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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Olgar Shiverstone" data-source="post: 831009" data-attributes="member: 5868">Good grief that's a long post.  You might try boiling the questions down and posting to the General board with [BADD] in the title (bothered about disposable dragons seems to get lots of responses).  Anyway, here goes:CR:  For your party of 6, CR4 is fine, shouldn't have too many losses.XP:  It's up to you what your definition of defeating the challenge is -- you can award partial XP for driving it off but not killing it, for example, or full XP for getting it to leave the region forever.  Yes, any dragon worthy of the name will retreat when badly wounded, but a young one might be too full of itself to run, or it might be defending its lair or its hoard.  An option for the party would be to encounter the dragon, wound it, dragon retreats to lair, and party hunts it down and finishes it off there.Hook: That's a good one for a small dragon.  Or maybe it was first lambs, but last night a small child disappeared, and all that was left behind was the claws marks (this way, the party still has to find the lair and rescue the child, who hasn't been eaten yet).Lair: Guards are good, but a very young dragon of the type you're talking about might have only been on his own for a ahort period of time -- perhaps it doesn't have any guardians.  Or, perhaps the party first encounters it in the wilderness, fights it and the dragon withdraws, and then they prepare and track it to its lair to kill it.  The final encounter is more climactic that way.Flying away: See my notes above -- two encounters gives the PCs time to prepare & survuve.Killing the party: Yep, a real risk.  That's the fun of fighting dragons.  Our party of 5 4th-level characters just took on a young (CR 5) blue and there was one fatality.  Adventuring isn't for the weak of heart!  Your rogue has evasion, and should be fine if a save is made; 4d10 averages 20 points damage, so the fighter types might survive the breath even with a failed save.  The mage better try not to get toasted!Fly: Maneuverability is on page 69 of the DMG.Feats: You are correct, go by HD.  Good dragon feats are Power attack, Cleave, and Hover (I used against my party with devastating effect ...)Tactics: You're on -- at this age it's intelligent but not super-bright.  It could open with a breath weapon, fly into the center of the gourp and hover, focusing on the biggest threat, but as it gets enraged it lashes out at whomever damages it.  It takes real party teamwork to win this kind of encounter. Hover is your friend, here.  With hover, the dragon's maneuverability becomes less important -- and it can attack with bite, all four claws, and tail slap in the same round.Treasure: Base it off of 4, and roll twice, or double quantities (don't double the level, just the amount) -- but I really recommend choosing appropriate treasure for these sorts of encounters, rather than ramdomly generating it.  Perhaps you can plant a magic item that provides a hook for a later adventure, or something.Have fun.  Regardless of the outcome, a fight with a dragon always makes a good session.  It _should_ be tough on the party -- you don't want them blase about dragons!Edit: Gah, forgot this bugger has reach!  Yeah, you might want to go a size category smaller, or use a slightly different dragon (blue, green).  It'll be a tough fight, but a prepared party, using good teamwork, could win it.</blockquote>

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