Random review from my 5 year old daughter: 'I like this show. She talks great and I love her hair.'

There was a post on reddit awhile back suggesting that you give dragons a Legendary Action called "Inhale" that immediately recharges their breath weapon, but telegraphs the breath weapon, and its area of effect to the party that feels like it's exactly what you're looking for, Dael.

Ok but let's talk about how much the legendary reactions are tactically TOP TIER replacement for legendary actions. Still get dragon-ey stuff, but now your players can choose their actions carefully as to not trigger as many of these. Very Elden Ring. Bravo Dael. Bravo.👏

Legendary REactions being used as cinematic pieces and narrative threats are awesome. I would take it one step further: Have the dragon still use its legendary reactions after you've already used them, and specifically when it's in its dire straits, but this time have them fail. It instinctually sweeps with the tail the barbarian freshly severed and, in a prideful rage from its lack of retribution, it suffices with a singular claw attack and some narrative taunting. When it would normally beat its wings and fly toward the ranger cowering from afar, battle fatigue has made an ferociously angry dragon clumsily stumble in its haste, moving only half the distance.

Making fights predictable to your players is a vastly underutilized method of ratcheting up the tension. It's like the bomb under the table.

I think this one really fits nicely into the "less is more" for DND battles. The dragon doesn't need huge amounts of rules and whatnot, it's powerful enough to wipe a party with 3 moves. And good luck with all the things! Don't burn yourself out!

Expanding on the roar: What if a dragons roar dispelled magic in general? That the voice of this creature of innate magical power could break the delicate webs of arcana mages and priests build? A nice "Oh shit" moment. This next part depends on the players reaction, but it could also be a reminder that they are puny mortals and this is a primordial serpent.

This video reminds me of Matt Colville's building legendary monsters with 4e mechanics and Action Oriented Monsters. Dael always adds an intense folkloric flavour to everything which makes me enjoy these videos. Keep em coming, Dael.

It's worth mentioning that 5e doesn't mean for hit points to count as actual physical health, but it's kind of van ambiguation of thick skin or scales or luck. So the first half of a dragon's hit points could literally just be this scales absorbing damage, and it isn't until near the end of its hit points that it starts to actually take physical harm. It's all in the way you describe it really

If I may, I would like to point out a few key things that seem to be overlooked for everything but player characters: Size/STR vs Carry/Lift, extra limbs, how the environment reacts to certain elements, and how things survive to this sort of size/age. We see PCs do heroic lifts, argue for extra attacks, use the environment, and use their size or age as an advantage. Size/STR vs Carry/Lift: Right. Many of us ignore encumbrance, so this is easily missed. Using JUST the PHB, calculate the carry/lift capacity of only a Large Dragon. Now a Huge one. Look at their STR scores. A Dragon can carry, and thus fly, with a heavy object in it's grasp. A Flying dragon with such an object can then bombard creatures, structures, terrain, etc., with impunity. If you need to know what sort of damage this could do, either use the falling damage of the object or substitute giant boulder damage. They could also lift other creatures with a simple grapple check (and with a 25 strength and a high prof mod, that's pretty easy) and then DROP them from a 20d6 height, or into a ravine, the ocean, etc. Swimming dragons could capsize large vessels or drag down smaller ones, drowning all aboard. Burrowing dragons could undermine structures, collapse mines and caves, and subvert walled encampments. Environmental reactions: In other words, things burn, freeze, and so on. A castle might have stone walls, but very few have stone roofs. Most had tiled wooden roofs. That means fire will burn them. As it will do for everything inside: furniture, wooden stairways, drapes and carpets, oils, people, livestock, and more. Forests and fields burn, driving wildlife and livestock before them like a stampede as a precursor to an attack, or to run down hiding foes. Poisonous gas will fill cramped structures. It will seep under doors, through arrow slits, past curtains, and down stairwells. Any whom try to escape are easy pickings. Lightning will set fires like fire breath would, as well as break and crack structures. Any grounded object being hit becomes electrified, so everyone in contact with such surfaces risk electrocution. Ice will freeze and crack hardened structures, will make humid areas ice covered (and thus impeding movement and escape), freeze fluids that might stop structure fires, and kill everything in sight. Those frozen will not scream like those on fire, so allies may not even know their friends are ice cubes. Acid is truly heinous. It will melt or dissolve organics. Wood, flesh, leather, and so on, will dissolve. This means structural integrity of things like doorways and so will no longer be trustworthy. Any foods or fluids for sustenance will be ruined, so any siege will end in starvation. Water supplies will be contaminated. Crops will be ruined. Dragons have limbs that seem unaccounted for. Older editions had dragons doing claw/claw/bite, foot stomp, wing buffet, wing buffet, tail slap...THEN breath weapon. A 50'long dragon has a tail that can break a man in two. It weighs enough to crush a horse simply by landing on it. Any of these options could simply use the claw damage as a stand in. Easy. Add a save for knockdown/push and you're set. Lastly, and most often overlooked, it takes a LONG time for any creature, Dragon, Giant or otherwise, to reach this sort of size. That means two things: It's gained a lot of experience in survival and combat, and as such doesn't make stupid mistakes, and it also would like to continue to do so...and as such, will also make no stupid mistakes. That's when it may alight and proceed back to boulders, breath weapons, or, if available, spells. It can out-wait the PCs. Dragons live longer than elves, so they have patience. If they see the odds against them, they simply leave and strike against their foes when more convenient. None of this is unreasonable, and uses existing structures and rules already in place. It simply takes the will of the DM to utilize them.

I agree 100% that dragon should be the king of the jungle. It is the best representation in myth and folklore of primal, elemental fear of the nature and the unknowable, seemingly chaotic, universe in humanity. So I believe indirect psychological elements of the fear of dragons should also be reinforced. I read somewhere years ago in a fairy tale that if shadow of a flying dragon passes over you, you would go blind immediately. Just think about it , what can be scarier than that? The dragon does not attack you, it does not even realize you are there, but it is such a source of power and chaos, even its shadow can destroy you. Of course this cannot be used literally in D&D, but mechanics that will create this level of terror in characters and players would make great additions to an average D&D dragon. Kinda like Nazgul in LOTR, whose primary power is their aura of fear and dread.

My grandma has been wondering where you've been. I like the roaring counterspell. I think I'd require the caster to make a Concentration check vs. the dragon's fear DC, but only use it against leveled spells, and not on the same round as the breath weapon.

The “hiding behind a pillar to avoid the dragon’s fire breath” trope also happened at the beginning of the first “How to Train Your Dragon” film.

Tolkien Dragons had hypnotic powers. Bilbo almost revealed himself only speaking with him even though Smaug didn't know where he exactly was. The very first dragon of Middle Earth was a wingless serpent created by Sauron's old boss, Morgoth, in the First Age. Glaurung was his name and he was a terribly mighty beast. If you locked eyes with him you were very likely under his spell. He drove an elf maiden mad with his mental torture over time causing her to have amnesia and believe she was someone else altogether, all to get revenge on Hurin's son Turin. The result of the dragon's manipulations was seriously a mental cluster-fu... Tolkien's The Silmarillion and his son's book "Children of Hurin" cover this.

I think an important aspect of a dragon fight is the moment where the Dragon goes from "haha, puny little creatures" to "Oh fuck this is serious and they won't let me fly away!". It's basically a "second phase boss" freebie! (And probably the final phase which is just the lizard begging for it's life/tricking the players into letting it go)

I love the little "The tail kinda seems fun to include more than once." dance.

So much of this reminded me of "Self Defense for Dragons" published in Dragon Magazine #50, June 1981. That is before you were born Dael, but that is (at least) how long people have been wishing Dragons were different from the rules as written. Whatever the edition of the rules were at the time.

I absolutely love the idea of a dragon's roar is so powerful that it can disrupt the casting of spells with verbal components.

Yeah I love dragons! Dragon my party's dead bodies across the floor of my lair ಠ ͜ʖ ಠ

enjoyable take on dragon combat. I have been playing, most as a DM for 36 years and I have taken dragon fights in many ways. Think my favorite is when my players faced a elder shadow dragon. It was always striking from the shadows and melding back in so the party had to hold actions and only the first one that saw it got to take their action since it moved so fast. They also had to use terrain to shield themselves since the breath weapon drained levels, 3.5e.

Tired: Fighting a dragon deep inside a dungeon. Wired: Fighting a dungeon deep inside a dragon.

You can steal/borrow from other games ICRPG : a 1d4 timer for the breath weapon "recharge", and you put it out on the table D&D4e : Steal various breath weapon options and (re)actions MotW: Use Monster Weakness -- the party has to research and recon the dragon to figure out how to defeat it

Adore the redesign of "recharge" for the breath weapon. Give the players time to see it coming, and try and scatter. Adds tactics and drama to everything

I'd probably change the trigger for the tailswipe from the dragon being hit twice in a row, to the dragon getting flanked. It seems more like what an animal would do, taking steps to avoid being surrounded and keeping his enemies/prey where he can keep track of them.

this video came at the PEFECT time for me bc I'm about to run my first dragon encounter soon. I'd love to hear your thoughts about roleplaying dragons/ fey as well bc I really want to nail that deceptive, tricksy, can-smell-lies-and-loves-to-toy-with-people type of vibe. you always speak to the core of my DM soul, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of these ideas! I think you're who originally inspired me to give big baddies cooler reactions instead of the emphasis on legendary actions. excited to see you back, but take time for yourself too! thanks for all the awesome insight :)

Just had an idea for the poison gas, that instead of it making an attack, the Dragon fills the space it is in and a radius around in the fog. Treat it like Marine layer so the dragon can see through it and keaves a lingering toxic area that provides concealment

Great ideas! A bonus little thing I like to add (not that I've had players encounter a dragon yet) is to increase all dragons' creature sizes by one category: even a wyrmling is at least large (2x2), an adult is gargantuan (4x4), and an ancient is anywhere beyond that. I'd like to think that the sheer scale helps make an impression on how big and powerful dragons are.

I like Legendary Reaction because it makes it feel like this Dragon is in control of the situation and you are trying to wrestle control from it

Despite the dragon focus, this gave me so many ideas of what to do in bigger encounters for my level 5 players until they’re ready for dragons!

Dael, thank you. Trogdor is now a dnd reality

Part of the thing with Dragon fights is that most people running them kind of realize that, in D&D, dragons are vastly overpowered for the CR if you use all of their abilities. It's kind of like one of the D&D adventures where they meddled with a green hag and turned her into a teleporting murder machine because they gave her access to, essentially, invisibility and misty step...and encouraged the use of them in the notes. Honestly, if you want a terrifying dragon encounter, the Epic Encounters box with the dragon is one of the better 5e ones

I run dragons as having a 4 turn cooldowm on breath weapons, but the older the dragon the lower the cooldown. Also all dragons are not created equal so I tweaked the colours to have different cooldowns as some prefer aerial combat, some prefer using breathe weapons, some want to get stuck in with claws. Made it so that they could usually tell what the "main" weapon on the dragons is by looking at it, like our animals in the wild

I really like the point about legendary reactions being a lot more interesting than legendary actions. Actions are so disconnected from what is happening in the fight, whereas reactions make it feel like the enemy is actually engaging with the party.

THE RIVER! THE RIVER F- oh, that’s the OTHER best d&d youtuber, my mistake.

A bit late seeing this, but in case DMs see this here's something I do to foreshadow the danger of the dragon breath attacks on a meta-level for the players if you don't want to tell the players that this dragon is dangerous. Like Dael says, the close calls are what's exciting and that can only happen if the breath attacks scare the players, which is why telling the players ahead of time that this dragon isn't your parents' dragon adds excitement because the players *know* the danger. Saying that nothing is scarier than the unknown possibilities. Enough rambling - make the first dragon breath attack "nearly miss" and have it hit an object or something similar (maybe a friendly NPC :). Put on your best frown that it missed, and then tell the players "Well, let me roll the damage on the object to see if it's destroyed or just on fire/acid/frozen/etc" AND THEN ROLL ALL THE DICE BEHIND YOUR SCREEN. Really shake those thangs, so the players at the table can hear how many dice you are rolling. Roll MORE than you even would. Hell, roll 20d20s - it scares the meta-game players the most. This is a way I will often show how dangerous an NPC is for the party, without breaking immersion as much as telling them outside the game or whatever.

I remember when I owned D&D rulebooks (in the ancient times when you had to specify it was BD&D - I'm old!) when dragons got special moves like crush and hover. IIRC, crush required a (what would now be) a DEX saving throw or take skads of damage (though your heroic fighter could try to hold up their sword in response - think Sam v Shelob) while hover allowed them to use all 4 claws as well as their bite attack. They may have had some sort of swoop attack (which allowed them to swallow adventurers maybe?). Giving them a different set of attacks allows for more dragon tactics (and conversely allows the party to think about how they might neutralise them).

As a loyal viewer/listener of Dusk, I've been on a steady Dael-drip throughout the drought, for which I'm duly thankful. Gotta stay hydrated! On an entirely unrelated note: your videos are the only ones where I - a soon-to-be 40-year-old man - am being shown ads for mascara. Maybe they're meant for my grandma?

It's funny to me that the first recommendation I get after this video is Matthew Colvile's "Let's Kill a PC!"

I kinda like the idea of Dragons and other epic monsters not being able to heal normally. Like it would take a month for a dragon to get the healing benefit of a long rest and magic healing is 1/10th as effective. Incorporate the dragon's awareness if it's vulnerability into its tactics: you fight off a dragon harassing a farm it might retreat after taking two or three hits but fights to the death when cornered in its lair.

Any review with Trogdor is the best. Who else misses Strong Bad's emails in their weekly flash viewing?

1:26 Don't worry Dael; we could never be disappointed in you!

Consistency. The word you're looking for is consistency.

I'm only like 5 minutes into the video but I wanted to pitch an idea. Instead of "recharging" every other turn, the breath weapon recharge should be a legendary reaction. This still allows young and juvenile dragons to recharge it on a 5 or 6, but makes adult and ancient dragons way scarier since they can control their breath weapon and use it way more frequently.

Alternatively, the initial "damage" could be steadily increasing the frustration of the dragon, ultimately leading to it lashing out with more powerful attacks that also leave it more exposed. This is something I try to integrate into combat for my players already, since a single sword cut could disable or kill a living creature. It also serves as a guide for how to vary the play style of the dragon, so it can feel like a dynamic being who doesn't want to die and fights like it, but over time will take greater risks to just end the incessant attacking of the players.

Someone that has a better brain that hasn’t been working all day construct how the dragon can do the thing where it flies up and uses its breath in concentrated streaks to split the battlefield up and cut attacking parties off from eachother... cool choices of either jumping through the fire or stand back and watch as the cleric has to face the beast alone for a round or two...

Breath weapon used to control the battlefield like laying down difficult terrain (ice sheet floor) is cool and not a direct attack on the characters. Love your suggestions.

History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, Dael passed out of all knowledge. And some things, that should not have been forgotten, were lost.

"Your dexterity attack does not affect me for I have WINGS OF STEEL!!" *Darkwing Duck theme starts to play in my head* Annnnnnnnd now I need to figure out if a "Darkwing Dragon" is a viable idea... (In retrospect that may have needed to have been Batfink, but my brain does what it does)

I love the idea of making the environment impacted by the dragon's attacks as well. That is-perfect.

Omg the shield mechanic is BRILLIANT! Just that one thing that doesn't require a single change in mechanics brings SO much to the combat. Ah! I love your brain! When are we going to do a build a monster? Let's build a dragon! And it's lair!

0:41 This is how i feel about most fights.. yeah the RP is fun and fights can be.. interesting.. but the fights all devolve into "can you beat their AC" for the most part.

extra idea: turn 1 breath weapon, turn 2 nada, turn 3 neck's glowing and mouth is leaking the element add damage to bite attacks, turn 4 the whole chest is near bursting with elemental power and bam breath weapon OOOOOOR the dragon turns their power inwards their body bursts with power and is wreathed in the element. add damage to all attacks, damage if you're in 5ft, and damage if you melee attack them.

1) This is amazing, as usual. 2) My players just fought an adult white dragon Wednesday. I guess now they’ll have to find it’s momma.

The first part reminded me of Bahamut fights in the Final Fantasy games; inevitably at some point it stops attacking you and just starts counting down from 5, and when it reaches zero it uses a Mega Flare that deals massive damage to everyone, it's always terrifying.

Strength to you oh mighty Dael! May the fires of your creativity burn like dragons fire as it scorches the limits of our imagination. May it be the eternal flame that creates like a phenix fire and bring you new life and strength so that all our Grandmas will have glorious content all of their days.

Back and on point - I'm about to run my party's first dragon encounter so this couldn't be more timely. Thanks, Dael! You continue to be my favorite source for inspirational ways to make my campaign more memorable.

Trogdor was a man! He was a Dragon Man! I mean, he was just a DRAGON! Trogdor! Also, as others noted above, love the legendary resistances, as they get to make things interactive, and love the creativity of the ideas - something for spellcasters, for ranged for melee... I remember fighting a thing in Curse of Strahd that kept counterspelling the first spell in the round, and once we figured it out, the cleric who was first in initiative started doing cantrips, to allow the bard to do more serious spells. The ground would shake every other round and we could fall, so we made force wall as a floor to give us steady footing. All of these were actually reactions to some things we knew before combat and some things we learned during and made for a very exciting fight. Perhaps players could find out what some of the reactions were, such as learning from a tome or oral legends that a wizard tried taking down the dragon but the dragon's voice drowned the wizard out or such.

I was reading "H is for Hawk" (Helen Macdonald), put it down and checked YT, saw this video. It struck me hard that dragons and birds of prey (like Llevellys too) are powerful, inscrutible and facinatingly *charismatic*. "She (the hawk) is a conjuring trick. A reptile. A fallen angel. A griffon from the pages of an illuminated bestiary. Something bright and distant, like gold falling through water."

I haven't thought this through, BUT Simplest (read, least 5e-obtrusive) way to implement that first one: Automatic breath weapon recharge as a Legendary Action.

This answers a problem that desperately needed fixing. Dragons in vanilla dnd really does just feel like a monster of the week kind of thing. This does a good job at breaking up that pattern and making dragons into their own thing

Dael? Dragons? Trog-dor reference/song! Worth the wait and all the things! Thanks for the neat ideas to build dragon combat. Absolutely *LOVE* the legendary reaction talk. I like to give my monsters reactions that PCs don't expect (mostly because there seem to be so few reactions in D&D...?) Nothing like getting hit then LEAPING AT THE PLAYER THAT HIT THEM!!! Legendary reactions, Wide eyes, can't lose!

"I'd get rid of the recharge die...maybe make it once every two rounds..." Funny you should mention that! In old editions of D&D dragons could breath fire every three rounds rather than using a recharge die. So you are going old school! I love it.

at the inflection point where the dragon's armor is sundered - so too go its resistances. the wyrm's scales are well built to resist its own natural acid, but it is still built of muscle and bone after all. this could ramp up the accelerative feeling of those last few blows as fire eats, acid gnaws, cold bites, whatever suits the situation to the suddenly vulnerable dragon (replete with yowls and curses)! love it, dael. (and love dusk. keep jammin)

Please don't apologize for doing " that KZfaq thing". We, your audience, also forget to do things, especially when enjoying a video. You make so many great ones, I often find myself watching them a second time just so I can click "LIKE" ! In my defense, I'm old like Bilbo and not nearly as clever. Dragons should be deadly. Spot on !

"Well, personally, I kinda wanna slay the dragon...let's go to work."

DnD does actually have a mechanic for what Bard does in The Hobbit, and that's critical hits! So if you wanted to have a Zelda boss moment where it has a vulnerable state it could be wailed on during, your dragon could have resistance while hovering but get grounded after a damage threshold or a crit.

I do like some of your ideas, especially the part about Legendary Reactions, because things like that make it feel more EPIC, and truly epic battles are memorable ones! Still, I can probably easily wipe out the entire six-member party of my current 8th Level campaign with one red dragon of the age category "young adult." They actually want to try, even though I tell them it will mean death to some or all...but maybe I will let them give it a go for the fun of it, nothing actually counting. My thing about running Dragons has always been to use the environment, first and foremost. There is a lot of detail given about each Dragon's preferred habitats, and their abilities usually compliment this well. A Dragon is not going to want to be caught in a fight outside of the places it has the advantages. And then I go full guerilla warfare on them! A dragon never needs to just sit there and wait to use its breath weapon again---they will be on the constant move, into and out of cover of smoke or fog, dense brush or shifting sands or murky water, into and out of the air, using those wing buffets and crushing death-from-above hits as much as possible. Any damage taken is likely to cause them to retreat, so very often if the party is actually doing well at NOT dying within a few rounds, then the battle might end anyway with the dragon retreating to safety. Even in a cave setting, a Dragon is not likely to ever be there if there were not more than one emergency exit in place, often with traps like pitfalls and cave-ins to cover their escape. Live to fight again another time...only more angrily, more sneakily, more vengefully. . . .AND THEN TROGDOR COMES IN THE NIGHT!

Welcome back. Made me go back and watch the fight in Dragonslayer (1981). Nice vid.

I love pulling from lore to flavour the build up to dragon fights. Blues, for example, have intricate networks of enslaved/coerced spies, bards, and assassins who will cripple a settlement (killing key figures, spreading propaganda, sabotaging food and water supplies etc) before the dragon arrives to claim a land too weak to defend itself. Thus, I'd have the players weed them out as the last one warns that "My boss knows what you did, and she's not happy". This phase is a mix of survival and mystery. Blues are the best flyers of any dragon species (able to stay afloat like condors for hours with no effort), so she stays out of range and rains lightning breath during the day AND night (Blues have the longest breath attack range). That coupled with your idea for breath attacks would make this nightmarish to endure. The players need to figure out a way to shoot the Blue down as soon as possible before going into "traditional" combat with a grounded, angry and injured dragon. You've said that the dragon's _scales_ are invulnerable, so I'd hint that if they hit the fleshy wing membrane, the Blue would fall out of the sky. Or, I'd homebrew it so that Blue have the softest scales because they rarely get close enough to their prey or foes to be harmed. Indeed, if a Blue is close enough to get hit, it's probably losing (think of the Tau in Warhammer 40K). Great, the dragon's been shot down. Now the players get to fight it... while sleep-deprived and hungry. Both sides are handicapped - the dragon can't fly, and she took significant fall damage, but the players haven't had a long rest in days and have exhaustion levels ...Good luck.

Thank you for bringing Trogdor back into the light! May he burninate the country side forever!

Not me quiet-screaming "THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES" under my breath at work

Bulbo definitely lies when he tells Smaug that he has no clue what he's talking about when Smaug asks him about his Dwarven friends

"Email this to your grandma" will always be my favourite close to a video

Right. I have been a DM since 2009. On top of that I have a degree in Game Design, which also happens to be my current occupation. That being said, I, obviously, always homebrew the shit out of everything in my D&D game, including dragons. And dare I say, my dragons have always been a much more interesting encounter than the standard 5e dragon (as well as 4e dragons). However, after watching this video, I am genuinely excited for the next one since everything you mentioned not only makes sense from an encounter design perspective, but also from general combat narrative point of view. All great ideas, as long as you keep them flowing, I will keep watching and taking notes.

A thought about making dragons deadly is to focus on their tactics. Give a dragon an invisibility spell and it's instant, undetectable death from above. Give it a lair which can't be reached without some serious climbing gear; it's hard to fight a dragon when you're dangling from a piton 200 feet up a cliff! Make him smart... surely a dragon will be able to tell a wizard from a warrior, and will take out the more dangerous foes first. And give him tons of flavor when describing him, or having him speak!

This is GREAT. A+. I was talking about how Elden Ring Dragons felt like fighting dragons as I imagined in Skyrim. And this is like, sounding like what I imagine DnD Dragons feel like.

Loved the twinkle in your eye as you realized you gotta BURNINATE THE PEASANTS hehe.

The armour thing that you mentioned in this video is definitely something I’m stealing, not only for dragons but also Bulette, breaking through the armour of a creature is a great idea

This is awesome! I want to fight a dragon. A also approve the Trogdor reference.

I like these. They are much simpler than what I tried ... which I'll now try to describe for posterity or something. I try to put more than one phase in my dragon fights. First is one where they are arrogantly fighting directly against the heroes, and can't be defeated yet - only survived. In this phase they have five targets with their own HP totals: head, wings, legs, belly, and tail. If the heroes do enough damage to a target, that target's attack gets "turned off" for the dragon's turn. So, if they hit the head with enough damage, it won't be able to bite on its turn. These target HP totals reset at the end of the dragon's turn. The rub is, each target has a "response" for the first time it gets hit; if you hit the head you get bit, if you hit the wings you get buffetted, etc, which are lesser forms of the dragon's main-turn attacks. This response system was how I went after the cinematic "give and take" we see in boss fights on TV and movies and such which, I agree, DnD doesn't do very well. Strategically, you can go for a lot of targets to try and "turn off" a bunch of stuff for the dragon's turn, but then you're invoking all of his responses. Anyway, this goes on for a few rounds or until the heroes manage something dramatic; every time I've done this they pull off something great in the third or fourth round. The next phase is a skill challenge type of deal where the dragon is now wary and flying around and the heroes have to ground it somehow, and the final stage is just the dragon "as written," which I find dies quite quickly. I really like these thematic, once-per-combat sort of legendary reactions, though. I also love the idea of the dragon's breath weapon changing the environment. I will need to find a way to incorporate these ideas.

I personally have always been terrified by the notion that a creature with strength in the mid twenties can just force pick your character and fly away with him/her and eat him/her at a safe distance while the rest of the party just watches helplessly their dear friend trying to solo a dragon and being eaten alive.

Great vid! I'm also a big fan of Matt Colville, so seeing the two of you in DUSK is amazing.

Doesn't sound simple and boring Dael, makes me excited to run a dragon.

And the Kingsmill comes in THE NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!

A dragon with a protective crystal that requires a perceptopn check to really notice because...magic. The dragon takes very little damage from attacks and its wounds magically close until the crystal is noticed (maybe a glint catches passive perception glances so that the characters take a closer look). Hitting the crystal is a called shot so disadvantage and not easiest to do but once the crystal is broken, the dragon is a "normal" dragon. You could do this for the "chink in the armor" effect if you want it to be more like Smaug but I was going for something a bit different here. Also, don;t forget that some dragons, especially greens I would say and silvers, can very much use magic items. A bracer might appear as a ring being worn on a dragon;s horn, the above mentioned crystal might be embedded in its scales, blending in a little, and so on. I gave a dracolich a harness that acted as a magical armor that could only be worn by dragons (the players later gave this harness to a faerie dragon named Pip). I also like to make the opening of encountering a dragon a BIG DEAL. "As you try to locate the master of this tremendous horde of treasure that lies all around you, the head of a creature more primordial and ancient than anything you have ever seen slowly emerges from behind a large stone spire. Its eyes glint with the embers of not just any fire but a fire so old and intense that you immediately feel your blood growing hotter in its presence. To call its eyes reptilian is to simplify something that can;t be compared to any creature you have ever seen as it peers at you and your companions with the interest that you might look down at a insect you found in the woods..." ANd so on. Everything a dragon does should be intense and immense. I love your idea of cinnematic Legendary Resistances too and will lean more heavily into that in the future.

I like the idea of weak points. You could make it harder to hit, but it deals more damage to the dragon. Like the dragon has 17 AC in general, but the weak point has a 20 AC

This was definitely evocative, but not vague. This was not too simple, it is a perfect fit on making dragons awesome again!

I can only remember encountering one dragon when I was playing. The DM intended it to be the climax of the dungeon, so he was annoyed when we discovered it earlier than he expected. The dragon was in a giant chamber, fast asleep on top of his hoard. I wrapped myself in my Cloak of Invisibility, slipped on my Ring of Flying, floated over to the the dragon undetected, and slit its throat. It never woke up. That _really_ annoyed the DM.

Every Video of Dale's is like a cinematic movie that plays in my head, now I want nothing more than to throw a Kingsmill - Dragon at my Players!

Literally perfect timing on this video! My players are about to try and get out of a Dragon encounter next session! Thanks so much for all the wonderful ideas!

I keep thinking about a more general system for fighting really big opponents, where instead of just trying to whittle through their wall of HP, it's more similar to what you're talking about with Bard and Smoug, you try to give yourself openings to attack vulnerabilities. So, you'd be damaging a giant's leg to cause them to stumble to the ground, where the head and torso are accessible. You ready an action to attack the dragon's head when it tries to bite you (and, you would get bonus to making attacks this way). I think things like this could really change the texture of a fight.

Thank you! Can’t wait for the companion video, detailing the steps to make Dungeons more dangerous!

Glad to see new videos from you! Always enjoy your content.

For impenetrable scales, you could make it so if players roll the same number twice (and hit) then the dragon takes damage. This gives off the idea that the first hit weakens the armored scales, and then the second attack breaks through.

Used this tonight for a white dragon. Went really well, players thoroughly enjoyed the encounter.

Excellent video. I love the idea of the dragon's scales not making the dragon invincible but instead being a second invisible HP bar before the real one is exposed. It conveys that the dragon has not been 'truly' injured yet. "Your attack obviously did... something. But you're not sure how much." An idea I had would be to keep the dragon's hit points normal but give the dragon what I'm gonna call an Invincibility die. It starts as a d12 (might be lower for a smaller dragon), on a 12. Basically, the dragon adds the current number on the Invincibility die to its AC and all saving throws. BUT every time an attack would have hit it if not for the invincibility or it would have failed a saving throw if not for the invincibility, the die goes down by 1 (e.g. 12 to 11). When the dragon actually does get hit, or it actually does fail a saving throw, its current invincibility die goes down a size and then resets to the maximum value of the new die (e.g. from a d12 to a d10 and set the value to 10). This means that you still can whittle down the dragon's impervious armour by throwing everything you've got at it. But then it also means those super accurate miraculous hits can happen even when the dragon is on full everything, and make a huge difference to the fight by bypassing the current invincibility die. And it also makes things increasingly triumphant when the dragon gets easier and easier to hit - "Look how the once-arrogant beast cowers before my blade! Victory is at hand!!!" The invincibility reset is meant to represent the dragon finally realising its weak spot has been exposed and employing increasingly clever ways to protect itself. This system probably has a lot of flaws (ones I can think of off the top of my head: Encourages fishing for nat 20s even more than usual, It's functionally pretty similar to a second health bar anyway) but it's scalable with the starting die size. And I think it's neat.

This channel is always helpful and informative but this is definitely the funniest of your videos I've yet seen.

sending you strength to do what must be done!! Also Dusk was amazing!!!

I loved these videos! And I love this one! Keep being amazing Dael, we'll be here when you feel like it

Legendary Reaction: „sending strength“