D&D 5E Playtest This: Red Dragon

[MortalPlague]

So I made some tweaks. You can find Version 2.5 on the front page, or I've reposted it here as well.

Major Changes:

• The dragon has received a +2 bonus to hit on all its attacks. I haven't yet increased the damage, I'd like to test increased accuracy and see how that plays.
  
• While weakened, the dragon can spend superiority dice to parry attacks. It's a trade-off; each die they force the dragon to spend is one less attack he can make.
  
• High damage hits will now generate extra superiority dice for the dragon. So if he takes a couple of crits in a row, he comes roaring back. It gives the dragon a mechanic that makes him more dangerous if he's being destroyed quickly.
  
• Gave the dragon the option to move around using the superiority dice. I found he wound up rooted in one spot for most of the test fight, so I want the option in his repertoire to be able to move about more frequently.
  
• Took the ongoing damage off of the breath weapon, and took away the superheated zone. I like the ideas, but I want to find a better way to put them in. Each time the dragon breathed during my test run, it was a chore to lay down all those effects. For now, I've upped the damage slightly to compensate for the loss of control.

Red Dragon - Version 2.5
Huge Dragon
Armor Class 18 (scales)
Hit Points 244
Speed 40 ft (fly 40 ft)
Senses darkvision 60 ft
Str 22 (+6) Dex 12 (+1) Con 17 (+3)
Int 18 (+4) Wis 14 (+2) Cha 15 (+2)
Alignment lawful evil
Languages Common, Draconic, Elven, Giant

Traits

Impenetrable Hide: Whenever the dragon takes damage, prevent 10 points of that damage. If an attack would beat the dragon's AC by 5, the attack creates a chink in the dragon's armor, and it loses this resistance.

When the dragon has lost its resistance, it fights more defensively. It may choose to spend its superiority dice to parry attacks, reducing damage by the total rolled.

On its turn, if the dragon is in its hoard, it can choose not to move. Instead it can roll in the treasure and fill the weak spot in, regaining this resistance.


Ferocity: The dragon has 2d10 of combat superiority dice, which refresh at the end of its turn. It can spend those dice to add damage to its attacks. Additionally, it may spend these dice as follows:

Rampage: Spend 1 die to use any attack except its breath weapon.
Knockback: Spend 1 die to knock back 20 feet a creature it strikes, dealing 1d6 additional damage.
Prowl: Spend 1 die to move the dragon's speed.

These dice may be spent between initiative counts, as well as on the dragon's turn.


Snatch Momentum: If the dragon takes more than 25 damage from a single attack, add a d10 to its combat superiority pool. Dice gained in this way do not refresh, and are lost at the end of the dragon's turn if they haven't been used.


Actions

Melee Attack - Claw: Two attacks: +7 to hit (reach 10 ft, one creature). Hit: 1d8 + 6 damage.

Melee Attack - Bite: +7 to hit (reach 10 ft, one creature). Hit: 2d6 + 6 damage, and the target is snatched up in the dragon's jaws. The dragon may only have one creature in its jaws at a time. If the dragon bites with a creature already in its jaws, that creature is swallowed on a hit.

Melee Attack - Tail Sweep: +5 to hit (reach 15 ft, up to three adjacent creatures within range). Hit: 1d6 + 3 damage, and each target is knocked 10 feet further from the dragon.

Ranged Attack - Spit Fire: +7 to hit (range 50/150). Hit: 1d10 + 4 fire damage.

Area Attack - Breathe Fire: The dragon breathes fire in a 30 foot cone. Any creature in the area takes 4d10 fire damage. Targets may attempt a Dex save (DC 13) for half damage. The dragon cannot breathe fire again for 1d4 rounds.

Ranged Attack - Fling The Morsel: +7 to hit (range 50/100 ft, requires the dragon to have a creature in its jaws, targets one additional creature). Hit: 2d10 + 6 damage to both creatures. Miss: 2d10 + 6 damage to the thrown creature. Special: The thrown creature falls prone in a space adjacent to the target.

Swallow Whole: The dragon may use its bite to swallow a creature. While swallowed, the target takes 3d8 acid damage at the start of every turn. The acid damage may not be parried.

The swallowed creature may attack the dragon's stomach with disadvantage, though the stomach's AC is only 16. Swallowed creatures may not weaken the dragon's armor.

 

[keterys]

Great to see this kind of experimentation going on... my recommendations:
1) Either make parry a standard combat die option or remove it
2) Change the name "Snatch Momentum" to not use Snatch, since you already used that for snatching enemies in its bite.
3) Change knockback to just deal the d10 you spend, rather than a d6. (I'd also rearrange benefit to 'deal results of combat die roll in extra damage and knock creature back ...')
4) Remove the restriction on using rampage for breath weapon - it doesn't actually do anything except be more text since you can never breath more than once a round.
5) Mention that swallowed creature's don't deal with the impenetrable hide at all (either reducing damage or making weaknesses).

 

[MortalPlague]

Great to see this kind of experimentation going on... my recommendations:
1) Either make parry a standard combat die option or remove it
2) Change the name "Snatch Momentum" to not use Snatch, since you already used that for snatching enemies in its bite.
3) Change knockback to just deal the d10 you spend, rather than a d6. (I'd also rearrange benefit to 'deal results of combat die roll in extra damage and knock creature back ...')
4) Remove the restriction on using rampage for breath weapon - it doesn't actually do anything except be more text since you can never breath more than once a round.
5) Mention that swallowed creature's don't deal with the impenetrable hide at all (either reducing damage or making weaknesses).

I'm worried that giving the dragon the option to parry at all times would make him bulletproof. If he could soak 1d10 + 10, it would make things pretty grindy.

The other suggestions are all very good catches. I just didn't notice while typing, or didn't think of them. Thanks for the feedback there.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Surely there's a better way to make a challenging dragon with much less text.

 

[Stormonu]

So, what can this thing do besides combat? What if you wanted to alter this for an encounter where the party has to sneak a treasure out of its hoard or negotiate a ransom of the princess with this thing?

 

[MortalPlague]

Surely there's a better way to make a challenging dragon with much less text.

Maybe there is. If there's a good way to do it, I'd love to see it. Simplicity is good, after all.

I'm trying to use the same style of language the 5th Edition playtest bestiary uses. By design, it winds up being a touch longer.

Or are you talking about how complex the dragon is?

So, what can this thing do besides combat? What if you wanted to alter this for an encounter where the party has to sneak a treasure out of its hoard or negotiate a ransom of the princess with this thing?

I'm focused mostly on the combat stat block for the purposes of this exercise. I want to build a dragon who, when the party arrives at its lair with the intent of slaying it, will give them one hell of a fight. I want the adventurers to have to claim a victory, rather than have it handed to them.

If you wanted to sneak the hoard from its lair (or more likely, filch a few choice trinkets from its hoard), you'd use skills. With the dragon asleep, you'd likely be rolling a stealth check to slip in, searching for the pieces you came for (or the items of highest value), then rolling stealth once more to escape undetected. The dragon has stats, so he'd have a +2 to spot checks from his wisdom; it would be a contest against his spot check to avoid waking the dragon.

Bargaining for a princess would be a roleplay encounter. The DM would need to decide what sort of personality his red dragon has, what the dragon's name is, whether he's bargaining in good faith or he's already eaten the princess, etc. The DM would also need to decide what sort of trade the dragon would find favorable, and ask for skill checks where he felt they would be necessary.

A combat stat block isn't going to dictate all of these things. And that's all I'm putting together here.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I don't think Combat Superiority should be part of a monster's shtick, the fighter finally has his own deal, which people have been clamouring for, best not to diminish it, though who knows, maybe other classes will use it to some degree.

Maybe add wing buffet attacks; I could see a 5th Ed dragon moving between all of its attacks: claw, move, wing buffet, move, bite something, move, wing buffet again, move, claw again, move, tail sweep, that sort of thing.

 

[RangerWickett]

Surely there's a better way to make a challenging dragon with much less text.

How much text does a troll have? A high level party might fight a group of trolls, one per PC (or more!). But they usually only ever fight one dragon at a time.

A dragon should be at least as tough as five trolls, and so I'm okay with its stats taking up a whole page.

 

[MortalPlague]

I had the chance to run another playtest with the improved beastie. He TPK'ed the party of five, but it was close; he only had 4 hit points remaining at the end. A really good damage roll on the fire breath (35) to start things off, combined with eating the rogue early gave the dragon a big edge. But as intended, he was a dominant, frightening combatant, where the party had to fight for every edge. Ultimately, it could have gone either way, and that kind of close fight is what I would expect for 5th level PCs.

 

[MortalPlague]

In the interest of being complete, here's the version of the dragon I threw at the party above. I'm quite happy with how it fights, and while I'd have liked to test it in play a few more times, I can only sucker my players into playtesting a monster so many times.

I have to say, I'm quite curious to see what WotC has for dragons in the next playtest. You'd think there would be one, with it reaching level 10...

Red Dragon - Version 3
Huge Dragon
Armor Class 18 (scales)
Hit Points 244
Speed 40 ft (fly 40 ft)
Senses darkvision 60 ft
Str 22 (+6) Dex 12 (+1) Con 17 (+3)
Int 18 (+4) Wis 14 (+2) Cha 15 (+2)
Alignment lawful evil
Languages Common, Draconic, Elven, Giant

Traits

Impenetrable Hide: Whenever the dragon takes damage, prevent 10 points of that damage. If an attack would beat the dragon's AC by 5, the attack creates a chink in the dragon's armor, and it loses this resistance.

When the dragon has lost its resistance, it fights more defensively. It may choose to spend its superiority dice to parry attacks, reducing damage by the total rolled.

On its turn, if the dragon is in its hoard, it can choose not to move. Instead it can roll in the treasure and fill the weak spot in, regaining this resistance.


Ferocity: The dragon has 2d10 of Ferocity dice, which refresh at the end of its turn. It may spend these dice as follows:

Knockback: Spend 1 die to deal 1d10 extra damage, and knock the target 20 feet away from the dragon.
Rampage: Spend 1 die to use any attack.
Prowl: Spend 1 die to move the dragon's speed.

These dice may be spent between initiative counts, as well as on the dragon's turn.


Seize Momentum: If the dragon takes more than 25 damage from a single attack, add a d10 to its combat superiority pool. Dice gained in this way do not refresh, and are lost at the end of the dragon's turn if they haven't been used.


Actions

Melee Attack - Claw: Two attacks: +7 to hit (reach 10 ft, one creature). Hit: 1d8 + 6 damage.

Melee Attack - Bite: +7 to hit (reach 10 ft, one creature). Hit: 2d6 + 6 damage, and the target is snatched up in the dragon's jaws. The dragon may only have one creature in its jaws at a time. If the dragon bites with a creature already in its jaws, that creature is swallowed on a hit.

Melee Attack - Tail Sweep: +5 to hit (reach 15 ft, up to three adjacent creatures within range). Hit: 1d6 + 3 damage, and each target is knocked 10 feet further from the dragon.

Ranged Attack - Spit Fire: +7 to hit (range 50/150). Hit: 1d10 + 4 fire damage.

Area Attack - Breathe Fire: The dragon breathes fire in a 30 foot cone. Any creature in the area takes 4d10 fire damage. Targets may attempt a Dex save (DC 13) for half damage. The dragon cannot breathe fire again for 1d4 rounds.

Ranged Attack - Fling The Morsel: +7 to hit (range 50/100 ft, requires the dragon to have a creature in its jaws, targets one additional creature). Hit: 2d10 + 6 damage to both creatures. Miss: 2d10 + 6 damage to the thrown creature. Special: The thrown creature falls prone in a space adjacent to the target.

Swallow Whole: The dragon may use its bite to swallow a creature. While swallowed, the target takes 3d8 acid damage at the start of every turn. The acid damage may not be parried.

The swallowed creature may attack the dragon's stomach with disadvantage, though the stomach's AC is only 16. Swallowed creatures do not interact with the dragon's Impenetrable Hide.