D&D 5E Running D&D 5e for Levels 10+

[ClaytonCross]

ClaytonCross Fiendish Resilience is PHB standard 10th level patron fiend warlock feature.

I looked up after you last post. That is a specific type of Warlock though and while I grant you its an ability that makes them good against dragons its a strength of that specific player character not a weakness to dragons.

You can certainly presume dragon surprise as standard, but i myself have seen more stories of dragons and such in both fiction and games tent to treat adult dragons and lairs as not anything subtle, more like environmentsl hazards affecting the locale. That combines with terrain preferences seems to me to make "i choose fire" a reasonable daily chouce.

If you have for shadowing of the dragon and time to rest this very specific anti-element ability does make the fiend warlock good against dragons AND all other known elemental enemies. I play a warlock of the old one it is not helping him at all. So basically you found a build gear to be a dragon slayer and your saying that since the character is good at killing dragons that dragons are week. That is a false argument. The Dragon is not week the PC your describing is strong against them. The exact same build of warlock with a different patron and a non-fire resistant race would be destroyed. If I were building a character to be a Dragon hunter this would be a good build...That is really what you a have proven. Not that Dragons are underrated.

Also, of course a GM can add anti magic, spells, armies, waves of beholders as they see fit to a dragon's package as he sees fit. That just does not do much to say the baseline MM creature is this or that or the other... Except maybe to support the idea it needs beefing up by GM.

I would submit that its not unusual for dragons to have mentions or at all against a dragons intellect for it to have used a mage to setup trap in exchange for letting the mage live. This debate point is about preparations. If players are being balanced against a dragon counting their preparations then the Dragon doing the same particularly in its layer... is common since. Your not balancing players or dragons at this point but just preparations that the GM allows. That is my point. Their is no need to add to a Dragon but if your not letting the Dragon prepare defenses in its home, then your basically saying the fight is a surprise and the players don't get on ether. --- I will grant you that your Tie-fling Fiend Warlock choice for Dragon slayer would me smart to have Resilience set to cold combine with Fire from TieFling so even a surprise attack in a part of 4 that build is likely to do well. Not that it will do any good once the rest of his party is dead but that's to my point that this is an uncommon build that is strong against these creatures.

I can prove it... Give me the design of the rest of your party... I bet not one of them does so well.... You picked your strongest option because that's what people do to prove a point but also because it is uniquely skilled for this kind of fight it also shows that the Adult Dragon needs a special type of PC to be truly threatened. A Barbarian totem worrier of the bear has resistance to all damage but is not likely to have ranged attacks of 100ft which is the required attack range to engage a dragon using the tactic I described of Dropping 40ft from 100ft "strafe" its 60ft fire breath then fly back up 40ft out of range of many ranged attacks.

The same warlock has to take eldritch spear or the spell sniper feat to be able to engage an Ancient dragon using the same tactic from 130ft with its 90ft breath attack and would be an appropriate solo challenge for a party of 4 level 17 characters. Again you could build for this but ...if you did not build to fight at extreme range vs elemental damage your in trouble.

 

[5ekyu]

ClaytonCross you seem to have me confused with someone else. I am not arguing that dragons vs high levels are weak or strong. That was the other guy.

I responded to your post which threw a lot of math and presumptions at the pther post - ignoring the fire resistance as you challenged his points. I also find fault with your ideas that its either both surprised or both prepared, given the general depictions of dragons in much of the source materials.

The GM balances encounters in a game, not CR, especially at higher levels - imo. I have never once met a CR type system that accurately predicted party strength after the first say half level range. Too many variables.

Are dragons atrong? No.
Are dragons weak? No
Are dragons balanced? No.
But they are parts that can be used to make encounters and challenges that can be any of those and more.

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

 

[Hussar]

Sorry if this hasn't been mentioned yet, but, something that has really, really made a difference in difficulty in encounters is tracking light sources. The best light sources the PC's can have only light up 60 feet (an additional 60 feet of dim light) and are fairly easy to either extinguish or avoid.

Remember, if you're holding a lantern, YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT HAND FREE. That's really, really important. Because if someone puts the lantern down, then you have a cone of light (if you want that 60 foot light source) that does not illuminate outside of that cone. Even something as simple as Cantrip can put out a lantern.

Yes, it's a bit mickey mouse to force the PC's to track this, but, it can make a huge difference. Particularly if you start using large (ish) groups of baddies coming from multiple directions. Your archer snipers don't work half as well when they can't see their targets.

Another fun tactic is to simply grapple with fliers. Remember, if you are 2 sizes larger than your grappled target, you don't take a speed penalty for dragging them along. Mr. Dragon, in our solo example, simply grapples the warlock and starts flying straight up. Take a second round to climb, clawing and biting along the way, and then drop the target for free. Kerrr SPLAT! Falling damage is devastating.

My personal favorite was using Chuuls recently and dragging the PC's under the water. Guess what, underwater is total cover. No ranged attacks possible. Nasty as all get out.

 

[ClaytonCross]

ClaytonCross you seem to have me confused with someone else. I am not arguing that dragons vs high levels are weak or strong. That was the other guy.

I responded to your post which threw a lot of math and presumptions at the pther post - ignoring the fire resistance as you challenged his points. I also find fault with your ideas that its either both surprised or both prepared, given the general depictions of dragons in much of the source materials.

The GM balances encounters in a game, not CR, especially at higher levels - imo. I have never once met a CR type system that accurately predicted party strength after the first say half level range. Too many variables.

Are dragons atrong? No.
Are dragons weak? No
Are dragons balanced? No.
But they are parts that can be used to make encounters and challenges that can be any of those and more.

Sent from my VS995 using EN World mobile app

Your right I was debating with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] but everybody that had a complaint had a user name that started with an S and I got confused. That said I was replying to your quotes so while I may have been a bit confused....

-As far as fire resistance goes I still think its a specialty of the build. Comparing a Dragon vs an ability unique to a SUB-CLASS of a specific class is not a "good way" to judge a dragon week, under powered, over overrated against an average group of players as Saelorn did. He is basically taking 1 specific character from his group who is good at something and saying that means the dragon is week against the rest of them too.

-As far as preparation goes (fire resistance potions for all) if your judging preparations its an endless games of what if and a surprise encounter allows for the simplest debate and most telling encounter because of that. If you want to say you usually experience them with sufficient warning to prepare that fine but that means your not judging the creature based on its strength vs players but its strength vs players preparations. At that point all creatures judged this way will be on "easy mode" so of course CR will seem low as Saelorn was arguing. Which is really the heart of the debate. GMs giving players preparations but not enemies then players and GMs calling the CR/XP system a bad guideline because everything it under powered...But they are not. Players are well prepared making fights feel easier. If they want to test there players give them a surprise attack against the same enemies when they did not have time to prepare.

-My post is not perfect, in fact I have spent some time making a revised answer with feed back that I have received and realized regardless of fire resistance the dragon would be better off picking up the warlock and flying strait up doing 3 melee attacks out of reach of the rest of the party. The warlock COULD have misty step and/or fly reducing the effect of this but warlocks only get 14 spells by level 17 and 4 spell slots so using them up makes the fight harder for the warlock to maintain DPR. I also forgot the Dragons Legendary action doing roughly an additional 10 DPR, the fact the warlock would be rolling 1-3 consent ration checks meaning a Drop in the warlocks DPR unless it wants to spend one of its 4 spell slots, and Also, I understated the warlocks HP by at least 8 points depending on the CON modifier. Basically all considered I understated the Dragon.

- My point as well as yours was that the Dragons CR is just a base calling it week as Saelorn has done is due to lack of creative play by the GM not because the Dragon is inherently supper week per the CR/XP scale. So I have just poked holes in my post as much as you but the details are not too far off to illustrate the point that we agree on that the Dragon is not so week that using the CR/XP and good tactics by the GM that the Dragon is not a threat... An adult Dragon absolutely is a threat to level 17 players if played well by the GM and we did not even go into line of site or rounding of the XP with a few minions since vs 2 level 17 PCs would leave a little extra XP on a deadly encounter.

 

[ClaytonCross]

Sorry if this hasn't been mentioned yet, but, something that has really, really made a difference in difficulty in encounters is tracking light sources. The best light sources the PC's can have only light up 60 feet (an additional 60 feet of dim light) and are fairly easy to either extinguish or avoid.

Remember, if you're holding a lantern, YOU DO NOT HAVE THAT HAND FREE. That's really, really important. Because if someone puts the lantern down, then you have a cone of light (if you want that 60 foot light source) that does not illuminate outside of that cone. Even something as simple as Cantrip can put out a lantern.

Yes, it's a bit mickey mouse to force the PC's to track this, but, it can make a huge difference. Particularly if you start using large (ish) groups of baddies coming from multiple directions. Your archer snipers don't work half as well when they can't see their targets.

Another fun tactic is to simply grapple with fliers. Remember, if you are 2 sizes larger than your grappled target, you don't take a speed penalty for dragging them along. Mr. Dragon, in our solo example, simply grapples the warlock and starts flying straight up. Take a second round to climb, clawing and biting along the way, and then drop the target for free. Kerrr SPLAT! Falling damage is devastating.

My personal favorite was using Chuuls recently and dragging the PC's under the water. Guess what, underwater is total cover. No ranged attacks possible. Nasty as all get out.

Your example was way better then mine with less than half the work. lol. Thanks for the awesome post! Gold star to my Fellow Japan traveler.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Another fun tactic is to simply grapple with fliers. Remember, if you are 2 sizes larger than your grappled target, you don't take a speed penalty for dragging them along. Mr. Dragon, in our solo example, simply grapples the warlock and starts flying straight up. Take a second round to climb, clawing and biting along the way, and then drop the target for free. Kerrr SPLAT! Falling damage is devastating.

Falling damage is survivable though: Why not just snag the caster as you swoop past, fly out of range of their allies' attacks, and chew until the squeaking stops.

The caster may be able to poke you a bit while you're munching on them, but they'll be at disadvantage to hit in melee. If they get you to drop them, jump up and down on them a bit and then grab them before their allies catch up.

The first thing to bear in mind for any intelligent being when about to engage in combat with a team of beings that it regards as definite threats is: Don't.
Dismantle the team, and fight the range specialists in melee and the melee specialists with your breath weapon and dropped rocks.

 

[Stalker0]

Your right I was debating with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] but everybody that had a complaint had a user name that started with an S and I got confused. That said I was replying to your quotes so while I may have been a bit confused....

-As far as fire resistance goes I still think its a specialty of the build. Comparing a Dragon vs an ability unique to a SUB-CLASS of a specific class is not a "good way" to judge a dragon week, under powered, over overrated against an average group of players as Saelorn did. He is basically taking 1 specific character from his group who is good at something and saying that means the dragon is week against the rest of them too.

-As far as preparation goes (fire resistance potions for all) if your judging preparations its an endless games of what if and a surprise encounter allows for the simplest debate and most telling encounter because of that. If you want to say you usually experience them with sufficient warning to prepare that fine but that means your not judging the creature based on its strength vs players but its strength vs players preparations. At that point all creatures judged this way will be on "easy mode" so of course CR will seem low as Saelorn was arguing. Which is really the heart of the debate. GMs giving players preparations but not enemies then players and GMs calling the CR/XP system a bad guideline because everything it under powered...But they are not. Players are well prepared making fights feel easier. If they want to test there players give them a surprise attack against the same enemies when they did not have time to prepare.

-My post is not perfect, in fact I have spent some time making a revised answer with feed back that I have received and realized regardless of fire resistance the dragon would be better off picking up the warlock and flying strait up doing 3 melee attacks out of reach of the rest of the party. The warlock COULD have misty step and/or fly reducing the effect of this but warlocks only get 14 spells by level 17 and 4 spell slots so using them up makes the fight harder for the warlock to maintain DPR. I also forgot the Dragons Legendary action doing roughly an additional 10 DPR, the fact the warlock would be rolling 1-3 consent ration checks meaning a Drop in the warlocks DPR unless it wants to spend one of its 4 spell slots, and Also, I understated the warlocks HP by at least 8 points depending on the CON modifier. Basically all considered I under
- My point as well as yours was that the Dragons CR is just a base calling it week as Saelorn has done is due to lack of creative play by the GM not because the Dragon is inherently supper week per the CR/XP scale. So I have just poked holes in my post as much as you but the details are not too far off to illustrate the point that we agree on that the Dragon is not so week that using the CR/XP and good tactics by the GM that the Dragon is not a threat... An adult Dragon absolutely is a threat to level 17 players if played well by the GM and we did not even go into line of site or rounding of the XP with a few minions since vs 2 level 17 PCs would leave a little extra XP on a deadly encounter.

Having run two dragon fights in actual play (one against a 10th level and one against a 15th) I will say dragons are over cred.

In the first case the players knew they were fighting a dragon because of the regional lair effects. In the second case it was a surprise.

The first time the dragon was cr 11 or so. In the second case it was cr 20 or so combined with a mass of githyabki, and a massive astral ship firing at them. Also to give the cr 20 dragon a little something I gave it one auto recharge of its breath weapon

In both cases the party smoked the encounters, no one even went down let alone died.

High level parties are incredibly tough and resourceful, they have all sorts of tricks To get it done. The dragons didn’t stand a chance

 

[Raunalyn]

I was having difficulty challenging the higher level characters as well. This was especially true while using the WoTC published modules (looking at you, Out of the Abyss).

I've had a remarkable amount of success challenging my group by using appropriately tiered monsters and adding class levels to them. One of my group's most challenging encounters was against a group of Driders that had levels in cleric, rogue, and wizard. The group couldn't just blow through them and had to think and strategize to win. Overall, it was a very satisfying encounter for all involved.

Just yesterday, they fought an avatar of Lolth and her lieutenants (the group is level 17 right now). I used drow with class levels this time (one of them was a paladin...the group was kinda scared of her when she did a high level smite against the party's paladin). On top of that, the Avatar's lair actions were wreaking havoc. Again...a very satisfying and challenging encounter for all involved.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

- My point as well as yours was that the Dragons CR is just a base calling it week as Saelorn has done is due to lack of creative play by the GM not because the Dragon is inherently supper week per the CR/XP scale. So I have just poked holes in my post as much as you but the details are not too far off to illustrate the point that we agree on that the Dragon is not so week that using the CR/XP and good tactics by the GM that the Dragon is not a threat... An adult Dragon absolutely is a threat to level 17 players if played well by the GM and we did not even go into line of site or rounding of the XP with a few minions since vs 2 level 17 PCs would leave a little extra XP on a deadly encounter.

No, an adult dragon is inherently pretty weak. A single non-optimized warlock can defeat it with simple tactics at range, and can probably beat one in melee if the warlock and dragon were played with equal intelligence. It lacks the sheer power to be scary in combat, and it lacks the resources to pull off elaborate schemes.

That doesn't say as much about dragons, in general, as it does about the nature of an attrition system where a party is expected to slay six dragons in a day before they start slowing down. Beholders, balors, and the Tarrasque are also pretty weak.

 

[Tormyr]

I have run around a dozen 5e dragon encounters (chapter 10 of Age of Worms has 2-3 dozen dragons alone ranging from wyrmlings to Ancient Red, Green, Blue, and Purple). I found the dragons to be under-powered when one or more of the following things happened:
1. The breath weapon was not used effectively.
2. The attacks and legendary actions were not used for damage every round.
3. It got swarmed.

The dragon's CR is built around the damage from its breath weapon and legendary actions. The problem is that it is difficult to use those effectively in the same round without being swarmed. Tactics that worked well for the dragons included a wing buffet to knock PCs prone followed by grappling a prone PC and making all attacks with advantage especially if the PC was knocked prone and grappled with legendary actions right before the dragon's turn came up.

Dragons also work very well when they do a breath weapon flyby and only return once they have recharged or take one PC away from the encounter area to split the party. They have the strength score to pull that off.

A couple things I have learned about encounter balance in general that apply well to dragons.
1. Dragons, like any other encounter balancing in 5e will only be a medium encounter for a party of 4 adventurers of the same level as the dragon's CR (i.e 4 level 16 PCs agains a CR 16 dragon). The dragon needs to be sever CR higher than the party's level to be any sort of challenge, but the higher you go, the higher the potential for it overwhelming the party badly between its breath weapon and hit points.
2. If you are running a published adventure, it probably is built around a party size of 4 PCs (even if it says 5), or an experienced group can at least treat it like it was for 4 PCs. This means that the lone dragon needs a higher CR to have the intended challenge for that point in the adventure. The easiest way I have found is to add 40 hp per PC after 4. If the solo creature is CR20 or higher, that moves to 90 hp per PC. If the creature has legendary resistance, it can swap 1 PC's worth of additional hit points for an extra use of legendary resistance. This helps it keep from getting overwhelmed by a lot of extra casters using save or suck spells.