D&D 5E Dropping Flyers Cheese

[billd91]

Flight should be an asset, not a liability.

It is... right up until the point you can't fly any more in which case it becomes a mother-effer of a liability. As far as I'm concerned, that's about right.

 

[Derren]

But you have to allow the players some mileage out of their good tactical thinking before putting in countermeasures. That's just basic storytelling: the DM is powerful enough to just say "that didn't work! Ha Ha!" to anything the players try, but does that make for a satifying game?

And do account for a dragon's overwhelming ego: a young or adult dragon would think itself nigh-invincible. An older dragon might be wary enough to know better, and respond accordingly.

Using the rules as presented hardly counts as "good tactical thinking". And I really get tired of the "Think of their ego" excuse for playing monsters dumb. Any dragon which would have put their ego over their intelligence would have died at wyrmling stage.

 

[Klaus]

Using the rules as presented hardly counts as "good tactical thinking". And I really get tired of the "Think of their ego" excuse for playing monsters dumb. Any dragon which would have put their ego over their intelligence would have died at wyrmling stage.

It does count. When facing a flying dragon, a wizard that forgoes casting lightning bolt in favor of, say, hold monster, is doing exactly what a RPG is about: he's thinking like a person living inside the fantasy world. Instead of just "mashing the buttons" for more damage ("more damage makes the fight end sooner, so it's the best tactic!"), the player is taking in-game information and acting upon it.

And then you throw in a beholder, and laugh maniacally when the same tactic fails because the beholder can hover!

 

[Derren]

It does count. When facing a flying dragon, a wizard that forgoes casting lightning bolt in favor of, say, hold monster, is doing exactly what a RPG is about: he's thinking like a person living inside the fantasy world.

For me, that is common sense, not "good tactical thinking that requires the player to be rewarded"

 

[Klaus]

For me, that is common sense, not "good tactical thinking that requires the player to be rewarded"

Common sense is something so rare, it should count as a superpower.

 

[billd91]

For me, that is common sense, not "good tactical thinking that requires the player to be rewarded"

Funny thing about good tactics - they take on the veneer of common sense when they become well known.

 

[DaveDash]

Good tactics usually begins before combat.

 

[Riley37]

In "Wizard of Earthsea", the mage Sparrowhawk casts a spell to bind the wings of a young dragon, and it plummets into the sea, where it dies. (He doesn't try that against the mother dragon; perhaps she'd be more likely to resist.) Earthsea magic is not Faerun magic, but killing dragons by stopping their flight was part of one of the best fantasy stories ever.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It seems to me that the existence of this tactic is basically the only reason that dragons don't just always divebomb in at top speed, grab an adventurer and retreat to eat him. The risk of being within attack range and at altitude is significant.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I gave the ranger in my game a homemade bow of web (think wand of web, but works through the arrows it fires). The ranger also has the sharpshooter feat. I have had to make all dragons in my game the spellcaster variant with the Featherfall spell.

Sounds like time to bait the dragon into using its reaction on an opportunity attack...