I once saw a list of Dungeons and Dragons cliché sayings. The one for the bard class read: I’ve never killed a dragon, but 29 ranks in bluff sure makes you think I did. That’s a great bardic turn of phrase. But, with far less ranks in bluff, I can teach you a much better bardic trick when facing a dragon.
You’ll recall from the last installment of Being a Bard, our intrepid bard, Roger Sparx, employed the Bugs Bunny Tactic—a cunning use of a disguise kit, the alter-self spell and good dice rolls—to disguise as a female hobgoblin, luring a male hobgoblin out of its ambush and into Roger Sparx’s party’s ambush. This time I’ll show you Roger’s next trick: bluffing a dragon out of fighting and walking away from its precious hoard.
The Setup
After many quests topside, Roger Sparx finds himself questing in the Underdark. His new party members—an anthropomorphic crocodile fighter, a drow necromancer and a drow ranger— are evil aligned characters native to the Underdark. Despite his natural charm and charisma, Roger sticks out like a sore thumb in most towns in the Underdark. So, a side quest leading the party into the wilderness to retrieve five artifacts guarded by five different dragons, was a dangerous but welcome change of pace. Since the party lacks a thief or a rogue, retrieving five artifacts from five dragons really means fighting and killing five dragons. Luckily not all at once.
Killing a dragon isn’t an easy task, but the first one was the hardest. After killing that first dragon, our necromancer then raised that dragon as his undead pawn. Repeat: zombie dragon. While killing the second dragon was difficult as well (they are wickedly smart on top of their physical prowess), it was made easier by having a zombie dragon at our disposal. After killing the second of the five dragons on our list, the necromancer then raised that dragon too. Now we had two zombie dragons. Maybe this blog should be renamed Being a Necromancer? The next dragon on our list, an adult green dragon named Kallionastiryne, was certainly in big trouble. (Insert evil laugh here) What can I say? Being in the Underdark is rubbing off.
The Punk Out
As many of you know, finding a dragon’s lair isn’t easy. Gaining entry can be even more difficult. But as a party of pros, we managed to track/locate this dragon’s lair in a mountain with an unnaturally shear face on the side from which we approached. There was no sign of an entrance anywhere—certainly not one large enough to accommodate a dragon sized creature.
After a search by our drow ranger, a secret door was discovered magically hidden in the shear face of the mountain—a door large enough for the party to fit through but not large enough for our accompanying zombie dragons. The Dungeon Master had gotten tired of our zombie tactic. So, we go this round alone, virtually guaranteeing a difficult fight. After wandering for quite some time through the labyrinthine but surprisingly well appointed halls of the inner-mountain, the party turned a corner (lulled into false sense of security by the sheer emptiness of such a large underground structure) and made visual contact with a dragon sitting upon its hoard about one hundred feet away in a large room at the end of the hallway. Also worth note, the large green dragon made visual contact with us. He’d been expecting us. A spout of fire erupted from the dragon’s open snout, but we managed to pass our skill checks and ducked back around the corner we had just nonchalantly turned a moment before. What was the party to do? We hadn’t gotten any kind of a jump on the beast and tactically we were at a disadvantage with the dragon guarding the only path to its hoard room via a chokepoint we’d have to pass in order to get into said larger room.
It was in this moment that Roger Sparx (jokingly of course) turned to the anthropomorphic croc and suggested that she peek her head around the corner and talk to the dragon—ya know, reptile to reptile—and explain that if the dragon didn’t leave we’d be forced to kill it and take its hoard regardless. The crocodile then turned to Roger Sparx and said “Why don’t you do it? You’re the bard.” She wasn’t joking. Gulp. After giving himself a short pep talk, Roger agreed to the suicidal tactic and stepped around the corner once again to face the dragon—at distance—one on one.
With 18 ranks in bluff plus a roll of 13 on the 20 sider and the Glibness spell, which imbues the user with an addition +30 bluffing, Roger had a bluff total of 61. Armed with perhaps the biggest bluff total in history, Roger assertively informed Kallionastiryne that, if he didn’t leave post-haste, the party of adventurers would unquestionably kill him. Surely, you’ve heard of us by now said Roger. The large green dragon rose up on its front legs, inhaled deeply and puffed its chest out. Roger didn’t have time to duck back around the corner before the dragon released a forceful gust of flame. But this time it wasn’t aimed at Roger Sparx. This time the dragon breathed its fire into a large pool of green water that lay between him and the adventurers. The large room filled with thick green steam, and when it cleared the dragon was gone—the hoard with the artifact the party came for remained.
The dragon had heard of us and chose to live to fight another day even at the expense of its hoard. The party achieved the task at hand, and nobody took a lick of damage. And, most importantly to a bard, Roger gained a new tale to tell at the next tavern along his journey. As always, to all my fellow bards, Godspeed and safe travels!
