the Jester
Legend
That dragon looks a lot better if it has a dozen or so kobolds to tie the pcs up for a couple of rounds.
D&D 5E (CR ratings) Could 6 level 6 characters survive and beat a Young Blue Dragon?
- Thread starter Henry
- Start date
Isn't the idea tho that a encounter with a dragon would happen with a number of medium to hard encounters thrown at the PCs first. If they are fully rested that thing is going down fast, but after a few fights to tire them out and use up some of their resources, that dragon is gonna give them hell, especially if it can fly.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
My 1st-level fighter drove away an adult blue dragon in Hoard of the Dragon Queen with a critical hit from a ballista. So it's doable!
With reasonable notice given to the PCs prior to their encountering the blue dragon, I think the party will do okay, provided they prepare themselves accordingly. There is likely to be at least one PC death though. A cleric in the party is well-advised to have the components necessary to cast revivify and stay the heck out of the way as much as possible.
What you can also do is have the adult blue dragon be the foe, but give it goals other than "Kill all PCs." During the encounter, the dragon sets about pursuing its goal, attacking from time to time when it is unable to make forward progress on said goal. If the PCs can prevent the dragon from achieving its goals, it is effectively defeated.
Here's an example: Rather than have the dragon encounter in its lair (which gives it additional abilities), consider having the encounter occur in the desert. An armed caravan is heading from one city to another, carrying priceless gems to pay as a dowry. One of the caravan's outriders is secretly a cultist that worships dragons and has tipped off the blue dragon to the fact that hidden somewhere in this caravan is the legendary Sapphire of Qurratul-Ayn. Blue dragons are known hoarders of gems, so all it wants is to find this gem and take it back to its lair. The caravan consists of a dozen wagons or other conveyances that the dragon must Search (Basic Rules, page 72) in order to find the sapphire. (Choose one caravan that has it, then roll randomly to see which caravan the dragon targets.) If it finds it, it leaves and the PCs have effectively been defeated. If it cannot get the gem before it takes 175 hp damage or if the gem is effectively hidden with magic or the like, it flees - the PCs have defeated it.
Now imagine this cool, cinematic scene of the dragon burrowing through the sand, smashing wagons to bits, camels, horses, and caravan riders scattering like mad, while the PCs try to play keep-away with the sapphire.
Mmmm that's a good encounter. Round 1 the dragon smashes a wagon, round 2 it makes search checks, the PCs can also make checks to see if they can find it first too. Maybe the dragon tries for a round or two to find the gem and moves to another cart, using its breath weapon first. If the PCs find it they can play keep away until X amount of dragon health has been cut away, then it flees and plots revenge.
Uller
Adventurer
Adding a 6th character to the party seems to be a huge power boost. My group with 5 PCs convinced Sildar in LMoP to join them in their exploration of Wave Echo Cave and for the first session I forgot to boost the monsters a bit...they steam rolled through everything.
If the Young Blue Dragon is the only encounter for the day and it doesn't get the jump on the party or some other tactical advantage, then I would expect it to go down in about 2 rounds against six 6th level PCs. If it gets a breath attack off, it might drop a PC or two but it's still dead.
If the Young Blue Dragon is the only encounter for the day and it doesn't get the jump on the party or some other tactical advantage, then I would expect it to go down in about 2 rounds against six 6th level PCs. If it gets a breath attack off, it might drop a PC or two but it's still dead.
Jaelommiss
First Post
I think that the biggest impact on a dragon fight is the level of intelligence it uses.
A half dozen level 6 PCs will destroy a young dragon in a striaght fight with minimal losses. They'd likely win against an adult dragon, though there would be more casualties.
Bump up its strategy a bit. Now it'll blast the party with a breath weapon, vanish down a tunnel in its lair, and wait for it to recharge. It'll then appear at another tunnel entrance and blast them from a new direction. A young dragon doing this will be extremely dangerous. An adult will kill them without much risk. Readied spells consume slots even if not used, so spellcasters will be unable to take direct action against the dragon. Melee characters will be equally useless. The party would have an easier time fleeing in this situation.
Suppose that the dragon is outside. If it flies a half mile above the party and has access to the Feather Fall spell (variant spellcasting dragon), then it can start a turn by folding its wings, falling to just above the party, cast Feather Fall on self, breath weapon everyone, then fly 80 feet away. Repeat every few minutes to waste party resources. If they split up, fly down to one, grapple, shred with multiattack, and drop. A sharpshooter in the party will stop this working entirely, but an average party would be easily defeated by a young dragon. An adult would likely be too much.
Of course, that only matters if the dragon is fighting by itself. Everyone else is correct in saying that the easiest way to make the fight possible, but still hard, would be to add some additional enemies to a young dragon. Alternatively, giving a young dragon a surprise round would balance the increased party size.
A half dozen level 6 PCs will destroy a young dragon in a striaght fight with minimal losses. They'd likely win against an adult dragon, though there would be more casualties.
Bump up its strategy a bit. Now it'll blast the party with a breath weapon, vanish down a tunnel in its lair, and wait for it to recharge. It'll then appear at another tunnel entrance and blast them from a new direction. A young dragon doing this will be extremely dangerous. An adult will kill them without much risk. Readied spells consume slots even if not used, so spellcasters will be unable to take direct action against the dragon. Melee characters will be equally useless. The party would have an easier time fleeing in this situation.
Suppose that the dragon is outside. If it flies a half mile above the party and has access to the Feather Fall spell (variant spellcasting dragon), then it can start a turn by folding its wings, falling to just above the party, cast Feather Fall on self, breath weapon everyone, then fly 80 feet away. Repeat every few minutes to waste party resources. If they split up, fly down to one, grapple, shred with multiattack, and drop. A sharpshooter in the party will stop this working entirely, but an average party would be easily defeated by a young dragon. An adult would likely be too much.
Of course, that only matters if the dragon is fighting by itself. Everyone else is correct in saying that the easiest way to make the fight possible, but still hard, would be to add some additional enemies to a young dragon. Alternatively, giving a young dragon a surprise round would balance the increased party size.
aramis erak
Legend
The young blue is a challenge but it isn't a good challenge alone. Add a couple CR 4-5 allies to it and the encounter quickly ramps up.
My group of 7 5th level PCs took out a Red Dragon that was halfway between Young and Adult. Plus, I give my dragons 2x Cha of spells to boot (so it had Fireball in addition to its breath weapon, plus invisibility, plus other spells). Plus it had traps (and henchmen, but the PCs wiped the henchmen before getting into the fight with the dragon). One PC went unconscious. To be fair, it fought them in a large room, so they had room to spread out and I could never catch more than 3 of them (and usually 2) in a breath weapon or in a fireball.
6 6th level PCs vs. a Young Blue Dragon should be a relatively easy fight, especially since a Blue Dragon has a line for its breath weapon.
Dragons have a couple of design flaws. Their DPR is all in their breath weapon, and they don't have the HP to stand up in a toe to toe fight. This makes them quite a swingy fight. Roll a lot of breath recharges? The fight will be deadly. Bad luck on the breath recharges? The fight will be underwhelming.
Sharpshooting fighters can deal with them pretty majorly, and anything that can fly with sentinel can also deal with them quite seriously as well.
I play tested tons of Dragon in the "arena" and they suck. I've used a couple now in campaign and stacked huge odds on their favour (spellcasting, terrain, lair, etc) and they were both good fights.
Sharpshooting fighters can deal with them pretty majorly, and anything that can fly with sentinel can also deal with them quite seriously as well.
I play tested tons of Dragon in the "arena" and they suck. I've used a couple now in campaign and stacked huge odds on their favour (spellcasting, terrain, lair, etc) and they were both good fights.
Zardnaar
Legend
I have run 3 or 4 Dragon encounters IIRC.
The 1st one was vs a Adult black in its lair (CR 14 or 15 IIRC) vs 5 or 6 PCsof level 8 IIRC. They killed it and fled to an ancient temple when Tiamats cultists turned up en-masses. Repeated encounters with 20-40 kobolds gets old fast. While they were fleeing in a skyship they had an encounter with 2 young blue Dragons in the skies who used their speed to fly under the airship and only came up when thier breath weapon recharged. This was probably one of the hardest 5E fights I ran and it lasted around 20 rounds. The Dragons hung back where the crossbow expert fighter had trouble hitting them and only came a bit close once breath weapons recharged. The melee PCs were a bit useless and the spellcasters were depleted and could only fling firebolts vs hit and fade Dragons.
We also fought the larger blue Dragon at levle 13 IIRC but my valor bard hit it with Ottos Irresistible Dance and it died rapidly. Dragons basically suck in 5E being basically hit point meat bags with a nasty breath weapon. They lack the true fear effects, immunities to non-magical weapons and spells which made Dragons a bit more terrifying in older D&D. 2E was the only edition to really make Dragons scary as they were glass cannons in BECMI/1E and underpowered vs PC abilities in 3E and in 4E they were low damage buckets of hit point pinata's for PCs. You have to deplete the PCs a lot or do hit and run with breath weapons.
Dragons need immunity to nonmagical weapons brought back for the older ones, real magic resistance (advantage on saves is useless vs spells with no saves), spell caster levels, and automatic fear effects on low CR critters at a minimum.
The 1st one was vs a Adult black in its lair (CR 14 or 15 IIRC) vs 5 or 6 PCsof level 8 IIRC. They killed it and fled to an ancient temple when Tiamats cultists turned up en-masses. Repeated encounters with 20-40 kobolds gets old fast. While they were fleeing in a skyship they had an encounter with 2 young blue Dragons in the skies who used their speed to fly under the airship and only came up when thier breath weapon recharged. This was probably one of the hardest 5E fights I ran and it lasted around 20 rounds. The Dragons hung back where the crossbow expert fighter had trouble hitting them and only came a bit close once breath weapons recharged. The melee PCs were a bit useless and the spellcasters were depleted and could only fling firebolts vs hit and fade Dragons.
We also fought the larger blue Dragon at levle 13 IIRC but my valor bard hit it with Ottos Irresistible Dance and it died rapidly. Dragons basically suck in 5E being basically hit point meat bags with a nasty breath weapon. They lack the true fear effects, immunities to non-magical weapons and spells which made Dragons a bit more terrifying in older D&D. 2E was the only edition to really make Dragons scary as they were glass cannons in BECMI/1E and underpowered vs PC abilities in 3E and in 4E they were low damage buckets of hit point pinata's for PCs. You have to deplete the PCs a lot or do hit and run with breath weapons.
Dragons need immunity to nonmagical weapons brought back for the older ones, real magic resistance (advantage on saves is useless vs spells with no saves), spell caster levels, and automatic fear effects on low CR critters at a minimum.
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