So as a 7th level druid, you can get the 4th level spell summon woodland beings. One of the options for that is four 1/2 CR fey. A really overpowered 1/2 CR fey is the reflection. It has low health, low AC, good resistances and immunities, but the OP part comes with it's attack. It's pretty normal except on part. +5 to hit, does 9 damage. But the big thing is, it reduces the enemies strength score by 1d4. And at 0 they instantly die. With 4 all attacking each turn, it quickly adds up. I suggest you use this op strategy on any low strength enemy, or even a normal enemy
Reflections only have +4 to hit vs a young red dragon's 18 AC. Also, they can only make melee attacks while the dragon can fly. And reflections only have an average of 16 HP vs the dragon's 16d6 breath weapon- even with resistance that's typically going to be an auto-kill. And that's assuming the dragon doesn't just focus on the caster and cause them to lose concentration. It's hardly an OP combo, even assuming that the GM lets you summon reflections in the first place.
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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.
You also do NOT get to choose which creature, just the CR of them. Typically DM's ignore this rule for most of the Conjure spells, but no sane DM ignores this rule when casting Conjure Woodland Beings. Mainly because of Pixies. It is stupidly overpowered to let a 4th level spell summon 8 pixies, each of which can cast Polymorph, which is itself another 4th level spell.
You also do NOT get to choose which creature, just the CR of them. Typically DM's ignore this rule for most of the Conjure spells, but no sane DM ignores this rule when casting Conjure Woodland Beings. Mainly because of Pixies. It is stupidly overpowered to let a 4th level spell summon 8 pixies, each of which can cast Polymorph, which is itself another 4th level spell.
Ironically, summoning pixies would be more reliable / effective at killing a Young Red Dragon than the OP's proposal. With a +9th and 2 Fist attacks for 44 damage per round, turning your whole party into Flying Giant Apes by summoning 8 Pixies means you kill a Young Red Dragon within 2 rounds...
I'm pretty sure you can kill a young Red Dragon just by getting a 6th level party of Peace Cleric, Twilight Cleric, Shepherd Druid, and Vengeance Pally if you can bait the dragon to fight by a large body of water.
Clerics provide the party with Protection from Energy, and healing cheese.
V. Paladin uses Bane on the dragon.
Shepherd Druid provides earthbind spell and uses conjure animals for eight constrictor snakes.
Twilight Cleric casts greater invisibility on the Paladin and grants half the party flight if earthbind fails.
With eight boosted pythons all trying to grapple from the water (for additional fire resistance), at least two are likely to succeed, even at a measly +4 to hit. Then the Paladin smites the Fear of Bahamut into its poor hide attacking with advantage every round.
TBH, you don't even need a ton of skill / strategy with some semi-optimized characters to kill a Young Red Dragon in 3 turns at level 7. It's really not that hard of a fight, a druid or bard dousing the dragon in Faerie Fire gives you all Adv for a 75% chance to hit assuming +1 weapons, so a Warlock is putting out 21 DPR, a Rogue 19 DPR, a SS Archer is putting out 25 DPR, Casters with damage spells are doing ~10 DPR. So a party of 4 is ~50 DPR which would kill it in around 3 rounds.
TBH, you don't even need a ton of skill / strategy with some semi-optimized characters to kill a Young Red Dragon in 3 turns at level 7. It's really not that hard of a fight, a druid or bard dousing the dragon in Faerie Fire gives you all Adv for a 75% chance to hit assuming +1 weapons, so a Warlock is putting out 21 DPR, a Rogue 19 DPR, a SS Archer is putting out 25 DPR, Casters with damage spells are doing ~10 DPR. So a party of 4 is ~50 DPR which would kill it in around 3 rounds.
True. I think the biggest challenge is honestly A) getting the dragon in range to cast spells on it without the d6 or d8 HP party members getting too nuked by dragon breath, and B) having the dragon not fly away after getting down to 1/2 hit points. That's why I emphasized spells to restrain and prevent flight as much as possible. In some ways, Red Dragons (esp. without spellcasting) are pretty vulnerable since fire resistance is so common.
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So as a 7th level druid, you can get the 4th level spell summon woodland beings. One of the options for that is four 1/2 CR fey. A really overpowered 1/2 CR fey is the reflection. It has low health, low AC, good resistances and immunities, but the OP part comes with it's attack. It's pretty normal except on part. +5 to hit, does 9 damage. But the big thing is, it reduces the enemies strength score by 1d4. And at 0 they instantly die. With 4 all attacking each turn, it quickly adds up. I suggest you use this op strategy on any low strength enemy, or even a normal enemy
Reflections only have +4 to hit vs a young red dragon's 18 AC. Also, they can only make melee attacks while the dragon can fly. And reflections only have an average of 16 HP vs the dragon's 16d6 breath weapon- even with resistance that's typically going to be an auto-kill. And that's assuming the dragon doesn't just focus on the caster and cause them to lose concentration. It's hardly an OP combo, even assuming that the GM lets you summon reflections in the first place.
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.
You also do NOT get to choose which creature, just the CR of them. Typically DM's ignore this rule for most of the Conjure spells, but no sane DM ignores this rule when casting Conjure Woodland Beings. Mainly because of Pixies. It is stupidly overpowered to let a 4th level spell summon 8 pixies, each of which can cast Polymorph, which is itself another 4th level spell.
Ironically, summoning pixies would be more reliable / effective at killing a Young Red Dragon than the OP's proposal. With a +9th and 2 Fist attacks for 44 damage per round, turning your whole party into Flying Giant Apes by summoning 8 Pixies means you kill a Young Red Dragon within 2 rounds...
That's a pretty terrifying strategy, actually.
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.
I'm pretty sure you can kill a young Red Dragon just by getting a 6th level party of Peace Cleric, Twilight Cleric, Shepherd Druid, and Vengeance Pally if you can bait the dragon to fight by a large body of water.
Clerics provide the party with Protection from Energy, and healing cheese.
V. Paladin uses Bane on the dragon.
Shepherd Druid provides earthbind spell and uses conjure animals for eight constrictor snakes.
Twilight Cleric casts greater invisibility on the Paladin and grants half the party flight if earthbind fails.
With eight boosted pythons all trying to grapple from the water (for additional fire resistance), at least two are likely to succeed, even at a measly +4 to hit. Then the Paladin smites the Fear of Bahamut into its poor hide attacking with advantage every round.
TBH, you don't even need a ton of skill / strategy with some semi-optimized characters to kill a Young Red Dragon in 3 turns at level 7. It's really not that hard of a fight, a druid or bard dousing the dragon in Faerie Fire gives you all Adv for a 75% chance to hit assuming +1 weapons, so a Warlock is putting out 21 DPR, a Rogue 19 DPR, a SS Archer is putting out 25 DPR, Casters with damage spells are doing ~10 DPR. So a party of 4 is ~50 DPR which would kill it in around 3 rounds.
True. I think the biggest challenge is honestly A) getting the dragon in range to cast spells on it without the d6 or d8 HP party members getting too nuked by dragon breath, and B) having the dragon not fly away after getting down to 1/2 hit points. That's why I emphasized spells to restrain and prevent flight as much as possible. In some ways, Red Dragons (esp. without spellcasting) are pretty vulnerable since fire resistance is so common.