Venom fang is the final boss for me and the party is a group of four level four player they are all veterans and I think I could tpk them what should I do?
If they’re vets, foreshadow what’s ahead and let them prepare as best as they can. Maybe even give them a chance to level up to 5.
I'm running LMoP for a small group of friends. 'tis the first campaign I've ever GMed as well.
Venomfang pussles me: He's a large creature in a tower ruin with inner circumference less than 15 x 15 feet and with a 5-feet wide stair that takes up some of that space. (It's just one single room with height 40 feet.) How is that suitable for a large dragon? he should fit in there, but I can imagine he's having a rought time turning around?
You suggest he's hidden in a "hight spot" within the tower, hidden by foilage. Are young green dragons smaller than I imagine?
Have you seen th-cam.com/video/7soyZnPFti0/w-d-xo.html ? It's very informative, though I can't tell if he makes up some of it or if it's all canon.
If he's right in that green dragon does corrupt the wildlife (especially plants) around its lair, then Venomfang is likely responsible for the presense of twig blights, perhaps the spiders and stirges as well?
One square on the map of Thundertree is ten feet, so he fits just fine in the tower.
Green dragons, at least young ones, do t have lair effects in RAW. But you can do whatever you want. According to lore, blights are created by Gulthias trees, which is where my video on Reidoth came from.
I tried this in my campaign and let me say I was surprised how well it worked. 4/6 players were immediately down when failing saving throws, 1 succeeded. 1 turned into the spider trying to get around and come from the top. By the time he was on top and saw what happened, he tried to kinda attack him and noped out.xD
Anyhow thank you for your ideas. I am running Curse of Strahd next and am already watching your videos.
Venomfang is a young dragon that must be looking for a better lair.
The place he is found in LMoP is just inappropriate for a long term lair.
So, he's an easy to bargain with dragon. If the PCs tell him of the goblin lair, he will be interested.
But He's still an evil dragon. He doesn't want "people" to know where his lair will be until he's established and grown more powerful.
***************
One group skipped killing the goblins. They found the lair and were getting beaten up badly so they ran and never went back.
They told Venomfang they knew where there was a cave full of tasty goblins.
So Venomfang had them lead him to the ave.
When they got there, the goblins had abandoned the cave because they didn't want to have a small army of "hoomanns" come and wipe them out.
Venomfang was not amused by the empty cave, since he was hungry.
Sorry guys. You tried to bargain with one of the most evil creatures you could meet. And its a LAWFUL evil and you couldn't fulfill your part of the deal.
So he ate the party.
About to run a One-shot with 40year olds and their kids...So i decided to make them well fight the iconic Venomfang....yup I'm gonnah want them to group up....
My players antagonized the dragon. I gave them 2 chances to try and get out of it. Venomfang put them down in one breath....way overpowered for an intro quest. WOTC should know better.
I botched this encounter so hard...wish I had watched this earlier :-(
I have a team of new players, if I run it like this, they’re all dead 😂
In my game the GM had him carry of a hated PC (one of "that guy" players) explicitly narrated to never be seen again. Sadly the player created 3 equally annoying characters and continued to pester the party for 5 more sessions (to he killed by another boss he foolishly engaged on his own)
Can anyone tell me if this is metagaming
My DM had us roll for a dex saving throw or be grappled by vines that shot out from the ground.
My bard was able to get away from it but unfortunately my companions we’re entangledand
My companions we’re dragged through the ground into the hole were the vines came from and were transported to Venom fangs lair
Also note that we were standing at least 15 feet away from the exit of the village Thunder tree as we planned to head back to the town of Phandalin to gather some equipment.
I’d really wanna call bogus at my DM for making us meet the dragon in a very premature pace as well having the green dragon be able to control plants/nature
This was my first campaign and I had two failed death saving throws because of venomfang while one of my party members seduced him
Good advice - but dragons just don’t make any sense in DnD. They’re just grade B human villains in big rubber dragon suits.
Dragons? I my D&D? It's more likely than you think.