D&D 4E 4E Dragons - Where's the beef?

[keterys]

Hmm, a battlerager I know absorbs 5 per hit at 2nd level and has an AC of 22... so against a 7th level Solo red dragon, he'd only take 2d6+1 per claw and 35% of them would miss, so it'd take about 9 attacks to drop him.

But yeah, battlerage only helps so far. But boy does it help.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Hmm, a battlerager I know absorbs 5 per hit at 2nd level and has an AC of 22... so against a 7th level Solo red dragon, he'd only take 2d6+1 per claw and 35% of them would miss, so it'd take about 9 attacks to drop him.

But yeah, battlerage only helps so far. But boy does it help.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, battlerager is pretty crazy but last i checked this thread was about a level 15 dragon vs a level 3 fighter. Ain't no way...

 

[Aenghus]

You must have a lot of free time on your hands.

For those of us who do not have a lot of free time, DND is supposed to be designed that we can just grab monsters out of the MM and use them straight up.

In fact, there were more DM friendly changes to 4E with which to make creating encounters easier and faster than there were ones for players. That's a major selling point of 4E for WotC.

To be fair, I think its impossible to produce a high-mechanics game that works perfectly out of the box with any group of random PCs regardless of how efficiently they are created and run. Encounters may need to be tweaked depending on the exact composition, focus and current condition of the party. Super-effective parties may need more challenge, parties unprepared for or disliking combat will need less challenge.

By and large the 4e modules I've seen assume fairly average PCs but also assume they will work together.

The decoupling of mechanics and lack of cascading math in 4e makes it much much easier to level up or down monsters by the book, or just eyeball changes.

Solo monsters such as dragons are an outlier case and definitlely need inspection with a view to how fun they will be to fight for a particular party. For instance, parties weak on ranged combat may have great difficulty getting to grips with a dragon with flyby attack without the DM making deliberate mistakes.

 

[Skyscraper]

You must have a lot of free time on your hands.

For those of us who do not have a lot of free time, DND is supposed to be designed that we can just grab monsters out of the MM and use them straight up.

In fact, there were more DM friendly changes to 4E with which to make creating encounters easier and faster than there were ones for players. That's a major selling point of 4E for WotC.

I admit that my post was not very clear and I side-tracked on ease of 4E monster design. Sorry 'bout that.

The OP's concern was that a 4E adult red dragon's breath does not immediately kill a 3rd level fighter. My reply is: have the breath weapon deal the damage you want. Design time = half a second.

Many replies here (including your above reply) are: but the monster should be usable out of the book. My reply to this: if the book is your bible, then read the DMG: it says no level 15 solo against a level 3 party. If you really want a level 15 solo against a level 3 party, you need to think about what a level 15 solo means for a level 3 party. If for you it means that his breath weapon should kill the party instantly, then take the level 15 dragon stats and increase his breath weapon damage sufficiently to kill any level 3 PC he hits. Again, this takes no time whatsoever.

Bottom line: an overpowering monster can be as overpowering as you want, why is there a necessity for the book to tell you how much overpowering it actually is? It's not like the level 3 PCs will have any chance to kill it anyway, the thing is clearly and without any doubt much, much stronger than the PCs. The purpose of pitting a level 3 party against such a creature is not to have a fight with any kind of fairness included; it's either to have a fight and kill the PCs, or to have no fight because the PCs are subdued or flee. The numbers do not matter at all. So how much does a 4E adult red dragon breath weapon deal against a level 3 party? Answering this question should constitute all the design time you need to prepare that dragon as a DM.

Sky

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Many replies here (including your above reply) are: but the monster should be usable out of the book. My reply to this: if the book is your bible, then read the DMG: it says no level 15 solo against a level 3 party.

Totally agree with this. You don't really have a whole lot of room to complain about how the out of the book Dragon should be better when you're going AGAINST the book that says it was never designed for an encounter with PC's 12 levels lower than it.

 

[Regicide]

The OP's concern was that a 4E adult red dragon's breath does not immediately kill a 3rd level fighter. My reply is: have the breath weapon deal the damage you want. Design time = half a second.

There is a lot of math going on in 4E, people are saying even small changes break things. A DM is not encouraged by 4E to do arbitrary changes.

Many replies here (including your above reply) are: but the monster should be usable out of the book. My reply to this: if the book is your bible, then read the DMG: it says no level 15 solo against a level 3 party.

Unwinnable combat situations are often appropriate. If the party decides that the dragon who wants to send them on a quest should instead be fought they should get the dragon that they, insanely, want to fight.

Bottom line: an overpowering monster can be as overpowering as you want, why is there a necessity for the book to tell you how much overpowering it actually is? It's not like the level 3 PCs will have any chance to kill it anyway, the thing is clearly and without any doubt much, much stronger than the PCs.

8 levels later when you WANT them to finally fight the dragon they say "no fricken way, it's breath does XXX, we'll lose!" and you, as a DM, are sitting there going... "damn."

Consistency is a bitch.

 

[Gunpowder]

There is a lot of math going on in 4E, people are saying even small changes break things. A DM is not encouraged by 4E to do arbitrary changes.

You're right. DMs aren't supposed to use any imagination or independent thought at all. The 4e DMG says that the DM is nothing more than an organic computer. That's why there is not an entire chapter dedicated to customizing monsters.

Unwinnable combat situations are often appropriate. If the party decides that the dragon who wants to send them on a quest should instead be fought they should get the dragon that they, insanely, want to fight.

The fight as written is still unwinnable. It is just not over in a single round.

8 levels later when you WANT them to finally fight the dragon they say "no fricken way, it's breath does XXX, we'll lose!" and you, as a DM, are sitting there going... "damn."

Consistency is a bitch.

Over 8 levels the fighter gains 48 HP, new and more powerful encounter, daily, and utility powers, not to mention new magic weapons and a paragon path. I would think with all of that, that a 15 level fighter could handle what a 3rd level couldn't. Of course, if you did something silly at 3rd level like roasting the party with a 1000 damage breath weapon, then Macguffin up an item that "weakens" the dragon to regular levels.

 

[FadedC]

It's actually worth noting that while the 4e dragon may take longer to kill a low level fighter then the 3e one, he actually is way faster then the 1e and 2e dragons.

The 3e dragon takes 1 rounds of attacks to kill the enemy which is 6 seconds.

The 4e dragon takes 2 rounds which is 12 seconds.

In 1e and 2e dragon take 1 round to kill him. however that round is 1 minute long. So compared to them the 4e dragon is incredibly fast at killing his enemies.

Ultimately though the end result is the same. The fight is over quickly and the enemy has no chance.

 

[Skyscraper]

There is a lot of math going on in 4E, people are saying even small changes break things. A DM is not encouraged by 4E to do arbitrary changes.

Listen, we're talking about a level 15 solo vs a level 3 party. The level 3 party is going to die. You're telling me we shouldn't change a stat for fear of, what? Unbalancing things? The level 15 solo vs level 3 party fight might be unbalanced???

Unwinnable combat situations are often appropriate. If the party decides that the dragon who wants to send them on a quest should instead be fought they should get the dragon that they, insanely, want to fight.

I do not think it is appropriate for the players to fight the dragon they want to. I think any and all NPCs including monsters are the DM's abode. If a player says "this monster should deal X damage, not Y", I think he is overstepping his boundaries.

Note: the DM is pitting a level 15 solo against a level 3 party, and I'm saying the players are overstepping their bounderies, hehe

8 levels later when you WANT them to finally fight the dragon they say "no fricken way, it's breath does XXX, we'll lose!" and you, as a DM, are sitting there going... "damn."

Consistency is a bitch.

As noted in an earlier post, my belief is that 4E is a relative system. A level 15 solo is that strong for a level 15 party, but much stronger for a level 3 party.

This being said, I encourage players to avoid meta-gaming by saying "no way, its breath does XX damage, ..." Though I get your meaning. If he were to say so, I'd reply (after the please avoid metagaming thing): "you know, when your PC was inexperienced, he had not learned how to avoid the brunt of a powerful adult dragon's attack. Now that he has raised high above most people in power, it is likely that this attack would not be as devastating to him". I.e. a level 15 solo might kill a level 3 with a single breath weapon, but to a level 15 he'll do what the book says.

All this being said, as mentioned in earlier posts, I'm not supporting killing PCs with a single breath. I'm supporting DM free will. It's a game about imagination. If you can't think out of the box, then stay in; however by staying within the confines of the books (or box), you can't pit a level 15 solo vs a level 3 party because that's what the DMG says. This is the inconsistency I was trying to highlight. Either you accept to deviate outside of the rules, or you don't. If you do, then at least do so in a way that suits your game. In the case of the OP, I understand that to mean that he should have the dragon deal more damage on a breath weapon.

Sky

 

[Nightchilde-2]

I fail to see why you'd WANT to take out characters with one hit, personally.

If you TPK the party on the first round, you've pretty much hamstrung your campaign. This is bad for gameplay. Unless, y'know, you kinda like just making up new characters every couple of sessions..