Helloo! I’m a new DM and my party really wants dragons our campaign. My party doesn’t want any wyrmlings or anything like that, they want huge adult dragons as their bbeg. The thing is that they are level 1 and want dragons right now… help?
I truly liked the fat dragon from the film, it was like a level 1 party cryed to fight a dragon. In order to do it, to limit his power, to not kill them let make a big fat one unable to fly, to move,...
Why don't use a weakened one with previous battle damage ? The dragon was hide because a real powerful party was chasing it, kicked his ass but he manage to flee and hide. However a dragon is a dragon. His magic impact the environment and that's where the player arrive. Of course the dragon will want to kill them to avoid any leak of information to the real badass party.
Players may be contact by a dragon to retrieve something his unable to access due to his size, magic,... What will happen when they'll learn about his real identity or manage to retrieve the item for him ?
Dragon rider/tamer arrive in town. Once the aww pass they realise the dragon is tortured and famished. The dragon request the help of the party. Stealing the key or beating the rider is up to them.
They find a beautiful dragon egg in an empty nest. The magic sealing the egg to the cave is fading so some magic will allow them to take it. What will happen when mommy will discover the missing baby and a sent of magic ?
Mommy is currently tortured by a dragon rider. Daddy requested help to retrieve a shakkle key from a dragon rider. Brother was badly beaten to protect his brother's egg. At the end, depending what they did with the egg 2 parents will decide what to do about them.
Ps, in dragon lance their a lot a variant from weak to powerfull because the campaign begin at level 1.
Everything LostApa said, with one addition. Tough. If you haven't already started the campaign, than you could maybe add a dragon somewhere. But also, you can promise a dragon, and just wait until they can fight it at full strength. This will give you time to work it into the story, and give them something to work towards that they themselves want. Again though, if a dragon doesn't fit into the story at all, and you don't see sticking one in being plausible, than they will just have to live with it. It would be nice to try though.
Helloo! I’m a new DM and my party really wants dragons our campaign. My party doesn’t want any wyrmlings or anything like that, they want huge adult dragons as their bbeg. Pls help
What is the actual problem? Dragons are a perfectly good big enemy.
If the problem is that the party is too low-level to take on a dragon, unless they're hankering for a fight right now, you can bring the dragon on-stage without letting a fight happen. Destroy a town shortly before (or after) they visit. They see it in the distance, but are too far away to help. In the meantime, give them enemies associated with the dragon to fight. Maybe there's a cult who worship the dragon, offering it tribute so it lets them be. There are lots of possibilities.
If the problem is that you don't want to run the game long enough for them to be able to take a dragon, it's probably less time than you think. Adult dragons are CR 12-17. If the party can confront them fresh, that's a much lower-level fight than you might think, especially if it's a large group who use tactics. And you can always scale down the monster's stats if you really need to.
If the problem is that you had other plans in mind, that's a more complex issue. Tell the players you'll think about it. Then think about it. Is there room for dragons in the setup you're working with? Could the big bad actually be a shapechanging dragon? Could they have a dragon as a minion, whether willingly or unwillingly? Could they be a dragon's minion? Would it be at least as much fun if you tossed out your current plan and did a dragon instead? (Dragons offer lots of options for interesting fights, since they fly.)
If it's something else, you need to be more specific.
Ultimately, this is a cooperative game, and everyone should be having fun. Dragons seem to be a draw for your players.
Edit: you can also put dragons on-stage without making them enemies. There are good dragons. There can be dragons, evil or not, who want something, and find it worth their while to use a bunch of PCs to get it. There can be dragons who are just weird. In my current game, the PCs met an older-than-ancient red dragon at level 1.It long ago took up gardening, and their ship's captain had been supplying it with exotic plants. Nothing more than a flavor encounter.
Destroy a town shortly before (or after) they visit.
Or during. maybe they can do a [long?] side quest to find and fight this dragon. And if they aren't strong enough for an adult or ancient, a young dragon can still be fairly formidable, especially against really low level characters. If the dragon nearly kills them, it could well make them realise that if they want to fight an older dragon, they'll have to bide their time. Train. Get stronger.
Side note - unless they are all meta gamers the chances of all the players knowing the exact dragon stats are slim and none. So you can stick a dragon in using any of the above suggestions - let the fight go a few rounds knock 1-2 players unconscious and depending on how well they did let them kill it or not. Dragons are not stupid it may run. If you use the it was injured thing the fight can be a draw and the party can have a goal to kill it when they are stronger.
Now if the thought is to hunt down a dragon in its lair and kill it and steal its hoard well that is a whole other case. Then you are talking lair skills, legendary actions the whole boat - even after a long rest unless they have access to a heroes feast it will be dicey and since they cant have ready access to a heroes feast until l11 its kind of a circular argument.
Frightful Presence. Each creature of the dragon’s choice that is within 120 feet of the dragon and aware of it must succeed on a DC 19 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the dragon’s Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.
Honestly though I do not think it's a good idea if its a low level party to let them fight a dragon - I was in a recent campaign and even at level 12 it got dicey for the group - granted it was not an ideal class mix and all that but still killing a dragon should be a BIG deal. Dumbing it down so a low level group can just 'kill a dragon" I think takes away from the fun when they would in the due course of the campaign actually be able to kill a dragon.
If the campaign is going to get them to level 11-12 make it an end of campaign thing.
As others have impliesd it is not clear what the problem is
If they mean as the BBEG of the whole campaign it shouldn't be a problem, depending on how far the campaign goes ann adult or ancient dragon could make a fine BBEG.
If they want dragons to appear throughout the campaign both in character and out of character they should know that serious combat would be suicidal at least not without help.
You can have metallic dragons as friendly NPCs,
maybe the party are given a task to get an item from a dungeon under a dragons lair, they would have to negotiate access to the dungeon, which will probably mean the dragon taking 90% of what they find.
A dragon could attack a city where they are fighting alongside lots guards (run as hoards), the dragon would direct its breath attacks away from the party with commentry allong the lines of "the dragon breathes acid on that squadron of 20 guards melting them to nothingness.
Storm King's Thunder? though it's not like dragon is bbeg from the start but it have bunch of big dragon fights, and it ends with lymrith becoming one Tiranny of Dragons - fit check Dragonlance - despite not being bbeg it ends fighting Kansaldi and dragon Ignia (though she young one) Lairs of Etharis ends with Gegazol fight but not sure if it's exactly product that you need I think dealing with Ebondeath as co-bbeg playing huge role in Essentials kit also (god forgive me) lego adventure (but it not balanced at all lmfao)
And i guess that's all if count 5e at ddb, there is other fights with adults and ancient dragons in other adventures but narratively they aren't bbegs or co bbegs at all
PS. if they want fight large dragons at lvl1 right now then you need to homebrew stuff because no ******* one can manage adult dragon without some sort of narrative bs - dnd monsters just not balanced that way, just single fart of adult dragon will be tpk (until you homebrew shit ******* tone of stuff to pcs), you either go at high level campaign where they not lvl one, or homebrew/heavily alter campaigns to feet your demands - no official product throw adult dragon vs small level pcs
Helloo! I’m a new DM and my party really wants dragons our campaign. My party doesn’t want any wyrmlings or anything like that, they want huge adult dragons as their bbeg. Pls help
What is the actual problem? Dragons are a perfectly good big enemy.
If the problem is that the party is too low-level to take on a dragon, unless they're hankering for a fight right now, you can bring the dragon on-stage without letting a fight happen. Destroy a town shortly before (or after) they visit.
I vote for WHILE they are in town. Have the party visit a vendor, then while they are resting in the inn, dragon comes by and blows up the shop.
Party runs outside, the dragon blows up another building or the inn they just left.
Dragon does a fly-by raking the party for whatever it is for damage (I'm going to presume a lot for 1st lvl), and flies away laughing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I personally don't mind using monsters that are impossible to defeat in a fight because there are other ways to solve problems even using combat. Dragons are actually one of the best monsters to use as something too powerful to fight because
They're well known and look powerful
Frightful presence gives players an indication if the dragon is too powerful basically on sight
Some dragons have debilitating breath weapons that do no damage
They can sleep through pretty much anything
They are associated with magic so you can do what ever magical shenanigans you need to justify the plot.
There are lots of ways to run this
Don't wake the dragon. There is a massive dragon sleeping that they need to sneak around for some reason.
Dragon siege. The dragon attacks a town
Shape shifter. The dragon appears in another form to take the role of any other type of character. For example an evil king
Tremble mortals. The dragon is so powerful he can just ignore your attacks and chat while you tremble in fear.
Wager. The dragon sets some kind of condition by which it will withdraw. For example beating it in a game, defeating a champion or something similar.
My advice is to decide if you want them to fight a dragon or not and commit. Half measures lead to confusion and the players being doomed to failure. If you want them to beat it then make sure they can win by making an appropriate stat block or giving them appropriate support. If you don't want them to win then don't just make them a little bit too powerful, go all out and make them way too powerful. As in run an ancient dragon or a great wyrm so they are basically guaranteed to fail frightful presence or what ever non lethal option you want to use to get the point across. Then ignore their attacks because they have no hope of killing it and make the dragon say so.
99x out of a hundred I am such a fan of homebrew but in this case - IDK why i just think you shouldn't mess with a Dragon's stat block .... It's a Dragon .... if they encounter it as others have said make it a situation where they aren't the target and 1/2 of them still get taken out by the breath weapon - in a town the Dragon kills all the guards and half the party - then they can res each other or whatever .. but as I said earlier. Dumbing it down detracts from the win - when they actually could win IMO.
99x out of a hundred I am such a fan of homebrew but in this case - IDK why i just think you shouldn't mess with a Dragon's stat block .... It's a Dragon .... if they encounter it as others have said make it a situation where they aren't the target and 1/2 of them still get taken out by the breath weapon - in a town the Dragon kills all the guards and half the party - then they can res each other or whatever .. but as I said earlier. Dumbing it down detracts from the win - when they actually could win IMO.
I am the exact opposite.
I feel like all dragon stat blocks should be homebrewed in most cases because all of the dragon stat blocks are very simple and only really cover the base physiology of dragons. It would be like if every humanoid stat block just had punch, kick and bite. It isn't very interesting and that's why most named humanoids have more going on the same as most named dragons in the lore are loaded with magic items and secret techniques.
One thing to remember about dragons is that they're incredibly arrogant. And they like to eat big meals. And sleep a lot. If you want to throw a dragon in way too early, have it just have finished eating so it's in the mood to sleep on its hoard for a week. Since the party is so far below it in power, it doesn't care to expend the effort of actually dealing with them. Instead it just flies off, the burst of air from its wings being sufficient to knock the party off their feat (and maybe deal damage but not enough to actually reduce anyone to 0 HP)- something that drives home that this is not a foe they're ready to face yet.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
One thing to remember about dragons is that they're incredibly arrogant. And they like to eat big meals. And sleep a lot. If you want to throw a dragon in way too early, have it just have finished eating so it's in the mood to sleep on its hoard for a week. Since the party is so far below it in power, it doesn't care to expend the effort of actually dealing with them. Instead it just flies off, the burst of air from its wings being sufficient to knock the party off their feat (and maybe deal damage but not enough to actually reduce anyone to 0 HP)- something that drives home that this is not a foe they're ready to face yet.
Even better: let the party find out about a dragon nearby but have every NPCs tell them how deadly it is and how it has killed dozens of soldiers and other adventures but give them the option to go and try to fight it if they want. Have the dragon be asleep in its lair surrounded by carcasses of creatures the party is too low level to fight - mammoths or something. Make the journey through the dragon's lair suitably dangerous - freezing temperatures that require Con saves vs exhaustion for a cold dragon, patches of burning hot coals that can reduce them to 0 hp if they step on them for a fire one, acid dripping from the ceiling dealing 2d6 acid for acid etc.... A dragon is an epic scary monster, a level 1 party should die or get close to it just making their way through the lair - add in a few minions like giant elemental lizards that by themselves are a deadly encounter for level 1 players and have those minions be terrified of the dragon (thus giving them plenty of warning that they will die if they try to attack the dragon). Have them find the bodies of previous adventurers killed by the dragon. If they somehow manage to get to the inner sanctum, let the party find the sleeping dragon and do what they want until they either touch its loot or deal damage to it, at which point the dragon wakes up laughs at them and tells them to run away, if they don't run have the dragon kill the PCs with its breath weapon and ask your players to make new characters.
If it is a new group of players they need to learn that choices have consequences. This isn't a video game where you can just reload the save over and over until you win. It is entirely fair to TPK your party as long as you have clearly warned them in-character that this is what is going to happen. TPKs are bad only when they are surprises, if all the evidence says "you aren't ready for this" then they can't complain if they TPK.
Helloo! I’m a new DM and my party really wants dragons our campaign. My party doesn’t want any wyrmlings or anything like that, they want huge adult dragons as their bbeg. The thing is that they are level 1 and want dragons right now… help?
Well not all dragon are old, efficient and so on.
I truly liked the fat dragon from the film, it was like a level 1 party cryed to fight a dragon. In order to do it, to limit his power, to not kill them let make a big fat one unable to fly, to move,...
Why don't use a weakened one with previous battle damage ? The dragon was hide because a real powerful party was chasing it, kicked his ass but he manage to flee and hide. However a dragon is a dragon. His magic impact the environment and that's where the player arrive. Of course the dragon will want to kill them to avoid any leak of information to the real badass party.
Players may be contact by a dragon to retrieve something his unable to access due to his size, magic,... What will happen when they'll learn about his real identity or manage to retrieve the item for him ?
Dragon rider/tamer arrive in town. Once the aww pass they realise the dragon is tortured and famished. The dragon request the help of the party. Stealing the key or beating the rider is up to them.
They find a beautiful dragon egg in an empty nest. The magic sealing the egg to the cave is fading so some magic will allow them to take it. What will happen when mommy will discover the missing baby and a sent of magic ?
Mommy is currently tortured by a dragon rider. Daddy requested help to retrieve a shakkle key from a dragon rider. Brother was badly beaten to protect his brother's egg. At the end, depending what they did with the egg 2 parents will decide what to do about them.
Ps, in dragon lance their a lot a variant from weak to powerfull because the campaign begin at level 1.
Everything LostApa said, with one addition.
Tough.
If you haven't already started the campaign, than you could maybe add a dragon somewhere.
But also, you can promise a dragon, and just wait until they can fight it at full strength. This will give you time to work it into the story, and give them something to work towards that they themselves want.
Again though, if a dragon doesn't fit into the story at all, and you don't see sticking one in being plausible, than they will just have to live with it.
It would be nice to try though.
What is the actual problem? Dragons are a perfectly good big enemy.
If the problem is that the party is too low-level to take on a dragon, unless they're hankering for a fight right now, you can bring the dragon on-stage without letting a fight happen. Destroy a town shortly before (or after) they visit. They see it in the distance, but are too far away to help. In the meantime, give them enemies associated with the dragon to fight. Maybe there's a cult who worship the dragon, offering it tribute so it lets them be. There are lots of possibilities.
If the problem is that you don't want to run the game long enough for them to be able to take a dragon, it's probably less time than you think. Adult dragons are CR 12-17. If the party can confront them fresh, that's a much lower-level fight than you might think, especially if it's a large group who use tactics. And you can always scale down the monster's stats if you really need to.
If the problem is that you had other plans in mind, that's a more complex issue. Tell the players you'll think about it. Then think about it. Is there room for dragons in the setup you're working with? Could the big bad actually be a shapechanging dragon? Could they have a dragon as a minion, whether willingly or unwillingly? Could they be a dragon's minion? Would it be at least as much fun if you tossed out your current plan and did a dragon instead? (Dragons offer lots of options for interesting fights, since they fly.)
If it's something else, you need to be more specific.
Ultimately, this is a cooperative game, and everyone should be having fun. Dragons seem to be a draw for your players.
Edit: you can also put dragons on-stage without making them enemies. There are good dragons. There can be dragons, evil or not, who want something, and find it worth their while to use a bunch of PCs to get it. There can be dragons who are just weird. In my current game, the PCs met an older-than-ancient red dragon at level 1.It long ago took up gardening, and their ship's captain had been supplying it with exotic plants. Nothing more than a flavor encounter.
Side note - unless they are all meta gamers the chances of all the players knowing the exact dragon stats are slim and none. So you can stick a dragon in using any of the above suggestions - let the fight go a few rounds knock 1-2 players unconscious and depending on how well they did let them kill it or not. Dragons are not stupid it may run. If you use the it was injured thing the fight can be a draw and the party can have a goal to kill it when they are stronger.
Now if the thought is to hunt down a dragon in its lair and kill it and steal its hoard well that is a whole other case. Then you are talking lair skills, legendary actions the whole boat - even after a long rest unless they have access to a heroes feast it will be dicey and since they cant have ready access to a heroes feast until l11 its kind of a circular argument.
Frightful Presence. Each creature of the dragon’s choice that is within 120 feet of the dragon and aware of it must succeed on a DC 19 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to the dragon’s Frightful Presence for the next 24 hours.
Honestly though I do not think it's a good idea if its a low level party to let them fight a dragon - I was in a recent campaign and even at level 12 it got dicey for the group - granted it was not an ideal class mix and all that but still killing a dragon should be a BIG deal. Dumbing it down so a low level group can just 'kill a dragon" I think takes away from the fun when they would in the due course of the campaign actually be able to kill a dragon.
If the campaign is going to get them to level 11-12 make it an end of campaign thing.
As others have impliesd it is not clear what the problem is
hmm let me think,
Storm King's Thunder? though it's not like dragon is bbeg from the start but it have bunch of big dragon fights, and it ends with lymrith becoming one
Tiranny of Dragons - fit check
Dragonlance - despite not being bbeg it ends fighting Kansaldi and dragon Ignia (though she young one)
Lairs of Etharis ends with Gegazol fight but not sure if it's exactly product that you need
I think dealing with Ebondeath as co-bbeg playing huge role in Essentials kit
also (god forgive me) lego adventure (but it not balanced at all lmfao)
And i guess that's all if count 5e at ddb, there is other fights with adults and ancient dragons in other adventures but narratively they aren't bbegs or co bbegs at all
PS. if they want fight large dragons at lvl1 right now then you need to homebrew stuff because no ******* one can manage adult dragon without some sort of narrative bs - dnd monsters just not balanced that way, just single fart of adult dragon will be tpk (until you homebrew shit ******* tone of stuff to pcs), you either go at high level campaign where they not lvl one, or homebrew/heavily alter campaigns to feet your demands - no official product throw adult dragon vs small level pcs
I vote for WHILE they are in town. Have the party visit a vendor, then while they are resting in the inn, dragon comes by and blows up the shop.
Party runs outside, the dragon blows up another building or the inn they just left.
Dragon does a fly-by raking the party for whatever it is for damage (I'm going to presume a lot for 1st lvl), and flies away laughing.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I personally don't mind using monsters that are impossible to defeat in a fight because there are other ways to solve problems even using combat. Dragons are actually one of the best monsters to use as something too powerful to fight because
There are lots of ways to run this
My advice is to decide if you want them to fight a dragon or not and commit. Half measures lead to confusion and the players being doomed to failure. If you want them to beat it then make sure they can win by making an appropriate stat block or giving them appropriate support. If you don't want them to win then don't just make them a little bit too powerful, go all out and make them way too powerful. As in run an ancient dragon or a great wyrm so they are basically guaranteed to fail frightful presence or what ever non lethal option you want to use to get the point across. Then ignore their attacks because they have no hope of killing it and make the dragon say so.
99x out of a hundred I am such a fan of homebrew but in this case - IDK why i just think you shouldn't mess with a Dragon's stat block .... It's a Dragon .... if they encounter it as others have said make it a situation where they aren't the target and 1/2 of them still get taken out by the breath weapon - in a town the Dragon kills all the guards and half the party - then they can res each other or whatever .. but as I said earlier. Dumbing it down detracts from the win - when they actually could win IMO.
I am the exact opposite.
I feel like all dragon stat blocks should be homebrewed in most cases because all of the dragon stat blocks are very simple and only really cover the base physiology of dragons. It would be like if every humanoid stat block just had punch, kick and bite. It isn't very interesting and that's why most named humanoids have more going on the same as most named dragons in the lore are loaded with magic items and secret techniques.
One thing to remember about dragons is that they're incredibly arrogant. And they like to eat big meals. And sleep a lot. If you want to throw a dragon in way too early, have it just have finished eating so it's in the mood to sleep on its hoard for a week. Since the party is so far below it in power, it doesn't care to expend the effort of actually dealing with them. Instead it just flies off, the burst of air from its wings being sufficient to knock the party off their feat (and maybe deal damage but not enough to actually reduce anyone to 0 HP)- something that drives home that this is not a foe they're ready to face yet.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Even better: let the party find out about a dragon nearby but have every NPCs tell them how deadly it is and how it has killed dozens of soldiers and other adventures but give them the option to go and try to fight it if they want. Have the dragon be asleep in its lair surrounded by carcasses of creatures the party is too low level to fight - mammoths or something. Make the journey through the dragon's lair suitably dangerous - freezing temperatures that require Con saves vs exhaustion for a cold dragon, patches of burning hot coals that can reduce them to 0 hp if they step on them for a fire one, acid dripping from the ceiling dealing 2d6 acid for acid etc.... A dragon is an epic scary monster, a level 1 party should die or get close to it just making their way through the lair - add in a few minions like giant elemental lizards that by themselves are a deadly encounter for level 1 players and have those minions be terrified of the dragon (thus giving them plenty of warning that they will die if they try to attack the dragon). Have them find the bodies of previous adventurers killed by the dragon. If they somehow manage to get to the inner sanctum, let the party find the sleeping dragon and do what they want until they either touch its loot or deal damage to it, at which point the dragon wakes up laughs at them and tells them to run away, if they don't run have the dragon kill the PCs with its breath weapon and ask your players to make new characters.
If it is a new group of players they need to learn that choices have consequences. This isn't a video game where you can just reload the save over and over until you win. It is entirely fair to TPK your party as long as you have clearly warned them in-character that this is what is going to happen. TPKs are bad only when they are surprises, if all the evidence says "you aren't ready for this" then they can't complain if they TPK.
I think you should do a farie dragon that has been stealing shiny things from the locals.
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