D&D 5E How Should Dragons Be Handled In 5e

[I'm A Banana]

I think a bit of the Combat-as-War is in me, since I am of the opinion that a warrior who goes up against a dragon without some ranged or flight capability deserves to be roasted alive inside his own armor.

I also think that a design that enables or encourages someone to completely ignore ranged abilities is not a great design for my purposes.

You're a fighter? Part of what that means is breadth. You should be dang good with a bow or a crossbow or a chucked spear or a running leap or you should have magic equipment like a flying carpet or something that helps even the playing field.

Equipment is part and parcel of a fighter's class abilities, so forcing them or rewarding them for just specializing in the best sword around is a narmed thing to do to 'em.

 

[Hassassin]

I think a bit of the Combat-as-War is in me, since I am of the opinion that a warrior who goes up against a dragon without some ranged or flight capability deserves to be roasted alive inside his own armor.

+1

Don't want to use ranged weapons? Feel free to watch from the sidelines while the rest of the party fights the dragon. Otherwise you'll have to come up with a good plan if you want to negate the flying advantage.

 

[Minigiant]

To the Ranged attack vs Dragon issue.

This brings up the Range of pluses issue.

How are Ranger and Melee attack calculated? How far can your Melee and Ranged attack be?

If Ranged attack roll is a Dex check and Melee a Str one? How will a 16 Str 13 Dex character look compared to the 13 Str 16 Dex one?

If manyshots, rapidshots, weapon spec, are christmas tree items are modules, the a 2 point difference doesn't matter. The Str high Dex low character just has to roll 2 higher.

But if the gap is large, then dragons have to placed in a CaS mode and must be nerfed a bit.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

I want my dragons dangerous, atmospheric and easy to run - in other words, pretty much the way they are in Monster Vault and other late-4e stuff.

 

[StarFyre]

I want dragons like Pathfinder (but what I do is remove all the 'normal' spellcasting and instead use a homebrewed spell system for innately magical creatures such as dragons, demons, etc).

As a DM, it's my job to ensure the players have the opportunity to get items, skills, feats, etc that allow them to handle whatever I put against them.

Once they are on stage though, it's up to them to be able to find ways to use all that they chose and i gave them, to overcome the challenge...

Don't limit dragons by doing strange things with flight, or breathe weapons,etc.

It's easier for a DM to just decide "my dragon will never fly this upcoming encounter since he's a stupid dragon" as opposed to: "great, I now have to add in all these abilities I want my dragon to have and decide the math on those abilities"

Regards,

Sanjay

 

[Endur]

IMC, I've treated most of my dragon fights like cinematic, staged combats, and the structure of these combats helps resolve the flight/no flight tension nicely.

Forex, the white dragon fight I have upcoming occurs on a great ice field -- .

For some dragons, I like both above and underground travel/combat.

For example, a white dragon in the icefield above might dive into the freezing cold water and dare the party to follow. A green dragon might dive into a swamp whereas a red dragon might dive into a pool of lava.

Black dragons might use their acid breath to dive into the earth (and tunnel through it).

Blue dragons tunneling through sand.

 

[satori01]

I like the Dragon as a setpiece. The Dragon needs to have some, "Holy Crap" abilities. I want more bestial Dragons....Skyrim type Dragons. A type where, when you hear a dragon roar in the air, you look around, and ready your weapons and get ready to run, or to hunt.

I want Dragons with menace. Where adventurers might remark, that Gold Dragons are the nice dragons, because they will usually just eat your horses and henchmen and take half of your gold coins but let you walk away with a prophetic riddle. Woe befall anyone whom denies a Gold Dragon, be he King, Giant, Demon, or Elemental, except the Red Dragon that matches the Strength of the Gold.

I would actually prefer no more Metallic/Chromatic divide.

I want: The Sneaky, ambush Dragon.
The domineering Dragon
The Seductive Whisper Dragon
The Good Dragon.

And leave behind the old Dragon cosmology, and D&D style.