Metallic+PCs vs. Chromatic(s)

[Angelalex242]

If a Metallic Dragon enlists a team of PCs to help him or her take on multiple Chromatic Dragons, what level do the PCs need to be to take on the enemy Chromatics, and how many chromatics is a fair fight for metallic+Pcs?

IE: Adult Silver Dragon+Team of PCs
vs. Adult Reds.

Note the Silver acts as a guest star party member and gets all her legendary actions, etc.

The Silver is CR 16, the Reds are CR 17.

If the party, then, is level 16, how many Reds can the Silver+PCs take on?

Consider this is likely to be an aerial combat with the PCs acting as a kind of weapons platform from the Silver's back.

[kaoskonfety]

"Its complicated"

Say 2 adult red dragons
- breath weapons do an average of 126, 63 with saves against both. The whole party is certainly in the AOE if they are on dragon back
- this will FLATTEN the squishes in most parties, and leave the martials SAD, silver dragon support or not
- if the party has resistances/immunises this changes drastically
- if we have these same 2 red knowing the party is there, and has prepared for fire damage - a reasonable assumption, they will (should) focus fire the silver dragon mount way up high, for sweet sweet falling damages and subsequent (mostly) grounded party

Now there is gonna be a bunch of back and forth here I assume, but my feels is its gonna be FAR to easy to accidentally butcher the party between breath weapons, falling damage and such forth.

*** brainstorming how I'd try this thematically myself...


*** some more reading and the Silver and Red dragons are REALLY evenly matched

[heavyfuel]

I'd make 1 Adult Silver + 1 PC = 1 Adult Red

So, if there are three other PCs, they could be level 16 and still take a CR 17 "by themselves" and I'd be a very difficult, but winnable fight.

[Angelalex242]

It's a level 16 party, I'd say it's fair to presume the party has fire resistance or better across the board. They're gonna at the very least have guzzled some fire resistance potions before the battle even starts, and every party member is likely to have at least 2 extra potions for such a battle. Just in case the Reds decide to drag it out.

Trying to whack the Silver...well, one can presume the Cleric is gonna healbot for the dragon, and literally healbot with 'heal.' Martials, with Sentinel, can protect their dragon friend when it comes to claw and fang time, and every time they hit an opposing red, movement 0 means the red loses the 'high ground' on the spot. Probably won't hit the ground, as the ground is likely to be landscape, but losing an entire round's worth of movement straight down is gonna suck for the dropping red.

Being as these are high end tier 3s, there is the idea of whittling down the legendary resistances of the reds and then flinging save or suck spells. The silver, meanwhile, is protected by the Paladin's +5 and is likely to be able to conserve her resistances.

[heavyfuel]

Sounds like your PCs have it figured out. I say go for it. If they die, they die in glorious battle, fought tooth and nail. If they live, they (both the PCs and the players) live with an awesome story of that time they killed two adult dragons while being helped by this other dragon (in D&D)

[Sigreid]

1 metallic dragon willing to carry a single sharpshooter archer with the archery fighting style = win. The dragon's primary job is to keep at least one of the chromatics in the 600' archery range but out of the breath weapon range.

[MaxWilson]

If a Metallic Dragon enlists a team of PCs to help him or her take on multiple Chromatic Dragons, what level do the PCs need to be to take on the enemy Chromatics, and how many chromatics is a fair fight for metallic+Pcs?

IE: Adult Silver Dragon+Team of PCs
vs. Adult Reds.

Note the Silver acts as a guest star party member and gets all her legendary actions, etc.

The Silver is CR 16, the Reds are CR 17.

If the party, then, is level 16, how many Reds can the Silver+PCs take on?

Consider this is likely to be an aerial combat with the PCs acting as a kind of weapons platform from the Silver's back.

Two things need clarification:

(1) Are you trying to come up with some rule of thumb that will work for an arbitrary party of PCs, even if they are all e.g. melee-oriented Storm Herald Barbarians?

(2) What level of success are you looking for?

A. 51% chance of the PCs killing all the dragons before dragons TPK the PCs, i.e. which side is actually, militarily stronger?
B. 99% chance of zero PC casualties, i.e. idiomatic 5E encounter?
C. Something in between?

In the extreme case, a few ~5th level PCs can work together, riding on the silver dragon, to kill or drive off half a dozen adult red dragons fairly easily, because they have opposable thumbs and therefore ranged weaponry, as well as spells like Longstrider that can help the silver dragon outmaneuver the reds. So in a sense, the answer is "lots of red dragons, for certain PC parties."

At the other extreme, if you lock three 16th level Bear Totem Barbarians and one adult silver dragon in a cage with four adult red dragons, it seems likely to me that the PCs are going to die, but if you reduce it to only three adult red dragons I think the PCs have a better than 50% chance of winning, with some casualties. (I haven't done the math, that's just my gut feel based on experience--a 16th level Barbearian isn't quite as strong as an adult red dragon but not that much weaker either.)

[kaoskonfety]

It's a level 16 party, I'd say it's fair to presume the party has fire resistance or better across the board. They're gonna at the very least have guzzled some fire resistance potions before the battle even starts, and every party member is likely to have at least 2 extra potions for such a battle. Just in case the Reds decide to drag it out.

Trying to whack the Silver...well, one can presume the Cleric is gonna healbot for the dragon, and literally healbot with 'heal.' Martials, with Sentinel, can protect their dragon friend when it comes to claw and fang time, and every time they hit an opposing red, movement 0 means the red loses the 'high ground' on the spot. Probably won't hit the ground, as the ground is likely to be landscape, but losing an entire round's worth of movement straight down is gonna suck for the dropping red.

Being as these are high end tier 3s, there is the idea of whittling down the legendary resistances of the reds and then flinging save or suck spells. The silver, meanwhile, is protected by the Paladin's +5 and is likely to be able to conserve her resistances.

yes? alot of this conditional assumption *STUFF*. Some party composition at this level won't have any issue getting every last PC airborne and fire resistant, a well buffed and supported Silver dragon can probably take 2 Red's *themselves*, with most of the party sitting a bit off screen concentrating on stuff.

A more traditional "fighter tank, cleric healer, rogue single target murder, wizard DAMAGES" outfit will have 2 melee-ish focused PC's having not much to do? A cleric spending their actions healing a dragon does not sound riveting for said cleric. And the wizard is probably concentrating on Stone skin and playing euchre some place else? You presumably are controlling the silver and the 2 reds and so the party will have almost no say in the layout of the fight.

Sentinel on a flying red dragon zeroing out its movement mid flight... sounds dumb. Really dumb. And they can't technically hover. So they fall and die? I get that is how it works RAW. But what exactly is happening to take this colossus of a beast and stop it dead in its tracks in mid-air? I can't visualise it. but thats my problem....

This also assume they have sentinel. This assumes a paladin with the auras and potions and know when the reds are coming for them and.... Can this work and be rad? Yes. Do I have enough information to really provide insight? Eh? not really?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'll try not to repeat much of what has been written.
Once the dragons 'burn' their breath weapons, the next biggest problem is the fear. Again, a paladin is the best defense at it confers complete immunity to everyone in range (in this case the dragon mount and everyone on it.) Otherwise Clerics and Druids will likely make saves.
In terms of defense, Dragons don't have a whole lot of resistances/ immunities, so whatever the party normally uses can be effective provided it can be done at range (with the obvious exception of the breath element).

I generally am finding with my group they are able to kill things way above what the DCs say. Our level 7s/ 8s just took out a Death Knight (CR 18) and 2 Gorgons, which kind of messed up what was supposed to be the story line for a published mod.
The only reasons I'd say to not assume your group can't go to town here would be:
1) No ability to handle a lot of elemental damage
2) No ability to likely make fear saves
3) No ability to do significant damage from range. I had 2 party members that just went through Rise of Tiamat that were pumping out about 100 hp of damage per round by low tier 3 with bows/ xbows, but if you have melee based martials the numbers could go way down. On the other hand, with infinite space and ability to stay at greater range (which being on the back of a Silver Dragon would grant) Warlocks, Rangers, or the like could kill almost infinite (non-spell using) dragons.

[Unoriginal]

Worth noting that in a situation like that there is no such thing as a fair fight.

By the numbers, one silver dragon + a group of lvl 16 PCs can probably crush 3 red dragons at once. But that's discounting how much tactics impact that fight.

I generally am finding with my group they are able to kill things way above what the DCs say. Our level 7s/ 8s just took out a Death Knight (CR 18) and 2 Gorgons, which kind of messed up what was supposed to be the story line for a published mod.

Killing a Death Knight at that level is impressive, but given that Death Knights always come back when killed (unless their reason for becoming undead is solved), I'm not sure how that messes up the storyline.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Worth noting that in a situation like that there is no such thing as a fair fight.

By the numbers, one silver dragon + a group of lvl 16 PCs can probably crush 3 red dragons at once. But that's discounting how much tactics impact that fight.



Killing a Death Knight at that level is impressive, but given that Death Knights always come back when killed (unless their reason for becoming undead is solved), I'm not sure how that messes up the storyline.

The Death Knight problem is definitely fixable, and I'm having to re-work much of this mod anyway, but it goes to some of the first bit of your response. Depending on the party, I'm finding as my players get more experience and have access to some of the newer content, their ability to deal with much greater threats than they should is starting to make DMing really tricky sooner than when we started 5e (probably late tier 2 as opposed to mid tier 3).
Yes, I can tailor encounters to challenge them, but after a certain point that gets a bit obvious and contrived. I think we both have the same opinion of the OP, that without some limitations, a party designed to fight at range with a mobile platform with legendary movement actions that mirror the opposition can win a fight against numerous dragons without a scratch. I'd be giving the red dragon(s) some movement based spells to make this interesting. I'm having to use similar buffs for many monsters in the 'D' section just to make them remotely challenging for appropriate level characters: Movement for dragons, Darkness spells for devils so they can actually benefit from their darkvision.

[Angelalex242]

So it seems the answer is anything from '2 reds are tough if they can stay in range' to 'you call kill 10 of 'em if you can make your silver friend faster and kite them to death.'

However, the Reds presumably aren't stupid enough to allow themselves to be kited to death, and will eventually force the silver and friends to close, even if it means landing to do it.

[Coidzor]

It's a level 16 party, I'd say it's fair to presume the party has fire resistance or better across the board. They're gonna at the very least have guzzled some fire resistance potions before the battle even starts, and every party member is likely to have at least 2 extra potions for such a battle. Just in case the Reds decide to drag it out.

Do you know if they have potions of fire resistance?

Trying to whack the Silver...well, one can presume the Cleric is gonna healbot for the dragon, and literally healbot with 'heal.' Martials, with Sentinel, can protect their dragon friend when it comes to claw and fang time, and every time they hit an opposing red, movement 0 means the red loses the 'high ground' on the spot. Probably won't hit the ground, as the ground is likely to be landscape, but losing an entire round's worth of movement straight down is gonna suck for the dropping red.

To be fair, we couldn't know any of that just going off of the OP.

So it seems the answer is anything from '2 reds are tough if they can stay in range' to 'you call kill 10 of 'em if you can make your silver friend faster and kite them to death.'

However, the Reds presumably aren't stupid enough to allow themselves to be kited to death, and will eventually force the silver and friends to close, even if it means landing to do it.

Either retreating to a location where it'll have to become a close quarter's combat to pursue them, or going after innocent bystanders to provoke at least the silver dragon to defend them. Or otherwise threatening something that the silver dragon cares about, unless they personally know the PCs and have more animosity towards them than their draconic arrogance to only really consider the silver dragon of any real consequence.

[Angelalex242]

So, hmm.

Maybe 3 Reds with villages they can roast if the PCs try 'kite 'em to death'.

Even if kiting works, stupid amounts of innocent people will die very dead.

[DwarfFighter]

Is there any official material on how to work out CR if the PCs have an allied NPC on their side?

Or is it just...

[average party level] + Sum([allied NPC CRs]) v.s. Sum([enemy CR's])

... and cross your fingers?

[da newt]

For the math of CR, I'd Subtract the ally CR from the enemy CR, and then figure out the right challenge for the party.

1 Silver ~= 1 Red so they roughly cancel each other out. Then it's a matter of party vs X number of Red for your desired challenge. How many Reds can the party handle alone?

The down side is CR is pretty damn crappy at predicting actual challenge as particulars make a huge difference. How many PCs in this party? Is this an aerial combat or in a lair (whose lair - Red or Silver) or in a neutral space with limited room for flight? What class are your PCs? etc ...

For example, melee martials in an aerial combat will be nearly useless. If the party can't fly on their own fast enough to compete w/ the Reds, all the Reds have to do is take out the Silver, and it's pretty much game over ...

[kaoskonfety]

Is there any official material on how to work out CR if the PCs have an allied NPC on their side?

Or is it just...

[average party level] + Sum([allied NPC CRs]) v.s. Sum([enemy CR's])

... and cross your fingers?

The actual "official" CR rules for encounter building are already a bit wonky and are not really "one size fits all". Party composition and equipment can change what a group can handle *ALOT* in both directions. Add in some monster abilities, that are often not comparable to PC abilities - dragons have a grab bag of such things, more if you use spell caster variant like I like to - and you are going to have to be careful that your expectations are going to line up with what the party does. For this mid-air combat idea there is ALOT of unspoken expectation that the party has certain abilities, equipment, and preparation.

One encounter builder I ran into online to build "fair" encounters, as per the core rules, had some weird fixation with Intellect Devourers to round out the EXP per encounter and I could not for the life of me make it reliably spit out an encounter above level 4 that didn't have a very real threat of party wipe to a few bad saves, and a very good chance of a death or 2 with average rolling.

A few Red's running into this "high level probably famous adventurers on dragon back" are going to fall back somewhere defendable where their fire immunity, climb speed, blind sight, and being evil as hell will work to their advantage: is the party ready for the upcoming fight in the streets of a burning city? How about in smoke filled vertical lava tubes to small for ol' silver to fly in? or or or... Most of which is outside the scope of the original "how do I make this fair, numbers wise, and a cool mid-air fight?". Cause frankly, the reds are probably not interested in fighting fair. Heck they are probably not interested in fighting at all, especially if it looks fair.

[loki_ragnarock]

So, hmm.

Maybe 3 Reds with villages they can roast if the PCs try 'kite 'em to death'.

Even if kiting works, stupid amounts of innocent people will die very dead.

I think the dynamic being emphasized is less that the party can kite the dragons, and more that the party can work with the silver to *prevent* the reds from kiting and hit and run tactics.

If the reds can make it so that the damage against them is spread evenly between them, they stand a better chance. The greater mobility imparted by the silver makes it so that the party can keep a primary target in their crosshairs more readily, allowing all their damage output to hit one creature. If they can bring a red to zero hp, the battle shifts markedly in the PC's favor. If they do half the hit points of all three, the battle rages on.