D&D 5E Setting Party level vs an Ancient Red Dragon

Storyteller Hero said:

Here's the thing. A dragon is only as weak or as strong as the circumstances under which it is fought allow it to be and how the DM plays it. If played to its full potential, a dragon is far more deadly than many people might realize.

For example, if the dragon is already in flight when the battle begins, then it can swoop down and pick up PCs with a grapple to toss or drop them with great force, or use its breath weapon from a distance.

For example, if the dragon is being attacked in its lair, then there are any number of traps and lair actions that could greatly hinder the PCs from even reaching the monster.

For example, if the environment is destructible or mutable then the PCs have to worry about things like falling debris, or burning trees, or cracks in the ground, or difficult terrain.

For example, if the dragon is attacking in an area with lots of obstacles, then it can potentially use cover against the PCs.

Grappling, flight, environmental obstacles, hazards, the improvised damage table in chapter 8 of the DMG, lair actions, traps, and falling damage - it is easy for a DM to overlook any one of these aspects of the game, thereby making a dragon fight easier than it would be if playing an intelligent dragon as it might logically behave under reasonable conditions.

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All your ideas about cover, and cool environment effects and such are great.

But the "play it as an intelligent monster" bit is an old hackneyed trope. A red dragon is the king of the hill. It will not retreat. It will not sneak. And it will definitely not use cowardly (and frankly, boring, tactics) such as taking one party member and fleeing.

More generally, if we want a monster to do special stuff, that stuff should be in its stat block.

A designer should not be able to get away with "yeah, this monster is a bit vanilla, let's raise its INT from 10 to 20, that should do it".

That does nothing. Except give it better skills and INT saves. For some posters, however, it inexplicably green-lights putting the onus of making the actual monster work on the DMs shoulders, and that's not what we pay the designers for.

I just had an encounter with a level 20 party, and they were worried. How? Well, I did add some levels of sorcerer to the dragon but don't underestimate the power of an ancient dragon.

The tactics were simple - the dragon knew they were coming so he didn't play stupid. He created cover (low-hanging clouds of smoke) sent in some minions to distract the party and then used his fire breath. Between fear (which many people had no chance of succeeding at) preventing the melee types from getting closer and legendary actions (wing buffet) to keep the party from swarming him he focused on one individual at a time, getting as many people as he could with his breath weapons when they recharged. Just because he's "king of the hill" doesn't mean he's an idiot who is going to go toe-to-toe with the raging barbarian if he has a choice.

Admittedly the party didn't know exactly what they were going to face and only a couple of the people had fire resistance. There was no paladin fear-suppression aura. The added levels of sorcerer along with the Luck feat, legendary saves and counterspell were also there but honestly I didn't even use those abilities.

The difficulty is going to vary dramatically by party; a paladin could have suppressed fear, archers could have pegged him from a distance. But at that point I would have just changed my tactics. Fly by using reach to attack, grab the paladin and toss him somewhere out of the way or just let them clump up so I can breath on them all from 90 feet away and then get somewhere I can't be seen or targeted.

Don't listen to the naysayers, if you just run any monster as a big bag of hit points that does nothing to take advantage of their strengths, fights will be boring.

D&D, esp. 5e, is not designed to accommodate 1 encounter/long rest.

The more long rest classes in the party the stronger they will be.

The encounter is also likely to be a quick and easy victory for either side. The party either quickly disposes of the dragon or the dragon destroys half the party and mops up the rest in subsequent rounds.

Oofta said:

Don't listen to the naysayers, if you just run any monster as a big bag of hit points that does nothing to take advantage of their strengths, fights will be boring.

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Good tactics but disappointing conclusion.

Nobody wants a big bag of hp.

What we want is the relevant abilities written into the stat block.

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CapnZapp said:

Good tactics but disappointing conclusion.

Nobody wants a big bag of hp.

What we want is the relevant abilities written into the stat block.

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

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If you ever come up with suggestions of how they could possibly do that feel free to chime in. Just saying "it's broken and I have no suggestions on how to fix it" is just boring.

For context: the dragon is The Dragon. A decade ago it landed in the capital, slagged the palace (with the High King inside) and was essentially an atomic bomb. Since then the kingdom has been slipping into chaos as barons fight over the now Molten Throne while former slave orcs (PHB half orcs) press into the territoy of the fae races (elves, half elves, gnomes and dwarves). The native halflings who were assimilated by the human empire that colonized the land are reasserting their aboriginal culture. The elves -- scary celtic fair folk -- toy with mortals and prey on their dreams and their children. Basically, everything is going to Hell because of the Dragon.

Then comes the PCs. They are put together as a group to support one of the barons trying to become the new High King. They went on adventures, fighting monsters and uncovering cults and so on. Their last adventure had them whisked off to the Elemental Plane of Water. This is where we stopped playing to try some other things. Now I have a limited amount of time before schooling makes it impossible to play regularly, so I want to have them face down the Dragon over the course of maybe 4 sessions (we play over Fantasy grounds for about 3 hours weekly). The results will set the tone for the game when we pick it back up after my schooling is done in 6 months.

CapnZapp said:

All your ideas about cover, and cool environment effects and such are great.

But the "play it as an intelligent monster" bit is an old hackneyed trope. A red dragon is the king of the hill. It will not retreat. It will not sneak. And it will definitely not use cowardly (and frankly, boring, tactics) such as taking one party member and fleeing.

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King of the hill? Not sneak? cowardly and boring tactics? These are simply your opinion.

I cannot think of one example of a dragon in any kind of literature or pop culture that landed in front of its enemies and then took turns hitting each other. Can you give us one example that supports your take on the dragon?

Because to me it sounds like you want the dragon to be something other than what it is...which is fine, but it's a different situation than the monster's design failing to achieve what it's meant to.

CapnZapp said:

More generally, if we want a monster to do special stuff, that stuff should be in its stat block.

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Flight, speed, reach, breath weapon, legendary actions, legendary resistance, lair actions...these are all in the stat block. Having the dragon land and stand there essentially removes some of these things from the dragon's stats. Why have reach if you simply let everyone run right up to you? Why have flight if you're just going to land and go claw to axe with everyone?

It sounds like you're playing a dragon like a hill giant and then you're disappointed in the results.

CapnZapp said:

A designer should not be able to get away with "yeah, this monster is a bit vanilla, let's raise its INT from 10 to 20, that should do it".

That does nothing. Except give it better skills and INT saves. For some posters, however, it inexplicably green-lights putting the onus of making the actual monster work on the DMs shoulders, and that's not what we pay the designers for.

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When people say play monsters intelligently, they don't mean raise the monster's intelligence. Yes, the monster's INT score gets mentioned from time to time, but it's really far from the actual point. The point is for the DM to play intelligently.

Reynard said:

For context: the dragon is The Dragon. A decade ago it landed in the capital, slagged the palace (with the High King inside) and was essentially an atomic bomb. Since then the kingdom has been slipping into chaos as barons fight over the now Molten Throne while former slave orcs (PHB half orcs) press into the territoy of the fae races (elves, half elves, gnomes and dwarves). The native halflings who were assimilated by the human empire that colonized the land are reasserting their aboriginal culture. The elves -- scary celtic fair folk -- toy with mortals and prey on their dreams and their children. Basically, everything is going to Hell because of the Dragon.

Then comes the PCs. They are put together as a group to support one of the barons trying to become the new High King. They went on adventures, fighting monsters and uncovering cults and so on. Their last adventure had them whisked off to the Elemental Plane of Water. This is where we stopped playing to try some other things. Now I have a limited amount of time before schooling makes it impossible to play regularly, so I want to have them face down the Dragon over the course of maybe 4 sessions (we play over Fantasy grounds for about 3 hours weekly). The results will set the tone for the game when we pick it back up after my schooling is done in 6 months.

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Cool backstory.

Have you decided on a level for them? Again, I say 10 as a target, depending on how the PCs are built and how optimized the PCs are, and so on. I wouldn't go much lower than that for fear of a TPK, but much higher and I think the simple fact that one side will have 10 turns a round and the other will have 1 full turn and 3 partial turns a round is going to be the deciding factor.

Are you going to use minions of any kind? Will the dragon have terrain of its choosing?

Reynard said:

I am hoping to get a little insight into setting up a one shot adventure. The characters all exist, but they have been "off screen" for a while so they can be any level. There are going to be 10 of them. So, what level do you think will be right for a fight, in lair, versus an Ancient Red Dragon (CR 24 per the MM)?

A couple notes: I run large groups relatively regularly and I have noticed that big groups inherently punch above their weight class. Throw in the fact that they are likely to be able to be fresh upon entrance to the lair, I am thinking that the party does not have to be especially high level. The thing has an astoundingly low AC and its saves are not magnificent either. Now, it can dish out a lot of damage and can probably kill a non-barbarian PC per round almost regardless of level, but even with 500+ hit points I don't see it lasting long enough to kill all 10 characters.

What level would you make the PCs in order to make this an entertaining, difficult and tense encounter with a decent chance of killing more than a couple of them, but a relatively low chance of a TPK?

Thanks.

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5th-6th level, and here's my thinking why...

10 PCs versus an ancient red dragon makes its usual 62,000 XP value reduce in half to 31,000 adjusted XP due to the PCs' extreme force multiplier.

You're creating a "one combat in the adventuring day" scenario, so the Adventuring Day XP guidelines (DMG p.84) are what you want to look at as a baseline. And because you're running a one-shot you need that one encounter to be really tense, engaging, and challenging.

So you if you divide 31,000 adjusted XP by 10 PCs you get a goal/guideline for a really challenging encounter of 3,100 adjusted XP per PC.

The level on the DMG chart that comes closest to that is 5th level, which is 3,500 adjusted XP per PC. That would make for a lethal battle requiring coordination, creative thinking, and good rolls.

If you wanted them to have some extra HP (since some are new to 5e or D&D entirely) you could bump that to 6th-level.

I'd cap it at 6th level because the highest level spells I'd want a party that big casting is 3rd-level, so they get some iconic/fun/powerful spells, but lack spells that could drastically turn the tide vs. a red dragon encountered alone (possibly spells like fire shield, greater invis., otiluke's resilient sphere, phantasmal killer, watery sphere, and possibly others).

Also, for new players, there's PLENTY of class features/spells to keep track of at 5th/6th level! Higher levels could be overwhelming for new players.

hawkeyefan said:

Have you decided on a level for them? Again, I say 10 as a target, depending on how the PCs are built and how optimized the PCs are, and so on. I wouldn't go much lower than that for fear of a TPK, but much higher and I think the simple fact that one side will have 10 turns a round and the other will have 1 full turn and 3 partial turns a round is going to be the deciding factor.

Are you going to use minions of any kind? Will the dragon have terrain of its choosing?

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I went with 9th. I want the PCs to feel powerful but not necessarily be gods. My one big concern is the player that plays the wizard is a consumate power gamer (in the best way) so those 5th level spells are going to be an issue. Note that they are using existing characters that they will level from 7th to 9th, so they can't build dragon slaying specific characters.

As to the environment and minions: it is going to be a city flowing with lava and spewing noxious vapors and crawling with salamanders and mephits. The dragon will have both burrows and perches in order to choose between aerial assault and more tunnel fighting. I am going to keep the fight moving from one location to the another (until they manage to lock it down).

9th sounds ok. If they play smart, and assuming there is at least 1 Life Cleric, 1 Paladin, and 1 Barbarian, they will likely survive just fine.

IME, these are the classes at those levels with the greatest impact on the rest of the party.

Life Clerics keep everyone up, or gets them back up quickly.

Paladins use auras to help everyone's save vs. breath, plus SMITE.

Barbarians, especially Bear Totems, are hard to bring down when raging.

Adding the "minions" (salamanders and mephits) will certainly help, assuming they will join the fight or wear them down ahead of time.

Keeping it a 3d fight (aerial combat) will also help quite a bit.