CapnZapp
Legend
Not 5E, at any rate. It's high-level monster stat blocks are the weakest design in nearly twenty years.
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D&D 5E Setting Party level vs an Ancient Red Dragon
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Depends on how large the area. If it’s large and open thst is actually in the party’s favor. The party can spread out, less chance for the breath to hit multiple players or for the fear aura to hit everyone. It also means more time the dragon has to spend moving around to get at each player.
That is assuming of course ranged weapons. But if this party doesn’t go in with ranged weapons st the ready it’s Lresdy dead
I have never in all my many, many years of GMing used an "average" damage roll. The swinginess of the dice are one of my favorite things about D&D.
On another note: I am starting to put together what the city lair environment is going to look like. A little digging shows that there does not seem to be much support for fiery hellscapes in the DMG. Even the section of the Elemental Plane of Fire is not especially helpful. The PCs are going to have to explore a little, and even during what i expect to be a long, extended encounter with lots of movement and breaking off they might run into various hazards and uncomfortable situations.
Any recommendations on resources for building the fiery, volcanic city ruins?
Warmaster Horus
Explorer
If the players are that spread out they can be easily isolated and eliminated. You can only spread out so far. Dragons have high flying speed so they can pick and choose how to attack. They'll usually start with the ranged combatants to take that threat off the board first, then go after the melee-types.
Thing is...this is going to happen regardless. This dragon is going to drop PCs like flies. There is no stopping that. The key is to minimize your drops per round and keep pounding on it with ranged attacks until its dead or the party is dead. If you can make it so that only 1 player drops per round you are doing good. The paladin or barb might be able to tank it for 2 rounds (paladin uses his full healing, and barb with his rage resistance), but as you said the dragon is going to smart about his targets. And then if the cleric can later rush over and get them back up with a healing word than they can soak another round...I mean they will die in that round, but hey its for the greater good
Now that said, there are some sneaky tactics to try and soak a dragon's round. For example, you ready an action to "cast resilient sphere on myself when the dragon attacks me". That makes you invincible to at least 1 of its attacks. Ideally you do this with the breath weapon, as once it hits with its first melee attack it will know to fly away to someone else.
I seem to recall that [MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION] had been working on ideas for a ruined city recently.
Then you just add fire. (tm)
Mostly in these environments I periodically have PCs roll Strength saving throws to fight against being moved around the terrain, Dexterity saving throws to avoid bursts of fire, and Constitution saving throws to avoid taking a level of exhaustion (disadvantage for heavy armor).
RangerWickett
Legend
My city was a dwarven one, with regions that were flooded. I basically googled 'map Moria' and used that as a description of how labyrinthine the city was, with tons of tunnels and only 7 or 8 locations that mattered narratively.
After nailing down players and doing research I have decided rather than use the Ancient Red, I am going to instead build a CR21 Red Dragon. That is the CR KFC says is deadly for 8 9th level PCs.
Using the Adult Red as a base, what suggestions do you have for increasing the CR to 21? How much does Legendary status and Lair increase the CR? What about some at will abilities to emulate those things?
Thanks.
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Using the Adult Red as a base, what suggestions do you have for increasing the CR to 21? How much does Legendary status and Lair increase the CR? What about some at will abilities to emulate those things?
Thanks.
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Warmaster Horus
Explorer
Not much of a fan of the CR system beyond 7th level or so. One quick thing to do is give it Legendary Actions in line with the number of players involved. So if we an assume 3 Legendaries are good for a baseline group of 4 players, then perhaps 5 for a group of 7? Also dragons have boring Legendary Actions - add another option or two to this one's list - say a Claw Push that's like a push attack to kick a high DPS fighter away from it so it can move with out provoking, etc. Maybe use the spellcasting option for the dragon or give it some levels of Sorcerer with some useful defensive spells (Blur, Shield, etc).
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