Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Huntsman57 Dec 14, 2014 14:02:08	The chart on page 274 of the DMG is something I've been looking forward to. I've been running players through the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and I simply do not like using 5th editions relative ease of hitting in relation to a boss battle. Instead of a race to 0 hitpoints as the players and the dragon pound on each other like speed bags, it should be a longer, well described, and satisfying conclusion.   With this in mind I wanted to alter the dragon to be more in line with a creature that does massive damage if it hits, but has a hard time hitting the relatively small PC's attacking it, while itself being hard to damage through its nigh impervious scales.   Long story short, I wanted to swap out the Dragon's attack bonus for AC. The chart itsef only really goes up to an AC of 19. The Dragon in question, meanwhile, has a +11 attack bonus, and an 18 AC.   To put matters in perspective to the party the dragon will be facing, by the time the players fight the Dragon their AC's will range from around 17-19 while their attack bonuses will range from +7-+9 without bless or other non permanent enhancements. So, as the module is written, they will be hitting the dragon with slightly more than half of their attacks while the dragon's punishing attacks will be landing on a 7 or better on average, at least unless they draw the creature into the tunnels where it will have disadvantage.   I would like to turn this around and drain the dragon's attack bonus by 6 points, but at the same time, raise its AC by the same amount. So, the dragon's attack bonus would only be +5, but its AC would be 24. Now the dragon would be hitting on a 13 or better whilst the PCs now need a 16 or better to land a blow.   Since the chart in the DMG doesn't really go past AC19 I wasn't really sure if this would symetrically line up, or if this would actually skew the CR. Accoridng to the write up associated with the chart, for every 2 point of AC or 2 points of attack bonus added or removed it should increase or decrease the CR by the same amount, so I would think this would work out similarly. On the other hand, a longer fight means the dragon will likely get to use his breath weapon more, so that could make the fight more difficult. I was considering raising the AC only to perhaps 22, meaning the players now need only a 14 or better, and either keeping the dragon's attack bonus at +5. Would you lower the CR in this case? I guess the question at that point is "is AC and attack bonus always symetrically to one another in terms of how they effect how difficult a beastie is to defeat? I think perhaps not.   Thoughts?
#2 Youngy Dec 14, 2014 14:38:49	This will have the affect you intend. Given the way CR is calculated (the average of offensive and defensive CR) decreasing its attack bonus by 6 will reduce  offensive CR by 3, and increasing AC by 6 will increase defensive CR by 3. This shouldn't change its CR.  It sounds like it will have the effect you want (less hits for both sides), which will in turn increase the length of the combat.  Shouldn't cause any other issues though.
#3 Maine Dec 15, 2014 1:41:32	If you increase the dragon's AC by +5, when the party are previously hitting on 10s, they will now hit half as often, and you will effectively give the dragon twice the survivability.  It will take twice as long to kill, and in turn do twice as much damage to the party before it dies.  Balancing this by changing the Attack bonus from +11 (hitting on 7s, 70% of the time) to +5 (hitting on 13s, 40% of the time), it will hit about 60% as often as before.  Thus, it should do 15% more damage to the party than making no change at all.  You can further offset this by reducing it's HP by 20%.   Alternatively, consider utilitizing ruthless tactics against the PCs.  Dragons are smart creatures, and don't want to die.  It's not going to want to sit around letting the whole party beat on it, it will instead try to minimize who can take a shot at it, and in turn single the party members out.  A dragon can snatch a PC (Grapple), fly off with them, drop them from a height...   I don't have HotDQ yet, so I do not know which dragon this is, but based on the attributes (AC18, Attack+11) it sounds like an Adult White Dragon (or one of several metallic dragons).  If it is in it's lair, check out the MM for Lair Actions for dragons of that particular type.  Also make sure to read up on the Legendary Actions the Dragon can take - plenty of bonus attacks here (Tail+Wing or 3x Tail).  Finally, don't forget about the Frightful Presence (give some PCs Disadvantage) and Legendary Resistance (3 free auto-successes on saves).   To compare this to 2nd Edition, if you will indulge me - and you can ignore the rest of this post if you don't care about 2nd edition or edition comparisons - if this is indeed an Adult White Dragon, they had an equivalent of AC 21, +17 Attack Bonus, 11 HD (at d8, or about 1/4 as much HP as in 5E), and 10% magic resist.  I'm guessing your group is about level 9 if they are getting +7-9 to-hit (assuming +3-5 Attr, +4 Prof).  By level 9, 2E Fighters had equivalent of +8 Attack, so it's about equivalent.   In 5E that Dragon is only a little easier to hit than in 2E (Needing avg of 10 vs 13).  Player damage output in 5E is about 2x greater than in 2E, so the 4x HP helps make up for the ~35% more often the players will hit.   When it comes to the Dragon hitting players, in 2E it was pretty much guaranteed hits (Equivaent of +17 vs AC 18); now it will miss a third of the time (needing 7+).  On the other hand, the raw damage output of the dragon is greater as well, about 30% higher than in 2E (while player HP is only ~20% higher).  The extra HP of the dragon (2E_HP * 2x [5E player damage adjust] * 1.35 [5E player hit improve rate] = 2E_HP * 2.7, while 5E_HP = 2E_HP * 4x, so we still have 50% of the HP to account for) will give the dragon a bit more longevity to take the extra attacks to make up for misses.   Mathematically, the dragon should be as tough as it was in 2nd Edition.  Add in Legendary Actions and Lair Actions, and I think they are just as formidable as they have always been, but without the 'auto-hit' melee attacks of 2nd Edition, or the issue of being frequent misses against them of 3rd Edition.
#4 Huntsman57 Dec 15, 2014 19:17:42	Yes, the dragon is an adult white. The players are lv 7 however. The attack bonuses I mentioned are based on +3 proficiency, +4 ability mod on average, and +1 magical bonus for those with magic weapons, although one of the players may ever have a +2 weapon. To me it feels kind of absurd that the players are evening facing this threat at 7th level. The dragon;s breath weapon will pretty much 1 shot any character that fails their save if they use a D6 or D8 for hitpoints. The breath weapon is, in fact, the reason for my concern about skewing the AC vs attack bonus. Even if the dtagon is hitting less with its physical attacks, a longer fight means more opportunities for the dragon to breathe, and thus I feel as though I might be creating an even more difficult encounter.   While I will always love 2E as the edition I grew up on (been playing since '89), one thing I liked about 3E was that dragons felt much more formidible between their hitpoints and impenetrable scales, which I liked. My criticism of 3E was that for you to be able to avoid getting hit by a dragon, your AC would have to be absurdly high. Thus, I would have preferred if the 3E dragon dealt more damage per attack, but had a harder time connecting with those hits. That flavor of dragon always seemed the closest to capturing the feel of what a fight with such a creature would be.   5E adds alot of flavor to Dragons, and I like the fact that their attacks aren't auto-hits, but they still hit alot given normal PC ACs, and their damage output between their own attacks, and the lair actions, can be pretty extreme. I hadn't worked out the vs 2E math so if you say that 5E dragon's are no more formidible than they were in 2E I'm inclined to take you on your word, but it just doesn't feel that way at first glance.
#5 Maine Dec 16, 2014 1:23:39	I could very well be wrong, but the math in my admittedly limited 5E experience (and late night analysis) seems to suggest an equivalent danger to 2E, although I do think PC HP is not significantly higher from 2E while monster damage output is definitely higher.   The breath weapon in 5E does about twice as much HP damage, and can be used more often in a long fight.  In 2E it could be used 3 times only, but could be used all 3 in a row.  In 5E it can potentially be used more often, but only on a successful recharge roll, so it's possible to go stretches without having availability to it (personally I like this, as it adds unpredictability to a fight).  If you change the AC in such a way to prolong the encounter in any way, that breath weapon (and legendary actions, and lair actions) can be used that much more often - in fact, twice as often based on your initial proposal.   An Adult White Dragon is Challenge 13, which is pretty high for a level 7 group... it puts it well into Deadly territory for five level 7s.  It will still be considered a Hard encounter for five level 10s.   They should definitely bring some fodder (hire mercenaries, etc) before facing that dragon at level 7.
(Reply to #5) Huntsman57	Maine wrote: