D&D 5E Observations and opinions after 8 levels and a dragon fight

Fighters always used to get bows in ADD (plus longsword & some things for taste). Nothing changed in the next 40 years/3 editions or this one either it seems, except back up missile weapon is now thrown.

The other back up weapons have changed a bit - Lance, something high damage vs large targets & something for cracking armour (if you used those rules) in AD&D. A light weapon in 3e. But always, always a missile weapon. The default equipment covers this too.

So what could our party do against a big dragon? Paladin (vengeance), Barbarian (bear), Monk (elements), Cleric (nature), and Illusionist. Our ranged options are limited.

One thing I like about bounded accuracy and capped ability scores is that you aren't punished for making a well-rounded fighter. You can boost both STR and DEX and be death dealer with any weapon, in melee or at range. It enables fighters to use bows at long distance. Hurl spears/javelins when the enemy gets closer. Pull out the halberd at far melee range. And then whip out a sword and throw down at close melee range. And because damage scales by extra attacks rather than an ever increasing ability score, the fighter maintains their effectiveness.

Shadowdweller00 said:

I find that presuming that a creature who supposedly spent CENTURIES growing up in a dangerous world where it was NOT the big cheese might be not reasonably wary of its primary enemy - adventurers (well...aside maybe from other dragons) - to be BY FAR the more absurd, ridiculous, and unfun.

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I see that. But...it has also lived this long by winning every fight. And some of those fights, it didn't have to kite, use completely opimized tactics, etc. Furthermore, unlike most every other creature, dragons get tougher as they age; to me, that would make them more likely to become arrogant.


I see a dragon's ego causing it to "crush them beneath my talons!" at first; then, if it gets hurt, survival instinct takes over.

Lovely report, OP. I wonder if your opinion will change when the PCs get to level 12? Theorycrafting, it seems to me that level 11 is when the fighter really comes into his own with the third attack.

Eric V said:

I see that. But...it has also lived this long by winning every fight. And some of those fights, it didn't have to kite, use completely opimized tactics, etc. Furthermore, unlike most every other creature, dragons get tougher as they age; to me, that would make them more likely to become arrogant.

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Uhh....no. "Winning every fight" is a pretty extreme and unwarranted presumption. A wyrmling doesn't take on adult dragons, for instance, and somehow defeat them through clever tactics. Weaker creatures learn when not to engage in the first place. And when to run away. Perhaps even when to yield.

That aside, the "crush them with talons" mentality is an entirely reasonable approach. It should not result in an immediately dead dragon unless things are somewhat out of whack. It still doesn't mean a dragon is just going to land in a position easily reachable by multiple armed combatants any more than a human being is going to just punch a wasp nest. Things I'd personally consider being "danger signs" to a dragon that the insect before it might be more of a scorpion: Uncharacteristically nasty wounds inflicted by enemy weapons, multiple foes that survive a breath attack, seemingly powerful magic.

This will sound ridiculously stupid, I'm sure, but what is "kiting"? Apparently the rogue in this scenario could have done it a lot/ different ways. I have no idea what it means.

I'll also chime, and it gives me a bit of a giggle, about the realization that Fighters should have missile weapons.

From Basic thru AD&D it was a given that a fighter carry multiple different use weapons. They were the fighter. They had to be able to fight in a variety of situations, not just hit things hard up close (though, of course, this was very important). Even if one didn't necessarily carry a given weapon, they were proficient with it [kinda moot nowadays] so they could grab one from the guard or other PC is they had to. I'm supposing this changed in later editions for a couple of reasons. Seems to me, a big one might have been the "magic item slots" thing. You had to have (at least) /a/ magic weapon, so it became the one you used all the time, and/or the one that did the most damage, so the only one you really thought about using, and eventually kind of forgot/didn't bother about others.

Primary up-close "melee" weapon (sword, axe, hammer, whatever), a bow (or crossbow), a spear (or halberd or lance, what we'd call today some kind of "reach" weapon) and a dagger (or hand axe or other throwable-in-a-pinch/could hand off to a rescued/unarmed NPC style weapon). Nearly every fighter PC I ever saw (or created) in the pre-3e days had that array on their character sheet. Even if the whole table imagined and every picture of them always just showed them with their sword [primary weapon] and shield, they still had the others (more than not) at their disposal.

The fact this is a kind of epiphany to players of today's D&D is...well, it tickles me.

Celtavian said:

If you want to see dragons in that fashion, by all means I leave that up to you.

My preference is to make long lived dragons accept the reality of their reality. Their reality is that a prepared adventuring group of humanoids is very dangerous and should be assessed before engaging and reassessed if a surprise tactic is used. I picture dragons talking of the small folk in parables that make dragons pause when dealing with them. A dragon may be very powerful, but if anything is dangerous to them it is unknown small folk with the audacity to enter their lair. Dragons that don't take them seriously do so at the risk of their nearly immortal existence. Why would a dragon grow impatient? They live so long that time is on their side. They could even wait for a powerful hero to grow old before they kill him.

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That's certainly a valid approach. To me, adventurers are never the primary threat to older dragons; they are accustomed to being able to swat any human they encounter. They are aware, intellectually, that there are humans out there who can and do kill dragons, but they seldom encounter any, and the older they get the less often it happens. Adventurers who can threaten an Adult dragon are extremely rare, and for Ancients it's all but unheard-of.

So the dragon fights intelligently--it prides itself on that--but it doesn't respect its foe. Centuries of easy victories breed arrogance. Maybe it had to worry about humans when it was young and tender, but now it is old and strong, strong, strong! The chief threat now is other dragons (which it approaches much more cautiously). It's slow to realize when it has won the dragon equivalent of the lottery* and encountered heroes that can really defeat it, instead of just surviving a bit longer than most.

Habit is a dangerous thing. Even highly intelligent people, and dragons, are vulnerable to it. When the dragon has trouble killing a human, its reaction is akin to how you feel when a mosquito keeps evading your slaps: Stupid bug! Why won't you die? And it has become used to the idea that it can indulge that reaction without consequence. When the mosquito starts causing real pain, it will eventually wake up to the danger, but the time that takes can make the difference.

[size=-2]*The Shirley Jackson kind.[/size]

steeldragons said:

This will sound ridiculously stupid, I'm sure, but what is "kiting"? Apparently the rogue in this scenario could have done it a lot/ different ways. I have no idea what it means.

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I think it started in the early EQ MMO days. At least that's the first time I saw it used. It basically means constantly moving out of range while firing missile weapons. Ideally taking the monster down before it can reach you.

I'll also chime, and it gives me a bit of a giggle, about the realization that Fighters should have missile weapons.

From Basic thru AD&D it was a given that a fighter carry multiple different use weapons. They were the fighter. They had to be able to fight in a variety of situations, not just hit things hard up close (though, of course, this was very important). Even if one didn't necessarily carry a given weapon, they were proficient with it [kinda moot nowadays] so they could grab one from the guard or other PC is they had to. I'm supposing this changed in later editions for a couple of reasons. Seems to me, a big one might have been the "magic item slots" thing. You had to have (at least) /a/ magic weapon, so it became the one you used all the time, and/or the one that did the most damage, so the only one you really thought about using, and eventually kind of forgot/didn't bother about others.

Primary up-close "melee" weapon (sword, axe, hammer, whatever), a bow (or crossbow), a spear (or halberd or lance, what we'd call today some kind of "reach" weapon) and a dagger (or hand axe or other throwable-in-a-pinch/could hand off to a rescued/unarmed NPC style weapon). Nearly every fighter PC I ever saw (or created) in the pre-3e days had that array on their character sheet. Even if the whole table imagined and every picture of them always just showed them with their sword [primary weapon] and shield, they still had the others (more than not) at their disposal.

The fact this is a kind of epiphany to players of today's D&D is...well, it tickles me.

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One of my houserules, for this very reason (I'm an AD&D guy), is that fighters have an ability of "weapon training", which allows them to use either STR or DEX (determined at creation) to *any* weapon attack. So a STR based fighter would also use his STR modifier when firing a bow, and a DEX based fighter would also get that modifier if they picked up an axe.

Sacrosanct said:

I think it started in the early EQ MMO days. At least that's the first time I saw it used. It basically means constantly moving out of range while firing missile weapons. Ideally taking the monster down before it can reach you.

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It was generally a wizard or druid using AE spells or later sometimes DOTs. Ranger bow kiting wasn't as good or as common.

A good example in 5E would be a druid on a horse or with a movement buff with Call Lightning active and running away (in a big circle around the cloud) from monsters and zapping them every round and the monsters are too dumb to do anything but follow in a pack and all get hit.