Dragon abilities

[Sunglare]

The party I ended up running for was as follows:

dragonborn paladin 1
doppelganger warlord 3
efl ranger 2
human rogue 4
dragonborn cleric 4
dwarf fighter 4

They faced a Young Green Dragon from the MM, it is a level 5 Solo.

The dragon performed underwhelming. Not only were my die rolls crap during this fight (I missed the double attack every time but once...), but the dragon did not have the damage output to match the PCs of that group above.

The Young Red might still have been too much, but the green was too weak.

All in all running the dragon was fun. Next time I will use one that is a bit tougher... I'm done going easy on them.

The first encounter of the night, 4 Dark Creepers and 1 Shadowhunter Bat was more of a challenge for them.

Everyone did have a great time though, so I'd say it was a success.

Did the dragon have room to fly, hovering plus reach seems like it would be a big boon for the dragon.. Looking at what the dragon can do and with the proper enviroment I know I could give the PC's a run for their money.

 

[Nail]

The party I ended up running for was as follows:

dragonborn paladin 1
doppelganger warlord 3
efl ranger 2
human rogue 4
dragonborn cleric 4
dwarf fighter 4

They faced a Young Green Dragon from the MM, it is a level 5 Solo.

The dragon performed underwhelming. Not only were my die rolls crap during this fight (I missed the double attack every time but once...), but the dragon did not have the damage output to match the PCs of that group above.

The Young Red might still have been too much, but the green was too weak.

All in all running the dragon was fun. Next time I will use one that is a bit tougher... I'm done going easy on them.

The first encounter of the night, 4 Dark Creepers and 1 Shadowhunter Bat was more of a challenge for them.

Everyone did have a great time though, so I'd say it was a success.

Interesting! Thanks for the update.

You say the dragon didn't pump out enough damage. As a level 5 solo skirmisher, it looks like the damage is meant to be spread out over many many rounds, as the PCs struggle to pin the young green down. That Flyby Attack, for example, looks like it's made to slowly wear everyone down via poison damage. Is that what happened for your group?

Put another way: "How did your PCs pin th' bad boy with a fly-10 move down?"

 

[davidnoal]

Interesting! Thanks for the update.

You say the dragon didn't pump out enough damage. As a level 5 solo skirmisher, it looks like the damage is meant to be spread out over many many rounds, as the PCs struggle to pin the young green down. That Flyby Attack, for example, looks like it's made to slowly wear everyone down via poison damage. Is that what happened for your group?

Put another way: "How did your PCs pin th' bad boy with a fly-10 move down?"

The dragon was inside. While I allowed it to fly, I did not allow it hover out of reach. I thought this a fair compromise, since no party member has reach 2.

The PCs spread out after the dragon made it's first breath attack. This made it tough for me to hit more than 2 or 3 of them with any area attacks for the rest of the battle.

They got combat advantage on almost every round-- my rogue is very adept at getting his combat advantage, more on this later.

The rogue blinded and dazed the dragon on separate turns.

The rogue working with the fighter were able to pump 30+ damage into the dragon several times (almost every turn)... rarely missing. My rogue's player happens to be my son. He created the rogue with my advice, min-maxing the hell outta it, although, he has made all the level advancement choices alone. The character can do up to 30 points of damage in a single round with an at will and combat advantage (his average damage is 21.5.) With Deft Strike he does 1d4+7 damage, plus the sneak damage of 2d8+3, and that with a bonus of 11 to hit. With blinding barrage or setup strike he can do another 4 on top of that.

The cleric used a daily utility (shield of faith) to grant +2 AC to everyone... and I rolled like utter crap for the dragon on nearly every attack. I was needing 12s and up to hit the PCs, and rarely did so. (This was the biggest problem, I simply rolled bad most of the time.) When the dragon did hit though, it did not do much damage.

No doubt I made a few tactical errors, though, none were bad enough blunders that they were singly responsible for the death of the beast. I will absolutely keep the next dragon they face quite a bit more mobile.

 

[James McMurray]

It sounds like the played the skirmisher as a soldier/brute, which could account for the beating it took. Skirmishers are designed to use their mobility to prolong their lives so they can make up for their lower damage. If they stay within melee range most of the time, they're going to get squashed.

 

[Sunglare]

The dragon was inside. While I allowed it to fly, I did not allow it hover out of reach. I thought this a fair compromise, since no party member has reach 2.

The PCs spread out after the dragon made it's first breath attack. This made it tough for me to hit more than 2 or 3 of them with any area attacks for the rest of the battle.

They got combat advantage on almost every round-- my rogue is very adept at getting his combat advantage, more on this later.

The rogue blinded and dazed the dragon on separate turns.

The rogue working with the fighter were able to pump 30+ damage into the dragon several times (almost every turn)... rarely missing. My rogue's player happens to be my son. He created the rogue with my advice, min-maxing the hell outta it, although, he has made all the level advancement choices alone. The character can do up to 30 points of damage in a single round with an at will and combat advantage (his average damage is 21.5.) With Deft Strike he does 1d4+7 damage, plus the sneak damage of 2d8+3, and that with a bonus of 11 to hit. With blinding barrage or setup strike he can do another 4 on top of that.

The cleric used a daily utility (shield of faith) to grant +2 AC to everyone... and I rolled like utter crap for the dragon on nearly every attack. I was needing 12s and up to hit the PCs, and rarely did so. (This was the biggest problem, I simply rolled bad most of the time.) When the dragon did hit though, it did not do much damage.

No doubt I made a few tactical errors, though, none were bad enough blunders that they were singly responsible for the death of the beast. I will absolutely keep the next dragon they face quite a bit more mobile.

Seems unfair to the Dragon not being able to use his strengths. If you would of taken advantage of the Dragons reach the players would of had to stratigize a lot more on how to attack the Dragon, taking advantage of powers that force movement and whatnot.

I hope this doesn't give the party a false sense of security when coming up a Dragon next time and you decide to play it to its full potential.

Not nitpicking or anything but I'm curious how the rogue got a +7 damage with Deft Strike, I'm guessing he has a 18 dex so that would be 4 damage, if he took something like weapon focus he could get +5. I can't think of any other feats that would give bonus to damage with light blades.
I'm guessing he is a brutal scoundral with a 16 str since his sneak attack is getting a +3 damage.

 

[James McMurray]

Not nitpicking or anything but I'm curious how the rogue got a +7 damage with Deft Strike, I'm guessing he has a 18 dex so that would be 4 damage, if he took something like weapon focus he could get +5. I can't think of any other feats that would give bonus to damage with light blades.

Magic weapon?

 

[Sunglare]

Also, you said it wasn't hovering out of reach but it was still hovering off of the ground correct. If this was the case it would be impossible to flank as all the PC's would be below it so the rogue would have a hard time getting combat advantage and have to rely on certain exploits and spells.
I guess the rogue did blind it but you would think the dragon would at least
fly out of reach until it could recover it's eyesight.
Oh well, James pretty much nailed it on the head.

It just makes me think of some kind of story where a king finds a sick and dieing dragon that can't fight back and sends his son against it as a right of passage and of course the boy kills the poor thing and the country reconignes the kid as a dragon slayer.. or something a long those lines lol...

 

[davidnoal]

Seems unfair to the Dragon not being able to use his strengths. If you would of taken advantage of the Dragons reach the players would of had to stratigize a lot more on how to attack the Dragon, taking advantage of powers that force movement and whatnot.

I hope this doesn't give the party a false sense of security when coming up a Dragon next time and you decide to play it to its full potential.

Not nitpicking or anything but I'm curious how the rogue got a +7 damage with Deft Strike, I'm guessing he has a 18 dex so that would be 4 damage, if he took something like weapon focus he could get +5. I can't think of any other feats that would give bonus to damage with light blades.
I'm guessing he is a brutal scoundral with a 16 str since his sneak attack is getting a +3 damage.

1d4+7 damage = 1d4 +1 via feat - weapon focus light blade, +1 via magic weapon, +1 via feat - two weapon fighting, +4 via 19 DEX.

2d8+3 sneak attack damage = 2d8 backstabber feat, +3 STR bonus via Brutal Scoundrel

I can't wait to see what crap he pulls out at 5th level.

 

[davidnoal]

Also, you said it wasn't hovering out of reach but it was still hovering off of the ground correct. If this was the case it would be impossible to flank as all the PC's would be below it so the rogue would have a hard time getting combat advantage and have to rely on certain exploits and spells.
I guess the rogue did blind it but you would think the dragon would at least
fly out of reach until it could recover it's eyesight.
Oh well, James pretty much nailed it on the head.

It just makes me think of some kind of story where a king finds a sick and dieing dragon that can't fight back and sends his son against it as a right of passage and of course the boy kills the poor thing and the country reconignes the kid as a dragon slayer.. or something a long those lines lol...

The scenario was designed so that 1) they knew the dragon was just a baby and 2) the dragon had been recently and previously beat up and captured.

So, story wise it fits in well enough.

I did fly off when I was blinded. And launched a new attack. And missed.

The largest problem is that the dragon's +10 or so to hit, was not enough against the party and it's minimal damage meant that when I did roll well enough to hit, that it didn't hurt much.

I probably inflicted 100 hp of damage across the party. it wasn't enough to drop anyone. I was hoping for a few PC kills. The battle wasn't totally one sided, but next time I will absolutely use a solo brute or soldier that is at minimum 2 levels above the group, maybe 3.

 

[Nail]

The scenario was designed so that 1) they knew the dragon was just a baby and 2) the dragon had been recently and previously beat up and captured.

So, story wise it fits in well enough.

Sounds good.

Although second-guessing a fellow DM is next to worthless : You might have had better luck allowing the dragon to often hover out of melee range and starting it out as "bloodied". That way the PCs have to really work at getting CA, but when they do, the results are significant. Meanwhile, the green dragon snipes away at them.

I'm curious: How did the rogue get CA when the green dragon was flying? My PCs want to know.