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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 4888617" data-attributes="member: 3424">Kobold slyblades get good spike damage, but they will have to focus all their attacks on a single character in order to have a reasonable chance of dropping his hit points below 0 in one round, and a word from the party leader (assuming he wasn't the one targeted - and tactical positioning can reduce the chance of that happening) will have him on his feet again in the next. And that's all the chance that the slyblades will get. Assuming the party can use decent tactics, they will just cluster together to minimize the opportunities for flanking, and take the slyblades down one at a time. Don't forget that the slyblades' damage potential falls also over the course of the fight as more of them get killed, whereas the young black dragon's remains fairly constant. And while the young black dragon doesn't deal spike damage, its breath weapon can damage multiple foes simultaneously. Over the course of a multi-round fight, it adds up.In addition, offense is only half the story. A young black dragon's defences are on average about 4 points higher than that of a kobold slyblade. Hence, a PC who can hit a slyblade 50% of the time finds that his hit chance drops to 30% on average against the young black dragon. In order to deal the same amount of damage to the young black dragon, the PC needs make about 50% more attacks. That's another 50% more rounds the black dragon gets to attack him (or someone else, or both) back.Ah, but tactics change the amount of resources required to win a fight and the chances of winning in the first place. If the average 4th-level party does not need tactics to win a fight against slyblades, but requires them to win a fight against the young black dragon, you're arguing my case for me. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Let's say the party uses equally good tactics in the fight against the slyblades and the fight against the young black dragon. Which do you think the party is more likely to win? Which will require the party to use more resources (healing surges, action points, daily abilities) even if they win?Moderately long and tense is fine. Too long and frustrating is not. Unfortunately, I think a fight against a young black dragon tends more towards the latter than the former.</blockquote>

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