@@ssfbob456 You don't. There is no way to prevent a conjunction from showing the world its terrifying potential: hooking up words and phrases and clauses.
White Dragon: "Foolish warrior, you drank a fire resistance potion in preparation for me? The lord of icy frost!?" Warrior: "Kind of. More in preparation for HIM." *Wizard in the back casts fireball as the warrior dives in with an action pose*
Unknown to the dragon, the party actually knew its secret. The white dragon had a secret so powerful anyone who knows it is marked for execution. This very dragon is an albino red dragon.
@@mtk064 Stil identifiable because they have different patterns of horns/frills, but I would roll a secret check to see if they can identify its true nature.
My party fought and slew their first dragon in our last session, it was an Adult White Dragon and I'll be honest I was concerned they were all going to die. They spent half the session planning their attack, and in the end they were smart, patient and made really good use of their individual strengths. They used an illusion to trick the Dragon into landing to grab something the Dragon really needed (we're running Tyranny of Dragons), and then the Bard used Bestow Curse to effectively prevent the Dragon from making attacks. When the Dragon burned through Legendary Resistance on it's Wisdom saving throws in order to attack, the party were spread out and well hidden from the breath attack, and were happy to pepper it with low damage range attacks until it foolishly and impatiently swooped to try to grapple and pick up one of the party members. The party were ready for this, and had their Cloud Giant companion ready to grapple the Dragon long enough for the Fighter and Paladin to get a few massive hits in. It was a proud DM moment, they walked away with little damage taken, and confidence sky high and ready to be shattered in their next encounter with a Dragon! Thanks for the outstanding and passionate content as always guys! Sending love and support from Denmark
When me and my party played through it we used [REDACTED] as bait and lead the dragon through the corridor where we all got surprise rounds and were able to thump the dragon untill it was atomized.
Got swallowed by a dragon once and survived (barely) while inside the dragon. Dm made a mistake by letting me have too much freedom while i accepted my character's fate...unfortunately for him I had 2 bags of holding and put one inside the other, sending a decent amount of the dragon's organs to another plane. I was done anyways so the self sacrifice made for an epic victory for the party, and a nice end for my lawful good character. Definitely one of my favorite moments in dnd.
Definitely one of my proudest moments in D&D was facing an ancient black dragon named Golgroth. We didn't even know there was a dragon there until it burst out of the water in a very big display. We tried to talk it down but he got bored and we ended up fighting it. Rune knight goliath, Giant's Might, Enlarge, Hammer of Thunderbolts, Sentinel and Battlemaster feats. I had chills running through my whole body when Golgroth tried to flee and the opportunity trip attack meant I grabbed him by the tail and slammed him back down, pinning his wings under my full plate weight. My guy just so happened to be a bit of a nerd who loved dragon lore and called upon an ancient pact between the dragons and the giants to invoke the Law of Humbled Pride. If a dragon initiates a fight and is forced to submit, that dragon must respect their oponent as their better, or else be struck down by the gods. Then we found out that this dragon was there when the pact was formed and knew my guy's ancestors. We got free reign to take whatever we could carry from his lair and my guy got to listen to stories of the Dragon Kin, an order of giants who would befriend dragons as allies and comrades. tl;dr: giant dragon riders.
One of my first campaign, in a move of desperation, the paladin climbed onto the back of a dragon. It quickly decided to start to ascend and try to shake him off. There were a lot of close calls, but eventually the paladin managed to take out the last few hitpoints and the dragon died. While still in the air. It was a completely epic landing and the entire party of players got real loud in the pub we were playing in. A heroic victory for the ages.
If you can cast only one spell before facing a dragon, i suggest Heroes Feast. It's a raft of small buffs, including a resistance to fear. Dragonfear is not to be underestimated.
The lack of discussion of Frightful Presence in this video was a notable oversight. If you're counting on controlling the dragon's mobility, keep in mind that the dragon may flip the script on you as some members of your party can't move any closer to the dragon. If you're counting on ability checks (like in _telekinesis_ or _counterspell/dispel magic_ or a grapple, or Athletics or Acrobatics checks to navigate tricky environmental obstacles) or attack rolls, and those members of the party have disadvantage on those rolls, your preferred tactics might go right out the window.
Ah yeah, we fought a dragon once that tried to use its Arial superiority to best us. Our bard quickly shut that down though, when they used Skywrite to convince it that Helvetica was better.
Had a group who was hunting a blue dragon that had been stealing and hoarding magical items. In preparation they tried to find gear that would give them lightning resistance for the breath. The look on their faces when the dragon pulled a bead off the necklace of fireballs that the party knew they stole but didn't account for was priceless.
One great trick we utilized against a Shadow Dragon: The Party artificer was polymorphed into a Huge Giant Crab, which can grapple foes of any size with their claw attack. Stuck the Dragon in Melee and made in vulnerable to the party's dogpile.
This episode reminds me of the time My Artificer used a bunch of Extra Large Chains in the area to make a +1 heavy chain net that our DM ruled would need someone to drink a potion of hill giant strength to effectively use. the barbarian managed to throw it on the dragon as it rose up from it's pool of water it was swimming in, pinning it down for a good 2 turns before the dragon broke it. It gave us a chance to do some damage to it and spread out.
Interviewer: "How do you slay a dragon?" Artificer: "I need a rubber chicken, some string, fifty gallons of oil, and some bait. Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?" Barbarian: "I whack it with a stick... a really big stick." Bard: "Well first I buy a bottle of wine, treat it to a great dinner- what? Oh slay not... oh... well I buy a bottle of wine and when its drunk I insult its table manners." Cleric: "I pray that my connection to my deity will let their face shine on us and wither the dragon." Druid: "I deliberately get eaten. Then turn into a t-rex." Fighter: "Well I gather the townsfolk and give a rousing speech before leading them into battle with monster!" Monk: "I aim for the joints deliberately focusing on nerve clusters to debilitate it over time." Paladin: "I challenge it to a dual, then use my divinely granted smite to smite it to oblivion!" Ranger: "I aim for the eyes and all the other soft squishy bits." Rogue: "Try to aim for vitals. Take it down with a cut to an important vein or weak point." Sorcerer: "I turn it into a newt... what do you mean that doesn't solve the problem?" Warlock: "Curse the damned thing. My patron will take care of the rest." Wizard: "Kill it with fire! Oh... fire doesn't work? ... Kill it with lightning!" Apothecary: "Give me ten minutes. Going to use a potion to turn myself into the hulk and rip off its wings."
The Druid idea is really interesting. Polymorphing in an Occupied Space is one of the few instant kill loopholes that 5E hasn't closed. As an extreme example, how about Polymorphing a horse into a piece of gagh and feeding it to the nearest Klingon? Rules as written this should be very messy! The alternative is that when the gagh dies the horse reappears in the closest unoccupied space, but that seems like a contrivance.
Dragon story time! Once played in a Pathfinder 1E game at level 20. Opted for a monk named Talib whose whole thing was that he was descended from djinn and wanted to become one himself. If you’re not familiar with Pathfinder, here’s two important things to know: 1. Grappling works differently than in 5E, basically having a set of things you can do with grappling checks in place of attacks. 2. Monks are capable of true insanity at high levels. So we rock up to this dragon and my turn rolls around. I want to keep it grounded, so I go up, first getting a successful grapple. Then I successfully grapple again to knock it prone. Then a third thing called “pinning,” where you restrain your opponent by getting them in a hood or a headlock or whatever. Because it was all on one turn, the DM then ruled that I had just suplexed a dragon.
There was a dragon fight I was a part of where I readied an action to cast Conjure Animals. When the dragon opened its mouth, I conjured a rhino, which brought forth hilarity as the dragon suddenly got a mouthful of chubby unicorn. The dragon also left, having decided this sudden offering of food was acceptable. However once the spell faded, he came back and was VERY ANGRY.
My favorite dragon is Strixhavens Tanazir Quandrix, who's breath attack deals psychic damage by spitting math equations at you. I like to think he's just naturally describing what a tesseract looks like in eight dimensions and it causes mortal minds to melt. To him, it's just basic gradeschool Axiomatic Leyline Paratrigonometrics described in simple multidimensional language.
@@ViZet85 To me, dragons are above such petty human or animal conceptions as sex or gender. Dragons in MTG are literally born out of the dust that falls off the wingflaps of another dragon. That's a little TOO meta for me to care about what's between their legs. I used 'he' merely due to the convenience of less letters.
@@jeffbrownstain If that's your argument, you should refer to dragons as it, they, an appropriate neopronoun, or even just exclusively by name. If dragons are a force of nature above gender, it's a bad idea to use gendered pronouns, because doing so betrays your lore.
@@saphique_sanguinaireHad to repost cause I'm censored on Allon 'It' is dehumanizing, which is funny considering he's a dragon, but I don't use that to refer to even objects. All things are sentient in my paradigm. She can be whatever you want him to be, baby. While a lot of smol humans are so broken down by a society that wants to change them that they live in a constant state of identity crisis even after transition, I've always been perfectly comfortable with all my parts and the layers I put on myself. I have no need to burden myself with your pain, when those who wish everyone to hold such burdens refuse to make peace with themselves except under the most dire of circumstances. I am a different person to everyone who knows me, and to many of them, a different gender and name as well. Don't be so protective of that stupid little meatsuit you're wearing. They all go back to the same place ⏬️
Artificers are the dream class to have in your party when planning for a dragon. They have so many useful and relevant infusions and abilities (damage resistant armour, winged boots, flash of genius for those all important saving throws, etc.) and as INT based characters, its very easy to roleplay them as planners on par with a dragon.
My party are literally about to take on a dragon this weekend in our game - what a well timed episode 👌🏻 I’ll make sure they watch it to be better prepared 🐉
Okay I DID have to snicker with a ton of amusement at "Arial Mobility" - I pictured an ancient dragon utilizing its knowledge of loopy fonts to confound and defeat its foes. Much love to y'all for the awesome guide!
All I'm imagining is the word "Dragon" spelled out like floating text flying around spewing breath weapons and dropping down to bite with its D shaped mouth. We'll even have the silly Comic Sans bronze dragon, the up tight Times New Roman White Dragon, the edgy Chiller Black Dragon and many more in the Typesetting Dragons expansion.
One thing on my DND bucket list I got to scratch off was, in Dragon of ice spire peak, my party went to ice spire hold to confront the dragon. Everyone rolls initiative and the battle starts. I fly up, dove down, grabbed the druid, fly up and dropped them. They wild shape expecting the HP they gained will help the survive the fall. I breathed weaponed them on the way down. Their face when I rolled those dice was priceless.
was running tyranny of dragons.. the white dragon in the bottom of the flying castle was very much of a surprise to the party... couple rounds in ( i had been anticipating this move) the druid does his spam a bunch of creatures move and out pops 8 wolves...oops legendary action wing buffet... rip wolves... my druid was like omg i have been waiting forever to pop that spell off... i just gave the evil DM laugh.. all the fun things 5e gives to dragons with lair and legendary actions most of us DM's have been using since the old dragon combat rules came out in dragon magazine like 30 years ago. have always loved wing buffet...
Im stealing this. But i dont want to be this brutal. I will breath weapon first, and fly up while grabbing to charging the breath attack. Makes more sense because it is safer for the dragon.
I have to suggest, "how to slay Mindflayers" these are just one of the most iconic creatures of D&D and also one of the most terrifyng monsters out there, with the hit kill threat being constant.
how to sleigh a dragon!?! 1. find a white dragon. 2. get two full length pine trees. take off all the branches and bark. place the pine truncks about 10 feet apart. attach boards across to form a platform. 3. place white dragon on the platform. 4. have the dragon use cone of cold breath weapon in front. 5. continue to use breath weapon while platform slides down the hill. 6. dragon holds onto platform and flies to top of next hill... repeat steps 4, 5 and 6.
Another Note: Dragon’s get Lair Actions. Not only are Dragon’s dangerous, but so are their homes. These Lair Actions can act out-of-turn for the dragon, and range from zone control, damage, or even heal the dragon. These actions can drastically change how the Dragon behaves and how your party approaches the fight.
Black dragon I ran hid in the water, swept some of the party off the walkway with a surging wave. Then hit them with acid and closed to fight. When they pulled out all the stops and damaged it severely it dove again. Another wave prevented them from following or a last strike. They were never able to slay it. When we fought a red dragon in its lair the lava and collapsing bridges over said lava were really treacherous.
Love the GinnyD cap, Kelly, great nod to your fellow creators! I love this episode, as fights with dragons of all varieties and ages have been epic encounters for so many parties. From a tiny white wyrmling freezing members of a low level party to a knock-down drag-out fight with an adult red dragon that tested a much higher level party. We had two fliers (aarakocra monk and wizard on a broom) and an echo knight swarming it, the wizard and bard spamming save-or-suck spells to burn through its legendary resistance. We were able to prevent it from breathing on more than 2 characters, and eventually got him prone for a round. After the echo knight had tenderized him, the wizard polymorphed into a triceratops and rammed him for the final stroke, it truly was a clash of titans.
Would love to see a series from you guys about ways for DMs to improve monsters, give them new abilities & RP to really bring them to life beyond just varying HP, AC, attacks etc. Like giants, giving them cool abilities or RP points that just really emphasise their ridiculous strength etc
Thanks for the quality content guys. Even through the OGL situation, u remained professionals and I think you 2 are an absolute pillar of this community. Thanks!
Moon druid Aasimar vs young dragon: Wildshaped into brown bear, Used Radiant soul to get wings and flying speed then made a Shove attack knocking the dragon prone and out of the sky. Falling damage wasn't enough to kill it but it sure took a hit and it was on the ground to get wailed on by the fighter.
@@benjaminholcomb9478 DM didn't see it coming. That'll teach him to spring a young dragon at a 4 lvl 3 players.😄 I'll admit the druid got lucky with his Strenght check.
I didn't miss all of those 3rd party creator books behind you guys. Nice that you're supporting them as you are and I love your videos. Keep up the great work!
One reason dragons adult or older should be immune to earthbind... (which didn't exist when the Monster manual was written... they aren't going to write in immunity to something that doesn't exist yet)
Earthbinds biggest issue is that works on a save and adult dragons or older get 3 legendary saves every day. Meaning, you’d have to burn through those 3 saves just to get a chance to stop them from flying.
@@seenyab4494 Yeah, by the time you are powerful enough to fight an adult dragon, you should have some means of flying whether by spell or magic item. Otherwise your melee is screwed.
Black Dragons actually do target dexterity with their breath weapon. Also, 1 spell that is superb at locking down a dragon is Otto’s Irresistible Dance. No save, requires an action to break out, and makes it easier to hit the dragon with weapon attacks and Dex-based spells until it breaks out
Great video, well laid out and explained! As a sidenote, you mentionned that white, green and black dragons breath weapon saves didnt rely on Dexterity saving throws. Black dragons breath weapons do have Dexterity saving throws
Love your vids, Guys. One thing though: I think you overlooked how the sheer size of the dragon - especially Ancient ones (Gargantuan) - can affect the game. So, for example, even though the Sentinel feat doesn't specify a size, I don't allow the Sentinel feat to stall out a Gargantuan creatures (or Huge ones for that matter). The Battlemaster maneuver Trip as written only works on Large or smaller creatures. The Monk's Stunning Strike is an interesting one. It doesn't mention size and it is basically a magical ability but it would make sense that the blow would have to be somewhat close to the head of the dragon. A monk doing Stunning Strike to the tail of the dragon and stunning it just seems weird, but I'll grant that that is up the the GM. Another example is the Eldritch Blast cantrip. While I do allow the Lance of Lethargy (reduce speed 10'), I don't allow the push/pull invocations because I think those would be size limited. Just my take. A nice combo is Eldritch Blast/Ray of Frost which can reduce the speed of the dragon by 10+10=20'. This makes it more likely that your flyers can actually keep up to the dragon (Adult Red has a fly speed of 80'). Also, Hasting a flyer helps by doubling their fly speed (as well as all the other great things Haste does). Nice to have a Sorcerer with Twin Haste in the party! One interesting tactic to blow through the Legendary Resistances is the 1st level Command Spell. You command the dragon to Grovel. If the dragon fails, it would be prone, thus falling. It would almost certain use up one of it Resistances to prevent this. It also a WIS save, which as you pointed out isn't their best save (only +2 for an Ancient Red). One spell I don't think you mentioned is Absorb Elements which gives you resistance to acid, cold, fire and lightning (thunder too). It's only 1st level and its a reaction. Use it if ya got it! Lastly, arrows of (dragon) slaying! My group brought a few of these. They are expensive (say, 1000 gp each) and it's unfortunately a CON save. The dragon actually saved on all the arrows that hit, but since it does 6d10, even half damage can make a difference in a tough fight. Totally agree that Heroes Feast is a must even at a 1000 gp. So many benefits and the cost is easily recouped from the dragons hoard. The immunity to Poison even applies to Red Dragons. I'm guilty as a GM of overlooking the Lair Actions. I wasn't aware till reading them just now that the Ancient Red has a poison attack (volcanic gas cloud: 120' range, 20' radius, failed save = Poisoned & Incapacitated)! Hope this helps! Take care and thanks again for all the great vids.
I played in a campaign once as a wild soul sorcerer, and our party got beset upon by 4 baby blue dragons. After routing them, the momma came in to save/avenge them. I pulled a "destiny 2 titan bubble" move by jumping in on the party and casting wall of force as a sphere around us, allowing our wizard enough time to cast leomund's tiny hut to buy the party time for a short rest (we were pretty effed up, only lvl 9 or 11 or sumthin like that) after growing impatient, the dwarf in the part stepped out to challenge the dragon and the fight recommenced. (we were in a massive sandstorm caused by the dragons, so visibility was limited, making it hard to target the dragons) once I caught sight of the momma dragon, I asked my DM "how big is it" and he described it's size to the party. Welp, needless to say, it was big, but ***juuuust*** barely fit inside a 20ft radius wall of force :D once trapped, the party spent the next 10 min broiling it to death with flaming spheres XD (kinda felt bad for the DM with how anti-climatic it was)
I probably failed RAW here, but in LMoP I let a party of new players kill the green dragon while being like level 3 I believe. They convinced the Druid in the town of Thundertree to Polymorph the dragon for them into a pug. They had previously stolen a Bag Of Holding, so their plan was to turn the dragon into a Pug and put it in the bag so it would suffocate. The dragon failed its saved and got turned into a pug before almost killing a couple of the party. I allowed them to kill the dragon this way but it burst out of the Bag destroying it after it reverted to its normal form after dying.
Been DMing for a while and I would have let that one fly, RAW or not it was a really clever idea that had a pretty good failure chance, and rewarding that kind of creativity and risk taking is always the right call.
this is the most amazing advice video ive ever seen. definitely my favorite. im amped to run a dragon now, but im already running a campaign. i miss gaming around the table
I fought an ancient white dragon in its lair with a level 14 party. Guarding its mountain stronghold was a coven of bheur hags riding ice drakes, I fought them on the backs of camels that I polymorphed into giant eagles. The dragon itself was a spellcaster, and used the reflective surfaces in its ice cavern to its advantage, using reflections to confuse the characters, and it also had the ability to teleport between the reflections. It was a tough fight but I managed to beat it without any casualties. Following the fight I learned the dragon had actually been cursed, and had been unable to leave its lair for hundreds of years.
Lost Mines of Phandelver. I out "green dragoned" my DM's Venomfang. I agreed to seek him a new lair if he left the tower and he agreed. We left, cleared out the castle, and returned after a long rest and after gaining our next level. I told the group I have no intention of letting that dragon survive, and I went into the tower to kill him. My character was an Oath of Glory Paladin. I threw on my protection from poison and burned through every ability and spell slot I had for divine smite and my uses of inspiring smite. I did over a hundred damage to that dragon, taking only around ten points of damage myself after succeeding two saving throws against his breath weapon, cast compelled duel when he tried to flee, and I was going to have an epic tale of standing against a green dragon in what was, essentially, single combat and coming out on top. That is until the party rogue came in and stole the kill from me. As anti-climactic as it was it could not have gone better considering my character's backstory. Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I had a black dragon in the lizardfolk lair eating all the eggs because a green dragon had moved into his territory. The black dragon declared that he would stop eating the eggs if they could get rid of the green dragon. If they brought back its nose horn then he would honor his word. The party finds the green dragon, larger and obviously more powerful than the black one, and a roleplaying encounter ensues. I run green dragons like Little Finger or Varys from Game of Thrones, and by the time that encounter was over I had the party so twisted around their own thoughts that they didn't know right from south. I convinced them to go back, kill the black dragon that was obviously going to betray them anyway, and if they did so he would leave the lizardfolk alone. He gives the party a scale to prove his death, and they return to the black dragon. The black dragon is not impressed by the scale when he demanded his horn, and combat begins. All of the players are lined up at the entrance to the cave in a nice, perfect straight line. Breath weapon. Knocked down two players. The excrement has hit the oscillating wind machine. Combat ends when my amazing sorcerer player casts Blight and essentially melts the dragon's face paving the way for, you guessed it, a rogue to finish off the dragon. The sneaky bastards. The green dragon keeps his word. He doesn't attack the lizardfolk. The town of Saltmarsh seems like a much bigger prize, and he never promised the town would be safe.
This is honestly best used as DM advice, because I promise that most DM's are not thinking about the dragon's behavior even a fourth as optimally as what the players would be prepping for from watching this vid.
Our party put together a 'tribute/bribe' caravan with siege ballistas with special ammunition hidden in the wagons. They only got one shot each, but collectively did a LOT of damage. This was using v3.0/3.5 rules.
My very first 5e campaign was Tyranny of Dragons, so we fought A LOT of dragons! I was a Hunter/Assassin multi-class. So yes shooting arrows worked most of the time, but when it didn't that's when my rogue abilities came in & I managed to acrobat myself up onto the dragon's back and start wailing on it.
I'd like to see "How to destroy the party with a dragon" Dragons were originally the apex enemy creatures of the game and ancient dragons should still instill fear in even level 20 PCs. Lets bring dragons up to the power level of the PCs. Lets use dragon tactics rather than the typical underground surround and pound making the creatures "Meh... That was easy."
16:22 lol literally last session we walked into a dragons lair without knowing it. it was an important location for the plot, a cave where the presence of the gods was still felt and we needed it for a big ritual spell, and then we get there and of course we find the white dragon there that we were warned was somewhere in the mountains. it was so obvious in hindsight...
My group had an encounter with an adult black dragon. I was playing a Goliath 8 Path of the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/6 Rune Knight Fighter and had just (unknowingly) drank a Potion of Giant Strength, specifically Storm Giant Strength. So, with my STR boosted to 29 and the power boost of Rage and Giant’s Might, I managed to grapple the dragon before it could get off the ground and just suplex the thing
My wee party of level 3s defeated a young green dragon (CR 8) with a few lucky rolls and a decent plan that managed to mostly work in execution. We constructed a heavy net with pitons on the ends out of our adventuring supplies, and used Pass Without Trace to position our rogue near the top of the tower the dragon slept in, with the net in hand. Our druid, paladin and second rogue managed to sneak in the front, knowing the dragon may detect us before we got too far. Sure enough the dragon spotted the druid (me), and assumed there were more allies hidden. I popped Warding Wind against its poison gas breath, we clustered together (specific strategy only for this fight, clustering together normally NOT RECOMMENDED) and used a dragonslaying sword and a skyblinder staff to fight it. The net dropped from above tangled the dragon's wings and stabbed into parts of the ground and the dragon itself, making it restrained and unable to fly. Two rounds of attacks with advantage and we almost took it out completely. In the end I missed a concentration check by 3, and the wind spell dropped, and two of us went out in one poison go. My druid went over her max hp by 3 points (rip), our melee rogue narrowly avoided her max by 3 points, but our paladin finished it off in one glorious go with the dragonslaying sword in the eye. I couldn't even be mad that my character died because the battle was so epic and our plan worked. :D
This video came 1-2 weeks too late for me, last Sunday our DM started a Adult White Dragon (the cold dmg one) when we had no information about it being there, and the city prior to the engagement was kind of hostile, so we couldn't really prepared for anything, even given the time. Since we (lv10 party of 4) were following a higher leveled party with double our size, we ended up doing nothing. The battle ended in the 3rd turn, with half the party doing death saving throws after the breath attack used on the first round. As a rogue, seeing it coming flying for us, my preemptive action before combat was getting as far away as possible, so I was just outside the breath's range. First turn I Dash + bonus Action Dash the fuck away from it; next couple turns I shot one arrow each; battle ends, NPCs did 80% of the damage out of 600 HP lol
@@ssfbob456 it's a homebrew setting as far as I know, we end up mostly fighting bosses (no groups) because our party compositions is whack (3 casters), since we started with like 9 people and the only ones left weren't really built to take hits.
@Allan Valin I only ask because backnwhen I ran it my players found themselves in a similar situation when I ran that, it would have been a TPK if I hadn't bothered to read up on that particular dragon's lore and found that if a warrior sufficiently impresses him he's been known to let them go, and the paladin managed to tank 2 breath weapons and multiple claws and bites, surviving with a single hit point. Right before I rolled the second breath, I decided in my head, "If he's still alive after this, that'll be enough." The whole thing was a straight up beat down.
Thank you for mentioning the meta! I know its hard for some players to separate player-knowledge from character-knowledge, but it bugs me when the two blur. Doing recon on the dragon can be a fun session, or at least including a plausible means for knowing dragon lore can flesh out roleplay.
I played the final quarter or so of Rise of Tiamat campaign (bc a player left the group and I replaced him) and knowing what we would fight against, I builded a Rune Knight Fighter (large size, advantage on athletics checks) Goliath (powerful build, so I could drag the dragon - not intended pun), focused on grapple (no flying speed nor legendary resistance), with Sorcerer dip (to quickened teleport and reach the target). This strategy made many encounters much easier. Of course I had to count on my crew to cause damage and keep me alive while doing so
At one point, my Eberron campaign was set upon by a dragon who had a little tiny vendetta against while we were travelling in an airship. Our bard basically spent the entire time on the edges of the fight, singing to use Countercharm, so everyone would have advantage on saving throws against the dragon's frightful presence. The dragon made the fatal mistake of landing. My barbarian almost instantly shook off being frightened, so she ran straight at the dragon and got right in there with her axe... and Sentinel. The dragon kept trying to flee and I kept landing the attacks of opportunity, preventing him from escaping. "[Barbarian] doesn't give you permission to leave!" The party and the fighting members of the airship's crew spread themselves around him when they were able to. We didn't let any part of that jerk go to waste when we were done with him. The bard had thigh-high boots made out of him.
I did something particularly diabolical...I created an albino red dragon so the party thought they were going up against a white dragon and brought fire spells...they managed to pull it off. Nearly a tpk the cleric was the last one standing and had to do a long rest in the dragons lair to raise dead lol
Interesting story about the potion preparation. In an old 3.5 game we were going against a red dragon and we all bought and drank fire resistance potions. Well the 3.5 Dracomicon has feats for dragons to brew potions to change breathe weapon damage. This red dragon used lightning on the party knocking 4 of the 7 of us down. DM has to quickly change that because only my character had healing to bring the fighter, druid, cleric and other rogue up. It was an actual honest mistake he didn't think the dice would hate those characters with single digit rolls.
I've had two memorable dragon fights as a player. In one, the monk landed a stunning strike in the first round (young dragon, no legendaries) and we OBLITERATED it in that same round. It was an extremely easy fight but I still remember it because that moment was so epic and the monk felt so awesome. The second time I remember clearly, I was playing a moon druid. I cast polymorph on the raging barbarian to turn her into a T-Rex, then wild shaped into a Quetzalcoatlus and we had a massive kaijuu fight. Good times. I'm about to run a blue dragon encounter for my party in the next session or two (depends how quickly they get through the pre-dragon stuff) and I'm really hoping I can make it feel epic for them!
Sleet Storm and Tidal Wave to waterbend a dragon out of the sky. Sleet Storm goes off of a dex save or the creature falls prone and the sleet comes down from the sky. Tidal wave deals damage and on a failed dex save, same thing. You'll have to burn through the legendary resistances but after that you'll have a good way to knock the dragon back down when it hits the air, deal some fall damage and (for tidal wave) throw in some spell damage on top
How fitting that this video came out right after my group beat an adult Green one using the best tried and true tactic: group up, and hit it till it dies!!! (It also helped that our paladin critted twice in a row and did over 70 points of damage in one turn).
Our party fought a dragon in their lair who tried to cheese us by diving into the water and staying deep below us. We decided that killing the dragon was not our objective, and raided the treasure on the island it left behind and ran for it. Ultimately it forced the dragon to engage us more on our terms and we killed it.
Wormholes and Wombats: the game of hyper-spatial travel via a mysterious confluence of the cosmic conduits above New South Wales (working hypothesis: the gods heard about the Sydney Opera House and wanted a better look at it).
I've employed dragons twice: First time, it was a juvenile black in his lair. He stalked the party as they entered his acidic grotto and surprised them with a spray of acid as it lurched out of the waters. The party took some serious damage through the fight, but ultimately the barbarian mounted the broom of flying, jumped on the dragon's back midair, and grappled him to the ground. The dragon died from the fall damage while the barbarian--thanks to his rage--walked it off. Lesson: Dragons have relatively low athletics scores. Second time, it was an ancient blue, again in his lair. This was 20-level one-shot prologue to a campaign describing the heroic success (or failure) of the Legendary Adventurers who came centuries before the present campaign. The party committed basically every sin mentioned in the video--went in unaware they were going after a dragon, were not prepared at all, and tried to stealth into the lair. What was most surprising, even to me, was that mid-combat, I realized that since the dragon had burrow, reach attacks (anywhere from 10-20 ft), and 60 ft blindsight, he could simply burrow 10 feet underground and attack while remaining burrowed. He could hit them freely whereas he had total concealment against them. They ultimately fled, but that encounter provided the dragon with enough first-hand experience and familiarity that he tracked them down individually and took them down one-by-one. Lesson: Don't mess with Big Blue.
You can actual bind a dragon to the ground with earthbind, but it will be hard since it is a str save. Plus legendary resists..' but if you do hit it? Your barbarian will love you.
As much as Rise of Tiamat was a pain in the ass to run, I did really like how it portrayed the various shades of good the metallic dragons were. Are they going to deal with Tiamat and the cult? Absolutely, thats not in question, the question to them is how much collateral damage amount the other races is acceptable to make it happen.
So my first time encountering a dragon... was actually being the DM of all things, running Mines of Phandelver as my first module. There, in a ruined settlement, a young dragon made its perch on top of a wizard's broken tower. It took time to stare down as its hoard (small, but a start) as a collection of cultists tried to figure out the best way to approach it. The party approached the cultists, and talked THEM into thinking they wanted to join. With the confidence and plan for the cultists, they head to the town center, where a large statue laid in celebration of an older hero rested. They spoke highly to the young beast, offering up the party as a meal for peace offering in Draconian tongue. The dragon took flight and hovered nearby during this, in which one of the members, who could understand the tongue themselves, signaled to the Wizard that they were going to be backstabbed, who then gave a signal to the Paladin to get ready for their own movement. The Wizard casted Enlarge/Reduce on the statue, forcing down into a smaller structure for the Paladin to rush in, fetch it, and throw it at the flying lizard. Once it was in the air, the wizard stopped concentrating of the spell, causing the statue to grow to full before impact. I had to hold the table to try and find a spell that would fit what damage was going to be done before saying it shocked the dragon enough to be grounded and rolling initiative. I... kept the dragon grounded, however. Yes, I know, bad tact for the dragon, but I was knew and drew in the dragon being only old enough to leave the nest, so he didn't know much better either (along with the shock). The cultists were PITIFUL in combat, barely nicking the party and, at worst, getting rid of a Familiar, while the Dragon got a NASTY crit on the Paladin almost falling them. Still, the statue did a good number and the party were holding themselves pretty well, so the young scaled being looked over the scene, thought it would not be worth the effort, and took off to the skies, abandoning his beginner's hoard so he could lick his wounds and find a new den to call home. So yeah, I made some flops, but it was also a rather beginner module and a young drakeling, so I could also see them doing those mistakes. After all, mistakes have to be made if you want to learn from them.
I was in an Adventurers League one -hot once and we had two monks. We managed to stun-lock it right at the beginning and it wasn't able to do a thing for the entire fight. The party was mostly level 6. Stunning strike is OP.
You can always send the warlock to eldritch smite it from the air. There is no save for the prone condition and it’s just gonna fall and die. Good spells for casters to avoid the dmg would be: Absorb Elements / Shield / Blink or any feat that does something similar
The best spell for dragon is Absorb elements. You don't need potions or armor for resistance (unless you face gem dragons with psychic/radiant/necrotic damage or Green dragon with poison) You just need 1 reaction and spell slot of level 1, and if you fight dragon as mage you probably have both of them free anway. If also gives free concentration resistance, you don't need a lot of resources to cast it and you can cast it 2 or 3 times if you really need to. For aerial archers strategy, i have Arra.... Bird Ranger/Sorcerer with shield and absorb elements and lot's of HP. I can tank a lot so if the dragon focus on me.. its even better. Because 50ft flying speed, 22 AC with shield or resistance with absorb element will make me survive at least few rounds when others can kill the dragon.
I was running a great wyrm red dragon against a party one time, and the only tactic they had was distract/insult while the barbarian snuck up behind with a sword of dragon slaying (while wearing boots of flying). Perception check was super low... It didn't notice. Then the barbarian used the sword like a chisel, driving it into the base of it's skull with their very magic maul. I did rule that due to the dragon's size it would take 3 hits, but the first two were handled in the first round. I suppose i could have ran it RAW, but the plan was fairly sound and they did spend a lot of time on it... Didn't see a point to deny it. Noticing the danger it was in due to the literally splitting headache it now suffered, it polymorphed into a eagle to get away from the sword. But it was too deep already. Instead, its head was lopped clean off as its neck quickly became smaller than the width of the blade. Was the most fun I think we ever had, lol.
They haven't fought many, but my players have always found ways to make dragon fights fun, lmao. By far my favorite story comes from my Dragon of Icespire Peak game, where an unlucky random encounter with the BBEG Cryovain at the gates of Neverwinter turned into an epic two-round sweep between the fighter using a Dragon Slayer longsword and the druid using Conjure Animals to summon a giant constrictor snake that successfully restrained her. Adding insult to injury, the druid killed the dragon with a Magic Stone right through her skull, felling the first BBEG of that game with a goddamn *rock*. xD A solid runner up is actually my first time running a dragon, where I had my homebrew group fight Venomfang post-Lost Mine so the gloves could come off. The gnome wizard came up with an insane plan to reach the dragon in the air with a combination of Enlarge/Reduce and Catapult. It utterly failed when the dragon made his Dex save, and the gnome probably would've died from the massive fall damage without his Blessing of Wound Closure, but *damn* was it fun to watch.
My story of encountering a dragon as a player was in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. At the beginning when the Blue Dragon attacks the keep, my party faced it and taunted it to attack us. The party was made of me as a Paladin with Sentinel and a greatsword, a GWM (Great Weapon Master) Barbarian, Ranger, Phathomless Warlock and a Rogue (we were all level 2). The melee characters got within 5 feet of the blue dragon and we killed an Adult Blue at level 2.
ב"ה The draconic sorcerer in my party would probably call it "fight dragons with dragons", but the main Idea is casting the spell Summon Draconic Spirit (from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons) to both get a flying summoned creature that resist the dragon's breath weapon damage type and get resistance for the caster to the dragon's breath weapon damage type with a single spell. In our table, most dragons that have spells have the misty step spell, because bonus action teleport for a dragon is huge (as you probably already know from gem dragons that have it for free).
Today is the end of my party's adventure, they will try to slay criovain. Thanks for the amazing info. I can better prepare the session and provide clues for them to (try) build a strategy to defeat it.
Monty and Kelly, first of all, thanks for the great video! Second of all, some things that I am curious about (that you didn't address in the video, maybe a follow-up video) are: what classes excel at fighting Dragons? Which are not great at it? What would be the ideal party composition for fighting/taking down a Dragon? And what are the minimum levels at which you could survive a combat encounter with a Dragon (for example, X level and above, you should be okay, Y level and below, just run and pray the Dragon is feeling merciful)? Thx, appreciate you guys!
If i get to imagine a group of people with the task to slay a dragon, i imagine them going through a sort of preparation phase on their journey. Like they are called to slay slight minor foes correlated with the target dragon, simultaneosly gaining experience, important information and gear accordingly to the challenge they are going to face. Ex. Slaying minor dragon of the same type as an ancient one, in order to get armor and artifact with coherent resistance and effects to stack. Defeating an important disciple of the dragon etc
Command is an effective spell to use on dragons. It's a non-concentration option in attempting to reposition them. Tell it to **Approach**, or **grovel**. If it sticks, you maneuver it and you waste its next turn. All for the low price of one 1st lvl spell while you concentrate on a buff.
They did it. They became the Dragon Dudes
Or maybe they're The Dungeon & The Dragon?
finally
Yes!
Just as the prophecies foretold.
Dragon Dudes in the Dungeon
Next weeks video is "how to defeat a dungeon" and after that I will know everything there is to know about this game
Fool! You forgot the 'and', the most fearsome creature in all of DnD!
@Iododendron right? How does one fight a conjunction?!
@@ssfbob456 either with a full stop or an exclamation mark. Commas might work, too.
@@iododendron3416 Thank the gods Dungeons and Dragons isn't written with an Oxford comma. It would be unstoppable
@@ssfbob456 You don't. There is no way to prevent a conjunction from showing the world its terrifying potential:
hooking up words and phrases and clauses.
White Dragon: "Foolish warrior, you drank a fire resistance potion in preparation for me? The lord of icy frost!?"
Warrior: "Kind of. More in preparation for HIM."
*Wizard in the back casts fireball as the warrior dives in with an action pose*
I can say from experience that this sort of plan also works really well with a totem warrior barbarian who took the bear totem at third level.
Unknown to the dragon, the party actually knew its secret. The white dragon had a secret so powerful anyone who knows it is marked for execution. This very dragon is an albino red dragon.
Lair Brown mould …..
@@mtk064 Stil identifiable because they have different patterns of horns/frills, but I would roll a secret check to see if they can identify its true nature.
@@mtk064 thats just evil... sooo anyways thanks for the idea?
My party fought and slew their first dragon in our last session, it was an Adult White Dragon and I'll be honest I was concerned they were all going to die. They spent half the session planning their attack, and in the end they were smart, patient and made really good use of their individual strengths. They used an illusion to trick the Dragon into landing to grab something the Dragon really needed (we're running Tyranny of Dragons), and then the Bard used Bestow Curse to effectively prevent the Dragon from making attacks. When the Dragon burned through Legendary Resistance on it's Wisdom saving throws in order to attack, the party were spread out and well hidden from the breath attack, and were happy to pepper it with low damage range attacks until it foolishly and impatiently swooped to try to grapple and pick up one of the party members. The party were ready for this, and had their Cloud Giant companion ready to grapple the Dragon long enough for the Fighter and Paladin to get a few massive hits in. It was a proud DM moment, they walked away with little damage taken, and confidence sky high and ready to be shattered in their next encounter with a Dragon!
Thanks for the outstanding and passionate content as always guys! Sending love and support from Denmark
That’s how it’s done, right there!
Sounds awesome! Well earned success, gj!
When me and my party played through it we used [REDACTED] as bait and lead the dragon through the corridor where we all got surprise rounds and were able to thump the dragon untill it was atomized.
Got swallowed by a dragon once and survived (barely) while inside the dragon. Dm made a mistake by letting me have too much freedom while i accepted my character's fate...unfortunately for him I had 2 bags of holding and put one inside the other, sending a decent amount of the dragon's organs to another plane. I was done anyways so the self sacrifice made for an epic victory for the party, and a nice end for my lawful good character. Definitely one of my favorite moments in dnd.
That’s awesome!
For me it's the consistent quality and charm these dudes bring to the rpg world. Thanks dudes; you're the best 🐉
Definitely one of my proudest moments in D&D was facing an ancient black dragon named Golgroth. We didn't even know there was a dragon there until it burst out of the water in a very big display. We tried to talk it down but he got bored and we ended up fighting it. Rune knight goliath, Giant's Might, Enlarge, Hammer of Thunderbolts, Sentinel and Battlemaster feats. I had chills running through my whole body when Golgroth tried to flee and the opportunity trip attack meant I grabbed him by the tail and slammed him back down, pinning his wings under my full plate weight. My guy just so happened to be a bit of a nerd who loved dragon lore and called upon an ancient pact between the dragons and the giants to invoke the Law of Humbled Pride. If a dragon initiates a fight and is forced to submit, that dragon must respect their oponent as their better, or else be struck down by the gods. Then we found out that this dragon was there when the pact was formed and knew my guy's ancestors. We got free reign to take whatever we could carry from his lair and my guy got to listen to stories of the Dragon Kin, an order of giants who would befriend dragons as allies and comrades.
tl;dr: giant dragon riders.
this is epic
One of my first campaign, in a move of desperation, the paladin climbed onto the back of a dragon. It quickly decided to start to ascend and try to shake him off. There were a lot of close calls, but eventually the paladin managed to take out the last few hitpoints and the dragon died. While still in the air. It was a completely epic landing and the entire party of players got real loud in the pub we were playing in. A heroic victory for the ages.
If you can cast only one spell before facing a dragon, i suggest Heroes Feast.
It's a raft of small buffs, including a resistance to fear. Dragonfear is not to be underestimated.
My party did exactly that
It's good against any dragon, but completely busted against green dragons.
@@MadSwedishGamer unless said green dragon is a spellcaster and uses greater invisibility and dispell magic
@@deathm3lon642 That's still several turns the dragon isn't spending on murdering you, which is a win in my book.
The lack of discussion of Frightful Presence in this video was a notable oversight. If you're counting on controlling the dragon's mobility, keep in mind that the dragon may flip the script on you as some members of your party can't move any closer to the dragon. If you're counting on ability checks (like in _telekinesis_ or _counterspell/dispel magic_ or a grapple, or Athletics or Acrobatics checks to navigate tricky environmental obstacles) or attack rolls, and those members of the party have disadvantage on those rolls, your preferred tactics might go right out the window.
Ah yeah, we fought a dragon once that tried to use its Arial superiority to best us. Our bard quickly shut that down though, when they used Skywrite to convince it that Helvetica was better.
HELVETICA STANDARD
Had a group who was hunting a blue dragon that had been stealing and hoarding magical items. In preparation they tried to find gear that would give them lightning resistance for the breath. The look on their faces when the dragon pulled a bead off the necklace of fireballs that the party knew they stole but didn't account for was priceless.
The quality of their videos has helped me so much as a DM. Love the dungeon dudes!
One great trick we utilized against a Shadow Dragon: The Party artificer was polymorphed into a Huge Giant Crab, which can grapple foes of any size with their claw attack. Stuck the Dragon in Melee and made in vulnerable to the party's dogpile.
Well, there’s always the fabled Lance of Dragon Slaying
_boulder falls from the sky and crushes the lance_
… Naturally
Oh, Percy.
This episode reminds me of the time My Artificer used a bunch of Extra Large Chains in the area to make a +1 heavy chain net that our DM ruled would need someone to drink a potion of hill giant strength to effectively use. the barbarian managed to throw it on the dragon as it rose up from it's pool of water it was swimming in, pinning it down for a good 2 turns before the dragon broke it. It gave us a chance to do some damage to it and spread out.
8:14 Arial Mobility, not to be confused with Times New Roman Mobility or their Calibri Mobility... ;-)
Interviewer: "How do you slay a dragon?"
Artificer: "I need a rubber chicken, some string, fifty gallons of oil, and some bait. Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?"
Barbarian: "I whack it with a stick... a really big stick."
Bard: "Well first I buy a bottle of wine, treat it to a great dinner- what? Oh slay not... oh... well I buy a bottle of wine and when its drunk I insult its table manners."
Cleric: "I pray that my connection to my deity will let their face shine on us and wither the dragon."
Druid: "I deliberately get eaten. Then turn into a t-rex."
Fighter: "Well I gather the townsfolk and give a rousing speech before leading them into battle with monster!"
Monk: "I aim for the joints deliberately focusing on nerve clusters to debilitate it over time."
Paladin: "I challenge it to a dual, then use my divinely granted smite to smite it to oblivion!"
Ranger: "I aim for the eyes and all the other soft squishy bits."
Rogue: "Try to aim for vitals. Take it down with a cut to an important vein or weak point."
Sorcerer: "I turn it into a newt... what do you mean that doesn't solve the problem?"
Warlock: "Curse the damned thing. My patron will take care of the rest."
Wizard: "Kill it with fire! Oh... fire doesn't work? ... Kill it with lightning!"
Apothecary: "Give me ten minutes. Going to use a potion to turn myself into the hulk and rip off its wings."
What's an Apothecary?
Apothecary?
Class created by the Dungeon Dudes. Not made by Wotc. Still a nice little Easter egg for those that supported their kickstarter.
The Druid idea is really interesting. Polymorphing in an Occupied Space is one of the few instant kill loopholes that 5E hasn't closed. As an extreme example, how about Polymorphing a horse into a piece of gagh and feeding it to the nearest Klingon? Rules as written this should be very messy! The alternative is that when the gagh dies the horse reappears in the closest unoccupied space, but that seems like a contrivance.
@@bukharagunboat8466 wouldn't that be the end of the druid as well?
Dragon story time!
Once played in a Pathfinder 1E game at level 20. Opted for a monk named Talib whose whole thing was that he was descended from djinn and wanted to become one himself. If you’re not familiar with Pathfinder, here’s two important things to know:
1. Grappling works differently than in 5E, basically having a set of things you can do with grappling checks in place of attacks.
2. Monks are capable of true insanity at high levels.
So we rock up to this dragon and my turn rolls around. I want to keep it grounded, so I go up, first getting a successful grapple. Then I successfully grapple again to knock it prone. Then a third thing called “pinning,” where you restrain your opponent by getting them in a hood or a headlock or whatever.
Because it was all on one turn, the DM then ruled that I had just suplexed a dragon.
There was a dragon fight I was a part of where I readied an action to cast Conjure Animals. When the dragon opened its mouth, I conjured a rhino, which brought forth hilarity as the dragon suddenly got a mouthful of chubby unicorn. The dragon also left, having decided this sudden offering of food was acceptable. However once the spell faded, he came back and was VERY ANGRY.
My favorite dragon is Strixhavens Tanazir Quandrix, who's breath attack deals psychic damage by spitting math equations at you.
I like to think he's just naturally describing what a tesseract looks like in eight dimensions and it causes mortal minds to melt.
To him, it's just basic gradeschool Axiomatic Leyline Paratrigonometrics described in simple multidimensional language.
Just to correct - to her. Tanazir, Velomachus and Beledros are female. Shadrix and Galazeth are male.
@@ViZet85 To me, dragons are above such petty human or animal conceptions as sex or gender.
Dragons in MTG are literally born out of the dust that falls off the wingflaps of another dragon.
That's a little TOO meta for me to care about what's between their legs.
I used 'he' merely due to the convenience of less letters.
@@jeffbrownstain If that's your argument, you should refer to dragons as it, they, an appropriate neopronoun, or even just exclusively by name. If dragons are a force of nature above gender, it's a bad idea to use gendered pronouns, because doing so betrays your lore.
@@saphique_sanguinaireHad to repost cause I'm censored on Allon
'It' is dehumanizing, which is funny considering he's a dragon, but I don't use that to refer to even objects. All things are sentient in my paradigm.
She can be whatever you want him to be, baby.
While a lot of smol humans are so broken down by a society that wants to change them that they live in a constant state of identity crisis even after transition, I've always been perfectly comfortable with all my parts and the layers I put on myself.
I have no need to burden myself with your pain, when those who wish everyone to hold such burdens refuse to make peace with themselves except under the most dire of circumstances.
I am a different person to everyone who knows me, and to many of them, a different gender and name as well. Don't be so protective of that stupid little meatsuit you're wearing. They all go back to the same place ⏬️
Artificers are the dream class to have in your party when planning for a dragon. They have so many useful and relevant infusions and abilities (damage resistant armour, winged boots, flash of genius for those all important saving throws, etc.) and as INT based characters, its very easy to roleplay them as planners on par with a dragon.
I agree. All you have to do is have the artificer invent an ICBM and nuke the dragon from orbit. That's how they did it in Fable of the Dragon Tyrant.
@@agsilverradio2225 that'll do it
My party are literally about to take on a dragon this weekend in our game - what a well timed episode 👌🏻
I’ll make sure they watch it to be better prepared 🐉
The unfortunate thing about battlemasters is that trip attack only works on large or smaller creatures so it won't work on adult or ancient dragons.
Have your wizard cast enlarge on a medium character, they can now trip huge enemies
Okay I DID have to snicker with a ton of amusement at "Arial Mobility" - I pictured an ancient dragon utilizing its knowledge of loopy fonts to confound and defeat its foes. Much love to y'all for the awesome guide!
😂 love it!
All I'm imagining is the word "Dragon" spelled out like floating text flying around spewing breath weapons and dropping down to bite with its D shaped mouth. We'll even have the silly Comic Sans bronze dragon, the up tight Times New Roman White Dragon, the edgy Chiller Black Dragon and many more in the Typesetting Dragons expansion.
Never underestimate how streamlined and slippery one can be without a serif.
This video is awesome...
... back to basics and a deep delve at the exact same time!
This is perfect timing.
In my game the party is about to face an injured young red dragon in an abandoned village over run with cursed plants.
So glad to see u guys back to doing regular content again. Missed yall!
One thing on my DND bucket list I got to scratch off was, in Dragon of ice spire peak, my party went to ice spire hold to confront the dragon. Everyone rolls initiative and the battle starts. I fly up, dove down, grabbed the druid, fly up and dropped them. They wild shape expecting the HP they gained will help the survive the fall. I breathed weaponed them on the way down. Their face when I rolled those dice was priceless.
YES! That's a properly run dragon!
was running tyranny of dragons.. the white dragon in the bottom of the flying castle was very much of a surprise to the party... couple rounds in ( i had been anticipating this move) the druid does his spam a bunch of creatures move and out pops 8 wolves...oops legendary action wing buffet... rip wolves... my druid was like omg i have been waiting forever to pop that spell off... i just gave the evil DM laugh.. all the fun things 5e gives to dragons with lair and legendary actions most of us DM's have been using since the old dragon combat rules came out in dragon magazine like 30 years ago. have always loved wing buffet...
Im stealing this. But i dont want to be this brutal. I will breath weapon first, and fly up while grabbing to charging the breath attack. Makes more sense because it is safer for the dragon.
@Den of Dragons I like to have dragons grab and bomb the party with allied troops or Npcs.
I have to suggest, "how to slay Mindflayers" these are just one of the most iconic creatures of D&D and also one of the most terrifyng monsters out there, with the hit kill threat being constant.
how to sleigh a dragon!?!
1. find a white dragon.
2. get two full length pine trees. take off all the branches and bark. place the pine truncks about 10 feet apart. attach boards across to form a platform.
3. place white dragon on the platform.
4. have the dragon use cone of cold breath weapon in front.
5. continue to use breath weapon while platform slides down the hill.
6. dragon holds onto platform and flies to top of next hill... repeat steps 4, 5 and 6.
As a DM that is starting Dragon of Icespire Peak next week this is excellent timing!
Another Note: Dragon’s get Lair Actions.
Not only are Dragon’s dangerous, but so are their homes.
These Lair Actions can act out-of-turn for the dragon, and range from zone control, damage, or even heal the dragon. These actions can drastically change how the Dragon behaves and how your party approaches the fight.
Black dragon I ran hid in the water, swept some of the party off the walkway with a surging wave. Then hit them with acid and closed to fight. When they pulled out all the stops and damaged it severely it dove again. Another wave prevented them from following or a last strike. They were never able to slay it. When we fought a red dragon in its lair the lava and collapsing bridges over said lava were really treacherous.
Love the GinnyD cap, Kelly, great nod to your fellow creators! I love this episode, as fights with dragons of all varieties and ages have been epic encounters for so many parties. From a tiny white wyrmling freezing members of a low level party to a knock-down drag-out fight with an adult red dragon that tested a much higher level party. We had two fliers (aarakocra monk and wizard on a broom) and an echo knight swarming it, the wizard and bard spamming save-or-suck spells to burn through its legendary resistance. We were able to prevent it from breathing on more than 2 characters, and eventually got him prone for a round. After the echo knight had tenderized him, the wizard polymorphed into a triceratops and rammed him for the final stroke, it truly was a clash of titans.
Would love to see a series from you guys about ways for DMs to improve monsters, give them new abilities & RP to really bring them to life beyond just varying HP, AC, attacks etc. Like giants, giving them cool abilities or RP points that just really emphasise their ridiculous strength etc
Thanks for the quality content guys. Even through the OGL situation, u remained professionals and I think you 2 are an absolute pillar of this community. Thanks!
OMG I was searching this exact question several weeks back and didnt find hardly anything. This video was much needed, thanks!
Moon druid Aasimar vs young dragon: Wildshaped into brown bear, Used Radiant soul to get wings and flying speed then made a Shove attack knocking the dragon prone and out of the sky. Falling damage wasn't enough to kill it but it sure took a hit and it was on the ground to get wailed on by the fighter.
As you do
@@benjaminholcomb9478 DM didn't see it coming. That'll teach him to spring a young dragon at a 4 lvl 3 players.😄 I'll admit the druid got lucky with his Strenght check.
I didn't miss all of those 3rd party creator books behind you guys. Nice that you're supporting them as you are and I love your videos. Keep up the great work!
The Dudes kicking out great content, like always. I’d like to see another video on wicked spell combos. Those are the ones I love the most.
Earthbind is a useful spell for taking down a Dragon. You might need some metamagic to make it stick though!
Dragon rend!
@@shannonhall8870 Basically, shout that dragon from the skies! 😂
One reason dragons adult or older should be immune to earthbind... (which didn't exist when the Monster manual was written... they aren't going to write in immunity to something that doesn't exist yet)
Earthbinds biggest issue is that works on a save and adult dragons or older get 3 legendary saves every day. Meaning, you’d have to burn through those 3 saves just to get a chance to stop them from flying.
@@seenyab4494 Yeah, by the time you are powerful enough to fight an adult dragon, you should have some means of flying whether by spell or magic item. Otherwise your melee is screwed.
Black Dragons actually do target dexterity with their breath weapon. Also, 1 spell that is superb at locking down a dragon is Otto’s Irresistible Dance. No save, requires an action to break out, and makes it easier to hit the dragon with weapon attacks and Dex-based spells until it breaks out
Great video, well laid out and explained!
As a sidenote, you mentionned that white, green and black dragons breath weapon saves didnt rely on Dexterity saving throws. Black dragons breath weapons do have Dexterity saving throws
This would be a great video to redo for the DM and all the DM tricks for dragons
Like this one?
ua-cam.com/video/ZQ_nWVK8yEA/v-deo.html
It should be noted, that there are specific dragon slayer items, which deal a 3d6 extra damage against any dragon
Love how you are showing support for other creators and totally rocking that Ginny Di merch!
LOVING that D&D content is back :) I'm excited for this year and next year with ODND, love you Dudes!
Two enthusiastic thumbs up for MCDM's Strongholds & Followers and Kingdoms & Warfare in the background!
Love your vids, Guys. One thing though: I think you overlooked how the sheer size of the dragon - especially Ancient ones (Gargantuan) - can affect the game. So, for example, even though the Sentinel feat doesn't specify a size, I don't allow the Sentinel feat to stall out a Gargantuan creatures (or Huge ones for that matter). The Battlemaster maneuver Trip as written only works on Large or smaller creatures. The Monk's Stunning Strike is an interesting one. It doesn't mention size and it is basically a magical ability but it would make sense that the blow would have to be somewhat close to the head of the dragon. A monk doing Stunning Strike to the tail of the dragon and stunning it just seems weird, but I'll grant that that is up the the GM. Another example is the Eldritch Blast cantrip. While I do allow the Lance of Lethargy (reduce speed 10'), I don't allow the push/pull invocations because I think those would be size limited. Just my take. A nice combo is Eldritch Blast/Ray of Frost which can reduce the speed of the dragon by 10+10=20'. This makes it more likely that your flyers can actually keep up to the dragon (Adult Red has a fly speed of 80'). Also, Hasting a flyer helps by doubling their fly speed (as well as all the other great things Haste does). Nice to have a Sorcerer with Twin Haste in the party!
One interesting tactic to blow through the Legendary Resistances is the 1st level Command Spell. You command the dragon to Grovel. If the dragon fails, it would be prone, thus falling. It would almost certain use up one of it Resistances to prevent this. It also a WIS save, which as you pointed out isn't their best save (only +2 for an Ancient Red).
One spell I don't think you mentioned is Absorb Elements which gives you resistance to acid, cold, fire and lightning (thunder too). It's only 1st level and its a reaction. Use it if ya got it!
Lastly, arrows of (dragon) slaying! My group brought a few of these. They are expensive (say, 1000 gp each) and it's unfortunately a CON save. The dragon actually saved on all the arrows that hit, but since it does 6d10, even half damage can make a difference in a tough fight.
Totally agree that Heroes Feast is a must even at a 1000 gp. So many benefits and the cost is easily recouped from the dragons hoard. The immunity to Poison even applies to Red Dragons. I'm guilty as a GM of overlooking the Lair Actions. I wasn't aware till reading them just now that the Ancient Red has a poison attack (volcanic gas cloud: 120' range, 20' radius, failed save = Poisoned & Incapacitated)!
Hope this helps! Take care and thanks again for all the great vids.
I played in a campaign once as a wild soul sorcerer, and our party got beset upon by 4 baby blue dragons. After routing them, the momma came in to save/avenge them. I pulled a "destiny 2 titan bubble" move by jumping in on the party and casting wall of force as a sphere around us, allowing our wizard enough time to cast leomund's tiny hut to buy the party time for a short rest (we were pretty effed up, only lvl 9 or 11 or sumthin like that)
after growing impatient, the dwarf in the part stepped out to challenge the dragon and the fight recommenced. (we were in a massive sandstorm caused by the dragons, so visibility was limited, making it hard to target the dragons)
once I caught sight of the momma dragon, I asked my DM "how big is it" and he described it's size to the party. Welp, needless to say, it was big, but ***juuuust*** barely fit inside a 20ft radius wall of force :D
once trapped, the party spent the next 10 min broiling it to death with flaming spheres XD (kinda felt bad for the DM with how anti-climatic it was)
I probably failed RAW here, but in LMoP I let a party of new players kill the green dragon while being like level 3 I believe. They convinced the Druid in the town of Thundertree to Polymorph the dragon for them into a pug. They had previously stolen a Bag Of Holding, so their plan was to turn the dragon into a Pug and put it in the bag so it would suffocate. The dragon failed its saved and got turned into a pug before almost killing a couple of the party. I allowed them to kill the dragon this way but it burst out of the Bag destroying it after it reverted to its normal form after dying.
Been DMing for a while and I would have let that one fly, RAW or not it was a really clever idea that had a pretty good failure chance, and rewarding that kind of creativity and risk taking is always the right call.
@@ssfbob456 That's what I thought I was I watched with glee that it worked out how they wanted but I still made them pay a steep price for it.
@@8vius oh yeah, losing a bag of holding at level 3 is painful, but they'll be talking about the time they smothered a dragon in it for years
Raw, when a polymorphed creature reaches 0 hp it reverts to its original form with whatever hp it had prior to being polymorphed. Just saying. :)
@@jamesbrannen204 yeah, I know.
this is the most amazing advice video ive ever seen. definitely my favorite. im amped to run a dragon now, but im already running a campaign. i miss gaming around the table
I fought an ancient white dragon in its lair with a level 14 party. Guarding its mountain stronghold was a coven of bheur hags riding ice drakes, I fought them on the backs of camels that I polymorphed into giant eagles. The dragon itself was a spellcaster, and used the reflective surfaces in its ice cavern to its advantage, using reflections to confuse the characters, and it also had the ability to teleport between the reflections. It was a tough fight but I managed to beat it without any casualties. Following the fight I learned the dragon had actually been cursed, and had been unable to leave its lair for hundreds of years.
Lost Mines of Phandelver. I out "green dragoned" my DM's Venomfang. I agreed to seek him a new lair if he left the tower and he agreed. We left, cleared out the castle, and returned after a long rest and after gaining our next level. I told the group I have no intention of letting that dragon survive, and I went into the tower to kill him. My character was an Oath of Glory Paladin. I threw on my protection from poison and burned through every ability and spell slot I had for divine smite and my uses of inspiring smite. I did over a hundred damage to that dragon, taking only around ten points of damage myself after succeeding two saving throws against his breath weapon, cast compelled duel when he tried to flee, and I was going to have an epic tale of standing against a green dragon in what was, essentially, single combat and coming out on top. That is until the party rogue came in and stole the kill from me. As anti-climactic as it was it could not have gone better considering my character's backstory.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I had a black dragon in the lizardfolk lair eating all the eggs because a green dragon had moved into his territory. The black dragon declared that he would stop eating the eggs if they could get rid of the green dragon. If they brought back its nose horn then he would honor his word. The party finds the green dragon, larger and obviously more powerful than the black one, and a roleplaying encounter ensues. I run green dragons like Little Finger or Varys from Game of Thrones, and by the time that encounter was over I had the party so twisted around their own thoughts that they didn't know right from south. I convinced them to go back, kill the black dragon that was obviously going to betray them anyway, and if they did so he would leave the lizardfolk alone. He gives the party a scale to prove his death, and they return to the black dragon. The black dragon is not impressed by the scale when he demanded his horn, and combat begins. All of the players are lined up at the entrance to the cave in a nice, perfect straight line. Breath weapon. Knocked down two players. The excrement has hit the oscillating wind machine. Combat ends when my amazing sorcerer player casts Blight and essentially melts the dragon's face paving the way for, you guessed it, a rogue to finish off the dragon.
The sneaky bastards.
The green dragon keeps his word. He doesn't attack the lizardfolk. The town of Saltmarsh seems like a much bigger prize, and he never promised the town would be safe.
This is honestly best used as DM advice, because I promise that most DM's are not thinking about the dragon's behavior even a fourth as optimally as what the players would be prepping for from watching this vid.
This was a fantastic video! I really hope you turn this into a series, including other types, like golems.
Our party put together a 'tribute/bribe' caravan with siege ballistas with special ammunition hidden in the wagons. They only got one shot each, but collectively did a LOT of damage. This was using v3.0/3.5 rules.
Always like blue for their lightning, and the old Master of Magic game's favorite unit was the Sky Drake.
My very first 5e campaign was Tyranny of Dragons, so we fought A LOT of dragons! I was a Hunter/Assassin multi-class. So yes shooting arrows worked most of the time, but when it didn't that's when my rogue abilities came in & I managed to acrobat myself up onto the dragon's back and start wailing on it.
I'd like to see "How to destroy the party with a dragon"
Dragons were originally the apex enemy creatures of the game and ancient dragons should still instill fear in even level 20 PCs.
Lets bring dragons up to the power level of the PCs.
Lets use dragon tactics rather than the typical underground surround and pound making the creatures "Meh... That was easy."
You are in luck, they have just such a video right here ua-cam.com/video/ZQ_nWVK8yEA/v-deo.html
16:22 lol literally last session we walked into a dragons lair without knowing it. it was an important location for the plot, a cave where the presence of the gods was still felt and we needed it for a big ritual spell, and then we get there and of course we find the white dragon there that we were warned was somewhere in the mountains. it was so obvious in hindsight...
My group had an encounter with an adult black dragon. I was playing a Goliath 8 Path of the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian/6 Rune Knight Fighter and had just (unknowingly) drank a Potion of Giant Strength, specifically Storm Giant Strength. So, with my STR boosted to 29 and the power boost of Rage and Giant’s Might, I managed to grapple the dragon before it could get off the ground and just suplex the thing
I AM SO ADDICTED TO THIS CHANNEL EVER SINCE LEARNING ABOUT DND
My wee party of level 3s defeated a young green dragon (CR 8) with a few lucky rolls and a decent plan that managed to mostly work in execution.
We constructed a heavy net with pitons on the ends out of our adventuring supplies, and used Pass Without Trace to position our rogue near the top of the tower the dragon slept in, with the net in hand. Our druid, paladin and second rogue managed to sneak in the front, knowing the dragon may detect us before we got too far.
Sure enough the dragon spotted the druid (me), and assumed there were more allies hidden. I popped Warding Wind against its poison gas breath, we clustered together (specific strategy only for this fight, clustering together normally NOT RECOMMENDED) and used a dragonslaying sword and a skyblinder staff to fight it. The net dropped from above tangled the dragon's wings and stabbed into parts of the ground and the dragon itself, making it restrained and unable to fly. Two rounds of attacks with advantage and we almost took it out completely.
In the end I missed a concentration check by 3, and the wind spell dropped, and two of us went out in one poison go. My druid went over her max hp by 3 points (rip), our melee rogue narrowly avoided her max by 3 points, but our paladin finished it off in one glorious go with the dragonslaying sword in the eye. I couldn't even be mad that my character died because the battle was so epic and our plan worked. :D
This video came 1-2 weeks too late for me, last Sunday our DM started a Adult White Dragon (the cold dmg one) when we had no information about it being there, and the city prior to the engagement was kind of hostile, so we couldn't really prepared for anything, even given the time. Since we (lv10 party of 4) were following a higher leveled party with double our size, we ended up doing nothing. The battle ended in the 3rd turn, with half the party doing death saving throws after the breath attack used on the first round. As a rogue, seeing it coming flying for us, my preemptive action before combat was getting as far away as possible, so I was just outside the breath's range. First turn I Dash + bonus Action Dash the fuck away from it; next couple turns I shot one arrow each; battle ends, NPCs did 80% of the damage out of 600 HP lol
Rise of Tiamat in the Sea of Moving Ice?
@@ssfbob456 it's a homebrew setting as far as I know, we end up mostly fighting bosses (no groups) because our party compositions is whack (3 casters), since we started with like 9 people and the only ones left weren't really built to take hits.
@Allan Valin I only ask because backnwhen I ran it my players found themselves in a similar situation when I ran that, it would have been a TPK if I hadn't bothered to read up on that particular dragon's lore and found that if a warrior sufficiently impresses him he's been known to let them go, and the paladin managed to tank 2 breath weapons and multiple claws and bites, surviving with a single hit point. Right before I rolled the second breath, I decided in my head, "If he's still alive after this, that'll be enough." The whole thing was a straight up beat down.
Thank you for mentioning the meta! I know its hard for some players to separate player-knowledge from character-knowledge, but it bugs me when the two blur. Doing recon on the dragon can be a fun session, or at least including a plausible means for knowing dragon lore can flesh out roleplay.
Great video. Provided me some ideas to pose by my fellow players since our bbeg is a dracolich of some kind
I played the final quarter or so of Rise of Tiamat campaign (bc a player left the group and I replaced him) and knowing what we would fight against, I builded a Rune Knight Fighter (large size, advantage on athletics checks) Goliath (powerful build, so I could drag the dragon - not intended pun), focused on grapple (no flying speed nor legendary resistance), with Sorcerer dip (to quickened teleport and reach the target). This strategy made many encounters much easier. Of course I had to count on my crew to cause damage and keep me alive while doing so
At one point, my Eberron campaign was set upon by a dragon who had a little tiny vendetta against while we were travelling in an airship. Our bard basically spent the entire time on the edges of the fight, singing to use Countercharm, so everyone would have advantage on saving throws against the dragon's frightful presence.
The dragon made the fatal mistake of landing. My barbarian almost instantly shook off being frightened, so she ran straight at the dragon and got right in there with her axe... and Sentinel. The dragon kept trying to flee and I kept landing the attacks of opportunity, preventing him from escaping. "[Barbarian] doesn't give you permission to leave!" The party and the fighting members of the airship's crew spread themselves around him when they were able to.
We didn't let any part of that jerk go to waste when we were done with him. The bard had thigh-high boots made out of him.
I did something particularly diabolical...I created an albino red dragon so the party thought they were going up against a white dragon and brought fire spells...they managed to pull it off. Nearly a tpk the cleric was the last one standing and had to do a long rest in the dragons lair to raise dead lol
Interesting story about the potion preparation. In an old 3.5 game we were going against a red dragon and we all bought and drank fire resistance potions. Well the 3.5 Dracomicon has feats for dragons to brew potions to change breathe weapon damage. This red dragon used lightning on the party knocking 4 of the 7 of us down. DM has to quickly change that because only my character had healing to bring the fighter, druid, cleric and other rogue up. It was an actual honest mistake he didn't think the dice would hate those characters with single digit rolls.
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I've had two memorable dragon fights as a player. In one, the monk landed a stunning strike in the first round (young dragon, no legendaries) and we OBLITERATED it in that same round. It was an extremely easy fight but I still remember it because that moment was so epic and the monk felt so awesome. The second time I remember clearly, I was playing a moon druid. I cast polymorph on the raging barbarian to turn her into a T-Rex, then wild shaped into a Quetzalcoatlus and we had a massive kaijuu fight. Good times.
I'm about to run a blue dragon encounter for my party in the next session or two (depends how quickly they get through the pre-dragon stuff) and I'm really hoping I can make it feel epic for them!
Great job, dudes. How is this topic the first of it’s kind? Thank you
Sleet Storm and Tidal Wave to waterbend a dragon out of the sky. Sleet Storm goes off of a dex save or the creature falls prone and the sleet comes down from the sky. Tidal wave deals damage and on a failed dex save, same thing. You'll have to burn through the legendary resistances but after that you'll have a good way to knock the dragon back down when it hits the air, deal some fall damage and (for tidal wave) throw in some spell damage on top
How fitting that this video came out right after my group beat an adult Green one using the best tried and true tactic: group up, and hit it till it dies!!! (It also helped that our paladin critted twice in a row and did over 70 points of damage in one turn).
Our party fought a dragon in their lair who tried to cheese us by diving into the water and staying deep below us. We decided that killing the dragon was not our objective, and raided the treasure on the island it left behind and ran for it. Ultimately it forced the dragon to engage us more on our terms and we killed it.
Wormholes and Wombats: the game of hyper-spatial travel via a mysterious confluence of the cosmic conduits above New South Wales (working hypothesis: the gods heard about the Sydney Opera House and wanted a better look at it).
I played a bard, who controlled an adult blue dragon with Telekenesis - it was so fun and effective! :)
I've employed dragons twice:
First time, it was a juvenile black in his lair. He stalked the party as they entered his acidic grotto and surprised them with a spray of acid as it lurched out of the waters. The party took some serious damage through the fight, but ultimately the barbarian mounted the broom of flying, jumped on the dragon's back midair, and grappled him to the ground. The dragon died from the fall damage while the barbarian--thanks to his rage--walked it off. Lesson: Dragons have relatively low athletics scores.
Second time, it was an ancient blue, again in his lair. This was 20-level one-shot prologue to a campaign describing the heroic success (or failure) of the Legendary Adventurers who came centuries before the present campaign. The party committed basically every sin mentioned in the video--went in unaware they were going after a dragon, were not prepared at all, and tried to stealth into the lair. What was most surprising, even to me, was that mid-combat, I realized that since the dragon had burrow, reach attacks (anywhere from 10-20 ft), and 60 ft blindsight, he could simply burrow 10 feet underground and attack while remaining burrowed. He could hit them freely whereas he had total concealment against them. They ultimately fled, but that encounter provided the dragon with enough first-hand experience and familiarity that he tracked them down individually and took them down one-by-one. Lesson: Don't mess with Big Blue.
Flight is super useful, adding on mobile and barbarian's extra speed to go even faster and keep up with the dragon
You can actual bind a dragon to the ground with earthbind, but it will be hard since it is a str save. Plus legendary resists..' but if you do hit it? Your barbarian will love you.
so good to see yall back to your amazing DnD content :D
As much as Rise of Tiamat was a pain in the ass to run, I did really like how it portrayed the various shades of good the metallic dragons were. Are they going to deal with Tiamat and the cult? Absolutely, thats not in question, the question to them is how much collateral damage amount the other races is acceptable to make it happen.
So my first time encountering a dragon... was actually being the DM of all things, running Mines of Phandelver as my first module. There, in a ruined settlement, a young dragon made its perch on top of a wizard's broken tower. It took time to stare down as its hoard (small, but a start) as a collection of cultists tried to figure out the best way to approach it. The party approached the cultists, and talked THEM into thinking they wanted to join.
With the confidence and plan for the cultists, they head to the town center, where a large statue laid in celebration of an older hero rested. They spoke highly to the young beast, offering up the party as a meal for peace offering in Draconian tongue. The dragon took flight and hovered nearby during this, in which one of the members, who could understand the tongue themselves, signaled to the Wizard that they were going to be backstabbed, who then gave a signal to the Paladin to get ready for their own movement.
The Wizard casted Enlarge/Reduce on the statue, forcing down into a smaller structure for the Paladin to rush in, fetch it, and throw it at the flying lizard. Once it was in the air, the wizard stopped concentrating of the spell, causing the statue to grow to full before impact. I had to hold the table to try and find a spell that would fit what damage was going to be done before saying it shocked the dragon enough to be grounded and rolling initiative.
I... kept the dragon grounded, however. Yes, I know, bad tact for the dragon, but I was knew and drew in the dragon being only old enough to leave the nest, so he didn't know much better either (along with the shock). The cultists were PITIFUL in combat, barely nicking the party and, at worst, getting rid of a Familiar, while the Dragon got a NASTY crit on the Paladin almost falling them. Still, the statue did a good number and the party were holding themselves pretty well, so the young scaled being looked over the scene, thought it would not be worth the effort, and took off to the skies, abandoning his beginner's hoard so he could lick his wounds and find a new den to call home.
So yeah, I made some flops, but it was also a rather beginner module and a young drakeling, so I could also see them doing those mistakes. After all, mistakes have to be made if you want to learn from them.
2:50 "even the strongest of the ancient dragons can be slain"
Dauragatoth aka The creeping Doom, aka the Cr50 dracolich
I was in an Adventurers League one -hot once and we had two monks. We managed to stun-lock it right at the beginning and it wasn't able to do a thing for the entire fight. The party was mostly level 6.
Stunning strike is OP.
You can always send the warlock to eldritch smite it from the air. There is no save for the prone condition and it’s just gonna fall and die.
Good spells for casters to avoid the dmg would be: Absorb Elements / Shield / Blink or any feat that does something similar
The best spell for dragon is Absorb elements. You don't need potions or armor for resistance (unless you face gem dragons with psychic/radiant/necrotic damage or Green dragon with poison) You just need 1 reaction and spell slot of level 1, and if you fight dragon as mage you probably have both of them free anway. If also gives free concentration resistance, you don't need a lot of resources to cast it and you can cast it 2 or 3 times if you really need to.
For aerial archers strategy, i have Arra.... Bird Ranger/Sorcerer with shield and absorb elements and lot's of HP. I can tank a lot so if the dragon focus on me.. its even better. Because 50ft flying speed, 22 AC with shield or resistance with absorb element will make me survive at least few rounds when others can kill the dragon.
I was running a great wyrm red dragon against a party one time, and the only tactic they had was distract/insult while the barbarian snuck up behind with a sword of dragon slaying (while wearing boots of flying). Perception check was super low... It didn't notice. Then the barbarian used the sword like a chisel, driving it into the base of it's skull with their very magic maul. I did rule that due to the dragon's size it would take 3 hits, but the first two were handled in the first round. I suppose i could have ran it RAW, but the plan was fairly sound and they did spend a lot of time on it... Didn't see a point to deny it. Noticing the danger it was in due to the literally splitting headache it now suffered, it polymorphed into a eagle to get away from the sword. But it was too deep already. Instead, its head was lopped clean off as its neck quickly became smaller than the width of the blade. Was the most fun I think we ever had, lol.
This is great hope it becomes a series of how to fight common monsters. Mind flayer and beholder next?
They haven't fought many, but my players have always found ways to make dragon fights fun, lmao.
By far my favorite story comes from my Dragon of Icespire Peak game, where an unlucky random encounter with the BBEG Cryovain at the gates of Neverwinter turned into an epic two-round sweep between the fighter using a Dragon Slayer longsword and the druid using Conjure Animals to summon a giant constrictor snake that successfully restrained her. Adding insult to injury, the druid killed the dragon with a Magic Stone right through her skull, felling the first BBEG of that game with a goddamn *rock*. xD
A solid runner up is actually my first time running a dragon, where I had my homebrew group fight Venomfang post-Lost Mine so the gloves could come off. The gnome wizard came up with an insane plan to reach the dragon in the air with a combination of Enlarge/Reduce and Catapult. It utterly failed when the dragon made his Dex save, and the gnome probably would've died from the massive fall damage without his Blessing of Wound Closure, but *damn* was it fun to watch.
My story of encountering a dragon as a player was in Hoard of the Dragon Queen. At the beginning when the Blue Dragon attacks the keep, my party faced it and taunted it to attack us. The party was made of me as a Paladin with Sentinel and a greatsword, a GWM (Great Weapon Master) Barbarian, Ranger, Phathomless Warlock and a Rogue (we were all level 2). The melee characters got within 5 feet of the blue dragon and we killed an Adult Blue at level 2.
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The draconic sorcerer in my party would probably call it "fight dragons with dragons", but the main Idea is casting the spell Summon Draconic Spirit (from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons) to both get a flying summoned creature that resist the dragon's breath weapon damage type and get resistance for the caster to the dragon's breath weapon damage type with a single spell.
In our table, most dragons that have spells have the misty step spell, because bonus action teleport for a dragon is huge (as you probably already know from gem dragons that have it for free).
Thanks dudes
Man, I love this channel.
“ I offer you this bag of holding filled with glyphs of ward-- I mean, precious gems “
Today is the end of my party's adventure, they will try to slay criovain. Thanks for the amazing info. I can better prepare the session and provide clues for them to (try) build a strategy to defeat it.
Monty and Kelly, first of all, thanks for the great video! Second of all, some things that I am curious about (that you didn't address in the video, maybe a follow-up video) are: what classes excel at fighting Dragons? Which are not great at it? What would be the ideal party composition for fighting/taking down a Dragon? And what are the minimum levels at which you could survive a combat encounter with a Dragon (for example, X level and above, you should be okay, Y level and below, just run and pray the Dragon is feeling merciful)? Thx, appreciate you guys!
If i get to imagine a group of people with the task to slay a dragon, i imagine them going through a sort of preparation phase on their journey. Like they are called to slay slight minor foes correlated with the target dragon, simultaneosly gaining experience, important information and gear accordingly to the challenge they are going to face.
Ex. Slaying minor dragon of the same type as an ancient one, in order to get armor and artifact with coherent resistance and effects to stack.
Defeating an important disciple of the dragon etc
Command is an effective spell to use on dragons. It's a non-concentration option in attempting to reposition them.
Tell it to **Approach**, or **grovel**. If it sticks, you maneuver it and you waste its next turn. All for the low price of one 1st lvl spell while you concentrate on a buff.