D&D 5E Observations and opinions after 8 levels and a dragon fight

[Blackwarder]

Can I ask which module/adventure was the encounter from?

From reading the thread I'd guess that it's the first episode in Rise of Tiamat, where the adventurers can encounter Auranthur, one of the great wyrms of the north, he also makes an apearence in R.A.Salvatore latest book.

Warder

 

[Mephistopheles]

By the book, a young white dragon isn't a legendary creature, and an adult is a Challenge 13 creature. Did your group of 8th-level PCs take on an adult white dragon in its lair? If so, they should rightly have been turned into bloody smears on its ice-cavern floor, or have been added to its collection of frozen adventurer ornaments. I think it'd be difficult to make conclusions about PC effectiveness, if that were really the situation. (The encounter still sounded awesome, however.)

Thinking the same thing here.

From my understanding, if the dragon was using lair actions then it was a legendary creature; that makes the dragon an adult; as a white dragon that makes it CR 13 (10,000XP). Looking at the encounter section in the DMG, for a party of five 8th level characters the encounter XP thresholds are 9,000XP for hard and 10,500XP for deadly.

There may be valid points to make about the dynamics of the fight, but if the party triumphed against a hard/deadly encounter with one person standing, one unconscious, and three dead, that doesn't seem out of line to me.

 

[Derren]

Thinking the same thing here.

From my understanding, if the dragon was using lair actions then it was a legendary creature; that makes the dragon an adult; as a white dragon that makes it CR 13 (10,000XP). Looking at the encounter section in the DMG, for a party of five 8th level characters the encounter XP thresholds are 9,000XP for hard and 10,500XP for deadly.

There may be valid points to make about the dynamics of the fight, but if the party triumphed against a hard/deadly encounter with one person standing, one unconscious, and three dead, that doesn't seem out of line to me.

Considering how unprepared the party was such a good result does seem out of line to me.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

From reading the thread I'd guess that it's the first episode in Rise of Tiamat, where the adventurers can encounter Auranthur, one of the great wyrms of the north, he also makes an apearence in R.A.Salvatore latest book.

Warder

No it was stated to be Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Also Arauthator aka "Old White Death" is fought in episode 2 or 3 of Rise of Tiamat. Auranthur is also a sorcerer (a level 5 one in 3e which would translate to a level 10 one in 5e. Due to his innate sorcerer traits which gave him 5th level spells.)

The Dragon their group would have fought is Glazhael the Cloudchaser. If it was Cloudchaser it should be noted that he is not fought in one of his lairs so unlike Auranthur he would not be able to use lair actions.

 

[Psikerlord#]

If it was level 13 legendary dragon vs level 8 PCs with fighter/paladin with no ranged weapons... I think the outcome was great. They still won, even without half the party doing much (well, ... "won" might be an exaggeration).

Morale for those two melee guys - take half a dozen javelins/throwing axes/something! Also, if you're a Battlemaster, commander's strike maneuver is a godsend sometimes. Your party members are also your weapons!

I was going to add - this is why you need shield master.. but ... argghhh con save breath weapon. Boo!

 

[Celtavian]

If it was level 13 legendary dragon vs level 8 PCs with fighter/paladin with no ranged weapons... I think the outcome was great. They still won, even without half the party doing much (well, ... "won" might be an exaggeration).

Morale for those two melee guys - take half a dozen javelins/throwing axes/something! Also, if you're a Battlemaster, commander's strike maneuver is a godsend sometimes. Your party members are also your weapons!

I was going to add - this is why you need shield master.. but ... argghhh con save breath weapon. Boo!

Yep. The paladin was disappointed. Shieldmaster has saved his life more than a few times.

 

[Celtavian]

If I had a character with no ranged ability I wouldn't take them against a flyer unless they have a 6 INT. That is called role-playing. You have to be stupid to bring a knife to a gun fight.

This makes no sense whatsoever. He didn't even know he would be fighting a dragon at the time. We had been traveling for most of the levels. It isn't like previous editions where teleportation is common or access to much magic.

I'd say he's built for getting his butt kicked by everyone on the practice field that are also great weapon fighters but took a couple barb levels. Probably not even making it into melee because they'd take him down with javelins before he got there.

Do you really expect everyone to take barb levels? Is that role-playing? Or do you pull that out when you want to make some other point and then contradict your original point when claiming everyone should be a pure power gamer taking barb levels with their great weapon fighter?

It's actually MUCH better, particularly when standing in the paladin's aura and getting the save bonus, which goes nicely with advantage on dex saves and half damage meaning the fighter isn't taking more than 20 damage from that 80 damage breath weapon. The 2 or 3 AC from lack of shield and defensive ability comes NOWHERE CLOSE to making the paladin as good at defense.

Con save breath weapon. Advantage on dex saves doesn't matter.

So the dragon wanders off... and so do the PCs to get some ranged weapons.

I hope they will.

So it strafes and the PCs get their readied action and opportunity attack.

You don't real the rules do you? A readied action uses a reaction. An opportunity attack uses a reaction. You can't use both. It's one or the other. Either way, it's one attack. Big deal given how much damage the dragon will do with its attacks. Ready doesn't work like previous editions.

It also needs a fly of more than 120 (and a ridiculously sized room) in order to start and end out of a dash.

It has an 80 foot fly speed. Not sure why you think it needs more to move out of melee range.

If your party wasn't getting these off then it sounds like they were pretty much asking for it, taking no advantage of terrain or positioning.

There was no terrain or positioning to take advantage of. The dragon took advantage of terrain and positioning in its lair. It was all difficult terrain for us and half move. It moved at full speed. It was either get the fly going or get our asses handed to us.

I think we're done. You're trying to make a hard fight seem like it should be easy. You're making stupid claims about every fighter having to be a multi-class barbarian to be optimized for offense. That's a dumb claim that no one should have to adhere to.

 

[Derren]

I think we're done. You're trying to make a hard fight seem like it should be easy. You're making stupid claims about every fighter having to be a multi-class barbarian to be optimized for offense. That's a dumb claim that no one should have to adhere to.

It can't have been that hard when the party where half the PCs were not doing anything was still able to, more or less, defeat an encounter beyond deadly. How hard would it have been if they had thrown weapon and got a fly spell up to allow sneak attacking?

In my opinion you and others here are drawing the wrong conclusion from the fight. Not that the combats in 5E are challenging, or at least dragon fights, but that they are way too easy.
Think about it, by all logic the party should have at least have some casualties considering how ill prepared they were and how though, according to the guidelines, this fight was.

A more prepared party, even if just by chance (archery fighter, more fly spells,...) would have had a lot less problems with this deadly encounter.

 

[Cyberen]

If i got it correctly, it took a lucky crit to make the dragon retreat, and the encounter is deeemed "deadly" but not beyond. Also, part of the deadliness comes from the fact a dragon is supposed to be hard to engage. This report is imo quite satisfying, especially when you compare it to Sacrosanct's whose group trivially defeated the same opponent by being able to gang bang it in melee (not a criticism, but it clearly shows the dragon CR takes into account skirmishing, not arena fighting where its damage output and resilience can't compete with 5 level 8 PCs).
Also, a fly spell was actually cast, but concentration was not sustained. Thrown weapons would certainly have been a boon, but from what I get, the dragon was close to achieve total victory without too much harm, and could have sustained a little more punishment. [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION], do you think your DM could tell you how many HP the dragon had when he left ? There could be a bit of DM fiat here (a good call in my book).

 

[Blackwarder]

No it was stated to be Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Also Arauthator aka "Old White Death" is fought in episode 2 or 3 of Rise of Tiamat. Auranthur is also a sorcerer (a level 5 one in 3e which would translate to a level 10 one in 5e. Due to his innate sorcerer traits which gave him 5th level spells.)

The Dragon their group would have fought is Glazhael the Cloudchaser. If it was Cloudchaser it should be noted that he is not fought in one of his lairs so unlike Auranthur he would not be able to use lair actions.

You sure? In my copy of the adventure Auranthur is simply an adult white dragon, where do you get the sorcerer info?

Warder