Problem with my dragons

[Grimmjow]

In my game world dragons are the big powers the players can fight. Sure there are gods and demon lords and devils and blah blah blah, but the dragons are the ones i can use through out the levels of play. There are a number of things i am trying to do with my dragons. 1) All dragons are immortal unless killed 2) Dragons can "smell" when someone has killed another dragon 3) i want my players to know that when a dragon shows up, they are going to need to be the most tactical they ever have been in order to slay it. To be this is what a dragon is

So far in my game my group has fought two dragons. I enjoy dragons, in fact I'm almost in love with them. The problem is when i run them i make the battle two hard.

The first dragon they fought was a shadow dragon. I gave the dragon lots of mist to hide in but that ended up just screwing my players so they had to run.

The second dragon was the same shadow dragon only this time i just gave him groves of trees to hide behind. Doing this they were able to kill him.

Just today i sent a black dragon at them. They were on a bridge going through a bog in a swamp when the dragon came to challenge them. This dragon is lazy and doesn't normally attack travelers but she could smell the blood of the shadow dragon on them so she came to fight. That proved to be to hard to. Of course she was able to vanish in the murky water and pop up on the other sides of the bridge to attack weaker targets.

I know there is not a lot of info here but what i really need to know is when to use dragons and which to use.

 

[Sunseeker]

Are you custom-building your dragons, or are you just running them straight from the book? And if you're running them from the book, which book are you using? MM1? 2? 3? Draconomicon?

 

[Trit One-Ear]

Not to be a wise-alec, but I don't see a problem here. If your dragons are supposed to be the most intimidating, powerful and vicious creatures for your heroes to face, why is it bad that they're getting beaten by them? I'll wager the sense of satisfaction when they managed to beat the shadow dragon the second time was so much greater for having had to flee him before.

That being said, if the problem is that your players aren't having fun when facing these dragons, then it is worth changing your tactics. While I can't speak directly to which dragons you "should" use, I have one comment. From your descriptions, sounds like you've been giving the dragons the advantage of terrain. This is fine and makes sense (dragons do/would hang around areas they do well in). However, both times it seems you've given the dragon a way to hide from players, effectively rendering it untargetable for some parts of combat. While this is exciting now and then (I love throwing invisible creatures at my players) it can definitely slow down combat and make things tough on the players.

Perhaps the next time(s) they face a dragon, give it a different advantage rather than making it able to reliably avoid the player's plans and tactics?

Trit

 

[S'mon]

What level are the dragons compared to the PCs? IME the Monster Vault dragons work well vs PCs of their level, or even slightly higher. If your dragons are higher level than the PCs you can expect them to often win.

 

[Sunseeker]

As a secondary thought, perhaps losing a fight to a dragon may not mean the death of the party. With so many powerful creatures in the world, perhaps the dragons themselves may seek underlings to undermine or eliminate their opponents. If your party gets bested, perhaps the dragon will see the use of them and spare their lives in exchange for some sort of service to it.

Not every fight must end in victory or death.

 

[Grimmjow]

Not to be a wise-alec, but I don't see a problem here. If your dragons are supposed to be the most intimidating, powerful and vicious creatures for your heroes to face, why is it bad that they're getting beaten by them? I'll wager the sense of satisfaction when they managed to beat the shadow dragon the second time was so much greater for having had to flee him before.

That being said, if the problem is that your players aren't having fun when facing these dragons, then it is worth changing your tactics. While I can't speak directly to which dragons you "should" use, I have one comment. From your descriptions, sounds like you've been giving the dragons the advantage of terrain. This is fine and makes sense (dragons do/would hang around areas they do well in). However, both times it seems you've given the dragon a way to hide from players, effectively rendering it untargetable for some parts of combat. While this is exciting now and then (I love throwing invisible creatures at my players) it can definitely slow down combat and make things tough on the players.

Perhaps the next time(s) they face a dragon, give it a different advantage rather than making it able to reliably avoid the player's plans and tactics?

Trit

Both my dragons have been lurkers and I'm not very good with them but they seem to be the easiest to fit in to my game. Im going to try to get a brute or soldier in, hopefully that'll work.

As far as the losing ya they were happy when they killed the shadow dragon, and they are already talking about coming back for this one once they are a level or two higher,but i don't want it to become something that happens every time i send a dragon their way. "They battle for a bit, run, then come back later and win" will get old and make my dragons.....lame

As a secondary thought, perhaps losing a fight to a dragon may not mean the death of the party. With so many powerful creatures in the world, perhaps the dragons themselves may seek underlings to undermine or eliminate their opponents. If your party gets bested, perhaps the dragon will see the use of them and spare their lives in exchange for some sort of service to it.

Not every fight must end in victory or death.

No i don't usually kill them when they run, because they do run, i chase them for a bit to scare them but adventually the dragon gets bored and leaves.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

In my game world dragons are the big powers the players can fight. Sure there are gods and demon lords and devils and blah blah blah, but the dragons are the ones i can use through out the levels of play. There are a number of things i am trying to do with my dragons. 1) All dragons are immortal unless killed 2) Dragons can "smell" when someone has killed another dragon 3) i want my players to know that when a dragon shows up, they are going to need to be the most tactical they ever have been in order to slay it. To be this is what a dragon is.

Well I would say that you are doing a good job of that so far heh.

So far in my game my group has fought two dragons. I enjoy dragons, in fact I'm almost in love with them. The problem is when i run them i make the battle two hard.

The first dragon they fought was a shadow dragon. I gave the dragon lots of mist to hide in but that ended up just screwing my players so they had to run.

The second dragon was the same shadow dragon only this time i just gave him groves of trees to hide behind. Doing this they were able to kill him.

That is good that they were able to kill it

Just today i sent a black dragon at them. They were on a bridge going through a bog in a swamp when the dragon came to challenge them. This dragon is lazy and doesn't normally attack travelers but she could smell the blood of the shadow dragon on them so she came to fight. That proved to be to hard to. Of course she was able to vanish in the murky water and pop up on the other sides of the bridge to attack weaker targets.

I know there is not a lot of info here but what i really need to know is when to use dragons and which to use.

The advantage that you give dragons is prolly a bit too much and you should prolly look at the catastrophic dragons in MM3 and maybe use mechanics like that and maybe give them terrain-walk so they can't get difficult terrain. Hopefully that would work .

 

[Viking Bastard]

2) Dragons can "smell" when someone has killed another dragon

I really like that. That is all.

 

[Grimmjow]

Does anyone have like....rules or something that you use when selecting a dragon for your players to battle? So they can win.??

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The dragon winning or the PCs winning?

Dragons are solo "boss" battles. Unlike in 3.x, to have a balanced battle, they need to be within 1 or 2 levels of the PCs, unless they're super-optimized.

Normally solos aren't actually "solos" and need help. Fortunately, dragons are pretty well-designed "solos" in that, between Action Recovery, Instinctive X and the usual solo benefits, they are hard to lock down. They rarely need help.

The most difficult part of a good dragon encounter is creating the terrain. It seems you have already made good use of terrain in your encounter.

As to picking which type, you've used lurkers, so use something else next time. I would recommend only using dragons from the Monster Vault (or Threats to the Nentir Vale). Dragons from earlier sources tend to be pushovers.

The green dragon can dominate quite often; use it if you have a PC who does high damage, especially if they do so without needing to spend actions (the way warlocks do). Slayers and most sorcerers just apply bonus damage, so they're good targets. Warlocks and rangers are less so; both need to expend minor actions and/or target enemies for their bonus damage. Of course, the dragon has to go with what it knows or sees, rather than pure metagaming.

If you have access to skirmishing dragons, these can be hard on PCs if they can grab them. There's little stopping a skirmisher from grabbing a PC or two and just flying away to eat them at its leisure.