In my last session, my ranger said she wanted to target the wings of this dragon in order to get it on the ground. I said you could shoot at the wings, however it won't do anything other than narrative. How would you handle it? Would you allow players to attack certain parts of the monster to have that affect, or if not, how else would you get the dragon back down?
If it's a big, dramatic boss fight, then sure - I allow my players to do a lot of stuff that isn't in the rule - if it makes cool story and is kinda believable.
I've had an almost identical situation, where my players were fighting a dragon and the barbarian with a great sword wanted to target the wings of the dragon.
See, the dragon was doing flyby attacks, using it's breath weapon and lair actions and really messing up the party. They needed an edge and the barbarian described to me that her plan was that she'd spotted a pattern in the dragon's attacks and guessed it was going for another flyby. She wanted to wait for the right moment and go all out (reckless attack) on the wing of the dragon as it flew past, to try to force it to land.
I played the image through in my head and it seemed totally cool to me - I love dramatic "movie moments" in my games.
Also, to be clear here - the party were LOSING this fight and starting to think about how they could make sure that some of them escaped to come back and resurrect the others.
So I said it would be tricky and there wasn't any guarantee it would work and that the attack would be at disadvantage (this cancelled the advantage for reckless attacks). She smiled and said she was going to cash in the one time ability she'd been given as a blessing several sessions previously that allowed her character to remove disadvantage from one roll ever.
I didn't set any other hard and fast rules, I wanted to see what played out and I would tailor the inconvenience to the dragon based on the dice rolls.
So, the dragon flew in, aiming for the Wizard with it's fly by attacks (the poor wizard had been down on zero and healed up 3 times already, but was by far the greatest danger to the dragon). As it swooped in, I told the barbarian she got her attack with her held action. Just the one.
She rolled the two d20s and .... both of them landed on 20. The table lost it's shit. I went with the moment and said I would allow her critical to do triple damage rather than the normal double. (my players know I will wing such rules in the moment and these aren't permanent homebrew rules)
She rolls damage and it's a double 6. Again everyone is on the edge of their chairs.
60 damage from the crit!
I tell them I am going to roll a CON saving throw for the dragon and roll a dice infront of them. It teeters for a moment on 20 and then just tips over onto the 2.
Two people cheer.
I describe how the dragon swoops in, claws at the ready to grab the Wizard as he is getting back to his feet, the barbarian's sword cutting upwards in a huge swing, using the beast's momentum against it, the blow guided by supernatural forces .... partially severing the muscles of that wing .... the look of confusion on the dragon's face as it suddenly spun at an awkward angle momentarily, crashing into the rock formation the party had been trying to use for cover, flipping it over onto it's back, slamming into the floor and sliding a good 30 feet with the momentum, spraying up dirt and rocks as it's huge body dug into the ground.
I had the Wizard and Cleric make dex saves to get out of the way. Predictably, the Wizard failed and got hit (he survived the fight - just).
I gave the party a free round of actions whilst the dragon was stunned on the floor.
In that round, they hit the dragon hard and it went from winning, to hurt badly and trying to flee.
The party won that fight and everyone agreed that the pivotal moment was the decision and dice rolling of the barbarian player.
Stuff like that is what makes games of D&D so much fun for me. They still talk about this months later and the bard wrote a song about it that was performed in front of the King.
So, I could have said, "Sorry, D&D doesn't allow called hits" but I feel it's always better to allow your players to try clever and interesting things and moreover allow them to try COOL things that mark their characters as the heroes they are.
By which I mean I allow special effects like knocking something down as the result of an attack - but it is in place of damage unless your character has a feature that says otherwise, like how anyone can shove a target prone, but a battlemaster character could have tripping strike and use that to deal damage while also trying to knock the target prone.
The game already provides ways to cause a flying creature to fall: knock it prone or reduce its speed to 0. There's even a spell (Earthbind) whose sole purpose is to force flying creatures to land. Your players should work within the rules to either force the dragon to land or give it a reason to. Being able to fly is a big part of what makes dragons dangerous.
Called shots to specific body parts don't fit into D&D's combat system, except in rare cases where that's the monster's gimmick (e.g. hydras, ropers.)
Personally I'm really torn over this. It makes sense to tactically target certain parts of a creature, but mechanically it breaks the entire design of the combat system. This has come up constantly for me over the years, whether from playing RPG video games, to freeform text RP, to tabletop RPGs.
Player 1: "I shoot it in the head with an arrow."
If I had a gold piece for every time someone attempted something like this... Logically it makes perfect sense, but you're now forced to potentially let them kill something in one shot, or relegate their choice to narrative fluff.
Another common one is "I stab it in the eye". Allow it, and two attacks later the boss becomes a permanently blinded bag of HP.
It's difficult to find a balance, and can cause all sorts of problems if you set the wrong precedent. As a DM who tries to balance encounters it's a nightmare, but forbidding it shuts out all sorts of awesome moments.
One thing I will say is that, if you do allow it, make sure the creature's AC is increased/the attacker has a reduced attack roll for the attempt (similar to Great Weapon Master giving -5 to do more damage).
A 'famous' moment like this that springs to mind is in Critical Role when Grog tried to cut the boss's arms off to stop it using its legendary/artifact gauntlets (and using two-handed weaponry, etc). If allowed, that fight would have been irreparably cheapened. As it was, the DM had to try and prolong the attempt over several rounds and many attacks by several of the party.
I'm also all about dramatic fun moments in combat, and regularly ignore the rules in favor of cool effects if the players can justify them (homebrew game full of serious roleplayers). Perhaps allow the ranger to target the wings, but if shooting arrows it would likely take quite a few rounds of attacks to get enough holes in the wing or wings to ground a dragon. Also those attacks might not do full (or any) damage if you are instead allowing the wounds to impact flight ability. Similarly, require a critical hit or a full round spent tracking and 'aiming' for a particular portion of the wing. It should be hard, but not impossible. My motto is say YES as often as possible, but make the players work for it!
Personally I'm really torn over this. It makes sense to tactically target certain parts of a creature, but mechanically it breaks the entire design of the combat system. This has come up constantly for me over the years, whether from playing RPG video games, to freeform text RP, to tabletop RPGs.
Player 1: "I shoot it in the head with an arrow."
If I had a gold piece for every time someone attempted something like this... Logically it makes perfect sense, but you're now forced to potentially let them kill something in one shot, or relegate their choice to narrative fluff.
Another common one is "I stab it in the eye". Allow it, and two attacks later the boss becomes a permanently blinded bag of HP.
It's difficult to find a balance, and can cause all sorts of problems if you set the wrong precedent. As a DM who tries to balance encounters it's a nightmare, but forbidding it shuts out all sorts of awesome moments.
One thing I will say is that, if you do allow it, make sure the creature's AC is increased/the attacker has a reduced attack roll for the attempt (similar to Great Weapon Master giving -5 to do more damage).
A 'famous' moment like this that springs to mind is in Critical Role when Grog tried to cut the boss's arms off to stop it using its legendary/artifact gauntlets (and using two-handed weaponry, etc). If allowed, that fight would have been irreparably cheapened. As it was, the DM had to try and prolong the attempt over several rounds and many attacks by several of the party.
I think I would handle the "I shoot it in the eye!" situation by going. "Okay, sure. But that's a really tough shot. On a critical hit, you'll blind the creature in one eye in lieu of the double damage. Otherwise, you do damage as normal."
To the OP: The story is generally the best deciding factor to whether a player can do something. Does it fit the theme of the story? Does it stay within the bound that you have set in previous combats (precedence)? Will you allow it, or similar things in the future? Are you comfortable coming up with an answer to that type of request on the fly?
The PHB and DMG are baseline rules for a DM to start with, as you grow in experience and understanding those books will spend more and more time on the shelf as you simply run the game. There are no hard rules in D&D, that's why we have homebrew, that's why we have UA, that's why we have these forums. What we have are a ton of DMs and Players who have various views on what is and isn't allowed in their gaming sessions.
Have fun with your game, don't let the rules bog you down. I've had dragons who've been felled by using nets, ropes, ballistas, magic spells, and
My dragon story:
My players managed to find their way into an Ancient Red Dragon's lair, at the time they were much to low to go head to head with the beast. They did have a number of magical items, I had been running this game magic heavy. I gave them every warning I could that they were in the wrong place, the chasm of bones from animals and beast larger than them, the scratch marks in stone from claws, the strange pattern in the stone from heat, but they delved deeper. Until finally they found the dragon's hoard, and subsequently the dragon.
The dwarven fighter, spotted a battle axe that he wanted, the human wizard noticed a staff, and our half-ogre fighter saw some casks that caught his eye. They set off to procure their loot and in turn woke up the dragon. The party took off running, and found themselves a spot to hunker down and started to discuss how they were going to avoid death as the first dragon's breath threatened their hides. To which the wizard reached into his bag and pulled out a portable hole, using this and a fallen stalactite, they created a bunker the dragon couldn't quite reach. For a few rounds the group tried various pot shots to see if they could damage the dragon, deter it from eating them, anything to allow them a chance at escape.
Then our half-ogre looked at me and asked simply "Would I know that a red dragon will attack anything that passes in front of it's face?"
I paused, the question being slightly out of place for the situation, and offered him an intelligence check. He rolled well enough for me to respond with, "Yea, most every story you've ever heard talks of dragons gobbling up anything that crosses their path."
He finishes his turn by pulling an item from his bag, but refrained from telling me what it was. The next turn he tells me that he's going to pull out the hunk of meat that he's carved off a bear earlier, ending his turn again. Meanwhile the rest of the group is still doing what they can to keep the dragon from trying to kill them. The stalactite having been removed and the claws of the dragon just barely too short to threaten them as they cowered in their hole. The half-ogre's next turn he explains that he's going to take first item he'd pulled out, place it inside the hunk of meat, similar to hiding a pill in hamburger when trying to medicate a dog.
At this point in time I am forced to have him spill the beans, and he reluctantly informs me that he's putting his portable castle into the haunch of meat. I put 2 and 2 together and realize that this is going to be insane. I finish off the turn and ask what he's going to do now.
With a cheesy grin he says "I'm going to toss it to the dragon. Actually, I'm going to try to hit it between the eyes if I can."
I ask him to roll to hit, just to see how close he gets to his mark, he rolled kind of low, so I had him roll a d8 to figure out how far off the mark he was. To his favor the roll put the hunk of meat flying right past the dragon's face. I roll an Intelligence check, on the off chance that the dragon might think this is odd, and luck to the players I roll single digits.
Me to the players: "You watch as the hunk of meat flys across the room, right in front of the dragon's nose. In a lighting fast motion the dragon's mouth snaps it up and it..."
The Half-Ogre: "Sesame!"
Me: "What? Wait, that's the command word isn't it?"
Half-ogre: *grin*
Me to the players: "You watch as the mouth snaps it up and in a swift motion swallows it whole. As you watch the neck straighten to allow the meat to slide down to it's belly, you see a strange shape bulge in it's neck. Growing rapidly the shape of your castle forms, exploding forth from the body of the dragon, severing it's head from it's body. Gore, blood and viscera covers the cavern"
I'd see it as viable, but under a condition I wouldn't tell them. I'd see if they could damage it a certain percentage of it's HP through called shots separate of the total damage (first instinct is 10 percent?) and only let it effect things once that criteria is met. In this instance, after so many arrows painlessly pierce the membranes of the dragon's wings, the force of it's flapping begin the tear the holes wider until eventually the thrust isn't enough to keep the beast airborne. You have to be careful about how much sense called shots make, but hitting wings seems sensible enough and would make a Skyrim esque sense of damaging it enough to finish it on your own level.
I haven't read any of the other comments (because im too lazy), but I'd allow the ranger to try it at least. Shooting a flying target with an arrow is very difficult, and she is trying to shoot the wings, which is even harder because of the flapping. Even if she hits, depending on the size of the dragon and the toughness of its wings, it may not even notice that it has been shot at all.
So I would probably give the attack disadvantage, and if it hits, roll a constitution saving throw for the dragon with DC (10 + damage taken) or something. If it fails, the dragon's flight gets disrupted, and it starts falling, and then it can make another saving throw at its next turn.
If the result of this is gonna ruin your long and carefully planned-out cutscene, then by all means, roll behind the DM screen and just fudge the results.
Nets exist and are quite cheap. It's how my lot pummeled a CR6 dragon while they were lvl 5. Some clever spell use to sneak up close and it didn't even get off the ground.
If the dragon is already flying and they can't really fight back or fly themselves then it's not really a combat encounter, the encounter should be about them trying to ground it or taking cover / evacuating civilians/ whatever
I think if you allow players to target places of the body on other creatures, then you have to have creatures that can target places on the body on your players. Smart creatures will aim for vitals, eyes, legs, etc. Your players will constantly be attacked in such a way it seems like it may not even be worth it. Which is where the idea of AC comes in. An attack roll is "targeting" in a sense, a critical being maybe you hit the wing, hit the eye or whatever. If you reward criticals in this way, then maybe that is a happy middleground.
Agreed: if the archer was close enough that a Shove attack (causing prone+fall) were a possible option, I would just re-flavor the description.
But if the archer wanted to take down a dragon that is farther away (say 300' up in the air), I would just have her conduct a normal ranged attack and describe it as damaging the wing (and if an attack finally reduces the dragon to 0 hp, I'd describe the wing as crippled, with the dragon plummeting to it's death).
While We're talking about dragon hunting and alternative rules, I also like following the old System Shock ruling where a creature has to make a save after taking a certain % of their max hp in one shot. Failed saves could be a stun, unconsciousness, or even death.
I was brainstorming a collaborative campaign in which the PCs were a group of evil Mystics of very respectable strength (lvl 10+). My masterpiece vision involved them reaching mythic strength and plotting the destruction of a great capital city guarded by powerful magical barriers. The plan involved finding the biggest, baddest chromatic dragon we could and getting them under our banner (coersed or persuaded). We use their power to rally a flight of lesser dragons and march/fly on the city. As the armada of scaly-doom approached, the Nomad stood on the great wyrm and the others took adjacent mounts. When they were close enough, the tables turned drastically. The Nomad gace a signal and two (Immortals) dropped from dragons above and landed massive damage against the base joints of the wyrm. A Soul Knife in the party teleported onto the behemoth's back and began slicing into its spine. The Awakened ruptured the dragon's cerebral functions, while the Wu Jen created a wave of force to slam the dragon's head down. These coordinated attacks would deliver such damage that the ancient beast, if it was still alive, would plummet from the sky toward the magically-reinforced capital and become a literal battering ram against the city's defenses for the swarm of younger dragons to flood in.
TL:DR- Do enough damage and you can turn a flying fortress of an Ancient Dragon into a falling mountain.
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Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
So, to answer your questions - 1) I would have handled it exactly as you apparently did. Now with that said, 2) I do allow players to attack specific body parts of certain creatures, but I created a separate mechanic for those creatures. Dragons do not fall into that category simply because they are dragons and to me allowing a PC to hack a dragon apart limb by limb defiles the very essence of dragons. Dragons are supposed to be fire-breathing engines of death, the apex predator, the boss fight of all boss fights. But that is just me and I am old school. The issue not addressed when it comes to called shots is the concept of hit points. Hit points are this nebulous cloud of "health" but they are not really a measure of the amount of physical damage taken. We all know the rules and I don't feel like getting my books to enter exact quotes. 3) As far as your last part of the question, any PCs meeting a dragon in the open should be of sufficient level to deal with it and should have ways to deal with it in flight. So I wouldn't need to find a way to make the dragon back down. Besides, dragons don't back down, dragons eat, fly and make baby dragons.
I could just leave it here, but then if I did that I would have given you anything original or useful. So if a PC like a ranger wants to target a specific body part, allow them to do so and then allow them to roll as normal. If they "hit" you can either describe how the hit forced the creature to contort in such a way as to avoid the direct hit, thereby reducing its stamina or its luck or its grit...whatever. Or you could describe how the hit has caused some injury to the body part the PC wanted to target. You could have the creature slightly favor the "wounded" limb but otherwise it does not affect the creature in a negative way. Or, you could describe how the PC missed the body part in question but still managed to hit the creature in the torso, just because the PC was targeting a specific body part doesn't mean they hit it.
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Called shots I would allow I'd they roll an 18 or higher on the die. That is like 10% chance it happens. Depends how close they got would determine how it would effect the creature. Have to remember even though you're the DM, it's their story. Doesn't mean you can't have a Balck Pudding land on them or an Awakend Tree grapple the ranger or rogue trying to hide. Kill them early I say and put the fear of God in them that way you keep them on their toes later
Called shots I would allow I'd they roll an 18 or higher on the die. That is like 10% chance it happens. Depends how close they got would determine how it would effect the creature. Have to remember even though you're the DM, it's their story. Doesn't mean you can't have a Balck Pudding land on them or an Awakend Tree grapple the ranger or rogue trying to hide. Kill them early I say and put the fear of God in them that way you keep them on their toes later
It's their game - which means that you don't take away their agency, but you also have a responsibility for making the game world consistent and logical.
There is no right/wrong answer to the idea of "called shots" - just make it clear to the Players that if they get to use called shots with bonus damage, so do the monsters and NPCs. If the DM and the PCs are all OK with this, then run with it if you want. They might not think it's worth the risk that the Goblin archer over there can make a called shot and ( partially ) blind the Wizard in one shot, however.
As for the "Kill them early I say and put the fear of God in them that way you keep them on their toes later" - this just drips with "DM vs. the Players" BS that makes people quit tables - so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume this was meant "tongue in cheek" as a joke ...
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Called shots I would allow I'd they roll an 18 or higher on the die. That is like 10% chance it happens. Depends how close they got would determine how it would effect the creature. Have to remember even though you're the DM, it's their story. Doesn't mean you can't have a Balck Pudding land on them or an Awakend Tree grapple the ranger or rogue trying to hide. Kill them early I say and put the fear of God in them that way you keep them on their toes later
It's their game - which means that you don't take away their agency, but you also have a responsibility for making the game world consistent and logical.
There is no right/wrong answer to the idea of "called shots" - just make it clear to the Players that if they get to use called shots with bonus damage, so do the monsters and NPCs. If the DM and the PCs are all OK with this, then run with it if you want. They might not think it's worth the risk that the Goblin archer over there can make a called shot and ( partially ) blind the Wizard in one shot, however.
As for the "Kill them early I say and put the fear of God in them that way you keep them on their toes later" - this just drips with "DM vs. the Players" BS that makes people quit tables - so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume this was meant "tongue in cheek" as a joke ...
Yes, this is what I mentioned earlier. Especially if your group begins to get outnumbered by a trained army unit, or even just intelligent enemies, they will aim for the legs for the eyes for the vitals, if you can aim, so can the enemy, and it actually turns out to be more of a detriment than anything else.
There is also a 3rd party document called "Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else" made by DMs Guild admins I believe, that expands on the injuries rule variant that was in the DMG. Anytime someone takes a critical hit, or drops to 0 hit points, or fails a death saving throw by 5 or more, they roll on the injury table and suffer one of the 23 injuries (though in my campaign, it's only when you drop to 0 hit points do you sustain an injury). So if you allow this roll, you could potentially allow your party to call their shots on criticals to balance out. Just a suggestion!
In my last session, my ranger said she wanted to target the wings of this dragon in order to get it on the ground. I said you could shoot at the wings, however it won't do anything other than narrative. How would you handle it? Would you allow players to attack certain parts of the monster to have that affect, or if not, how else would you get the dragon back down?
If it's a big, dramatic boss fight, then sure - I allow my players to do a lot of stuff that isn't in the rule - if it makes cool story and is kinda believable.
I've had an almost identical situation, where my players were fighting a dragon and the barbarian with a great sword wanted to target the wings of the dragon.
See, the dragon was doing flyby attacks, using it's breath weapon and lair actions and really messing up the party. They needed an edge and the barbarian described to me that her plan was that she'd spotted a pattern in the dragon's attacks and guessed it was going for another flyby. She wanted to wait for the right moment and go all out (reckless attack) on the wing of the dragon as it flew past, to try to force it to land.
I played the image through in my head and it seemed totally cool to me - I love dramatic "movie moments" in my games.
Also, to be clear here - the party were LOSING this fight and starting to think about how they could make sure that some of them escaped to come back and resurrect the others.
So I said it would be tricky and there wasn't any guarantee it would work and that the attack would be at disadvantage (this cancelled the advantage for reckless attacks). She smiled and said she was going to cash in the one time ability she'd been given as a blessing several sessions previously that allowed her character to remove disadvantage from one roll ever.
I didn't set any other hard and fast rules, I wanted to see what played out and I would tailor the inconvenience to the dragon based on the dice rolls.
So, the dragon flew in, aiming for the Wizard with it's fly by attacks (the poor wizard had been down on zero and healed up 3 times already, but was by far the greatest danger to the dragon). As it swooped in, I told the barbarian she got her attack with her held action. Just the one.
She rolled the two d20s and .... both of them landed on 20. The table lost it's shit. I went with the moment and said I would allow her critical to do triple damage rather than the normal double. (my players know I will wing such rules in the moment and these aren't permanent homebrew rules)
She rolls damage and it's a double 6. Again everyone is on the edge of their chairs.
60 damage from the crit!
I tell them I am going to roll a CON saving throw for the dragon and roll a dice infront of them. It teeters for a moment on 20 and then just tips over onto the 2.
Two people cheer.
I describe how the dragon swoops in, claws at the ready to grab the Wizard as he is getting back to his feet, the barbarian's sword cutting upwards in a huge swing, using the beast's momentum against it, the blow guided by supernatural forces .... partially severing the muscles of that wing .... the look of confusion on the dragon's face as it suddenly spun at an awkward angle momentarily, crashing into the rock formation the party had been trying to use for cover, flipping it over onto it's back, slamming into the floor and sliding a good 30 feet with the momentum, spraying up dirt and rocks as it's huge body dug into the ground.
I had the Wizard and Cleric make dex saves to get out of the way. Predictably, the Wizard failed and got hit (he survived the fight - just).
I gave the party a free round of actions whilst the dragon was stunned on the floor.
In that round, they hit the dragon hard and it went from winning, to hurt badly and trying to flee.
The party won that fight and everyone agreed that the pivotal moment was the decision and dice rolling of the barbarian player.
Stuff like that is what makes games of D&D so much fun for me. They still talk about this months later and the bard wrote a song about it that was performed in front of the King.
So, I could have said, "Sorry, D&D doesn't allow called hits" but I feel it's always better to allow your players to try clever and interesting things and moreover allow them to try COOL things that mark their characters as the heroes they are.
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"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
It's kind of like choosing to shove, to me.
By which I mean I allow special effects like knocking something down as the result of an attack - but it is in place of damage unless your character has a feature that says otherwise, like how anyone can shove a target prone, but a battlemaster character could have tripping strike and use that to deal damage while also trying to knock the target prone.
Great story, SK!
Personally I'm really torn over this. It makes sense to tactically target certain parts of a creature, but mechanically it breaks the entire design of the combat system. This has come up constantly for me over the years, whether from playing RPG video games, to freeform text RP, to tabletop RPGs.
Player 1: "I shoot it in the head with an arrow."
If I had a gold piece for every time someone attempted something like this... Logically it makes perfect sense, but you're now forced to potentially let them kill something in one shot, or relegate their choice to narrative fluff.
Another common one is "I stab it in the eye". Allow it, and two attacks later the boss becomes a permanently blinded bag of HP.
It's difficult to find a balance, and can cause all sorts of problems if you set the wrong precedent. As a DM who tries to balance encounters it's a nightmare, but forbidding it shuts out all sorts of awesome moments.
One thing I will say is that, if you do allow it, make sure the creature's AC is increased/the attacker has a reduced attack roll for the attempt (similar to Great Weapon Master giving -5 to do more damage).
A 'famous' moment like this that springs to mind is in Critical Role when Grog tried to cut the boss's arms off to stop it using its legendary/artifact gauntlets (and using two-handed weaponry, etc). If allowed, that fight would have been irreparably cheapened. As it was, the DM had to try and prolong the attempt over several rounds and many attacks by several of the party.
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I'm also all about dramatic fun moments in combat, and regularly ignore the rules in favor of cool effects if the players can justify them (homebrew game full of serious roleplayers). Perhaps allow the ranger to target the wings, but if shooting arrows it would likely take quite a few rounds of attacks to get enough holes in the wing or wings to ground a dragon. Also those attacks might not do full (or any) damage if you are instead allowing the wounds to impact flight ability. Similarly, require a critical hit or a full round spent tracking and 'aiming' for a particular portion of the wing. It should be hard, but not impossible. My motto is say YES as often as possible, but make the players work for it!
I'd like to echo what Masqlab said, especially "Say Yes as often as possible, but make them work for it"
As long as you apply the affect consistently and it keeps all the players engaged, whatever you choose to do should be fine.
To the OP: The story is generally the best deciding factor to whether a player can do something. Does it fit the theme of the story? Does it stay within the bound that you have set in previous combats (precedence)? Will you allow it, or similar things in the future? Are you comfortable coming up with an answer to that type of request on the fly?
The PHB and DMG are baseline rules for a DM to start with, as you grow in experience and understanding those books will spend more and more time on the shelf as you simply run the game. There are no hard rules in D&D, that's why we have homebrew, that's why we have UA, that's why we have these forums. What we have are a ton of DMs and Players who have various views on what is and isn't allowed in their gaming sessions.
Have fun with your game, don't let the rules bog you down. I've had dragons who've been felled by using nets, ropes, ballistas, magic spells, and
My dragon story:
My players managed to find their way into an Ancient Red Dragon's lair, at the time they were much to low to go head to head with the beast. They did have a number of magical items, I had been running this game magic heavy. I gave them every warning I could that they were in the wrong place, the chasm of bones from animals and beast larger than them, the scratch marks in stone from claws, the strange pattern in the stone from heat, but they delved deeper. Until finally they found the dragon's hoard, and subsequently the dragon.
The dwarven fighter, spotted a battle axe that he wanted, the human wizard noticed a staff, and our half-ogre fighter saw some casks that caught his eye. They set off to procure their loot and in turn woke up the dragon. The party took off running, and found themselves a spot to hunker down and started to discuss how they were going to avoid death as the first dragon's breath threatened their hides. To which the wizard reached into his bag and pulled out a portable hole, using this and a fallen stalactite, they created a bunker the dragon couldn't quite reach. For a few rounds the group tried various pot shots to see if they could damage the dragon, deter it from eating them, anything to allow them a chance at escape.
Then our half-ogre looked at me and asked simply "Would I know that a red dragon will attack anything that passes in front of it's face?"
I paused, the question being slightly out of place for the situation, and offered him an intelligence check. He rolled well enough for me to respond with, "Yea, most every story you've ever heard talks of dragons gobbling up anything that crosses their path."
He finishes his turn by pulling an item from his bag, but refrained from telling me what it was. The next turn he tells me that he's going to pull out the hunk of meat that he's carved off a bear earlier, ending his turn again. Meanwhile the rest of the group is still doing what they can to keep the dragon from trying to kill them. The stalactite having been removed and the claws of the dragon just barely too short to threaten them as they cowered in their hole. The half-ogre's next turn he explains that he's going to take first item he'd pulled out, place it inside the hunk of meat, similar to hiding a pill in hamburger when trying to medicate a dog.
At this point in time I am forced to have him spill the beans, and he reluctantly informs me that he's putting his portable castle into the haunch of meat. I put 2 and 2 together and realize that this is going to be insane. I finish off the turn and ask what he's going to do now.
With a cheesy grin he says "I'm going to toss it to the dragon. Actually, I'm going to try to hit it between the eyes if I can."
I ask him to roll to hit, just to see how close he gets to his mark, he rolled kind of low, so I had him roll a d8 to figure out how far off the mark he was. To his favor the roll put the hunk of meat flying right past the dragon's face. I roll an Intelligence check, on the off chance that the dragon might think this is odd, and luck to the players I roll single digits.
Me to the players: "You watch as the hunk of meat flys across the room, right in front of the dragon's nose. In a lighting fast motion the dragon's mouth snaps it up and it..."
The Half-Ogre: "Sesame!"
Me: "What? Wait, that's the command word isn't it?"
Half-ogre: *grin*
Me to the players: "You watch as the mouth snaps it up and in a swift motion swallows it whole. As you watch the neck straighten to allow the meat to slide down to it's belly, you see a strange shape bulge in it's neck. Growing rapidly the shape of your castle forms, exploding forth from the body of the dragon, severing it's head from it's body. Gore, blood and viscera covers the cavern"
I'd see it as viable, but under a condition I wouldn't tell them. I'd see if they could damage it a certain percentage of it's HP through called shots separate of the total damage (first instinct is 10 percent?) and only let it effect things once that criteria is met. In this instance, after so many arrows painlessly pierce the membranes of the dragon's wings, the force of it's flapping begin the tear the holes wider until eventually the thrust isn't enough to keep the beast airborne. You have to be careful about how much sense called shots make, but hitting wings seems sensible enough and would make a Skyrim esque sense of damaging it enough to finish it on your own level.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
I haven't read any of the other comments (because im too lazy), but I'd allow the ranger to try it at least. Shooting a flying target with an arrow is very difficult, and she is trying to shoot the wings, which is even harder because of the flapping. Even if she hits, depending on the size of the dragon and the toughness of its wings, it may not even notice that it has been shot at all.
So I would probably give the attack disadvantage, and if it hits, roll a constitution saving throw for the dragon with DC (10 + damage taken) or something. If it fails, the dragon's flight gets disrupted, and it starts falling, and then it can make another saving throw at its next turn.
If the result of this is gonna ruin your long and carefully planned-out cutscene, then by all means, roll behind the DM screen and just fudge the results.
Nets exist and are quite cheap. It's how my lot pummeled a CR6 dragon while they were lvl 5. Some clever spell use to sneak up close and it didn't even get off the ground.
If the dragon is already flying and they can't really fight back or fly themselves then it's not really a combat encounter, the encounter should be about them trying to ground it or taking cover / evacuating civilians/ whatever
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I think if you allow players to target places of the body on other creatures, then you have to have creatures that can target places on the body on your players. Smart creatures will aim for vitals, eyes, legs, etc. Your players will constantly be attacked in such a way it seems like it may not even be worth it. Which is where the idea of AC comes in. An attack roll is "targeting" in a sense, a critical being maybe you hit the wing, hit the eye or whatever. If you reward criticals in this way, then maybe that is a happy middleground.
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While We're talking about dragon hunting and alternative rules, I also like following the old System Shock ruling where a creature has to make a save after taking a certain % of their max hp in one shot. Failed saves could be a stun, unconsciousness, or even death.
I was brainstorming a collaborative campaign in which the PCs were a group of evil Mystics of very respectable strength (lvl 10+). My masterpiece vision involved them reaching mythic strength and plotting the destruction of a great capital city guarded by powerful magical barriers. The plan involved finding the biggest, baddest chromatic dragon we could and getting them under our banner (coersed or persuaded). We use their power to rally a flight of lesser dragons and march/fly on the city. As the armada of scaly-doom approached, the Nomad stood on the great wyrm and the others took adjacent mounts. When they were close enough, the tables turned drastically. The Nomad gace a signal and two (Immortals) dropped from dragons above and landed massive damage against the base joints of the wyrm. A Soul Knife in the party teleported onto the behemoth's back and began slicing into its spine. The Awakened ruptured the dragon's cerebral functions, while the Wu Jen created a wave of force to slam the dragon's head down. These coordinated attacks would deliver such damage that the ancient beast, if it was still alive, would plummet from the sky toward the magically-reinforced capital and become a literal battering ram against the city's defenses for the swarm of younger dragons to flood in.
TL:DR- Do enough damage and you can turn a flying fortress of an Ancient Dragon into a falling mountain.
Characters:
Grishkar Darkmoor, Necromancer of Nerull the Despiser
Kelvin Rabbitfoot, Diviner, con artist, always hunting for a good sale
Bründir Halfshield, Valor Bard, three-time Sheercleft Drinking Competition Champion, Hometown hero
So, to answer your questions - 1) I would have handled it exactly as you apparently did. Now with that said, 2) I do allow players to attack specific body parts of certain creatures, but I created a separate mechanic for those creatures. Dragons do not fall into that category simply because they are dragons and to me allowing a PC to hack a dragon apart limb by limb defiles the very essence of dragons. Dragons are supposed to be fire-breathing engines of death, the apex predator, the boss fight of all boss fights. But that is just me and I am old school. The issue not addressed when it comes to called shots is the concept of hit points. Hit points are this nebulous cloud of "health" but they are not really a measure of the amount of physical damage taken. We all know the rules and I don't feel like getting my books to enter exact quotes. 3) As far as your last part of the question, any PCs meeting a dragon in the open should be of sufficient level to deal with it and should have ways to deal with it in flight. So I wouldn't need to find a way to make the dragon back down. Besides, dragons don't back down, dragons eat, fly and make baby dragons.
I could just leave it here, but then if I did that I would have given you anything original or useful. So if a PC like a ranger wants to target a specific body part, allow them to do so and then allow them to roll as normal. If they "hit" you can either describe how the hit forced the creature to contort in such a way as to avoid the direct hit, thereby reducing its stamina or its luck or its grit...whatever. Or you could describe how the hit has caused some injury to the body part the PC wanted to target. You could have the creature slightly favor the "wounded" limb but otherwise it does not affect the creature in a negative way. Or, you could describe how the PC missed the body part in question but still managed to hit the creature in the torso, just because the PC was targeting a specific body part doesn't mean they hit it.
As for me, I choose to believe that an extinct thunder lizard is running a game of Dungeons & Dragons via Twitter!
Called shots I would allow I'd they roll an 18 or higher on the die. That is like 10% chance it happens. Depends how close they got would determine how it would effect the creature. Have to remember even though you're the DM, it's their story. Doesn't mean you can't have a Balck Pudding land on them or an Awakend Tree grapple the ranger or rogue trying to hide. Kill them early I say and put the fear of God in them that way you keep them on their toes later
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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