Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Upper_Krust" data-source="post: 9561978" data-attributes="member: 326">Which was why I asked for clarification.You DID say a PC caster using one of its higher level spells against the dragon was a big deal - which I countered it wasn't because they have 6 spells of levels 6-9 and most combats only last 3-4 rounds.You DID mention "Adventuring Day" and how the party might not have all its best abilities still to use - which I countered by saying the Dragon's XP Reward positions it as a Highly Difficult encounter ON ITS OWN - not as the 3rd encounter of the day.I simply stated AC's of 26-30 are common. You seemed to be of the opinion the Dragon will be easily hitting martial characters...it won't.Which segued onto our discussion about how Banishing one character (the Tank) can have adverse impact on the Party's survivability.It doesn't have +19 it has +17.No it won't and things like Second Wind as Bonus Actions are Healing which does not impede the Fighters ability to attack.No it isn't. With AC 28 you don't get hit most of the time, the Dragon misses you more than it hits.If that were true then people wouldn't have been complaining to WotC the damage dealt by Epic Monsters was not too low for the past decade. But they have...and WotC have acknowledged this for years - they just seem incapable of designing an actually difficult challenge.I agree to be a 'good fight' a monster doesn't need to have good odds of a TPK.But I disagree if we are wanting the monster to be a "Highly Difficult" challenge for Epic Tier PCs.THAT'S WHAT EPIC CHARACTERS DO! They use powerful abilities, high level spells, legendary magic items.Do you want them to not use high level spells at all against what is supposedly a Highly Difficult CR 24 monster?Char-Ops Powergamers will always find some way to break the game - but those are not the norm and we do not need to consider them with regard the typical power of Epic Tier PCs.Which would be wholly unnecessary if the damage was simply high enough.I think Stalker0 highlighted the contrast between a CR +7 monster vs. lower level characters and a CR +7 monster vs Epic Tier characters...against the lower level party the CR +7 difference dealt proportionally far more damage. Yet against Epic Tier characters who have far more ways to avoid, negate and heal damage the CR +7 monster deals proportionally far less.So why are CR 24 monsters designed to be proportionally less deadly than CR 12 monsters?If anything Epic Tier monsters should be dealing proportionally MORE damage, not less.What you have consistently done is pit the dragon against a Wizard and said if everything hits the Wizard is probably close to or at 0 hit points.My point is, that should be the case against the Average PC, not the weakest PC with the lowest AC and the lowest Hit Points.You seem to be getting unnecessarily upset. We are just having a friendly discussion here.You are saying the damage is good enough. I am trying to explain to you it isn't (maybe I am doing a bad job of explaining myself, but the same issues remain).1. People have been complaining to WotC about this for 10 years, its not just my opinion.2. People who have played Epic Tier campaigns KNOW from experience, the monsters don't deal enough damage.3. 2024 introduced more Power Creep for PCs, meaning the problem is only going to get bigger.So in light of the new Gold Dragon stat-block; does +9 fire damage solve the issue? Personally I already KNOW it won't and I suspect many others think the same. Hence our criticism of this new Ancient Gold Dragon and by extension the likelihood of the other high CR monsters in the 2025 Monster Manual not getting sufficiently buffed as well.</blockquote>

Verification