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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 4808451" data-attributes="member: 2011">I figured it in my calculations because it is something that would often happen, or other buffs combined might be equal to it.Like I said, come up with better. I'm not married to these numbers.Here is how I calculated them. I took the strongest damage At Will power and then added one die of damage because most Encounter and Dailies are 2W or even 3W, not 1W. And, even if using At Will powers, it's possible to do more damage with feats or synergies. I rounded to the nearest 10 (just to make the equations easier).Cleric: +3 Mace, 19 Str, Righteous Brand, 16Fighter: +3 Longsword, 21 Str, Weapon Focus, Reaping Strike, 21 if hit, 10 if miss ~= 25 (adjusted down a little due to the fact that most encounter / dailies do not do half damage on a miss and of course he will not get this if the Dragon flies)Wizard: +3 Orb, 21 Int, Magic Missile, 18So, an average of 20 for the non-Strikers.Rogue: +3 Dagger, 21 Dex, Weapon Focus, Backstabber, Sly Flourish, Sneak Attack, 32Ranger: +3 Longbow, 21 Dex, Weapon Focus, Lethal Hunter, Twin Strike, 29+ (the Ranger is a more complex calculation, his encounter powers actually tend to not work as well as Twin Strike in some ways, he does 29 if one attack hits with a 2W, 24 if one hits with Twin Strike, and 37 if 2 hit with Twin Strike, the extra points of damage from two hits with Twin Strike will only happen 3 or 4 times in the entire encounter since Twin Strike will not be used for up to 8 of the rounds and if it is used more, it is 1W, not 2W)So, an average of 30 for the Strikers.Will the PCs buff up even more on some rounds, sure. Can PCs have feats and magic items and powers that bump this damage up a little, sure. But, they will also be using At Will powers a LOT in 18 or so rounds and they will not be getting Combat Advantage every round which means that more than half of the attacks (the At Will ones) will result in 16 or so damage for the non-strikers and less than 30 for the Strikers.And, their At Will powers might not be the strongest damage dealing ones in the book.Overall, this seemed reasonable.Well, if you are going to gimp the monster, why use it in your example?DMs should use all of the abilities of a monster.Of course the encounter is much easier and falls more into the hard range instead of the TPK range if you are going to purposely gimp the monster.I get it from years of roleplaying. Re-occurring villains happen all of the time in DND. It's a staple. As a DM, I am always looking for ways to acquire one for the game.Dragons are greedy and might collect slaves. But to get real horsepower NPCs to fight PCs with and not just 2nd level ones, it might have to coerce the NPCs with something more than just fear. If it can do it with just fear, great. That's a DM call, but as a DM, I personally just would not do it that way. It's not as if it is not planning on getting all of its treasure back. Dragons are sly. It is planning on getting its treasure back (by killing the NPCs) and with interest (i.e. PC treasure).This was just an example of what roleplaying adds to the encounter if the Dragon loses and losing should not just mean killing the Dragon. If the Dragon is played like a real flesh and blood intelligent creature, it should want revenge. And, it should realize that fighting these PCs on its own is risky. Hence, mitigate the risk.Sure, you can play your encounters as just hack and slash fests, monsters fight to the death. Or, the wounded Dragon slinks away to never be seen again. I tend not to. Different strokes.I still see this encounter as a high chance TPK and even if the PCs win and the Dragon flees, they had better level up quickly. At least in my game.</blockquote>

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