D&D 5E Young dragons are appropriate for what PC level?

[THEMNGMNT]

I'm working on a campaign about a dungeon that is contested by five dragons--young dragons. They are striving against each other--and the PCs--for control of the dungeon. As stated in the Monster Manual, these are the challenging ratings of each chromatic dragon:

CR 6 - Young White Dragon
CR 7 - Young Black Dragon
CR 8 - Young Green Dragon
CR 9 - Young Blue Dragon
CR 10 - Young Red Dragon

At what level do you thing PCs could fight and survive each dragon?

If the dragons had lair actions, how much would that increase the difficulty?

Thanks in advance for sharing your insights and real world experience!

 

[Sunseeker]

Dragons are cool, but grossly underpowered in 5e. They deal little damage outside of their breath, which frankly doesn't recharge that often. They don't have very many hit-points and they're not that difficult to hit. (assuming +4 stat mod, +2 proficiency, and at least a +1 from some other source, you're hitting a 17 a minimum of 50% of the time). Worse are dragons in caves. Dragons that can't fly away when they're cornered are dead dragons. In one-on-one fights they are also majorly lacking in actions. The party gets anywhere from 5-8 actions, while the dragon gets one.

So yes, add some lair actions and if not lair actions, some kind of hazardous terrain or other dangers the party has to face. Also: add some minions. These dragons are vying for this dungeon, surely they're not doing it by themselves.

Beyond that, it depends on how skilled of tacticians your party is, spreading out, buffing before the fight, controlling the battlefield will always up a party's CR, and of course how well built your party is. In 5E even a moderately optimized group can "punch up" easily. And by "optimized" in 5E I mean nothing more than +4's or +5s in their main stats, and having a diverse party. (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, *other*).

In my experience, CR is linear and players are exponential. I would generally say subtract 2 from the CR for each tier above the first to get a true estimate of what level players can take on your challenge.

 

[Oofta]

So much of this depends on environmental factors, your group makeup, how many fights you have and so on.

If you do 6-10 fights between long rests with only a 2-3 short rests the CRs are not a bad guide. Most groups don't do that, so as shidaku mentioned it's best to throw slightly tougher monsters.

It also depends on how you run the fight. I have dragons (especially adult and older) fight mean. Strafing runs, fly out of range or out of sight. Grab a character and drop them from an extreme height. Fly high enough to be out of range and drop things (occasionally the characters they just grappled on a previous turn) on the group and so on.

Straight up fight on or near the ground? Against a group that can go nova? At least 2-4 levels higher than the characters.

 

[MostlyDm]

Dragons are cool, but grossly underpowered in 5e. They deal little damage outside of their breath, which frankly doesn't recharge that often. They don't have very many hit-points and they're not that difficult to hit. (assuming +4 stat mod, +2 proficiency, and at least a +1 from some other source, you're hitting a 17 a minimum of 50% of the time). Worse are dragons in caves. Dragons that can't fly away when they're cornered are dead dragons. In one-on-one fights they are also majorly lacking in actions. The party gets anywhere from 5-8 actions, while the dragon gets one.

So yes, add some lair actions and if not lair actions, some kind of hazardous terrain or other dangers the party has to face. Also: add some minions. These dragons are vying for this dungeon, surely they're not doing it by themselves.

Beyond that, it depends on how skilled of tacticians your party is, spreading out, buffing before the fight, controlling the battlefield will always up a party's CR, and of course how well built your party is. In 5E even a moderately optimized group can "punch up" easily. And by "optimized" in 5E I mean nothing more than +4's or +5s in their main stats, and having a diverse party. (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, *other*).

In my experience, CR is linear and players are exponential. I would generally say subtract 2 from the CR for each tier above the first to get a true estimate of what level players can take on your challenge.

If a tough fight with strong possibility of death is the goal, in most cases you can approximately double the party's level in CR, give or take a couple increments.

An ogre at level 1 is scary but not insurmountable. A troll at level 2 or 3 likewise. A pit fiend at level 11 or so should be doable if you play carefully.

Main exceptions to this probably involve special features of certain creatures that may be hard to deal with at low levels, e.g. Immunities, excessive mobility and stealth, lots of high level spells, etc.

 

[MostlyDm]

So for a nice challenging dungeon , sounds like party level 3-5. For a more traditional/easier D&D dungeon, perhaps level 5-7.

 

[Gwarok]

Be careful using young dragons with lower level PC's. Or at least keep one thing in mind, young dragons breath weapon is only 1 die of damage weaker than an Adult's breath weapon. Not sure if that is a typo or not, but if you have more than one and don't take that into account, round 1 can be a bit overwhelming. In fact, any PC's that can endure a young dragon's breath after round 1 is almost a trivial fight after that for them unless it recharges.

Reason I bring it up is I didn't notice how much damage it did, put 4 young black dragons up against the party and almost TPK'd them when I read their damage. I'm sure most DM's aren't as dumb as me and know that, but since you asked specifically about them I thought I'd bring it up

 

[Storyteller Hero]

You can have dragons of almost any CR go up against PCs of almost any level and the PCs could still win.

The PCs however may have to come up with an alternative method of victory other than charging head on in open combat.

I feel that it's important to remind DMs that dragons, even young dragons, are intelligent, and will not necessarily fight to the death (most probably wouldn't). They can fly away or drop PCs over cliffs, or use the environment to their advantage. They can be negotiated with in some cases, and perhaps even turned from enemies to allies.

 

[Oofta]

Be careful using young dragons with lower level PC's. Or at least keep one thing in mind, young dragons breath weapon is only 1 die of damage weaker than an Adult's breath weapon. Not sure if that is a typo or not, but if you have more than one and don't take that into account, round 1 can be a bit overwhelming. In fact, any PC's that can endure a young dragon's breath after round 1 is almost a trivial fight after that for them unless it recharges.

Reason I bring it up is I didn't notice how much damage it did, put 4 young black dragons up against the party and almost TPK'd them when I read their damage. I'm sure most DM's aren't as dumb as me and know that, but since you asked specifically about them I thought I'd bring it up

I made a similar mistake once with flameskulls. They're only CR 4, but when you start having multiple ... talk about good gracious great balls of fire!

 

[Gwarok]

I made a similar mistake once with flameskulls. They're only CR 4, but when you start having multiple ... talk about good gracious great balls of fire!

Funny you should mention that. I was on the receiving end of just such a situation one time, it was pretty harrowing. Also the first encounter we had in the dungeon and we had to rest right after it which had us being almost absurdly careful the rest of the dungeon, which turned out to be not nearly as bad as the first encounter.

 

[Sunseeker]

If a tough fight with strong possibility of death is the goal, in most cases you can approximately double the party's level in CR, give or take a couple increments.

Sure, and I'll be clear that I run far fewer fights than 5E suggests and I typically run them at double-plus-deadly. Dying outside of fights in my campaigns is really only a possibility if you purposefully stick your head in a noose. I don't see any reason why a fight with a dragon shouldn't be the ultimate fight anyway in your generic fantasy type setting.