D&D General Which edition had the deadliest dragons?*

[Sacrosanct]

Caveat: Deadliest is defined as when the dragon would typically be expected encountered by a party of appropriate level. I.e., you wouldn't be comparing raw #s against each other across the board, as that wouldn't be an accurate comparison. For example, a 1e dragon would look weak compared to a 3e or 4e, but when you compare it to how it does against a typical level 1e party, then it becomes more apparent.

Early dragons (1e/B/X): they might look weaker by the numbers, but so were the characters. And they were encountered at much lower levels. A 9th level party could expect to see an ancient red dragon. Breath weapons were 3x a day (so you could do 3 rounds in a row), and they did the dragon's hp in damage. So that ancient red dragon would do 88 points on a failed save, 44 on a made one, each round for 3 rounds. For reference, a 9th level fighter with 16 CON would have 60ish HP, a 9th level MU would have the low 20s in HP.

2e: The numbers were beefed up for these dragons, but so was the party level when they expected to fight them. An ancient red in 1e was 11 HD while in 2e it was around 20 HD. Breath weapon was once every 3 rounds, so they couldn't do 3 rounds in a row, but could do it more than 3x a day.

3e: Here's where we really see the numbers bloat. While dragons always had spells, this edition really turned this to 11. I don't even remotely know how all those numbers (+78 to hit with grapple, really?) would compare against an equal level party. Gonna let a 3e fan do the math here. Can a dragon wipe out an entire party with one breath weapon like in 1e? No idea.

4e: Similar to 3e, but could do breath weapon every 1d4 rounds IIRC. I don't play 4e so I have no idea how that compares. did they lose their spell casting ability as well?

5e: Seems to have toned down dragon lethality a lot. No more spells like before, but now have legendary actions and legendary resistance. does that make up for the difference? In my play experience, no. They seem way easier than in previous editions.

 

[Arvok]

1e dragons underwent an overhaul after some believed that they were too easy to defeat (and in 1e you could subdue a dragon rather than kill it). I can't remember which issue of Dragon magazine (but I'm pretty sure it was in Best of Dragon Magazine #3) had the article, but it added wing buffets and tail slaps--something pretty standard from 3e on.

I didn't vote in the poll because even though I've taken on dragons in every edition except 4e (which I never played), it's too hard to compare across editions let alone remember what all those battles were like.

 

[TarionzCousin]

3e: Here's where we really see the numbers bloat. While dragons always had spells, this edition really turned this to 11. I don't even remotely know how all those numbers (+78 to hit with grapple, really?) would compare against an equal level party. Gonna let a 3e fan do the math here. Can a dragon wipe out an entire party with one breath weapon like in 1e? No idea.

I voted for 3E dragons primarily because of their options: so many spells and attacks. If a party had good tanks, a spell or three could handle them. 3E dragons were diversely lethal.

 

[jgsugden]

5E Dragons can (at the DM's option) cast spells.

VARIANT: DRAGONS AS INNATE SPELLCASTERS

Dragons are innately magical creatures that can master a few spells as they age, using this variant.

A young or older dragon can innately cast a number of spells equal to its Charisma modifier. Each spell can be cast once per day, requiring no material components, and the spell’s level can be no higher than one-third the dragon’s challenge rating (rounded down). The dragon’s bonus to hit with spell attacks is equal to its proficiency bonus + its Charisma bonus. The dragon’s spell save DC equals 8 + its proficiency bonus + its Charisma modifier.

I up their spellcasting in my 5E games.

Dragons are (almost) all sorcerers (no subclass/sorcerous origin abilities) with a level equal to their hit dice. I have epic rules for character levels up to 30, so the 28 HD Ancient Red/Gold, etc... are covered. I up their CR as well. When combined with my homebrew spellcasting (which features a number of spells that have no concentration, but last until you next complete a long rest), you get a pretty insanely powerful creature. A dragon that is prepared for battle can be ridiculously powerful.

When it comes to determining which edition featured the most PC deaths against dragons, for me it has been 5E.

 

[commandercrud]

BECMI

Or you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[Retreater]

4E had the most tactically interesting dragons, but I would say the baked-in assumptions about draconic feats, multiattack, spellcasting, etc., makes 3.x/PF the most dangerous dragons.
You have to tool them up to make them dangerous in 5E - and they get slaughtered as solo baddies. I don't remember them being particularly scary in 2E either.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I go with 1e because breath weapons alone are super deadly when you typically have no Con modifier and no more than 10 hit dice. Also, IIRC, they were described as appearing in groups of 1-4.

3e dragons were extremely powerful because of the spellcasting, but in our case that just meant nobody ever ran them because spell selection is too time consuming and the book selections are consistently godawful.

 

[Shiroiken]

1E dragons were insanely lethal, as the average HP of a character was only about 3/4/5/6 HP per level (depending on class) until about 9th level, then add only 1-2 per level after that. Depending on the DM's interpretation of the breath weapon, however, they might be significantly weaker if they viewed it as the dragon's current HP, not their maximum. They only had two real weaknesses: you could subdue them by taking them to 25% of their HP, and there was a chance they'd be sleeping if you encountered it in its lair (granting surprise). I don't remember B/X - BECMI dragons, but I imagine they ran the same way.

 

[Helldritch]

1ed all the way.
For all the reasons said in the previous posts.

But I hesitated between 1ed and 3.xed. It was a very tough choice. But the squishiness of 1ed made dragon very lethal.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Dungeon World. 15 hit points of pure terror.