As stated the character is a level 6 Gloomstalker Ranger Wedge-tail Aarakocra (ddb homebrew) who took the sharpshooter feat (+1 longbow). I was just looking at the stats of an Ancient Green Dragon cr22. Unless I read it wrong, if the ranger and dragon are aerial-fighting at night (in the dark), then as long as the ranger stays just outside of blindsight range of 60ft but within 90ft. These are these effects:
Advantage on all longbow attacks against dragon because Umbral Sight is essentially attacking a blinded dragon.
Dragon has disadvantage on all attacks against ranger thanks to ranger's Umbral sight's invisble effect
Dragon has no idea where ranger is who will be constantly shooting and moving.
Isn't there a perception roll or anything the dragon can do besides hope the ranger's arrows run out and rely on it's 21 ac?
Can this ranger even shoot with advantage while flapping his wings?
What about a stealth check for the flapping?
Sure the dragon might get a lucky hit in and it's game over but if the ranger is is tactically smart, the dragon would be swiping/breathing at just air.
In this case, the only advantage homebrew gives over the offical aarakocra is simply giving the ranger a natural darkvision and umbral sight bumps it up to 90ft darkvision..
So I must be wrong. Because there's no way a level 6 should be able to solo an Ancient Green Dragon cr22...right?
As the DM, I'm curious to see how the little dude does flying solo..
He'd die in a round or 2 tops. Dragon is going to quickly pinpoint his location and then entirely shred him. Even if he was entirely invisible and under a silence effect, the moment he fires an arrow the dragon knows where the arrow came from and just breath weapons him.
I've never heard of an wedge-tail aarakocra in a previous edition, and I'm not seeing how to search for one so I'm not going to bother. There are other ways of getting a flying PC with 90 feet of darkvision as a Gloomstalker ranger.
Invisbility just means you can't be seen. It does not mean your location cannot be known. Without a means of hiding and remaining silent, the ranger is going to reveal their position. The dragon will hear them, fly in that direction, and "see" them with blindsight. They will die.
"Without a means of hiding and remaining silent, the ranger is going to reveal their position."
Its dark, that's the means of hiding but if the ranger succeeds on stealth rolls, then sound shouldn't give away position either. Aarakocra are reknowned for soaring, they don't flap like other birds unless ascending faster than air currents take them. (standard and this version)
My original post states: "Dragon has no idea where ranger is who will be constantly shooting and moving." and "if the ranger is is tactically smart"
If the Dragon sees the arrows, the ranger has moved already.
Perhaps if the dragon readies a breath attack and seeing the arrow coming from his front. But if tactically smart, the ranger would move behind the 180 field of view. So the dragon wouldn't see the arrow even if readied.
how well would blindsight work for readying against an arrow? If it works then the dragon would have to attack in a different direction, theorectically losing its readied action.
"Without a means of hiding and remaining silent, the ranger is going to reveal their position."
Its dark, that's the means of hiding but if the ranger succeeds on stealth rolls, then sound shouldn't give away position either. Aarakocra are reknowned for soaring, they don't flap like other birds unless ascending faster than air currents take them. (standard and this version)
Yes, links would help. For future reference, your homebrew is a strictly superior when compared to the official aarakocra. I know you think that makes it attractive, but it trivializes choice by removing choice. If yours is allowed, then it's just going to be the one that's used. Maybe that's what you're going for, but then why crap all over the official one?
Moving on, how is the ranger supposed to attempt a Dexterity (Stealth) check when they're spending their action to Attack and not Hide? And even if they do Hide, they're contending with a passive Perception of 27 to hear them. Rules as written, the moment you loose an attack, the enemy knows where the attack came from. And with Legendary Actions, it has a chance to find you before it even takes its turn.
Perception doesn't tell you where, but essentially sets off your spidey senses. You would still be attacking without a target. But this is where the area effect of Frightful Presence comes into place if the dragon wants to use it because now it knows that an arrow just missed it and since the ranger would move silently afterwards, an area effect would be the wiser choice.
All this does in this case is give disadvantage on attack until the ranger succeeds once or 1 minute passes and becomes immune to it for 24hours. The ranger is free to move further away. Plus its only a wisdom DC of 19. Rangers and aarakocras are strong in wisdom.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/ranger#GloomStalker Umbral Sight "You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness."
So the activation is not an action but merely being in darkness. This means it's not a choice between attack or hide.
This is an Ancient Green Dragon. If the Ranger is lucky, the dragon will kill them. If not... the outcome will be far, far worse for the Ranger, if not immediate.
You are confusing invisible with undectable. If a party with no access to blindsight were fighting an invisible creature would you expect the dm to prevent them having any idea where it is.
Unless the invisible creature hides most DMs would rule that you know the square it occupies but as you can not see it attacks are at disadvantage. Others might instead say it is somewhere to your West maybe 70 or 80 feet away, so AoE effects can be used. The Dragon, might not know exactly where the ranger is but will know well enough to get it in a 90ft cone.
Even if it is ruled the Dragon can not hear or smell the ranger it knows where the arrow came from and can fly in that direction, unless the ranger has moved more than 60ft that will get them in range of blindsight.
Invisible doesn't mean hidden, the dragon would know where the ranger is unless it used an action to hide. In which case it wouldn't be attacking.
Otherwise that seem all good at this range, the ranger would hunt the dragon down until it use its breath weapon once and probably kill him.
A safer way to try killing the dragon would be for the ranger to stay 91+ feet away from the dragon in order to remain out of reach of any of the dragon's action and attack it with it's longer range while the dragon either flee away or close on the ranger until it can breath it to death.
So it's unlikely for ranger 6 to kill an ancient green dragon as you can see.
Perception doesn't tell you where, but essentially sets off your spidey senses. You would still be attacking without a target. But this is where the area effect of Frightful Presence comes into place if the dragon wants to use it because now it knows that an arrow just missed it and since the ranger would move silently afterwards, an area effect would be the wiser choice.
All this does in this case is give disadvantage on attack until the ranger succeeds once or 1 minute passes and becomes immune to it for 24hours. The ranger is free to move further away. Plus its only a wisdom DC of 19. Rangers and aarakocras are strong in wisdom.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/ranger#GloomStalker Umbral Sight "You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness."
So the activation is not an action but merely being in darkness. This means it's not a choice between attack or hide.
Still think the ranger can't win?
I don't think the ranger can't win. I know.
You're trying to limit the Perception, and no. It's a character's general awareness. You use it every moment of every day without thinking about it. That's why characters get a passive score. If you want to look at something akin to a "Spidey-Sense", I suggest looking at the barbarian's Danger Sense feature.
No one else here mentioned Frightful Presence. It's a non-factor, and trying to inject that does not help your case whatsoever. If the ranger wants to move silently, that's not one of the standard actions. If they wish to Hide, that's an action. It competes with Attack, so they can only do one at a time. And why, you ask, do they need to Hide when functionally invisible?
All the Ancient Green Dragon has to do is be patient; holding a Dash as a reaction. The second the first attack is made, the ranger's position is revealed and the dragon can use their reaction to fly 80 feet and "see" their previously unseen attacker with their 60 feet of Blindsight. They're now no more than 10 feet away, per your own preference for being within 60-90 feet. Now the ranger has to choose between using their Dash to evade the dragon or just fly normally and take pot shots. Either way, the dragon will catch up to it within a round. And with a +15 to hit, basically anything other than a Natural 1 on the D20 will hit. It doesn't even need to rely on its Breath Weapon, but it might─just for fun.
The ranger will die. The only question now is, "How many rounds do you honestly think it'll take before they die?"
EDIT/P.S. And don't even think something like Ensnaring Strike will help the ranger. It has verbal components, which means the dragon hears it being cast and knows where to fly to. They can spend their reaction to Dash before the ranger can even loose their first arrow. And that's without even considering the +8 modifier to the saving throw they'd make with advantage
Perception doesn't tell you where, but essentially sets off your spidey senses. You would still be attacking without a target. But this is where the area effect of Frightful Presence comes into place if the dragon wants to use it because now it knows that an arrow just missed it and since the ranger would move silently afterwards, an area effect would be the wiser choice.
All this does in this case is give disadvantage on attack until the ranger succeeds once or 1 minute passes and becomes immune to it for 24hours. The ranger is free to move further away. Plus its only a wisdom DC of 19. Rangers and aarakocras are strong in wisdom.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/ranger#GloomStalker Umbral Sight "You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness."
So the activation is not an action but merely being in darkness. This means it's not a choice between attack or hide.
Still think the ranger can't win?
I don't think the ranger can't win. I know.
You're trying to limit the Perception, and no. It's a character's general awareness. You use it every moment of every day without thinking about it. That's why characters get a passive score. If you want to look at something akin to a "Spidey-Sense", I suggest looking at the barbarian's Danger Sense feature.
No one else here mentioned Frightful Presence. It's a non-factor, and trying to inject that does not help your case whatsoever. If the ranger wants to move silently, that's not one of the standard actions. If they wish to Hide, that's an action. It competes with Attack, so they can only do one at a time. And why, you ask, do they need to Hide when functionally invisible?
All the Ancient Green Dragon has to do is be patient; holding a Dash as a reaction. The second the first attack is made, the ranger's position is revealed and the dragon can use their reaction to fly 80 feet and "see" their previously unseen attacker with their 60 feet of Blindsight. They're now no more than 10 feet away, per your own preference for being within 60-90 feet. As soon as the ranger tries to fly away, the dragon gets an Opportunity Attack. And with a +15 to hit, basically anything other than a Natural 1 on the D20 will hit. It doesn't even need to rely on its Breath Weapon, but it might─just for fun.
The ranger will die. The only question now is, "How many rounds do you honestly think it'll take before they die?"
EDIT/P.S. And don't even think something like Ensnaring Strike will help the ranger. It has verbal components, which means the dragon hears it being cast and knows where to fly to. They can spend their reaction to Dash before the ranger can even loose their first arrow. And that's without even considering the +8 modifier to the saving throw they'd make with advantage
That does not quite work, activating a held action requires your reaction so it would not be able to do that and make an OP attack but if the ranger is staying within 90ft it can hold its breath attack, or it can let the ranger run and on its next move breath weapon it if it is within 60ft and if not move to where it left its blindsight and breath weapon from there. Unless the ranger can move 110ft without dashing it is toast.
You didn't have to copy everything, that's excessively long for a minor error, and the original post has been corrected.
My point, however, stands. Between its fly speed and Multiattack, the dragon has an effective reach of 90 feet. Factor in its Poison Breath and it has an effective range of 170 feet. The ranger cannot keep out of striking distance and maintain its advantageous invisibility. It will die.
All the Ancient Green Dragon has to do is be patient; holding a Dash as a reaction. The second the first attack is made, the ranger's position is revealed and the dragon can use their reaction to fly 80 feet and "see" their previously unseen attacker with their 60 feet of Blindsight. They're now no more than 10 feet away, per your own preference for being within 60-90 feet. As soon as the ranger tries to fly away, the dragon gets an Opportunity Attack. And with a +15 to hit, basically anything other than a Natural 1 on the D20 will hit. It doesn't even need to rely on its Breath Weapon, but it might─just for fun.
You can't take Dash as a reaction in order to move out of your own turn. Dash simply increases your available movement for the current turn.
However, you can simply use the Ready action on your turn which would enable you to move up to your speed in response to the trigger.
[redacted] When you Ready an action, you choose from one of the available actions. The outcome is the same. [redacted]
Pedantic is probably the word you were looking for, as there was nothing facetious in my earlier post.
Anyways, this is a Rules and Mechanics forum, so pointing out a Rules error should be expected. It is important to distinguish between using Ready to move as a reaction versus using Ready to Dash as a reaction. People frequently think that readying a Dash is going to be able to allow them to move double their speed out of turn, whereas in reality you end up not moving at all.
Ranger: I shoot my longbow at it (does some rolling, who cares).
DM: The dragon now knows where you are as you shot at it, and with its Passive Perception of 27, it knows exactly where.
Ranger: Aha! Now I move to this location, where I'm still within 90 feet, ready for my next turn but I'm invisible.
DM: At the end of its turn, the Ancient Green Dragon uses its Legendary Action, Detect. It makes a Perception check. Roll stealth.
Player: I got 22!
DM: The dragon rolled a 10, for a total of 27. It knows exactly where you are.
Ranger: Wait, what - but I'm invisible?
DM: It's an ancient dragon, with +17 Perception, and has been flying for close to 1,000 years. You think that it can't detect the motion of a silently flying owl ? You think it can't hear the movement of the air? You think that a +3 Perception Owl can detect a mouse in a field below it but an ancient green dragon can't hear the sound of you *breathing*??? Your clothes are flapping in the air as you fly. You're breathing hard. Your arrows are rattling in their quiver. And it can smell everything about you. You didn't account for its incredible sense of smell right? Ever seen how fast a drug dog finds a stash?
Ranger: Smell isn't a thing!
DM: Actually, smelling an enemy is in the rules, as per the Keen Senses on the humble wolf stat block.
Ranger: But - but - but I tried to work the rules so hard in my favour!
DM: The dragon flies 80 feet towards you. It exhales. Would you like a new character sheet?
@Kotath First of all, thank you for seemingly being the only responder to read up on the homebrew aarakocra that somebody else created and my player chose. You are also correct is assuming the ancient green dragon should be fighting smart and on his own terms.
Its a small detail but since you brought it up:
"Even if it was for some inexplicable reason out in conditions favouring the ranger, it [the dragon] could rise above cloud level, where there is more light, or slow down and fight in the clouds, where the ranger cannot see it."
An excerpt from wedge tail's traits: "Visual obscurities such as fog, heavy rain or snow do not affect your ability to see." This would include clouds. And the tactically smart ranger would know he is the target and stay within the darkness or clouds. Even if it meant to duck under a tree or something should there be a break in the clouds as well as only fire an arrow if it favors him. Coincidently this particular player chose Druidic Warrior as a fighting style and took druidcraft as a cantrip. He could easily predict the weather whereas the dragon can only rely on life long learned weather patterns.
@Jegpeg
"You are confusing invisible with undectable. If a party with no access to blindsight were fighting an invisible creature would you expect the dm to prevent them having any idea where it is."
Lets take the five senses away. Can you tell if someone stands within 10 feet of yourself? Can't see them move into view, couldn't hear them walking up, can't smell their cologne, Taste...are you licking them?, Can't feel any pressure changes of atmosphere/temperature changes/slight breeze adjustments on your skin.
To you, this person now standing five feet away from you doesn't exist.
Back to the dragon vs ranger. If the ranger causes an external disturbance such as rain is outlining him or he's got bad BO somehow, or a little more probable - breathes heavy from the fighting. Of course as a DM I would allow such clues to give away the ranger's direction and based on the obvious level, even give away the square as the distance may not be known by the subtler tells. But this does walk the precarious tight rope of a DM splitting hairs on enforcing a dragon win vs a player crafting a charactor with excellent buiding skills and following the rules. Very close to a DM Wrath feel though not intended to be DM Wrath. How fun would that be for the player?...probably not.
@Plaguescarred
"Invisible doesn't mean hidden" https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets Even in the real world. Being invisible DOES mean hidden. Unable to be visible. Bending light. Excellent camouflage. However you want to put it, it means to be hidden from sight. Also, I don't recall anywhere in the rules that invisibility looks as obvious as The Predator's cloaking ability. (I know you didn't mention it, I'm just nipping it in the bud).
In umbral sight's case, actions don't turn off the invisible effect since the darkness doesn't turn off.
I concede that once the attack has been made whether hit or miss, the ranger's location will be revealed. But as he moves after a shot, once again his location is lost.
@Jounichi1983
"No one else here mentioned Frightful Presence." You are correct on this. I mistook the Frightful presence ( an always available ability and probably a wise choice as a sperical area effect to 120 feet) to be a legendary action.
In none of my posts in this thread have I offered up casting a verbal component spell during battle for the very reason you mentioned. Druidcraft can be casted long before the battle to ascertain the weather.
@ All responders
Ending at response #14, So far the only RAW (for fairness play with the player) effective strategy for the Dragon win I have read in your responses has been: The dragon waits to perceive an arrow using blindsight then breath attack. This particular player has protection from poison as a spell (it lasts an hour). So just in case that spell was prebattle casted, the breath attack would be halved in damage (38 dmg on a failed save) and the ranger has advantage on save. Additionally, the breath attack is a recharge 5-6.
With this strategy, its just a matter of luck rolling on the dice. The battle could still go either way. Albeit more in favor of the dragon, but the original question of "Can this level 6 solo an Ancient Green Dragon?" Is still a possibility not 100% ruled out by this strategy
RAI, I personally don't feel blindsight would detect the location of the ranger from just a mere arrow miss. Its a bit of a stretch. But as I and Kotath mentioned before, using dragon lore I strongly feel the dragon (especially a cunning green dragon) would not allow itself to be engaged in a battle it thought it might lose. It would probably take off, send minions, or always stay in an advantageous position/location.
Now, there was a question in the original post that has gone untouched: "Can this ranger even shoot with advantage while flapping his wings?". Please allow me to re-ask with slightly different wording.
Keeping in mind he's probably soaring, can this ranger even shoot with advantage while airborne?
I mostly ask this question as my 3.5 knowledge is clouding my memory on this topic.
[redacted] When you Ready an action, you choose from one of the available actions. The outcome is the same. [redacted]
Pedantic is probably the word you were looking for, as there was nothing facetious in my earlier post.
Anyways, this is a Rules and Mechanics forum, so pointing out a Rules error should be expected. It is important to distinguish between using Ready to move as a reaction versus using Ready to Dash as a reaction. People frequently think that readying a Dash is going to be able to allow them to move double their speed out of turn, whereas in reality you end up not moving at all.
Little bit of both. I'm not sure I entirely take your reply seriously, if I'm being honest.
And where did the idea that using Dash to move double the dragon's speed come from? It's just an action you can take to use your speed and move a second time when used on your turn.
As stated the character is a level 6 Gloomstalker Ranger Wedge-tail Aarakocra (ddb homebrew) who took the sharpshooter feat (+1 longbow). I was just looking at the stats of an Ancient Green Dragon cr22. Unless I read it wrong, if the ranger and dragon are aerial-fighting at night (in the dark), then as long as the ranger stays just outside of blindsight range of 60ft but within 90ft. These are these effects:
Advantage on all longbow attacks against dragon because Umbral Sight is essentially attacking a blinded dragon.
Dragon has disadvantage on all attacks against ranger thanks to ranger's Umbral sight's invisble effect
Dragon has no idea where ranger is who will be constantly shooting and moving.
Isn't there a perception roll or anything the dragon can do besides hope the ranger's arrows run out and rely on it's 21 ac?
Can this ranger even shoot with advantage while flapping his wings?
What about a stealth check for the flapping?
Sure the dragon might get a lucky hit in and it's game over but if the ranger is is tactically smart, the dragon would be swiping/breathing at just air.
In this case, the only advantage homebrew gives over the offical aarakocra is simply giving the ranger a natural darkvision and umbral sight bumps it up to 90ft darkvision..
So I must be wrong. Because there's no way a level 6 should be able to solo an Ancient Green Dragon cr22...right?
As the DM, I'm curious to see how the little dude does flying solo..
No.
He'd die in a round or 2 tops. Dragon is going to quickly pinpoint his location and then entirely shred him. Even if he was entirely invisible and under a silence effect, the moment he fires an arrow the dragon knows where the arrow came from and just breath weapons him.
I got quotes!
I've never heard of an wedge-tail aarakocra in a previous edition, and I'm not seeing how to search for one so I'm not going to bother. There are other ways of getting a flying PC with 90 feet of darkvision as a Gloomstalker ranger.
Invisbility just means you can't be seen. It does not mean your location cannot be known. Without a means of hiding and remaining silent, the ranger is going to reveal their position. The dragon will hear them, fly in that direction, and "see" them with blindsight. They will die.
"Without a means of hiding and remaining silent, the ranger is going to reveal their position."
Its dark, that's the means of hiding but if the ranger succeeds on stealth rolls, then sound shouldn't give away position either. Aarakocra are reknowned for soaring, they don't flap like other birds unless ascending faster than air currents take them. (standard and this version)
Not seeing how to search for the wedge tail? Would this DnDByond link help? https://www.dndbeyond.com/races/349906-aarakocra-australian-wedge-tailed-version.
Arrows aren't invisible.
I got quotes!
My original post states: "Dragon has no idea where ranger is who will be constantly shooting and moving." and "if the ranger is is tactically smart"
If the Dragon sees the arrows, the ranger has moved already.
Perhaps if the dragon readies a breath attack and seeing the arrow coming from his front. But if tactically smart, the ranger would move behind the 180 field of view. So the dragon wouldn't see the arrow even if readied.
how well would blindsight work for readying against an arrow? If it works then the dragon would have to attack in a different direction, theorectically losing its readied action.
Yes, links would help. For future reference, your homebrew is a strictly superior when compared to the official aarakocra. I know you think that makes it attractive, but it trivializes choice by removing choice. If yours is allowed, then it's just going to be the one that's used. Maybe that's what you're going for, but then why crap all over the official one?
Moving on, how is the ranger supposed to attempt a Dexterity (Stealth) check when they're spending their action to Attack and not Hide? And even if they do Hide, they're contending with a passive Perception of 27 to hear them. Rules as written, the moment you loose an attack, the enemy knows where the attack came from. And with Legendary Actions, it has a chance to find you before it even takes its turn.
This is not a fight the ranger can win.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/using-ability-scores#Perception
"Perception check lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses."
Perception doesn't tell you where, but essentially sets off your spidey senses. You would still be attacking without a target. But this is where the area effect of Frightful Presence comes into place if the dragon wants to use it because now it knows that an arrow just missed it and since the ranger would move silently afterwards, an area effect would be the wiser choice.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/appendix-a-conditions#Frightened
"A frightened creature has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of its fear is within line of sight.
The creature can't willingly move closer to the source of its fear."
All this does in this case is give disadvantage on attack until the ranger succeeds once or 1 minute passes and becomes immune to it for 24hours. The ranger is free to move further away. Plus its only a wisdom DC of 19. Rangers and aarakocras are strong in wisdom.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/ranger#GloomStalker
Umbral Sight
"You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness."
So the activation is not an action but merely being in darkness. This means it's not a choice between attack or hide.
Still think the ranger can't win?
This is an Ancient Green Dragon. If the Ranger is lucky, the dragon will kill them. If not... the outcome will be far, far worse for the Ranger, if not immediate.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
You are confusing invisible with undectable. If a party with no access to blindsight were fighting an invisible creature would you expect the dm to prevent them having any idea where it is.
Unless the invisible creature hides most DMs would rule that you know the square it occupies but as you can not see it attacks are at disadvantage. Others might instead say it is somewhere to your West maybe 70 or 80 feet away, so AoE effects can be used. The Dragon, might not know exactly where the ranger is but will know well enough to get it in a 90ft cone.
Even if it is ruled the Dragon can not hear or smell the ranger it knows where the arrow came from and can fly in that direction, unless the ranger has moved more than 60ft that will get them in range of blindsight.
Invisible doesn't mean hidden, the dragon would know where the ranger is unless it used an action to hide. In which case it wouldn't be attacking.
Otherwise that seem all good at this range, the ranger would hunt the dragon down until it use its breath weapon once and probably kill him.
A safer way to try killing the dragon would be for the ranger to stay 91+ feet away from the dragon in order to remain out of reach of any of the dragon's action and attack it with it's longer range while the dragon either flee away or close on the ranger until it can breath it to death.
So it's unlikely for ranger 6 to kill an ancient green dragon as you can see.
I don't think the ranger can't win. I know.
You're trying to limit the Perception, and no. It's a character's general awareness. You use it every moment of every day without thinking about it. That's why characters get a passive score. If you want to look at something akin to a "Spidey-Sense", I suggest looking at the barbarian's Danger Sense feature.
No one else here mentioned Frightful Presence. It's a non-factor, and trying to inject that does not help your case whatsoever. If the ranger wants to move silently, that's not one of the standard actions. If they wish to Hide, that's an action. It competes with Attack, so they can only do one at a time. And why, you ask, do they need to Hide when functionally invisible?
Because unseen attackers reveal their location when they attack, regardless of whether or not the attack hits or misses.
All the Ancient Green Dragon has to do is be patient; holding a Dash as a reaction. The second the first attack is made, the ranger's position is revealed and the dragon can use their reaction to fly 80 feet and "see" their previously unseen attacker with their 60 feet of Blindsight. They're now no more than 10 feet away, per your own preference for being within 60-90 feet. Now the ranger has to choose between using their Dash to evade the dragon or just fly normally and take pot shots. Either way, the dragon will catch up to it within a round. And with a +15 to hit, basically anything other than a Natural 1 on the D20 will hit. It doesn't even need to rely on its Breath Weapon, but it might─just for fun.
The ranger will die. The only question now is, "How many rounds do you honestly think it'll take before they die?"
EDIT/P.S.
And don't even think something like Ensnaring Strike will help the ranger. It has verbal components, which means the dragon hears it being cast and knows where to fly to. They can spend their reaction to Dash before the ranger can even loose their first arrow. And that's without even considering the +8 modifier to the saving throw they'd make with advantage
That does not quite work, activating a held action requires your reaction so it would not be able to do that and make an OP attack but if the ranger is staying within 90ft it can hold its breath attack, or it can let the ranger run and on its next move breath weapon it if it is within 60ft and if not move to where it left its blindsight and breath weapon from there. Unless the ranger can move 110ft without dashing it is toast.
You didn't have to copy everything, that's excessively long for a minor error, and the original post has been corrected.
My point, however, stands. Between its fly speed and Multiattack, the dragon has an effective reach of 90 feet. Factor in its Poison Breath and it has an effective range of 170 feet. The ranger cannot keep out of striking distance and maintain its advantageous invisibility. It will die.
You can't take Dash as a reaction in order to move out of your own turn. Dash simply increases your available movement for the current turn.
However, you can simply use the Ready action on your turn which would enable you to move up to your speed in response to the trigger.
[redacted] When you Ready an action, you choose from one of the available actions. The outcome is the same. [redacted]
Pedantic is probably the word you were looking for, as there was nothing facetious in my earlier post.
Anyways, this is a Rules and Mechanics forum, so pointing out a Rules error should be expected. It is important to distinguish between using Ready to move as a reaction versus using Ready to Dash as a reaction. People frequently think that readying a Dash is going to be able to allow them to move double their speed out of turn, whereas in reality you end up not moving at all.
Ranger: I shoot my longbow at it (does some rolling, who cares).
DM: The dragon now knows where you are as you shot at it, and with its Passive Perception of 27, it knows exactly where.
Ranger: Aha! Now I move to this location, where I'm still within 90 feet, ready for my next turn but I'm invisible.
DM: At the end of its turn, the Ancient Green Dragon uses its Legendary Action, Detect. It makes a Perception check. Roll stealth.
Player: I got 22!
DM: The dragon rolled a 10, for a total of 27. It knows exactly where you are.
Ranger: Wait, what - but I'm invisible?
DM: It's an ancient dragon, with +17 Perception, and has been flying for close to 1,000 years. You think that it can't detect the motion of a silently flying owl ? You think it can't hear the movement of the air? You think that a +3 Perception Owl can detect a mouse in a field below it but an ancient green dragon can't hear the sound of you *breathing*??? Your clothes are flapping in the air as you fly. You're breathing hard. Your arrows are rattling in their quiver. And it can smell everything about you. You didn't account for its incredible sense of smell right? Ever seen how fast a drug dog finds a stash?
Ranger: Smell isn't a thing!
DM: Actually, smelling an enemy is in the rules, as per the Keen Senses on the humble wolf stat block.
Ranger: But - but - but I tried to work the rules so hard in my favour!
DM: The dragon flies 80 feet towards you. It exhales. Would you like a new character sheet?
@Kotath
First of all, thank you for seemingly being the only responder to read up on the homebrew aarakocra that somebody else created and my player chose. You are also correct is assuming the ancient green dragon should be fighting smart and on his own terms.
Its a small detail but since you brought it up:
"Even if it was for some inexplicable reason out in conditions favouring the ranger, it [the dragon] could rise above cloud level, where there is more light, or slow down and fight in the clouds, where the ranger cannot see it."
An excerpt from wedge tail's traits:
"Visual obscurities such as fog, heavy rain or snow do not affect your ability to see." This would include clouds. And the tactically smart ranger would know he is the target and stay within the darkness or clouds. Even if it meant to duck under a tree or something should there be a break in the clouds as well as only fire an arrow if it favors him. Coincidently this particular player chose Druidic Warrior as a fighting style and took druidcraft as a cantrip. He could easily predict the weather whereas the dragon can only rely on life long learned weather patterns.
@Jegpeg
"You are confusing invisible with undectable. If a party with no access to blindsight were fighting an invisible creature would you expect the dm to prevent them having any idea where it is."
Lets take the five senses away. Can you tell if someone stands within 10 feet of yourself?
Can't see them move into view, couldn't hear them walking up, can't smell their cologne, Taste...are you licking them?, Can't feel any pressure changes of atmosphere/temperature changes/slight breeze adjustments on your skin.
To you, this person now standing five feet away from you doesn't exist.
Back to the dragon vs ranger. If the ranger causes an external disturbance such as rain is outlining him or he's got bad BO somehow, or a little more probable - breathes heavy from the fighting. Of course as a DM I would allow such clues to give away the ranger's direction and based on the obvious level, even give away the square as the distance may not be known by the subtler tells. But this does walk the precarious tight rope of a DM splitting hairs on enforcing a dragon win vs a player crafting a charactor with excellent buiding skills and following the rules. Very close to a DM Wrath feel though not intended to be DM Wrath. How fun would that be for the player?...probably not.
@Plaguescarred
"Invisible doesn't mean hidden"
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/combat#UnseenAttackersandTargets
Even in the real world. Being invisible DOES mean hidden. Unable to be visible. Bending light. Excellent camouflage. However you want to put it, it means to be hidden from sight.
Also, I don't recall anywhere in the rules that invisibility looks as obvious as The Predator's cloaking ability. (I know you didn't mention it, I'm just nipping it in the bud).
In umbral sight's case, actions don't turn off the invisible effect since the darkness doesn't turn off.
I concede that once the attack has been made whether hit or miss, the ranger's location will be revealed. But as he moves after a shot, once again his location is lost.
@Jounichi1983
"No one else here mentioned Frightful Presence."
You are correct on this. I mistook the Frightful presence ( an always available ability and probably a wise choice as a sperical area effect to 120 feet) to be a legendary action.
In none of my posts in this thread have I offered up casting a verbal component spell during battle for the very reason you mentioned. Druidcraft can be casted long before the battle to ascertain the weather.
@ All responders
Ending at response #14, So far the only RAW (for fairness play with the player) effective strategy for the Dragon win I have read in your responses has been:
The dragon waits to perceive an arrow using blindsight then breath attack. This particular player has protection from poison as a spell (it lasts an hour). So just in case that spell was prebattle casted, the breath attack would be halved in damage (38 dmg on a failed save) and the ranger has advantage on save. Additionally, the breath attack is a recharge 5-6.
With this strategy, its just a matter of luck rolling on the dice. The battle could still go either way. Albeit more in favor of the dragon, but the original question of "Can this level 6 solo an Ancient Green Dragon?" Is still a possibility not 100% ruled out by this strategy
RAI, I personally don't feel blindsight would detect the location of the ranger from just a mere arrow miss. Its a bit of a stretch. But as I and Kotath mentioned before, using dragon lore I strongly feel the dragon (especially a cunning green dragon) would not allow itself to be engaged in a battle it thought it might lose. It would probably take off, send minions, or always stay in an advantageous position/location.
Now, there was a question in the original post that has gone untouched: "Can this ranger even shoot with advantage while flapping his wings?". Please allow me to re-ask with slightly different wording.
Keeping in mind he's probably soaring, can this ranger even shoot with advantage while airborne?
I mostly ask this question as my 3.5 knowledge is clouding my memory on this topic.
Little bit of both. I'm not sure I entirely take your reply seriously, if I'm being honest.
And where did the idea that using Dash to move double the dragon's speed come from? It's just an action you can take to use your speed and move a second time when used on your turn.