Ancient Blue Dragon vs 4 10th level Players (SKT spoilers)

[Oramac]

Hello all. One of my groups is going to be fighting Iymrith this coming Sunday. I've set it up so they have the Potions of Giant Size and the Claw of the Wyrm Rune from King Hekaton, but since they're literally going from rescuing Hekaton to killing Iymrith, I ruled that Hekaton was still too weak physically and had turmoil in his own house to tend to, so he asked the party to slay the dragon in his stead.

I've modified the fight pretty heavily, and I'm looking for advice on whether or not it's fair for a party of 4 10th level characters.

Party:
GOOlock
Champion Fighter
War Cleric
Assassin Rogue

They're pretty well decked out in magic items, and the warlock has been actually REALLY good with creative use of spells.

The Fight:

- Iymrith can cast Counterspell 3/day. Counterspell deals 22 psychic damage when it successfully interrupts a spell.
- She knows the Shocking Grasp cantrip (4d8 or 20 damage)
- She can cast Chromatic Orb at will (Lightning only; 30 damage)

Phase 1:
- Iymrith starts in her lair as a Storm Giant.
- Fights like an arrogant *******. Taunting and leering at the party. Not really taking them as a serious threat.
- Otherwise uses the standard Storm Giant tactics
- Legendary Actions: 1 point (melee attack); 1 point (move up to 30 feet w/o provoking); 2 points (Lightning Strike)

Upon taking 240 damage, Phase 2 begins.

Phase 2:
- On her first turn after taking 240 damage, Iymrith shifts into her Dragon form and immediately uses Frightful Presence
- Fights pretty normally as an Ancient Blue Dragon from here
- She begins using Lair Actions here as well

Thoughts?

[Metamorph]

Some questions I have:
- is it possible for everyone to bypass the damage reduction?
- how high is the ceiling? Is it possible for the dragon to fly out of melee reach?
- are you aware of the massive damage from the breath or the legendary actions and lair actions?
- blue dragons should have minions and they are smart. It should (in my opinion) know relativly soon that it has to fight all out.


I would say make the dragon younger. Ancient would be an Overkill if you dont want to make him a brat.

[Unoriginal]

Frightful Presence is a passive ability, not something the Dragon "immediately uses".

Also one Ancient Blue Dragon Breath deals 88 damages. It's going to wreck a lot of your party.

[CTurbo]

Yeah I was going to reply make sure the players bring extra characters to the session but that wouldn't have been very helpful at all lol


I say use an Adult dragon instead. I don't think they can take an Ancient Blue.

[Metamorph]

I have to correct something from me:

- there is no damage resistance except of lightning (so dont bother)

But even as a Storm Giant it can attack from distance with 54 lightning damage and a dc of 17.

When it gets to be a dragon all saves for its effects are ridiculous high and deal lots of damage.

Just think of its size and the wing attack action. It would probably not even get any AoO if it moves and in the players next turn it can throw everyone prone.

And as mentioned above the breath attack deals around 88 damage. If it just hits 2 of the players this is already bad placing of him/her.


Please also consider that there is a reason why this dragon got to be this old. How many threads it could already have faced and how many adventures already tried to fight it for the loot. This beast knows exactly how to fight and will relativly soon know which enemy it has to kill first.

[EvilAnagram]

Frightful Presence is a passive ability, not something the Dragon "immediately uses".
This is completely incorrect. (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Ancient%20Blue%20Dragon#content)


Also one Ancient Blue Dragon Breath deals 88 damages. It's going to wreck a lot of your party.
This is true.

[Ignimortis]

It's extremely probable that both of your non-casters are going to tank the Frightful Presence save. Assuming standard point-buy priorities, they have about 1/20, or at best 1/10 chance to beat DC20. Being Frightened is going to cut their damage significantly, and since the dragon is phase 2, the Assassin doesn't have any bonuses from their archetype at all.

I'd suggest downscaling the fight, magic items don't cause players to be able to bridge a 13-level CR gap. Even an Adult Blue Dragon is a deadly opponent at level 10 (that 12d10 Lightning Breath? Yeah, that's gonna drop anyone who hasn't made their save at level 10), and an Ancient one is going to wreck them in about 2 turns. Potions of Giant Size and the Claw Rune can help them with an Adult, won't do much against an Ancient.

[Unoriginal]

This is completely incorrect. (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Ancient%20Blue%20Dragon#content)

Fair, the dragon must chose which creatures are affected. I meant it as "the dragon doesn't have to choose to activate it", but I admit it's splitting hair.

[CTurbo]

Four level 11 Long Death Monks could kill it lol

[Snowbluff]

I played this with a decently built party and Imyrnth rolled the team pretty easily with the help of 2 storm giants.

SOme notes:
The phase change at 240 HP was a HUGE BOON to the team as it made frightful presence wear off. Taking this away makes the fight harder.
The lightning breath one shotted the barbarian. Twice.
Also that same barbarian died.
The one wizard in the party landed no spells whatsoever.

They eventually won but I had to play it a little safe to make it work for them.

[Unoriginal]

Four level 11 Long Death Monks could kill it lol

How would they do that?

[DeTess]

I'd suggest downscaling the fight, magic items don't cause players to be able to bridge a 13-level CR gap. Even an Adult Blue Dragon is a deadly opponent at level 10 (that 12d10 Lightning Breath? Yeah, that's gonna drop anyone who hasn't made their save at level 10), and an Ancient one is going to wreck them in about 2 turns. Potions of Giant Size and the Claw Rune can help them with an Adult, won't do much against an Ancient.

It's been my experience that enough magical gear can bridge that gap, but you need a pretty good party setup as well, and that doesn't seem the case here. For reference, I've seen a 3-man level 11 party beat an ancient red dragon, but that entire party either had evasion or shield master, and a paladin buffing people's saves. That party also had crazy powerful magic swords, decent defensive items (at least two rings of fire resistance, if memory serves), and a set of monster-sized anti-magic shackles (our DM ruled that dragons need magic to stay airborne). This was still an incredibly close fight though.

That having been said, I expect this party will have some trouble. Apart from the rogue all of them will still be taking half damage from the breath attack. Does the party have other ways of reducing lightning damage for everyone? What kind of magic items are they bringing exactly? If you don't want to tone the fight down, I suggest making sure the tanks have some way to acquire resistance to lightning, and the melee-fighters get some way to fly.

[Oramac]

Ok. I guess I'll add a little more context here.

The Lair is pretty massive. Basically an entire battlemat. There are small sinkholes scattered throughout, and a few pillars holding it up. The ceiling is about 80 ish feet up.

The Potion of Giant Size is pretty gnarly.
- Your size increases to Huge for the duration (24 hours)
- Your current and maximum hit points double.
- Increases Strength to 25 if it isn't already higher
- Weapon attacks deal 3 time normal damage (Longsword does 3d8 damage)

The Fighter in the group has a +3 Dwarven Thrower (she's dwarven and it fit the narrative for her to get it). She's done well over 150 damage in one turn without the Potion. With it and a good roll or two, I can see her dealing the 240 damage to Iymrith's Giant form on her first turn. She also has a sword that buffs her strength (a modified Craven Edge, if anyone is familiar with it). I don't know which one she'll choose to use yet.

With the potion, the only character that can't take two full damage Breaths is the Cleric. He has a Radiant Hammer as well (see my homebrew below), which has saved their bacon a couple time. I am aware that it can't be relied upon, though.

The rogue has evasion, so even a failed save is only half damage. He is the least experienced player, though. I'm most worried about him dying. OTOH, the player has stated more than once that he's ok with his character dying as long as it's "a good death".

The warlock is by far the most experienced player at the table, and is incredibly creative with his spells.

[DeTess]

Ok. I guess I'll add a little more context here.

The Lair is pretty massive. Basically an entire battlemat. There are small sinkholes scattered throughout, and a few pillars holding it up. The ceiling is about 80 ish feet up.

The Potion of Giant Size is pretty gnarly.
- Your size increases to Huge for the duration (24 hours)
- Your current and maximum hit points double.
- Increases Strength to 25 if it isn't already higher
- Weapon attacks deal 3 time normal damage (Longsword does 3d8 damage)

The Fighter in the group has a +3 Dwarven Thrower (she's dwarven and it fit the narrative for her to get it). She's done well over 150 damage in one turn without the Potion. With it and a good roll or two, I can see her dealing the 240 damage to Iymrith's Giant form on her first turn. She also has a sword that buffs her strength (a modified Craven Edge, if anyone is familiar with it). I don't know which one she'll choose to use yet.

With the potion, the only character that can't take two full damage Breaths is the Cleric. He has a Radiant Hammer as well (see my homebrew below), which has saved their bacon a couple time. I am aware that it can't be relied upon, though.

The rogue has evasion, so even a failed save is only half damage. He is the least experienced player, though. I'm most worried about him dying. OTOH, the player has stated more than once that he's ok with his character dying as long as it's "a good death".

The warlock is by far the most experienced player at the table, and is incredibly creative with his spells.

Your party should probably be fine then, as long as the dragon doesn't have (much) backup (and assuming that the huge size allows them to strike at the dragon even if it flies around).

[Metamorph]

"... (and assuming that the huge size allows them to strike at the dragon even if it flies around)."

The size of Huge is up to 32 ft. (at least in 3.5) so if he is wearing a long weapon and jumps will hitting he should be big enough.

The Point of Giant Size is insane in its power level!

If you have profiencies in Athletics or Acrobatics you can simply grapple and pin the dragon down and the rest of the team punches the enemy with adventage.

Due to this the assassin will do increadible amounts of damage every round.

I do not even see how this will be a threat.

So the fight will be easy with this poition.

[Oramac]

The Point of Giant Size is insane in its power level!

Tell me about it! I almost want to nerf it, but that's how it's written in the Storm King book.

[Metamorph]

It's particularly powerful in this situation:

The rules for grappling say that you cannot grapple any creature that is 2 categories aboves yours.

Due to the fact that you are hugh you can grapple the dragon.

It may have a strength of 29 (MM), but no bonus on athletics or acrobatics which it could use to escape the grapple.

That means that if your player drinks the poition he has a strength of at least 25 and if he also has proficiency in one of those abilities by level 10 it would mean that he gets +11 (if I did the math correctly).

So here he already is having a slightly higher modifier and if he has feats like grappler of lucky this will be even harder for the dragon to succeed. If the grappler feat is avaiable every melee attack would gain adventage on the attacks.

If that feat is not taken the dragon could still not fly, which would mean that other brutes could punch the hell out of him.

I do not know how you handle the rule of grappled that a creatures speed becomes 0. Could it turn? For me this wouldn't be logical because the creature is grappled and cannot move really.

The doubled HP is also something not to forget, but in the end it simply means he can hit more often and can take mor hits.

Is he actually fighting with a longsword? Then he would deal at least 3d8+7 and he could still have his action surge (if the fighter drinks it).

Otherwise there are not that much issues. One of the PCs could stand of its shoulds and try to hit the dragon also if it is flying, but this wouldn't be that easy.

On the downside: If the building is not build for huge creatures he is stuck there for 24h. I even do not know if he would need more water or food, but for 1 day? What would he suffer? 1 Level of exhaustion?

I guess that is all.

If I got something wrong or I missed something please add up or correct me.

Thanks.

[History_buff]

Frightful Presence is a passive ability, not something the Dragon "immediately uses".

Also one Ancient Blue Dragon Breath deals 88 damages. It's going to wreck a lot of your party.

Hmm. Not really a passive ability. The dragon’s multiattack activates it.