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!

 

[Chaosmancer]

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

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

Okay, don't call it certain death if you just mean deadly. Certain Death and "well, it would be certain death to SOME people" are two different things.

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.

Death ward doesn't prevent certain continual death, neither does the barbarian ability. It just delays it. Raise Dead and Clone don't get you back into the fight, neither of damage immunity depending on where this is. Stopping the banishment effect in the first place is a separate issue.

If the Dragon banishes someone, then brings them back underground buried in stone, in an adamantine box, filled with some infinite source of damage... that's still kind of bad sportsmanship even if the character has a clone that can be revived or they otherwise cannot die. Because it is designed as a one turn removal, not a permanent removal of the character

 

[Chaosmancer]

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

No, it really doesn't. Because if the Fighter being banished for a single turn was truly so game changing... then it isn't even an issue for the fighter to make that save once.

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

"This damage doesn't matter at all, we'll just use our resources to deal with it" Yes, it uses resources to counter the damage. You are aware I have been accounting for evasion and absorb elements and even abilities you seem to have forgotten about this entire time, correct? But you keep acting like I've never thought of Evasion on a dex save even once

Again, my point isn't that I beleive that the Dragon's Breath is so deadly it will maim and kill the entire party on its own, just that it isn't so weak as to be a complete non-issue, worthy of nothing but scorn.

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.

XP rewards have never changed based on how many fights you had before. So I have no idea what point you think you are making.

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.

It can only banish once. Using other legendary actions twice and banishing is still possible. And, again, no Banish is not the only factor in this fight that has any potential of causing issues for the PCs.

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.

You're entire issue seemed to be that the dragon had no chance of even singing the party's coattails, unless it could drop 1 PC per round, because it would die so fast to the PCs that it could never do anything effective to them. If that is true, it dying slower would fix that issue.

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

Flat out false. It can banish one person per turn. That means three characters can still do things to it. So, unless you only have one character capable of dealing damage at level 17, Banish does not make the fight impossible to win.

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

Its not troubling to an Epic Tier martial character.

Why not? Seriously, how is losing 20% of your health in a single attack not worrying for a martial character? Do they only lose hp if it is 50% of their total or more? You just keep asserting that it isn't an issue, but you refuse to elaborate beyond that.

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.

No, it is more than 1.5 rounds of actions. It is approximately 2 to 2.5 rounds. And the Fighter's AC might not matter, the dragon is hitting at a +17. That hits an AC of 25 on a roll of 8 or better. So, the dragon isn't realistically going to struggle against the Fighter's AC.

 

[Stalker0]

If the Dragon banishes someone, then brings them back underground buried in stone, in an adamantine box, filled with some infinite source of damage... that's still kind of bad sportsmanship even if the character has a clone that can be revived or they otherwise cannot die. Because it is designed as a one turn removal, not a permanent removal of the character

I do agree there is a level here. Dropping someone in the air or even into lava I think is fair game at those levels. But dropping them completely away from the fight trapped in a death box is one step too far for many games. Not all of them mind you, there are games that are absolutely up for that level...and the players will build their characters to bring just as much crazy. But I think that is likely a tier above what people would consider fair play.

 

[Stalker0]

Death ward doesn't prevent certain continual death, neither does the barbarian ability. It just delays it. Raise Dead and Clone don't get you back into the fight, neither of damage immunity depending on where this is. Stopping the banishment effect in the first place is a separate issue.

I mean all defenses only delay death. the key is to delay death long enough to kill the dragon....same as every fight a party ever engages in.

fights are only 3ish rounds most of the time, if my character gets to stay in another round because of a death evading effect, well thats a big win.

And Raise Dead would bring the character back into the fight (divine intervention makes it work in a single action), now the character would certainly not be at 100% but its one way to go about getting them into the game.

 

[Stalker0]

This conversation is starting to remind me of the Vecna one when that new statblock hit the interwebs many months ago. We actually did a fun little test online, got 4 people to make 20th level characters and just ran a fight online with Vecna to see how it went.

And...Vecna actually did very well I was quite impressed. Would be interesting to see people try this dragon out in practice and see how it fares.

 

[Stalker0]

@Morrus could you update the OP now that we have the full statblock, just for convenience?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Okay, don't call it certain death if you just mean deadly.

Sorry for not being absolutely literal in everything I say. And definitely not sarcastic.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But dropping them completely away from the fight trapped in a death box is one step too far for many games. Not all of them mind you, there are games that are

Why are the players fighting the usually good kind and helpful gold dragon anyway? If they are just being murder hobos then the dragon should be prepared to defend itself by any means at its disposal.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Why are the players fighting the usually good kind and helpful gold dragon anyway? If they are just being murder hobos then the dragon should be prepared to defend itself by any means at its disposal.

The usual "corrupted", "being forced to by a possessing force", or "guarding the macguffin that will save the multiverse but that it has magically sworn to defend" scenarios.

But anyway, the DM shouldn't have to play nice in combat using such a high DC creature. If it's a one-off game, then no one should care if their temporary characters die, and if it's a long running game, then the PCs should be already crazy-prepared for any eventuality.

 

[Stalker0]

But anyway, the DM shouldn't have to play nice in combat using such a high DC creature. If it's a one-off game, then no one should care if their temporary characters die, and if it's a long running game, then the PCs should be already crazy-prepared for any eventuality.

This always comes back to the covenant between the DM and the players. A DM can always TPK the party, that is not hard (gods come down and just bitch clap the party).

The hard part is crafting a fight that feels epic and tough, and either the players leave it going "we won but it was so close" or "we died, but if I had just nailed that one roll I think we would have had it". What you don't want is a party that goes "man....we never had a chance did we...what was the point of that?"

So looking at the gold. The banish ability, since it does not specify any damage, we can assume that the ability normally does no more than what it says on the tin....knocks out the player for a round, returns them with no damage.

Now....a clever DM looking to up the threat can then add in some spice on top...again either returning the player in the air, or maybe landing them on a hostile spot in the lair that does extra damage. But in doing that, the players now see what's up, and can either react to that ability with their spells and abilities and XYZ. It sets the challenge at a certain level (potentially higher than the base CR of the monster), but the cards are on the table and then the fight unfolds.

The notion of sending the character to an "underground death box"....the concern is that its something the players don't see and therefore can't account for (unless perhaps the DM gave them hints or clues about this box....and so part of the challenge is the party finding and disabling it ahead of time). If you put a nasty damaging effect in teh room with the players, ok they can help each other overcome it. And hell even if its a lethal obstacle, at those levels players often have things that can help you recover even from death.

But removing the character from the party entirely removes any chance to help, that character is simply dead and gone as far as the fight is concerned....which doesn't carry the same dramatic oomph and fun as "your buddy was just dropped into lava what do you do?"



As always, this varies from table to table. Some tables have sadistic DMs that are enjoyed by equally sadistic players, where everyone wants the challenge ramped up to 11, and so that is the kind of games they enjoy. Nothign wrong with that. But its fair to say that a number of groups would not like that kind of challenge, and so its on the DM to use rules creatively to give their players fun challenges....but not abusive them and remove that fun.