D&D 5E (CR ratings) Could 6 level 6 characters survive and beat a Young Blue Dragon?

[Henry]

Looking at the Encounter rules, and using the calculator at http://dhmholley.co.uk/encounter-calculator-5th/

It says a Young Blue Dragon (or even a Young Red Dragon!) Is an "Easy" Encounter, when facing six level 6 characters by itself. I can understand, by the numbers, how they would get this, but looking at the damage output of these thing's breaths, and the overall damage and mobility of these things, there's no way they can survive the thing without at least two PCs going down! (Maybe three PCs!)

Unless I'm missing something. Am I vastly underestimating the staying power and damage output of a typical level 6 party in 5E, especially if it has six players? I want the penultimate encounter to be with a Dragon, but I don't want the dragon to handily wipe out half the party so that they stand a good chance of all being there for the Ultimate Encounter.

At first I was thinking Black Dragon (CR 7), but that came out as Trivial, for so many PCs.
Then I went up the chart, to Green, then Blue, and Realized even Reds came up a bit short, and those guys are CR 10!

Even an Adult Blue (CR 15) comes up as "Hard" and those guys would wipe a party of 6 PCs at that level and not bat an eye. So I know the system is a bit wonky at extremes, that's fine, what WOULD be an appropriate dragon to throw at a bunch of PCs without throwing tons of extra minions to balance it out?

OR, would a new LEgendary Actions be the solution? (Yes I know it's Young, I'm thinking mechanically here).

Any advice from those 1-year veterans of 5E? Or even just those gamers with a lotta 5E sessions? Or Math Nerds?

Thank you in advance!

--H

 

[Sunseeker]

Yeah, balance really starts to fall apart once you get above 5 players.

Look at it this way: a Young Blue Dragon has 152 HP, it gets one turn out of 7 (6 players, 1 dragon), assuming no lair effects. It has no Legendary Actions and no Legendary Resistance, this makes it very vulnerable to control effects and without aid essentially leaves the entire round for players to act as tactically as possible, since they effectively act as a group. If each player has an average output of 10dmg per turn (accounting for misses, characters that make multiple attacks and characters that make no attacks such as healers and buffers), that's an average of 60 damage per round (more with AoO), 120 damage in two rounds and a very quickly dead dragon in three.

Legendary Actions and Legendary Resistances make a HUGE difference, freeing the dragon from annoying control effects and allowing it to more effectively control the battlefield. It's also assumed that adult and higher dragons will be fought in a lair, with actions of its own.

Even if 1 or 2 players go down, it's unlikely that they'll go down in the first round as the young blue dragon's alpha strike (breath weapon) does an average of 55 dmg and half on a successful save. The fact that the weapon is a line makes it even more limited in use as you'll have to catch the players unprepared or poorly positioned.

Honestly my biggest beef with 5th is that the math breaks pretty quickly when your party is larger than 5 people. Even a highly tactical team of 4 players still tends to fall within the game assumptions. A highly tactical team of 6 or more players will absolutely wreck the standard encounter math.

 

[Chocolategravy]

It says a Young Blue Dragon (or even a Young Red Dragon!) Is an "Easy" Encounter, when facing six level 6 characters by itself.

The encounter guidelines say not to use monsters with CR over the level of the party.

 

[S'mon]

A monster higher CR than the party can often drop PCs. I'd probably go with a green dragon, or a smartly played black dragon.

 

[DaveDash]

There's heaps of reports of level 4-5 groups dropping the Green Dragon from LMoP, but also many reports of groups losing a few PCs too.

It can certainly be done. A party full on resources can take on things way above their CR, and that's basically proportional to how high level they are.

 

[Henry]

The encounter guidelines say not to use monsters with CR over the level of the party.

Not so much "don't use" as "exercise caution." Since dragons have ACs low enough for the PCs to encounter, and no real immunities or big special damages over the breath weapon, a dragon over the CR is tougher but still beatable (unlike, say the example Rakshasa). The point is definitely taken about a chance of dropping the PCs.

 

[Pickles III]

The CR does double duty as it comes with an XP value for setting encounter budgets & it has a threat level that indicates how likely it is to kill threaten to kill PCs more or less by chance.

So your single dragon encounters would most likely be readily overcome by the PCs but there is a risk they get a KIA - say recharging a breath weapon rapidly & hitting the same PC with it who then goes on to fail their saves.

CRs are at the handwaviest end of the 5e rules & are very much guidlelines some of which are not very reliable. A low AC monster with lots of HP & several low damage attacks is far more predictable than a high AC monster with a single huge damage attack for example. Shadows attack STR which does not scale with level so a huge pack of them could be very deadly to any party etc.

Anyway after the mathematical delights of 4e balance we have to fall back much more on judgement again in this edition, which obviously comes with experience.

 

[Cernor]

In my game, a party of 3 7th-level PCs took out an Adult Black Dragon in its own lair, and an adult white dragon not much later. If you're going to be throwing one enemy at your party, expect that enemy to die fairly quickly, unless the terrain favours it heavily (e.g. a black dragon with connected pools of water it can hide in, attack, then duck back into). If you have 6 level 6 PCs, you'd probably need two or three dragons to pose a significant threat (at the risk of a TPK from multiple breath weapons), or to add in other, weaker creatures so that the dragon isn't the sole target. Maybe a combination of both: a black dragon swimming between two or three pools of water, popping up to do a breath weapon or attack before swimming back down, while the party is occupied by a swarm (maybe 30 or so, since level 6 PCs have lots of firepower at their disposal) of kobolds.

EDIT: If the dragon fight is supposed to be the penultimate encounter, then maybe swarming wouldn't work... But playing up the terrain and having it keep its distance from the party (when possible) would vastly increase its difficulty. With an element of unpredictability of when and where it attacks, the party would have to rely on readied actions, which let's the fight last longer (and the dragon whittle them away for even longer).

 

[Tormyr]

A solo monster is going to suffer from not having as many attacks as the party. It gets worse when there are more party members than 4. If you add 30hp per "extra" pc, it will keep roughly the same encounter balance as there would be against 4 pcs of the same level as the party.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Not so much "don't use" as "exercise caution." Since dragons have ACs low enough for the PCs to encounter, and no real immunities or big special damages over the breath weapon, a dragon over the CR is tougher but still beatable (unlike, say the example Rakshasa). The point is definitely taken about a chance of dropping the PCs.

Everything in the book has an AC low enough for the PCs to encounter. Even CR 24 dragons, which have the 2nd best AC in the book, have a pathetic 22 AC. A level 1 PC with archery focus and bless is hitting them on an 11 or 12. The young blue at CR 9 is only 4 less AC than it's CR 24 brethren.

The 55 damage, assuming you don't roll and end up with more, is enough to turn the save on the breath into a SoD for d6 classes without CON bonus. Which I figure is just about right. I think the party will only really have issues if it can breath twice, and given it's 80 fly, that should be fairly likely if it isn't throwing itself on the enemy's swords in an attempt to die.

If I were to play it, there would definitely be PC death unless they played smart and surprised it, so not the easy fight the pure XP says it should be, because it's CR is way over the party's. Other DMs though may well have it remain on the ground and go toe to toe with the PCs and not delay to recharge it's breath and that could end up being a pretty easy fight for your party even without surprise.