Running an Ancient Black Dragon - D&D 5e
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- Опубліковано 10 тра 2023
- Hello friend, "Let me show you real power". Or at least, how I run an ancient black dragon. I'll share some of my tips and methods. Thanks for watching. Please like, comment, subscribe, and do a little dance.
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I always consider a dragon fight not in the air to be underplaying the dragon. If the dragon is in its lair, it should know the PC's are present long before they think they are in mortal danger. Keeping any flying creature pinned to the ground is nerfing it and should reduce the CR of the creature significantly. Reducing the CR = reducing the treasure.
I agree! When the dragon returned later on it was airborne the entire fight actually. I regret not covering flight in the video. Perhaps at another time
Well in the case of a black dragon, it doesn't have to be in the air while its in its lair.... But its lair should have plenty of pools of murky water connected by flooded tunnels that the dragon can use to move about the lair to ambush the players repeatedly with hit and run tactics.... It might even use its lair actions to try to drag the players into said pools where it has the advantage.... As Black Dragons can breath underwater, and being submerged could mess with casting anything with verbal components, and last I checked also negatively impacts basic weapon attacks too if they aren't using specific weapons that don't suffer penalties in the water...)
@@minnion2871 Exactly, its ancient dragon! The fight should be hard. If the players mess up, they all should be dead. Its a big fight. If they prepare well, have good teamwork and manage to pull off a win, then the win would feel so epic.
I feel gloating NPC's can ruin encounters. If they are gloating behind an illusion or through a magic mouth... while preparing the trap, that is another matter. But allowing them to get into sword range with the first initiative roll, makes the fight much easier.
@@mata6669 Basically gloating should be reserved for when the NPC would realistically believe that they have the upper hand. (The PCs locked in a cage, or pinned down by minions with more minions incoming.... Stuck in the bottom of a pit, or otherwise ensnared in a trap... or perhaps there is only one PC left and that PC is low on HP...)
That and there is no reason why the dragon can't gloat during combat should things seem to be going well for them.
Players can also prepare well, and that should be acknowledged.
My group faced a green dragon in her lair where the entrance was underwater. Before they went to fight her, they went on a long quest to find a magic item that protected them from poison. Then they went on another quest to gain a powerful ally - the Arch-Fey River King. Because of their “contract” with the River King, the party was able to enter the dragon’s lair while she was away, and her aquatic sentinels just ignored them. As a result, Dragon was completely surprised when she returned to her lair and discovered the adventurers prepared to face her as soon as she emerged from the water. Her first attack was a poisonous breath attack that did ZERO damage (though it did obscure their vision). The Druid had summoned an earth elemental, and then wild shaped into another earth elemental which then blocked her escape route. She had no room to fly, her breath weapon and poisonous bite were SERIOUSLY nerfed, her aquatic teammates revealed their allegiance to the River King, and she couldn’t even run away to try again another day. Fight lasted 4 rounds.
Though this “final boss” fight turned out a little less dramatic than we had previously anticipated, the party did their homework and were well prepared to counter the dragon’s strengths.
They earned every bit of that horde. Except for the world shattering artifact that the River King claimed, of course. It was part of the contract. He got first pick of magic items from the treasure. The party had no idea that the dragon had it, and even if they had, they didn’t know what it was. But the River King knew what he was doing, and he had used them from the start to subvert the arrangement he had made with the dragon without breaking any promises to anyone.
New villain established, and the party had unknowingly given him a power upgrade. ;-)
Dragons can fly, dragons are strong. Dragons could play the game B-17 over Berlin by dropping rocks on the players. A dragon of a certain age can have all sorts of advantages. Given it can fly the dragon could set up an entrance to its lair only a flying creature could reach or in the case of a Black Dragon have it be underwater. If a dragon can cast magic nothing says it can't set up wards to alert it to trespassers entering the area around its lair. Nothing like trying to sneak up on it only to find the dragon is awake and waiting or it polymorphs into a beautiful woman and begs for help.
Lastly...Dragon halfbreed are a nightmare to face. I don't mean dragonborn , nor Dohvakin, I mean the mutts of the dragon world. Imagine dealing with an ancient Black dragon only its scales have red highlights. It then uses its breath weapon. It comes out a cone and does half damage as acid, half damage as fire, and the stuff clings like napalm. For reference look up the tanker bug from the Starship Troopers movie. Congrats you are up against a Red/Black hybrid.
Has anyone ever toyed with the idea of boosting the AC of the dragon by covering it in full plate armor? This video inspires me to create a story where a dragon either hires or forces a group of dwarves or fire giants to craft a full set of plate armor for him or her. That sounds like it could be a fun plot thread.
Ancient Red Dragon with fire giant thralls is very metal. Amazing idea!
There was, actually, Frostforged wyrm. An abyssal armored white dragon
@@Raghetiel that sounds cool!
@@brettcardon4552 aside from slaves, dragons are just not worth armoring. Dragon scales are tough as steel, and it's easier to enchant the dragon, the make and enchant a huge armor
you can totally armor a dragon... if you make a dragon that's spent it's time gathering wealth and resources to get such a thing crafted or it gains favor of a city that will happily armor it's ally you could do this. Give it a ring of arming (which makes it so the armor can be stored in the ring and be called to wear or called away as a move action) and you go from scaly lizard tough guy to 'come at me bro'
The black dragon is the only one that can save up its breath weapon for future need. All it needs are some glass or porcelain jars to store acid all around, waiting for a tail strike or wing buffet to spill all over the party.
The first time I ran a black dragon it was a young adult (CR 7) against the level 5 party of 5. Let me set the stage, The entire fight was in the swampy open area outside the dragon's lair. The lair itself only had a small entry Way which you had to crouch to get through, and could only fit one person at a time, the main entrance was submerged in a big pool of acid, which extended out into the swampy flatland. And connected underground or "underacid" with two other large pools.
The fight was brutal the dragon would hide under the acid and move between pools you had no idea which one it was in because the acid was murky every few rounds it would fly out of a full of acid making swipes or bites at players with the occasional breath weapon. The fight started with the lizard-folk Npc melting before their eyes after eating the first breath attack since its "betrayed" the dragon. The party spread out, kept calm and had arrows and spells readied whenever the dragon emerge from the acid. It was a long hard fight with everyone on single digit health, And when the dragon became super low it fled into the cave. They went in after it and the dragon began to plead for his life saying that it only attacked them to protect its young. Nearby a dragon wyrmling could be seen, but with the successful perception check the party realized it was already dead. The claw marks on its body indicated that it had been killed by the older dragon. Declaring they would show no mercy they advanced on the dragon, who offered them gold and Riches should they leave him alive, the wizard hesitated and looked where the dragon pointed, indeed he could see the faint shimmering of gold in the darkness, but the moment he took his eyes off the dragon, it loosed it's breath weapon. The wizard took a direct hit and died in agony for his moment of greed. The ranger shot a final arrow into the dragon's eye piercing it's brain and killing it. With the dragon dead they expected the but it didn't amount to much other than a scroll of Resurrection. A few gems a few hundred coppers, silvers, and a handful of gold.
As a result they were able to resurrect the wizard. (I have left it there fully expecting at least one person to die)
I never did tell them but there was a much larger treasure pile hidden deeper inside, but it was only accessible by swimming through the acid, entering through the hidden cave entrance higher up, which could only be seen or accessed by air, or by several hours of mining through solid rock.
I do allow material scavenging for crafting so they did come away with the materials that would later become two beautiful sets of black dragonscale armor, a dragon scale cloak, 2 dragon tooth daggers, and a dragon tooth glaive.
One thing i do with my dragons is they do not heal very quickly. so, a dragon who has taken even a small amount of damage may consider getting away to avoid being weakened for weeks. I'll often boost the HP, but then have it be a cumulative problem for the dragon.
I have a sudden urge to cast Immolate
I swear that it feels like Lair Actions and Legendary Actions are underused in 5e.
That and there aren't really many tips for running monsters in the DM's Guide or Monster Manual.
Thank you for your take on this subject!
I ran a Red Dragon that I'd modified a bit and a Silver had come to the party asking for help bringing it down since it was one of 5 that was instigating other chromatics to rally to summon Tiamat. The party agrees since she had tracked it down but was no match for it by herself.
I play 3.5 so I built this thing out of the Draconomicon with plenty of spells/skills/feats all within hit die limit. It used 'delayed blast fireball' while the party attempted to start throwing damage and spells at it, it spots the rogue and casts 'baleful transposition' and she fails her save, the massive beast and the Elf switch places putting her ground zero on this fireball spell which she takes to the face with one of the fighters and now the dragon is behind the party. The Silver did everything it could to keep the Red from taking to the sky focusing on attacking the wings with spells and melee. The Red kept using healing spells on itself (turns out reds can use cleric spells as arcane) So the party was having a hell of a time keeping its HP low. The Silver kept breathing when it could but with a bit of feat stacking the cold vulnerability was negated to normal damage, it used a spell to turn its blood to fire so every melee attack caused fire damage to the attacker, using it's claws and bite to terrorize the tanks. Finally after a hell of a beat down, the Red is slain and it was taunting the party even when it was low making them think it could go all day. It had cast 'death throes' which upon death means a big burst of AoE damage in one big explosion causing the body to turn to soup in a 30' radius... the party looked like one more round of this thing and it was a TPK. They loved the fight, they started to feel the actual wear and tear of the progression since spells were starting to run low, hp was low, they were burning health potions to stay up. It didn't help the rogue that was fireballed had a ring of teleport so she went back into the tree above the fight, the Silver didn't know that as it was focused on the Red and used a prismatic spray spell which caught the rogue in the cone and turned her to stone, the player was running 2 characters so she was still playing but that gives you a feel of how quickly a battlefield can turn.
Why did I run this fight? Well I had these Red Dragons built already and a first time player had just lost his character to some derp actions, I found an ex-machina to bring him back which was a Silver Dragon with a philosophers stone, you can mix the mercury within into a healing potion to bring back someone who just died but I wanted the party to earn such a favor.
Really glad I came across this channel. There are not a ton of people out there that talk about how they ran a specific BBEG or creature and I loved the approach that you took, talking about your encounter philosophy and applying it to a creature. You're not shy about giving old and powerful creatures the stats to back up their reputation and that's generally how I like to do things as well.
Plus the editing was really funny. Nearly spat out my water when Travis looked up after the 19 didn't hit.
Hope to see more like this in the future and I hope more eyeballs fall on this video! I'd love to see your take on an aboleth, an archdruid or other creatures who's age and experience can benefit from some revisions.
A quality video and a subscriber earned. I love the editing.
I've run my players against a white dragon that had a small tribe of goliaths worshipping it.
When it comes to such "setpiece bossfights" i like to run all the minions turns in one big blob one after another. To give their presence some weight as they attack the party together. Along with the boss.
On its official turn the boss only gets a single use of one of its signature abilities, the big heavy hitting attacks. For example a dragon breath weapon. But to balance it out the boss gets to use what i call boss reactions (either move half it movement speed, counter attack with the attacks damage halved or use a reaction it might have) after each players turn. This makes the boss much more of a threat and the fight much more dynamic. Keeping everyone engaged.
Outside of boss reactions all the enemies always go either first or last depending on if they were suprised or not.
The players get to decide their own iniative order in a boss fight because they like trying to set up cool combos or have their characters attack simultaneously.
Its a system only for boss fights but ive found it makes them feel really special as they should and as i said it keeps everyone engaged in the action. Which was a challenge at first as i have 3 players, all running 2-3 different characters. It also keeps the fight challenging which can otherwise become a problem with an 8 character party, all being levels 8-12.
Also not many people think of this, but Golems as minions for the classic DnD Dragons would be some crazy good synergy.... Like a Black Dragon might start making clay golems as a hobby.... (Perhaps tweak them to give them the rug of smothering's smother attack, flavoring it to be the golem enveloping the PC inside its body like Clayface from the old Batman Cartoon...)
Now I’m picturing the dragon being a sculptor and they make little living manakins to display (defend) their treasures
Being stuck by a minion, unable to take any significant action during a dragon fight doesn’t sound very fun. Other than that though I really like the aesthetic
@@teathomas Well I think it depends on how you use the dragon and the minion during the fight.... I think if used to create a ticking clock situation it could be very fun, provided that you don't repeatedly target the same player with its grab and don't use that ability all the time... (Couple that with the dragon doing hit and run tactics, dissapearing from the initive for a round or two before poping back in to hit the players again could give the players a chance to focus on the minion, with the acid breath now having the added threat of bringing the minion back into the fight.... Something the players might try to account for in their tactics, such as trying to dump the minion into a bag of holding or portable hole....)
Friggin sweet. What about a blue dragon has a few flesh golems and can bring it's HP back with it's lighting breath. I had a plan close to this but the party went the opposite way.
okay but a red dragon making metal golems that get healed by fire damage??! absolutely lethal
Brutally underrated channel and video, chef’s kiss.
I made the green dragon on 7th level of Mad Mage an ancient with the intelligent sword stuck in her head, whatever the wooded level is. They were tempted to pull the sword but didn't. I had several of its young to pester them. But they moved on. I really wanted them to pull the sword and have to fight her. Ah well. I got in some really epic fights in that dungeon before they got the spelljammer ship in the bottle.
This just showed up in my feed and I'm really glad it did! I enjoyed your breakdown of the encounter. Not something you see often, to be honest. I find it interesting to hear what other DMs do when they run their ancient dragons or beholders or liches, etc. A round table discussion, as it were, is a great way for DMs to share ideas and buffs. I found a couple of gems in this. Thank you for posting your experience!
This is actually some of the best advice for running dragons i’ve seen. You’ve got a new subscriber
The villain running away is deff something that should be considered as a DM, its something i never did early on DMing but have gotten much better at. However, ive been Playing in a Storm Kings Thunder campaign, we are level 11 and certainly gearing towards the end of the Campaign. We currently have a list of like 6 Villains who have fled during our climactic battles with them and are now waiting out in the world, on top of the Campaigns main plot. Now i havent run or read SKT but im pretty sure most of them are from content he has added in to the campaign, which is cool. The issue was brought up to me by a fellow player outside of the game and i hadnt really thought much about it until we counted it up and realized how many there were, we tried going after two, at seperate times and places, both were very hard to find and ended up being so fortified we lost party memebers and failed both times. Once was hunting down a Illithid and we lost 2 1/2 characters in the first surprise round against x8 of the lil brain doggies that can essentially instakill you. Our dumber members died and the rest of us fled. The next attempt was about the same and currently my Wizard and the Cleric are the only OG members, we all just want the campaign to end, but have been bogged down by all this extra stuff. A long way to say, youbare correct about villains running, but be careful not to over use it!
Very good point!
I highly recommend busting dragon's HP against optimized partys, we (party of 4 members lvl 9) fought an Ancient Black Dragon and a Young Black Dragon at the same time, I play a Wizard and i casted Wall of Force trapping the Young Dragon at my first turn, then the next turn i played a Vortex Warp, teleporting my Sorcadin to the back of the flying Ancient Black Dragon, with 2 or 3 good rolls, my friend managed to inflict +120 damage to the poor acidic bastard who thought it's wings would save him, 1 or 2 rounds later we were thinking how to carry the masive hoard.
I must say our DM (who ussualy put us in really challenging situations) was a first timer playing a Dragon. So he probably forgot some things like the fact the Dragon shoul've know we were arriving way before we spot it. We got to melee combat range on round 1, this should not happen, and i think it surely won't happen to us never again lol
Bonus info: we let live it's 4-5 wyrmlings, in return they won't seek for revenge, we don't believe they will honour their words, so we probably will have to face them at least one more time.
🔥
interesting , Personally i always add a quirk to every dragon .Something to make them stand out . I and toying the idea to add a albino red dragon in my next game , make the party think its a white dragon and give them a bit of prep time as there whole plan gets inverted as the white dragon seems to breathe fire, and for the players to remember the differences in face structure and horns and figure out tis a red dragon before they fight it , those players will feel like actual monster experts.
The fight itself is a lv5-7 Young red dragon but becouse it was albino and streight up kicked out and almost killed by there parents due to being imperfect , unlike red dragons and a insult to red dragon kind . So it will be a lot more paranoid and will have its whole layer decked out in traps the dragon can triger with a tail attack or breath weapon .
I have used a lot of dragons , rn the party i DM for is gathering a Army of dragons to fight a red dragon with Devine blood , daughters of a gratewyrm who mated with tiamat and stole the egg before tiamat crushes it . very homebrew but a fitting boss for 3 year long campaign .
Very inspired idea! Let me know how it goes
I love this idea!
@@dmofmanyfaces I will but the fight with the devine red dragon is going to be around August.
Rn the party wants to get a lot of upgrades. -
Sorcerer wants to upgrade her very rare guatlet to legendery, that includes collecting bottled dragon fire ( plan is to pay a kigns rancom to a ancient red dragon in the fire plane)
They are going on a adventurecation ( the sorcerer named it) aka a monster hunter qwest and on the way they know a old adult fang dragon lived lives in the savannas. They want to see if they can persuade it to help them. Hard but manageable. If that doesn't work out they also might look into hunting down a Ancient white dragon in the plane of ice, eather it joins them or it dies and gets eaten by the sorcerer ( ice themed dragon blood sorcerer has a wish to eat dragon hearts).
This was a fun watch. Regardless of system, any setting where the dragons are intelligent makes for a setting where enemy dragons are always fun to deploy. In some games for a westmarch I've been helping run for I've had a dragon nesting atop a massive vampire castle the players have been raiding. It would fly in whenever the players were exposed in an elevated location, such as when they were trying to climb up a tower to bypass some enemies, or at the top of a clocktower as they were trying to confront one of the main vampire lords to blast them with fire before flying away. They got so sick of it that they decided to climb up the tower it was nesting in to kill it themselves, and even unloaded everything they had as it was trying to fly away to knock it out of the sky because they were so sick of it just flying off every time they were close to killing it.
I think you just convinced me to have my character spend 10k gold on a bomb.
Because the best fight is the fight that's won from the other side of a surprise arcane gate.
I really like the suggestions to changes you made. I think I’ll incorporate a bunch of them when/if I run a dragon encounter!
And I liked the video! Great editing!
In Pathfinder, Ancient Black Dragons have an Acid Pool ability, use their breath weapon to cover a 50 ft radius in lasting acid...
I melted all but one of my party... oops
The Pathfinder black dragons also look very cool. I have an adult black dragon mini I am quite fond of
Great stuff! I particularly like how the dragon had taken up dwelling in one of the party's ancestral home, and laying waste to the countryside thereabout.
That’s Black Dragons for ya, they get off to ruining things and conquering lands. Their hoard is all shit they collected from towns and cities they’ve wrecked so they can have a nostalgic evening looking them over and remembering how fucked up they are.
I have an idea for an evil elven sorceress queen that runs a cult and eventually becomes a magic wielding black dragon; this definitely gave me some great ideas
So party sets old man on fire. Lights go out. Acid and minions. Holy smite thump and it runs away. Hehehe
Thanks for the round by round breakdown and explaining your thoughts and goals.
I have a party of 6 very experienced players and I would love to toss a dragon their way
I like and often play high level games. Many campaigns have started at level 10 or 11. In one game, the party(lvl 13) had to face off against a ancient red and an ancient blue in the same encounter. The entire party survived, but so did the dragons. I intended for the dragons to return around levels 19-20 but real life got in the way.
It’s amazing how durable the characters are even at these mid levels
Even more amazing was the fact that I homebrewed the dragons to be more like 2nd edition dragons. They got their breath weapon attack every other turn instead of a random die roll. They were casters equal to their CR. And they got multi-attack every round if applicable.
But the main reason the dragons survived was because I kept them at a distance and had them doing flybys. I always figured, dragons are not stupid. Give the dragon open air and a party who wants to challenge it in open field, yeah it's going to stay airborne for as long as it can.
I think lair actions should always be changed according to the DM's tastes and the encounter before the creature. For example, my players will eventually run into a Storm Wyvern i created called Nazriphael, Wrath of the Sky. Like Valstrax from Monster hunter, his lair is atop of high spire. My lair actions are stray lightning bolts that strike the ground, being pushed around by powerful gusts of wind, and the edges of the platform breaking to pieces, all the while my boss monster is literally becoming lightning itself and bolting around to strike players. Another Dragon named Zadkiel, Zenith of Radiance, is a radiant attribute dragon that has become an object of worship and has an entire Holy city and church dedicated to his reverence. During the fight, players are faced against brilliance itself. So i took the liberty of not designing lair actions around the lair but the dragon itself this time because HE is the radiance. Every shred of light in his vicinity is his to command, like raining sun beams down from the sky, wiping out all magical darkness within the area, or even causing damage with harsh ultraviolet exposure.
Alternate breath weapon use: Assume the dragon is smart enough to turn its head while spewing acid. Then, instead of a 90' line, you get a 30' cone.
I think it is fine to let the big bad flee, if the party wants it to die it's on them to make sure it can't escape.
10:07 - Spoilers for the Essentials Set of DnD/Dragon of Icespire Peak….
….. that (fleeing at half health) is also the option that the Essentials set has the optional Green Dragon boss take by default, interestingly enough, to try and make it a more reasonable miniboss for a fairly low level party.
Black Dragons are cool especially Cynder and Alduin.
Two of my favourites!
@@dmofmanyfaces
Yeah they're cool dragons
The way you pronounce it dreygin was kind of funny. But otherwise, yes I wholeheartedly agree and use this philosophy. Well done!
One of those tokens is almost exactly the same as one of my characters, except I did a little color editing
I guess I'm 6th?
Anyway, cool idea. :-)
I like that you started with him polymorphed.
Why did they attack to start with by the way?
So the old man was sitting on the throne of the noble character’s father and wearing their clothes. They taunted the players and they were very unpleasant. The noble player had some aggressive tendencies, being a Dhampir and all. You know the rest!
@@dmofmanyfaces Thank you for the extra information, I appreciate it. :-)
I threw an ancient red dragon and an ancient black dragon at a 5 member party of 17th level characters. The ancient red dragon had 20 levels of Barbarian, and the black dragon had a ring of spell turning. The players all had legendary magic items and artifacts, and killed both dragons.
One of my favorite fights ever.
Where did you find the art at 1:41 of a black dragon? I cant find it, even googling the words on the art "Chromatic Dragon, Black" i couldn't find it. Its the coolest art for a black dragon ive ever seen, and im curious to find out if theres art in that style for any of the other dragons
twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1643063668316184576
This is art going into the 2024 Monster Manual I believe. Hope this helps
I'd say using the breath weapon depends on the dragon. A green dragon for example knows his breath weapon's weaknesses, or a blue dragon might first try to goad the party in a proper lineup. White, Black or Red dragon's are not as smart and presumably not as tactical. For dragons, the way they fight can mean a ton. A blue dragon could just swoop down and shoot lightning from a high distance every few turns for hours on end. Or when things go bad, just burry (burrying is way better for fleeing). A red dragon might not flee, as it considers itself to be unbeatable. A white dragon will run if it can't win. Like most animals. A green dragon might negotiate something when the tides turn and a black dragon will just flee. Personality wise, Black dragons are absolutely the worst. They will flee when it looks bad. If a high level party enters the area and they think they might loose they'll just flee as soon as the adventurers want to go to it's lair. If the party is weak, but isn't a threat already a black dragon might just kill it. If in a dragon's region, after a battle, the players want to do a short rest. A black dragon would 100% swoop in and try to get them when they're low.
So many possibilities with dragons, and no two dragons fight the same!
We had a dragon roll 3 natural 1s on a attack and took itself out dm played it as it slipped on a rock we kept the rock.
First
At lvl... I wanna say 10? Our Party of 7 is ambushed by 2 commanders of an opposing force with 3 lieutenant style monsters backing them up as we realize our first combat was just to draw us away from the armies we had been reinforcing.
Just as we're getting our feet back under us and gaining the upper hand in that fight, the earth shakes, and there is a roar so loud it must be thunder, and a hot wind stinking of smoke blowing from the part of the city we were drawn away from.
We discuss. This is probably a dragon, we reason. Our ranger had dragons as a favored enemy due to some event in their past and we had encountered drakes and dragonborn working with the opposing force. At this point, the party is at about 40% strength.
We decide to rush in. We know the soldiers defending that part of the city. Further more, we're responsible for them. Our DM reveals the battle map as he describes a great, reptilian beast armored in scales the rusty red of battle worn shields, with wings that enshroud the ruined city square. Usually not ones to metagame we can't help but count the squares. 4x4. Crap.
My Paladin and the bard ended up using command to mind control our honor-bound fighter onto fleeing by round two. We still lost our monk and our wizard pulled off an epic last stand with animate object and misty step to buy the rest of the party time to escape the doomed city that had been harbouring a sleeping, ancient red dragon beneath it's flagstones. That's how you introduce a dragon.
Interesting, so a lv 10 party had a reasonable chance of killing an ancient dragon? (Albeit with high casualty rate)
I’ve heard that a party of even lower level killed a Balor. I think it was an old WebDM video.
Even a normal party is very powerful. Mine had 2 NPCs and magic items. My players also know what they’re doing (most of the time) :)
It's well known once you play DND for a fair bit of time, that once a party reaches 5th level their power spikes exponentially and continues to do so every level after that, leading to the CR of creatures being pretty useless. Like the tarrasque, the creature designed to be the most deadly creature in the game, CR 30, and if you want to have any bit of challenge for a party you have to throw one at them at level 15 or so, because they will absolutely curb stomp the poor thing with almost no difficulty otherwise
Oh I know just in general any “CR” system that solely relies on a parties level is at best an estimation. I mean have a group of ppl create a group of four characters. They’ll vary wildly on what they can do in a fight, and how well they’ll work against different enemies of the same CR. There are just too many factors for a truly accurate system.
@@wargriz8213 The biggest issue is that the math for creatures gets worse as you get higher in levels, monster damage scales slower than player hit points, and player damage scales far quicker than monster hit points
When a dragon is flying around, attacking multiple targets, players get opportunity attacks against it when it leaves their space and flies further, right? I’ve never run a dragon but it might come up soon.
If you give them the Flyby trait (see the Owl’s statblock) they can fly around like this with impunity
isnt lvl10 for an ancient black dragon far too low? it is cr21 the players had to be minmaxed and decked in magic items
Magic items, 4 players, 2 NPCs and the dragon was buffed slightly. CR is very deceptive
No, CR is just horrifyingly balanced, that's actually really normal for DnD at higher levels
0:33 0:37 where’s that from
Not against it, but I was under the impression that Chromatic Dragons don't polymorph. Am I wrong? I don't play DnD but I really want to start and I love the Dragons in DnD.
You are correct! The base statblocks of chromatic dragons do not contain the “Change Shape” feature that the metallic dragons enjoy.
However, I always give my dragons some Spellcasting abilities to make the encounters more interesting.
So in this case, the black dragon had picked up a few spells (polymorph included) over the centuries and liked to appear as a feeble old man to catch his foes off-guard.
I wish you luck in finding a group!
you found the mother dragon yet?
next time, i will tell you more
be sure that Dragons do not take command of anyone. they might help for the GOOd and destroy the EVIL :) thank you
Fourth
Disappointed. "How I ran an ancient black dragon against a level 10 party."
I expected the next sentence to be "TPK on round one. And now for a word from our sponsors..." Video was 10 minutes too long. 😂
Jokes aside, I've never met anyone that runs dragons as brutally as I, but I'm a grognard and I take them seriously; I mean, they're on the cover of the box and the name of the game. 😅
I don't get why dragons are always such a big target. Kinda wanna try a campaign in reverse where the "big bad evil guy" is actually a traditional "human hero dude" who is kinda OP because "duh plot armor" while party members can ONLY play as "monsters" including dragons against an entire town
You're not talking about running it, just how you ran it, and you have about as much energy in your voice as the button batteries you likely ate as a child
Speak up man. Your voice is half volume compared to the clips you splice in.
Noted.
Chromatic dragons cant shapeshift. Also, uve got a party of *6*
>HOW TO RUN AN ANCIENT DRAGON
>Step 1: scrap the stats and make new 1s
Wow. Much help. Is this how every encounter with u looks like? U run a goblin by taking mephit stats and so on?
Well depends on what dragons you want
I find it werid that you used the very first good Western dragons in any film as far as I know? Drago from dragonheart one of my favourite
First