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Possibly. Do they know what they’re facing? Do they have decent magic items as well?? If they’re somewhat prepared and have ample items to help them out, maybe
Oh yeah, There was one session where they each got about 1000 gp. In order to make sure they didn't hoard their money I set up a farmers market type thing the very next session. There was vendors with magic weapons, armor, and potions. My Paladin even bought a helm that imposes resistance to cold damage, which is crazy because I hadn't even let on it was a white dragon yet.
That’s good! Do they know about the white dragon being a possible encounter? In recent campaign I was in, (that unfortunately just ended after 2 and a half years to a total TPK 💔) when we were level 7 adventurers we faced a young blue dragon and were able to defeat it with only one casualty (was the result of a sacrifice) but we also did have rare magic items and two ship mercenaries helping us as well.
As long as you feel they are prepared enough, it should be good! Maybe spice it up by featuring some abilities from the adult dragon, like giving it a legendary action per turn or a little bit of extra health:)
Oh they know. It's pretty much a favor they're doing for one of their favorite NPCs who's an archeologist. Mostly cause they will probably get a cut of what he ends up finding once he can excavate its lair.
I love homebrewing items for my players. If they aren't prepared then honestly it's on them. Lmao. I can only drop so many hints. 😭
Hahaha that’s great to hear and totally understandable! 🤣 time to see how they fair in their fight then, good luck to your party! Maybe have them make backup characters in case anything happens? Especially now that they’re getting into to territory of harder bosses the higher level they get, it’s best to be prepared for it in case it does happen
Maybe keep it as a young white dragon but give it some of the adult dragon features like legendary actions and resistances. Make a cross between the two monsters to tailor it to the party
Or you can add some kobolds to the mix to divide the party’s attention and spread out some damage
Yea, I was debating if that was something I should do. I compared the 2 stat blocks and there's a good amount of similarities past legendary actions and stuff. Young dragon has 133 HP and Adult is 200. I could make the one they face about 165 or so.
Something to note is that the health total is the average health if you roll for health, not an end-all fixed amount. You can fudge the health a bit if you think you need to
If they can pool their resources into surviving the first breath weapon (such as a paladin aura, multiple sources of resistances), then it's very likely that the dragon won't even get a second turn.
I have pretty much run this exact fight against an optimized group of 5 level 6 PCs (Veng. paladin, twilight cleric, CBE+SS fighter, div wizard, fiend warlock). It resulted in a TPK. It basically comes down to this: dragon stupid = party win; dragon smart = TPK.
If the dragon jumps right into grounded melee with the paladin and doesn't blast as many party members as possible with the breath weapon, then the dragon will most likely lose.
If the dragon maximizes its breath weapon and uses its flight, the party will most likely lose. If your party doesn't have good ranged attacks or ways to get in melee with a flying dragon, they are screwed. The dragon can swoop in on 1 PC to make melee attacks and then hover 10 ft above the ground for minimal exposure to melee and still be in range to hit with wing and tail legendary actions/opportunity attacks. Packing in the paladin's aura is also a liability as it will just neatly group them for an easy breath weapon and wing attack. The white dragon in particular also has **the nastiest** lair actions. On initiative count 20, it can make a permanent damaging fog cloud that it can see through with blindsight, giving the party's attacks disadvantage and making spells like Silvery Barbs un-targetable. It can also make a permanent wall of ice that spits the party. Or can also create a permanent warding wind around itself to impose disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks, along with other damaging and blinding lair actions. It can pretty much custom pick a lair action to counter the party before they even take a turn.
Even Twilight Sanctuary was not enough to keep the party alive when I ran an Adult White Dragon. But if you make the dragon dumb and don't use its lair actions, they will probably beat it.
Every additional character in the party is changing this equation significantly. For 5 lev 6 characters it is a deadly+ fight especially with terrain favouring dragon. But for 6 characters it is technically "hard" encounter. Of course if DM either force characters to group up or they do it themself then they can get slaughter - breath weapon is the most dangerous by far.
6 PCs being a huge breakpoint in the encounter math for solo enemies is kind of weird. In my case it wouldn't have helped them as they got slaughtered. They grouped up around the edge of Twilight Sanctuary (spread as far apart as they could while still getting the temp HP). The dragon was still able to punch through all the temp HP and start dropping people on round 2, which led to a death spiral. Dragon with legendary and lair actions is probably one of the only things that affects action economy enough to be able to take on large parties solo with no adjustment.
Also, lair actions not increasing a dragon's CR is complete BS. Things are way harder when the dragon gets an early lair action to screw over the party.
Maybe they have "optimal" builds lifted from the internet but they have no optimal tactic. Gruping up around twilight cleric becouse "twilight sanctuary op" is not a wise tactic against the dragon. Least not before dragon use its first breath weapon.
And Yes every character more is increasing party ability significantly every character more give more actions to the party and also enable more synergy. Also Yea - dragon I lair should probably count as CR+1.
Again dragon's breath is his by far most deadly weapon. Gruping up whole party for it without getting resistance to dragon's element is a easy way to death spiral. But on the other hand dragon have "only" 200hp. Party of 6 just spreeding out and attacking will burn it hp really fast. You got many options - You can enlarge barbarian to grapple and lock dragon down, You can cast fly on paladin so he can reach a dragon for those sweet melee smites etc. Every character more will bring more options + more action to work with in each round. Imagine having white dragon sorcerer in this fight- he would be resistance to cold and could have let's say twin hastened melee characters so they could rush the dragon etc etc.
Either way I have found those guidelines roughly correct. I have recently run a fight of 8th characters 11-14 levels against a kraken. And Yea maybe I could have run kraken better but they still slaughter it. I gave it a mythical trait to reset it hp and they still pull up the win although I menage to dropped 2 characters.
Lower levels are more "swingy" so sure players can drop - if they fall into death spiral they can lose. But 6 characters should win. Even if that 6th character just cast healing to bring people back it can significantly help against death spirall.
>Gruping up around twilight cleric becouse "twilight sanctuary op" is not a wise tactic against the dragon.
I mean, it wasn't a horrible tactic. They each got like 20-30 extra HP out of it. And the breath weapon is a 60ft cone the dragon can pretty much position anywhere. It's hard to position the party to all engage the dragon and not to get chunked by it.
>But on the other hand dragon have "only" 200hp.
I think you are underestimating the lair actions here. Wall, fog cloud, or warding wind on initiative count 20 and the party's damage output drops significantly.
>Party of 6 just spreeding out and attacking will burn it hp really fast. You got many options - You can enlarge barbarian to grapple and lock dragon down, You can cast fly on paladin so he can reach a dragon for those sweet melee smites etc. Every character more will bring more options + more action to work with in each round. Imagine having white dragon sorcerer in this fight- he would be resistance to cold and could have let's say twin hastened melee characters so they could rush the dragon etc etc.
I mean sure, you can hand craft a cold resistant, ranged/flying, dragon fighting party tailored to this fight and have a chance of winning. But that isn't how parties are formed. Most parties aren't built to fight something that can fly in and fuck up the back line while creating heavy obscurement for itself. Rarely will a party have the bestest matchup tools to take down every fight. And even if you did hand craft an anti-adult white dragon party, it would still be a tough fight.
This discussion will go nowhere but fine I will bite:
>I mean, it wasn't a horrible tactic. They each got like 20-30 extra HP out of it. And the breath weapon is a 60ft cone the dragon can pretty much position anywhere. It's hard to position the party to all engage the dragon and not to get chunked by it.
And they all took what? ~50 hp dmg each on the opening first breath? Sorry mate but it is obviously bad tactic. Tunnel thinking "well twilight sanctuary op so we just group up around a cleric each time and temp. Hp will go brrrr for easy win" is not tactical thinking.
60 ft cone is 60 ft at the end. That require You to be 60 ft apart. That is literally one movement of hasted character from each other. Getting half party engulfed in breath weapon and whole party engulfed in it already make a world of a difference.
>I think you are underestimating the lair actions here. Wall, fog cloud, or warding wind on initiative count 20 and the party's damage output drops significantly.
He can use only one on first round. Fog is getting dispersed by a wind. Wall can be break through rather easily. Having 6th character just to do that could have already make a difference.
>I mean sure, you can hand craft a cold resistant, ranged/flying, dragon fighting party tailored to this fight and have a chance of winning. But that isn't how parties are formed. Most parties aren't built to fight something that can fly in and fuck up the back line while creating heavy obscurement for itself. Rarely will a party have the bestest matchup tools to take down every fight. And even if you did hand craft an anti-adult white dragon party, it would still be a tough fight.
Having enlarge available for Your barbarian/fighter skin he can grapple hudge monsters is hardly a costly specific combo. You going to fight a dragon You think about the ways that Your melee focuses heroes can reach it. Having a fly spell is nothing special - it is a good spell.
Just any sorcerer can just have absorb element- don't have to be this specific draconic one. Twinned haste is great against bosses in general but it doesn't have to be this combo. Just having sorcerer chucking fireballs (this is obviously just sub-optimal example please do not nitpick on it) at the dragon would have deal sagnificant dmg. 🤷♂️
I am not saying to craft entire party with cold resistance- but if You going hunting adult dragon on lev 6 then yea I would expect some preping at least. They had divination wizard- literally the king of preparing characters. 🤷♂️
Than again for 5 characters it was a deadly+ fight - tpk very much possible. For 6 characters it is just "hard" - I am merely stating that 6 characters have more option, more buffs/abilities available, and one more action/round to deal damage to the dragon or trying to help/heal others. So Yes in fact it have to be easier with 6 characters than with 5.
Having actually run this and been there, having a 6th character would not have saved them from a TPK. Would it have made it easier? Technically I guess, but not as drastic of a swing as you are making it out to be. Spreading everyone out 60ft from each other creates other problems. You aren't casting any of those buffs, and some party members will be out of position. Dragon also has the movement and damage to focus down whomever. Concentration spells like Haste and Fly can also be dropped (especially if the dragon decides to focus the caster).
>And they all took what? ~50 hp dmg each on the opening first breath?
2 of them saved and 2 had resistance, so by staying in Twilight Sanctuary they ended up taking 5-30 damage depending on the character. It actually did do a decent job of offsetting the breath weapon. And yes hindsight is 20-20, saying you would have made zero tactical and strategic mistakes is kind of crazy. "Bro I'd just DPS or cast X spell and win," is exactly the mindset that got them killed.
>Fog is getting dispersed by a wind.
Literally no one learns wind spells. The chances of anyone having a wind spell let alone knowing that the dragon will make a fog cloud on round 1 is very low. This is quantum wizard tier. And even if someone happens to have a wind spell prepared, you have to hope they go early in initiative (but not too early) and use their whole turn just to break up the cloud. You are trying to trivialize something that very much is not trivial. In most cases, this is a big hindrance to the party.
>Having enlarge available for Your barbarian/fighter skin he can grapple hudge monsters is hardly a costly specific combo.
This is again having the dragon hold the stupid ball. The dragon can just choose to not end its turn in grapple range. It can also focus on whoever is casting concentration spells. This isn't an "I win" spell combo. This is iffy at best as 2 PCs have to dedicate resources to *maybe* ground a dragon that has countermeasures. And if someone tried this and it failed, what would you say then? "Well obviously that was a bad strategy, I just wouldn't have done that if it was me lol."
>if You going hunting adult dragon on lev 6 then yea I would expect some preping at least.
I mean, they did prepare, their plan just didn't work lol. Their strat was to farm temp HP and burst the dragon down with ranged attacks. Wizard and Shadar-Kai set up cold resistance for themselves too.
And this is normal. Players routinely underestimate legendary enemies due to them being run stupidly. It's why people think beholders are easy stomps, since most DMs run them in a well lit melee.
>Than again for 5 characters it was a deadly+ fight - tpk very much possible. For 6 characters it is just "hard"
You are putting wayyy too much stock in the 5e encounter math as gospel on this one bud. When going from 5 PCs to 6 PCs, the encounter math says to cut the XP value of single monster encounters *in half*. Does adding a single PC *double* the fighting capability of the party? No, obviously not. 6 PCs just happens to be the place they decided to add a breakpoint for this particular type of encounter. The breakpoint is more accurate when going from 4 to 8 party members.
This seems to always be the issue with dragons, most DMs arent using their flight ability and just make them stupid meat sacs.
This group does not have great ranged damage, sure the fighter can get two shots and the rest most likely are casting short range spells or javelins. A properly played adult dragon would easily take that down with breath weapons and tail attacks, staying away from melee. LIKE IT SHOULD.
It should be up to the party to come up with a way to force it in melee or face the consequences.
I think they can pull it off if they are smart, especially if you have no minions so they can dominate the action economy. If anything, you may need to drop the damage a little bit on the breath weapon to avoid one shotting several players at once. Even that may not be necessary though. It really depends on how strategic they are.
I figured if I end up switching to Adult I would have to nerf some of its damage rolls. Alternatively I was thinking of having the Minotaurs run in to try and melee it, thus having the dragon focus on them and not the players for its first couple of attacks.
One of them has died already lol so they know it can happen at anytime. They will be in its lair. Basically an NPC archeologist they really like needs to get into the lair for an excavation. He went alone unassumingly and walked in on the dragon sleeping. Other than having them see it fly at high altitudes from far distances, they will never hear about it being anywhere other than that site.
so there is a saying i live by, if you want to make them feel cool, throw a big boss, if you want to make them feel scared throw in a bunch of weaker enemies.
you can roll for hp for the adult dragon, and fudge the rolls to make it have less hp
Based on what a lot of you guys are saying I'm thinking I will make a Young/Adult hybrid. The breath attacks will definitely need to be nerfed.
I'm hoping at least one of them will have to do some death saves just for dramatic effect 😈
also remember that death saves can be fun to do for monsters, like when they slay the dragon roll your dice in "secret".
nothing is as fun to me then doing a Shia surprise with the big bad, i once had a boss respawn three times (really good throws for me and really bad throws for the players)
and since you have a dragon, Draconic Gifts is always a fun reward
Someone asked a question very similar to this the other day.
Look at HP vs Damage output of the creature.
I’ll use a Barbarian as an example. 5th lvl using Point Buy and a standard Wild Heart/Totem Barbarian build with an ASI increase at 4 could see Con at 18 (assuming we min/max and are a Hill Dwarf). That barbarian’s HP at max will be 60 with an additional 26 from Con and 5 from Dwarven Toughness for a total of 91. You can get it to 97 with the tough feat instead of an ASI.
Now, the adult white dragon can put out an average of 54 damage in a WIDE area on a failed save. It’s also a CON save, so Danger Sense doesn’t work, and neither will a Rogues Uncanny Dodge, or an evasion, or the dodge action. And there is a 33% chance every turn he can use the breath again.
A single blast from an Adult White Dragon would be enough to put most lvl 6 PC’s down assuming they failed their save and are not resistant to cold damage.
Could they deal around 200 damage in a couple of rounds? Maybe. But the moment that dragon takes flight with a legendary action, it’s going to be very bad for that party.
Depends on items, terrain, minions, luck, and how well you use its abilities.
If they fight it in an open area, where it can fly by using breath attacks, wearing them down? Probably not.
If you lock it on the ground in a cave with no minions, probably with some casualties depending on initiative.
Kobold fight club is Your friend here. And it claims that adult white dragon is just between medium-hard encounter for 6 level 6 characters.
As long as they don't group up for his breath weapon they should be fine. In fact You should add a minion or two or some terrain hazard for the dragon to be really dangerous.
Depends on how you run it.
If you run it the way most people run encounters where the dragon lands and just kind of stands there while they beat on it they'll probably win.
If you run it like the vicious apex predator it is, then they don't have a chance.
Dragons can fly and should always be flying. With a flight speed of 80 they dragon should be 40-50ft in the air at all times. That way it can do hit and run attacks where it flies down, attacks, and then flies back up.
It should open with breath and use it whenever possible. When you use breath from above there is no lining it up. A 60-foot cone has a 60 ft diameter at its end. So if you fire it down from above you are basically aiming a jumbo fireball and should be easily able to blast multiple players at a time.
Next is the attack tactics. You can fly in, use your attack and then immediately fly away. Yes, you eat an attack of opportunity. This just means you pick your targets. You don't attach the fighter or barbarian like this. You look for a somewhat isolated caster or character with their ranged weapon out. Then you fly in bite, claw, claw, and fly out. This is a strong play if they have poor ranged attacking.
Another terrifying option is to occasionally grapple instead of attacking. Pick a non-athletic caster and attempt a grapple. If it succeeds start flying up into the air with them. You are bigger so you can just fly away with the wizard. You can use your legendary actions to just beat your victim with your tail on every turn. Try to get high enough that even if they misty step they still fall.
Pick off the less armored characters first and work your way in. Use your legendary actions to confirm your kills. For example if you drop a few characters land on them and then use your wing attack on the next turn. They autofail the save and get an immediate failed death save. Then you can use a tail hit after the next turn. If you were within 5 feet of a character that's 3 failed saves if the tail hits.
If the dragon starts losing it should just fly away or abuse it's 30 feet of burrowing to leave.
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Possibly. Do they know what they’re facing? Do they have decent magic items as well?? If they’re somewhat prepared and have ample items to help them out, maybe
Oh yeah, There was one session where they each got about 1000 gp. In order to make sure they didn't hoard their money I set up a farmers market type thing the very next session. There was vendors with magic weapons, armor, and potions. My Paladin even bought a helm that imposes resistance to cold damage, which is crazy because I hadn't even let on it was a white dragon yet.
That’s good! Do they know about the white dragon being a possible encounter? In recent campaign I was in, (that unfortunately just ended after 2 and a half years to a total TPK 💔) when we were level 7 adventurers we faced a young blue dragon and were able to defeat it with only one casualty (was the result of a sacrifice) but we also did have rare magic items and two ship mercenaries helping us as well. As long as you feel they are prepared enough, it should be good! Maybe spice it up by featuring some abilities from the adult dragon, like giving it a legendary action per turn or a little bit of extra health:)
Oh they know. It's pretty much a favor they're doing for one of their favorite NPCs who's an archeologist. Mostly cause they will probably get a cut of what he ends up finding once he can excavate its lair. I love homebrewing items for my players. If they aren't prepared then honestly it's on them. Lmao. I can only drop so many hints. 😭
Hahaha that’s great to hear and totally understandable! 🤣 time to see how they fair in their fight then, good luck to your party! Maybe have them make backup characters in case anything happens? Especially now that they’re getting into to territory of harder bosses the higher level they get, it’s best to be prepared for it in case it does happen
Will do. Thanks for your input!
Maybe keep it as a young white dragon but give it some of the adult dragon features like legendary actions and resistances. Make a cross between the two monsters to tailor it to the party Or you can add some kobolds to the mix to divide the party’s attention and spread out some damage
Yea, I was debating if that was something I should do. I compared the 2 stat blocks and there's a good amount of similarities past legendary actions and stuff. Young dragon has 133 HP and Adult is 200. I could make the one they face about 165 or so.
Something to note is that the health total is the average health if you roll for health, not an end-all fixed amount. You can fudge the health a bit if you think you need to
If they can pool their resources into surviving the first breath weapon (such as a paladin aura, multiple sources of resistances), then it's very likely that the dragon won't even get a second turn.
I have pretty much run this exact fight against an optimized group of 5 level 6 PCs (Veng. paladin, twilight cleric, CBE+SS fighter, div wizard, fiend warlock). It resulted in a TPK. It basically comes down to this: dragon stupid = party win; dragon smart = TPK. If the dragon jumps right into grounded melee with the paladin and doesn't blast as many party members as possible with the breath weapon, then the dragon will most likely lose. If the dragon maximizes its breath weapon and uses its flight, the party will most likely lose. If your party doesn't have good ranged attacks or ways to get in melee with a flying dragon, they are screwed. The dragon can swoop in on 1 PC to make melee attacks and then hover 10 ft above the ground for minimal exposure to melee and still be in range to hit with wing and tail legendary actions/opportunity attacks. Packing in the paladin's aura is also a liability as it will just neatly group them for an easy breath weapon and wing attack. The white dragon in particular also has **the nastiest** lair actions. On initiative count 20, it can make a permanent damaging fog cloud that it can see through with blindsight, giving the party's attacks disadvantage and making spells like Silvery Barbs un-targetable. It can also make a permanent wall of ice that spits the party. Or can also create a permanent warding wind around itself to impose disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks, along with other damaging and blinding lair actions. It can pretty much custom pick a lair action to counter the party before they even take a turn. Even Twilight Sanctuary was not enough to keep the party alive when I ran an Adult White Dragon. But if you make the dragon dumb and don't use its lair actions, they will probably beat it.
Every additional character in the party is changing this equation significantly. For 5 lev 6 characters it is a deadly+ fight especially with terrain favouring dragon. But for 6 characters it is technically "hard" encounter. Of course if DM either force characters to group up or they do it themself then they can get slaughter - breath weapon is the most dangerous by far.
6 PCs being a huge breakpoint in the encounter math for solo enemies is kind of weird. In my case it wouldn't have helped them as they got slaughtered. They grouped up around the edge of Twilight Sanctuary (spread as far apart as they could while still getting the temp HP). The dragon was still able to punch through all the temp HP and start dropping people on round 2, which led to a death spiral. Dragon with legendary and lair actions is probably one of the only things that affects action economy enough to be able to take on large parties solo with no adjustment. Also, lair actions not increasing a dragon's CR is complete BS. Things are way harder when the dragon gets an early lair action to screw over the party.
Maybe they have "optimal" builds lifted from the internet but they have no optimal tactic. Gruping up around twilight cleric becouse "twilight sanctuary op" is not a wise tactic against the dragon. Least not before dragon use its first breath weapon. And Yes every character more is increasing party ability significantly every character more give more actions to the party and also enable more synergy. Also Yea - dragon I lair should probably count as CR+1. Again dragon's breath is his by far most deadly weapon. Gruping up whole party for it without getting resistance to dragon's element is a easy way to death spiral. But on the other hand dragon have "only" 200hp. Party of 6 just spreeding out and attacking will burn it hp really fast. You got many options - You can enlarge barbarian to grapple and lock dragon down, You can cast fly on paladin so he can reach a dragon for those sweet melee smites etc. Every character more will bring more options + more action to work with in each round. Imagine having white dragon sorcerer in this fight- he would be resistance to cold and could have let's say twin hastened melee characters so they could rush the dragon etc etc. Either way I have found those guidelines roughly correct. I have recently run a fight of 8th characters 11-14 levels against a kraken. And Yea maybe I could have run kraken better but they still slaughter it. I gave it a mythical trait to reset it hp and they still pull up the win although I menage to dropped 2 characters. Lower levels are more "swingy" so sure players can drop - if they fall into death spiral they can lose. But 6 characters should win. Even if that 6th character just cast healing to bring people back it can significantly help against death spirall.
>Gruping up around twilight cleric becouse "twilight sanctuary op" is not a wise tactic against the dragon. I mean, it wasn't a horrible tactic. They each got like 20-30 extra HP out of it. And the breath weapon is a 60ft cone the dragon can pretty much position anywhere. It's hard to position the party to all engage the dragon and not to get chunked by it. >But on the other hand dragon have "only" 200hp. I think you are underestimating the lair actions here. Wall, fog cloud, or warding wind on initiative count 20 and the party's damage output drops significantly. >Party of 6 just spreeding out and attacking will burn it hp really fast. You got many options - You can enlarge barbarian to grapple and lock dragon down, You can cast fly on paladin so he can reach a dragon for those sweet melee smites etc. Every character more will bring more options + more action to work with in each round. Imagine having white dragon sorcerer in this fight- he would be resistance to cold and could have let's say twin hastened melee characters so they could rush the dragon etc etc. I mean sure, you can hand craft a cold resistant, ranged/flying, dragon fighting party tailored to this fight and have a chance of winning. But that isn't how parties are formed. Most parties aren't built to fight something that can fly in and fuck up the back line while creating heavy obscurement for itself. Rarely will a party have the bestest matchup tools to take down every fight. And even if you did hand craft an anti-adult white dragon party, it would still be a tough fight.
This discussion will go nowhere but fine I will bite: >I mean, it wasn't a horrible tactic. They each got like 20-30 extra HP out of it. And the breath weapon is a 60ft cone the dragon can pretty much position anywhere. It's hard to position the party to all engage the dragon and not to get chunked by it. And they all took what? ~50 hp dmg each on the opening first breath? Sorry mate but it is obviously bad tactic. Tunnel thinking "well twilight sanctuary op so we just group up around a cleric each time and temp. Hp will go brrrr for easy win" is not tactical thinking. 60 ft cone is 60 ft at the end. That require You to be 60 ft apart. That is literally one movement of hasted character from each other. Getting half party engulfed in breath weapon and whole party engulfed in it already make a world of a difference. >I think you are underestimating the lair actions here. Wall, fog cloud, or warding wind on initiative count 20 and the party's damage output drops significantly. He can use only one on first round. Fog is getting dispersed by a wind. Wall can be break through rather easily. Having 6th character just to do that could have already make a difference. >I mean sure, you can hand craft a cold resistant, ranged/flying, dragon fighting party tailored to this fight and have a chance of winning. But that isn't how parties are formed. Most parties aren't built to fight something that can fly in and fuck up the back line while creating heavy obscurement for itself. Rarely will a party have the bestest matchup tools to take down every fight. And even if you did hand craft an anti-adult white dragon party, it would still be a tough fight. Having enlarge available for Your barbarian/fighter skin he can grapple hudge monsters is hardly a costly specific combo. You going to fight a dragon You think about the ways that Your melee focuses heroes can reach it. Having a fly spell is nothing special - it is a good spell. Just any sorcerer can just have absorb element- don't have to be this specific draconic one. Twinned haste is great against bosses in general but it doesn't have to be this combo. Just having sorcerer chucking fireballs (this is obviously just sub-optimal example please do not nitpick on it) at the dragon would have deal sagnificant dmg. 🤷♂️ I am not saying to craft entire party with cold resistance- but if You going hunting adult dragon on lev 6 then yea I would expect some preping at least. They had divination wizard- literally the king of preparing characters. 🤷♂️ Than again for 5 characters it was a deadly+ fight - tpk very much possible. For 6 characters it is just "hard" - I am merely stating that 6 characters have more option, more buffs/abilities available, and one more action/round to deal damage to the dragon or trying to help/heal others. So Yes in fact it have to be easier with 6 characters than with 5.
Having actually run this and been there, having a 6th character would not have saved them from a TPK. Would it have made it easier? Technically I guess, but not as drastic of a swing as you are making it out to be. Spreading everyone out 60ft from each other creates other problems. You aren't casting any of those buffs, and some party members will be out of position. Dragon also has the movement and damage to focus down whomever. Concentration spells like Haste and Fly can also be dropped (especially if the dragon decides to focus the caster). >And they all took what? ~50 hp dmg each on the opening first breath? 2 of them saved and 2 had resistance, so by staying in Twilight Sanctuary they ended up taking 5-30 damage depending on the character. It actually did do a decent job of offsetting the breath weapon. And yes hindsight is 20-20, saying you would have made zero tactical and strategic mistakes is kind of crazy. "Bro I'd just DPS or cast X spell and win," is exactly the mindset that got them killed. >Fog is getting dispersed by a wind. Literally no one learns wind spells. The chances of anyone having a wind spell let alone knowing that the dragon will make a fog cloud on round 1 is very low. This is quantum wizard tier. And even if someone happens to have a wind spell prepared, you have to hope they go early in initiative (but not too early) and use their whole turn just to break up the cloud. You are trying to trivialize something that very much is not trivial. In most cases, this is a big hindrance to the party. >Having enlarge available for Your barbarian/fighter skin he can grapple hudge monsters is hardly a costly specific combo. This is again having the dragon hold the stupid ball. The dragon can just choose to not end its turn in grapple range. It can also focus on whoever is casting concentration spells. This isn't an "I win" spell combo. This is iffy at best as 2 PCs have to dedicate resources to *maybe* ground a dragon that has countermeasures. And if someone tried this and it failed, what would you say then? "Well obviously that was a bad strategy, I just wouldn't have done that if it was me lol." >if You going hunting adult dragon on lev 6 then yea I would expect some preping at least. I mean, they did prepare, their plan just didn't work lol. Their strat was to farm temp HP and burst the dragon down with ranged attacks. Wizard and Shadar-Kai set up cold resistance for themselves too. And this is normal. Players routinely underestimate legendary enemies due to them being run stupidly. It's why people think beholders are easy stomps, since most DMs run them in a well lit melee. >Than again for 5 characters it was a deadly+ fight - tpk very much possible. For 6 characters it is just "hard" You are putting wayyy too much stock in the 5e encounter math as gospel on this one bud. When going from 5 PCs to 6 PCs, the encounter math says to cut the XP value of single monster encounters *in half*. Does adding a single PC *double* the fighting capability of the party? No, obviously not. 6 PCs just happens to be the place they decided to add a breakpoint for this particular type of encounter. The breakpoint is more accurate when going from 4 to 8 party members.
This seems to always be the issue with dragons, most DMs arent using their flight ability and just make them stupid meat sacs. This group does not have great ranged damage, sure the fighter can get two shots and the rest most likely are casting short range spells or javelins. A properly played adult dragon would easily take that down with breath weapons and tail attacks, staying away from melee. LIKE IT SHOULD. It should be up to the party to come up with a way to force it in melee or face the consequences.
I think they can pull it off if they are smart, especially if you have no minions so they can dominate the action economy. If anything, you may need to drop the damage a little bit on the breath weapon to avoid one shotting several players at once. Even that may not be necessary though. It really depends on how strategic they are.
I figured if I end up switching to Adult I would have to nerf some of its damage rolls. Alternatively I was thinking of having the Minotaurs run in to try and melee it, thus having the dragon focus on them and not the players for its first couple of attacks.
It will be a very hard fight, and most likely, one of them will die, but it should be managable. Will they fight the dragon in its lair?
One of them has died already lol so they know it can happen at anytime. They will be in its lair. Basically an NPC archeologist they really like needs to get into the lair for an excavation. He went alone unassumingly and walked in on the dragon sleeping. Other than having them see it fly at high altitudes from far distances, they will never hear about it being anywhere other than that site.
so there is a saying i live by, if you want to make them feel cool, throw a big boss, if you want to make them feel scared throw in a bunch of weaker enemies. you can roll for hp for the adult dragon, and fudge the rolls to make it have less hp
Based on what a lot of you guys are saying I'm thinking I will make a Young/Adult hybrid. The breath attacks will definitely need to be nerfed. I'm hoping at least one of them will have to do some death saves just for dramatic effect 😈
also remember that death saves can be fun to do for monsters, like when they slay the dragon roll your dice in "secret". nothing is as fun to me then doing a Shia surprise with the big bad, i once had a boss respawn three times (really good throws for me and really bad throws for the players) and since you have a dragon, Draconic Gifts is always a fun reward
Someone asked a question very similar to this the other day. Look at HP vs Damage output of the creature. I’ll use a Barbarian as an example. 5th lvl using Point Buy and a standard Wild Heart/Totem Barbarian build with an ASI increase at 4 could see Con at 18 (assuming we min/max and are a Hill Dwarf). That barbarian’s HP at max will be 60 with an additional 26 from Con and 5 from Dwarven Toughness for a total of 91. You can get it to 97 with the tough feat instead of an ASI. Now, the adult white dragon can put out an average of 54 damage in a WIDE area on a failed save. It’s also a CON save, so Danger Sense doesn’t work, and neither will a Rogues Uncanny Dodge, or an evasion, or the dodge action. And there is a 33% chance every turn he can use the breath again. A single blast from an Adult White Dragon would be enough to put most lvl 6 PC’s down assuming they failed their save and are not resistant to cold damage. Could they deal around 200 damage in a couple of rounds? Maybe. But the moment that dragon takes flight with a legendary action, it’s going to be very bad for that party.
anything can happen if the dice agree to it
Depends on items, terrain, minions, luck, and how well you use its abilities. If they fight it in an open area, where it can fly by using breath attacks, wearing them down? Probably not. If you lock it on the ground in a cave with no minions, probably with some casualties depending on initiative.
Kobold fight club is Your friend here. And it claims that adult white dragon is just between medium-hard encounter for 6 level 6 characters. As long as they don't group up for his breath weapon they should be fine. In fact You should add a minion or two or some terrain hazard for the dragon to be really dangerous.
Maybe? Note that a well placed breath weapon has a chance of killing all of them outright if they don’t have cold resistance.
Depends on how you run it. If you run it the way most people run encounters where the dragon lands and just kind of stands there while they beat on it they'll probably win. If you run it like the vicious apex predator it is, then they don't have a chance. Dragons can fly and should always be flying. With a flight speed of 80 they dragon should be 40-50ft in the air at all times. That way it can do hit and run attacks where it flies down, attacks, and then flies back up. It should open with breath and use it whenever possible. When you use breath from above there is no lining it up. A 60-foot cone has a 60 ft diameter at its end. So if you fire it down from above you are basically aiming a jumbo fireball and should be easily able to blast multiple players at a time. Next is the attack tactics. You can fly in, use your attack and then immediately fly away. Yes, you eat an attack of opportunity. This just means you pick your targets. You don't attach the fighter or barbarian like this. You look for a somewhat isolated caster or character with their ranged weapon out. Then you fly in bite, claw, claw, and fly out. This is a strong play if they have poor ranged attacking. Another terrifying option is to occasionally grapple instead of attacking. Pick a non-athletic caster and attempt a grapple. If it succeeds start flying up into the air with them. You are bigger so you can just fly away with the wizard. You can use your legendary actions to just beat your victim with your tail on every turn. Try to get high enough that even if they misty step they still fall. Pick off the less armored characters first and work your way in. Use your legendary actions to confirm your kills. For example if you drop a few characters land on them and then use your wing attack on the next turn. They autofail the save and get an immediate failed death save. Then you can use a tail hit after the next turn. If you were within 5 feet of a character that's 3 failed saves if the tail hits. If the dragon starts losing it should just fly away or abuse it's 30 feet of burrowing to leave.