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]

I'm stepping back from this thread. I've got too many things I'm trying to follow, and this isn't worth it at the moment. May get compelled to respond again later.

Thanks for the discussion Chaosmancer, really enjoyed chatting with you and apologies if you thought I was ever veering into "strawman" territory - that was never my intentions. All the best buddy.

 

[Sulicius]

I always thought it was insane that these stack. I stole a rule from 4e, that if several magic items provide a bonus to the same thing, only the best one applies.

Oh, I REALLY like this. Often in my games the party passes along all AC boosting items to the PC who has a high AC to get the most use out of it. Less stacking means overall defense increase means easier to balance encounters.

I might use this straight away!

 

[TravDoc42]

I've noticed something odd: the gold dragon and the bronze dragon both can cast guiding bolt, but while the bronze dragon has its spell attack bonus in its stats, the gold doesn't.

Odd that they chose to preview the one that seemingly has a missing part/mistake in it as their example of a stat block.

EDIT: Looks like the other dragons with spell attacks have that bonus added, too. Whadda heck?

 

[Stalker0]

I've noticed something odd: the gold dragon and the bronze dragon both can cast guiding bolt, but while the bronze dragon has its spell attack bonus in its stats, the gold doesn't.

Odd that they chose to preview the one that seemingly has a missing part/mistake in it as their example of a stat block.

EDIT: Looks like the other dragons with spell attacks have that bonus added, too. Whadda heck?

I'm sure its simply an error in the book. It happens

 

[TravDoc42]

I'm sure its simply an error in the book. It happens

I'm sure it was, I understand! Just noticed it and figured I'd share

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That isn't how I work the numbers...

The dragon doesn't have to hit with all 4 attacks. You are better off looking at expected damage per round. In your example, the dragon (actually) hits 95% vs. AC 19 (only missing on a 1, a 2 hits).

Going with the most basic attacks, it does a GB at the end of the turn of the creature before it acts. It only has a 90% to hit with that, for 7d6 damage, is 23.275 (including crits).

Then the dragon attacks with 3 rends, all with 95% chance (assuming the wizard doesn't cast shield...?), dealing 27.5 damage per attack expected (again, including criticals).

All together, the expected damage is 105.775 in one round vs. AC 19. Given a 20th-level Wizard with CON 14 will average 122 HP, the dragon is not likely to take him down in a single round.

Same attack sequence against AC 23 would yield 84.075 expected damage. Given a typical fighter with CON 16 at 184 hp, this is less than half the fighter's HP. A single heal at 7th level would negate all that damage; and a 20th-level cleric can do that at least twice.


I don't think AC is doing a lot... I think the lack of damage on the dragon's part is the bigger factor.

Just looking at averages is not enough.
A 65% chance to hit 4 attacks in a row tells us more.
Better even to calculate with cumulated binomial distribution how likely it is to hit x or more times in y attacks.

The law of big numbers (is it called that way in english) tells us that y must be big enough to get close to the expected value.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

The Beyond version at the least has the spell attack bonus in it.

 

[ezo]

Just looking at averages is not enough.
A 65% chance to hit 4 attacks in a row tells us more.
Better even to calculate with cumulated binomial distribution how likely it is to hit x or more times in y attacks.

The law of big numbers (is it called that way in english) tells us that y must be big enough to get close to the expected value.

When I am looking at the typical outcome, expected values are enough.

Yes, I know of the Law of Large Numbers.