5E: Converting Monsters from White Dwarf Magazine for Fifth Edition

[Casimir Liber]

Well, could be easily flipped - counterstrike could be " If an opponent hits the dragon warrior with a melee attack, the dragon warrior can use its reaction to perform a action or bonus action that makes a longsword attack against that opponent with advantage. This action or bonus action count as being used on the dragon warrior's next turn. The dragon warrior can use Multiattack to riposte, in which case the Multiattack's first melee attack occurs on riposte reaction and the Multiattack's remaining melee attacks occur on the dragon warrior's next turn."

just hitting early doesn't seem like enough of a bonus

could also give them crit hits on 19-20 (which would not change total damage)

the other ideas above sound intriguing. I don't like all the superiority dice and try to think of anyway to avoid using for monsters (e.g. recharge etc.)

NB: I was having trouble drumming up any enthusiasm about the dragon warriors but they're looking really interesting now. Kudos.

 

[Cleon]

Well, could be easily flipped - counterstrike could be " If an opponent hits the dragon warrior with a melee attack, the dragon warrior can use its reaction to perform a action or bonus action that makes a longsword attack against that opponent with advantage. This action or bonus action count as being used on the dragon warrior's next turn. The dragon warrior can use Multiattack to riposte, in which case the Multiattack's first melee attack occurs on riposte reaction and the Multiattack's remaining melee attacks occur on the dragon warrior's next turn."

I prefer it being triggered by any melee attack. Considering how high the DW's Armour Class is, having it triggered by a hit would reduce its frequency.

just hitting early doesn't seem like enough of a bonus

Well it's only really advantageous if the early hit inflicts some significant condition on the opponent that affects their subsequent combat performance.

Such as death!

Still, I do prefer having the counterstrike potentially deflect/soften the opponent's attack, since that matches what a riposte actually does.

could also give them crit hits on 19-20 (which would not change total damage)

Since when does "Roll all of the attack's damage dice twice and add them together. Then add any relevant modifiers as normal" not change total damage?

If a DW does 9 (1d10 + 4) with its longsword normally, then it does 15 (2d10 + 4) on a crit. If it has extra dice, like a Silver DW's +1d4 mastery or a Black DW's +1d6 acid, those are doubled too.

the other ideas above sound intriguing. I don't like all the superiority dice and try to think of anyway to avoid using for monsters (e.g. recharge etc.)

Well I'm not actually proposing superiority dice since the DM will need to keep score, just a straight extra dice on certain rolls.

That's easy to include in an action description in as much detail as seems necessary. So a Flashing Blades could have "makes a longsword attack with an extra 1d4 to hit, making the attack roll 1d20 + 1d4 + 7," for example.

However, just adding +2 or +3 to the attack roll works just as well, and it'll be a little less swingy:

Flashing Blade
Bronze: 1d20 + 1d4 + 6 (9 to 30) versus d20 + 8 (9 to 28)
Gold & Silver: 1d20 + 1d6 + 7 (9 to 32) versus d20 + 10 (11 to 30)​

Hmm… I'm really tempted to arbitrarily make the Silver +1d4 or +2 so its Flashing Blade is neatly between the two…

Flashing Blade #2
Bronze: 1d20 + 1d4 + 6 (9 to 30) versus d20 + 8 (9 to 28)
Silver: 1d20 + 1d4 + 7 (9 to 31) versus d20 + 9 (10 to 29)
Gold: 1d20 + 1d6 + 7 (9 to 32) versus d20 + 10 (11 to 30)​

It'd be slightly less complicated just using a numerical add rather than a dice, so I'm likely to try that out when I "eventually" do a new draft for this ability.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Since when does "Roll all of the attack's damage dice twice and add them together. Then add any relevant modifiers as normal" not change total damage?

Well obviously it does, but ....not does not factor in CR calculator..?

 

[Cleon]

Well obviously it does, but ....not does not factor in CR calculator..?

Well there isn't an option to check for "increased critical range" in the 5e.tools version we've been using, but presumably it can be approximated by increasing the DPR a bit.

The maths is pretty easy. If it criticals on 20, then that effectively adds +5% to the chance of damage, since a 20 critical happens 5% of the time and counts twice.

So an attacker who needs an 11+ roll to hit will do normal damage 45% and roll double damage 5% of the time, then on average they're doing 55% of the DPR they'd do if they automatically hit for normal damage with every attack.

Doing crit on 19-20 simply adds another 5% to that.

The problem is, the proportional effectiveness depends on their chance of hitting the target's AC. If an attacker hits 75% of the time, a Nat crit only adds one-fifteenth to the DPR (75%/5% = 15), but if they only hit 25% it's an extra fifth (25%/5% = 5).

Therefore an attacker who hits often but weakly (75%, 1d8+2 damage) actually has a lower DPR than one who hits rarely but hard (25%, 3d8+6 damage) due to the extra damage from the critical, although the proportion is rarely high enough to make a difference if a creature has a lot of critical-boosting abilities it could affect their CR. They'd have to have a serious set of critical boosts or be right at the cusp of the next Challenge Rating for that to be likely, though.

 

[Casimir Liber]

okay point taken, but we're already applying arbitrary (though very reasonable) adjustments to CR calculation (e.g. resistance to nonmagical weapons being essentially ignorable at higher levels)

 

[Cleon]

Here we go…

Counterstrike #1. If an opponent the dragon warrior can see makes a melee attack against it while the dragon warrior is wielding a melee weapon, the dragon warrior ripostes that attack by using a bonus action or action from its next turn to make a melee attack with that weapon. In addition to the attack's normal effects, if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is higher than its opponent's melee attack roll or a critical hit, the opponent's attack misses and does no damage.​

 If the dragon warrior counterstrikes with an action that makes more than one attack, such as Multiattack, the action's first melee attack occurs on its reaction when it ripostes, and the warrior's remaining melee attacks occur on its next turn.​

​

Counterstrike #2. If an opponent the dragon warrior can see makes a melee attack against it while the dragon warrior is wielding a melee weapon, the dragon warrior ripostes that attack by using a bonus action or action from its next turn to make a melee attack with that weapon. In addition to the attack's normal effects, if the dragon warrior's melee attack roll is higher than its opponent's melee attack roll or a critical hit, the warrior parries the opponent's attack. If the parried attack hits the dragon warrior's AC, its damage is reduced by the counterstriking melee weapon's maximum damage, excluding any extra dice of elemental energy damage but including all other relevant modifiers. Thus, a longsword doing 1d10 + 1d4 + 4 slashing damage plus 1d6 fire damage provides 18 points of damage reduction on a successful parry.​

 If the dragon warrior counterstrikes with an action that makes more than one attack, such as Multiattack, the action's first melee attack occurs on its reaction when it ripostes, and the warrior's remaining melee attacks occur on its next turn.​

Which do you prefer? I'm leaning slightly towards #1 as it's a bit simpler and the "parry" follows the standard rules better, since AC is an all-or-nothing affair in the core rules. Armour doesn't reduce or deflect damage, it either stops it entirely or does squat.

Oh, and I proposed the following tweak to Flashing Blades:

Flashing Blade (Bronze or Silver Dragon Warriors Only). The dragon warrior makes one melee attack with +2 added to the attack roll.​

​

Flashing Blade (Gold Dragon Warriors Only). The dragon warrior makes one melee attack with +3 added to the attack roll.​

I prefer not giving the Silver a +3 adjustment so its Flashing Blade is +9 to hit.

Been wondering where to use "longsword attack" instead of "melee attack" in the Dragon Warrior Special Traits and Actions. We could change Dragonscale Weapon Master to Dragonscale Sword Master and change Counterstrike, Flashing Blade and Multiattack so they are all longsword-only rather than refer to generic melee attacks.

It doesn't matter that much since the Dragon Warrior only has longsword attacks at the moment, but I guess there's a chance it'll lose its dragonscale longsword and have to pick up a normal weapon to defend itself, in which case using "longsword" instead of "melee" would drop its combat performance drastically as it couldn't use its Flashing Blade and Multiattack.

Hmm… never mind, I think I'd rather either leave it as is or make it a very minor change.

Perhaps:

Flashing Blade (Bronze or Silver Dragon Warriors Only). The dragon warrior makes one melee attack, with +2 to the attack roll if it is a longsword attack.​

​

Flashing Blade (Gold Dragon Warriors Only). The dragon warrior makes one melee attack, with +3 to the attack roll if it is a longsword attack.​

I keep on thinking I should use "dragonscale longsword" instead of "longsword" in many of these entries, particularly the action names, i.e. change an attack to Dragonscale Longsword (Metallic Gold Dragon), but it seemed slightly questionable in 5E.

For example, a Balor in 5E doesn't have Flaming Sword or Immolating Whip in its actions, but just Longsword and Whip despite neither of them being anything like normal weapons.

Still, not having "dragonscale" in some of these places itches me with a faint feeling of wrongness.

 

[Casimir Liber]

I'd go with Counterstrike #1 as #2 seems complicated and has potential to slow combat with little cinematic flavour. Flashing Blade looks ok. I have no strong opinion on appelations.

 

[Cleon]

I'd go with Counterstrike #1 as #2 seems complicated and has potential to slow combat with little cinematic flavour. Flashing Blade looks ok. I have no strong opinion on appelations.

Updating the Dragon Warrior (Collected).

So does that look finished enough for us to do the Description and then I can split them into separate Dragon Warriors?

Writing up ten separate monster posts is going to be fun!

 

[Cleon]

Hmm, will need to think of how to Index the separate entries.

The Monster Manual dragon entries are ordered:

Dragons

Chromatic Dragons​

Black Dragon​

Blue Dragon​

Green Dragon​

Red Dragon​

White Dragon​

Chromatic Dragons​

Brass Dragon​

Bronze Dragon​

Copper Dragon​

Gold Dragon​

Silver Dragon​

…and I've followed the color/metal order in the Dragon Warrior (Collected) entry, so methinks I'd better Index them the same.

EDIT: Updated the White Dwarf Conversion Index.

 

[Cleon]

Oh, and I'd better rename the Dragon Warrior (Collected) entry to Dragon Warriors.

EDIT: Updated the Dragon Warriors, during which I noticed that I'd left the STR save proficiency of the initial draft in despite it saying " Saving Throws proficient in DEX, CON, WIS, CHA."

Instead of:

 STR +7 if red, gold or silver; STR +5 if black, blue, brass, bronze, copper, green or white​

It should have:

 DEX +5 if gold; DEX +4 if black or silver; DEX +3 if green or red; DEX +2 if blue, brass, bronze, copper or white​

I'd fixed it before, but I'm editing that post in a temp Word file on my computer and forgot to save the correction, so it just reverted to the erroneous STR save when I overwrote the Enworld post with subsequent copy-pastes from the temp version.

Never mind, it's correct now!

EDITED EDIT:

By the way, most official D&D books and the SRD use the "Oxford comma", aka the Serial comma, since they're published in American English and many folk over there consider it mandatory.

However, I prefer avoid using Oxford commas unless it's vital for clarity, since on those shores it's more a matter of taste and it just looks wrong to me.

Consider the difference in the DEX save line:

Without Serial Commas DEX +5 if gold; DEX +4 if black or silver; DEX +3 if green or red; DEX +2 if blue, brass, bronze, copper or white
​

Includes Oxford Commas DEX +5 if gold; DEX +4 if black, or silver; DEX +3 if green, or red; DEX +2 if blue, brass, bronze, copper, or white​

Shudder. The second version with serial commas just looks fugly.