Combat rating 12
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DRIDER: How to Use Darkness and Range in Combat
Three Ways of Running DnD’s Drider: The Temporary Parley Trap, Tactics of the Darkness Spell, and the Drider’s devastating sniper range tactic. How to Use – DnD’s Drider Parley Tactic Advantage of Knowledge of the Drow The drider is the ideal monster with which to set up a drow campaign. As a being who was… Continue reading
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YOUNG SILVER DRAGON: The Race to Freedom
Silver dragons are nearly unbeatable on their home turf—but what if one’s being controlled? In this D&D encounter, your players fight to break the spell. How to Use – Battle Among The Mountain Peaks Combat Encounter (difficulty 12) Silver Dragon Mountain Tactics: Of all possible terrains to fight an intelligent dragon in, mountain is definitely… Continue reading
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YOUNG GOLD DRAGON: Dignity in Battle and Moderation in Advice
How to Use in Moderation Reason’s for the Gold Dragon’s Refusal As I often mention, the main problem with using powerful good-aligned monsters is figuring out why they don’t do the quests instead of you. Here are reasons for the young gold dragon: Reason’s for the Player’s Refusal There are also a couple of ways… Continue reading
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YOUNG COPPER DRAGON: The Comedian and the Crumbling Cliff
How to Use Personality of the Copper Dragon While the copper dragon is officially classified as good, I fail to see it in the flavor text description. Based on that description, I’d classify the dragon as neutral. This is not a dragon that will help vanquish evil, unless it is in its most direct self-interest… Continue reading
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YOUNG BRASS DRAGON: Battles of Lies and Fire
How to Use – Avoiding an Overpowered Ally And so, after twenty-seven articles, we come to the good dragons. As is my typical style for good-alignment monsters, we’ll start with the reasons why the PCs are the ones getting sent on the quest, and why the much more powerful good monster isn’t doing it for… Continue reading
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YOUNG WHITE DRAGON: Attacks of the Master Hunter
How to Use: Combat Encounters for the White Dragon (difficulty 8) As mentioned in the Monster Manual, what the white dragon lacks in size, strength, and intelligence, he makes up for in natural instincts. He is a master hunter, especially in its already deadly terrain. Here’s how to use that terrain to the nastiest advantage.… Continue reading
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YOUNG RED DRAGON: How to Use Brute Force Properly
The red dragon is of the worldview that strength (meaning might) is the only important attribute, and that clever approaches are the methods of weaklings. This means that any interesting encounters with them will require either the use of homebrew, or convenient terrain. Continue reading
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YOUNG BLACK DRAGON: The Swamp Dragon
(Yes, I am going to write a separate article for every single dragon in the Monster Manual.) For the first time ever, I am letting myself change the order of the monsters in the Monster Manual slightly. I see the young dragon of each type as the dragon’s most basic, the adult with its extra… Continue reading
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VROCK: A Harrying Attacker and a Treasure Raider
Let’s start with basic strategy. The vrock will perch on a high peak, or other high point, and whenever its spores are available it will fly just low enough to use them before flying back up. Continue reading
About Me
I’ve been a DM since I was about 10 years old. (Not of D&D, admittedly, but still.) After growing bored of fights that were all the same, dungeons heavily populated by one monster type, and a general shortage of ideas, I figured I’d embark on my own trip through the Monster Manual, one monster at a time. Feel free to join the quest.