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!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Which is why I suggest Legendary Resistance should require using a Reaction (or Legendary Action in this case) - then the opponent's attacks are diminished.

That is an interesting idea! Gotta say I rather like it.

 

[Sulicius]

- snip-

You can continually Banish them each round.

Fighters are really hard to banish. The fighter in our test just used indomitable to succeed every time. After that it was already game over.

 

[dave2008]

Fighters are really hard to banish. The fighter in our test just used indomitable to succeed every time. After that it was already game over.

On the other hand the fighter in @MonsterEnvy 's ongoing test (Testing against the Gold Dragon) was banished (with indomitable) on the first attempt. Dice being dice and all.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Epic Casters have at least 6 high level spells. Most combats only last 3-4 rounds. Expending a few of their powerful spells doesn't render them impotent.

Nice strawman. Poorly constructed, but looks pretty.

1. Its the Tarrasque...supposedly the most dangerous monster in the game...you don't build it to just tickle the PC's.
2. Dropping an Epic Tier PC to 0 HP is not likely to be the end of them.
3. DPR still requires everything to hit.

3) And they will hit. I don't understand how you keep missing this point. The current Tarrasque has a modifier of +19. Even if you stacked magical gear on yourself and used special abilities to get your AC up the 30, which is FAR beyond what most characters achieve, the Tarrasque still hits you half the time. Most "epic level" PCs are only going to be sitting at an AC of above 20, maybe the fighter or paladin could get into 26 territory.

2) Do you understand how a Death Spiral Works? Yes it may not be the end of their journey if the fight is won, you may even be able to bring them back up into the fight.... except that since you can't bring them back to full HP, they will drop faster next time, along with whoever else is targetted. Then you need to bring both of them back, and that is pretty difficult to do and get both of them back to full, and so they both drop faster next time and this is all assuming the Healer is not targeted and is capable of targeting the downed allies and bringing them back. These are all worrying assumptions to make in actual play.

1) There is a whole spectrum between "tickle tickle fun time" and "ultra mega death edge death death".

Statistically most parties won't even have a Cleric, but if we are doing a Classic 4 Classes Party, then you can't complain about the Cleric doing 'Heal-y' stuff.

I'm not complaining about it. But from your posts so far, and your utter dismissal of all the damage that can be done because "the cleric can just cast a spell and heal it" then you must mean you want something like the Tarrassque to drop two party members per round, from max hp, and including any healing the cleric may do. Because if the cleric can heal them back to full, then the damage was trivial and didn't count.

The DC 24 Fire Breath is broken, its just luckily the damage is so low it won't be AS BIG a problem as the Banish.

The damage is not low.

That's just nonsense. They laughed at it because the high CR monsters are badly designed and incredibly weak.

Did any of these parties attempt to fight such high CR monsters with no magical items and no feats?

Again irrelevant, its a Solo monster. The whole point of Legendary Resistance is so we can have Solo Monsters.

No, the whole point of Legendary Resistance is so that the Big Bad doesn't get polymorphed into a goldfish and suffocate on round one. It is not so that we have solo monsters, because the designers have REPEATEDLY told us that we should include minions with the big bads.

You are as delusional as WotC if you think adding 9 fire damage to a Gold Dragon's "Rends" is suddenly going to translate to it "wrecking house". The 2024 Power Creep alone probably undermines something like a flat +20% hike in monster damage.

29 damage on average, three times is an average of 87 damage. The dragon tends to go first. The Dragon has a very high to hit bonus. I've shown the math multiple times. This could easily drop a sorcerer or wizard, this is possible to drop, and if not drop can severely mess up a Bard, Druid, Cleric, Bard, Monk, Warlock or Artificer. This is more than half the HP of a Fighter, Ranger or Paladin.

The point isn't the 9 fire damage. The point is the average damage over a single turn, which is 87. And, notably, most PCs did not actually get an increase in damage prevention or HP. They had their own damage adjusted. So no, I doubt the power creep does what you say.

They can remove them EACH round, before they act. Its a potentially Perpetual removal.

You can continually Banish them each round.

SO I guess the Dragon just keeps banishing them after the rest of the party is dead, forever and ever? Come on. Only the worst DMs would even consider doing that.

 

[Upper_Krust]

That is an interesting idea! Gotta say I rather like it.

Cheers amigo.

I have a handful of new ideas for monster design (and the monster stat-block) coming soon in the new GOD RULES: Players Guide book and subsequent Bestiary (or three). I have a cool redesign for how these Reactions get implemented that I really think people will love. Tricky trying to fit all the stat blocks into one column for ease of use (even for the high CR stuff), but I am pretty much there.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Fighters are really hard to banish. The fighter in our test just used indomitable to succeed every time. After that it was already game over.

Agreed with the 2024 Indomitable upgrade. But not every class has a "get out of jail free" card.

I still say the Save system is broken in 5e at high and epic tier.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Will reply to your longer reply in the morning Chaosmancer. Didn't want you to think I was ignoring you. Cool discussion.

 

[Stalker0]

PCs aren't doing so great, and yet not a single one of them has been dropped yet. The idea that a CR 30 should almost drop 2 PCs a turn is absurd, because most tables have only 4 PCs. That means that you are saying that the Tarrasque or Titan monsters should WIN against a level 20 party in two turns. That's not fun for anyone.

You are facing a threat a full 10 CRs higher than the party (and the MM has strict warning abouts using monsters higher CR than the party....this is 50% higher).

I mean....if that doesn't mean PCs are dropping like flies than what is the point of super high CRs?

 

[dave2008]

You are facing a threat a full 10 CRs higher than the party (and the MM has strict warning abouts using monsters higher CR than the party....this is 50% higher).

I mean....if that doesn't mean PCs are dropping like flies than what is the point of super high CRs?

A CR 26 monster (90,000 XP) should be a Hard encounter (88,000 XP budget) for 4, 20th level, PCs. So a CR 30 monster should be, I don't know, really Hard!

 

[abirdcall]

Fighters are really hard to banish. The fighter in our test just used indomitable to succeed every time. After that it was already game over.

I would assume the dragon would know who best to target with the banish unless the PCs have some well hidden ability that the dragon wouldn't know about.