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!

 

[Parmandur]

The thing about both a Large sword and a Rend attack...the HP damage is not meat, it includes goijg after narrative "plot armor". The design seems to make it more likely that a PC who goes down to a Dragon will do so from a breath weapon or spell than being swatted.

 

[Upper_Krust]

A high difficulty encounter is just one that could be lethal for one or more characters. There isn't even the expectation that it will likely be. It just has the possibility to be.

Lethality for a single character is a complete irrelevance at Epic Levels. It doesn't mean anything. The deceased character will be back on their feet before the party get done counting the treasure.

If Highly difficult encounters don't have a possibility of a TPK then they should not be described as Highly Difficult. Not saying the PCs shouldn't have an advantage, but maybe a 25-35% chance of things going sideways for the whole party if they make extremely bad decisions or face terrible bad luck.

If the best thing a Highly Difficult Encounter might achieve is "maybe" killing one character then it represents no threat at all.

It's also not designed to be a "solo" monster.

Going by the XP Award it fills the XP Budget for a party of 5 x L17 characters, 4 x L18 characters, 4 x L19 characters (encountered in its Lair) and 3 x L20 characters (again encountered in its lair). That sounds like a Solo monster to me.

These sorts of monsters will have allies and minions to call on,

Potentially so does every other monster. But the XP Reward says its a Highly difficult encounter as a Solo monster.

the PCs will have needed to face challenges before getting to these monsters,

Other challenges guaranteed to be even weaker encounters...or as Epic Characters might say, "Speed Bumps".

the terrain will be in the monster's favour,

Hardly a game changer.

and the monsters will have escape plans.

If it can avoid dying in 2 rounds maybe it can return to fight another day when the PCs will likely be even more powerful.

 

[dave2008]

Since you know where I was going with this, you could make your own assumptions. But I gladly answer your questions.

Of course.

Normal nails.

All the same length.

Shooes with a thin flat sole. But actually does not matter.

That your foot can rest on them.

Thin metal spikes (1mm diameter, pointy end)

All the same.

OK, if I got this correct it looks like your setting up a "bed of nails" look. In that case, the 1,000 nails cause less damage because your weight is distributed and they don't puncture your shoe or foot. That assumes the nails are tightly enough spaced to function that way of course.

 

[dave2008]

I just checked, and this is actually exactly the same as the 2014 ancient gold dragon breath weapon.

You are correct! I was thinking of the red dragon which has 91 fire damage. Never mind, and thank you for the correction! I am now hopeful the breath weapons are not nerfed.

 

[Shardstone]

Lethality for a single character is a complete irrelevance at Epic Levels. It doesn't mean anything. The deceased character will be back on their feet before the party get done counting the treasure.

If Highly difficult encounters don't have a possibility of a TPK then they should not be described as Highly Difficult. Not saying the PCs shouldn't have an advantage, but maybe a 25-35% chance of things going sideways for the whole party if they make extremely bad decisions or face terrible bad luck.

If the best thing a Highly Difficult Encounter might achieve is "maybe" killing one character then it represents no threat at all.



Going by the XP Award it fills the XP Budget for a party of 5 x L17 characters, 4 x L18 characters, 4 x L19 characters (encountered in its Lair) and 3 x L20 characters (again encountered in its lair). That sounds like a Solo monster to me.



Potentially so does every other monster. But the XP Reward says its a Highly difficult encounter as a Solo monster.



Other challenges guaranteed to be even weaker encounters...or as Epic Characters might say, "Speed Bumps".



Hardly a game changer.



If it can avoid dying in 2 rounds maybe it can return to fight another day when the PCs will likely be even more powerful.

I agree and disagree. I think potentially killing 1/4 characters is good for a High Damage creature. I'm not sure if this actually does that though; there are lots of resistances and temporary hit point pools at high levels, so you need to hit significantly harder then you think you do to actually make the party think someone will go down. I do think the damage should have been boosted by about 50% here.

 

[MGibster]

True, which is why I said it was "spending an action to force any targets that saved/avoided to make the save again, and meaningless otherwise" two sentences later.

You expect me to read three whole sentences?!

"Rules aren't Physics" is RAW as of the 2024 DMG. Literally with that wording. D&D rules explicitly run on vibes-based physics unless the DM says otherwise. It's a game, not a simulation.

One of the best additions to the DMG for 2024 I think.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I don't disagree with the above.

Of course they are. Reactions are more easy to take away. Has nothing to do with legendary resistance.

If Legendary Resistance denies that 'take away' of Reactions, I don't see the major difference.

I fear being bludggeoned by a huge hammer more than a swipe from a huge claw.
Because the hammer is build to build up a lot more momentum. This is why people use long heavy hammers to smash walls, not claws.

Is there a 100 ton monster swiping its Huge Claw?

And it is way more swingy. At some point in D&D history designers decided that combat should not end after a single unlucky roll.
So HP of monsters went up. Damage went down.

Which I largely agree with.

However, I think 5e has crossed the Rubicon with these damage numbers which are lacklustre and will be regarded as such by Epic Tier characters and as a consequence their Players.

WotC have known for 10 years the damage numbers were too low, their sweeping change of adding +9 fire damage to a Rend does not convince me they have as yet solved the issue.

Since monster HP are generally than PC HP, comparing monster damage and PC damage is moot.

We know PCs and the monsters average x amount of damage and have y amount of Hit Points. Yes there are more variables but we can eyeball at a glance which wins on average.

I am also not sure if I like that 100%. But I have seen high level Monsters I designed over the course of hours in 3e go down before they could act because of lucky initative rolls and some lucky attacks.

Which would seemingly be impossible since the advent of Legendary Resistance.

If it were my choice, PC damage would be reduced and monster HP would be reduced. So both sides of the screen had equal numbers and you could meaningfully compare those stats.

We can compare the stats just by looking at them. The Dragon's damage is extremely low. Epic characters have myriad healing options, recovery options, bonus actions and so forth.

But players always start crying if you reduce their numbers, because they always see only half the picture (look at paladin outcries everywhere).

True but these "Solo" monsters should be designed to survive 3 rounds against an average Party of 4 (of the appropriate Level) and give them a Highly Difficult fight - that means a good chance of taking down one of the four PCs each round.

If the average Epic PC damage is 75 (for the sake of argument) and it is successful 2/3rds of the time that means the Dragon can survive 11 PC turns (for simplicity). So if it does not drop a PC by the end of Round 1 it is killed in round 3. If the Party go 'nova' on it (Action Surges etc.) it can expect to fall in perhaps 2 rounds.

If the average Epic Tier PC (Level 18 we can say) has 150 HP and the dragon has a max output of 180 per round and hits 2/3rds of the time then the dragon takes 5 rounds to kill all the PCs.

Now the problem with lowering the damage and upping the number of attacks is that the Dragon scoring a Crit gives it much less of an advantage. As you noted yourself, fights are now far less swingy. But the flipside is that they are now far more predictable as a result. Without a few high damaging attacks that can crit the dragon has no chance to swing the fight.

 

[dave2008]

However, I think 5e has crossed the Rubicon with these damage numbers which are lacklustre and will be regarded as such by Epic Tier characters and as a consequence their Players.

While I think we generally beat the same drum when it comes to monster damage, I just want to point it was even worse in 4e. The 4e ancient gold had 1,088 HP and its breath weapon did a terrifying 27 (4d8+9) fire damage and the target was weakened. Yikes!

WotC have known for 10 years the damage numbers were too low, their sweeping change of adding +9 fire damage to a Rend does not convince me they have as yet solved the issue.

By all accounts so far this MM will raise the danger of high CR monsters over the 2014 MM. That coupled with the revised encounter XP thresholds mean that high level encounters are about 50% more dangerous. So they did make a correction, and a good one, but it didn't go far enough IMO.

My issue with the gold (and probably all the dragons) is not that the DPR hasn't been increase, it has (still not enough IMO, but whatever). My issue is that individual attack damage is so pathetic. I am guessing this gold gets a lot of its DPR out of its legendary actions. I think that is a mistake. Move most of the damage to the monster's actions, making each attack do more damage, and leave LA for escape, buff, and nerf effects mostly. That to me is a better designed monster.

I'll show "them" what I mean when I update my Tiamat supplement after the new MM comes out.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If Legendary Resistance denies that 'take away' of Reactions, I don't see the major difference.



Is there a 100 ton monster swiping its Huge Claw?

The empyrean is still huge. And this is what it was compared to.

If we go by mass alone, humans should deal no damage with weapons against dragons at all...

Which I largely agree with.

However, I think 5e has crossed the Rubicon with these damage numbers which are lacklustre and will be regarded as such by Epic Tier characters and as a consequence their Players.

WotC have known for 10 years the damage numbers were too low, their sweeping change of adding +9 fire damage to a Rend does not convince me they have as yet solved the issue.

I want to see tge rest of tgmhe dragon stat block...

We know PCs and the monsters average x amount of damage and have y amount of Hit Points. Yes there are more variables but we can eyeball at a glance which wins on average.



Which would seemingly be impossible since the advent of Legendary Resistance.

But if you get through. Which you should. Taking away reactions is easier.

So maybe if the dragon is targeted with a low level reaction deny spell, if it is reliant on reactions, the dragon might spend a legendary resistance, while it does not if it has legendary actions instead.

We can compare the stats just by looking at them. The Dragon's damage is extremely low. Epic characters have myriad healing options, recovery options, bonus actions and so forth.



True but these "Solo" monsters should be designed to survive 3 rounds against an average Party of 4 (of the appropriate Level) and give them a Highly Difficult fight - that means a good chance of taking down one of the four PCs each round.

If the average Epic PC damage is 75 (for the sake of argument) and it is successful 2/3rds of the time that means the Dragon can survive 11 PC turns (for simplicity). So if it does not drop a PC by the end of Round 1 it is killed in round 3. If the Party go 'nova' on it (Action Surges etc.) it can expect to fall in perhaps 2 rounds.

So now with its high initiative bonus, the dragon might go first instead of last. Big difference to 5.14.
Then,if they can banish a PC, it is as good as dropping them.
So without the rest of the stat block, damage numbers are irelevant.

As I mentioned above. A demon we fought recently did laughable damage. But we were charmed and feared nearly constantly... Gladly we only had to survive for 5 rounds to win that fight. But it was close...

If the average Epic Tier PC (Level 18 we can say) has 150 HP and the dragon has a max output of 180 per round and hits 2/3rds of the time then the dragon takes 5 rounds to kill all the PCs.

Now the problem with lowering the damage and upping the number of attacks is that the Dragon scoring a Crit gives it much less of an advantage. As you noted yourself, fights are now far less swingy. But the flipside is that they are now far more predictable as a result. Without a few high damaging attacks that can crit the dragon has no chance to swing the fight.

I don't consider dragon breath low damage. And if the other breath delivers, there might be a good turnaround. But without the other half of the stat block, one guess is as good as the other.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

OK, if I got this correct it looks like your setting up a "bed of nails" look. In that case, the 1,000 nails cause less damage because your weight is distributed and they don't puncture your shoe or foot. That assumes the nails are tightly enough spaced to function that way of course.

Yes. Exactly. But even if not that tight, the force is distributed over all nails. So every nail has a harder time to pierce your skin.
If I have to chose, I want to fall on many nails/spears, not a singular one.

In a pit full of spears, there are more than one to increase the chance one or two hit you. Putting in too many has a negative effect on the efficiency.

Which for most people is counterintuitive (even if they know about how physics work). It is just one's brain that intuitively says: if one needle is dangerous, 1000s are more dangerous.