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Message: <blockquote data-quote="n00bdragon" data-source="post: 6061571" data-attributes="member: 6689371">A dragon that can be hit on 7-10s is probably about right. "Torch those defenses" it will not be. Remember that the dragon has a beastly amount of HP they have to grind through so if they only get two or three hits in a round it will still take them a decent while to drop the thing. If you're worried about the dragon's ability to fight back however I've found that the damage for monsters in the MM3 is about right for an average group. If your group is powergaming really hard you could probably give it an extra 25% or so just to be scary. Try to aim for where if the dragon decided it wanted someone in particular dead it could drop a frontline warrior in three attacks. Since your party is level 9 I'll assume your tough guys have around 70 HP or a little more. That means aiming for attacks that deal 25-35 damage is probably a good idea.Second, I would totally add a smorgasboard of minions and a few regular monsters. A leader of some sort, an elite brute, and about eight to ten minions should be fine. Spread the minions out so they don't get slaughtered by area attacks. Maybe assign two or three to each other monster including the dragon as flunkies who are just there to flank and act as meat shields.By level 9 your party should have plenty of answers to flying enemies so don't be afraid to have the dragon fly. Even though the dragon's damage output is considerably greater when it lands I would not have it land until the party forces it to land or if it looks like the dragon's goons are getting routed. Always stay in the air and use flyby attacks and ranged attacks when possible to make life hard for the party before flying well out of reach. If the party's formation breaks up you can land on top of the squishiest character, wail on them, and then action point to fly away.Just don't ever think you are going too hard on them. Characters are far more resilient than most DMs think and well built ones are even tougher than that. Go full force and you'll have a story you can tell for years.</blockquote>

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