D&D (2024) Check Out The New Monster Manual’s Ancient Gold Dragon

Wizards of the Coast has previewed (part of) the stat block for one of its iconic monsters on social media. Take a look!

 

[knossos]

Considering that dragons can fly, an ancient gold dragon flying at an altitude of 80 feet can easily use banish to teleport the PC to an altitude of 200 feet.

 

[MerricB]

Considering that dragons can fly, an ancient gold dragon flying at an altitude of 80 feet can easily use banish to teleport the PC to an altitude of 200 feet.

I was considering what the highest banishment "drop" could be...

Against a three member party...

Dragon begins at 120 feet up. (range of banishment).
First character acts. Dragon uses Banish
Second character acts. Dragon uses Pounce and flies 40 feet straight up (half speed)
Third character acts. Dragon uses Pounce and flies 40 feet straight up
Banished character returns 320 feet up in the air and falls...

EDIT: Returns start of dragon turn, not end, so can't quite get another 160 feet up!

Against a four member party in the lair, we can increase that to 360 feet.

Sadly, not quite the over 500 feet needed given terminal falling speed (from XGE) for the banished character to fall 500 feet and still doesn't hit the ground when they return...

Cheers!

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I was considering what the highest banishment "drop" could be...

Against a three member party...

Dragon begins at 120 feet up. (range of banishment).
First character acts. Dragon uses Banish
Second character acts. Dragon uses Pounce and flies 40 feet straight up (half speed)
Third character acts. Dragon uses Pounce and flies 40 feet straight up
Dragon acts, flies upwards 160 feet with Dash.
Banished character returns 480 feet up in the air and falls...

Against a four member party in the lair, we can increase that to 520 feet, which means given terminal falling speed (from XGE) the banished character falls 500 feet and still doesn't hit the ground when they return...

Cheers!

Like most dragons, outside in the open is almost impossible to fight. Why would it attack at all? Fly in, banish, fly up and away and then place the banished victim way up in the air to fall to their death.

Then, wait a round or so and do it again. They never have to move within 120 feet of the party.

Or even use the banish to split the party up. Banish, fly away and plop them far away from the rest of the party and focus them.

 

[Stalker0]

The banishment lasts until the start of the dragon's next turn. The target is going to lose their turn whether they come after or before the dragon in initiative order.

because its a legendary action, this is not true. I will give you an example.

Imagine we have Player A and Dragon D.

A goes after D. Some action is taken before D goes, and D banishes A as a legendary action. It is now D's turn....because it is now the start of D's turn....A returns from banishment. By the time it is A's turn...they are not banishment and can move normally.

Now A goes before D. Some action is taken before A and D goes, and D banishes A as a legendary action. It is now A's turn....and as they are banished they lose their action. Then on D's turn, A returns.


So yes the order is actually quite important.

 

[Stalker0]

You know, I get that people CAN do things. But having a pit of certain death that the dragon can drop people in is just... poor gamesmanship in my opinion.

Certain death....isn't so certain at the levels you are going to face this dragon.

Death Ward, Barbarian deathless ability, contingency, clone, wish, cleric divine intervention (raise dead), immunity to damage, wish immunity to shut off the banish effect, divine intervention (hallow) to shut off dimensional travel.... there are LOTS of ways for a party to handle this effect at those kinds of levels.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You know, I get that people CAN do things. But having a pit of certain death that the dragon can drop people in is just... poor gamesmanship in my opinion.

When dealing with 20th level characters, they have plenty of tools for avoiding certain death.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Considering that dragons can fly, an ancient gold dragon flying at an altitude of 80 feet can easily use banish to teleport the PC to an altitude of 200 feet.

Who casts Feather Fall. Not really a big deal at that level.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I don't care if you think it "pales in comparison" I was still making a point. Which was that the idea of the dragon hitting all or most of the party with its breath weapon is not absurd if, even surprised, the Dragon can still reliably go first in the initiative.

[/QUOTE]

Yes it could certainly happen. But its an irrelevance next to the Banish - which is what the whole fight hinges on.

Sure, a 6th level healing word can heal one member of the party from a successful save against the fire breath. The dragon dealt damage to three people. What do you do for the other two? Oh? Cast an even stronger spell? Okay.

Rogue Evades.
Fighter saves and Second Winds (if he gets a turn).
Wizard Absorbs Elements.
Cleric uses Healing Word (or some other spell).

Convenient how you've not run out of any spells at all and were fully rested before fighting this Boss Encounter of a solo monster by itself, so that you can be the most powerful you could possibly be.

The XP Reward is for a "Highly Difficult" Encounter on its own, not a highly difficult Encounter after the party has already had two Encounters.

You misread the ability, but you also are ignoring the OTHER legendary actions. Like the 7d6 Guiding Bolt that is going to grant them advantage on their next hit for crit fishing. That is 24.5 average damage per hit at range.

Its tricky to say if 24.5 w. Advantage next attack is better than a consistent 28 - maybe it is.

Again, you seem to hyper-fixate on the one thing you can't dismiss by just yelling out a 6th or higher level healing spell, but the Dragon could potentially hit the cleric with the Fire Breath and two Guiding Bolts, dealing a potential 120 damage BEFORE THE CLERIC CAN DO ANYTHING. That is a decent chance of dropping your heal bot.

That's true, the Dragon 'reacting' to a PC's attacks by using its Legendary Actions to attack a separate character could see it do 2-3 Guiding Bolts before one character even gets to act.

Of course that would likely still be sub-optimal compared with Banish....but it could happen.

But would be much more realistic, fun and engaging, if the Legendary Actions at the end of a PC's turn had to be used against that specific PC.

Creatures of the same CR have some pretty big varieties in HP.

That's true and typically the balancing factor with big massive monsters (those with more Hit Points) is often that they are notably slower than others who might have less HP...not so here though.

Maybe that's why the Dragon does so little damage (to compensate), albeit that is moot when taking Banish into account.

Maybe the non-eel-like Dragons, like the Red Dragon, don't get this crazy Initiative Bonuses but have higher AC and higher damage to balance against that.

And, if the whole point of your argument was this dragon was far too weak to take seriously... wouldn't increasing its hp be a good thing?

The sweet spot for Solo monsters is 3-4 rounds. I don't see why massively inflating hit points in this instance is better than slightly upping the dragon's damage. That might turn the fight into a slog.

No it isn't.

I disagree. A typical party cannot defeat the dragon unless it specifically preps for the Banish attack (or hypothetically uses some Char- Ops nonsense).

3/4 is by definition a fraction too.

Yes , that's bigger than less than 1/5.

If you can lose one-fifth of your health as part of your allies losing seventy percent of their health? That's not only not nothing, but it is troubling.

Its not troubling to an Epic Tier martial character.

Especially when you realize the Dragon's rend attack does about the same damage, as does its legendary attacks, and now you are looking at potentially 6 attacks that can take about 1/5th of your health, after having lost 1/5th of your health. Which in two turns is 7/5ths. And... that's not good for you surviving actually.

Yes but Fire Breath Weapon + 6 attacks is 1.5 rounds of actions for the dragon. With the fighter likely having the best AC of the bunch and Second Wind being used as soon as he takes around 25 points of damage.

Again Banish is by far the best tactic and its best to use it against the character with the best AC/highest HP.

 

[Upper_Krust]

How does the Cleric do that on a single turn? They can't use two spell slots, so is that a Channel Divinity healing of the Wizard or something?

I meant either/or my mistake.

Sure, but the dragon wisely banished the Fighter first.

...the best tactic.

However, in the 4-6 rounds you outlined, Weakening Breath would've saved 20-30 points of damage from the Rogue, which is something.

True but its -5 damage per hit from the Rogue versus a potential 28 damage against the Rogue.

And if there were a second damage-dealer in the party (another Rogue, a Dex-based Fighter, a damaging spellcaster, etc.), it would've been even more useful. Depending on party makeup, hitting them with Weakening Breath on the first round to mitigate low-Strength threats could be a good idea.

Honestly I don't see a big point to it in most fights.

Maybe if a bunch of damage dealers group up (but even then most have their best save against it) or if you are foregoing the Banish to take on a martial character 1 vs. 1.

 

[abirdcall]

If in their lair they would have cages to put the banished.

They need line of sight as that is a general rule but all that requires is a small window. It could even be an illusion that the dragon sees through but the party doesn't without being close enough for Truesight.

It could have an anti-magic effect on it too. Not sure if it could be permanent but it could be activated when the character enters that space. Then it could be very difficult to get out without magic.

They don't need line of effect so there could be a solid barrier the character is contained within that would prevent line of effect spells even without an anti-magic effect.