D&D 5E Fightclub: Ancient Red Dragon vs. Emyprean Titan

[gyor]

So who wins in a fight between a Ancient Red Dragon and Empyrean?

The Red Dragon seems to do more damage, but the Empyrean's melee attack can stun.

I think the Red Dragon wins in Melee, but the Empyrean with her bolt that has a range of 600 feet clearly wins in a ranged battle.

Against a hoard of angery peasant a ancient red dragon will lose if there are enough peaseants, but the Empyrean is completely immune to none magic weapons so he'd be able to kill an endless amount of peasants.

 

[Ravenheart87]

Oh, this is like the endless black dragon vs titan discussions for Heroes of Might & Magic III. I'll keep an eye on this thread, I'm curious.

 

[Dausuul]

So who wins in a fight between a Ancient Red Dragon and Empyrean?

The Red Dragon seems to do more damage, but the Empyrean's melee attack can stun.

I think the Red Dragon wins in Melee, but the Empyrean with her bolt that has a range of 600 feet clearly wins in a ranged battle.

Against a hoard of angery peasant a ancient red dragon will lose if there are enough peaseants, but the Empyrean is completely immune to none magic weapons so he'd be able to kill an endless amount of peasants.

The empyrean's immunity extends to the dragon's melee attacks. I think the empyrean wins either way thanks to that. The dragon's only way of damaging the empyrean is its breath weapon, and with recharge 5-6, it doesn't do enough damage to keep up with two bolts per round (especially since the empyrean can use legendary resistance to make the first three saves).

Take that away, however, and the dragon can force the empyrean into melee (it has a faster flight speed) and shred her. The stun attack is nothing to the dragon--it makes a DC 15 Con save on a roll of 2 or higher, and in the event it rolls a natural 1, it can just use Legendary Resistance. Its melee attack routine deals a lot more damage than the empyrean's, it has a lot more hit points, and they have the same attack bonus and AC.

Of course, this presumes neither one is able to retreat. The dragon can always fly away from the empyrean, and the empyrean can always plane shift out.

 

[jadrax]

The empyrean's immunity extends to the dragon's melee attacks. I think the empyrean wins either way thanks to that. The dragon's only way of damaging the empyrean is its breath weapon, and with recharge 5-6, it doesn't do enough damage to keep up with two bolts per round (especially since the empyrean can use legendary resistance to make the first three saves).

Doesn't the Dragon's Bite attack do elemental damage?

 

[Dausuul]

Doesn't the Dragon's Bite attack do elemental damage?

You're right, I missed that.

*crunches some numbers*

Hmm. Looks like I was wrong. I'm surprised, I wouldn't have thought a mere 14 damage on the bite attack could tip the scale, but it appears to push the dragon's DPR high enough that its superior hit points let it pull out a pretty decent win.

Of course, that's using the legendary action rules strictly as written. If you allow both combatants to use up their leftover legendary actions immediately before their turns (on the grounds that a creature's power level should not vary radically depending on whether it has one, two, or three opponents), that makes things closer, but the dragon still edges the empyrean out by a hair.

On the other hand, if the empyrean can see the dragon coming and throw bolts at it as it closes to melee... actually, that looks like a really nasty tactic. 600-foot range gives the empyrean a lot of room to play with. If you let them both use all their legendary actions, the empyrean can launch a total of eight bolts at the dragon before the dragon, dashing and making wing attacks for extra movement, can close the gap. That's easily enough to put the empyrean over the top.

 

[TwoSix]

Isn't the real question "Which one should I True Polymorph the Fighter into?"

 

[Dausuul]

Isn't the real question "Which one should I True Polymorph the Fighter into?"

I'd say the question there is, "How are you true polymorphing the fighter into a creature with CR higher than 20?"

 

[Mercurius]

Question: where are you getting stats for the titan?

The only way to really know for sure is to get 20 or 30 people to run mock combats and then report back to this thread.

 

[TwoSix]

I'd say the question there is, "How are you true polymorphing the fighter into a creature with CR higher than 20?"

Oh, are they higher than 20? I didn't actually look at their stats. Carry on, then!

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't think you can answer this question without first setting up the scenario and environment. That can make a world of difference to the outcome.