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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dave2008" data-source="post: 9651582" data-attributes="member: 83242">I have been thinking about a comment [USER=20564]@Blue[/USER] mentioned in another thread. They suggested that non-legendary monsters are not / could not be a threat as solo monsters. I didn't agree with that (after all CR is independent of legendary status) and I have been souring a bit on legendary monster design be the one stop shop for solo monsters in 5e. So I decided to take a look at the Ancient Red Dragon.  The Ancient Red Dragon is a CR 24 and supposed to be a solo threat for 4 level 18 PCs.First up, the official 2024 Ancient Red Dragon[ATTACH=full]404427[/ATTACH]It has Legendary Resistance (LR) and Legendary Actions (LA). These allow it to escape some harm and spread the damage. This is fairly good for keep the monster around (LR) and keeping the party engaged by is actions across the round (LA). However, except for the fire breath, it sacrifices a lot of damage. Individual attack damage is low because there are so many (6/round w/ LA) and overall damage suffers because 120 Hit Points of CR are eaten up by LR (30 per use). Not including its fire breath, the dragon is doing 87 DPR on its turn and 87 DPR with LA for a total of 174 DPR. You can see all of my CR calculations at the end.So what if we removed LR & LA and redistributed that HP & # of attacks to become fewer more powerful attacks. Here is a look at a non-legendary Ancient Red Dragon (no LR or LA). I used the same HP and AC and just revised its attacks.[ATTACH=full]404430[/ATTACH]This dragon hits much harder, particularly on its turn. It has a DPR of 167 on its turn and an off turn (1 reaction) DPR of 62 for a total DPR of 229 (257 with FIre Breath). That is almost a 32% increase in damage over the Legendary dragon. To compensate for some of the protection and tactical interest of LR and LA, without robbing the dragons CR, I gave it various tactical riders to its attacks and some options for its reaction. The Draconic Resilience works similar to LR, but without completely nerfing the triggering effect and it costs the dragon 62 in potential damage (this might be to large of a cost). Wing escape gives it some mobility and various other effects or moving the PCs around or keeping them locked down.IDK, this seems like a more interesting fight to me, or at least as interesting. What are your thoughts. Do solo monsters have to Legendary? Which version feels more threatening for a party of 4 level 18 PCs?Here are the CR calculations for above. FYI a 2024 CR 24 dragon is equivalent to a CR 27 in 2014.[spoiler=Ancient Red Dragon CR Calculations]Legendary[ATTACH=full]404431[/ATTACH]Non Legendary[ATTACH=full]404432[/ATTACH][/spoiler]OK, because I think dragons should be something special, and I couldn't resist. I give you what, or close to what, I would do if I wrote the MM. I have used the Mythic template from Theros, Fizban's, etc. to make this Ancient Red a real terror! So here is my quick look at a Mythic Ancient Red Dragon.  With this option I have upped its AC, reduced its HP, and increased its damage even more and it still comes out to CR 24! Now the on turn DPR is 196 and 75 off turn for a total of 271 DPR (296 w/ Fire Breath). I am happy to sacrifice the HP to get this increases damage because I know I have Spawn of Tiamat to the rescue. Yes, it is gaming the system a bit, but it works for me! Let me know what you think![ATTACH=full]404686[/ATTACH][spoiler=Mythic CR calulation][ATTACH=full]404434[/ATTACH][/spoiler]</blockquote>

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