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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7438460" data-attributes="member: 97077">Typically, a challenge is perceived as a "slog" when the outcome is basically known but you're just rolling it out and it's taking forever. At best you're testing to see how many spell slots get used and how many hit points the PCs have at the end. Those stakes tend to be fairly uninteresting and becomes doubly so when it takes a long time to get an outcome.Dragon fights tend to benefit from legendary actions and lair actions which keep things a little more interesting and varied. Were you using those? How much were playing up and using the terrain in interesting ways? Were the players doing the same? Were they taking actions other than swinging a sword, loosing an arrow, or casting a cantrip or did they have more interesting options? Were both you and they making your best effort to describe the bits your role asks you to describe? Was everyone getting their turns resolved quickly so that no single person was waiting a long time for their turn to come around, checking out mentally?Ultimately, if the "slog" you're perceiving is due to the outcome being known and the dice making it take longer to get there, you can just end in narration in my view or change the outcome such as by having the dragon flee or offer to parlay. Then it at least potentially becomes a chase scene or social interaction challenge which changes the scene and the stakes up in an interesting way. This is also a good place for a wave of new enemies to enter the scene to mix things up and add to the difficulty.It really comes down to the "dramatic question," that is, the question that frames the stakes of the scene: "Will the PCs slay the dragon or will they be slain by it?" Once that question is effectively answered, you may as well wrap it up or change it up.</blockquote>

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