Well, you would be wrong.
I am not wrong. A Fighter will take down 3 skeletons a turn pretty reliably. For a Wizard they typically need to be grouped together in an AOE, which is not common, certainly not round after round.
I don't think I have ever seen a Wizard in play catch 8 skeletons in an AOE.
If it is common as you say, can you post some videos of streamed games online showing this? If you can't find skeletons other similar creaatures will do. I think this is a strawman that you've never actually seen in play.
Since it was a CR 16 vs a full Level 18 party, yeah. But then I'm just saving my better spells for an actual threat. Also, find it hilarous that you are going to lay draining the allies healing resources on the back-line wizard, and not the fighter charging into melee with the dragon, who is going to be taking in the neighborhood of 15 attacks
Your Wizard is going to be the one losing hit points because he is the one who is going to be targeted with lightning.
And let's reiterate, it is near impossible for your spell to work against a Blue Dragon. So you did nothing worthwhile except lose a spell slot.
Citation needed. I only found 4 creatures of CR 15 or higher in the Monster Manual with teleport. While the Androsphinx and Solar could teleport with legendaries, the MArilith and Balor could only do it as an action. None of them could bonus action teleport.
Well you missed some .... Solar for example. You also left out all the Dragons that can move off turn. There are only what 25 or so CR16+ in the monster manual? with half of them being Dragons.
In any case here is a list of CR 16+ that can teleport off turn or as a bonus action. This does not include creatures that can move off turn or that are immune to restrained. Add those in and you have more than half of the official published monsters of that level:
Acerack
Adult Amethyst Dragon
Adult Saphire Dragon
Amythyst Greatwyrm
Ancient Amethyst Dragon
Ancient Crystal Dragon
Ancient Emerald Dragon
Ancient Sapphire Dragon
Ancient Topaz Dragon
Androsphinx
Archaic
Zariel
Bael
Blue Abishai
Cosmic Horror
Demagoth titan
Drow Favored Consort
Drow Matron Mother
Drow Mother of Rebellion
Factal Skall
Githzeri Anarch
Iggwilv
Imix
Laeral Silverhand
Lessor Star Spawn Emmisary
Miirym
Moloch
Moledeus
Nightmare beast
Nintra Siotta
Planar INcarnate
Saphire Greatworm
Shadrix Silverquill
Solar
Titvilus
Topaz Great Worm
Trobriand
Vieled presence
Yan-C-Bin
Ygorl
Like I said that is just CR16+ monsters that can do some type of teleport or plane shift off turn.
Did you note that the burrowing speed does not close the hole behind it? Oh sure, the dragon can play mole man with the party, but between the guy tossing out ranged attacks, or the fighter with a sword, one of them is going to be more effective than the other at actually hitting him. And since the fighter needs to hit him in melee to grapple... isn't he kind of reliant on someone to lock the dragon in place first?
But the difference is the fighter can lock him in place ON HIS TURN. The Wizard can't (at least he can't with Web). All the Fighter needs is enough move to reach the Dragon.
My point on burrowing is not to "play mole man" it is to leave your web before it even takes effect. He can't do that if he is grappled .... becuase he is grappled.
You mean if he uses his two legendary actions to move, then after the next persons turn he can use them again?
It depends on the initiative order. If it is just the Wizard, Dragon, Fighter in the fight then absolutely he can do it every single round.
If there is a Rogue in there and you assume everyone has
No? Oh, so he can't move like that again if someone else is doing something to put him in a dangerous area, limiting his ability to respond to threats by fleeing again?
He can use 3 legendary actions between his turn and his next turn, the Wing buffet with movement counts as two. I don't understand why this is so hard.
Yeah, dragonfear, I wondered if you would bring up his ability to just no sell someone getting into range to grapple him.
Sure, if he goes before the fighter, and the fighter fails to save twice and is not otherwise immune to being frightened.
Even with this and even with a bad Wisdom and a low initiative it will always be more likely to work than Web.
And, um, no. His breath weapon is absolutely not the most effective, what are you talking about? Unless the target has no one to make the save and no way to resist lightning damage, which I'll buy the save, but if you know you are facing against a dragon, you prepare for the elemental damage.
I would prepare to counter Dragonfear before I prepared to counter lightning. But is 65 average damage on a failed save, 33 on a success (which is not easy for a Wizard or a Fighter) and 17 with both a success and resistance.
An attack sequence does 53 if all 3 hit, but some of that is lightning damage too, and none of it is magical.
Oh, wait... the fighter as a baseline can't do that, can they? Not without MAGIC items or MAGIC potions or MAGIC from their allies.
No, I am not banking on all of those things. If I use a measely 2nd level spell slot to make the dragon waste 2 legendary actions solely to move... that's a good trade.
No its not, because if he can;t damage anyone while moveing then all he could have used that for is moving anyway.
The dragon gets 3 legendary actions per turn. IF no one is within reach then there is nothing being wasted because he could not have damged anyone anyway.
Do you not understand this? If you do nothing at all and pick your nose, the only thing he can do with his legendary action is move because no one is close to him. Your Web changed nothing unless there is someone in reach .... in which case they take damage when he moves.
If I use a measely 2nd level spell slot, and he doesn't move and he uses his legendary resistance... that's a good trade.
It is actually a bad trade. Again if you do nothing except pick your nose the Dragon dies with Legendary resistances and you have one more spell slot when the fight ends.
Whether the Dragon has 2 Legendarys or 3 or 1 left whe he dies it is irrelevant. The only time it matters is if you actually get him to 0 and there is a spell cast after that which he fails the save on. There is almost no chance that will happen with a normal size party of this level before the fight is over. While you are "making a good trade" the rest of the party is going to kill the Dragon.
Moreover it is not going to get to that because the Dragon is not likely going to have to save at all.
What would be a good trade? A 2nd level magic missile three rounds in a row (assuming he is still alive on the 3rd round). That won't take any legendary resistances but it might actually kill him earlier, save a turn and the damage he would do.
And if I'm stupid enough to stand where I can get hit by the lightning breath, and didn't prepare to reduce lightning damage, and I'm the ONLY person who gets hit, allowing my allies to keep using their abilities... not a great trade, but I stood in the open like an idiot, so it must have been part of the plan.
You have to move into the open to cast web on him. It is possible you can move to full cover, but not assured, especially since web only has a 60 foot range.
I love how you can automatically target 8 skeletons every time you cast fireball, but at the same time you can always get to 100% cover after you cast web.
IS it the absolule most optimal thing I could have possibly done? No, but then again, I'm not the one who saw me talking about the web spell and was like "AHA! But against an Adult Blue Dragon that spell is worthless!"
It is worthless against most enemies of that CR you will face. Over half of them will avoid a save all together.
No. I said he was limited to one hand,
You said he could not attack and that is not true.
meaning that he could hold a shield (lower AC) and he couldn't be using a 2-handed weapon (lower damage). Maybe you need to stop responding to every individual sentence I write, so you can actually follow what I am saying.
Maybe if you posted what you meant.
Yeah, the spell that you insisted I use. Seriously, you set-up these scenarios, then act all smug that the scenario isn't perfectly optimal, while I just try and deal with the scenario you chose to present.
I did not insist that you use Web.
Please provide a quotation for that.
Because I really struggle with "just because you aren't the person making the checks or taking the actions, doesn't mean you aren't playing the game"... because... yeah, it kind of does mean that.
Again please focus on what I said. You put quotes up there and I NEVER said that.
I said - just because it is someone else's default action does not mean you are not playing.
I never said someone else is "making the checks or taking the actions". There is something called player agency YOU decide what YOUR PC does (or tries to do). Not another player, not the DM, not his ability scores or build. YOU make those decisions and that is "playing the game"
And again, this group is good, I'm having fun, I like and trust them all. But that doesn't make it sting any less when we decide to discuss tactics and the other characters are always the superior choice for any decision.
Then don't discuss tactics.
To start with discussing tactics during a battle or encounter is metagaming. Discussing them before a battle or encounter you know is coming is not meta, but it is also not fun. I know a lot of tables do it, but I find it immersion breaking, it typically fails to play out like expected anyway and we spend a bunch of time talking about what we are going to do instead of doing it.
If you play instead of talking other characters won't always be the superior choice because the dice will drive the results. The only reason they are the "superior choice" when discussing tactics is because you are making assumptions on what will and will not be successful.