D&D (2024) Check Out The New Monster Manual’s Ancient Gold Dragon

Wizards of the Coast has previewed (part of) the stat block for one of its iconic monsters on social media. Take a look!

 

[Upper_Krust]

Good thing. Combat should be about tactics, not luck.

Well I sort of agree and disagree here.

Firstly, the only strategy here is for the Dragon to use Banish. Everything else is sub-optimal. So tactics do not apply here (except maybe which order to Banish the PCs in).

Secondly none of the attacks combo with each other, which misses the opportunity to have even more dynamic combat encounters.

Thirdly, lets say instead of 28, 28, 28 the dragon dealt 21, 21, 42. In such an instance a Crit or two with the 42 might just give the Dragon a slight chance in a close fight. Its a small detail but a nuance that is no longer relevant when every attack deals the same damage.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I mean, if you fight in the best way for a fighter to fight it, sure. But the dragon can use its reach. Maybe try a sharpshooter build.

With a bazillion options I was just taking the most vanilla to crunch the numbers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So tactics do not apply here (except maybe which order to Banish the PCs in).

This is a fairly important decision. But the dragon also gets to decide where the character returns too, which could be more important. And the dragon still gets its regular action and 2/3 legendary actions. It’s not like banishing is the only thing it can do.

The pounce ability is good for positioning.

 

[abirdcall]

Cleric steps up. Divine Intervention, casts Hallow as an action.... no banishment allowed. Or a wish, using the clause "You grant up to ten creatures you can see immunity to a single spell or other magical effect for 8 hours". Or heck, the Wizard attacks the dragon by itself with invulnerability....and just pounds it with Int saves until it finally gets through the resistance, than maybe brings the rest of the group in as the duration starts to drop.

20th level parties have LOTS of tricks up their sleeves.


that said, I do like that the banishment move effectively lets the DM ramp up the damage as they see fit. You want a bit more pain, maybe you drop them in midair, or onto a bed of steaming hot gold. Want to go for the ultimate in deadly encounter, every banish drops them into lava.

There would be quite a lot of leg work to get that specific information about how to counter the dragon's abilities.

If PCs can gain this knowledge while staying clear of the dragon's information network, disabling their allies, and get into their lair the party deserve the win.

 

[abirdcall]

Banishment can only be used once per round.

It looks nice. I don't think it can challenge a full lvl20 party, but nice.

A level 20 party should be able to defeat an ancient dragon 98% of the time if they can corner it alone so I don't see the issue.

 

[Selas]

It was either a sage advice or an interview, been years so I don't remember the source.

Purely logic wise, you have to remember that feats and magic items are generally not considered, but do typically exist. That might change in 2024 assumptions, but in 2014 it was clearly not considered, leaving many high CR monsters capable of being one-shot when they were not supposed to be. Hence, increasing the HP did not increase their CR.

I mean as DM fiat that is fine, but as a design choice - no, absolutely no

Actually, it's on the 1-hour MM video last week where JC explained that in 2014 CR was calculated based on using the monster's stats and its most dangerous output option (attack, action, etc). In the same video, he explained the new CR now works by no matter what option you use in the statblock, the monster will be at it's highest output for it's CR. This is probably why many of the statblocks shown so far now have multi-attacks that allows mixed actions.

 

[Sulicius]

A level 20 party should be able to defeat an ancient dragon 98% of the time if they can corner it alone so I don't see the issue.

Sure, they should be able to defeat it, I'd just prefer it to be a tense fight. I will be testing 4 lvl19 PC's against one this weekend.

 

[Stalker0]

There would be quite a lot of leg work to get that specific information about how to counter the dragon's abilities.

If PCs can gain this knowledge while staying clear of the dragon's information network, disabling their allies, and get into their lair the party deserve the win.

Divination, Commune, Legend Lore, or just straight up really high knowledge checks (since the banish is a "standard" ability of very high level gold dragons its not necessarily secret intel that someone would have to suss out, its just draconic knowledge).

If players aren't going to prep a bit to fight an over CR20 dragon than sure they get what's coming to them, but its not exactly difficult to throw down a few divinations at this kind of level, and the dragon doesn't have mind blank or non-detection.

 

[abirdcall]

Sure, they should be able to defeat it, I'd just prefer it to be a tense fight. I will be testing 4 lvl19 PC's against one this weekend.

I think the PCs should just be lower level and it shouldn't just be a wandering monster. It should be a struggle to outwit the dragon.

They don't survive that long without constantly being vigilant about potential threats.

 

[abirdcall]

Divination, Commune, Legend Lore, or just straight up really high knowledge checks (since the banish is a "standard" ability of very high level gold dragons its not necessarily secret intel that someone would have to suss out, its just draconic knowledge).

If players aren't going to prep a bit to fight an over CR20 dragon than sure they get what's coming to them, but its not exactly difficult to throw down a few divinations at this kind of level, and the dragon doesn't have mind blank or non-detection.

I don't think we know that the other age categories have that ability.

It might be very rare knowledge.

There is nothing standard about being an ancient dragon.

It depends on the level we are talking about. Level 20 characters? Sure, this challenge is beneath them as more than an adventuring day's worth towards a greater challenge.