D&D 5E 5th Edition has broken Bounded Accuracy

[Celtavian]

Yes and no. The party has a life cleric, a bard and a paladin. This group has a crapton of healing. But, yeah, fourth attempt at a strafe. If the dragon's backing off for two rounds (or so) between runs, that gives the party a lot of time to repair damage. Take the 8th level Evoker. Probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40 HP (give or take) So, a failed save drops him. Ok. But, it's not enough to kill him outright. The Paladin has him back on his feet in the next round. If not the paladin, then the cleric and the bard. The fighter's got enough HP to simply eat at least one breath weapon, and quite possibly two.

You don't start healing from your negative amount, you heal from 0, so, the paladin LOH is worth 40 single round which puts our wizard back to full from negatives at least once. Both the cleric and the bard have 4th level spells. That means at least 1 death ward (or should) which keeps the wizard up. Command spells readied at 60 foot range to "Grovel" make the dragon thud into the ground if it fails its save. A bevy of Cure Wound spells, you are facing a dragon after all.

IIRC, the paladin is a Oath of Vengeance paladin right? (I can't be asked to look it up). Abjure Enemy, range 60 feet makes the dragon go thud on a failed save or 1/2 speed on a success. That nicely keeps Mr. Dragon in range of javelins for a couple of rounds, even on success.

IOW, there are a ton of options available to this party besides flying the paladin. Now, apparently I missed that the paladin had a dragon slaying sword, so, my bad. I was going on the basis of a fairly standard party. Which isn't to say that flying the paladin isn't an option. Of course it is. And a pretty good one at that. But, it's hardly the only option available. It's not like the party is completely screwed if it lacks a Fly spell or a bevy of ranged fighters. The party is still perfectly effective on the ground. It might take a bit longer, but, meh, not that big of a deal.

The fighter did not have a dragonslaying sword at the time. You're reading one party that I responded about at 15th level and one party that was 8th level and mixing them up.

Why do you think the party has all these rounds? The paladin had to use LOH on himself after getting smashed on by the dragon. The entire lair was difficult terrain.

All these other options require saving throws. Why do you think the dragon will miss them easily? Or not use LR to resist? If they fail, then what? The dragon is far ahead on damage. You're going to get hammered. You keep listing these abilities as though we have unlimited time to hammer the dragon, pound through its LR, and keep on trying other tactics.

We have about three rounds to get it engaged and do substantial damage. It will as you stated kill the wizard outright on a failed save. The cleric is nearly dead to. You seem to be forgetting that the dragon gets to breathe, legendary action, and lair action. So breath weapon, shrouding obscuring mist that does damage, and tail slaps. It killed two party members with the damaging mist because we couldn't see them to heal them, yet the dragon could see in the mist to hammer us.

You keep listing character abilities as though the dragon is doing nothing while this occurring. You don't take into account its DPR with all its actions. You don't take into account that even one made save that doesn't require LR is advantage dragon. Your listed tactics would not work the majority of the time, probably in the 90% plus. I'd love to run this encounter with you on an actual mat in the lair we were in the dragon actively looking to kill your weakest members if they show their face ignoring the paladin and fighter as they take a round of hits from them to completely eliminate the bard or wizard from battle or just slow them down with the obscuring miss and rip apart the weaker members.

The stuff you're tossing out does not work as well as fly. It is purely experimental with no high chance of success. In fact, using your listed tactics is an extremely high chance of death. There are not a ton of options. Everything you listed is easily countered by the standard capabilities of the dragon. The only way your list of tactics has any chance of succeeding is if we had a lot of time to try them pounding through LR.

 

[Celtavian]

Good point about Oath of Vengeance and half-speed. I'm not so confident about Grovel (I thought we were talking about adult dragons? Legendary Resistance can be burned through but it's nontrivial) but yeah, it's worth trying too.

Another suggestion: a bevy of Cure Wounds spells might heal 15-20 damage per PC on the first strafe (less as PCs run out of spell slots), which is far less than the 50-odd damage PC you'll suffer from the breath weapon--so DO NOT BUNCH UP! Even if your guys are all melee-oriented, you should still keep a separation between them so they can't all get hit with the same breath weapon.

It would be amusing if one or more PCs took cover behind another PC encased in Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.

You would use Abjure Enemy over Vow of Enmity with one use of Channel Divinity?

 

[Celtavian]

Just to be clear [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION]. No one, certainly not me, is saying that your tactics weren't a good idea. They are. They work (obviously) and are effective. My point is that your tactics are not the only ones available to a melee party. You don't need to fly the melee guys. You don't need to have ranged specialists. Sure, it might make the fight easier if you do, it might not (depending on whether or not the dragon turns the paladin into a lawn dart after toasting the wizard's concentration) but, it's not like it's so much better that you'd be stupid to do anything else.

That is why the wizard stays away from the battle. We were aware that one breath weapon destroyed concentration. We discussed this prior to entering the battle. Keeping up fly is essential.

At worst, you're killing the dragon two rounds ahead of me. My point is, I'm still getting the job done. Sure, you might have struck on a really effective tactic for your specific group. Maybe, I dunno. But, AFAIC, you're getting the job done about one round faster, maybe two, than I am. This is not a huge deal.

We lost two party members down in the opening few rounds. We tried to spread out to avoid the breath weapon. Two got hit. Cleric and fighter. They were hit while in frosty mist that does damage. 10 points on top of breath weapon.

Cleric missed save, both. 65 damage done right there. 8th level cleric with 14 con. 59 hit points. Wish had cast aid prior to battle, but he didn't.

Fighter was barely standing. He dropped next round. When the dragon closed and full attacked him with legendary actions while he was in mist using blindsight. Entire lair difficult terrain. Hard to get out of mist. Fighter and cleric both died in frosty mist. Auto missed death saves when taking damage during a round. Couldn't see them, couldn't heal them.

We play that monsters hit down creatures to prevent pop up healing. One hit on down creature auto-crit, two missed death saves. One additional hit, target dead. Only revival can get him back on his feet. You starting to see why when people call our DM a moron it's annoying? Our encounters are run visciously. No leaving down targets to be healed and popped back up. They drop, monsters finish them. Most have been fighting long enough to know how healing works.

Paladin did some damage to him while mist was going. He used Vow of Enmity to get advantage on attack rolls.

Now, when you move into ancient dragons and 90 foot breath weapons, yeah, I think the throwing party is hosed. I don't think you can keep it up. The dragon can strafe and get out of range too easily. I'd be heading underground or indoors as fast as possible, just to limit their manoeuvrability.

We found adult dragons quite tough if not at a level to make them trivial, especially in their lairs. Later on they were trivial as our tactics and ability to damage them improved.

I do believe you have to fly the melee guys if your party's primary damage dealers are melee martials. I believe attempting to do it the way you outline will lead to a dead party a very high percentage of the time. I believe I can empirically prove this in encounters against the same enemy under the same conditions with a similar party using the tactics you describe as an alternate to fly. I believe ranged str-based throwing weapons are inferior and don't sufficient damage to defeat an adult dragon in a standard sized party using core assumptions. The dragon will out-damage the str-based ranged throwers leading to party death a great deal of the time.

I think I can prove all these things if you and I were at a table with the same circumstances using the tactics you describe versus the tactics we used. Therein lies the disagreement. You believe the tactics you stated that don't use fly would lead to a victory a couple of rounds later, I believe they would lead to our party's death.

 

[DaveDash]

I'd also point out that Celtavian's fighter types made absolutely no attempt to be at least competent at ranged attacks. Paladin has shield mastery and battle master is heavy armour and GWM feat and toughness. But, besides that, even without any bonuses, the White Dragon has to be at least 60 feet away in order to attack the party. It can never be further than that. So, our fighter types are getting 4 attacks per round, with bard and cleric buffs, sure, at disadvantage, doing about 10 points of damage per hit. 30- 40 points per round and the dragon isn't going to live that long. Never minding what the evoker is pumping out. There's no reason this group, as a group, from the ground, can't deal 50-75 points of damage per round.

An adult while dragon has 200 HP and an AC of 18. There's no reason the fighter types aren't hitting better than 50%, even with disadvantage (and with frightful presence, they're going to be eating disadvantage anyway), considering the range of buffs this party can put on. This party, without fly, should be putting the dragon down in three rounds. Four at the outside.

So, why did we need to make the fighter types fly again?

Because he can end the fight in 2 rounds vs 4.

When you're dealing with breath weapons on a 1/3 recharge, its the difference between winning encounter and losing it.

PS using wing buffet Dragons can stay out of hand axe range entirely and still attack. Claw attacks are weak, its all about the breath weapon.

If you want to clump up around the hand axe throwing fighter (how many hand axes can you carry again?) you're breath weapon mince meat.
Isolate the weaker members, grapple them and carry them off.

Also incidentally I think Dragons with "line" breath weapons are weaklings compared to those with cone breaths because of these reasons.

 

[CapnZapp]

My takeaway is that the -5/+10 of GWM and Sharpshooter should be once per turn (or even once per round) abilities (10 extra points of damage instead of 30 to 50 extra points of damage).

There's a lot of discussion on this.

It seems like you only need to remove a few points from that "+10" to make the feat work; without any once per round restrictions or to remove the "power attack" aspect of the feat entirely.

When I suggested -5/+5 the math people shot that down as making the deal worthless. So perhaps -5/+8...

 

[CapnZapp]

I prefer to just remove that mechanic and give +1 Str and Dex respectively. But your solution also works.

Ready action is also whack. It should obviously give your whole action, not just a single attack. Not allowing such nerfs all multiattack PCs. We allow multiattack on ready action and we also allow simply delaying your initiative to later in the round. Makes more sense and more balanced.

Anything that discourages use of out of turn is a good thing in my book.

To me, this is definitely a feature.

 

[CapnZapp]

Why do you think it is 'obvious' that you should get multiple attacks on a readied action? I'd say it's 'obvious' that you should only get one. I'd also dispute the notion that allowing you to delay or ready a multiattack is less balanced, not more. But that's probably a matter of playstyle preference.

+1.

 

[CapnZapp]

86.5% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

56% of all your claims are wrong.

 

[CapnZapp]

No it really shouldn't.

They're trying to avoid the stupidity of 3e readied actions where combat became a Mexican stanf-off.

Exactly

 

[Celtavian]

2.) Dragon can run out the clock. 60' move Fly spell vs. 80' move dragon flight plus 40' via Legendary action means you're just not fast enough to force the dragon to engage against his will, so he always has the option of simply holding the range open for 10 minutes, at which point Fly goes away. Unless you have some way to induce him to engage (trickery, illusions, manipulating his psychological flaws/ego, etc.), Fly might as well not even exist. I play whites as brutal and stupid, so Fly would work against them, but it wouldn't work against a blue, green, or red unless you had occupied its lair or in some other way affronted its pride and taken face. Maybe it would work on a black because they're so eager to cause pain.

This was a long debate. When to buff? We spent quite a while discussing this. With the new lower durations in 5E, prebuffing can be a problem except long duration buffs like aid. Though a single dispel magic can completely strip a single target of all buffs. At the time we played, we did not know that dragons no longer had spellcasting. So it was a real conundrum. We had sworn off reading the MM because we wanted to be surprised.

Without a rogue, we did not have a very efficient way to scout the dragon's cave. It was quite large and difficult terrain. So sending a forward scout to locate the dragon was dangerous. If he was caught alone by the dragon, the dragon would dispatch him and we're down a party member. If we give him fly, then he can scout and move, but our slot is active and if he dispels it he is dead. As you stated, dispel magic strips fly automatically. No roll unless it is cast at a higher level.

The dragon was not in the immediate vicinity of the tunnel entrance. So we staggered the casters in back with the melee acting as our vanguard.

3.) The dragon can eat opportunity attacks in order to deprive you of regular attacks. The way this works:

A. If nearest PC is more than 100' away, close to 100' distance.
B. If nearest PC is less than 100' away, close to within 60' and breath on it, then fly back to 80'. PC has to Dash to fly within melee range of you, and if he does you just use legendary actions to tail swipe him three times for 45 points of damage, then on your next turn you either Disengage (rinse and repeat) or claw/claw/bite him and eat a single opportunity attack. Either way he's not getting more than a single opportunity attack against you each round, and neither is any other PC unless they manage to pincer you (which most PCs aren't smart enough to do). Fly is barely doing him any good at all.
C. If you can identify the spellcasters, eventually step B will lead to the warriors getting 200+' away from the spellcasters, at which point you eat a single opportunity attack to zoom right past the warriors into range of the spellcasters. Now they're the ones eating your opportunity attacks to get away (barring Misty Step/Dimension Door), and next round you can breath on them or claw/claw/bite. If you do it right, you may even get to watch the warriors fall for 10d6+ in the process.

Yep. You do understand damage metrics. AoOs do less damage than full attacks.

Counter-countermeasures: The party can deploy counter-countermeasures that speed the warriors up some more. Haste and Expeditious Retreat will both prevent #2 and #3 from working at the cost of an additional concentration slot.

In short, using Fly for melee warriors against dragons is tricky and has lots of ways to go wrong. If that's how you like to play, go for it, but having a strong ranged component to your force is much safer. None of the above dragon tactics work if the dragon is getting hit for 40+ DPR at long range each round.

Found this out. No one in our group feels like playing a focused str-based martial any longer. Too easily exploited a weakness due to the concentration mechanic and the lack of easily available magic items for flying.