Need advice designing a dragon encounter

[Redhood101]

My campaign is wrapping up sooner than expected due to personal issues so I decided to give my players a send off with a classic. Dragon battle.

My party finished curse of strahd as was disappointed by how easy strahd was to take down. So I wanna give them an epic combat that none of them will ever forget. The set up is that they are fighting a sand dragon (adult red dragon reflavored) in a desert.

Instead of flying it’s burrows under the sands like a purple worm, and breathe out molten glass. I plan on giving it lair actions and have the fight take place in a set of old ruins with lots of cover and such.

I’m just worried that the fight will still be easy since there is only the one enemy, and in my experience that just turns into the party kicking their butts them endlessly.

I’ll have 4, level 10 players with a few magic items (fighter, barbarian, hexblade, cleric) any advice on how to make the combat epic and memorable I would happily take.

[Sorinth]

I would be tempted to leave the breath as fire but have it so that its so hot it turns sand into molten glass which cools in a round or two and restrains anyone standing in the area. There would be areas/islands of rock where that wouldn't happen. When the dragon emerges from an area of glass it shatters sending shards to anyone close by dealing some low amount of damage in the area.

I'd also be tempted to give the dragon tremorsense and have it mostly only attack PCs in the sandy/glass areas. Kind of like the movie tremors they have to move from rocky spot to rocky spot.

In any case burrowing means it can just wait safely till it's breath recharges which it should do and so basically every round of attacks is a breath weapon which can be pretty deadly tactic.

[Unoriginal]

My campaign is wrapping up sooner than expected due to personal issues so I decided to give my players a send off with a classic. Dragon battle.

My party finished curse of strahd as was disappointed by how easy strahd was to take down. So I wanna give them an epic combat that none of them will ever forget. The set up is that they are fighting a sand dragon (adult red dragon reflavored) in a desert.

Instead of flying it’s burrows under the sands like a purple worm, and breathe out molten glass. I plan on giving it lair actions and have the fight take place in a set of old ruins with lots of cover and such.

I’m just worried that the fight will still be easy since there is only the one enemy, and in my experience that just turns into the party kicking their butts them endlessly.

I’ll have 4, level 10 players with a few magic items (fighter, barbarian, hexblade, cleric) any advice on how to make the combat epic and memorable I would happily take.

Legendary actions and Lair actions would be a huge help to make a 1 vs 4 battle appropriately epic, and you have a golden setup for this.

Like Sorinth said, you can have the dragon turns part of the maps into molten glass, and also break the glass to make shards rain on the PCs. But you can do even more:

-Dragon creates cutting pillars or walls or other structures of glass in the path of the PCs

-Dragon creates cutting pillars or walls or other structures of glass then throw them at the PCs/make them fall on the PCs.

-Dragon breathes into his hand to create a glass sword, lethal but fragile, and show that a dragon can be a swordsman too.

-Dragon use his breath to create several Animated Breath monsters (from the Fizban's).

-Dragon burrows under the part the PCs are using for safety and emerge beneath them, propelling everyone away from each other and making them land prone.

Etc, etc.

Go for the most cinematic, epic feel you can think of and want.


Now, two key parts for an epic opponent is their personality and how they're presentation. Who is your dragon, beside a dragon living in a desert? How does who he is influence how he fights and how he acts in combat? Is he the kind to taunt humanoids as he fight them? Or is he more the kind to enjoy the glory of a conflict against worthy opponents and be overjoyed at the challenge? Or maybe he's spiteful and would never fight the PCs if they hadn't made themselves such a nuisance?

[Lokishade]

Use the breath attack to force the party to spread out and Frightful Presence to prevent the party from regrouping. The dragon's main attack mode is to grapple the weakest/most dangerous threat and then drag him underground while you maul him to death. Then, leave the prey to suffocate underground while you reemerge to repeat the cycle.

Because of how a dragon would fight, replacing flight with burrowing seems OP to me, because why wouldn't it drag the party underground and collapse the tunnels on top of them? At least while airborne, he can be sniped by archers and mages. Sure, the grapple victim will suffer falling damage, but his 0 HP unconscious body will be accessible to the Cleric.

Since the fight takes place in a desert, a dragon's flight would kick up enough sand to blind the party (con save DC 10-13) in a zone around it. And I like the idea of the heat of the breath attack turning sand unto glass. Not only is it creative and flavorful, it further reinforces the purpose of the breath attack, which is to force the party to spread out.

Then the dragon walks over the glass, breaking it, then it picks up its next grapple victim and drags him through the broken shards.

[heavyfuel]

Honestly, I don't see a 10th level party ever beating a CR 17 Dragon that actually plays to his strengths. Unless the reflavored Adult Red Dragon is also a weaker version, the party will either straight up die, or they will win because the dragon was brain-dead.

Dragons are smart and Evil dragons probably aren't honorable enough that you can goad them into a "fair" fight.

So, first things first, I share my opinion that dragons should be scary with Noah (aka Countermonkey). The party should absolutely die if they go out to face a dragon a whim. Unless they prepare like hell, they should die, especially if they are fighting in the dragon's home turf - which they are. Doubly so if the dragon is 7 "levels" above the party, which he is.

However, you should still be fair. Warn them, either in game or out or both, that this fight is likely to kill them all. Make sure they know what's at stake, and allow them time for extra preparation, either via research, quests, or by allowing them to buy some stuff like Potions of Fire Resistance and whatnot.

Now that the party is ready, play the dragon as a smart creature. They are super smart after all. Just have the dragon burrow and breath weapon the crap out of the party every 1d6 rounds. Stay underground for the remaining time. He has a burrow speed and unlimited uses of breath weapon. Why would he not use that to the maximum advantage?

If the party splits up to avoid being roasted, have the dragon grapple the Cleric and drag them underground. Even if the Cleric is proficient in Athletics or Acrobatics, they'll only have like +6. The dragon has +8 and 3 attacks. Grapple that dude and bury them like 30ft underground and let's see how the party deals with that. Hope you have Freedom of Movement prepared, Mr. Cleric.

This is a valid strategy for other party members too, but spellcasters are a priority.

Speaking of dealing with spellcasters, the dragon can wait. That's important.

Did the Warlock just cast Armor of Agathys lv 4 in hopes of dealing 60 damage to to the dragon per round? Just wait underground for the spell to go away. Dragons live long enough. What's one hour to a creature who lives for a thousand years? It's not like the dragon has better things to do. He was probably just sleeping before the party came over, might as well use this hour to Short Rest and recover whatever damage the party might have caused on you. If the party also decides to SR, well, the Dragon's SR will finish a few rounds before the party's, so the party's out of luck. Crawford says "Any amount of fighting breaks a short rest", so the Dragon should never let them rest, but the Dragon himself can.

If your Dragon can cast spells himself (he totally should, dragons are magical creatures after all), pick stuff that has great impact. Pass without a trace is particularly awesome, allowing the dragon to easily gain Surprise against the party, giving him what's effectively an extra round to kill them before they react.

[Kane0]

My campaign is wrapping up sooner than expected due to personal issues so I decided to give my players a send off with a classic. Dragon battle.

My party finished curse of strahd as was disappointed by how easy strahd was to take down. So I wanna give them an epic combat that none of them will ever forget. The set up is that they are fighting a sand dragon (adult red dragon reflavored) in a desert.

Instead of flying it’s burrows under the sands like a purple worm, and breathe out molten glass. I plan on giving it lair actions and have the fight take place in a set of old ruins with lots of cover and such.

I’m just worried that the fight will still be easy since there is only the one enemy, and in my experience that just turns into the party kicking their butts them endlessly.

I’ll have 4, level 10 players with a few magic items (fighter, barbarian, hexblade, cleric) any advice on how to make the combat epic and memorable I would happily take.

So, a Brown dragon?

- Burrow instead of flight (probably halve it)
- Tremorsense instead of blindsight
- Potentially line of acid breath weapon instead of cone of fire
- Add a lair action that controls a movable Sleet Storm (can be dispelled but no losing concentration)
- Replace Frightful Presence with a blinding effect or 'burst from the sand' attack (like the Bulette's leap) that prones
- Replace the Wing Attack Legendary action with an effect heats an area of sand like a weaker Incendiary Cloud

[Segev]

The easiest way to make one monster fight like several is to make it several that all happen to occupy the same space and move together.

Give it four turns per round, and give it four sets of hit points, or at least four hit point bars. When they deplete one bar, the next turn it would have had is removed, and it is down to three turns per round.

[Miele]

Played smartly, dragons are extremely deadly and only luring them into traps can give the party a chance. Going into their home like bullies? I pity those poor guys.

At higher levels, with much more powerful tools, maybe they could have the upper hand.

Above there are good ideas (I'll steal a few for myself), but try to give the party warnings about the tactics used by the dragon. Fighting in a permanent sandstorm and burrowing could be all the dragon needs to be enough of a threat and they could come at least somewhat prepared.

[renzdog]

I think there was an ed greenwood dragon magazine article (wurms of the north) that detailed some famous dragons and all of their idiosyncrasies.

I was running a game where I made the classic rookie mistake of giving the party to many cool powerful magic items ... and they were smashing through all of the encounters. I was worried the dragon at the end would be too easy ... so I stole some ideas from Imyrith. Apparently she turned the dead adventurers who tried to loot her treasure into statues. I placed a couple of statues of adventurers in each chamber, and the dragon would tunnel in (and try to ambush the party), awaken the statues of the some dead adventurers for the party to fight (layer action), and then burrow away. I thought having to wade through all the failed adventurers who came before them would be a fun challenge. I used LudicSavant's An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds thread to quickly come up with interesting combatants. Of course you could theme it differently ... maybe its a vast underground graveyard and deceased adventurers crawl up out of the ground to join the fray. If the party is having a tough time, you could have the defeated adventurers thank the party for freeing them as they die and give warnings of upcoming traps, a small boon... or cough up the magic item they swallowed with their last dying breath to hide from the dragon .... that sort of thing

There are lots of other good ideas in the wurms of the north too.

Whatever you do, if you feel like it let us know how it worked out.

[Kurt Kurageous]

My party finished curse of strahd as was disappointed by how easy strahd was to take down.

This is all that caught my imagination. I hope you get to run CoS again.

I don't mean to nag.
How many players and what level?
Did you use the brides?
Did your Strahd mount Beaucephalus phasing into a room with his lair action, dropping a fireball in a room or lightning bolt in a hallway, then Beucephalus moving out of the place VERTICALLY?
Did you know there's a higher CR version of Strahd? And no rule against max HP Strahd?
Did you allow Stahd to change his spell list before combat?
Did you allow Strahd to use magic items he probably accumulated over the centuries (like say +2 breastplate and/or a +2 sword)?
Did you consider giving him the vampire tattoo thingy? That allows the sword to recover HP, not just the bite.
Did you bring all the forces of Ravenloft to bear? No one says the wyrmlings have to stay in the room...
Did you flood the air with bats? Not swarms of bats, just individual bats?
Did you use Baba Lysaga at all? Strahd is not above calling for help, and she's potentially even more deadly as far as spells go. She also could have made him a simulacrum...which the party defeats only to see it was not Strahd at all.
Did you use trash mobs of Strahd zombies?
Did Strahd try to recover the sun sword/amulet using charm? "That's a family heirloom. It should be safeguarded in my crypts. Please give it to me now."
Did Strahd try to lure the party up one of the spires, then cast shatter on the base so they might take some fall+rocks damage? Strahd can always rebuild...

Your party should have had an epic fight. Strahd is a general and knows how to marshall forces. He is also more intelligent that us, so would know exactly what spells to have on hand (played by you as casting whatever you want within limits of spell slots). Strahd should never be "easy" and certainly should never dissapoint.

RE: Your post. Get Fizbahns. Kobolds build traps. Maybe involving large amounts of water. Or acid. Water kills without considering HP. Dragons don't plan to die in their lair backed into a corner.

[da newt]

I was going to post, but Kurt already covered everything I was going to say plus some. Strahd in Barovia in his Castle with all his companions should be much more deadly and epic than any one Dragon. Perhaps we should start there to figure out how you DMed Strahd and that encounter to turn it into a 'disappointment by how easy Strahd was to take down' for a party made up of 10th lvl fighter, barbarian, hexblade, and cleric.

[PhantomSoul]

...

Your party should have had an epic fight. Strahd is a general and knows how to marshall forces. He is also more intelligent that us, so would know exactly what spells to have on hand (played by you as casting whatever you want within limits of spell slots). Strahd should never be "easy" and certainly should never dissapoint.

As a bonus, Strahd has been watching you. He's seen the tricks the party has used in past battles in Barovia and, if the party did not ensure privacy when discussing plans, may even have heard the party's planned tactics. His spell usage (whether by him having spells/items or having allies like the hags), where he wants to draw you towards for the fight, and who/what he has prepared can all reflect what would force the party to change their strategy and catch them off-guard. He even has "freebie" minions through lair actions to really make the party sweat.

[KorvinStarmast]

My party's (me DM) last battle with a Void Dragon (adult) included also some Draconians (Fizban's) and half dragons (MM) in and around the lair (an old temple) which added quite a bit of depth to the battle.

For an ancient or adult dragon to not have minions and/or servants (or a cult) strikes me as a little odd, given their amazing charisma, charm, and persuasion abilities. And their fear effects.