D&D 5E Dragon Fire - the Drogon Initiative

[Imaculata]

I like that approach. I had previously thought it was overkill, but hell, might as well go whole hog!

I think with this approach the real danger to the players is not the overkill amount of damage, but the amount of tiles that are set on fire. If there's fire literally anywhere you go, that's constant 1d10 damage every round. That I think is the real terror, everything's on fire! 1d10 may not seem much, but that is a lot of damage if you take it every round on top of that ever else the dragon is doing. And you need to stop what you are doing to put it out, after which you could easily catch fire again.

You can also play the dragon in such a way that it is trying to drive players into the fire, so they have nowhere else to go. Dragons want to be in the air as much as possible, safely out of reach of pointy things, while spraying fire everywhere. The players will have a pretty hard time getting into a good position to attack the dragon, when the dragon constantly sets fire to those positions.

It kind of reminds me of a boss battle I once designed with a giant Forge Golem. The construct would poor molten metal everywhere, thus also controlling the battlefield, and limiting where the players could stand. It was pretty epic because of the constantly shrinking space.

 

[jasper]

I am specifically trying to emulate some of the elements of dragon fire visualized in the last GoT episode (here is the scene if your interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yehoQilXYrM ). Such As:

1) Continued aggressive burning: ongoing fire damage
2) Searing pain and disorientation: no reactions and disadvantage on attacks and concentration checks.

In the scene the victims couldn't do anything but wildly attempt to put out the flames engulfing their bodies. I didn't want to take away all actions (PCs are heroes after all), but on second thought I should probably remove bonus actions as well. Maybe I should review the conditions again and see if there is a way to simplify this part. I also thought about imposing a limited blindness, but with disadvantage on attacks instead.

Drop 2. As heroes don't feel pain.
1 Reskin and upgrade Elemental Bane (fire) page 17 Elemental Evil Players Companion. Instead of concentration make a flat 1 minute duration in the cone. Or reskin Create Bonfire to a cone affect.

 

[dave2008]

I think with this approach the real danger to the players is not the overkill amount of damage, but the amount of tiles that are set on fire. If there's fire literally anywhere you go, that's constant 1d10 damage every round. That I think is the real terror, everything's on fire! 1d10 may not seem much, but that is a lot of damage if you take it every round on top of that ever else the dragon is doing. And you need to stop what you are doing to put it out, after which you could easily catch fire again.

It is a threat for most, but an ancient dragon should only be challenged by epic tier (lvl17-20) PCs IMO. So I would expect them to come to the fight prepared, so I don't think that it is to much damage for the expected encounter level.

 

[dave2008]

Drop 2. As heroes don't feel pain.

It is not heroic if they don't feel pain. The heroic part is fighting on through the pain. To be clear, i am talking about engulfing characters in flames (as per the scene referenced) and it not just be the pain, but the difficulty and distraction of fighting with your entire body engulfed in flames in smoke. I you can fight at all through that - your a hero. Of course the soldiers in the scene could not, but high level PCs still could even with the beefed up effects I am proposing.

1 Reskin and upgrade Elemental Bane (fire) page 17 Elemental Evil Players Companion. Instead of concentration make a flat 1 minute duration in the cone.

I thought about making it remove resistance, but I think I will leave that for great wyrm fire Otherwise the spell, to my eye, doesn't add any benefit to what I have proposed. I don't really like the idea that it adds damage when the target takes damage. IMO, that doesn't mechanically model what I am going for.

Or reskin Create Bonfire to a cone affect.

That is essentially what we are talking about when we have discussed adding a zone to the fire breath attack.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

After watching the latest GoT episode it got me thinking about dragon fire. One thing I really liked was the continuing chaos and damage caused by the dragon fire after the initial attack. In 4e I got tired of so many monsters inflicting ongoing damage, so I started dropping it from my monsters designs. However, after seeing the episode I really want to bring it back with a vengeance (for ancient dragons at least). What do you think?

How about:
Fire Breath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon exhales fire in a 90-foot cone. Each creature in the area must make a DC 24 Dexterity saving throw, taking 91 (26d6) fire damage and is ignited on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature or object ignited by dragon fire cannot take reactions, has disadvantage on its attacks and concentration checks, and takes 21 (6d6) fire damage at the start of each of its turns until it is extinguished. An ignited creature or object can be extinguished with the equivalent of 5 gallons of water or by taking an action and a successful DC 15 Dexterity saving throw to extinguish the flames.

This, I think, begins to model the effects produced by Drogon in "The Spoils of War." Any suggestions.

Just one suggestion: make sure you know and can explain why this fire works differently from other fire. E.g. someone ignited by a Fire Elemental takes only d10 per round and doesn't have any of the disadvantage or other riders.

For example, you could say that dragon's breath includes a napalm component, or you could even just say "it's magical fire and it burns hotter." But do have some kind of an explanation in mind--don't define this thing purely by its mechanical effects in the metagame metagame (HP/advantage/etc. are all metagame concepts). Define the in-world effects too.

(That includes figuring out why extinguishing the flames taking an action to make a DC 15 Dexterity save instead of a Dexterity check. Most of the time when you take an action to end an effect, you wind up making an ability check. Otto's Irresistible Dance is the only case I can think of where you use your action to make a save. What are you actually doing with your action that requires a Dexterity save to succeed?)

 

[MechaPilot]

Could we please focus the GoT discussion to dragonfire?

The sub-thread on the show's depiction of rape is especially unwelcome in this thread, I'm sure. Please continue that discussion elsewhere. Thank you.

Absolutely. Sorry.

 

[dave2008]

Just one suggestion: make sure you know and can explain why this fire works differently from other fire. E.g. someone ignited by a Fire Elemental takes only d10 per round and doesn't have any of the disadvantage or other riders.

Yep, I'm going with magically enhanced napalm / wild fire / greek fire

(That includes figuring out why extinguishing the flames taking an action to make a DC 15 Dexterity save instead of a Dexterity check. Most of the time when you take an action to end an effect, you wind up making an ability check. Otto's Irresistible Dance is the only case I can think of where you use your action to make a save. What are you actually doing with your action that requires a Dexterity save to succeed?)

It could be a check instead, that makes more sense.

Thank you for the response.

 

[Sunseeker]

I believe you could accomplish this without too much rules fudge.

5E already allows for spellcasting dragons (spells of a level up to a third of the dragon's Challenge Rating, which for Ancients will not be a problem).

Then you just say "Drogon's using Quicken Metamagic" to cast and breathe at the same time, and you're done

Since few spells in 5E actually specify how they're cast "breathing" could simply be how dragons cast magic, similar to Skyrim and words of power.

To be fair though, I'm a terrifying DM, and just give my dragons sorcerer caster levels. +5 caster levels per age category above Wyrmling with only special legendary dragons being the only ones to get 20th-level casting. "Special" dragons may have additional classes. Yes, I do have 10 Legendary Dragons who are all 20th level Sorcerers and 20th level in something else, complete with the appropriate feats, ASIs and features.

 

[Triumph_Fork]

No... just no

 

[Uchawi]

The degree the individual is engulfed in flames is a representation of how many hit points are lost. After that you can imagine however you want. I guess if you go the ongoing damage route then set it for so many rounds and then it is done. What I did not like about 4E ongoing damage was saving each round. Make the book keeping simple.