D&D 5E How Many Dragon Fights Have You Had in D&D 5e?

[iserith]

As I put the final touches on tomorrow night's Viking-themed one-shot which features a terrifying dragon, I'd like to hear about your dragon fights so far in D&D 5e, either as a DM running the challenge or a player doing battle with them.

What were the circumstances? What was the lair like? What other NPCs or monsters were involved? Was it difficult? If so, what made it difficult? Did the PCs prevail? What is it awesome and what made it so? How about that treasure hoard?

(Please note I'm asking only about D&D 5e dragon fights, not about encounters in other games.)

 

[Rya.Reisender]

None so far actually! My LMoP group died before they ran into the prominent dragon. Now playing PotA and my group is currently dangerously close to a forest inhabited by a dragon, but since one of my players rolled 20+ on his survival check, I already warned him that it might not be the best forest for hunting.

 

[Shiroiken]

As a player, I've only fought against about 3 dragons. The most notable was the white dragon lair from the Tiamat AP (DM lifted it for our campaign). The lair was a series of ice caves, and the local human tribes periodically offered him tribute to keep him from destroying their villages. I don't remember what he had for lair guards, but there were a few minor encounters before we found the dragon himself. The battle was rough, because flight is a powerful ability, allowing him to choose weaker targets to attack, then move up and away with wing buffet Legendary Action after the next turn. Not to mention to mobility to hit most of the party with his breath weapon.

As a DM, I've had several dragon encounters, not all of them fully combat related. In one, a copper dragon abducted our dragon sorcereress, because he wanted information, and it was easier to get it from a single PC than risk facing all of them at once. I used the green dragon encounter from LMoP, and that led to a TPK as the players went in with the mentality "the adventure wouldn't have it if we weren't meant to kill it." I had a mated pair with wyrmling in a feud with several cloud giants, and the PCs got caught up in the middle (PCs were WAY too low level to face either group, and worked both against each other to kill each other).

Dragons can create the most challenging encounters, but also the most fun.

 

[akr71]

As a DM, there was the young green dragon from LMoP and an adult white dragon when they got to level 7 or 8. The white dragon layer was an ice cave high in the mountains. The party had spotted it flying, leaving for a hunt in the morning. They hoped to sneak into the lair, steal a bunch of stuff and get out again. Well not really - the players characters did, but the players very much wanted to test themselves against a dragon. Neither of which I ran very well since it was my first time DMing after decades away from the game. This group also befriended an ancient silver dragon.

Next group, same players - Rage of Dragons, so they've come face to face with an adult blue and an ancient black, but did not have to fight either of them. They fought an adult white (Skyreach Castle), who ran away and their newly acquired airship was attacked by two young red dragons - no lair. Those battles went much better, as I remembered legendary actions and played them much smarter. They are on their way to a suspected white dragon lair in a large plateau-like iceberg

As a player, none. We have seen multiple lightning blasts in the distance and something very large fly over our camp at night. One night something landed near us, blasted lightning at our mostly sleeping camp and when we responded with force and aggression, it flew away again.

 

[Maialideth]

My (recently cancelled) group had 5 dragon encounters, though 3 were technically the same dragon (from LMoP - the original, later they summoned a copy of it for entertaining the fey court, and when they returned to their castle, the real version was waiting for them).

They also met a Lawful Neutral adult silver dragon, that wanted to destroy the portal they needed, in the center of an ancient frost giant citadel. They actually managed to talk their way out of it (through really great roleplaying and very lucky skill checks).

The last dragon was a blue dragon, that used goblins to work in a sort of excavation site. The PCs killed the goblin foreman and so the dragon attacked. The battle took place down in the excavation site around a lot of goblin huts. Many goblins fought as well but were only really cannonfodder as they posed no threat to the PCs (I used the mob rules in DMG). At one point, the dragon burrowed into the ground and the next round burst through the side of a wall on the plateau behind them, and released its lightning breath on all the PCs, as they had just positioned themselves in a straight line. TPK.
One of the PCs woke up later though (she was infected with wereboar lycanthropy, and I ruled that the special endurance was acceptable here for story reasons). She rescued the rest of the party and they tried to retrieve their gear. Unfortunately the dragon already knew this and had set a trap for them. He was in fact an archaeologist and needed someone to disable some ancient traps to get access to the tomb of a hobgoblin king. The dragon was only interested in the historical artifacts, so the PCs were allowed to keep the gold and magic items (maybe 2000 gp total, some adamantine weapons, an elemental gem and possibly some other stuff that I can't remember now).
The dragon's own hoard was kept in a hole in the floor behind a grid of lightning that it created with its breath. The dragon agreed to contact the party if he needed help another time, i.e. they got a dragon patron.

Oh wait... I forgot they also fought some wyrmlings at various points. Some had been captured for arena battles, others had invaded an ice dwarf forge. They were also quite fun encounters. As someone mentioned above, flight is a powerful ability and in my group nearly disabled the dwarf fighter, because of 25 ft. speed and no real ranged weapons.

 

[jasper]

Are talking about placement of the mini? Some 18 year telling me I could not use a 3 toed Chinese dragon because it was the Emperor symbol? Or the combat?
combat. I had a lot especially since the Dragonlance modules had one or two dragons each. The Three that stick out. 1. Fighting in forest, ponds and lair of Green dragon. The dragon used hit and run tactics on us in the forest. The pond was poisoned due to his breath weapon so we took some poison damage. And about every other square in the lair was a five foot pit cover with a tarp or illusion.
2. The dragon in forge of fury. Ran this twice in different editions. In 3E the group was damaged before the fight, and then took more damage. So they ran. When they got back the dragon had left and took most of the gold. In 5 E, I used the water as cover. Then the dragon fail a save and just took damage to his head.
3. I down remember the adventure. 3 man party. I had a 8th level Barbarian. Forgot to drink the potions of healing I had before boss fight. I blew my horn of Vahalla . It blew up leaving me 1 HP. Told the other two to run. I became dragon food.

 

[alienux]

Only 1 so far, and that wasn't a full-fledged battle. It was for the group I was DMing for HotDQ, and it was early on where they only have to do so much damage to run the dragon off for the time being.

 

[Nevvur]

The only dragon fights I've run in 5e have been against wyrmlings and young dragons, so probably not the sort of epic play report you might be hoping for. The most interesting of those involved a young green dragon solo encounter vs a reasonably optimized level 5 party consisting of 4 members.

The party was a shadow monk, fiend tome warlock warlock, sentinel polearm master battlemaster, and lore bard. This dragon was to be a benchmark test for their first combat at level 5/tier 2 in the campaign. The sentinel locked him down when he tried to reposition for a breath attack, so he settled for hitting two PCs. I rolled low on the breath weapon damage and the players both succeeded on their saving throws for half damage. They basically got to alpha strike and took minimal damage in the process.

The plan was to have the dragon surrender when he reached half hit points. He ended up submitting one hit away from being KOd, and we broke from combat for social interaction. As terms of the surrender, they forced him to submit to a Zone of Truth for their interrogation. The party released him after getting the information they sought, but what they released was a vain and deceitful creature they had shamed into speaking the truth. It flew home to mommy and told her what happened.

About 10 in-game months later, Mommy was later seen flying over the skies of the Adventuring Zone. It was just my heads up reminder to the players that something they did in the past had an effect, and by the way, you might have to deal with an angry mommy dragon at some point. They were only level 8 when the campaign ended prematurely so there was no showdown with an ancient, or even an adult dragon, I'm sorry to say.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Many. Most memorable was against Imryth at the end of Storm Giant's Thunder. She used her burrow ability to it's fullest and tried to take us out one-by-one as various other monster guardians attacked from different locations. Her breath weapon was fearsome, too. Like many dragons, she died when she decided to not hit-and-run the party and stuck around a bit too long. Getting her treasure was an ordeal, but worth it. Thank goodness for Conjure Elemental!

 

[dave2008]

I have DM'd a few. Off the top of my head, the ones that stick out:

1) vs the "Dragon of Doom in 1e/DnD:" The party quested for an ancient artifact to slay the all powerful dragon. The found it, confronted the dragon, and found out it was a fake - TPK. This was back in '89 or 90 when I as still pretty green, not my finest moment

2) vs ancient black dragon in 4e: The party unexpectedly encounter an ancient black dragon when they were level 7-8. They foolishly tried to attack it, quickly realized they were outclassed and fled. The dragon chased and they ran into a dungeon and the dragon was too large to follow. Thinking they were safe, they explored the dungeon. However, the dragon had one of its children silently follow them down into the dungeon. Eventually a battle ensued and the dragon was killed. Again the group thought they were safe when the whole dungeon began to shake around them as the parent tore through the ground to get to them. They escaped through a teleportation portal just before the dragon collapsed the dungeon on top of them.

That encounter got high marks from everyone with much discussion afterword, including plans to go back some time and take care of mama For me, as a DM, it was nice to give them an encounter they couldn't fight there way out of and see how they handle it.

3) vs. Ashardalon in 4e: unfortunately I don't remember this one much. It was part of a one-off epic adventure (PCs all level 30) I ran will traveling in a van for 12 hours (wife and friends drove while i DM'd) and it was followed later on in the adventure by...

4) vs. Tiamat (heavily modified) in 4e: The PCs arrived too late to stop a ritual that brought Tiamat into the world with her full divine power. The PCS were at full power and so was she. There were 6 PCs and after 4-5 hours of combat 4 were dead, another was dying, and only one was standing to make the final blow to banish Tiamat back to the Nine Hells. Everyone had a lot of fun and it proved to me you could kill epic characters in 4e