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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7163264" data-attributes="member: 6787650">You can have tough solo fights in 5E, but they may or may not conform to your idea of a &quot;boss monsters.&quot; The roc in this thread would be terrifying if played with human-level intelligence and malevolent intent--could easily TPK the party if its goal is to kill the PCs and not just to score a meal. It's highly mobile (120' flying speed) and it has a grapple attack, which means that it can swoop down, grab one PC in its talons, and fly off with it to kill that PC solo, and then come back twice more for the other PCs. It would be using divide-and-conquer tactics to exploit its crushing superiority over each individual PC. They can shoot after it with missile weapons but this party apparently isn't set up to make that a strong tactic.Dragons are also incredibly strong opponents if you give them even a tiny bit of spellcasting. All of my dragons have levels in Draconic Sorcerer (because if a little bit of dragon blood can make you a sorcerer, having a whole lot of dragon blood can only do moreso, nicht so?) and I gotta tell you, an adult red dragon with Darkness (plus blindsight natively) + Shield + Counterspell + Quickened Dimension Door is a terrifying opponent despite being &quot;only&quot; a 7th level sorcerer.It's possible that such opponents work better for me because I use a different initiative system--I imagine that it's possible for divide-and-conquer techniques to frustrate the players and be un-fun for the DM if you're using standard cyclic initiative and 2/3 of the players have to basically do nothing on their turns--but that's a metagame issue, not related to whether the roc or dragon is capable of standing up to the party. It just affects how much fun the players have while the dragon is fighting their PCs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7163264, member: 6787650"] You can have tough solo fights in 5E, but they may or may not conform to your idea of a "boss monsters." The roc in this thread would be terrifying if played with human-level intelligence and malevolent intent--could easily TPK the party if its goal is to kill the PCs and not just to score a meal. It's highly mobile (120' flying speed) and it has a grapple attack, which means that it can swoop down, grab one PC in its talons, and fly off with it to kill that PC solo, and then come back twice more for the other PCs. It would be using divide-and-conquer tactics to exploit its crushing superiority over each individual PC. They can shoot after it with missile weapons but this party apparently isn't set up to make that a strong tactic. Dragons are also incredibly strong opponents if you give them even a tiny bit of spellcasting. All of my dragons have levels in Draconic Sorcerer (because if a little bit of dragon blood can make you a sorcerer, having a whole lot of dragon blood can only do moreso, nicht so?) and I gotta tell you, an adult red dragon with Darkness (plus blindsight natively) + Shield + Counterspell + Quickened Dimension Door is a terrifying opponent despite being "only" a 7th level sorcerer. It's possible that such opponents work better for me because I use a different initiative system--I imagine that it's possible for divide-and-conquer techniques to frustrate the players and be un-fun for the DM if you're using standard cyclic initiative and 2/3 of the players have to basically do nothing on their turns--but that's a metagame issue, not related to whether the roc or dragon is [I]capable[/I] of standing up to the party. It just affects how much fun the [I]players[/I] have while the dragon is fighting their PCs. [/QUOTE]

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