Dragons! They are the logo monster of Dungeons & Dragons. They are fire. They are death. They are the winged nightmares of any fantasy citizen. … Except the one my party chewed through in about 3 rounds. *sigh*
Our last episode talked about how we love and love to DM dragons. In it, I said something to the effect that you never want your dragon to die in the first 5 rounds. Yet, here I was, running a dragon against an admittedly tough level 12 party, and watching him die like an overgrown iguana.
So, the party had fun, and good for them! But on my end, mistakes were made, and here’s what I think they were.
1. The CR Was Too Low
This happened in the Woodstock Wanderers game, where we have a party of 7 level-12 PCs of different classes: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard. The party has a lot of ranged damage and just enough tanks to hold the line for them.
I put them against an Adult Black Dragon (CR 14) plus three of its pets: 2 Froghemoths (CR10) and a Giant Crocodile (CR 5). That looks OK on paper, but the party blasted through them in mere rounds. I’d put the party damage per round around 100, so a 195-HP dragon with AC 19 just isn’t going to be in the fight long.
2. I Gave Them Too Much Distance
When I think dragon, I think breath weapon from range. But a 60-foot line just isn’t that “ranged” against 150-foot fireballs and longbow sneak attacks. I knew this would be an issue, so I planned to bring the party into the lair and through some pets and other dangerous features.
I have to give credit to the party, though, because the cleric decided to park 100-yards from the lair entrance and start casting a ritual spell. And my black dragon took offense to that (they do hate seeing the lesser creatures prosper) and decided to attack.
Good roleplay, really bad tactics.
Covering 300-feet against a bow-shooting rogue, sorcerer, wizard and bard when all you have is a 60-foot breath weapon is like asking to start the battle at 1/4 HP. The party killed both Froghemoths and the Croc within a round of them hitting the barbarian (who did at least get swallowed, so it wasn’t a total shut-out). Then they turned to the dragon, who was diving straight down on the cleric’s ritual from 300 feet above and diving at 80 to 160 feet per round. That still left a solid round where the Dragon was beyond breath weapon range but inside spell and bow range, and he suffered accordingly.
3. The Dragon Couldn’t Use Any Lair or Legendary Actions
All the combat-focused Black Dragon legendary abilities are melee attacks. For the lair abilities, you need to be in the lair. The dragon wasn’t in either position, so he lost that extra action economy. I did get to use a wing buffet once as he tried to escape, but at that point, it was too late and he died a couple attacks later.
This Black Dragon is a mauler. I should have dropped right into the center of the party or had it exploding out of the swamp right next to them. Flying in from 300 feet away played against all of its strength and into all of theirs.
4. The Dragon Should’ve Run Away
Now, the party had a good time in this encounter, so maybe I did the right thing by letting them get their quick kill. But tactically, once the Froghemoths went down, I should’ve had the dragon turn his tail and wing it right back into that lair to wait for the party in ambush.
Would killing the Froghemoths and watching the dragon run away – leading them into a tense lair hunt – have been fun, too? I think so. I have some fun stuff planned for the next adventure as they go in to find its hoard. But I let the dragon get too deep into the fight and couldn’t run away fast enough to save it.
5. Should I Have Cheated?
This is a tough one. Some tweaks would have made the fight more competitive and arguably more fun. Doubling the dragon’s HP, for example, would’ve gotten us into deeper rounds and put a bit more damage on the players without running them over. We’ve recommended that before on the podcast, but I decided not to do it here.
The tweaks didn’t even need to be “cheating.” For example, I could reasonably have ruled that the acid rains down on their heads from 150 feet up despite its range of 60 feet. After all, the pain juice just keeps falling until it hits something, right? That’s not cheating, it’s physics (is what I would say to the players). There’s a good logical argument for doing this even if it violates the rules as written (RAW), but I decided against that, too.
In the end, I’ve been playing this campaign very straight-up to get a feel for how things are intended to play. So, I decided to stick with the stats and powers as written and take the beating – even if it hurt my dragon-loving DM soul. The players executed well, and they deserved the win … this time.
Next time it’s a Blue Dragon in a garden of Shambling Mounds! … Or maybe a red dragon with an army of Iron Golems? … Until then, remember: Never let your players get rounds of free attacks while your dragon tries to close the distance!
I think you vastly overestimated the difficulty of this encounter for a party this size and level. A single adult black dragon is not a threat to a party this size at all. A single *ancient* black dragon is considered medium difficulty for such a party–i.e., they should be able to win against the dragon and 3-4 similar encounters before taking a long rest. Likewise, two adult black dragons is only hard difficulty and should still be winnable with enough left over for a similar difficulty encounter at the end of it. So… let’s do that.
What I would have done is made this lair home to three dragons. One ancient black, two adult blacks (or one ancient, one adult, and two young, for example). Fighting all of them once is an extremely deadly encounter that could well result in a TPK. But if the party is smart and can separate them, attack the lair while one or more of them is off hunting, or something similar, they should be able to clear this area.
Review region effects. Party size for that cr should be 50 to 75% increased with a party of 7. Black dragon lairs are far different they are the swamp basically with a focal point the area has a fog that covers it making looking in any direction difficult including up. Giving them disadvantages on sight attacking and casting. Within 1 round at diving legendary actions technically would of been available allowing you to attack the cleric with the swamp itself. By next round your ontop of them while they attacked the pets. Probably dragging the heaviest armored person into the swamp and then coming back up with a breathe weapon. Just giving an example and showing how you were on point just missed some minor stuff.
Ehhhh, I would argue that the CR doesn’t look too deadly on paper if it’s a party of seven. Just sayin.
Sometimes it happens. Other times it’s just good role-playing for it to happen.