D&D 5E (2014) (CR ratings) Could 6 level 6 characters survive and beat a Young Blue Dragon?

[Henry]

Thanks to everyone for the great observations and helpful analysis. I have a good bit of time yet before this comes up, but it gave me some good insight into what to do to make it memorable without murder.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Suppose that the dragon is outside. If it flies a half mile above the party and has access to the Feather Fall spell (variant spellcasting dragon), then it can start a turn by folding its wings, falling to just above the party, cast Feather Fall on self, breath weapon everyone, then fly 80 feet away. Repeat every few minutes to waste party resources. If they split up, fly down to one, grapple, shred with multiattack, and drop. A sharpshooter in the party will stop this working entirely, but an average party would be easily defeated by a young dragon. An adult would likely be too much.

You mean an average party doesn't have a ranged capability? Whyever not?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Dragons need immunity to nonmagical weapons brought back for the older ones, real magic resistance (advantage on saves is useless vs spells with no saves), spell caster levels, and automatic fear effects on low CR critters at a minimum.

RE: real magic resistance, you could give replace Legendary Resistance with the ability to expend its reaction in order to roll a MR check (10%/30%/50%/70% for different age categories).

 

[Zardnaar]

RE: real magic resistance, you could give replace Legendary Resistance with the ability to expend its reaction in order to roll a MR check (10%/30%/50%/70% for different age categories).

What I am experienting on with Drow is a flat number that you have to beat on a d20 roll. 11 for example. This is similar to 2E MR but in effect uses increments of 5%.

 

[MortalPlague]

Dragons have a couple of design flaws. Their DPR is all in their breath weapon, and they don't have the HP to stand up in a toe to toe fight. This makes them quite a swingy fight. Roll a lot of breath recharges? The fight will be deadly. Bad luck on the breath recharges? The fight will be underwhelming.

In the last playtest packet, they had much higher claw and bite damage and a slightly lower breath weapon damage. It was a change I was sad to see.

 

[Jaelommiss]

You mean an average party doesn't have a ranged capability? Whyever not?

The average range of most spells is simply too short to deal with this tactic. The dragon bypasses all risk before attacking by staying well beyond everyone's range. In a single turn it stops flying, falls to 50 feet above the party, casts featherfall to catch itself, breath weapon on everyone, flies sideways 80 feet. It's now 94 feet from the party. All weapons except heavy crossbows and longbows are now at long range. The majority of spells are also out of range, though there are some outliers that will still work. At the end of the next person's turn, the dragon uses the Wing Attack legendary action on no one in particular to move another 40 feet away, taking it out of range of even more spells and putting all weapons except the longbow at long range (on this note, dragons really need a legendary action to simply move). Pursuing on foot will be hard, and most mounts won't survive the initial attack. Dash away next turn and no offensive magic other than meteor swarm will reach the dragon. The next turn it is out of range of everything weapon except a longbow shot or siege weapons. If the dragon cast invisibility on itself before attacking and gained a surprise round, then it might be almost 300 feet away before anyone can respond.

If used in a forest or hilly terrain, you've now got partial cover on the dragon. In a desert or snowy waste a blue or white dragon will be able to strike and burrow. In a swamp a black dragon can dive into nearby water to hide.

Ultimately it is a free breath weapon to either open a fight with or expend party resources. The party spends an hour to recover, giving the dragon time to organize its minions. Or, they might push on ahead and only use a few spells to heal. Those are spells that won't be cast at the dragon and its followers.

In answer to your question, the average party's ranged capabilities are insufficient to deal with this threat effectively. Without someone optimized for long range they will be taking far more damage than they can return.

Edit: I noticed that I mentioned young dragons in the post you replied to. Since they cannot escape as quickly, I will concede that an average party is far more likely to be able to fight it successfully.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The average range of most spells is simply too short to deal with this tactic. The dragon bypasses all risk before attacking by staying well beyond everyone's range. In a single turn it stops flying, falls to 50 feet above the party, casts featherfall to catch itself, breath weapon on everyone, flies sideways 80 feet. It's not 94 feet from the party. All weapons except heavy crossbows and longbows are now at long range. The majority of spells are also out of range, though there are some outliers that will still work.

Thanks for elaborating, but that wasn't really what I was asking. I meant, "Why in the world does the average party not have multiple characters capable of attacking an enemy 600 feet away, let alone 100?" It's a glaring vulnerability if you don't at least have longbows. Spells would work against this dragon's tactics because it has to come so close to breathe on you: the Feather Fall trick will work if you catch the party by surprise, but it won't work repeatedly because the party will just ready spells.

In point of fact, the Feather Fall trick might not work even the first time. I can see two failure modes:

1.) I don't know where you got 94 feet from but let's go with that number. Since a large component of that 94 feet is horiztonal, a party member can burn part of their 30 feet of movement to get within 65-odd feet of you and then cast Hold Monster (90' range) or similar on you. If you're a dragon too young to have Legendary Resistance, this could be the end of you. In short, 94' feet isn't that far away, even against spells.

2.) Somebody Counterspells your Feather Fall. Splat.

Edited to add: Initially I thought you intended for the dragon to use this tactic repeatedly ("Repeat every few minutes to waste party resources."), but as an opener it's fine and worth trying. The one thing I don't get is, if the dragon is invisible and catching them by surprise, why even bother with the Feather Fall trick? Why not just invisibly fly to within range, then open with breath weapon (probably gaining surprise), and fly away normally?

Edit2: I agree with your general strategic thinking though. A smart dragon can win by going cat-and-mouse. If a dragon surprises the party, grapples one party member and flies off with her, the party may inflict a lot of damage on it (100? 150?) but the dragon kills the PC and then rests for an hour to regain HP. It's now back at full HP and the party is down a member. Score one for cat-and-mouse tactics!

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

What I am experienting on with Drow is a flat number that you have to beat on a d20 roll. 11 for example. This is similar to 2E MR but in effect uses increments of 5%.

I've considered doing the same with a flat number that's always on (except I happen to prefer percentile dice to d20s in this case), but ultimately decided that I like there to be a cost for monsters even on a successful MR check. Expending a reaction to make spells wash off you seems appropriately 5E-ish, and also makes it very clear how friendly spells can still affect MR-resistant creatures: they simply don't bother to "shake off" Bless spells/healing spells/etc. It's less 2E "water off a duck's back" and more like "water off a dog".

It also prevents warlocks from being completely gimped against MR-resistant creatures, since the dragon will probably be saving its MR reaction for spells more threatening than a single Eldritch Blast.

Just an idea, I haven't actually adopted it either.

 

[bgbarcus]

I agree with the other people who are disappointed with dragons that are not scary enough. In my game, an ancient dragon on home turf should be enough to make 20th level characters worry.

The freefall, breath, fly away tactic can be very effective. Feather Fall shouldn't be needed as the dragon can (at least my dragons can) break their fall with their wings by turning the freefall into a swoop. Fire the breath weapon at the same time as opening the wings. I would give the dragon advantage on saves for any spell attacks coming at him while he's free falling and give ranged weapon attacks disadvantage to hit him at that speed. Since I also boosted all my adult and ancient dragon armor classes by 5 this makes them pretty hard to hit. After that attack the dragon could climb and return for a second swoop attack while invisible making the same tactic good for at least two rounds.

After that the dragon can assess whether it is worth attacking again based on how well the party handled those first two breaths. It might have been enough for the dragon to let its minions move in and finish the party.

If the dragon has access to boulders, it can pick up four and return to drop them from the air. Hitting a man sized target like that isn't easy but the damage would be at least equal to a stone giant's thrown rock.

 

[trentonjoe]

Some things I do for dragons:

"Snatch Arrow" monk feat
all good saves (except for the dumb ones don't get INT) and advantage on 2 or 3
2nd wind as a bonus
cast cantrips as a bonus
Elemental damage on claw attacks (similar to salamanders and such)
Magic Items (and good ones)
An escape route at all times


All dragons don't get all of these but it makes them a touch scarier and keeps the PC's guessing. It also allows the "identify monster" skill check to have a purpose.