Black dragons can grab characters and drag them under water and crocodile death roll them. Makes one heck of a sneak attack for a younger black dragon.
I have to say, having a red dragon cast cone of cold at the party that invested heavily in fire resistant gear would be absolutely hilarious, and again speak to the dragons intelligence and ability to prepare for adventurers.
Remember that when attempting to bribe a dragon you should never offer up something that you already have in your possession. Why bother striking a deal when they could just take it from you?
Red dragon with an iron golem that heals from the dragon’s breath weapon. Tell me a dragon wouldn’t love to have a warrior golem that obeys it’s orders and stokes its ego. This immediately takes a bit of the spotlight off the dragon and makes the fight many times tougher.
The most memorable moment (so far) of the current campaign I’m playing is when our small band of second-level characters were surrounded by orcs and rolling badly; two of the three of us were within one hit of going down. In a hail-Mary gamble, our sorcerer illusioned.....the sound of a dragon mating call. It attracted the young white dragon we knew was in the area and with two Draconic-speaking characters-one with high Deception and one with high Persuasion-we were able to take advantage of his youthful pride to convince him we’d be his faithful minions. It was *not* how our DM expected the adventure to go, but we survived the night!
My party goaded my blue dragon in his lair....He has simply been burrowing and popping up with his breath weapon recharged. Or my favorite so far popping up, grappling a PC and burrowing underground and leaving them like 10 ft under the sand. Lots of panic and regret for taunting a dragon has ensued.
Another powerful and very nasty spell a dragon can cast to prep its lair for combat is the Hallow spell. Because a dragon’s Innate Spellcasting trait is limited by level rather than class, any sufficiently old and powerful dragon can cast it. Hallow can cause the PCs who enter the area to, upon failing a saving throw, become vulnerable to whichever energy type the dragon uses as its breath weapon. This for example doubles the 91 points of fire damage from an ancient red dragon’s Fire Breath to a staggering 182 points, somewhat more severe than a meteor swarm. And the vulnerability persists so long as they remain in the area of the Hallow spell.
Little known fact: Blue dragons *hate* body hair. It makes them gag. Never send the dwarf to parlay with a blue dragon, unless they want their beard to receive electrolysis. 😂
Jay Bronkema Electrolysis: 1. CHEMISTRY chemical decomposition produced by passing an electric current through a liquid or solution containing ions. 2. the removal of hair roots or small blemishes on the skin by the application of heat using an electric current.
Awesome party counter for 16:00. Cast a disguise on the Fighter so he looks like a shrimpy Wizard. Fail his strength save on purpose and Action Surge flurry on the way up. Wear boots of flying or similar. Double down and everyone is disguised as each other Mission Impossible style.
When taking on a high level dragon, it's a good tip to play to their personality defects as well. Most Chromatic dragons have something in their nature that is easy to exploit. For example, White Dragons are actually cowards, so if your party does what they can to be scary, a White may even run away. Blue Dragons are very Lawful Evil, and will actually adhere to a degree of fair play, making them a bit more of a straight forward battle, and Red Dragons can be led into traps if you make them super Angry (although that one is super risky lol)!
The first time I encountered a Dragon was almost 30 years ago playing Shadowrun . I was playing a Troll physical adept who was hired by a small village to stop something that was killing their animals . I went down to the lake where the villagers said that attacks took place and tossed a hand grenade into the water . As the dragon rose out of the water I said " I am so sorry " . And then I worked for a Dragon .
This was a very timely video, I've got my first real dragon fight coming up for my players in the next couple of weeks and I really want the fight to be something special. Thanks Boys.
So I ran the fight last Saturday and it went really well. I think I could have made it go a bit smoother as a DM, but that's always true. Biggest thing I did was never let the Dragon land, so the paladin (party's biggest damage dealer) couldn't get into combat. All in all it was a really deadly fight with 2 players unconscious and everyone really low HP at the end, everyone cheered when they won which was awesome.
I've came here for a similar reason, I'm a player and my dm has prepared a dragon encounter for tmrw and I came here looking for a way to not get destroyed.
In one of my very early DM encounters, I landed a young black dragon in the town centre at the end of the tier 1 campaign to taunt the party & give hints/hooks for the next part of the adventure, kill an NPC and fly off. I didn't understand the recharge for the breath weapon was a roll of 5 or 6 each round and I thought I could only use it on round 5 & 6. He was dead by then. :(
I don't have a lot of experience with the new editions, but one of my favorite dick moves back in 3.5 was to have a dragon know the fly spell, just for improved mobility in the air. Because no party wants to fight a flying dragon that turns on a dime.
I was wondering the same thing. They usually are such sticklers for the rules and mention if something is table ruled so I looked it up in case I had missed something and confirmed on SA that there isn't a scenario where trip attack would be that effective. Granted if you went the RAI route, if a Battlemaster had Enlarge casted on them they could trip huge creatures but by the RAW that's not ever a thing so it's really up to a DM if you wanted this maneuver to become this powerful. At my table I let crazy feats of strength like this happen at the cost of an additional superiority dice and if attempted more than once per short rest a CON save for exhaustion since they are over exerting. ::shrugs:: Anyways glad I wasn't the only one who thought about this.
@@Dezbood well we weren't talking about how other features can achieve the same goals obviously there are many ways to do many things in D&D. We were just referencing the misinformation in the aforementioned video...
There's a youtuber named mr rhex (something like that) that has a series about all things dragon, including all their personalities and what they hoard, etc.
The dragon that pretends to be a human Empress in my setting considers her empire as her horde. Land, people, artifacts, special locations, anything and everything she conquers.
@@samuelevans738 Well this module has 3 starting points, one of them being in the Empire, however my players started in the Azuiviel Republic (a theocratic, warmongering, elf-supremacist nation at war with the Kingdom of Reise - a human nation). So there hasn't been much adventures in the Empire yet.. Most don't even know the Empress is even a dragon (as she takes human form most of the time outside of her private chambers below the palace). There are rumors amongst her populace that she may be a devil in disguise - but those rumors get squashed and people end up being silenced.. xD
That reminds me of story from guy named Spoony: one DM screwed advanturers by let the dragon throwing rocks from the sky as if it was bomber plane. It sounded very smart yet fastest way to piss of PC lads.
Or if a Dragon was particularly devious, have it fight to the "death" only for it to then be revealed at that point that the party was fighting a *dracolich* (that is still nowhere near being finished) that was simply using an illusion to make itself *look* like a still-living and mortal Dragon, and then give the Dragon some means of blocking methods of identifying that deception until such a time as dropping that ruse would give it the biggest advantage....but also allow there to still be clues that something is "off" about that particular dragon (like it being immune to negative energy, or the dragon making use of some undead as "fodder" and "meat shields") to get the party wondering if the Dragon is a Necromancer....or something else entirely. And another possibility to make use of a Dragon's intelligence, could be to have the dragon actually have a "hobby" related to that, like a deep love of riddles that leads to the Dragon actually enjoying a "battle of wits" by trading riddles with the PCs rather than actually *fighting* them. For instance, maybe a Black Dragon has a lair close to a settlement and has begun trying to demand tribute, leading the party to trek out there to try and put a stop to that, and in the course of doing so they discover that the Black Dragon loves riddles. So in response, the party might negotiate with the Dragon and come to an agreement or "wager", where if the party can beat the Dragon in a battle of riddles, then the Dragon will leave the settlement it was menacing alone, but if the Dragon wins, then the party will have to go to some dangerous location and retrieve something rare and valuable for the Dragon to add to it's hoard, and in return the dragon will leave that settlement alone.
I had an ancient blue dragon who collected magical lore. His lair was designed to max lightning damage via cage like architecture, and his guards were armored flesh golems. I also made him have only one wing and Jabba the Hutt levels of obesity. He had magic gear but it was hard to shot because he was decked out in so much bling... and he was a gangster too!
@@Cblade031294 to run D&D vampires right, I'm of the oppinion that reading and taking at least _some_ things from Van Richten's Guide to Vampires is almost manditory. As much as it a book from 2 exitions ago, with what that entails, the worldbuilding (for lack of a better term) for the subject matter in each of the Van Richten's guides is superb and the Vampire one is one of the best.
@@Cblade031294 I would say watch the castlevania animated show. It's got some great insight into how vampires behave. Secondly White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade is of course perfect for it
I don't know how you guys manage, but yet again a perfect video for my current game. Just started Tyranny of Dragons, and trying to make a dragon a non-slugfest should be a golden standard.
Just imagine if a brass dragon "kidnapped" a princess to talk to but when the party came to help her it turned out that she was fine with living with the dragon and that she was in fact in love or great friends with or etc. I'd be a good dm
So far I've thrown 3 dragons at my players. Young Green Dragon - Was lairing in a long abandoned tower at the top of the hill in a ruined and overgrown logging town. Even though it was young, I took inspiration from the green dragon's regional effects and had the whole town and some of the surrounding area shrouded in a dense fog, though which the players could only see about 30ft. I also give all of my dragons innate spellcasting per the Monster Manual rules, so this green dragon had a 1st and 2nd level spell: Fog Cloud, and Suggestion. Fortunately a druid was living in one of the few standing buildings in the town who was able provide them shelter (to rest) and cast Protection from Poison on several party members after they agreed to get rid of the dragon. When the party faced her, their attempts at negotiations did not get them far before a fight ensued. I seriously thought the players were done for when the Dragon cast Fog Cloud filling the entire lower floor of the tower. All of the players were effectively blinded, while the dragon could sense them fine (blindsight) and got advantage on all of its attacks. It made a breath attack against them as they scrambled to find a way to deal with the problem. One of the players got grappled on a subsequent round (a half-elf) and thrown into an upper area where another half-elven prisoner was being held, and the Dragon dove back into the fog to take out the other players. Fortunately one of the players landed a lucky hit against the dragon, and it lost its concentration on the Fog Cloud. It then used Suggestion on the wizard (who had been trying to negotiate an alliance earlier), saying that it would agree to such an alliance if the Wizard would help deal with the other Interlopers. The wizard failed his save, and things began to look grim for the players again. Eventually enough of the players made it to the second floor and engaged the Dragon in Melee. The dragon was reduced to half-HP and on its next turn attempted to retreat through the hole in the tower roof, but fortunately the monk had taken the Sentinel feat, and was able to stop the dragon from escaping with his opportunity attack. The dragon got one-last breath attack before the remaining party members felled it with a round of attacks. Young Black Dragon - This dragon the party encountered in its lair, and underground lake at the bottom of a dungeon. As with the green dragon, I took inspiration from the black-dragon's regional effects and made the water of the lake acidic enough to deal a bit of acid damage to anyone submerged in it. I also gave this black dragon the Darkness spell so that it could attempt a similar trick of blinding the party, and max HP as the party was rather large and could deal a lot of focused damage in one round. Fortunately the party had learned about the dragon and were able to get a long rest and devise a plan before facing it. With some clever disguises (as some followers from upper floors) and illusions they came to the dragon offering the monk as tribute, in exchange for information. The dragon was tight lipped, but the wizard manged to get him to talk with a suggestion spell. They got the information, but then the dragon wanted his payment. The wizard walked the monk up to the water's ledge, cast fly on him, and pushed him off. The dragon was mostly submerged in the water with only his head sticking out, but the monk caught him by surprise and attacked. When the dragon tried to duck underwater to re-position, Sentinel again came in handy and prevented the dragon from moving. On a later turn the dragon did manage to duck underwater where it spent most of the fight, only coming up when it got its breath weapon back, or had another opportunity to single out a character and drag them into the water. Fortunately, the latter never happened, but as the party scrambled to come up with a plan for a few rounds while the dragon was underwater and they pondered what it was up to they managed to find themselves in a nice line, and the dragon took that opportunity to erupt from the lake, land in front of the players, and spew acid on them all. The ranger fell unconscious, and everyone else was brought very low. A round of attacks later the dragon was brought low enough that it saw fit to retreat. It dove back into the water and made its way toward its exit in the back of the dungeon. The party pursued and managed to land enough blows on it to stop it to stop it before it escaped. Adult White Dragon - This is getting very long, so I'll try to keep this one short. The party encounters the dragon in its lair in the core of an enormous iceberg. The Dragon breathes her cone of cold on all but one of them, before retreating to a wall about 40ft away from the ledge the players were standing on. The monk used his Boots of Striding and Springing to run and jump the distance and grapple the dragon, hanging on its back. A lair action engulfs several party members in an icy fog, while the dragon uses her legendary actions to swat its tail at the monk, and casts Sleet Storm to engulf the rest of the party. In subsequent rounds the party found their way out of the sleet-storm and the warlock managed to dispel it. Meanwhile, the dragon was using her actions to try to shake the monk off, and her legendary actions to swat at him with her tail, but the dice were not in her favor. The dragon had already taken some heavy damage from a couple fireballs, and was now getting raked by the dragonborn on her back. After the party had dealt with the sleet storm, they found the dragon, and their dragonborn ally were nowhere to be seen. The dragon had retreated to a back tunnel and was burrowing out of the iceburg with the monk miraculously still clinging to her back. The party discovered this and pursued, but had to break through a wall of ice that had interposed itself between them. When they made it through, the fighter made good use of action surge and finished the dragon off with his magical greatsword, before the party recovered their now-unconscious dragonborn ally. If you got this far, I hope you found the read interesting. I'd be happy to answer any questions or go into more detail if anyone cares. Each of these fights were huge intense battles that took most of the session to play out. If I went into full detail I could write at least a good chapter about each of these encounters and everything that went into them. They were each very memorable fights, and there was a point in each of them where I thought one of more players was going to die, or that the dragon was going to escape, but fortunately that's not how it played out.
@@robertbeach71 Actually, my group hasn't reached Aurathator yet. It was Glazhael. I didn't mention their names because I wanted to avoid spoilers for anyone who might be in one of those adventures.
That first fight was so cinematic I could see it in my head. It has a really good narrative arc to it, with the wizard betrayal and fog inside the tower making things look grim, but then you turn it around.
I'm using a Shadow Dragon (Copper) Underground against my party soon, the party think that hunting it in the depths of its warrens that trail down into the under-dark is a good idea... but it has a nasty burrow speed and blind-sense. So, this is going to be good fun.
Damn I love these videos. There’s a dragon in my campaign setting that my players may be going after soon, so I needed this. If I could cast my vote for the next monster tactics video, I’d choose either the Lich or the Vampire. They’re so commonly used and they’re supper versatile villians. Unfortunately their stat blocks, HP specifically, means that they tend to go down very quickly. A lot of DMs could use some advice in how to run these monsters.
My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death! ( Come on dragons are freaking cool )
I love giving my dragons the Dragon Breath spell. Watching your players super prepare for that red dragons fire breath only for it to shoot lightning out of it's mouth every turn instead is great.
Last session planning DnD - "Crap, how shall I play the dragon BBEG??? There must be a decent video??" - NOPE Today... huzzaahh. Just 4 weeks too late :P Didn't need one in the end. I think I played it really well. I had scripted a loop of 6 actions with occasional legendary style actions dropped in depending on the flow of the battle. I also had a battle going on at the same time, the players also rolled for ballista shots against it made by the undead army that supported them (yay skeletons intelligence). Missed shots gave the dragon the opportunity to catch the bolts too. The monk actually ended up pinned to the floor through his shoulder whilst still standing. The fight was pretty epic and went well. I probably could have gone a bit harder on them but the wizard actually died. The dragon crash landed on the house he was hiding in, taking the roof in. The wizard survived by passing a high dex check to roll into a doorway (nat 20) but sadly took the full force of a bite and round of claws critting on him. Thankfully that also lead to him being kept 'alive' by an NPC necro homebrew as undead and has chosen to stay that way... without telling anyone else in the party but the cleric.. yet ;) That will happen tomorrow in the next session, the party will think that he is being taken to be restored but actually going through with the ritual to complete the transformation. Should be interesting
This video has inspired me to run a "very straightforward" dragon slaying one-shot that turns into a pain in the neck because the dragon is no pushover.
As always Dungeon Dudes, super job! Creating tactics for monsters is a weak point of my DM'ing. No tactics = a slog. Much better to create tactics and determining what a monster will do under certain conditions. Thanks for the ideas!
another powerfull attack a large dragon can pull of is having a stash of rocks while flying far above its enemies basicly carpet bombing them to soften them up before coming in for a beathweapon strife attack
In regards to the display of the treasures: If you really want to annoy your players, your dragon could melt everything together. A solid mountain of gold and in it, inseperable connected, all the gems, finely crafted items and so on. The dragon as an artist and all their treasure as the canvas.
Had a 3.5 campaign get pretty out of hand with out party of gestalted characters who got dragon eggs that the DM customised to our characters and we ended up going through a whole bunch of stuff bonding with the dragons, going through an increased aging mechanic and it was so much fun But it pretty quickly became to much for our dm to be able to throw challenges at us that wouldn't have just straight up killed us all lol
Kobolds can be super effective. I always have them build a ton of small tunnels that connect between the larger passageways. So, they can pop out attack and duck back into the small hole. This hit and run tactic, along with traps, makes them a lot harder than their CR suggests.
This was so helpful! We just ended our session realizing there's a sleeping dragon in the tower we have to enter. This gave me a ton of great ideas on how to talk to him :] because we're level 4 we definitely can't kill it lmao
OMG! Super excellent video dudes! You inspired me to Hit my Adventures Tomorrow With a Dragon! now to pick a color and build the environment and Encounter. thank you so much!
Something awesome you could do with the 5 Dragonlords is to have them as each of the 5 Chromatic Dragons 😀 Like; Atarka is a Red Dragon, Silumgar is a Green Dragon, Ojutai is a Blue Dragon, Kolaghan is a Black Dragon and Dromoka is a White Dragon. Or however you wouæd classify them 😁
I have atarka red, ojutai white, kolagan blue, silumgar green, but i don't wanna give dramoka acid breath so I'm gonna just take dragon stats and flavor them all.... because dramoka would do radiant/solar damage.
That makes pretty good sense. The reason I place Ojutai as Blue instead of White is because White dragons are mostly Primal and rather unintelligent, which is the opposite of Ojutai who is hyper-intelligent and rather civilized (if I Remember my Tarkir lore correctly)
Yeah I'm just going to use the dragon template and "Homebrew" them but try to keep them balanced. I have months to do it. My players are in Valor's Reach (the plane battlebond was on) fighting in the arena so lots of time.
About the magic items: Usually only the metallic dragons go into humanoid form, but it's absolutely possible for chromatic dragons to do the same (see half dragons in the Monster Manual). So, why not just let them change form and use a whole barrage of magic items, that fit. Maybe just in the beginning. The "For you I do not need my true form"-Trope.
Idea for conning a dragon who likes historical stuff: offer to procure an item of historical significance in exchange for a magic item that isn't very famous, but the magic item is SO much better than the historical item. It's less of a con, and more of a good deal, but it does mean that the paladin won't whinge at you... unless you don't let him/ her have the magic item.
i got a brass young dragon roaming the land. My NPC's occasionally encounter him in various locasion while in its polymorphed halfling form. The dragon is indeed gathering stories and knowledge around the area. Using it more as a lore dump to provide the PC's in character information should they ask the right questions. And eventual tie in for Rise of Tiamat after Red Hand of Doom. The young green dragon in Red Hand of Doom. On that bridge. I gave it spells like Fog Cloud to hide in, or obscure the depth of the canyon below the bridge. Some of the hobgoblins in the camp were bardic of nature. With their war drums casting some support spells out of range from the party. Imagine the enemies casting Fog/Mist etc, which they can do in preparation. Since the Green Dragons get information a mile out from the local wildlife. And then the hob "bards" cast Faery Fire to hightlight the PC's for the dragon, hell hounds and archers to attack with advantage. And of course some magical potions swallowed in prep while the PC's approach. From Vraath Keep's fight I altered one of the rewards to be a brass griffon statue that could grow in size and let some PC's up in the air. Didn't help them much in the end hehe. When approaching the bridge i described the weather changing from early morning until the moment they arrived there. Building up the sensation. Did some weather research and it does exist...mist forming in tropical climates. So I used that to set the scene. Combined with describing how the wildlife was surprisingly quiet and seemingly paying attention to them. The young Black dragon end of Forge of Fury. Breath Attack and then slides on the embankment to grapple the heavy armored cleric and pull that PC underwater. With weaker versions of the legendary whirpool spells. That have a smaller pull range and much lower save DC to match the level its at. A jar of refilling charges of magical magics. Which the party found in a green hag's lair was used to give everyone water breathing right after the cleric went under. But their weapons and movement was atrocious under water. Meaning the dragon could just maul on one PC while waiting for breath weapon to re-charge. Use it and drag the next PC under water and isolate it from the others. Meaning the PC's ran. As a build up in this case the journey from Blasingdell into the mountains towards Khundrukkar had them go through some woods. And through some nature checks from ranger+druid as well as the local Goliath Warden hinting that nature had become more dense the past few months etc. Some nice fights. Can't wait for the next dragon fight in Red Hand of Doom to occur :D
I typically plan on running an adult dragon in a two part encounter: Part One: The Dragon might catch the party unaware but ultimately underestimates them. They run (fly) if they are bloodied, or if they take an attack/round of attacks which deals significant damage compared to their HP (20% or more). Part Two, the dragon retreats to its lair and prepares to face the adventurers. If they decide not to venture in, the dragon begins plotting revenge.
Outstanding points. I love the point you made that adult and ancient dragons have survived many a party of adventurers and have a lot of experience in killing them or escaping death.
One thing that I didn't see in your video is the Shadow and Dracolich variant of the Dragons, they are super awesome and play against these dragons can be really difficult !
My buddy is running Lost Mines of Phandelver in one of my groups. We managed to make a deal with the dragon lairing in Thundertree that we would bring him a goblin army (the one at Cragmaw Castle) in 10 days. This completely changed the dynamic of the campaign, since it went from just finding Gundren to finding some way to appease this creature that could lay waste to Phandalin, and even settlements beyond.
Dragons dropping boulders from over 60 feet or even higher is relatively safe and a real danger. Also minions that purposefully hinder party members from closing into melee are also challenging, especially if the dragon really does not care if their own minions are caught in a breath weapon.
I appreciate you saying that it should feel insurmountable. I thought about trying to make this encounter hard but beatable, and now I am just going to do my best to create a "realistic" deadly encounter. Either they will prevail or they don't. =^-^=
Use perches like cliffs of a crag. Imagine a blue dragon adult casting lightning bolt constantly on his perch instead of flying and carpet bombing with his breath weapon.
Party are drawing close to the red hand of doom adventure! I have seeded that something big is going on with the dragons and I am really looking forward to them taking on 4 of these guys
One dragon that might not be flying is the burrowing Blue Dragon. I had a Blue Dragon that was in charge of a smuggling ring based in the desert. When the players invaded, they only heard the dragon's voice as the whole hideout collapsed. Players quickly teleported out before the collapse, but not before their metallic items were magnetically pulled away from them if they failed a check (I give Blue Dragons powers of magnetism). The dragon later confronted them (long story short) on a sandy beach where it was shifting between burrowing and flying (very fun)!
Wow! Great video guys. I thought I knew how to play a memorable dragon, but these tactics are next level and truly vicious and deadly. I will be looking for every entry in the series.
I used this video and its the first time i see my players running in panic from a monster, they knew in the moment the black dragon emerged from the lake near a castle that the only they could do (a 10 level 7 adventurers party) was to run away and cover, thank you for these magnific ideas on how to run encounter with dragons!
@@davewilson13 This is the first campaign ive DMed. For safety reasons i gave each player a one time blessing that, if they die, they get revived at half health. This dragon fight is put in place to take that away from as many of them as possible. 😁
One of the earliest books I read was Sir Farmer Giles of Ham. The classic dragon that will take out any number of brave knights, but is defeated by one canny farmer backed up by the threat of one or two shotgun blasts.
My players are currently dealing with a treasure collecting adult green dragon, but they have no idea. Using magic, she takes the form of an elf calling herself "Lord Green". One of Lord Green's minions was a young green dragon who didn't actually know that its boss (which it was going to double cross) was herself a dragon. The players did a couple treasure retrieval jobs for Lord Green and ended killing the younger dragon. They did the job and got paid, but they still think Lord Green is an elflord with pretensions. I am not sure where it will end up (they have currently moved on to other adventures), but eventually there will be some dramatic reveals. Like you Dudes said, dragons are old and crafty. That can include not even revealing that the dragon is a dragon.
With fizbans additions of animated breath, I like to describe the dragon blowing out a thin stream of fire (or whatever else) and having it shape itself into several roughly humanoid shapes and turn on the party. Great way to bring minions into a fight, or just to have them test the party.
One correction for the Dungeon Dudes. Fall damage only inflicts one failed death save due to the fact it is not a melee attack. So it would not count as a crit. The fact it is a critical hit on melee is why it would be two failed death saves
you corrected them incorrectly. Nowhere does it state that the hit has to come from a melee attack. it explicitly states "if you take any damage while you have 0 hit points". Every damage you take at that point is considered an automatic critical. Including fall from great heights into the ground. Meaning 2 failures.
@@GiblixStudio Except that is not the case. Being at 0 HP says you have the Unconcious condition which says the following Any Attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Falling damage is not an attack. it is damage. so it is one 1 failed death save as per this. Damage at 0 Hit Points: If you take any damage while you have 0 Hit Points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer Instant Death.
We met an ancient black dragon during our campaign. We were only level 5 then, so there was no chance fighting it. The thing was, we had to get to the top of a mountain to stop a mad wizard with an amulet that made you able to practically spam Wish, with a little side effect that made you more insane as you used it. There was so much weird stuff happening on that mountain at the same time, so by the time we met the dragon, we weren't even surprised. Anyways, the dragon was sleeping at first, and we just decided to try and sneak past it, but by happenstance (and some unlucky rolls) the whole party almost fell off a cliff, and we managed to wake it up, and our party's fighter sacrificed himself by throwing himself in its mouth and causing it a lot of pain for those few seconds we had to get away from the dragon. In the end, the whole mad wizard mess was sorted out (rather bloodily though). One of my favorite sessions during that campaign.
In my game, the DM set the party up for a dragon fight. He placed a dragon on the top of the mountain my monk was from. We'd gotten a few warnings there was a dragon in the area and it was clearly a fight the DM had been planning. So he was thrown for a bit of a loop when we found a white dragon egg and our party of nothing but good alignment players opted to adopt the chaotic evil baby. My monk and the mystic both spoke draconic, so the dragon became our son as the party started testing nature vs nurture as we taught him to be a good boy. He ended up a full time NPC party member. He learned how to transform into an ice genasi after we had dinner with Lord Bahamut and ended up becoming a wizard. Our DM never understood why the party took his 2 challenge rating combat and adopted it, but we did. I will forever miss our dragon son.
I'm glad the Dungeon Dudes spoke about spell-casting abilities, & Intelligence. One campaign that I was playing our party thought we were getting close to the area were a dragon was. Our party happened upon a "lone survivor" of a force that had already fought the dragon our party was searching for. The new "NPC" agreed to help act as a archer who could help in the back and guard the wizard. Fast forward to a lair with a "sleeping dragon". As our party makes our plan, and the attack is about to begin... with not our party attacking a sleeping dragon, but our wizard getting shredded in the rear by a poly-morphed NPC back into his normal dragon body. Yeah it sucked, but a clever DM made a real impression left on us that dragons are not to be taken lightly, or underestimated. Well played Eric were ever you are.
I love your videos. They help me understand so much about D&D and 5e. Dragons are awesome. It would be great if you did a D&D basics video for new players. Basics on combat, exploring and dealing with NPC's. Just a half hour video so new players feel like they can walk into a campaign and not say that they don't know what to do. Thanks for the great content!
A spell I really enjoyed when I used a spellcasting dragon was Far Step from XGtE. Concentration for 1 minute, bonus action to teleport 60ft. A nice way to get a dragon in for melee attacks and then teleporting away.
@@gamecavalier3230 That also works, but if you True Polymorph into an Adult Dragon or an Ancient Dragon, (brass or white dragon only for Ancient Dragons) and focus on it for the full duration, the polymorph becomes permanent.
@@gamecavalier3230 Depends on the DM. There are variant rules that give dragons a number of spells equal to their charisma modifier up to 1/3 their CR. Your spellcasting would become a bit limited, but if your a Draconic Soul sorcerer, you can just pick your go-to spells and be good. I would say go with an Adult Gold Dragon, so you have access to seven spells. Also, Adult Gold Dragons have the Change Shape ability. I could see a DM ruling that you could revert back to your humanoid form after the spell's duration and keep your spellcasting ability from before, but in your dragon form, you use the variant rule for draconic spellcasting.
@@gamecavalier3230 Yeah, but it also says, "You transform into an average example of that creature, one that doesn't have any class levels or spellcasting."
Monty used his breath weapon at 32:16, Kelly made his perception roll, and surely a wisdom saving roll to not crack up and ruin the take. I failed mine. I failed mine miserably and I have no regrets.
Another great video as usual, love the work from you guys, I was just wondering if maybe could we get a video based on using the Whip as a weapon or other tactical means, I would love to see what classes, feats, & other things you would recommend for use of a Whip. I personally believe that if anyone could think of interesting & fun ways to achieve this it would be you guys. Loving the work always
one thing I do to make the dragons flight logical is that when they fly they use the levitate spell, the wings would be to push the air to move around (dragons swim in the air instead of flying) so if you can use the spell dispel magic the dragon will fall
The group I GM for recently defeated an adult white dragon at the end of one adventure. At the start of the second adventure, they encountered another white dragon which they didn't plan for or buff up against. It almost killed the whole party. The breath weapon alone took out the cleric. It then took out the wizard that was giving everyone flight. The party was very lucky not getting wiped.
Right now, we had our first fight against a Homebrew young black dragon on a Swamp which has somewhere its lair. We put down almost 70% of its health points, but we had to take a short rest, because we were beaten up, need some healing and a companion felt unconsious, and also the dragon went away under water. one hour later, it seems we have found an entrance to the lair, but it seems underwater, which is somehow a tricky situation due the dirty water and we dont know how long the entrance it is... but we dont have much time, we need to make use the situation, its almost dead...
Watching this while planning out a few dragon encounters I’m putting in my campaign, currently have a Young White, Blue, and Black planned. Along with an Adult White and Adult Green. Basically just throwing anything at a few min-maxers. This campaign started as my group of friends trying DnD some for the first time.
14:58 Quick correction. For a monster, a grapple is their attack action. Multiattack is not multiple attacks. Still it's 20d6 damage after a couple turns, so it's a very viable strategy
Actually no, if you look in Chapter 9 and the section "Making An Attack", and go to the bottom of the section, it'll tell you that grappling take up only one attack out of multi-attack, not consuming the entire action.
At 12:32 is when they get into NEW ideas for running dragons, its a nice refresh or explanation about dragons IF your not familiar with them. So if you dont need that guys, skip to that part of the video.
I love all these opinions on dragons. It was quite unfortunate that in my most recent use of a dragon (Calcryx the white wyrmling) the dragonborn fighter just barely said the wrong thing and so the breath weapon went off one-shoting the rogue. People, please take care of what you say to dragons. You are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
My half orc bard tried to make demands of my black in her lair after she had kidnapped and mutilated the fighter (who tried to seduce her) and took half the bards hit points with its breath. The dragon wanted information on an item they had, the bard thought that gave them the upper hand. No attempt to goad or flatter, just flat out demanding she let them leave or pay for the information
Though a Trip Attack would not work on an adult or ancient dragon, since they are huge/gargantuan respectively. Love the point about how an older dragon should be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the party member.
Question: what do y’all think about the house rule of having the dragon able to disengage at any time to fly without causing an attack of opportunity. The concept is that the powerful wings push down with such force that creatures within 5 ft can’t use a reaction and (if you want to add more fun) have to make a str check DC10, where if they fail, they get pushed back 10 feet
Great stuff, let’s not forget the ultimate reason for fighting/encounters with dragons…their name is in the game title! If someone has played D&D and never messed with a dragon, then they’ve only played dungeons!
In my last game, the PC's managed to steal two magic items from an adult green dragon (they are four players at level 4 and they rolled AMAZING stealth). Later that day they were ambushed by 3 green wyrmlings, where one character died and other two were at two death fails. It was intense.
Black dragons can grab characters and drag them under water and crocodile death roll them. Makes one heck of a sneak attack for a younger black dragon.
T
T
Put this into play against my party. The Paladin countered it with a grapple and a crit smite. I was so proud of him.
@@FiendishSquirrle that's so badass lol I love that
Red Dragon that lives in a Volcano does the same thing but in Lava.
I have to say, having a red dragon cast cone of cold at the party that invested heavily in fire resistant gear would be absolutely hilarious, and again speak to the dragons intelligence and ability to prepare for adventurers.
The party:
The dragon:
The party:
The dragon: yall need to CHILL
Entire party dies from cringe on the spot.
Remember that when attempting to bribe a dragon you should never offer up something that you already have in your possession. Why bother striking a deal when they could just take it from you?
I thought this was only supposed to apply to white dragons?
@@uwuauphourous1170I believe it’s just the white ones
Red dragon with an iron golem that heals from the dragon’s breath weapon. Tell me a dragon wouldn’t love to have a warrior golem that obeys it’s orders and stokes its ego. This immediately takes a bit of the spotlight off the dragon and makes the fight many times tougher.
Taking that thank you!
That is evil. I will do that.
Dragon that uses its treasure to fight with the animate objects spell?
or like an enslaved paladin with crusader' mantle that boosts all those objects
Can I use that in a campaign?
that is a really good idea
According to the Dragons of the North article from before 2000, Arveiaturace has the ability thats let her do pretty much that.
If you're going for a tpk why not embrace it?
The most memorable moment (so far) of the current campaign I’m playing is when our small band of second-level characters were surrounded by orcs and rolling badly; two of the three of us were within one hit of going down. In a hail-Mary gamble, our sorcerer illusioned.....the sound of a dragon mating call. It attracted the young white dragon we knew was in the area and with two Draconic-speaking characters-one with high Deception and one with high Persuasion-we were able to take advantage of his youthful pride to convince him we’d be his faithful minions. It was *not* how our DM expected the adventure to go, but we survived the night!
My party goaded my blue dragon in his lair....He has simply been burrowing and popping up with his breath weapon recharged. Or my favorite so far popping up, grappling a PC and burrowing underground and leaving them like 10 ft under the sand. Lots of panic and regret for taunting a dragon has ensued.
This is just perfect.
Another powerful and very nasty spell a dragon can cast to prep its lair for combat is the Hallow spell. Because a dragon’s Innate Spellcasting trait is limited by level rather than class, any sufficiently old and powerful dragon can cast it. Hallow can cause the PCs who enter the area to, upon failing a saving throw, become vulnerable to whichever energy type the dragon uses as its breath weapon. This for example doubles the 91 points of fire damage from an ancient red dragon’s Fire Breath to a staggering 182 points, somewhat more severe than a meteor swarm. And the vulnerability persists so long as they remain in the area of the Hallow spell.
If you absolutely have to have a tpk
@@ladylad2763 or at the very least, humble a high level party
@@dynamicworlds1 depends on the color and magic items
SLAY THEM ALL!
Oh... gold dragon against evil adventures, with hallow and crown of madness...
Little known fact: Blue dragons *hate* body hair. It makes them gag. Never send the dwarf to parlay with a blue dragon, unless they want their beard to receive electrolysis. 😂
Oh god... wait, why don't Behir have bristles then? Also, where did you find this particular tidbit? I want to know more!😃
Isn't electrolysis the process of separating water into oxygen and hydrogen?
Jay Bronkema
Electrolysis:
1. CHEMISTRY
chemical decomposition produced by passing an electric current through a liquid or solution containing ions.
2.
the removal of hair roots or small blemishes on the skin by the application of heat using an electric current.
Awesome party counter for 16:00. Cast a disguise on the Fighter so he looks like a shrimpy Wizard. Fail his strength save on purpose and Action Surge flurry on the way up. Wear boots of flying or similar. Double down and everyone is disguised as each other Mission Impossible style.
So, you're saying the Night King in Game of thrones had some Battlemaster levels?
I don’t think he had the trip attack. It was more like he deal 60d6 cold damage with the ice javelin
When taking on a high level dragon, it's a good tip to play to their personality defects as well. Most Chromatic dragons have something in their nature that is easy to exploit. For example, White Dragons are actually cowards, so if your party does what they can to be scary, a White may even run away. Blue Dragons are very Lawful Evil, and will actually adhere to a degree of fair play, making them a bit more of a straight forward battle, and Red Dragons can be led into traps if you make them super Angry (although that one is super risky lol)!
The first time I encountered a Dragon was almost 30 years ago playing Shadowrun . I was playing a Troll physical adept who was hired by a small village to stop something that was killing their animals . I went down to the lake where the villagers said that attacks took place and tossed a hand grenade into the water . As the dragon rose out of the water I said " I am so sorry " . And then I worked for a Dragon .
This was a very timely video, I've got my first real dragon fight coming up for my players in the next couple of weeks and I really want the fight to be something special. Thanks Boys.
/remindme in a couple of weeks
So I ran the fight last Saturday and it went really well. I think I could have made it go a bit smoother as a DM, but that's always true. Biggest thing I did was never let the Dragon land, so the paladin (party's biggest damage dealer) couldn't get into combat. All in all it was a really deadly fight with 2 players unconscious and everyone really low HP at the end, everyone cheered when they won which was awesome.
I've came here for a similar reason, I'm a player and my dm has prepared a dragon encounter for tmrw and I came here looking for a way to not get destroyed.
In one of my very early DM encounters, I landed a young black dragon in the town centre at the end of the tier 1 campaign to taunt the party & give hints/hooks for the next part of the adventure, kill an NPC and fly off.
I didn't understand the recharge for the breath weapon was a roll of 5 or 6 each round and I thought I could only use it on round 5 & 6. He was dead by then. :(
One thing adult dragons can do from the air when the breath has not been recharged is use their tail attack at a 10 or 15 feet distance in the air
Or a swooping grappling attack, picking up that unsuspecting party member or hireling, and dropping them from up high.
I don't have a lot of experience with the new editions, but one of my favorite dick moves back in 3.5 was to have a dragon know the fly spell, just for improved mobility in the air. Because no party wants to fight a flying dragon that turns on a dime.
In D&D 5e, there aren't different types of flight mobility -- every flying character can hover, ascend vertically, and turn on a dime.
Battlemaster Trip only works on Large or smaller creatures. Not going to bother most dragons.
I was wondering the same thing. They usually are such sticklers for the rules and mention if something is table ruled so I looked it up in case I had missed something and confirmed on SA that there isn't a scenario where trip attack would be that effective. Granted if you went the RAI route, if a Battlemaster had Enlarge casted on them they could trip huge creatures but by the RAW that's not ever a thing so it's really up to a DM if you wanted this maneuver to become this powerful. At my table I let crazy feats of strength like this happen at the cost of an additional superiority dice and if attempted more than once per short rest a CON save for exhaustion since they are over exerting. ::shrugs:: Anyways glad I wasn't the only one who thought about this.
Yea, I believe Bigby's Hand also does force damage not cold damage.
Fought huge monsters today, it hurt the battle masters powers quite a lot.
@@Dezbood adult or younger yes but we're talking about the spear > trip attack combo referenced which could only effect a "large" dragon or smaller.
@@Dezbood well we weren't talking about how other features can achieve the same goals obviously there are many ways to do many things in D&D. We were just referencing the misinformation in the aforementioned video...
Getting ideas about a blue dragon who just really wants to be left alone!
If you read up on the different dragons they hoard different things :D
so jep there are some that hoard knowledge :D
There's a youtuber named mr rhex (something like that) that has a series about all things dragon, including all their personalities and what they hoard, etc.
The dragon that pretends to be a human Empress in my setting considers her empire as her horde. Land, people, artifacts, special locations, anything and everything she conquers.
@@lordvalinar774 have your adventures tried to take advantage of that? How?
@@samuelevans738 Well this module has 3 starting points, one of them being in the Empire, however my players started in the Azuiviel Republic (a theocratic, warmongering, elf-supremacist nation at war with the Kingdom of Reise - a human nation). So there hasn't been much adventures in the Empire yet..
Most don't even know the Empress is even a dragon (as she takes human form most of the time outside of her private chambers below the palace). There are rumors amongst her populace that she may be a devil in disguise - but those rumors get squashed and people end up being silenced.. xD
Yeah, MrRhexx is the dnd creature guy on youtube his videos are great
That reminds me of story from guy named Spoony: one DM screwed advanturers by let the dragon throwing rocks from the sky as if it was bomber plane. It sounded very smart yet fastest way to piss of PC lads.
*Bazelgeuse theme intensifies*
Or if a Dragon was particularly devious, have it fight to the "death" only for it to then be revealed at that point that the party was fighting a *dracolich* (that is still nowhere near being finished) that was simply using an illusion to make itself *look* like a still-living and mortal Dragon, and then give the Dragon some means of blocking methods of identifying that deception until such a time as dropping that ruse would give it the biggest advantage....but also allow there to still be clues that something is "off" about that particular dragon (like it being immune to negative energy, or the dragon making use of some undead as "fodder" and "meat shields") to get the party wondering if the Dragon is a Necromancer....or something else entirely.
And another possibility to make use of a Dragon's intelligence, could be to have the dragon actually have a "hobby" related to that, like a deep love of riddles that leads to the Dragon actually enjoying a "battle of wits" by trading riddles with the PCs rather than actually *fighting* them. For instance, maybe a Black Dragon has a lair close to a settlement and has begun trying to demand tribute, leading the party to trek out there to try and put a stop to that, and in the course of doing so they discover that the Black Dragon loves riddles. So in response, the party might negotiate with the Dragon and come to an agreement or "wager", where if the party can beat the Dragon in a battle of riddles, then the Dragon will leave the settlement it was menacing alone, but if the Dragon wins, then the party will have to go to some dangerous location and retrieve something rare and valuable for the Dragon to add to it's hoard, and in return the dragon will leave that settlement alone.
I had an ancient blue dragon who collected magical lore. His lair was designed to max lightning damage via cage like architecture, and his guards were armored flesh golems. I also made him have only one wing and Jabba the Hutt levels of obesity. He had magic gear but it was hard to shot because he was decked out in so much bling... and he was a gangster too!
I cast my vote for vampires next!!
I agree. A video on vampires would be amazing. Its one of those creatures that I can never really figure out how to roleplay
@@Cblade031294 to run D&D vampires right, I'm of the oppinion that reading and taking at least _some_ things from Van Richten's Guide to Vampires is almost manditory.
As much as it a book from 2 exitions ago, with what that entails, the worldbuilding (for lack of a better term) for the subject matter in each of the Van Richten's guides is superb and the Vampire one is one of the best.
@@Cblade031294 I would say watch the castlevania animated show. It's got some great insight into how vampires behave. Secondly White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade is of course perfect for it
I don't know how you guys manage, but yet again a perfect video for my current game. Just started Tyranny of Dragons, and trying to make a dragon a non-slugfest should be a golden standard.
Just imagine if a brass dragon "kidnapped" a princess to talk to but when the party came to help her it turned out that she was fine with living with the dragon and that she was in fact in love or great friends with or etc.
I'd be a good dm
So far I've thrown 3 dragons at my players.
Young Green Dragon - Was lairing in a long abandoned tower at the top of the hill in a ruined and overgrown logging town. Even though it was young, I took inspiration from the green dragon's regional effects and had the whole town and some of the surrounding area shrouded in a dense fog, though which the players could only see about 30ft. I also give all of my dragons innate spellcasting per the Monster Manual rules, so this green dragon had a 1st and 2nd level spell: Fog Cloud, and Suggestion. Fortunately a druid was living in one of the few standing buildings in the town who was able provide them shelter (to rest) and cast Protection from Poison on several party members after they agreed to get rid of the dragon. When the party faced her, their attempts at negotiations did not get them far before a fight ensued. I seriously thought the players were done for when the Dragon cast Fog Cloud filling the entire lower floor of the tower. All of the players were effectively blinded, while the dragon could sense them fine (blindsight) and got advantage on all of its attacks. It made a breath attack against them as they scrambled to find a way to deal with the problem. One of the players got grappled on a subsequent round (a half-elf) and thrown into an upper area where another half-elven prisoner was being held, and the Dragon dove back into the fog to take out the other players. Fortunately one of the players landed a lucky hit against the dragon, and it lost its concentration on the Fog Cloud. It then used Suggestion on the wizard (who had been trying to negotiate an alliance earlier), saying that it would agree to such an alliance if the Wizard would help deal with the other Interlopers. The wizard failed his save, and things began to look grim for the players again. Eventually enough of the players made it to the second floor and engaged the Dragon in Melee. The dragon was reduced to half-HP and on its next turn attempted to retreat through the hole in the tower roof, but fortunately the monk had taken the Sentinel feat, and was able to stop the dragon from escaping with his opportunity attack. The dragon got one-last breath attack before the remaining party members felled it with a round of attacks.
Young Black Dragon - This dragon the party encountered in its lair, and underground lake at the bottom of a dungeon. As with the green dragon, I took inspiration from the black-dragon's regional effects and made the water of the lake acidic enough to deal a bit of acid damage to anyone submerged in it. I also gave this black dragon the Darkness spell so that it could attempt a similar trick of blinding the party, and max HP as the party was rather large and could deal a lot of focused damage in one round. Fortunately the party had learned about the dragon and were able to get a long rest and devise a plan before facing it. With some clever disguises (as some followers from upper floors) and illusions they came to the dragon offering the monk as tribute, in exchange for information. The dragon was tight lipped, but the wizard manged to get him to talk with a suggestion spell. They got the information, but then the dragon wanted his payment. The wizard walked the monk up to the water's ledge, cast fly on him, and pushed him off. The dragon was mostly submerged in the water with only his head sticking out, but the monk caught him by surprise and attacked. When the dragon tried to duck underwater to re-position, Sentinel again came in handy and prevented the dragon from moving. On a later turn the dragon did manage to duck underwater where it spent most of the fight, only coming up when it got its breath weapon back, or had another opportunity to single out a character and drag them into the water. Fortunately, the latter never happened, but as the party scrambled to come up with a plan for a few rounds while the dragon was underwater and they pondered what it was up to they managed to find themselves in a nice line, and the dragon took that opportunity to erupt from the lake, land in front of the players, and spew acid on them all. The ranger fell unconscious, and everyone else was brought very low. A round of attacks later the dragon was brought low enough that it saw fit to retreat. It dove back into the water and made its way toward its exit in the back of the dungeon. The party pursued and managed to land enough blows on it to stop it to stop it before it escaped.
Adult White Dragon - This is getting very long, so I'll try to keep this one short. The party encounters the dragon in its lair in the core of an enormous iceberg. The Dragon breathes her cone of cold on all but one of them, before retreating to a wall about 40ft away from the ledge the players were standing on. The monk used his Boots of Striding and Springing to run and jump the distance and grapple the dragon, hanging on its back. A lair action engulfs several party members in an icy fog, while the dragon uses her legendary actions to swat its tail at the monk, and casts Sleet Storm to engulf the rest of the party. In subsequent rounds the party found their way out of the sleet-storm and the warlock managed to dispel it. Meanwhile, the dragon was using her actions to try to shake the monk off, and her legendary actions to swat at him with her tail, but the dice were not in her favor. The dragon had already taken some heavy damage from a couple fireballs, and was now getting raked by the dragonborn on her back. After the party had dealt with the sleet storm, they found the dragon, and their dragonborn ally were nowhere to be seen. The dragon had retreated to a back tunnel and was burrowing out of the iceburg with the monk miraculously still clinging to her back. The party discovered this and pursued, but had to break through a wall of ice that had interposed itself between them. When they made it through, the fighter made good use of action surge and finished the dragon off with his magical greatsword, before the party recovered their now-unconscious dragonborn ally.
If you got this far, I hope you found the read interesting. I'd be happy to answer any questions or go into more detail if anyone cares.
Each of these fights were huge intense battles that took most of the session to play out. If I went into full detail I could write at least a good chapter about each of these encounters and everything that went into them. They were each very memorable fights, and there was a point in each of them where I thought one of more players was going to die, or that the dragon was going to escape, but fortunately that's not how it played out.
Thanks for the write up. Loved to read it.
Venomfang, Nightscale and Aurathator. I’ve used all 3 of them too.
@@robertbeach71 Actually, my group hasn't reached Aurathator yet. It was Glazhael.
I didn't mention their names because I wanted to avoid spoilers for anyone who might be in one of those adventures.
Making mini rpg for middle school kids. learned a lot from your post. thanks.
That first fight was so cinematic I could see it in my head. It has a really good narrative arc to it, with the wizard betrayal and fog inside the tower making things look grim, but then you turn it around.
I'm using a Shadow Dragon (Copper) Underground against my party soon, the party think that hunting it in the depths of its warrens that trail down into the under-dark is a good idea... but it has a nasty burrow speed and blind-sense. So, this is going to be good fun.
Damn I love these videos. There’s a dragon in my campaign setting that my players may be going after soon, so I needed this.
If I could cast my vote for the next monster tactics video, I’d choose either the Lich or the Vampire. They’re so commonly used and they’re supper versatile villians. Unfortunately their stat blocks, HP specifically, means that they tend to go down very quickly. A lot of DMs could use some advice in how to run these monsters.
My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!
( Come on dragons are freaking cool )
I love the Hobbit. The cartoon is great as well.
I love giving my dragons the Dragon Breath spell. Watching your players super prepare for that red dragons fire breath only for it to shoot lightning out of it's mouth every turn instead is great.
Okay but now I want to have a dragon wield an enormous magic sword.
Shadiversity actually put out a video a while back on the best medieval weapon for fighting a dragon, I recommend checking it out.
Last session planning DnD - "Crap, how shall I play the dragon BBEG??? There must be a decent video??" - NOPE
Today... huzzaahh. Just 4 weeks too late :P Didn't need one in the end. I think I played it really well. I had scripted a loop of 6 actions with occasional legendary style actions dropped in depending on the flow of the battle. I also had a battle going on at the same time, the players also rolled for ballista shots against it made by the undead army that supported them (yay skeletons intelligence). Missed shots gave the dragon the opportunity to catch the bolts too. The monk actually ended up pinned to the floor through his shoulder whilst still standing.
The fight was pretty epic and went well. I probably could have gone a bit harder on them but the wizard actually died. The dragon crash landed on the house he was hiding in, taking the roof in. The wizard survived by passing a high dex check to roll into a doorway (nat 20) but sadly took the full force of a bite and round of claws critting on him.
Thankfully that also lead to him being kept 'alive' by an NPC necro homebrew as undead and has chosen to stay that way... without telling anyone else in the party but the cleric.. yet ;) That will happen tomorrow in the next session, the party will think that he is being taken to be restored but actually going through with the ritual to complete the transformation.
Should be interesting
This video has inspired me to run a "very straightforward" dragon slaying one-shot that turns into a pain in the neck because the dragon is no pushover.
All my dragons have a humanoid form so magic items including weapons are always fair game
As always Dungeon Dudes, super job! Creating tactics for monsters is a weak point of my DM'ing. No tactics = a slog. Much better to create tactics and determining what a monster will do under certain conditions. Thanks for the ideas!
another powerfull attack a large dragon can pull of is having a stash of rocks while flying far above its enemies basicly carpet bombing them to soften them up before coming in for a beathweapon strife attack
Nice video guys. Dragons are tough to fight and I find they usually fly away if things go badly in my games.
In regards to the display of the treasures: If you really want to annoy your players, your dragon could melt everything together. A solid mountain of gold and in it, inseperable connected, all the gems, finely crafted items and so on. The dragon as an artist and all their treasure as the canvas.
That opening sold the whole video. Very nice!
Had a 3.5 campaign get pretty out of hand with out party of gestalted characters who got dragon eggs that the DM customised to our characters and we ended up going through a whole bunch of stuff bonding with the dragons, going through an increased aging mechanic and it was so much fun But it pretty quickly became to much for our dm to be able to throw challenges at us that wouldn't have just straight up killed us all lol
Kobolds can be super effective. I always have them build a ton of small tunnels that connect between the larger passageways. So, they can pop out attack and duck back into the small hole. This hit and run tactic, along with traps, makes them a lot harder than their CR suggests.
This was so helpful! We just ended our session realizing there's a sleeping dragon in the tower we have to enter. This gave me a ton of great ideas on how to talk to him :] because we're level 4 we definitely can't kill it lmao
OMG! Super excellent video dudes! You inspired me to Hit my Adventures Tomorrow With a Dragon! now to pick a color and build the environment and Encounter. thank you so much!
I'm running a young black dragon one shot tomorrow for two of my main players, this helps alot
I love the slight change to the set and the video quality seems exceptional today!
Thank you for the tips on Dragons. I have been planning on 5 dragons based off of the Dragon lords of Tarkir. Now I feel much better equipped.
Something awesome you could do with the 5 Dragonlords is to have them as each of the 5 Chromatic Dragons 😀
Like; Atarka is a Red Dragon, Silumgar is a Green Dragon, Ojutai is a Blue Dragon, Kolaghan is a Black Dragon and Dromoka is a White Dragon.
Or however you wouæd classify them 😁
I have atarka red, ojutai white, kolagan blue, silumgar green, but i don't wanna give dramoka acid breath so I'm gonna just take dragon stats and flavor them all.... because dramoka would do radiant/solar damage.
That makes pretty good sense. The reason I place Ojutai as Blue instead of White is because White dragons are mostly Primal and rather unintelligent, which is the opposite of Ojutai who is hyper-intelligent and rather civilized (if I Remember my Tarkir lore correctly)
I do agree on giving Dromoka a Radiant breath though. That is a cool touch
Yeah I'm just going to use the dragon template and "Homebrew" them but try to keep them balanced. I have months to do it. My players are in Valor's Reach (the plane battlebond was on) fighting in the arena so lots of time.
About the magic items: Usually only the metallic dragons go into humanoid form, but it's absolutely possible for chromatic dragons to do the same (see half dragons in the Monster Manual). So, why not just let them change form and use a whole barrage of magic items, that fit. Maybe just in the beginning. The "For you I do not need my true form"-Trope.
Idea for conning a dragon who likes historical stuff: offer to procure an item of historical significance in exchange for a magic item that isn't very famous, but the magic item is SO much better than the historical item. It's less of a con, and more of a good deal, but it does mean that the paladin won't whinge at you... unless you don't let him/ her have the magic item.
i got a brass young dragon roaming the land. My NPC's occasionally encounter him in various locasion while in its polymorphed halfling form. The dragon is indeed gathering stories and knowledge around the area. Using it more as a lore dump to provide the PC's in character information should they ask the right questions. And eventual tie in for Rise of Tiamat after Red Hand of Doom.
The young green dragon in Red Hand of Doom. On that bridge. I gave it spells like Fog Cloud to hide in, or obscure the depth of the canyon below the bridge. Some of the hobgoblins in the camp were bardic of nature. With their war drums casting some support spells out of range from the party. Imagine the enemies casting Fog/Mist etc, which they can do in preparation. Since the Green Dragons get information a mile out from the local wildlife. And then the hob "bards" cast Faery Fire to hightlight the PC's for the dragon, hell hounds and archers to attack with advantage. And of course some magical potions swallowed in prep while the PC's approach. From Vraath Keep's fight I altered one of the rewards to be a brass griffon statue that could grow in size and let some PC's up in the air. Didn't help them much in the end hehe. When approaching the bridge i described the weather changing from early morning until the moment they arrived there. Building up the sensation. Did some weather research and it does exist...mist forming in tropical climates. So I used that to set the scene. Combined with describing how the wildlife was surprisingly quiet and seemingly paying attention to them.
The young Black dragon end of Forge of Fury. Breath Attack and then slides on the embankment to grapple the heavy armored cleric and pull that PC underwater. With weaker versions of the legendary whirpool spells. That have a smaller pull range and much lower save DC to match the level its at. A jar of refilling charges of magical magics. Which the party found in a green hag's lair was used to give everyone water breathing right after the cleric went under. But their weapons and movement was atrocious under water. Meaning the dragon could just maul on one PC while waiting for breath weapon to re-charge. Use it and drag the next PC under water and isolate it from the others. Meaning the PC's ran. As a build up in this case the journey from Blasingdell into the mountains towards Khundrukkar had them go through some woods. And through some nature checks from ranger+druid as well as the local Goliath Warden hinting that nature had become more dense the past few months etc.
Some nice fights. Can't wait for the next dragon fight in Red Hand of Doom to occur :D
I typically plan on running an adult dragon in a two part encounter: Part One: The Dragon might catch the party unaware but ultimately underestimates them. They run (fly) if they are bloodied, or if they take an attack/round of attacks which deals significant damage compared to their HP (20% or more).
Part Two, the dragon retreats to its lair and prepares to face the adventurers. If they decide not to venture in, the dragon begins plotting revenge.
All good until the players one shot the dragon
Outstanding points. I love the point you made that adult and ancient dragons have survived many a party of adventurers and have a lot of experience in killing them or escaping death.
27:30 they're surrounded by treasure. ANIMATE OBJECTS! Send 8 coins flying at the party, and see how they react to it! LMAO
One thing that I didn't see in your video is the Shadow and Dracolich variant of the Dragons, they are super awesome and play against these dragons can be really difficult !
My buddy is running Lost Mines of Phandelver in one of my groups. We managed to make a deal with the dragon lairing in Thundertree that we would bring him a goblin army (the one at Cragmaw Castle) in 10 days. This completely changed the dynamic of the campaign, since it went from just finding Gundren to finding some way to appease this creature that could lay waste to Phandalin, and even settlements beyond.
Dragons dropping boulders from over 60 feet or even higher is relatively safe and a real danger. Also minions that purposefully hinder party members from closing into melee are also challenging, especially if the dragon really does not care if their own minions are caught in a breath weapon.
I appreciate you saying that it should feel insurmountable. I thought about trying to make this encounter hard but beatable, and now I am just going to do my best to create a "realistic" deadly encounter. Either they will prevail or they don't. =^-^=
Yes! I have been looking forward to this video! Love y'alls content 👍🏻
Use perches like cliffs of a crag.
Imagine a blue dragon adult casting lightning bolt constantly on his perch instead of flying and carpet bombing with his breath weapon.
Party are drawing close to the red hand of doom adventure! I have seeded that something big is going on with the dragons and I am really looking forward to them taking on 4 of these guys
One dragon that might not be flying is the burrowing Blue Dragon. I had a Blue Dragon that was in charge of a smuggling ring based in the desert. When the players invaded, they only heard the dragon's voice as the whole hideout collapsed. Players quickly teleported out before the collapse, but not before their metallic items were magnetically pulled away from them if they failed a check (I give Blue Dragons powers of magnetism). The dragon later confronted them (long story short) on a sandy beach where it was shifting between burrowing and flying (very fun)!
I legit got chills from his dragon proclamation!
First UA-cam comment ever. Love y’all’s content. Super helpful! Would love to see a future video on illusion magic and the possibilities it entails!
Wow! Great video guys. I thought I knew how to play a memorable dragon, but these tactics are next level and truly vicious and deadly. I will be looking for every entry in the series.
I used this video and its the first time i see my players running in panic from a monster, they knew in the moment the black dragon emerged from the lake near a castle that the only they could do (a 10 level 7 adventurers party) was to run away and cover, thank you for these magnific ideas on how to run encounter with dragons!
My party is going up against a dragon next weekend. Going to put this vid to good use, so thank you. :)
Hope they all die! die! Seriously, time to make Dragons powerful again!
@@davewilson13 This is the first campaign ive DMed. For safety reasons i gave each player a one time blessing that, if they die, they get revived at half health. This dragon fight is put in place to take that away from as many of them as possible. 😁
One of the earliest books I read was Sir Farmer Giles of Ham. The classic dragon that will take out any number of brave knights, but is defeated by one canny farmer backed up by the threat of one or two shotgun blasts.
Finding a way to separate the party is always good.
My players are currently dealing with a treasure collecting adult green dragon, but they have no idea. Using magic, she takes the form of an elf calling herself "Lord Green". One of Lord Green's minions was a young green dragon who didn't actually know that its boss (which it was going to double cross) was herself a dragon. The players did a couple treasure retrieval jobs for Lord Green and ended killing the younger dragon. They did the job and got paid, but they still think Lord Green is an elflord with pretensions. I am not sure where it will end up (they have currently moved on to other adventures), but eventually there will be some dramatic reveals. Like you Dudes said, dragons are old and crafty. That can include not even revealing that the dragon is a dragon.
With fizbans additions of animated breath, I like to describe the dragon blowing out a thin stream of fire (or whatever else) and having it shape itself into several roughly humanoid shapes and turn on the party. Great way to bring minions into a fight, or just to have them test the party.
One correction for the Dungeon Dudes. Fall damage only inflicts one failed death save due to the fact it is not a melee attack. So it would not count as a crit. The fact it is a critical hit on melee is why it would be two failed death saves
you corrected them incorrectly. Nowhere does it state that the hit has to come from a melee attack. it explicitly states "if you take any damage while you have 0 hit points". Every damage you take at that point is considered an automatic critical. Including fall from great heights into the ground. Meaning 2 failures.
@@GiblixStudio Except that is not the case. Being at 0 HP says you have the Unconcious condition which says the following
Any Attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.
Falling damage is not an attack. it is damage. so it is one 1 failed death save as per this.
Damage at 0 Hit Points: If you take any damage while you have 0 Hit Points, you suffer a death saving throw failure. If the damage is from a critical hit, you suffer two failures instead. If the damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum, you suffer Instant Death.
We met an ancient black dragon during our campaign. We were only level 5 then, so there was no chance fighting it. The thing was, we had to get to the top of a mountain to stop a mad wizard with an amulet that made you able to practically spam Wish, with a little side effect that made you more insane as you used it. There was so much weird stuff happening on that mountain at the same time, so by the time we met the dragon, we weren't even surprised. Anyways, the dragon was sleeping at first, and we just decided to try and sneak past it, but by happenstance (and some unlucky rolls) the whole party almost fell off a cliff, and we managed to wake it up, and our party's fighter sacrificed himself by throwing himself in its mouth and causing it a lot of pain for those few seconds we had to get away from the dragon. In the end, the whole mad wizard mess was sorted out (rather bloodily though). One of my favorite sessions during that campaign.
In my game, the DM set the party up for a dragon fight. He placed a dragon on the top of the mountain my monk was from. We'd gotten a few warnings there was a dragon in the area and it was clearly a fight the DM had been planning. So he was thrown for a bit of a loop when we found a white dragon egg and our party of nothing but good alignment players opted to adopt the chaotic evil baby. My monk and the mystic both spoke draconic, so the dragon became our son as the party started testing nature vs nurture as we taught him to be a good boy. He ended up a full time NPC party member. He learned how to transform into an ice genasi after we had dinner with Lord Bahamut and ended up becoming a wizard. Our DM never understood why the party took his 2 challenge rating combat and adopted it, but we did. I will forever miss our dragon son.
I'm glad the Dungeon Dudes spoke about spell-casting abilities, & Intelligence. One campaign that I was playing our party thought we were getting close to the area were a dragon was. Our party happened upon a "lone survivor" of a force that had already fought the dragon our party was searching for. The new "NPC" agreed to help act as a archer who could help in the back and guard the wizard. Fast forward to a lair with a "sleeping dragon". As our party makes our plan, and the attack is about to begin... with not our party attacking a sleeping dragon, but our wizard getting shredded in the rear by a poly-morphed NPC back into his normal dragon body. Yeah it sucked, but a clever DM made a real impression left on us that dragons are not to be taken lightly, or underestimated. Well played Eric were ever you are.
I love your videos. They help me understand so much about D&D and 5e. Dragons are awesome. It would be great if you did a D&D basics video for new players. Basics on combat, exploring and dealing with NPC's. Just a half hour video so new players feel like they can walk into a campaign and not say that they don't know what to do. Thanks for the great content!
And now my wizlock has a life goal to play a game of chess with a red dragon lol
A spell I really enjoyed when I used a spellcasting dragon was Far Step from XGtE. Concentration for 1 minute, bonus action to teleport 60ft.
A nice way to get a dragon in for melee attacks and then teleporting away.
This was the spell selection I gave to it.
1/day each: enemies abound, far step, destructive wave, synaptic static, teleport.
How to make a memorable one shot:
A dragon on a dragon.
Ferociously Malicious Rain kinky
For another great dragon villain, read up on Nicol Bolas, from his origins to the battle on Ravnica.
How to fight a dragon: Use True Polymorph and become one yourself.
@@gamecavalier3230 That also works, but if you True Polymorph into an Adult Dragon or an Ancient Dragon, (brass or white dragon only for Ancient Dragons) and focus on it for the full duration, the polymorph becomes permanent.
@@gamecavalier3230 Depends on the DM. There are variant rules that give dragons a number of spells equal to their charisma modifier up to 1/3 their CR. Your spellcasting would become a bit limited, but if your a Draconic Soul sorcerer, you can just pick your go-to spells and be good. I would say go with an Adult Gold Dragon, so you have access to seven spells.
Also, Adult Gold Dragons have the Change Shape ability. I could see a DM ruling that you could revert back to your humanoid form after the spell's duration and keep your spellcasting ability from before, but in your dragon form, you use the variant rule for draconic spellcasting.
@@gamecavalier3230 Yeah, but it also says, "You transform into an average example of that creature, one that doesn't have any class levels or spellcasting."
Monty used his breath weapon at 32:16, Kelly made his perception roll, and surely a wisdom saving roll to not crack up and ruin the take. I failed mine. I failed mine miserably and I have no regrets.
Warding wind is a good spell for dragons to know if they are worried about ranged attacks
Another great video as usual, love the work from you guys, I was just wondering if maybe could we get a video based on using the Whip as a weapon or other tactical means, I would love to see what classes, feats, & other things you would recommend for use of a Whip. I personally believe that if anyone could think of interesting & fun ways to achieve this it would be you guys. Loving the work always
Monty: your cleverness/genius is wonderful! Thank you. Finally connected a piece I was missing.
one thing I do to make the dragons flight logical is that when they fly they use the levitate spell, the wings would be to push the air to move around (dragons swim in the air instead of flying) so if you can use the spell dispel magic the dragon will fall
The group I GM for recently defeated an adult white dragon at the end of one adventure.
At the start of the second adventure, they encountered another white dragon which they didn't plan for or buff up against. It almost killed the whole party. The breath weapon alone took out the cleric. It then took out the wizard that was giving everyone flight. The party was very lucky not getting wiped.
Right now, we had our first fight against a Homebrew young black dragon on a Swamp which has somewhere its lair. We put down almost 70% of its health points, but we had to take a short rest, because we were beaten up, need some healing and a companion felt unconsious, and also the dragon went away under water. one hour later, it seems we have found an entrance to the lair, but it seems underwater, which is somehow a tricky situation due the dirty water and we dont know how long the entrance it is... but we dont have much time, we need to make use the situation, its almost dead...
Watching this while planning out a few dragon encounters I’m putting in my campaign, currently have a Young White, Blue, and Black planned. Along with an Adult White and Adult Green. Basically just throwing anything at a few min-maxers. This campaign started as my group of friends trying DnD some for the first time.
14:58 Quick correction. For a monster, a grapple is their attack action. Multiattack is not multiple attacks. Still it's 20d6 damage after a couple turns, so it's a very viable strategy
Actually no, if you look in Chapter 9 and the section "Making An Attack", and go to the bottom of the section, it'll tell you that grappling take up only one attack out of multi-attack, not consuming the entire action.
At 12:32 is when they get into NEW ideas for running dragons, its a nice refresh or explanation about dragons IF your not familiar with them.
So if you dont need that guys, skip to that part of the video.
I love all these opinions on dragons. It was quite unfortunate that in my most recent use of a dragon (Calcryx the white wyrmling) the dragonborn fighter just barely said the wrong thing and so the breath weapon went off one-shoting the rogue. People, please take care of what you say to dragons. You are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
My half orc bard tried to make demands of my black in her lair after she had kidnapped and mutilated the fighter (who tried to seduce her) and took half the bards hit points with its breath. The dragon wanted information on an item they had, the bard thought that gave them the upper hand.
No attempt to goad or flatter, just flat out demanding she let them leave or pay for the information
Though a Trip Attack would not work on an adult or ancient dragon, since they are huge/gargantuan respectively. Love the point about how an older dragon should be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the party member.
Question: what do y’all think about the house rule of having the dragon able to disengage at any time to fly without causing an attack of opportunity. The concept is that the powerful wings push down with such force that creatures within 5 ft can’t use a reaction and (if you want to add more fun) have to make a str check DC10, where if they fail, they get pushed back 10 feet
Cool thought: fatalis from monster hunter is a dragon who melds the bodies and armor of his human victims to his scales for added defense
Because of you guys and MrRhexx videos... my party is heading fast toward a tpk haha!
Great ideas to make dragons fearsome but possible. Thanks for another helpful video
Great stuff, let’s not forget the ultimate reason for fighting/encounters with dragons…their name is in the game title! If someone has played D&D and never messed with a dragon, then they’ve only played dungeons!
Now I want to see a video about the metallic ones
In my last game, the PC's managed to steal two magic items from an adult green dragon (they are four players at level 4 and they rolled AMAZING stealth). Later that day they were ambushed by 3 green wyrmlings, where one character died and other two were at two death fails. It was intense.