Are Dragons under-CR'd?
- Thread starter Ry
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Particle_Man
Explorer
I had heard that 3.0 dragons were given CRs appropriate to dragons in their lairs that a party knows about, while 3.5 was meant to be more like "You encounter a dragon. Roll for surprise."
Rystil Arden
First Post
True--but a surprised dragon can be a winnable fight for a prepared group, even one significantly lower level.rycanada said:Agreed, but a prepared dragon that has the chance to use even low-level buffs on itself is a:\
Recently, a group of four characters in one of my games went up against what was effectively a badass CR 19 Wyrm White Dragon with a bunch of special abilities--
the PCs were a level 9 gestalt Cleric/Druid (the healer--low on spells already due to healing people from the cold environmental damage), level 8 gestalt Rogue/Sorcerer (Fortunately for the beginning of the fight, she had both Scorching Ray and Channeled Pyroburst), level 8 gestalt Fighter/Ranger multiclassed (the archer--her only magic bow did cold damage, which healed this particular enemy, so she didn't contribute), level 11 gestalt Sorcerer/Psion (the nova specialist--she make big boom).
The group encountered the dragon in a magically-enforced slumber. Only the Sorcerer/Psion buffed up (she already had up a personal Resist Energy: Cold for 30 points a pop before the fight because of the cold environmental damage, but she also put up a 90 HP Vigour, among other things) before waking the dragon, a strong lack of foresight on the parts of the others. Then, the dragon wasn't initially attacking them until they launched the first blows, including a fully-channeled Channeled Pyroburst and an Overchanneled Twinned Empowered Energy Ray (fire).
Long story short, with one death and one unconscious party member (plus damage in huge volumes to the nova girl, though fortunately she had Vigour), they managed to win, thus proving that situation trumps everything (the dragon was 10 higher than the APL!)
Brother MacLaren
Explorer
White dragons are unusually weak for their CR compared to other dragons, and maybe CR-appropriate compared to the other MM creatures. Their breath weapon is just pathetic. Red dragons are VERY strong for their CR, in terms of size, Str, breath weapon damage, and special abilities.
Compare the chromatic dragons of equal CR and the red is far and away the most powerful.
Compare the chromatic dragons of equal CR and the red is far and away the most powerful.
Rystil Arden
First Post
Yeah, the (as I said modded) White was pretty deadly with his Power Attack 20 Full Attack that he could deliver from range through any ice medium (with a +41 to hit, Power Attack 20 is reasonable). His breath sucked, especially against the girl with Energy Resist up, until he used his heavily metabreathed breath weapon that killed or knocked out half the party--at least the DC is impressive!Brother MacLaren said:
The real key to it was when he got up Quickened Energy Resist: Fire on his first turn--before that, they managed 250 damage against him in round 1, but the final 200 damage was much harder because of it.
Also, his SR 25 was fairly high for them--fortunately Overchannel also raises your Caster Level and the Rogue/Sorcerer likes to roll 20 on caster level checks (though not Reflex saves, I'm afraid--despite Evasion, she's the one who died). AC 38 didn't matter because nobody tried to use non-touch attacks. Touch AC 6 was pleasant though.
Moon-Lancer
First Post
RangerWickett said:
wow, you too? Our old dm did that too us. the black dragon (red hand of doom) was upped a few crs. We were all level 7 with +1 magic items. The dm in all his amazing slender (gag) thought it would be fun to have the combat with the dragon start right before the combat with the the other creatures. so we were all low on hp to begin with. The Dragon was only hittable on a 18 (while flanking) by the party fighter, also it was almost impossible to get past its sr. Well after it was clear that the dm
ed up, and no one could hit it enuff to every hope to kill it before it would kill the whole party. The dm fearing retribution on a tpk through his own misguided notion of CR, had it escape but through the us of tangle foot bags and some zany rules we killed the dragon (but i know the dm handed us the kill). It was pretty unsatisfying because the dm knew he messed up and knew it was going to be a tpk not through the fault of the players, but through his own lack of understand of the cr system. That and not bothering to look at the creatures ac ans sr before he advanced it. This was also a core game with low magic.... ouch.The point of the story? By very careful when sending a dragon with a higher cr then what is recommended. It could be very ugly.
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Lord Zardoz
Explorer
CR is usually just an indication of when it may be a good idea to start throwing certain creatures at your players, and have any expectation that the players will win. But there are many things that can affect CR.
- Is it the only encounter that your players will face that day.
- What kind of gear your players actually have.
- Party composition (ie: do you lack a Cleric?).
- How hard you play the monsters against the players.
- How your monsters are equiped.
But the CR system is deeply flawed in some ways even accounting for that. Shadows can scale much better then Skeletons since they do ability damage. Zombies are pretty beefy, but unless your a Halfling / Gnome / Dwarf against human zombies, you can typically just walk away from them.
Dragons are at the top of the CR scale. They often have reach attacks, multiple attacks, a high CR, good AC, and they have a reusable area of effect attack. They can fly, so escape is difficult as well.
Unlike an Orc, a Dragon is not something you typically bust out as a random encounter with an ambush round.
CR is a guideline. The game expects you to know your players, and roughly what kind of punishment you can safely throw against them. If your players are all Rogues and Fighters, it is probably not a good idea to toss a bunch of mind flayers at them.
END COMMUNICATION
- Is it the only encounter that your players will face that day.
- What kind of gear your players actually have.
- Party composition (ie: do you lack a Cleric?).
- How hard you play the monsters against the players.
- How your monsters are equiped.
But the CR system is deeply flawed in some ways even accounting for that. Shadows can scale much better then Skeletons since they do ability damage. Zombies are pretty beefy, but unless your a Halfling / Gnome / Dwarf against human zombies, you can typically just walk away from them.
Dragons are at the top of the CR scale. They often have reach attacks, multiple attacks, a high CR, good AC, and they have a reusable area of effect attack. They can fly, so escape is difficult as well.
Unlike an Orc, a Dragon is not something you typically bust out as a random encounter with an ambush round.
CR is a guideline. The game expects you to know your players, and roughly what kind of punishment you can safely throw against them. If your players are all Rogues and Fighters, it is probably not a good idea to toss a bunch of mind flayers at them.
END COMMUNICATION
MarkB
Legend
The dragons in RHoD absolutely pounded my players as well, without any scaling-up. The only one they dropped in its first encounter was the red, and then only because of a misinterpretation of a spell description. The game eventually ended in a TPK, when the next dragon encounter wiped them out.
rycanada said:Agreed, but a prepared dragon that has the chance to use even low-level buffs on itself is a
Well if you look at a green dragon, they have a caster level of 5 at CR 13. That's a dispel check of 16. A 13th level caster should has only a 10% of failing that check with a dispel magic, so the dragon's buffs really aren't that scary.
You can to remember though that there's the base CR for the dragon, and all the CR bumps for tactics and terrain. The base CR shows the raw power of the dragon, but if he ambushes the party or sets up his lair in a special way that should be a CR bump.
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