D&D 5E (2024) Another look at Dragons: CR 27 Ancient Red Dragon

[Stalker0]

As I am studying up on this dragon for the next fight, one thing I just noticed.

Searing Heat. Because it lasts until the end of the dragon's next turn, there is a HUGe swing in its effectiveness. If the dragon has Initiative 21, the effect last an entire round. If the dragon has Init 19....it does absolutely nothing.

That mechanic doeesn't work well on the "action on init 20" type stuff. Fine for a legendary action.

 

[Stalker0]

@dave2008 Alright so it went down last night!

One thing I did wrong was I gave the dragon draconic actions right out of the gate....I only realized later that was meant for the exarch unlock power, but I went with it.

The dragon raced in against the party after the big fire breath from last time (the party had killed several of its children so it was enraged). The big fighter (who has merged with his house to become a collossal construct....yeah that's a thing), went to grapple the dragon. It was a close check but they managed to succeed (the fighter is really good at grappling, but the dragon had a very respectable bonus so it was the first time in a long time the grapple was even in question).

The dragon uses an LA to put up the noxious smoke. I manage to get the ranger, and it scares off the paladin/cleric because they are wearing a super con item but has a curse that makes them vulnerable to poison (and all of the bonus hp goes away if they take the poison).

Party starts wailing on the dragon, but on its turn it uses a fire blast on the fighter holding them. It hits, incapacitating them and breaking the grapple. The fighter was floored by this, he kept going "wait...no save....no save at all?". The party is used to the fighter controlling the battle through grappling so this was a big turn.

The followup was an LA to use the tail sweep. That 60 foot radius off a colloassal creature is just massive, and I managed to hit everyone except the paladin/cleric who had moved to farther range. I killed the ranger's aninal buddy as he was knocked clear into the lava. The incapacitated fighter and the wizard weree knocked into the lava. The fighter pass a dex save to grab the ledge and only take a bit of lava damage but the wizard dropped full into it. However he has an adamantine golem that serves as a super shield guardian, and the golem wound up taking all the damage instead.

Fighter moves to let the wizard climb up him and out of the lava. The rogue has teleported onto the dragon and is going to work. Paladin/Warlock and Ranger are joining the fray. The ranger spent their turn using a gust of wind which I ruled took out the noxious smoke.

I put up the searing heat, and now people are starting to cook. Most of the party is heavily bloodied, and morale is low. People were starting to whisper that this might be the end.

On the dragon's next turn, they do a bite against the rogue. I do 120 damage, dropped to 60 because of uncanny dodge (what a save!). But the rogue is now grappled.

Meanwhile, that spear I had used at the beginning of the fight is still lodged in the dragon's side, and does damage everytime the dragon acts (aka its initiative and the dragon action of turn 20). So its pumping out respectable damage....it makes sense as the last time the dragon was turned away this legendary spear was involved.

The rogue finally unleashes their trump card....a weaponized deck of many things card (the one that changes alignment). The idea is to convert the dragon to Lawful Good! The rogue is interrupted by a demon who also wanted the card (another campaign element that popped back up here) but the rogue slipped from the demon's grasp and hit the dragon with the card.

How I ruled it is each time the dragon went I made a roll to see if good or bad dragon was in the driver's seat, with the roll increases towards good with each round. The roll had immediate impact and the next dragon rend actually attacked the dragon itself rather than the party!


The party tried to rallly, using lay on hands and potions to get some health back as they pushed again towards the dragon. But then I charged my breath, and the party knew death was coming. It was a full onslaught. The fighter managed to grapple the dragon again, and the party laid in to its damage. But the dragon got to go, and did release its breath. I actually rolled pretty low, and the party all saved on the saving throw (embolding bond + that grudge magic item bonus + paladin aura + the 1d6 bad ass die on top was all part of the save). Still the golem was utterly destroyed, and everyone was near death at this point.

But the "good" rolls started to kick in, preventing the dragon from finishing the job, and the party managed to deliver enough pain to drop the dragon down!


We had a good roleplay moment as the rogue told everyone about the alignment change. But the party was skeptical and the paladin/warlock had had a long historyw ith this dragon, so it was a tense scene. But they decided not to coup de grace it. And thats when the dragon resurged! (I used the exarch ability). The party tenses for another fight, but I roll the good die again, and its high enough (and its been long enough) that the new alignment change locks in. The dragon bows its head and surrenders! Another tense moment breaks out, with each party member one by one decideing to let the dragon live. The Paladin/Warlock holds his hand, but storms off in disgust as his vengenance is denied.

And so the party is victorious! With a new champon dragon for the world. But is the change permanent, or is this just a new hidden threat awaiting the next generation? Only the histories will know for certain.

 

[Stalker0]

So getting into the breakdown. The fight was 6 rounds (which is a feat onto itself, my group is usually 3 and out).

It was clear that without the alignment changing superweapon(which was a big part of the campaign and the rogue's plot) and my special badass die mechanic, the party was absolutely toast and they knew it. TPK was absolutely on the menu for this fight, and I think the party left with the excitement you should expect from such an epic debacle.

My thoughts on the dragon having put it in play.

1) The fire blast is one of the "meanest" weapons as well as one of its best single target attacks. Being able to knock a party member out of actions for a round with no save is both incredibly powerful as well as thematically terrifying. The look on my players face when he realized there was no save....they knew at that moment this thing was on a whole other level. Its a tool the DM does have to balance, its easy to just keep blasting one of the key threats in the group and then that player never gets to go so you want to spread the love out.

2) The Tail Sweep was probably the best general attack this game. While the bite does incredible single target damage, its always about dealing with the entire group for a dragon. And in this game, the 60 foot push really highlighted the deadly lava terrain, the attack still does very respectable damage, and combing that with the prone means I often deny several melee attacks in the next round as people are struggling to keep up with the dragon. This party had massive saves due to various effects, I think even a normal higher level party would have been creamed by that high dex save.

3) I was glad I went with the breath stripping fire resistance instead of that being a blanket aspect, just to give my party some control. Being able to keep up fire resistance became a strategy rather than something they ignored. Now for a truly epic party that is meant to face this guy that's probably less of a factor, but that change worked well for this group.

4) I got the Tail Sweep and Wing attack confused in my head a few times. Its two area attacks rather the other. Nothing mechanically wrong just something I noticed.

5) The piercing resistance did pay off early in the fight especially against the spear, so it was a facotr in the dragon's resistance. Ultimately the dragon has very respectable durability but that was never the issue for my group. They do very high damage for their level, especially with the bad ass die. Even without the die I would have meant I needed one more round of attacks from one of the big guns in the group to make up the difference. Ultimately the dragon was tough enough to get in an appropriate number of rounds for this fight, but I don't think he's too tough in that department.

6) The 4 LAs from the lair were so nice to let me get in 2 attack LAs in a round. That was the scariest round I think, the party was reeling after that combo.

7) For the breath, I actually mapped out the 25 20 by 20 squares, and its just kind of ridiculous. I think you could make it simplier, something like "eveyrone within X feet, no two are more than Y ft apart" kind of thing.



All in all this was just a flat out terrfying threat. And frankly I could have played this dragon smarter, could have had it fly off in the middle and come back and pick off the party more strategically. I could have ramped up the challenge even more with tactics, but we played in to the dragon's rage and the fight was epic enough without that. Just saying I could have leveraged even more threat had it been needed.

So as a final boss, this dragon did a great job.

 

[dave2008]

@dave2008 Alright so it went down last night!

One thing I did wrong was I gave the dragon draconic actions right out of the gate....I only realized later that was meant for the exarch unlock power, but I went with it.

The dragon raced in against the party after the big fire breath from last time (the party had killed several of its children so it was enraged). The big fighter (who has merged with his house to become a collossal construct....yeah that's a thing), went to grapple the dragon. It was a close check but they managed to succeed (the fighter is really good at grappling, but the dragon had a very respectable bonus so it was the first time in a long time the grapple was even in question).

The dragon uses an LA to put up the noxious smoke. I manage to get the ranger, and it scares off the paladin/cleric because they are wearing a super con item but has a curse that makes them vulnerable to poison (and all of the bonus hp goes away if they take the poison).

Party starts wailing on the dragon, but on its turn it uses a fire blast on the fighter holding them. It hits, incapacitating them and breaking the grapple. The fighter was floored by this, he kept going "wait...no save....no save at all?". The party is used to the fighter controlling the battle through grappling so this was a big turn.

The followup was an LA to use the tail sweep. That 60 foot radius off a colloassal creature is just massive, and I managed to hit everyone except the paladin/cleric who had moved to farther range. I killed the ranger's aninal buddy as he was knocked clear into the lava. The incapacitated fighter and the wizard weree knocked into the lava. The fighter pass a dex save to grab the ledge and only take a bit of lava damage but the wizard dropped full into it. However he has an adamantine golem that serves as a super shield guardian, and the golem wound up taking all the damage instead.

Fighter moves to let the wizard climb up him and out of the lava. The rogue has teleported onto the dragon and is going to work. Paladin/Warlock and Ranger are joining the fray. The ranger spent their turn using a gust of wind which I ruled took out the noxious smoke.

I put up the searing heat, and now people are starting to cook. Most of the party is heavily bloodied, and morale is low. People were starting to whisper that this might be the end.

On the dragon's next turn, they do a bite against the rogue. I do 120 damage, dropped to 60 because of uncanny dodge (what a save!). But the rogue is now grappled.

Meanwhile, that spear I had used at the beginning of the fight is still lodged in the dragon's side, and does damage everytime the dragon acts (aka its initiative and the dragon action of turn 20). So its pumping out respectable damage....it makes sense as the last time the dragon was turned away this legendary spear was involved.

The rogue finally unleashes their trump card....a weaponized deck of many things card (the one that changes alignment). The idea is to convert the dragon to Lawful Good! The rogue is interrupted by a demon who also wanted the card (another campaign element that popped back up here) but the rogue slipped from the demon's grasp and hit the dragon with the card.

How I ruled it is each time the dragon went I made a roll to see if good or bad dragon was in the driver's seat, with the roll increases towards good with each round. The roll had immediate impact and the next dragon rend actually attacked the dragon itself rather than the party!


The party tried to rallly, using lay on hands and potions to get some health back as they pushed again towards the dragon. But then I charged my breath, and the party knew death was coming. It was a full onslaught. The fighter managed to grapple the dragon again, and the party laid in to its damage. But the dragon got to go, and did release its breath. I actually rolled pretty low, and the party all saved on the saving throw (embolding bond + that grudge magic item bonus + paladin aura + the 1d6 bad ass die on top was all part of the save). Still the golem was utterly destroyed, and everyone was near death at this point.

But the "good" rolls started to kick in, preventing the dragon from finishing the job, and the party managed to deliver enough pain to drop the dragon down!


We had a good roleplay moment as the rogue told everyone about the alignment change. But the party was skeptical and the paladin/warlock had had a long historyw ith this dragon, so it was a tense scene. But they decided not to coup de grace it. And thats when the dragon resurged! (I used the exarch ability). The party tenses for another fight, but I roll the good die again, and its high enough (and its been long enough) that the new alignment change locks in. The dragon bows its head and surrenders! Another tense moment breaks out, with each party member one by one decideing to let the dragon live. The Paladin/Warlock holds his hand, but storms off in disgust as his vengenance is denied.

And so the party is victorious! With a new champon dragon for the world. But is the change permanent, or is this just a new hidden threat awaiting the next generation? Only the histories will know for certain.

Wow! Sounds epic - thank you for sharing!