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!

 

[Sulicius]

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.

Fighter was still the right pick, trust me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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?

There is a difference between "this is hard" and "we are essentially dead the moment initiative is rolled". I just don't understand why that is so hard for people to grasp. One sided stomps are not fun. And while people keep responding to that with "well, the players have many options to..." if you have been following my discussion with Upper_Krust, all of those things? That makes the attacks "worthless" or "ineffective" and therefore mean the monsters attacks should be STRONGER. If you go back a few pages he posted his "ideal" CR 30 monster. It does 210 damage in a single strike. If I'm reading their partial statblock correctly, you should expect an AVERAGE damage of 390 damage plus a stun plus swallowing on its turn, and even more damage from legendary actions.

To get that into some perspective the STRONGEST fighter without accounting for magical gear has an average hp of 304. That is with a 20 con, Tough and the Epic Boon of Tough. You could throw 50 temp hp on them as well, and on average with that design they are STILL dropped from more than full health to zero hp in a single round of attacks with no legendary actions. And if it hit anyone WEAKER than that, then it can likely drop 2 to 3 of them in a single round of combat. Maybe if you had a party optimized to the gills with specific magical gear to stand a chance... but 90% of parties playing the game don't do that. Most people are not optimizers. So we should not treat the core monsters as though they need to slaughter a level 20 party in two turns to be a "proper" threat. No one ever said that the old Tarrasque didn't deal enough damage to be a threat, its only repeated issue was its inability to respond to ranged attacks or dex saves. Because dropping a single PC to 50% of their health in a single turn is still dramatic, while actually giving the party time to DO SOMETHING, instead of being shredded.

 

[Stalker0]

There is a difference between "this is hard" and "we are essentially dead the moment initiative is rolled". I just don't understand why that is so hard for people to grasp. One sided stomps are not fun.

i think what you are failing to grasp is… a party is not supposed to fight any monster 10 CR higher than they are.

A 20th level party is not supposed to fight the tarrasque straight up, if they do…yes they are supposed to get obliterated, just as a 10th level party fighting a CR 20 legendary monster should do the same.

That is not a fight the PCS are supposed to just take on. They should bring an artifact or an army or ancient magic magguffin X

 

[Sulicius]

There is a difference between "this is hard" and "we are essentially dead the moment initiative is rolled". I just don't understand why that is so hard for people to grasp. One sided stomps are not fun. And while people keep responding to that with "well, the players have many options to..." if you have been following my discussion with Upper_Krust, all of those things? That makes the attacks "worthless" or "ineffective" and therefore mean the monsters attacks should be STRONGER. If you go back a few pages he posted his "ideal" CR 30 monster. It does 210 damage in a single strike. If I'm reading their partial statblock correctly, you should expect an AVERAGE damage of 390 damage plus a stun plus swallowing on its turn, and even more damage from legendary actions.

To get that into some perspective the STRONGEST fighter without accounting for magical gear has an average hp of 304. That is with a 20 con, Tough and the Epic Boon of Tough. You could throw 50 temp hp on them as well, and on average with that design they are STILL dropped from more than full health to zero hp in a single round of attacks with no legendary actions. And if it hit anyone WEAKER than that, then it can likely drop 2 to 3 of them in a single round of combat. Maybe if you had a party optimized to the gills with specific magical gear to stand a chance... but 90% of parties playing the game don't do that. Most people are not optimizers. So we should not treat the core monsters as though they need to slaughter a level 20 party in two turns to be a "proper" threat. No one ever said that the old Tarrasque didn't deal enough damage to be a threat, its only repeated issue was its inability to respond to ranged attacks or dex saves. Because dropping a single PC to 50% of their health in a single turn is still dramatic, while actually giving the party time to DO SOMETHING, instead of being shredded.

I get where you are coming from, but tier 4 PC's have so many features and abilities to regain HP, gain temp HP, gain resistances, increace AC, make enemies roll at disadvantage. Having played quite a bit at high level, the average DPR a monster is calculated with, rarely ever makes contact with the PC's.

And even if a PC gets obliterated, they are back up before the start of their next turn anyway because of healing, and they can still action surge and drop 8 attacks with advantage right away.

If you can't stop a tier 4 party from doing their regular play style, the monster will just melt down.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Might be worth mentioning that being swallowed blocks line of sight, so a swallowed character cannot be healed. And they continue to take damage every turn after reaching zero hp, so die permanently in three turns or less.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Nice strawman. Poorly constructed, but looks pretty.

Not sure what you are getting at then, are Epic Tier casters never supposed to use 6-9th level spells?

If Epic Tier casters use two or three 6-9th level spells are they now 'ineffective' in the next encounter?

Is battling a CR 24 Ancient Dragon not likely to be the culmination of that "Adventuring day"?

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,

Its not far beyond what most Epic Tier characters achieve. ACs 25-30 are common (for lots of epic characters).

the Tarrasque still hits you half the time.

So what, epic characters have so many ways to heal or resist damage or gain temp HP that even a full attack chain plus the Tarrasque's Legendary Actions likely won't drop a martial character IF they ALL hit.

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.

You need to play more Epic Tier. ACs of 25-30 are common.

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.

I understand the Death Spiral, just as I understand the economy of Actions.

If the dragon takes two rounds of actions from all 4 PCs the fight is basically over. Thus to stand a chance of winning it needs to drop or at best deplete PC actions against it.

If the Monster goes down with around 10-11 PC turns worth of actions, its only chance is taking down a PC per turn: 4, 3, 2, 1 = 10

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

If by "Ultra Mega Death Edge Death Death" you mean the CR 30 monster, if it lands every attack drops 1.75 average HP Player Characters per round, then yes it should be Ultra Mega Death Edge Death Death.

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.

I'm dismissive of the damage because I know first hand the damage is not high enough to trouble Epic Tier PCs - its as simple as that.

The damage is not low.

I disagree. For a Solo monster the damage is low. It won't make a dent.

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

I don't buy the nonsense that Monster Challenge Rating was determined without assuming the PCs would have Level Appropriate gear.

Aside from the 2014 Luck feat I can't think of a feat that is notably better than taking the ability score boost.

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.

That's what I meant - so we can have functioning solo monsters.

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.

The damage is not high enough. Plus the idea that a Wizard will have no way to mitigate the Fire damage is extremely unlikely.

This could easily drop a sorcerer or wizard,

Who don't operate on the front lines and Absorb Elements drops the damage below even Wizard HP totals - which they won't need if they already know they are facing a Dragon, which is likely because its a solo boss monsters not likely a random encounter, because they will Fire Resistance/Immunity already 'on'.

this is possible to drop, and if not drop can severely mess up a Bard, Druid, Cleric, Bard, Monk, Warlock or Artificer.

Wasn't there a gamer in the Playtest Thread who says his Monk PC solos the dragon 1 vs. 1.

You are not understanding how powerful Epic Tier PCs are.

This is more than half the HP of a Fighter, Ranger or Paladin.

Whom it likely doesn't hit with all attacks.

The point isn't the 9 fire damage.

We have to highlight it because a lot of Epic PCs are Resistant to fire.

Instead of the Fire damage the dragon should just have dealt more slashing or piercing 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.

87 damage on a turn is not going to 'cut the mustard' at Epic Tier.

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.

So the Dragon nerf's its best attack to give the PCs an easier fight...is that what you are saying?

GM's have to play Epic Monsters to win and not pull punches.

 

[Upper_Krust]

There is a difference between "this is hard" and "we are essentially dead the moment initiative is rolled".

For a Highly Difficult (or even more dangerous) Challenge what we generally want is a fight that pushes PCs to their limits.

To do that a CR 24 solo monster needs to be in the ballpark of dropping 1 average PC of average HP per turn. I know that sounds crazy on paper, but in practice Epic PCs are so helluva tough that anything else just becomes an auto-win for the PCs...and again even if the monster somehow drops an Epic Tier PC, its very likely not the end of them in that fight.

I just don't understand why that is so hard for people to grasp. One sided stomps are not fun.

I know One-sided stomps are not fun, that is why gamer's have been complaining to WotC for TEN YEARS the high CR monsters are not powerful enough...and slapping on +9 fire damage is not the solution that has Epic Tier players peeing their proverbial +3 pants.

And while people keep responding to that with "well, the players have many options to..." if you have been following my discussion with Upper_Krust, all of those things? That makes the attacks "worthless" or "ineffective" and therefore mean the monsters attacks should be STRONGER.

...because I have seen it first hand...and that's with the 2014 rules BEFORE the 2024 Power creep.

If you go back a few pages he posted his "ideal" CR 30 monster. It does 210 damage in a single strike. If I'm reading their partial statblock correctly, you should expect an AVERAGE damage of 390 damage plus a stun plus swallowing on its turn,

Think about it. THE most powerful monster in the game, with its (historically) MOST powerful attack, which if it hits...probably still only deals 60-75% of Barbarian/Fighter HP.

and even more damage from legendary actions.

Reactions.

To get that into some perspective the STRONGEST fighter without accounting for magical gear has an average hp of 304. That is with a 20 con, Tough and the Epic Boon of Tough. You could throw 50 temp hp on them as well, and on average with that design they are STILL dropped from more than full health to zero hp in a single round of attacks with no legendary actions.

Its Challenge Rating 30, not Challenge Rating 'Gimme'.

And if it hit anyone WEAKER than that, then it can likely drop 2 to 3 of them in a single round of combat. Maybe if you had a party optimized to the gills with specific magical gear to stand a chance... but 90% of parties playing the game don't do that. Most people are not optimizers.

That's the crazy thing, we don't even need Optimizers to make Epic Characters tough - they are already tough.

So we should not treat the core monsters as though they need to slaughter a level 20 party in two turns to be a "proper" threat. No one ever said that the old Tarrasque didn't deal enough damage to be a threat,

...ran a playtest with my friends Level 20 Fighter a few months ago (admittedly with some Epic Boons) PC vs. Tarrasque and he beat it in a straight up fight.

Epic characters, especially played by people who know what they are doing* (even without Char Ops exploits) are just wrecking balls.

*Those who have played the character up from lower levels and 'honed' their abilities (as opposed to just randomly created for playtests).

its only repeated issue was its inability to respond to ranged attacks or dex saves.

It had that flaw as well.

Because dropping a single PC to 50% of their health in a single turn is still dramatic, while actually giving the party time to DO SOMETHING, instead of being shredded.

Epic PCs will still probably beat the Tarrasque design I created. Mine just has a bit more 'bite'. ;-)

 

[Stalker0]

To me here's an easy example:

Imagine a 17th level wizard with a 14 con has 98 hp. Now you might argue would a wizard always have 14 con, but I would argue that I am not included the myriad of ways this wizard might have buffed up their HP total (Aid, Heroes feast, temp hp from so many options you take your pick, etc).

Even at 98 hp, it takes the dragon 4 attacks to bring the wizard to 0. And note that if assume a simple AC 19 for the wizard, aka mage armor + shield + 12 dex, nothing crazy at these levels...but with a simple AC 19, the dragon only gets all 4 attacks to hit 65% of the time, more likely than not but certainly no guarrantee. Also, if the wizard does have fire resistance on, it actually takes 5 attacks on average. And then, it takes 2 more attacks while he's unconscious to kill him. And that's before I've looked at invulnerability or resistance to BPS or death ward or contingency, etc. and of course then he's one decent heal spell from being completely back in the fight.

So one of the physically weakest members of the party can stand up to a creature 7 CRs higher than its level, and face tank its entire attack regiment, plus a few LAs before the real risk of dying. And this isn't just any high CR monster, dragons are supposed to represent one of the physically strongest creatures in existence.

So yeah....the damage does seem low to me.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

To me here's an easy example:

Imagine a 17th level wizard with a 14 con has 98 hp. Now you might argue would a wizard always have 14 con, but I would argue that I am not included the myriad of ways this wizard might have buffed up their HP total (Aid, Heroes feast, temp hp from so many options you take your pick, etc).

Even at 98 hp, it takes the dragon 4 attacks to bring the wizard to 0. And note that if assume a simple AC 19 for the wizard, aka mage armor + shield + 12 dex, nothing crazy at these levels...but with a simple AC 19, the dragon only gets all 4 attacks to hit 65% of the time, more likely than not but certainly no guarrantee. Also, if the wizard does have fire resistance on, it actually takes 5 attacks on average. And then, it takes 2 more attacks while he's unconscious to kill him. And that's before I've looked at invulnerability or resistance to BPS or death ward or contingency, etc. and of course then he's one decent heal spell from being completely back in the fight.

So one of the physically weakest members of the party can stand up to a creature 7 CRs higher than its level, and face tank its entire attack regiment, plus a few LAs before the real risk of dying. And this isn't just any high CR monster, dragons are supposed to represent one of the physically strongest creatures in existence.

So yeah....the damage does seem low to me.

I don't think they are supposed to take down a PC in one round.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think they are supposed to take down a PC in one round.

so then what are they supposed to do? just bat around some hitpoints for 3 rounds and then die?

Again this is a fight 7 CR higher than the players, if the dragon cannot even drop a PC in a round let alone kill them....than there is no real fight.