There are ten different dragons in the Monster Manual, five good and five evil, and yet as anyone who has ever met one in a D&D game knows, there might as well be one. The differences between them are so small as to seem just cosmetic.
The biggest difference between them is breath weapon damage type, but that difference makes almost no difference to the players. After all, what’s the difference between one type of damage that they aren’t resistant or immune to and another one that they also aren’t resistant or immune to?
(2024 edition added spells to the dragons’ abilities in an attempt to help. Unfortunately, they mostly focused on spells that make very little combat difference, or spells that do plain damage, often of the same type as the breath weapon. The effect on the dragon’s tactics is very small.)
Note to my readers: I feel bad that I’ve been publishing new articles so slowly, and now this article isn’t so much a new monster. In my defense, I’ve been busy looking for work and writing up guest posts. I have 2-3 articles off site for you to enjoy. The first is a two-part detailed look at how to run a war in a single character TTRPG, looking at both Modern and Ancient wars on Campaign Mastery, the other a discussion of what makes monster combat fun that could be an introduction to this blog but was actually written for Geek Native. In addition, I’m about to make a massive update to my Vine Blight article, and to add a dragon articles page to my Table of Contents, for easier search.
How to Design Memorable Dragon Encounters
I already dealt with making the dragons feel different in my Dragon Articles, but each focused on a specific dragon and taught how to utilize its nature in order to make it unique and deadly. In this article, I’m going to go through all of D&D’s dragons at once, and suggest ways that they can be made different.
Tip: I have an article for every age, not just every type. Don’t enter “Black Dragon”, enter “Young Black Dragon”, or adult, ancient, or wyrmling black dragon to get what you want. I built the dragon articles so that they started with young, which is generally the most basic uses of each dragon, moved on to adult and ancient and then came back to wyrmling.
Terrain Tactics
One of the best methods for spicing up combat in D&D, and yet underestimated by almost everyone. Take the terrain the dragon lives in and really think about what handling such terrain means.
A few examples: Swamp is described as muddy, buggy, and generally unpleasant. It’s also one of the most lethal terrains. The terrain can be generally covered in opaque water, or it can be a maze of small islands. Areas can be filled with brush, blocking visibility, and there are dangerous sinkholes in the water.
Artic has slippery ice, hard to see crevices, strong winds, water that’s lethal cold, and extreme weather conditions.
You can see all my terrain articles, both dragon and others, at my Terrain Page.
Movement Types
This partners nicely with the fact that different dragons have different movement abilities. All dragons have flight, but some dragons have swim, burrow, and/or climb. Use these abilities.
Swim means that the dragon can protect itself from most effects by diving in and out of the water. If also means that you can have the dragon attack them on a boat, or in the water, where they’ll have their hands full fighting currents and stopping the boat from burning or sinking.
Burrow means being hit by surprise when the dragon emerges from the ground. It can mean a fight full of pits placed there by the dragon, or tunnel passages being collapsed on and around them if they’re fighting underground.
Climb means a dragon that’s adaptable to narrow areas. Perhaps it’s crawling around in chasms and hitting them from a new direction every moment. Perhaps it’s above them, and sending boulders to smash into them and knock them over. Given the reach of dragon attacks, you can simply have it clinging to the wall. It can hit them, and they can’t hit back
Flight Tactics
Fly, while not unique to any dragon, is also very useful. At the very least, it’s very versatile. It allows the dragon to attack whichever PC it wants, and to ignore almost all movement restrictions. If the dragon wants, it can maintain a height, and fight by strafing them with breath weapon or bombing them with boulders.
The dragon can also use it to grapple PCs and hold them hostage, or keep them out of the way. I discuss a number of ways to use fly, along with other dragon tactics, in my article on the Young Blue Dragon.
Note: A lot of D&D fans, both players and DMs, are extremely hesitant to incur opportunity attacks. While opportunity attacks aren’t nothing, they aren’t something to avoid at all costs either, especially when incurring one is the trade-off for gaining something significant. In particular, if taking one can put the creature out of range of the PC it can be well worth it. By taking one attack, the monster avoids several.
Hazards, Lairs, Traps, and Character Traits
Hazards are items like pits, boulders, and fallen logs that can spice on an encounter. You can find any number of them online. (I liked this EN World thread.) Traps are placed in order to do damage, and generally not recognizable ahead of time. Lairs are the dragon’s home, which will contain whatever hazards and traps make sense for the terrain and for the dragon’s personality.
Match the Dragon’s Mindset
With each dragon, consider both. Blue and bronze dragons are tactically minded, and will set up the area around their lairs and the front of their lairs like a fortress.
Green dragons are cunning, and copper dragons mischievous, and both will enjoy traps that trick their enemies into sealing their own fates.
The black dragon is cruel and will intimidate, so expect corpses and traps meant to capture and deliver a slow death.
The brass dragon will often be found in a city and will want to minimize casualties, so anything he sets up will be aimed at minimizing collateral damage. Also, he’ll have access to any of the many random objects that are to be found in cities. For example, send a wagon full of barrels careening toward his enemies.
The red is a brute who despises planning as for weaklings, but can still utilize boulders in the area and send them toward his enemies. For the others, something else.
I’m using general terms here, but you can find specific examples for all of these in my various articles. Just enter the dragon you want to use into the search bar, or see the end of this article for a list of article summaries to help your search.
Layered Dragon Encounter Hazards
Note: Unlike with terrain, hazards are smaller and don’t often last more than a round, sometimes less. What this means is that it’s useful to have several ideas ready.
Ideally, several ways to use the same type of obstacle, so that the amount of detail won’t be too much for your players to keep track of. For example: Knocking down a tree, sending it rolling, and setting it on fire. A different way is to introduce most of the obstacles in earlier encounters, so that your players know about them, then have the dragon use them in a somewhat different way.
If you don’t end up using an idea in one place, you can always use them somewhere else.
Don’t beat yourself up too much if you can’t achieve everything I suggested, though. I’m discussing the ideal, and I don’t always manage to live up to it either.
Search Dragon Encounters for Ideas
The good news is that if you want ideas and are having trouble coming up with them, that is exactly what this blog is about. You can find any dragon you want in my search bar, or visit my Table of Contents to see my articles sorted according to Terrain Types, Hazards and chokepoints, Combat Roles.
You can also visit my Home Page to see where I’m up to. In general, I’m going through the Monster Manual in order, according to the order of the 2014 Monster Manual. (It’s mostly like the 2024 Monster Manual, except that monsters of the same type are placed together.)
Dragon Breath Weapons & Damage Immunities
Everybody fixates on the breath weapon, and the damage immunities are almost forgotten. Take advantage of them!
Have the red dragon set the forest or city around it on fire, the blue dragon fight them in a lightning storm (DM to paladin: “You’re going to wear heavy armor? Are you Sure?”), the green dragon smear poison on its treasure, and the black and copper dragon use their acid to weaken the walls, so that they fall down at the most opportune moment. (Or use a pool of acid as an escape hatch.)
As for the cold damage of the white and silver dragons? There are so many ways to use that! Freezing lakes. Blizzards. Avalanches. Frozen waterfalls. All deadly dangerous by themselves, and the dragon can just ignore them while the players are stuck between a dragon and a cold place.
Dragon Minions
As major powers, dragon will have lesser creatures serving it, whether out of fear, gratitude, or simply protection from other dangers. Each creature has its own unique abilities, which will affect the combat and add to the dangers found in and around the dragon’s home.
In addition to the variation created by having different minions, there’s also the dragon’s relationship to the minions to consider. Is the dragon benzvalene or feared? Are the minions loyal, or will some of them slip advice or advantage to the PCs?
In my adult chromatic dragon articles, I gave a brief section to how each dragon is likely to use minions in combat. This is only a general guideline, or course. Even different monsters of the same type can be different.
Story Driven Dragon Design
A simple way that can keep any monster unique is to ask yourself, “what role does the dragon serve in my story?”
We’re too used to dragons as resting on treasure hoards in hard to reach locations, only emerging from their hoards to seek further plunder, that we ignore the fact that dragons have individual desires and turns of fortune just like anyone else.
Take any of the NPC statblocks from the Monster Manual (in the 2024 Monster Manual, these aren’t collected into one spot, but you can search for humanoids), or any of the many backgrounds available to players. Ask yourself how can this monster serve in this role? What would that look like?
Dragon as Gladiator: Slave
For example, let’s take the role of gladiator: Most gladiators were slaves (although not all), so perhaps our dragon is a slave. The evil/cruel lord of the city is forcing people to fight it in the arena for his pleasure. What do they do?
Freeing the dragon would seem only just, but wouldn’t that result in an angry dragon turning around and burning the city to the ground? (especially if we assume that our dragon is an evil chromatic dragon.)
They could choose to fight it in the arena, but they’ll have to persuade the lord to let them fight together, and if they kill it they might have to deal with an angry city lord, or with the city lord deciding to take them prisoner and use them as replacements for the dragon.
Dragon as Gladiator: Tyrant
A different scenario: Given that some gladiators were free men (a highly-successful gladiator was like a modern-day sports star) perhaps the dragon is willingly fighting. In fact, perhaps the dragon is forcing them to send a group of champions every so often so it can demonstrate its might.
Assuming the number of champions that the dragon is used to fighting at once isn’t the same as the number of party members, how do they handle this?
If it’s supposed to be less, do they send some of the party to distract while the rest sneak in? If so, the ones they send will have to find a way to survive until the rest arrive. If the number is more, they’ll have to find one or more people who are willing to go with them, despite the incredible danger.
They’ll also have to deal with the rest of the town. Even if the town is unwilling, they may be scared of throwing in their lot with the party. After all, an angry dragon might burn down the town. If they are secretly fans of the dragon, they might attempt to cripple the party before they can enter combat, to ensure the dragon’s victory. Either way, you have quite a story to tell.
More Creative Dragon Story Ideas
To use a different NPC block, let’s look at guard. What could a dragon be guarding? How is it guarding it? The obvious answer would be inside its hoard, but think broader. Why is it guarding it? Could it have a kill switch, so that if you kill the dragon before retrieving the item, it will be destroyed?
Not every NPC block will necessarily fit. I have no idea what a Dragon Knight would be. But there are so many that would you should have no shortage of ideas. Mage Familiar could mean the dragon is learning magic, or teaching it, giving it students or a master (who would a dragon learn magic from? A demon lord, perhaps?)
Assassin should be obvious, and will impact its tactics in a major way. Cultist will make it part of an organization, and will place a scary power behind it, along with whatever thematically appropriate enchantments get added to its lair. And so on.
Homebrewing Dragons
The last way to make dragons different is to ignore RAW and add your own modifications. I have my own list of homebrew traits for dragons which you can see Here.
If you’re doing your own homebrew, let me suggest a few pointers.
- Keep track of what the monster is supposed to be. This is why WotC has such trouble differentiating dragons, because a dragon is narrowly defined and there’s only so much that you can do to it while still keeping it feeling like a dragon.
- Keep it simple. A lot of people homebrew by adding huge lists of traits to their monsters, but that makes the monsters unpredictable, and slows down the game as the DM struggles to figure out its moves each turn. Worse, since the players look to the DM for direction, it slows down the game as they unconsciously follow his lead.
I wrote an article about what makes monster combat interesting for Geek Native, look there for more details.
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