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

[Barantor]

Tasha's Hideous Laughter also knocks enemies prone which would drop them out of the sky. It only has a range of 30 feet though, so a bit tougher.

My players were able to finish off a dragon with a combination of that from a bard and bane from a paladin.

 

[teitan]

I'm not done reading the thread yet buuuutttttt the OP gives me that giddy feeling I had playing and dming d&d in the days of yore, be it od&d, 1e or basic. It wasn't about emulating a novel, movie or video game, but resource management, strategy and tactics. In 3.5 it became about the grid and how to use those tactics to dominate every encounter. Earlier editions were about how to just survive those encounters. Which, really, is how the novels were back then. The heroic Thorin died! Many dwarves lost their lives and fighting Smaug was a bad, bad, bad idea. Especially in the lonely mountain! Many lives were lost in the delves and explorations and having a character reach sixth or seventh level from first level was an accomplishment! It was something I missed. It seems as the d&d novels became more popular that the game sought to become more like the novels and then the video games. I started noticing this in the third or fourth year of second edition. Dammit, adventurers die and it sucks but its part of the game. Hell, even in third edition I would fudge things to avoid player death because character creation was such a slog! I did enjoy it and all but I'm glad things are veering back towards some things should just be deadly like a group of Orcs, dragons, etc.

 

[Celtavian]

PHB pg. 191, under "Flying Movement": If a flying creature is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move, the creature falls, unless it has the ability to hover or is being held aloft by magic, such as by the fly spell.

Though probably open to some DM interpretation, most dragons don't use spells to fly, and so, if they are knocked prone, or have their speed reduced to 0, they fall.

Method A (the one I used Monday to kill two dragons...probably wyrmlings...): Sleep: 5d8 "damage" (+2d8/level), no saving throw, no concentration requirement, 90-110 ft. range. Though only useful late in the battle, the "it just works" quality of the spell, plus the ability to ramp it up, means that by about round 3-4, it's typically worth the gamble, even on a Legendary dragon. Arguably, as a wild sorcerer, less "efficient" than a chromatic orb tossed with advantage, but VERY reliable. This translates into Xd6 falling damage for the dragon, and if they're weak enough to be affected by sleep, they're weak enough to have that be a considerable risk.

Method B (one I used against a dragon while fighting it in the air on dragon-back myself): Hypnotic Pattern sets the target's speed to 0. Most dragons are not immune to charm. In conjunction with Bend Luck and Heighten Spell as a wild sorcerer, and they've gotta get lucky to resist that bad boy. While I wouldn't use this against a Legendary dragon without softening it up first, it has dealt 20d6 to a dragon before...and while that didn't kill it, it DID take it out of the fight long enough for us to mop up the other dragons we were fighting.

Also, I'm thinking of buying nets or getting some things of flying onto our party warriors, since both nets (for the smaller dragons) and "shoving" with a melee attack would do the same thing, but they're both a little limited and our party warriors usually just want to stab things to death, and it's hard to fault them for that.

Wyrmlings. So much easier to kill. Fought young dragons. Five at once. And Adults. The young ones aren't too bad except the massed breath weapons are nasty. The adults don't go down easy.

I'm glad that shoving stuff doesn't work on the largest dragons. That would be absurd.

Polymorph has not been the most reliable for that - while it would probably work, the long duration and the high-level slot (I'm only 7th level!) and the limited range means that usually I'm using that spell more defensively, to stop creatures from taking actions that are awful for the party. I've shut up two Banshees, and turned a Beholder into a bee, and in both cases it was more important to keep them transformed than to simply deal damage to them. One full party readied action later, the banshees and beholders get hit with 7 attack actions, which, with the amount Extra Attacks in the party, is oddly more damaging than a 200-ft. fall.

The part about Polymorph that I think is hilarious is that it lasts for up to an hour, so, as I pointed out the the party, we could take a short rest while we have that banshee-pig hog-tied to a post and kill it afterwards. But the main point was to stop it from screaming.

I haven't bothered to learn Hold Person yet, and I might not....between Sleep and Hypnotic Pattern, it almost seems redundant, and wouldn't even work on dragons!

My gnome has taken to calling himself "The Herald of the Rain of Evil Dragons" with a menacing look in his eye. The fact that others here that as "reign" just adds to the humor.

Polymorphing incorporeal creatures seems so strange. That would be an effective way to cause it pain from a long fall if you transformed it into a creature with few hit points.

 

[Hussar]

Polymorphing incorporeal creatures seems so strange. That would be an effective way to cause it pain from a long fall if you transformed it into a creature with few hit points.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...evels-and-a-dragon-fight/page30#ixzz3a57okImv

Not a bad idea, but, that also breaks the spell when the baddie hits the ground. Given that banshees have an area of effect SOD attack, keeping them in another form until you can group gank it is a good tactic. The DM in that case actually had the banshee go splat on the ground intentionally to break the spell, but, that still ate up the banshee's round, allowing one of the other PC's the opportunity to turn it. Worked rather well.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Wyrmlings. So much easier to kill. Fought young dragons. Five at once. And Adults. The young ones aren't too bad except the massed breath weapons are nasty. The adults don't go down easy.

Yeah, sleep still works as a finisher, even against wyrms, because it is SUPER-reliable, but you do need to get it to that finishing point, and that can be tough. And if you roll low or the thing has more HP than you expected, you're done doodly-squat to it. Hypnotic Pattern was I think a "young" dragon (which is how it survived 20d6 on a fall), and I'd definitely eat up legendary resistance before dropping that on anything bigger (cantrips like acid splash or other low-level spells can be nice to lower that - either they choose to save against the weak effect, and use up their LR, or they refuse and you still get a nice low-level effect on them!).

Again, narrative Dragonlance shenanigans have probably deeply affected my perspective on dragon fights in 5e - even the Adults we've faced have gone down pretty quick, but we've never fought one without allied dragons and/or dragonlances, so it hasn't really been a straight-up dragon-fight.

I'm glad that shoving stuff doesn't work on the largest dragons. That would be absurd.

Yeah, me too! I mean, an opposed Athletics check isn't zero chance, but Dragons are not exactly...well...pushovers.

Polymorphing incorporeal creatures seems so strange. That would be an effective way to cause it pain from a long fall if you transformed it into a creature with few hit points.

I agree that it seems a little weird, but, y'know, magic. Undead are practically immune to all the sleeps and charms my character usually uses, so I'm kind of glad they're vulnerable to SOMETHIING that I can use to screw with 'em.

Dropping a flyer with polymorph would probably work, it's just that my 4th level slots are currently very precious and I've got lower-level slots that can knock flyers out of the sky, so Polymorph is currently reserved for action-denial: I can Heighten and Bend Luck and have a reasonably solid chance at even denying a creature with Advantage a few actions.

...and given that the critter gets the mental ability scores of the thing they're turning into, I may have to remind my DM that flying pigs and bees probably have lost whatever knowledge of magical counter-tactics they had.

BUT, I have noticed that the average HP of a killer whale is more than the average damage from falling, so I've let my DM know that I know have capabilities "like feather fall, only less effective, and more hilarious."

 

[Celtavian]

Yeah, sleep still works as a finisher, even against wyrms, because it is SUPER-reliable, but you do need to get it to that finishing point, and that can be tough. And if you roll low or the thing has more HP than you expected, you're done doodly-squat to it. Hypnotic Pattern was I think a "young" dragon (which is how it survived 20d6 on a fall), and I'd definitely eat up legendary resistance before dropping that on anything bigger (cantrips like acid splash or other low-level spells can be nice to lower that - either they choose to save against the weak effect, and use up their LR, or they refuse and you still get a nice low-level effect on them!).

Again, narrative Dragonlance shenanigans have probably deeply affected my perspective on dragon fights in 5e - even the Adults we've faced have gone down pretty quick, but we've never fought one without allied dragons and/or dragonlances, so it hasn't really been a straight-up dragon-fight.



Yeah, me too! I mean, an opposed Athletics check isn't zero chance, but Dragons are not exactly...well...pushovers.



I agree that it seems a little weird, but, y'know, magic. Undead are practically immune to all the sleeps and charms my character usually uses, so I'm kind of glad they're vulnerable to SOMETHIING that I can use to screw with 'em.

Dropping a flyer with polymorph would probably work, it's just that my 4th level slots are currently very precious and I've got lower-level slots that can knock flyers out of the sky, so Polymorph is currently reserved for action-denial: I can Heighten and Bend Luck and have a reasonably solid chance at even denying a creature with Advantage a few actions.

...and given that the critter gets the mental ability scores of the thing they're turning into, I may have to remind my DM that flying pigs and bees probably have lost whatever knowledge of magical counter-tactics they had.

BUT, I have noticed that the average HP of a killer whale is more than the average damage from falling, so I've let my DM know that I know have capabilities "like feather fall, only less effective, and more hilarious."

You are a death charging midget. Hilarity should be your primary concern.

 

[Uller]

Tasha's Hideous Laughter also knocks enemies prone which would drop them out of the sky. It only has a range of 30 feet though, so a bit tougher.

My players were able to finish off a dragon with a combination of that from a bard and bane from a paladin.

My group beat the young green dragon in Thundertree at 4th level. The dragon was closing in on the group and about to hit them with it's breath (which would have likely outright killed a couple of them and knocked out others) but it failed to notice the Arcane Trickster hiding off to the side. She hit it with THL, it failed it's save THREE times...by the time it recovered it was down to 20 hp and fled (and then they later cornered it and killed it).

What we've found is using tactics that lead to the party gaining surprise or other advantage are VERY powerful. Now that my players are 5th level the monsters will start using some of these same tactics...

 

[Sword of Spirit]

My group beat the young green dragon in Thundertree at 4th level. The dragon was closing in on the group and about to hit them with it's breath (which would have likely outright killed a couple of them and knocked out others) but it failed to notice the Arcane Trickster hiding off to the side. She hit it with THL, it failed it's save THREE times...by the time it recovered it was down to 20 hp and fled (and then they later cornered it and killed it).

What we've found is using tactics that lead to the party gaining surprise or other advantage are VERY powerful. Now that my players are 5th level the monsters will start using some of these same tactics...

My 4th level party of 6 characters defeated her, but it could have gone either way. She won surprise whilst they were sleeping by the campfire and almost killed a couple right there, but she was fighting cautiously so flew off at that point. The party had a life cleric, which is probably why they won. She circled around looking for the best openings (and knocked out the monk a second time--poor guy was useless in that fight with nothing but shuriken for range), and cast a mirror image on herself for extra safety. In the darkness, and with her movement speed, most of the party couldn't see her most of the time. It was looking grim for the party. Then the drow cast faerie fire successfully, lighting up the dragon for all to see. The main mistake I made with her was to have her charge the fighter (who was using a potion of flying at the time), rather than to keep her distance--and ideally she should have just waited out the spell duration and then came back. The fighter started pummeling her, and the rest of the party who had finally recovered from being bleeding and fleeing around the battlefield went after her with ranged attacks and magic missiles. She barely made it out alive.

I learned to fear the power of faerie fire that day. The party took a tenday or two leveling up to 5th and went back to Thundertree looking to defeat her once and for all (which was going into extra innings, since they had finished the rest of the adventure). Of course, she hadn't been idle during that time. Expecting such a response, she recruited some allies from the Neverwinter Wood and had the hobgoblins amongst them fortify her tower and town. She had a green hag with a couple of druid levels, 2 or 3 hobgoblins plus a hobgoblin captain, a handful of orcs, a couple ettercaps, an ettin and a troll. In addition to a variety of traps and fortifications.

She won. One PC escaped with her life, and I described what happened weeks and years later to the players, giving a description of how each of them was enjoying (or tolerating) their afterlife and got a summons to return to life that they could accept or reject, so they'd get to end the story on that note.

What I learned in that battle though, is to fear a party of six 5th level characters who rolled well for stats. The wild mage rolled a 1 or 2 on a surge, so she had surges keep going off all throughout the battle, and other than the ground zero fireball (which didn't kill anyone), the majority of the effects were advantageous to the party. If it hadn't have been for the effect that turned the party invisible (without, as I interpreted it, ending if they attacked) they would have probably went down a lot quicker. As it was, that battle dragged on for quite some time and they dispatched most of their opponents.

(I should probably have posted that as the follow-up on the thread where I was asking for help planning the fight.)

 

[Uller]

My 4th level party of 6 characters defeated her, but it could have gone either way....

I think for my group they were extremely lucky to have survived. They knew the dragon was there. They knew the giant spiders were there along with zombies. They decided to clear the town of zombies and spiders before worrying about the dragon but they weren't being particularly subtle...like they thought the dragon would just hang out in its tower while a party of adventurers ran amok in its town....

I had decided the dragon noticed them when they first entered the town and used shatter on a group of twig blights and that she wasn't going to just sit back and wait. She would have decided right then and there they were a threat.

She saw them go talk to the druid then she watched them engage the spiders and zombies and cluster up and she decided to hit them with her breath to weaken them then let the spiders and zombies finish them off if they survived. As she approached she was trying to be stealthy but she rolled badly enough that one PC happened to notice her and she failed to notice the gnome Arcane Trickster hiding nearby. As she closed in for a breath attack that would have devastated most of the party the brave gnome hit her with Tasha's and dropped her. Had she made that save events would have gone quite differently, I think. Several of the party members had less than 20 hp at that moment...Even a save would not have allowed them to remain conscious (I think one PC was already unconscious due to a crit from a zombie that popped up after they started fighting the spiders).

We had a similar incident with a Arcanist Mind Flayer. The party had managed to corner it and silence it and destroyed most of it's minions that were with it but it had a large contingent of bugbears and hobgoblins nearby so it was going to dimension door to get behind them...a good use of Counterspell ended that plan. It only had a 25% chance of working. It didn't survive another round...(proof that all mages should have Misty Step prepared! Another 30 feet and it likely would have gotten away). Had it gotten away the party would have been facing 5 bugbears, 8 Hobgoblins and an angry, invisible Mind Flayer with spells like confusion, fear, and it's Mind Blast....dang counterspell ruined my fun.

And that is what I love about 5e. My players are feeling pretty invincible right now. They have no idea how lucky they've been. Their luck will run out.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

the brave gnome hit her with Tasha's and dropped her. Had she made that save events would have gone quite differently, I think.

...

And that is what I love about 5e. My players are feeling pretty invincible right now. They have no idea how lucky they've been. Their luck will run out.

Our Arcane Trickster was hiding behind a tree looking for an opportunity to cast Tasha's hideous laughter in the first fight also. The party knew it was good, and it would have probably let them kill the dragon rather than just beat her to within an inch of her life before she got away. Fortunately the dragon never got close enough for him to get a chance.

In the second encounter I forgot to mention that the dragon's tower was filled with silence (courtesy of the orc Eye of Gruumsh who stayed safely out of the way to avoid getting concentration broken), so the PCs barely got to cast any spells. They had to climb high enough to escape the sphere. At the very beginning, the wizard ran back into the adjoining cottage and ducked her head down by the door to see if she could get outside the silence to cast dispel magic. She could, because I had already determined that that was the one spot far enough away to work. Of course, the orc cast the spell again on his next turn, and the fact that the cottage was filled with wood and sawdust and on fire discouraged the wizard from going back in and trying it again. If it hadn't have been for that lucky wild surge that gave the party the benefit of (effectively) greater invisibility it would have been a slaughter. The hag was kind enough to throw a nice faerie fire the party's way, which negated the invisibility on some of them.

Even though they did get trounced in the second encounter, it still demonstrated that 5th level PCs in 5e are much more powerful than I'm used to. My mental calibration of the power level of PCs at various levels came from my experiences in AD&D (AD&D video games to be precise, since they include a lot of combat). While 3e was a bit more powerful, my assumptions mostly held*. In 5e I've had two points of calibration. I ran a one-shot Halloween game when they were 3rd level where they entered a haunted house designed to TPK them with a tiny chance of one or more party members surviving (they didn't survive), that turned out to be a dream. Then there was the second dragon fight. Pushing the characters to their limit and TPKing (or essentially doing so) is the best way I can think of of mentally calibrating their power levels. 5e characters seem to considerably surpass my prior calibrations. Other than the squishiness of 1st level, they appear to me to be equivalent to earlier edition characters of a level about 50% higher. At 3rd level their power level felt like 5th level, and at 5th it felt more like 7th. Those same numbers held all the way from 2nd to 5th. At some point I assume that increase will level off (I expect it won't get any higher than +2 or +3 levels), but higher levels are harder to evaluate.

So it is easier to threaten the PCs, but they are overall more significantly more powerful.

(I'm not a completely cruel DM, so the current adventure has them playing high level characters fighting a bunch of dragons, to give them the satisfaction of slaying vast numbers of them.)

* I'm not including 4e, because it has a completely different calibration and isn't directly comparable.