D&D 5E Older dragons don't seem to do much damage.

[Otterscrubber]

My DM is concerned that older dragons don't seem to do much more damage than their younger versions. An ancient Black dragon does on average only 4 more points of damage with a bite attack than a young black dragon. This seems odd. Using the DM guidelines for how much damage a CR 21 monster should do (Ancient Black dragon for example), the dragon seems to be falling short even assuming it uses all 3 legendary actions for tail attacks. Falling short by 50+ points.

We plan on using them and I'm wondering if others have found this to be the case or not. Any suggestions or errata that addresses this? OR am I missing something obvious?

 

[Shadowdweller00]

The young black's damage isn't even close. The ancient dragon gets 12 more damage from multiattack, another 18 for its improved breath weapon, and THEN gets legendary actions (unlike the young black) which can deal as much as another 51 damage per round. AND lair actions, if the ancient dragon is fighting in its lair.

ETA: Glossed over the fact that ancients get another 2d8 acid damage on their bite, so that's 21 more damage on a multiattack over young blacks.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

By the way, the Ancient Black Dragon has a GREATER offense than its base CR listing. The correct calculations are as follows:

Averaged over three rounds:
Round 1 => (67 average from breath x two expected targets) + 51 damage tail attack legendary actions + (10 average damage x two expected targets from lair)
Round 2 => 58 damage from multiattack + 51 damage tail attack legendary actions + (nondamaging lair effect)
Round 3 => 58 damage from multiattack + 51 damage tail attack legendary actions + (10 avg damage x two expected targets from lair)
= 134.3 average damage per round (or 147.6 with lair actions).

This is the equivalent of offensive CR of 20 (CR 21 with lair actions) from the damage component as per the tables in the DMG. HOWEVER, the ancient black dragon's attack bonus is +15, which is five higher (four with lair) than expected for CR 20-level damage for a net +2 CR increase. This ups the total offensive CR to 22 (CR 23 with lair actions).

 

[Otterscrubber]

Great input, thanks!

 

[Gwarok]

I'm actually his DM, and my concern wasn't with the overall damage output so much as with the fact the claws and bite base damage seem to stop increasing at Young Adult. So even though they go up a size category each time to Huge and Gargantuan, Claws do a base 2D6 and Bite is 2D10 still, which seems like they should go up an additional D6 and D10 respectively for each size category. Is that a typo or something? Just about everything else seems to scale with size increases.

 

[Gwarok]

How do you get an avg non lair damage of 134.3 per round? I see 118 + 109 +109, avg damage which comes out to 112 per round, 22.3 pt less. Also, if the dragon is fighting one opponent the damage drops considerably.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm actually his DM, and my concern wasn't with the overall damage output so much as with the fact the claws and bite base damage seem to stop increasing at Young Adult. So even though they go up a size category each time to Huge and Gargantuan, Claws do a base 2D6 and Bite is 2D10 still, which seems like they should go up an additional D6 and D10 respectively for each size category.

My DM is concerned that older dragons don't seem to do much more damage than their younger versions. An ancient Black dragon does on average only 4 more points of damage with a bite attack than a young black dragon. This seems odd. Using the DM guidelines for how much damage a CR 21 monster should do (Ancient Black dragon for example), the dragon seems to be falling short even assuming it uses all 3 legendary actions for tail attacks. Falling short by 50+ points.

We plan on using them and I'm wondering if others have found this to be the case or not. Any suggestions or errata that addresses this? OR am I missing something obvious?

They're not supposed to. 5E dragons (and other monsters) should be using "lairs" and allies. A fairly well-organized group of 4-5 can easily trash adult and ancient dragons in a couple rounds without much trouble when they are outside lairs and without allies. In either case, a dragon is an intelligent creature and needs to be played smartly as well. Unfortunately these are built-in assumptions to the dragon stat block, but not explained anywhere in the books.

In my dragon-centric campaign, each attack gains an additional damage die per age category (so adults have 3d6 per claw, ancients have 4d6, bites, tails and wings move up similarly), I didn't modify the breath weapons, I tried 3/4ths max damage instead of average (1/2) and it was just too devastating. Dragons should be scary, regardless of if you find them all on their own or not. Dragons with allies in their lairs should be terrifying.

But if you're feeling that a dragon isn't getting enough damage dice as it gets bigger (which I agree with), just up the die by 1 per age category.

 

[Celtavian]

They're not supposed to. 5E dragons (and other monsters) should be using "lairs" and allies. A fairly well-organized group of 4-5 can easily trash adult and ancient dragons in a couple rounds without much trouble when they are outside lairs and without allies. In either case, a dragon is an intelligent creature and needs to be played smartly as well. Unfortunately these are built-in assumptions to the dragon stat block, but not explained anywhere in the books.

In my dragon-centric campaign, each attack gains an additional damage die per age category (so adults have 3d6 per claw, ancients have 4d6, bites, tails and wings move up similarly), I didn't modify the breath weapons, I tried 3/4ths max damage instead of average (1/2) and it was just too devastating. Dragons should be scary, regardless of if you find them all on their own or not. Dragons with allies in their lairs should be terrifying.

But if you're feeling that a dragon isn't getting enough damage dice as it gets bigger (which I agree with), just up the die by 1 per age category.

A lot of the time they can do that in the dragon lairs with the dragon's allies watching.

If I were Gwarok, I'd do some work on his ancient dragon if he wants it to feel like an ancient dragon that can take a party on alone. Maybe add some spellcasting. Make its dragonhide a lot tougher to hurt by raising its AC or adding some damage resistance. Maybe up the damage some that it can do. An ancient dragon should be one of the most fearsome fights a group of PCs can face without any allies or need of a lair action. Traditionally an ancient dragon was nearly unbeatable, that is not true at all in 5E. I think it was Hemlock that showed a 100 lvl 1 human archers could kill an ancient red dragon due to bounded accuracy. If all a king needed was a 100 archers and good terrain to slay a dragon, boy, have they fallen a long, long ways from their days of power.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

How do you get an avg non lair damage of 134.3 per round? I see 118 + 109 +109, avg damage which comes out to 112 per round, 22.3 pt less. Also, if the dragon is fighting one opponent the damage drops considerably.

See the parentheses and the bit about two expected targets from the breath weapon? That is what the CR calculation guidelines presume. So: 185 + 109 + 109. Yes of course damage is reduced against only one opponent - or against any number of other possible mitigating factors. CR is supposed to be a baseline estimate of a creature's combat ability for purposes of general comparison, not the precise threat the creature poses in a particular scenario against a particular opponent.

 

[Celtavian]

Gwarok,

One nice thing about 5E is you don't need to look at a dragon as a race in this edition. You don't even need to worry too much about its age, though it's always cool to let the PCs know this is an ancient creature. You can make each dragon you run a unique experience. If I were you, I'd write up a background about the dragon. Then I'd use that background to design the dragon to be how I wanted it to be. For example, if you were writing about Smaug, you would note his hide being nearly invulnerable. To make this a reality, you could give him damage immunity to anything but magic weapons and damage resistance to magic weapons. Then you could write a weakness like his missing scale. Say Perception DC 15 to 20 to spot the missing scale. Then maybe give the small area with the missing scale a higher AC due to its small size or a minus to hit or disadvantage to hit, but if you hit that location its DR doesn't count. I highly suggest making monsters like ancient dragons or the like unique experiences by writing up the monster yourself.