Why do dragons do so little damage?

[Otterscrubber]

Ya, so when I finally ran the fight with the black dragon I added a Yuan-ti Abomination to spice it up and I'm glad I did. The first round the dragon did not put up its darkness and the PCs tore into it dong over 100hp of damage (they did all roll very well). After that the darkness was up and they all pretty much needed to roll 20s to hit it, which was frustrating, especially for the rogue who could no longer flank it in the darkness. So even when he did hit it he was not able to use his sneak attack

The fight would have been quite boring if not for the abomination who was able to hit quite hard and accurately and also had reach and climbing so he hung from the ceiling and smacked away at the PCs not in the darkness zone until the invoker pulled him down with his at-will ability that lets him slide opponents.

I think the rule here is solos are quite interesting but not when used solo. PCs have a huge tactical advantage when they outnumber something 5 to 1 and it is a fine line between a cakewalk and TPK if you are just going to use 1 monster against a party. Either the solo is so tough or has some advantage that is so great it will wreck the party or they will walk over it if allowed to position themselves to use all their abilities. If they are unable to do so, such as it is flying the whole time, then that has a very good chance to just doom the party without some clever trick to take away the big advantage of the solo. This of course requires a lot of thought for DMs. I think solos are great, but any encounter with them has to be thought out to be interesting, they make poor random encounters.

 

[eriktheguy]

Ya, so when I finally ran the fight with the black dragon I added a Yuan-ti Abomination to spice it up and I'm glad I did. The first round the dragon did not put up its darkness and the PCs tore into it dong over 100hp of damage (they did all roll very well). After that the darkness was up and they all pretty much needed to roll 20s to hit it, which was frustrating, especially for the rogue who could no longer flank it in the darkness. So even when he did hit it he was not able to use his sneak attack

The fight would have been quite boring if not for the abomination who was able to hit quite hard and accurately and also had reach and climbing so he hung from the ceiling and smacked away at the PCs not in the darkness zone until the invoker pulled him down with his at-will ability that lets him slide opponents.

I think the rule here is solos are quite interesting but not when used solo. PCs have a huge tactical advantage when they outnumber something 5 to 1 and it is a fine line between a cakewalk and TPK if you are just going to use 1 monster against a party. Either the solo is so tough or has some advantage that is so great it will wreck the party or they will walk over it if allowed to position themselves to use all their abilities. If they are unable to do so, such as it is flying the whole time, then that has a very good chance to just doom the party without some clever trick to take away the big advantage of the solo. This of course requires a lot of thought for DMs. I think solos are great, but any encounter with them has to be thought out to be interesting, they make poor random encounters.

Your fight with the Dragon et al. sounded like a hit, and I'm glad that you found one way around the boring solo fights issue. It isn't true that a dragon on its own is always boring though. If the dragon, or any solo, fights PCs in a large open room, the fight is going to be a dice rolling fest for only a few boring turns. A dragon in a dimly lit catacomb full of large pillars that provide cover for stealth can be just as intriguing as including a Yaun-ti. The red dragon might use the cover to quickly duck out each time it uses its breath weapon, avoiding the PC's attacks while it recharges. This terrain won't allow the PCs to simply dig into the dragon for 100hp/turn. Blue dragons are artillery, so their battle rooms should allow them to use the terrain to pelt the characters from afar using cover and height to their advantage.
Just remember that its your job to make dragons seem epic, not James Wyatt, Mike Mearls or Stephen Schubert's