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

[Eltab]

A dragon is an amalgam of every predator our tree-dwelling ancestors feared.

When my grade-school-aged son wanted to play an 'Intro to D&D' module, I hijacked a Zelda castle and filled it with random D&D monsters. Including bats in the caves underneath. The Boss Monster was ... a Skeleton Dragon. It sat in its lair - a huge 'nest' made up of all sorts of bones - and started off with its "breath weapon": a string of knuckle bones! I described the small bones being sucked up from the 'nest' as it inhaled, then passing through where its throat ought to have been and out between the jaws.
My son was playing a group of 4 PCs (Basic Rules, L1 Magic-User, Dwarf, Cleric, Thief) and we both found out the power of magic items when the Cleric, equipped with +1 Chain Armor and a +1 Mace of Skeleton-Smashing (because Link's power-up items in a castle always have something to do with defeating the Boss Monster), rolled a crit (I said "he winds up a haymaker") and did twice as much damage as anybody else, plus being nearly-unhittable. The rest of the party could not say the same...

 

[Sunseeker]

Well....I made a whole campaign about fighting dragons so....a LOT, three major ones come to mind and a half-dozen random encounter ones. I've had 3 that I can think of outside of that in other games.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Two fights, with the same dragon, a young adult green. Maybe only the second one counts as a "fight"; the first was very much more a."flight", and a rude wake-up call to a party who were starting to feel like they were hot stuff at the lofty level of 4. But it did mean that when they rolled around for a rematch after a couple of quests to find appropriate gear and assistance, the dragon wildly underestimated them. Which is not to say it didn't give them a run for their money -- for starters, it never crossed their minds that it might be stealthy, so even after their setting up an elaborate ambush for it, it still took them totally by surprise. They did manage to lure it into the grotto with the hidden ballistas, as planned, but it was much more of a desperate scramble than they'd anticipated. And the ballistas didn't actually do anything; dragon armor is tough. In the end, though, the half-orc unlikely-knight-wannabe managed to flip the dragon on its back, and the human street-thug-and-unlikely-claimant-to-the-imperial-throne plunged a sword into its heart, slaying the beast and imbuing the blade with its venomous essence.

Credit for the kill has been a point of contention between the two ever since, especially since, by ancient law, anyone who slays a dragon is from that moment forward a knight. (There is even an old tale about a clever teenage peasant girl earning a title by catching an amorous dragon in a grain explosion.) The half-orc dreams of being a knight and would make a damn good one, whereas nobody, not even his closest friends and companions, actually wants to see the street thug on the throne or gain any more legitimacy whatsoever. So it's kind of unfortunate that the latter is the one with the magic dragon sword. During a later foray into Fairyland, they bumped into the last surviving member of the old knightly order (Fairyland having only the most fleeting acquaintance with linear time), who was able to explain to them that true knighthood is about teamwork and therefore they are both knights. Which resolves one problem but not the other.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't know if I just went dumb for a few seconds but I totes didn't read the rest of your post so...

The short answer is dragons suck. Especially if your party knows their salt and doesn't fool around. Aside from their breath their damage output is very low and their lair actions don't help much, and god save the queen if you fight a dragon outside its lair. "Minion" level trash (mobs that are way below average party level) don't really do much to help the situation, even in numbers they statistically hit very rarely, essentially only hitting on the occasional 18-20. And even then they'll do about 5-8 points of damage, which most smart players will simply ignore and focus-fire on the dragon.

I ran a party of 4 (level 5) against two adult black dragons (with lairs) and the party pretty handily wrecked them. Lair effects were fairly easy to avoid and even with the blacks having nice pools of water to sneak off into the party was able to take care of them fairly well.

I later ran the same party (now level 8) against two greens. They didn't fare any better.

Now all my dragons are highly customized creatures, and now I can have the party fight them solo and it will be a challenge, some notes:
All dragons get free Sorcerer caster-levels based on age. Wyrmling 1; Young 5; Adult 10; Ancient 15.
All dragons get +1 damage die to all attacks per age category above Young. Adult +1, Ancient +2.
All dragons get +1 AC per age category above young. Adult +1, Ancient +2.
Legendary Reactions can be used for any melee attack the dragon possesses.
Ancient dragons get their lair as an aura-style effect with a range equal to their frightful presence.
Breath weapons use 75% as the average, instead of 50%. (I like average damage, but 50% is too low)
Young and older dragons may have additional class levels equal to their Sorcerer Caster Level. (Optional if you wanna change up the flow of the fight or make things interesting, I HIGHLY recommend Barbarian and Monk to really amp up a fight.)

My most memorable fight was against a Red Dragon-Hydra, every 25% of its health it grew a new head and regained 10% of its health. Each head had an independent turn, breath weapon, legendary saves (only 2 per head tho) and access to a full Multiattack (but only one bite in the multiattack). It started with 3 heads. The party got it up to 8, killed 3 party members, except for the one immune to fire, obviously. Party was level 16 now I think?

 

[dave2008]

I don't know if I just went dumb for a few seconds but I totes didn't read the rest of your post so...

You should have re-read it then before posting probably. This is about dragon fights in general, not just 5e. For my example: I recounted my fights from 1e and 4e, we haven't fought a dragon in 5e yet.

 

[rgoodbb]

Can't recall we ever encountered one in 2nd. Strange that.
Basted one in 4th
And I got one-shotted by Venomfang in this edition. So that was fun!

 

[Sunseeker]

You should have re-read it then before posting probably. This is about dragon fights in general, not just 5e. For my example: I recounted my fights from 1e and 4e, we haven't fought a dragon in 5e yet.

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

Dunno if he added that after you posted. It's also in the 5E subforum where I generally assume all discussion/questions/answers are 5E-centric.

 

[dave2008]

Dunno if he added that after you posted. It's also in the 5E subforum where I generally assume all discussion/questions/answers are 5E-centric.

I completely missed that if it was in the OP originally. Thank you for pointing it out.

 

[guachi]

Many Dungeons. Not many Dragons.