More D&D adventures with Ryan! Last weekend, he had the iconic fight from Lost Mine of Phandelver - he fought the dragon. Not sure if anyone's planning to play that, so I'll spoiler-font this one:
This is supposed to be a tough fight, indeed they're not supposed to kill it. By the time Ryan's party got to it, they were 3rd level, and this young green dragon is CR 8. The saving grace is that if the dragon is reduced to half its hp, it decides this lair is more trouble than it's worth and flies off, ceding the battlefield. (The party gets a little over half XP for it.)
Ryan killed the dragon. I did give him one fudge, being a five-year old boy - his Stealth roll wasn't quite good enough to surprise the dragon, but feeling that the fight might get out of hand, I decided the door and walls were thick enough for an additional bonus. He therefore got a surprise round, and then the dragon rolled pretty low on its initiative.
Ryan and his party got in quite a few shots before the dragon's turn, and he was rolling red hot. I think he hit on all but one or two attacks, and scored two crits (including the sneak attacking rogue). The dragon had already lost half its hit points by the time of its first attack.
My second intervention here: rather than have it flee, I decided that it would keep fighting. Taking off without any kind of effort felt wrong; and since I could now justify sending it off if it ever became too threatening. Plus, you can't fight a dragon without getting something nasty breathed all over you.
Poison gas damage was 12d6. Ryan started giggling madly as I picked up the dice, one by one, and the number just kept growing. (He understands the inherent pleasure in rolling great handfuls of dice.) The resulting damage (40) felled 60% of the party - the wizard would've been killed outright but for Ryan's cleric having cast Aid. Left standing was the rogue, and Ryan's own dwarven cleric. His poison resistance held him in good stead.
Now the fight felt like a proper life-or-death struggle, as Ryan's cleric popped around the battleground, trying to reanimate his colleagues (and bopping the dragon with his Spiritual Weapon). His dice did not desert him, and he kept up some steady daamge. The dragon got one more turn, trying and largely failing to maul the archer, and finally the revitalised wizard popped it with a Chromatic Orb (lightning). Oh, I like what they've done with the Orb spells too, though my 3.5e Arcane Trickster still bemoans the loss of touch AC.
So hurrah for little dragonslayer boys, and the 3,900 XP was just enough for him to hit 4th level. He's feeling very pleased with himself, and with some cause. (Though there's no uestion he was hugely lucky to do so well.) I don't know what I can throw at him to top this.