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D&D 5E Are Challenge Ratings of dragons accurate in 5ED&D?

Are Challenge Ratings of dragons accurate?


IME, dragons go down relatively faster than in previous editions, but are usually very dangerous to face unless the party is well-rested and prepared to fight a dragon of a specific type. Difficulty will also depend on availability and power of magic items.

The last dragon encounter (a young green) I ran a in 5e ended with half the party dead or dying. None of them had magic items except for a few potions and alchemist fire, they tried to plan in advance but the dragon knew they were coming and played its part in the plan to ambush them at the last minute. Even though, the players were really happy with the outcome.
 
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I'm trying to understand what you mean here. The last playtest packet Black dragon seems weaker than either the Adult or Young Black Dragon. Or are you talking about the closed Alpha test instead of the the open playtest?

[table="width: 500"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Last Playtest Bestiary[/td]
[td]Young MM Dragon[/td]
[td]Adult MM Dragon[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]CR[/td]
[td]10[/td]
[td]7[/td]
[td]14[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]AC[/td]
[td]15[/td]
[td]18[/td]
[td]19[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Bite[/td]
[td]+9 2d6+6(13)[/td]
[td]+7 2d10+4(15)[/td]
[td]+11 2d10+6(17)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Claw[/td]
[td]+9 1d8+6(10)[/td]
[td]+7 2d6+4(11)[/td]
[td]+11 2d6+6(15)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Tail[/td]
[td]+9 1d8+6(10)[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]+11 2d6+6(15)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Breath[/td]
[td]DC18 Dex 4d6+4(18)[/td]
[td]DC14 Dex 11d8(49)[/td]
[td]DC18 Dex 12d8(54)[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

I am talking about the closed alpha. Ancient red's bite was for 3d10 and change plus 3d8 fire; a scary, respectable amount for what ought to be the toughest ancient dragon in the land. Compare with the CR 5 bulette for instance...
 

I'm trying to understand what you mean here. The last playtest packet Black dragon seems weaker than either the Adult or Young Black Dragon. Or are you talking about the closed Alpha test instead of the the open playtest?

[table="width: 500"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]Last Playtest Bestiary[/td]
[td]Young MM Dragon[/td]
[td]Adult MM Dragon[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]CR[/td]
[td]10[/td]
[td]7[/td]
[td]14[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]AC[/td]
[td]15[/td]
[td]18[/td]
[td]19[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Bite[/td]
[td]+9 2d6+6(13)[/td]
[td]+7 2d10+4(15)[/td]
[td]+11 2d10+6(17)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Claw[/td]
[td]+9 1d8+6(10)[/td]
[td]+7 2d6+4(11)[/td]
[td]+11 2d6+6(15)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Tail[/td]
[td]+9 1d8+6(10)[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]+11 2d6+6(15)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Breath[/td]
[td]DC18 Dex 4d6+4(18)[/td]
[td]DC14 Dex 11d8(49)[/td]
[td]DC18 Dex 12d8(54)[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

I strongly believe he meant the latest closed playtest. And I can only guess, that the claw and bite damage used to scale with size:

wyrmling, medium dragon: 1dX
young, large dragon: 2dX
adult, huge dragon, 3dX
ancient, colossal dragon 4dX

I am basing my assumption on two facts:

1. manufactured weapons seem to scale with size, gaining an additional damage die (or two in the case of a maul or great sword) per size increase.

2. The ancient green dragon´s claws seem to have their old (pre nerf) value of 4d6+STR damage.

I guess the philosophy of AC increase and damage increase by CR has changed a bit, most of the increased damage resulting from increased HP and better chance to hit. Also the number of natural weapons damage dice be determined by size seems to be only a guideline, but not a general rule: Tarrasque damage dice are all 4dX, while a hydra only has 1d10 per head.

So while raw damage per attack does not go up that much, accuracy drastically increases, even compared to their own AC they get a net increase in accuracy. (usually +2 to hit, equalling a 10% higher chance to hit itself)

If we assume a static AC of 20, your example dragons have following damage output (I use 20, because I assume a well equipped fighter should have that much AC at level 7+ and has a hard time increasing it further.
Expected damage from a young dragon bite: 0.4 * 19 = 7.6 damage on average per round from the bite.
Expected damage from an adult dragon bite: 0.6 * 21 = 12.6 damage on average per round.

Comparing that to the average HP of a level 7 fighter with 14 con: 7.6/70 = 11%
and to the average HP of a level 14 fighter: 12.6/126 7 = 10%

if you add the slightly increased damage from acid breath, and its considerably higher range and saving throw DC, and legendary actions he can take, the damage numbers seem to add up more or less correcty. (Not considering too many magic items gained on the way from level 14.)
I guess you won´t do much wrong if you increase the damage dice of adult dragons by 1 and ancient dragons by 2 if you have higher magic campaigns.

I am really looking forward to monster building guidelines.
 

I am talking about the closed alpha. Ancient red's bite was for 3d10 and change plus 3d8 fire; a scary, respectable amount for what ought to be the toughest ancient dragon in the land. Compare with the CR 5 bulette for instance...

Thanks for providing some insight. I guessed that something changed there. Was the claw damage 4d6 per chance? Like the green dragon´s claws?
 


It looks like they focused the dragon's damage through its breath weapon...which is fine by me. That is the most iconic aspect of the dragon. I'm glad the breath weapon is finally worth enough to use, in 3e I would often ignore it for just a regular melee routine.
 



The dragon's effectiveness is significantly upgraded by Lair Actions.

Which contributes to the "passive monster" effect in 5E.
Because of all the lair actions which are, as you said, are a significant part of the power of monsters 5E lends itself to simple dungeon crawl gameplay where monsters passively sit in their lairs and wait for the PCs to come to them as otherwise they would be significantly weaker.
 

Only if the DM plays the monster dumb. It's an ancient trope to fight a monster first when it's out terrorising innocents then follow it back to its lair to kill it.
 

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