Hi Guys, I'm homebrewing a campaign that, in its short description, gets the party to rally the Ancient metallic dragons to fight and stop the Ancient chromatic dragons from dominating this part of the world. (Inspiration of course is from dragonlance books...)
Now the end battle, I want each party riding and in control of their own ancient dragon.
Would it be an even match of 1 of every ancient metallic dragon vs 1 ancient of every chromatic? Or how would you go about balancing it out if it skews either way.
I'm relatively new to DMing and just want to make sure the end of the campaign is a great epic few sessions rather than a major anticlimax
You can't really run an effective combat with PCs riding ancient dragons against baddies on ancient dragons, because the amount of breath weapon output in a single turn is going to be enough to wipe out the whole table. One CR22 ancient green dragon is supposed to be a good fight for 4 level 15 PCs. Two of them is a wipe. Even if the PCs are level 20, the breath weapons of multiple dragons will end the fight in 1-2 turns. Moreover, the dragons completely take over the fight - individually they are just stronger than the PCs, so they'll do all the work (and I'm assuming you mean the whole party ride on ONE dragon, not one each). Then on top of that, they each have 3 legendary actions.
Maybe they can ride Young dragons instead of ancients, that would potentially work better and the dragons won't dominate the fight completely (making the PCs feel kinda pointless). Half the breath weapon damage on them as well maybe. The PCs should feel like they're the ones doing the work.
You also don't want to play out fights with that many combatants on the table (especially with the legendary actions) and try not to have more than one allied monster or NPC character on the PCs side. Combats will take way too long otherwise, and as DM it's boring rolling your own monster's attacks against your other own monster attacks.
I agree with Sanvael that the mounts would be the focal point of this final combat. We want the PCs actions to be the focal point, and to not overshadow them by something of our design. Even if you were to put every PC on a Wyvern or a Drake (from the Drakewarden Ranger), pitting the party against an equal number of enemy combatants on mounts would be tough enough to run on the ground. Add in the complexity of flight and 3d manuvering and this turns into a 4D chessmatch.
You might still be able to have the final battle between metallics and chromatics, but maybe push that fight to the background and give the PCs something that they can do in the foreground to effect the outcome of that background fight. Maybe they could be an assault team that needs to make it into a final boss battle and the metallics are giving them cover. Perhaps there are battlefield artifacts that might be used against the chromatics, but the PCs have to fight their way to each of them to activate them.
Whatever you settle on, make the PCs the star of the show, not an extra with a speaking part in the scene.
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Thanks for the replies they bring up points I never thought of.
The idea was to have 1 player on a dragon each, and in that combat, they basically take control of their dragon profile and stats for that battle, then at the end once they defeated the chromatics, dismount and go after the BBEG for the final boss fight as their characters
I do like the idea though of maybe having the dragons fight I the background but have them do objectives/something else so determin the outcome of the battle. I never would have thought of that.
The scaling of damage would make it pretty wonky if the players were to each get to Jaeger into a dragon per player. Even if they were matched against an equal number of ancient metallics, that entire fight would be decided by whoever rolls the higher initiative.
I second everybody else in saying to rethink the final fight. I'll even take it a step farther:
You don't even really need to put a lot of thought into this right now. Assuming your campaign is just starting, you most likely have a very long time to think this through. I guarantee you'll be changing your mind 100x between now and even halfway to the end. Just have a general idea of what you'd like (big dragon fight) and from there let the campaign influence how the final fight will play out.
The idea was to have 1 player on a dragon each, and in that combat, they basically take control of their dragon profile and stats for that battle, then at the end once they defeated the chromatics, dismount and go after the BBEG for the final boss fight as their characters
Unless you're planning to explicitly forbid the players from using their characters until they dismount, you can't guarantee this will play out the way you envision. Because if I were a player in the campaign climax fight, I'd be using everything at my disposal to beat the baddies while I had a dragon for a mount. And I'd be a little disappointed if I couldn't, because then my mount would be doing the cool stuff while my character was effectively NPC'd for half the fight. But that's just me.
Perhaps instead of riding dragons, the players receive a blessing that gives them special abilities to use in the fight. An ancient bronze dragon who can no longer fight bestows upon a worthy adventurer a special boon that allows them to polymorph into a young/adult bronze dragon for 1 minute. Or maybe a wounded silver dragon gives up some energy to grant a character immunity to cold damage and a rechargeable breath weapon. Stuff like that. This allows each character to have a special tie to one of the metallics that they can carry into the battle, and it's still the player characterswho are getting the spotlight.
If you went that route, I'd probably avoid making it an all-out spree against the unified chromatics simply to avoid a TPK. Unless, that is, you structure it so they fight the ancient dragons sequentially instead of simultaneously, and/or you give them major buffs to withstand the damage output.
Since you want to follow Dragonlance (which is awesome btw) I put some more thought into this. Here are some other options:
I sometimes run "cut scenes" where the players control monsters instead of their characters. I also do this if one character is doing something solo, and I want there to be a fight - I either give them basic NPC stat blocks, or they control the enemy monsters. This gives the players something to do.
You could expand this idea by running a dragon-battle, giving each player a dragon to control (minus the legendary actions) and having a dragon brawl. It would be quite memorable, and it could be something that guides the campaign's direction! What's good about this is you don't even have to save it for like level 15+ you could run it around level 9 or 10 (which is still probably a year's worth of games).
Example:
The Council of Metallic Dragons are attacked while they are talking with the PCs. The dragons take to the air (one for each player) and the players get to play out the dragon fight. However, another dragon also comes down to fight the PCs, who are charged with protecting some dragon eggs.
At the end of the dragon battle, some of the good dragons will probably be dead. So what then happens if the gold dragons lost their leader? Or if they are completely defeated? Now the PCs will beat their dragon, and have to go on the run with the last golden dragon egg... Or if the metallics win, then it's time to take revenge on the reds who are leading the chromatic faction. You could have a big dragon battle, which is meaningful to the campaign, but the PCs also get a fight where they're the main participants.
Thanks for the continued suggestions, they're all great!
The adventure has started, they're only currently level 3 (soon to be 4) so I have time to plan it out.
They've came across green dragon wymlings and the plan was to encounter other older dragons as they leveled up, with the big fight of all the ancients at the end. (This is likely to change a little now) and they've got to travel the land to seek out the metallics to rally them to fight against the chromatic.
I quite like the idea from theologyofbagels where instead of having them fight with a dragon, they are "attuned" /bonded each to a specific dragon and gives them unique powers or abilities. So the dragons could still be there in the background having a fight (with randomly determined which dragons survive on both sides)
And sanvael idea of splitting the battle is great! So they each control a dragon but also have the BBEG attack the party who are left on the ground, so best of both worlds. They play the dragons they're attuned too, and also after they play their characters to fight the final ancient.
The PC's have gotten the dragons prepared for battle and the dragons engage. The PC are observing from a command post because it's safer than being out there with all the breath weapons. A younger silver dragon spots that some of the dragons have people mounted on them and are using their own spells or other things to change the tide of battle. How dare these dragons break the oaths to keep this a dragon v dragon battle! To the skies!
Now the PC's have to leap from dragon back to dragon back and fight other characters of similar level/ skill as they move from one encounter to next on the back of these massive flying wyrms. Maybe there are additional checks to keep from falling off, maybe they make good use of shove and other skills to blast enemies off the backs. How do they get from one dragon back to the next? Or stay on the back of an "evil" dragon that wants to shake them?
I did something like this in Ravenloft when the PC's decided that to get back into the castle they'd polymorph one of the PC's into a dragon and ride on it back in. Only to have a gaggle of Strahd's vampire spawn meet them on the way in:
Hi Guys, I'm homebrewing a campaign that, in its short description, gets the party to rally the Ancient metallic dragons to fight and stop the Ancient chromatic dragons from dominating this part of the world. (Inspiration of course is from dragonlance books...)
Now the end battle, I want each party riding and in control of their own ancient dragon.
Would it be an even match of 1 of every ancient metallic dragon vs 1 ancient of every chromatic? Or how would you go about balancing it out if it skews either way.
I'm relatively new to DMing and just want to make sure the end of the campaign is a great epic few sessions rather than a major anticlimax
Thanks for your advice!
You can't really run an effective combat with PCs riding ancient dragons against baddies on ancient dragons, because the amount of breath weapon output in a single turn is going to be enough to wipe out the whole table. One CR22 ancient green dragon is supposed to be a good fight for 4 level 15 PCs. Two of them is a wipe. Even if the PCs are level 20, the breath weapons of multiple dragons will end the fight in 1-2 turns. Moreover, the dragons completely take over the fight - individually they are just stronger than the PCs, so they'll do all the work (and I'm assuming you mean the whole party ride on ONE dragon, not one each). Then on top of that, they each have 3 legendary actions.
Maybe they can ride Young dragons instead of ancients, that would potentially work better and the dragons won't dominate the fight completely (making the PCs feel kinda pointless). Half the breath weapon damage on them as well maybe. The PCs should feel like they're the ones doing the work.
You also don't want to play out fights with that many combatants on the table (especially with the legendary actions) and try not to have more than one allied monster or NPC character on the PCs side. Combats will take way too long otherwise, and as DM it's boring rolling your own monster's attacks against your other own monster attacks.
I agree with Sanvael that the mounts would be the focal point of this final combat. We want the PCs actions to be the focal point, and to not overshadow them by something of our design. Even if you were to put every PC on a Wyvern or a Drake (from the Drakewarden Ranger), pitting the party against an equal number of enemy combatants on mounts would be tough enough to run on the ground. Add in the complexity of flight and 3d manuvering and this turns into a 4D chessmatch.
You might still be able to have the final battle between metallics and chromatics, but maybe push that fight to the background and give the PCs something that they can do in the foreground to effect the outcome of that background fight. Maybe they could be an assault team that needs to make it into a final boss battle and the metallics are giving them cover. Perhaps there are battlefield artifacts that might be used against the chromatics, but the PCs have to fight their way to each of them to activate them.
Whatever you settle on, make the PCs the star of the show, not an extra with a speaking part in the scene.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Thanks for the replies they bring up points I never thought of.
The idea was to have 1 player on a dragon each, and in that combat, they basically take control of their dragon profile and stats for that battle, then at the end once they defeated the chromatics, dismount and go after the BBEG for the final boss fight as their characters
I do like the idea though of maybe having the dragons fight I the background but have them do objectives/something else so determin the outcome of the battle. I never would have thought of that.
The scaling of damage would make it pretty wonky if the players were to each get to Jaeger into a dragon per player. Even if they were matched against an equal number of ancient metallics, that entire fight would be decided by whoever rolls the higher initiative.
I second everybody else in saying to rethink the final fight. I'll even take it a step farther:
You don't even really need to put a lot of thought into this right now. Assuming your campaign is just starting, you most likely have a very long time to think this through. I guarantee you'll be changing your mind 100x between now and even halfway to the end. Just have a general idea of what you'd like (big dragon fight) and from there let the campaign influence how the final fight will play out.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Unless you're planning to explicitly forbid the players from using their characters until they dismount, you can't guarantee this will play out the way you envision. Because if I were a player in the campaign climax fight, I'd be using everything at my disposal to beat the baddies while I had a dragon for a mount. And I'd be a little disappointed if I couldn't, because then my mount would be doing the cool stuff while my character was effectively NPC'd for half the fight. But that's just me.
Perhaps instead of riding dragons, the players receive a blessing that gives them special abilities to use in the fight. An ancient bronze dragon who can no longer fight bestows upon a worthy adventurer a special boon that allows them to polymorph into a young/adult bronze dragon for 1 minute. Or maybe a wounded silver dragon gives up some energy to grant a character immunity to cold damage and a rechargeable breath weapon. Stuff like that. This allows each character to have a special tie to one of the metallics that they can carry into the battle, and it's still the player characters who are getting the spotlight.
If you went that route, I'd probably avoid making it an all-out spree against the unified chromatics simply to avoid a TPK. Unless, that is, you structure it so they fight the ancient dragons sequentially instead of simultaneously, and/or you give them major buffs to withstand the damage output.
Since you want to follow Dragonlance (which is awesome btw) I put some more thought into this. Here are some other options:
I sometimes run "cut scenes" where the players control monsters instead of their characters. I also do this if one character is doing something solo, and I want there to be a fight - I either give them basic NPC stat blocks, or they control the enemy monsters. This gives the players something to do.
You could expand this idea by running a dragon-battle, giving each player a dragon to control (minus the legendary actions) and having a dragon brawl. It would be quite memorable, and it could be something that guides the campaign's direction! What's good about this is you don't even have to save it for like level 15+ you could run it around level 9 or 10 (which is still probably a year's worth of games).
Example:
The Council of Metallic Dragons are attacked while they are talking with the PCs. The dragons take to the air (one for each player) and the players get to play out the dragon fight. However, another dragon also comes down to fight the PCs, who are charged with protecting some dragon eggs.
At the end of the dragon battle, some of the good dragons will probably be dead. So what then happens if the gold dragons lost their leader? Or if they are completely defeated? Now the PCs will beat their dragon, and have to go on the run with the last golden dragon egg... Or if the metallics win, then it's time to take revenge on the reds who are leading the chromatic faction. You could have a big dragon battle, which is meaningful to the campaign, but the PCs also get a fight where they're the main participants.
Have your campaign started?
What levels are your PCs now? Have you threw some adult/young dragon as they go into this conflict?
If your campaign haven't started yet, I would advise not to plan your last battle so soon.
Thanks for the continued suggestions, they're all great!
The adventure has started, they're only currently level 3 (soon to be 4) so I have time to plan it out.
They've came across green dragon wymlings and the plan was to encounter other older dragons as they leveled up, with the big fight of all the ancients at the end. (This is likely to change a little now) and they've got to travel the land to seek out the metallics to rally them to fight against the chromatic.
I quite like the idea from theologyofbagels where instead of having them fight with a dragon, they are "attuned" /bonded each to a specific dragon and gives them unique powers or abilities. So the dragons could still be there in the background having a fight (with randomly determined which dragons survive on both sides)
And sanvael idea of splitting the battle is great! So they each control a dragon but also have the BBEG attack the party who are left on the ground, so best of both worlds. They play the dragons they're attuned too, and also after they play their characters to fight the final ancient.
Another take on the dragon combat:
The PC's have gotten the dragons prepared for battle and the dragons engage. The PC are observing from a command post because it's safer than being out there with all the breath weapons. A younger silver dragon spots that some of the dragons have people mounted on them and are using their own spells or other things to change the tide of battle. How dare these dragons break the oaths to keep this a dragon v dragon battle! To the skies!
Now the PC's have to leap from dragon back to dragon back and fight other characters of similar level/ skill as they move from one encounter to next on the back of these massive flying wyrms. Maybe there are additional checks to keep from falling off, maybe they make good use of shove and other skills to blast enemies off the backs. How do they get from one dragon back to the next? Or stay on the back of an "evil" dragon that wants to shake them?
I did something like this in Ravenloft when the PC's decided that to get back into the castle they'd polymorph one of the PC's into a dragon and ride on it back in. Only to have a gaggle of Strahd's vampire spawn meet them on the way in:
2
Combat started around the 30 minute mark.
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