hawkeyefan
Legend
What amazes me with the continued defense of the weak MM stats is that it relies on doing things I imagine few groups would find actually fun.
Most players of D&D want and expect the BBEG to stand there, daring the party members to challenge it.
To me, if the only way a dragon can be a tough combat encounter is if it stays off the combat map, and resorts to cowardly tactics, that is itself a miserable failure.
The entire complaint is this:
We want iconic monsters (and it doesn't get more iconic than dragons) to be able to land in the middle of the party, and to actually use its claws, bite, breath etc on the heroes, without having to worry about getting instakilled pathetic-style.
I'm sure there are some sneaky critters for which underhanded tactics that mostly frustrate the players are appropriate but dragons sure aren't them.
To most of us, that's not much to ask. In fact, that's just our minimal expectation.
Trying to justify the weak stats by suggesting the dragon should deny the players their big set-piece combat far from salvages the MM stats - instead it just confirms that our complaints are valid and something needs to be done.
We expect - nay demand - that each edition's monster design takes into account what the PHB hands out to players. If the PHB gives out ways to, say, shut down flight at mid-level, for instance, then appropriate-CR flying foes better come equipped with a counter to that, built right into their stat block. Having a dragon be helpless to the trivial strategy to immobilize it so it drops from the sky like a rock is piss-poor design.
Please don't try to hide this, let alone justify it.
Especially cut the crap about "intelligent" foes. I'm dead tired of the notion that all a designer needs to do is to slap "Int 20" onto an otherwise uninspired mediocre stat block, and suddenly it's on the DM to make that work. I call bullcrap!
See this sounds like a pretty boring encounter to me, where each side just takes its turn wailing on the other in a race to deplete HP. I’d also say that I can think of very few examples of dragons doing that. In most instances of dragons in literature and pop culture, they tend to use their flight, speed, and breath weapon far more than they rely on brute strength.
But this simply shows how different opinions may be and how you can’t please everyone.
However, since you’ve stated what it is that you want from the dragon, why not simply increase its HP by a ton, or grant it resistance to all damage? Maybe increase its number of Legendary Actions? Increase its damage on all attacks by +5 or +1d8.
Make the dragon a brute. It’s pretty easy to do so. Other suggestions have focused on making it more effective in combat, but you can just as easily simply make it more capable of absorbing and/or dealing damage.
I realize this still “lets the designers off the hook”, but again, we’re talking about actual possible solutions to problems found in high level play. Blaming the designers for not understanding your preffered style of play and catering to it above others solves nothing.