How To Kill An Adult Black Dragon Without Dying Of Boredom

[helium3]

I've read in DMs tips for 3.5 somewhere (in Dungeon I beleive) that dragons are supposed to be foreshadowed mosters. So the idea that they are supposed to know they'll be facing a dragon is not far-fetched.

Yeah. I've read that too. Dragons are supposed to be memorable and special.

In the 4E MM, that's not how they're portrayed. The DMG's section on solo monsters just says that one solo monster should be equivalent to five monsters. The dragon should not have been any more difficult than the prior encounter, which was also n=11.

 

[helium3]

I've had a similar problem with dragons from a playtest a few weeks back.

Heh heh. Few week back, huh?

What sort of dragons and level were they?

Say once the dragon is knocked below 75%, he retreats somewhere and activates dragon NPC ritual #1 and summons up a bunch of ghost minions (or whatever is thematically appropriate) and chortles and taunts the PCs from safety while the players deal with the new threat, then having caught a breather, he flies back in perhaps with a new power and the fight begins again.

Well, they'd have to get him to 75% first. I'm not sure how long that would've taken. Things were starting to look kinda TPK'ish though it was really too early to tell.

The dragon was having a similar time really hurting the PC's. Sure he could drop them, but it didn't take long for them to get back to full. They're RESILIENT!

By breaking each fight up like this, and having the big bad "evolve," I'm thinking it might break up the experience enough and lead to more enjoyable encounter.

A breather isn't a bad idea. The only real problem is that they really wouldn't start off in a better position other than refreshing their encounter powers and being back to full health. It might help . . .

 

[FadedC]

Yeah. I've read that too. Dragons are supposed to be memorable and special.

In the 4E MM, that's not how they're portrayed. The DMG's section on solo monsters just says that one solo monster should be equivalent to five monsters. The dragon should not have been any more difficult than the prior encounter, which was also n=11.

Well in 3.x as well dragons tended to be a lot tougher then their CR. Seems to be a D&D tradition.

As for rules mastery, I'd say there are fewer screw ups you can make in 4e then in 3e. I've seen 3e chars that were absolutely useless in every possible way even at high level. I'm hoping not to see anything worse then suboptimal in 4e, but I guess time will tell.

 

[phil500]

Yeah. I've read that too. Dragons are supposed to be memorable and special.

yeah but cant you only swap powers when leveling? I dont think they could choose their powers assuming they would fight a dragon.

as for all the math, it assumes every char gets to make an attack every turn. from the description in the OP, it looks like thats not how it plays out.

 

[helium3]

Warlock is at 50/50 to hit for 17 damage (don't forget the +1D6 for the curse).

Where's the extra +1 to attack come from? But yeah, the warlock placed a curse first chance he got.

The rogue is at 50/50 with combat advantage for ~22 damage.

Yeah, but she was having a tough time getting into a flanking position. She used her tumble to flank and then the dragon squidded out of it.

At the time though, I didn't realize that only a fighter halts movement on a successful OA. I'm pretty sure that at least once, the Dragon kept the rogue from getting into a flank thanks to my ignorance.

The cleric is likely throwing Lance of faith for < 50% hits, but when he hits the +2 to an ally who still has a daily/encounter power is great, and otherwise give it to a striker.

True, but for the most part the Cleric in this combat was either using encounter powers to trigger healing surges or using sacred flame for the temporary hit points. It was tough keeping the paladin up for some reason.

Now, double defenders against a solo opponent will be a slight negative, but I don't think a controller would have really swung it that much.

Hah. For some reason I find the term "double defenders" amusing.

 

[helium3]

yeah but cant you only swap powers when leveling? I dont think they could choose their powers assuming they would fight a dragon.

Right. I was thinking in 3E terms for some reason. The only character that can prep like that now is the Wizard and only to a very limited extent.

 

[Byronic]

I haven't read it yet, but are you sure that normal source of light (or even a low level spell like a cantrip) would be enough to pierce the mystical darkness that the Dragon dragon summons?

Also did your dragon actually sit in the middle of his Cloud of Darkness? Where he has Total Concealment and makes everyone within it blind except himself?

I think that Dragons shouldn't be faced at all until you're a few levels higher then them. sure they'll have a few other people around them but they can be killed leaving a relatively weaker Dragon left.

Remember that levels and such might usually be nice, but dragons are still really hard opponents.

 

[helium3]

If you were running a recreation of the D&D experience demo, that dragon is a pretty high level opponent for the party. If the players are missing very often, and the dragon is unable to keep someone dropped, things can get boring fast.

No. It was an encounter of my own design with pre-gens of my own design.

Another potential cause would be that you were splitting the attacks between at least two characters more often than not. You may have been better off just dog piling everything you had on the Paladin initially, and then move onto the next target.

Sure, but the Paladin just wasn't that much of a threat to warrant special treatment. None of them really were. If dog-piling was necessary to make the encounter a challenge, sure.

Then there is the defensive style of the monster using hit and run tactics against characters that may have been very melee oriented. If no one present was effective in ranged combat, things would get difficult fast. When your defenders are limited to melee and the opponent flies and plays keep away, the party loses much of its damage output.

Nah, only the fighter and the paladin were melee oriented. The rest could easily do the ranged thing. Even the rogue. She did as much attack and damage throwing her dagger as she did stabbing.

And now that I think about it, she could've been flanking and doing sneak attack damage from range. So there's a good 8d6 to 10d6 damage that could've been done but wasn't.

1) The Warlord at-will power Viper Strike will make the opponent provoke an Opportunity Attack if he shifts. The Pin the Foe daily ability is practically made to solve this problem.

Didn't have a warlord in the party.

Basic Ranged Attacks: The Warlock, Wizard, and Cleric all have at wills which can function as ranged attacks (though some are close range only). For everyone else, I reccomend investing in either a Crossbow or a a Longbow. Or at least a throwing weapon. Though suboptimal, it is better to be able to attack than to be limited to hoping the opponent lands so you can charge in and attack.

I never really took advantage of the dragon's flight, except for the one time when it swooped around. They all had ranged attacks (basic or otherwise) though, even the paladin.

Retreat and Regroup: If the players had burned through their per encounter powers, they could opt to retreat, rest for 5 minutes, and try again.

Yeah. Uhh. If it weren't for Rule -1, "FUN IS NOW MANDATORY" I would never have let the players get away with that unless they actually had somewhere safe to run to.

 

[IceFractal]

I'm not surprised it went on a fairly long time - hit points seem to scale faster than damage, so I wouldn't be surprised if Epic monsters took dozens of rounds to even get to bloodied.

The problem is really that while combat taking a long time might sound exciting from a cinematic point of view (5 minutes is, if anything, short for a world-changing battle), it's more of a chore in actual gameplay (50 rounds is too damn long to be fighting something).

Even the increase in positioning tactics doesn't help beyond a certain number of rounds, because eventually you'll have a repeating tactical pattern. And once one side is definitely losing, the battle isn't going to be as interesting past that point, so dragging it out for another 10+ rounds is just no good.

Solo monsters should definitely be beefier than the standard issue, but 5x HP is overkill, IMO.

 

[helium3]

I haven't read it yet, but are you sure that normal source of light (or even a low level spell like a cantrip) would be enough to pierce the mystical darkness that the Dragon dragon summons?

Actually . . . .

This is one of the areas where the Devs clearly left it up to each group to decide how it works. I can find no rules anywhere that describe how mundane/magical darkness/light interacts with mundane/magical light/darkness.

Basically, I just ruled that the two cancel each other out while they overlap. In this case, it returned the area to a "dim" condition.

But honestly, I was running the encounter as if it were happening in broad daylight at this point. There was too much other stuff going on to worry about the environmental conditions to any real degree.

Also did your dragon actually sit in the middle of his Cloud of Darkness? Where he has Total Concealment and makes everyone within it blind except himself?

At times, he did. And at other times he used it to "squid" out of harms reach. And yeah, all total concealment does now is give you a -2 to your attack. You can still attack a square you can't see.

I think that Dragons shouldn't be faced at all until you're a few levels higher then them. sure they'll have a few other people around them but they can be killed leaving a relatively weaker Dragon left.

Poppycock. A dragon of level n shouldn't be any more of a challenge to a party of n-1 than any other encounter of level n. If that's not the case then the "maths" aren't as balanced as they're supposed to be.

If dragons are harder than their level indicates they should have a higher level to reflect this. Or less hit points and a lower AC.