D&D 5E How soon is too soon to fight a Dragon?

[Lanliss]

I pictured a pretty cool encounter a while back, where two dragons are fighting. The PC's can get a Dragon friend by assisting either side. How soon do you all think a party of three could take on a Dragon, assuming they have a Dragon helping them fight it?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The real wild card is the breath weapon; it deals a ton of damage in a large area, and can easily TPK or near-TPK a party that doesn't have the hit points built up yet. The physical attacks can be soaked up by the other dragon pretty easily; dragons being dragons, they're going to see each other as much more of a challenge/threat than some piddling mortals unless one of the PCs does something really spectacular. So just look at the breath weapon's damage, look at the PCs' hit points, and decide if you're willing to subtract the one number from the other -- possibly twice, outside chance of three times.

 

[mellored]

Dragons come in several sizes, and their power changes a bit depending on the color.

But for a rough estimate, I'd say wyrmlings at level 3, young at level 5, adult at level 11, and ancient at level 17.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Give or take, depending on variances between adventuring party and type of dragon, I concur with Mellored.

However, I’m honestly not much of a fan of using wyrmlings. If I’m going to do a fight with a dragon, I want it to be pretty epic. I’d much rather save that sort of encounter for when the PCs are in the mid tier.

Dragons come in several sizes, and their power changes a bit depending on the color.

But for a rough estimate, I'd say wyrmlings at level 3, young at level 5, adult at level 11, and ancient at level 17.

 

[Prakriti]

For me, a cardinal DMing rule is "Have no expectations," because 9 out of 10 times, your players will surprise you. If you plan scenarios around the expectation that your players will take a certain course of action, then you will either subconsciously railroad them in that direction or become flustered when things don't go "according to plan."

So my greatest concern isn't that you are thinking of throwing a dragon at your party. It's that you already have 1 or 2 specific outcomes in mind.

 

[Lanliss]

Let me clarify my strategy, as it probably has a fair bit of importance to the scenario. They will see the dragons tangling in the air, and crash down not far from the party. If they choose to take the fight, they will come in on a clearing with the two dragons, standing across from each other. Now they choose which one to help. If they deal any damage to the enemy Dragon, it is distracted long enough for the other to get aloft. Now it will spend the fight in the air, keeping the other one grounded. The enemy will focus on using its breath weapon on the other Dragon, and will only attack the party on rounds that they deal damage to it. Once it is below half health, it will consider the party an actual threat, and focus on fighting them, though the other will still be keeping it on the ground, and probably be using its breath weapon on the enemy.

EDIT: Also, I did plan on at least one of them being an adult Dragon. Maybe an adult vs. A young Dragon, who has invaded the Adult's territory.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I pictured a pretty cool encounter a while back, where two dragons are fighting. The PC's can get a Dragon friend by assisting either side. How soon do you all think a party of three could take on a Dragon, assuming they have a Dragon helping them fight it?

HotDQ featured an encounter with a Dragon at 1st level. If the enemy dragon isn't breathing on the party, if they're just there to "tip the scales one way or the other" there shouldn't be a problem - another perk of Bounded Accuracy.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Let me clarify my strategy, as it probably has a fair bit of importance to the scenario. They will see the dragons tangling in the air, and crash down not far from the party. If they choose to take the fight, they will come in on a clearing with the two dragons, standing across from each other. Now they choose which one to help. If they deal any damage to the enemy Dragon, it is distracted long enough for the other to get aloft. Now it will spend the fight in the air, keeping the other one grounded. The enemy will focus on using its breath weapon on the other Dragon, and will only attack the party on rounds that they deal damage to it. Once it is below half health, it will consider the party an actual threat, and focus on fighting them, though the other will still be keeping it on the ground, and probably be using its breath weapon on the enemy.

EDIT: Also, I did plan on at least one of them being an adult Dragon. Maybe an adult vs. A young Dragon, who has invaded the Adult's territory.

Remember that breath weapons have a large AoE. If the dragon has any intelligence at all (and it does), it's going to try to use its breath weapon on the enemy dragon and the party simultaneously.

Adult black or white dragon breath weapon averages 54 damage, green averages 56, red averages 63, blue averages 66. White, red, and green are cones, making it especially easy for them to catch multiple characters. 60-ish damage stands a good chance of killing characters outright before they hit 5th or so (and is still going to drop all but the toughest characters in the 5-9 range).

On the other hand, the way you're describing the encounter, it's totally opt-in. That's the sort of thing you can justifiably do to PCs even at level one. If they charge into a battle with an adult dragon, that's on them.

EDIT: I threw a young green dragon at my players at 4th level. To take the overwhelming burst damage off the breath weapon, I changed it to create a cloud of poison that did half the listed damage initially, but also made its area a no-go zone for a minute (dealing its damage again if you ended your turn there). I thought this kept the challenge high enough that I wasn't nerfing the monster for my players' benefit, and also made the encounter a bit more thematic and tactically interesting. I'll probably put twists on the other dragons' breath weapons as well, when they come up.

 

[Lanliss]

Also, a quick question. Recharge 5-6? Does this mean that I roll a d6 every round after the Dragon uses its breath, until it recharges?

 

[Lanliss]

Remember that breath weapons have a large AoE. If the dragon has any intelligence at all (and it does), it's going to try to use its breath weapon on the enemy dragon and the party simultaneously.

Adult black or white dragon breath weapon averages 54 damage, green averages 56, red averages 63, blue averages 66. White, red, and green are cones, making it especially easy for them to catch multiple characters. 60-ish damage stands a good chance of killing characters outright before they hit 5th or so (and is still going to drop all but the toughest characters in the 5-9 range).

On the other hand, the way you're describing the encounter, it's totally opt-in. That's the sort of thing you can justifiably do to PCs even at level one. If they charge into a battle with an adult dragon, that's on them.

Would the AoE be able to shoot almost straight up, and at the ground? That is the kind of fight I am expecting, if they can keep the enemy Dragon grounded.

Not sure if the enemy will necessarily be a chromatic, thinking I might make dragons more individual than RAW, so it could be an Evil gold fighting a Good green, for example. I also thought of making my own chaos Dragon, that gets a random breath weapon when it recharges.

Otherwise, I wasn't planning on throwing it at them until at least 5th level, I just wanted to make sure it was something they could be reasonably expected to survive, or if I should wait longer than that.